She is being too nice?
Lin Luoran never sees herself as a nice person in the traditional sense.
However, looking at Li Xi’er who just barely dodged the attack of the black bear, Lin Luoran has to admit that she treats Li quite well — she only hopes that Li Xi’er can stop being a drag on her.
While saying she can’t help, Lin Luoran actually cares about the old monkey at least out of the reason that she hasn’t got the gift she deserves. With the pond nearby, Lin is able to cast a simple water spell using the refilled Reiki inside her.
A water rope forms from the pond and takes the old monkey to Lin Luoran. Lin checks on its condition, which frightens her. The old monkey is covered by blood and it is so weak.
The army of monkeys have been jumping up and down, not being able to help. They come and surround the old monkey after Lin Luoran takes it out from the pond. Some of the monkeys are actually crying!
Lin Luoran puts her finger under the old monkey’s nose to test whether it is still breathing. Lin doesn’t say anything… Li Xi’er is also paying attention to the old monkey. After attacking the bear again with a gold spell, Li asks anxiously,
“Sister Lin, how is the old monkey doing?”
Lin Luoran lowers her eyes and says indifferently: “Dead.”
Dead? The old monkey who just offered them fruits and wine is dead?!
Li’s eyes turn red. When she is distracted by the old monkey, the black bear takes the chance and hits Li on her right hand with the stick. Although Li swiftly rolls over into the pond and dodges most of the attack, her shoulder is grazed by the end of the stick. By the time Li Xi’er stands up, her right arm is in so much pain that she can’t even lift her hand, let alone make any gestures to cast spells.
Lin Luoran squints. She has long since finished casting a sword spell. She will kill the black bear with her Snow Sword if Li Xi’er is in danger.
The bear roars and raises the large stick. As usual, Li Xi’er starts to panic. Lin Luoran is prepared to make the attack…
What can I do? Li Xi’er is absent-minded. How can she beat the black bear when she can’t move her right hand?
Right hand… I still have my left hand! In a flash, Li tilts to the left, and the bear’s stick, which is aiming at Li’s head, hits her right arm again. Li Xi’er groans because of the pain.
Li Xi’er has a feeling that her right hand is broken. The pain is almost unbearable. Still, she pushes herself to follow the plan she just made. She falls into the pond and makes a splash. The black bear squints its eyes — it’s the time!
A golden knife rushes out of Li’s left hand and hits the black bear’s eyes. The bear, which is strong but ignorant of spells, has no ability to dodge the knife. The bear bursts out a painful whining, and its eyes are ruined.
Li Xi’er is exhausted. Still, she throws out the “Bundling Rope” when the black bear is rolling in the pond and straps it tightly. Li falls into the water powerlessly.
Lin Luoran knows that Li Xi’er will win when she manages to cast the “Golden Blade Spell”. Lin disperses the Reiki gathered on her fingertip and tells the army of monkeys to lift the old monkey back to their cave.
Soaked in the water, Li Xi’er already can’t feel her right hand. Seeing that Lin Luoran standing by the pond and looking at her, Li Xi’er cries: “Sister, am I being too cruel?”
Lin Luoran doesn’t try to help Li out of the pond. She sits casually on a stone and says carelessly:
“You are cruel to the bear when you ruin its eyes, but what you do is so kind to the monkeys… The bear comes here and makes trouble every few days to rob the monkeys of the spirit wine, and every time it comes, monkeys are hurt or killed. The bear is a huge threat to the monkeys! This is how cultivation works. It’s all up to you what you do with the spells.”
Lin Luoran hopes that Li Xi’er can understand from this fight that not all killings are bad.
Li Xi’er remains silent for a while and says: “Sister… Thank you.”
Li is innocent, but not stupid. She is aware that no one who doesn’t really care about her will step up the effort to make her understand these truths.
“However, sister, how do you know about this?” Li Xi’er asks. It is strange that Lin Luoran knows about the back story in such a short time.
Seeing that Li Xi’er has got over with her guilt, Lin Luoran stands up and walks away. Then she turns around and blinks to Li: “The old monkey told me about it!”
What? The old monkey can talk? Li has been together with Lin all the time and she never heard the old monkey talk… Except for the time when she was fighting with the black bear — the old monkey should have been dead back then!
