Xiao An was always able to read Li Qingshan’s emotions immediately. She tilted her head in confusion.
Li Qingshan chased out Liu Chuanfeng and closed the door, asking Xiao An a vague question about how her cultivation had been going recently.
Xiao An became even more confused. “Has something happened?”
Li QIngshan smiled bitterly and rubbed his head. He had never believed he was an indecisive person, but now he understood the reason why he was not indecisive; it was because he had never encountered a matter he struggled to make a decision over.
Helping her recover her memories and finding her original name and identity had once been one of his wishes. Sending her back home had been the first promise he had made in this world.
However, if the moment for him to fulfil his wish and promise of the past arrived simultaneously, smiling would be the last thing he would do.
“I found something that might be helpful to you.” After a while of consideration, Li Qingshan told her the truth. He took out the remaining half a bottle of Water of Recollection and explained its effects to Xiao An.
Afterwards, Li Qingshan discovered that Xiao An was no more composed than him. The hand that held the bottle had even begun to tremble, causing the azure fluid to shake too.
She felt no excitement or joy from being able to recover her memories. She cast her gaze downwards. Her long eyelashes cast a shadow on her large eyes.
“I don’t want to drink it.”
“Why?” Li Qingshan asked despite knowing the answer already. They understood one another so well that they were basically mentally connected, so why wouldn’t he understand what she was thinking? If it were possible, he would rather go without knowing the existence of this medicinal fluid, even if he could no longer gather the power of belief through writing novels so easily.
However, as an adult, he could not let a child indulge in their stubbornness, nor could he indulge in his own stubbornness. He had to do what was “good” for her.
“Stop being so stubborn. Just try it. I tried it earlier. The effects are pretty good, so it might actually be effective on you. Of course, there’s a chance it’ll be ineffective, so don’t expect too much from it.”
Xiao An raised her head and stared into Li Qingshan’s eyes. She said with an expression that could make anyone’s heart ache, “I don’t want to go anywhere, please?”
Li Qingshan gradually made up his mind and turned back to normal. He grinned and pecked her forehead heavily. “I’ll go wherever you go!”
Xiao An closed her eyes. Tilting her head back, she drank all of the remaining fluid in the bottle.
The slightly bitter fluid flowed through her throat and reached her stomach. It turned into a mysterious power, which permeated her body and rushed to her head.
A while later, Xiao An opened her eyes.
Li Qingshan asked, “How is it?”
Xiao An shook her head. “Nothing.”
From the day she began practising the Path of White Bone and Great Beauty, her soul had fused with her bones, and after countless days and nights of cultivation, her bones had already become as tough as diamonds. Not only were they resilient to external forces, but even external powers were unable to seep into them.
As a result, whether it be absorbing the spiritual qi of the world or ingesting pills, they were completely ineffective to her. All they strengthened was a skin bag of appearance. Her only path of cultivation was using fire to devour flesh and blood and refine white bones.
The Water of Recollection was obviously ineffective to her too.
As if he were relieved, Li Qingshan let out a long sigh. “I knew it. None of the medicine refined by that woman is particularly effective. Don’t worry. All you need to do is take it slowly with your memories.”
Xiao An agreed softly. She asked curiously, “That woman?”
“She’s a woman of complete disorder. Don’t worry about her. Here, have a read of the novel I’ve written.” Li Qingshan lifted her onto his knee and showed her the manuscript he had plagiarized laboriously.
Xiao An read through it very carefully. From time to time, she would point out the “strange” parts in the novel. By “strange”, she was referring to the fact that it was a wuxia novel, which was foreign to this world. A lot of the vocabulary and literary references had issues too.
Li Qingshan was troubled once more. As it turned out, plagiarising a novel would not be so easy either. “What am I supposed to do?” He had not read a lot of novels in his life. It had only been a year or two since he left Crouching Ox village, so his understanding of this world was not particularly deep.
Xiao An smiled. “I have an idea.”
Liu Chuanfeng happened to be chewing the end of a brush right now as he wondered just what this disciple of his had written.
Li Qingshan suddenly strode over. “Do you have any novels that I can read?”
Liu Chuanfeng asked, “What do you want to read?”
Li Qingshan said, “Anything but yours. It’s best if they’re by some famous authors, or they’re in fashion right now. Give me everything that you have.”
“What’s wrong with mine?” Liu Chuanfeng immediately refused. He was no longer the Master of Wind and Moon of the past anymore. He immediately pulled out a letter from his hundred treasures pouch. “Look at how they’re praising me.”
Li Qingshan shot him a glare, and Liu Chuanfeng took out a great pile of books with great obedience. There were several hundred of them.
Li Qingshan lifted them up and left immediately. Liu Chuanfeng called out from behind. “Be careful with them! They’re all collector’s editions.”
The One Thought master’s monk robes ruffled as he quietly arrived outside the bamboo residence where Li Qingshan resided. His gaze passed through the layers of the bamboo building, and he saw a large and small figure under the glow of a lone lantern.
Xiao An currently laid on the ground reading novels. She rifled through the pages, reading swiftly. Over a dozen books had already become piled beside her.
Li Qingshan stood around, as if he was thinking of something. He would twist around from time to time, throwing kicks and punches.
He was currently summarising and concluding his successes and failures in the battle today. If he read instead, he would have forgotten the first seven pages by the time he had read ten. However, the battle today played in his mind like a movie, clearly visualising every punch and kick. He could even remember how he had defeated every single disciple of the school of the Military.
Gradually, the figures around him faded away, and the expressions and figures of every military disciple blurred. All that was left was a group of matchstick-like military disciples charging over on the long staircase.
He copied their moves and the way they exerted force. The lantern light projected his shadow onto the wall, which moved about swiftly in the narrow space.
One of them laid still, while the other one moved about. However, this formed an atmosphere that was strangely warm and sweet, which the One Thought master found to be strangely familiar. After quite a while of thought, he remembered that this was the feeling of home.
In order to save lamp oil, his mother sewed and mended clothes under the moonlight, and he ran around chasing fireflies in the courtyard.
The One Thought master dismissed these thoughts in a hurry. He sighed helplessly. How could an ascetic be constantly attached to the idea of “home”?
Over the past few days, Li Qingshan’s performance that had surpassed any regular cultivator’s had instead made him even more worried.
They were not connected by blood. Right now, she was still young, but if she grew a little older and developed those feelings, it would probably become even harder for her to cut him off. She would lose her rationality too. Separating them would become even more difficult.
After hesitating for a moment, the One Thought master turned around and left. He had to enlighten her with his various fellow monks in this upcoming assembly of dharma so that she could cut off her worldly ties.
The rifling of books and the whistling of punches and kicks stopped one after another.
“I’m done.” Li Qingshan’s true qi sank into his dantian as he smiled. If he faced the same battle formation again, he was confident that he could emerge victorious with even greater ease.
Xiao An smiled. “Let’s begin!”
Under the lantern light, Li Qingshan wrote while Xiao An spoke. The two of them gradually edited the novel so that it would conform with this day and age better. Time dripped away unknowingly.
There was no need for them to rack their brains and go to such great lengths. Weren’t they creating memories with every passing moment?
