Chapter 57: On the Way

Yizhou City, Bashu Mansion Hotpot.

The store manager, wearing a tie, stood in front of the counter, pretending to count money, his eyes frequently darting toward two figures seated by the window. His expression was as cautious as an undercover agent.

An hour ago, he had suddenly received a call starting with 00. A person claiming to represent the Yizhou City government spoke in a magnetic, low voice, informing him that two VIPs would soon arrive at the restaurant. He was instructed to prepare reception under the premise of maintaining normal business operations, ensuring not a single mistake.

Being in the restaurant business, he had never encountered such a scenario before. For a moment, he thought some high-ranking official was coming for an inspection, so he quickly cleared the crowd and rearranged the waitstaff and chefs, preparing for an event akin to a formal review.

But after waiting a long time, no grand welcoming party appeared—instead, two young men dressed casually arrived.

They casually chose a seat, ordered a heap of tripe, fatty intestines, beef, and lamb, and began eating on the spot. It looked as if they had come to check in after reading some review.

Yet the two matched the description from the call perfectly... such youthful faces—could they be the sons of two powerful families?

The manager pondered this while overhearing their conversation by the window, keen to catch some clue.

But after listening for a while, he couldn’t grasp a word.

Not because of anything else, but simply because their accent was utterly strange.

Having run his store for many years and served customers from all over, he was quite familiar with the dialects nationwide. But their speech didn’t resemble any regional accent in the country.

If it weren’t for a few occasional words sounding similar, he might have suspected they were speaking a foreign language.

This was understandable. What he was hearing was a dialect from 1,400 years ago—the official language of the Tang Dynasty—Chang’an speech.

“Nowadays, this antique soup paired with oil sauce really needs some coriander to enhance the flavor. Brother Zhou, why don’t you give it a try?”

“No, I don’t like it. That stuff tastes strange.”

“Ah, after hundreds of years, your taste still hasn’t changed. Is coriander really that awful?”

At the table by the window, Yuan Tiangang stirred a skewer of tripe in the pot while smiling, “Though your taste hasn’t changed, your actions have transformed greatly.”

He could no longer fully perceive the aura emanating from Zhou Qing. But having exchanged ideas and understanding during their previous game of chess, he naturally comprehended his old friend’s current state.

Master of Heaven, yet slightly short of absolute victory, he refined his heart through worldly experiences, adopting a mortal guise to walk among men.

As a practitioner of Yi arts, Yuan had traveled among mortals for centuries under a human guise to comprehend heaven and earth; Zhou Qing’s current path was not unfamiliar to him.

Only, in his memory, Zhou Wuqing had always been a vigorous, unstoppable force, leaving chaos or calamity wherever he went. Now, he had quietly vanished into the dust, a stark contrast indeed.

“Brother Zhou, how long do you plan to stay in Yizhou this time?”

“The day after tomorrow, I’m leaving.” Zhou Qing picked up some meat. “I still have to go back to work.”

Pfft!

Yuan Tiangang nearly choked on his water. “You? Working?”

Though he knew from their previous exchange of ideas during the chess game that Zhou Qing was currently living as a mortal to temper his heart in the mundane world—he hadn’t expected this method!

Having discovered that Zhou had reached an unprecedented realm as a half-heavenly being, Yuan was shocked but also found it somewhat expected.

Compared to that, the word “working” applied to him was not just surprising; it was more absurd than the reversal of the natural order.

“What’s wrong? ‘Walking among mortals, investigating things to gain knowledge, observing the myriad forms of living beings, realizing the connection between heaven, earth, and man’—wasn’t this your own idea? Have you forgotten it now?”

“You seem to understand Yi arts better than I do...” Yuan Tiangang slowly put down his cup. “So, how do you do it now?”

“Just small things.”

Having known each other for so long with little need for concealment, Zhou recounted everything he had done in recent years. As Yuan listened, his strange expression gradually softened, replaced by a thoughtful look.

“So, you’re now living in the residential areas around Liangzhou, serving the locals...”

He pondered for a moment, then seemed to realize something. “So, if I moved there too, you’d have to serve me as a resident? I’ll have the kids prepare something right away...”

“You really don’t want the Heavenly Master Academy to lose its Grandmaster, do you?”

Yuan Tiangang chuckled and changed the topic. “You’ve truly hidden yourself thoroughly in the mundane world. Now the entire cultivation community believes you’re long dead, yet you’ve started a new path among mortals.”

“Let them think so,” Zhou Qing said, dipping meat into the oil sauce. “There’s nothing much to see in cultivation anymore, but the mundane world’s myriad beings possess endless Dao.”

The cultivation world had remained almost unchanged for a thousand years, while the mortal world was ever evolving.

When he first encountered things like computers and mobile phones, he witnessed the creativity of mortals. In just a few years wandering among them, he had already seen new concepts like artificial intelligence emerge and flourish like bamboo shoots after rain.

Decades might not be enough for a cultivator to fathom a single Dao method, yet mortals had moved from brick-sized mobile phones to smartphones. Though their lives were short, they had created brilliance no less than cultivators.

The world revered the ancient, but he revered the new. History was magnificent, but what truly propelled mankind were the waves breaking at the forefront.

“Is this the Dao you perceive, Brother Zhou?” Yuan Tiangang nodded slightly. “Would you care to discuss it? I’m all ears.”

“Why not.”

The red broth simmered in the pot, steam rising gently. Their 1,400-year-old language mingled with the bubbling water—no platform for debate, no chessboard, no scriptures—only fine food and wine as accompaniment.

The invisible Dao essence spread out, and those dining in the restaurant suddenly felt a warm sensation flowing through their bodies, as if basking in the spring sun.

No one understood the conversation at the table or associated the warmth with their words, simply attributing it to the heat radiating from the hotpot.

When the meat platter was emptied, the emanated Dao essence ceased as well.

“The myriad forms of life are truly wondrous and profound.”

Yuan Tiangang slowly stirred the oil sauce. “Cultivation lies in heaven and earth, truth lies in the mundane world. Cultivators arise from mortals and should return to mortals, yet some creatures walk the crooked path, seeking to ascend above all beings in one leap.”

“If they are pests, then sweep them away,” Zhou Qing said. “Nowadays, people have their own means to clean up; intervention is unnecessary. If truly unable to clear them, I will step in to suppress.”

“You really haven’t changed,” Yuan Tiangang smiled faintly. “By the way, now that you’ve returned to the mortal realm, do you plan to contact any of the old comrades?”

“Since you left, many have been searching for you. Though scattered across the Central Plains, if the government mediates, it should be easy to find them.”

“When the time comes, I will seek them out,” Zhou Qing said. “Who among them still lives?”

“The descendants who followed you in the campaign against the Ten Kingdoms, that Khitan celestial maiden, the young man who inherited your fire art, and that little princess of the Song... Oh, right.”

“And the little bird that once accompanied you,” Yuan Tiangang added. “Brother Zhou, now that you temper your soul in the mundane world, I can’t help you. But that bird... perhaps it can give you a hand.”

ps. Went out today and didn’t finish writing. This is the first post; another is in progress and will be posted later.