Li Xi’er sees Lin’s blinks and realizes. She screams:
“Sister, you tricked me!”
Lin Luoran laughs: “Come on! It will actually die if we don’t hurry!”
Li Xi’er jumps out of the pond and shakes the water off like a proud little rooster. Though her right hand is hurt, the wound is honorable, right?
“Sister, wait for me…” Li Xi’er follows Lin with folded arms, but Lin has already walked through the waterfall.
***************
In the treehouse, the old monkey is lying on the chair and resting. It looks fine.
Li Xi’er has also healed thanks to Lin Luoran. She shouts to the old monkey “So you can talk all the time, and you didn’t die back then. You think I’m a fool?”
The old monkey bursts out a dry cough: “Fairy, please don’t be mad…”
Li Xi’er was annoyed. She thought that this kind old monkey was dead, so she risked her life fighting with that strong black bear. It now turns out that the old monkey is fine. Also, Sister Lin has long since known about this and they teamed up to trick her.
“It was hurt, but the injuries were on its skin, which look serious but were easy to heal… As for talking, if you hadn’t tried to save it, it wouldn’t have begged me to help you because it couldn’t bear to see you get hurt, and I would also be fooled by it.”
The old monkey is embarrassed: “I’m so sorry. The two of you are so kind and different from the human cultivators in our monkey legends. I was being such a bad person.”
Li Xi’er is amused by its words: “You are not a person, ok? You were being a bad monkey!”
“Yeah, bad monkey. Fairy, you’re right.” The old monkey bows. In fact, Lin Luoran can see that it likes Li Xi’er very much, and it seems to like Li more than herself who actually has cured its wounds.
Li Xi’er is happily playing with the old monkey, and she thinks of a problem after a while. She looks at Lin Luoran and asks cautiously: “Sister, can’t we stay here just for another day?”
“You will want to stay for two more days if I let you stay here for another day. We don’t have time for that.”
The old monkey is also dispirited. All the monkeys know that human cultivators can come in the secret land once in a hundred years, and it is impossible for the monkeys to go outside.
It means that they will never see each other if they say goodbye now.
Lin Luoran has some doubts about this but chooses to keep them to herself. The old monkey braces itself up and leads them to the pool filled with monkey fruit wine… After seeing the shiny wine in three connected large and deep pools, Lin Luoran is dazzled. She has to admit that she can understand the state of mind of alcoholics.
The spirit wine can help Lin Luoran with her cultivation, so Lin Luoran now is more tempted than an alcoholic in front of the best wine.
The old monkey seems to be sentimental. It tells Lin and Li to take as much as they want to. Li Xi’er sticks her tongue out and says: “We haven’t got any jars!”
Making some wine jars won’t be a problem. Lin Luoran asks the little monkeys to dig out some clay. She casts an earth spell and makes the clay into the shape of jar — Lin Luoran seldom casts any earth spell, so the jars she makes are all cubic.
Cubic jars can contain more wine. Lin Luoran comforts herself.
Lin Luoran casts a milder Fire Ball Spell to burn the clay jars. The cubic “Lin Luoran styled” wine jars are ready. Though the jars are not painted, they can barely be called porcelain jars because the Fire Ball Spell has generated enough heat.
The old monkey is calling for Lin Luoran to make more jars. It seems that the monkey is willing to give Lin and Li a lot of the wine.
In consideration of the limited space of the Universal Sack, Lin Luoran only makes a dozen of wine jars. She fills the jars with the monkey fruit wine. The wine are of three different vintages, so Lin now has four jars of each kind. Lin is going to share the wine fifty-fifty with Li, but Li only asks for four jars because she hates to throw away the clothes in her Universal Sack.
Lin Luoran takes out all the food in her sack and puts all the other eight jars of wine in. The Universal Sack is almost full, and the Soul Stone which contains the White Fairy’s essence is pushed into the corner.
Li Xi’er is so caught up by her unwillingness to leave that she only thinks that Sister Lin is so awesome but fails to notice that Lin Luoran has cast spells in the nature of wood, water, earth, and fire…
The White Fairy, who is in the Universal Sack, is stunned. This junior turns out to be a trashy cultivator who has all the five natures?
