Chapter 292

  Moonlake City (VI)

  Pànqiū's eyes moved from the back of the young man to the artificially tattered tome he'd handed her; she felt quite bemused by the whole ordeal, as it had been many, many centuries since she was last given an art or a method by anyone.

  Rather than reading it immediately, she first finished cleaning up the space and retreated to her room; she didn't plan on housing anyone this year, but she couldn't reject the proposition of the young alchemist.

  She had to honor those who have fallen, even if it meant putting up with some children for a couple of weeks.

  To her surprise, however, the children were... odd. Despite her eyes being capable of seeing through nigh everything in this corner of the world, she could not see through them--or, at least, not beyond what they wanted to show her. She knew well enough that they were all far stronger than they were displaying and that their talents were likely almost as good as hers, but it was all hidden behind a veil that she could not peek past.

  Sitting down on a bed of wool, she pulled open the first page and started reading. She, naturally, hadn't expected much--perhaps a small curiosity, at best. But, before she was even halfway through the tome, she found her lips slightly parted; it was... unorthodox.

  It wasn't a particularly high-end art, and the young man himself had said that it wouldn't solve everything, but it was far better than anything else she'd ever come across when it came to curing the ills of the heart--in some ways, damage to one's heart was even harder to resolve than damage to the soul or the mind, as it was far rarer and, thus, had far fewer solutions.

  By the time she'd gotten to the end and closed the tome, the look in her eyes had turned deep and contemplative; it was unlikely that this corner of the world could ever create something of this nature. Not necessarily complexity-wise, as the art itself wasn't particularly complex, but the way it interacted with reality embodied concepts that required somebody to understand Dao on a much deeper level than cultivators here did.

  And that young man... he didn't seem all that bright as far as cultivation was concerned. So, the tome was likely a relic that either he or, indeed, his family had unearthed at some point and treated as a family heirloom, passed down generation by generation.

  Regardless, she was far from being too prideful to accept something so helpful from a stranger; closing her eyes, she slowly began to practice, guiding Qi through her meridians with relative ease since the art, compared to her method, at least, was a child's play.

  To her shock, however, she needn't wait for days or weeks or even months for it to yield any results--within just half an hour, she felt one of her heart-veins had slightly unclogged. Not fully, not perfectly, but enough that the throbbing sense of pain that hadn't changed for centuries and that she now lived with in perfect content... it lessened.

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  In fact, it was such a shock to her entire body that it convulsed for a moment as it likely imagined it was being attacked--but it wasn't.

  Doing yet another rotation yielded a similar result with another heart-vein. She quickly estimated that it would really only take her three or four months to reach the state of relative health where her heart would not prevent her from reaching Nirvana.

  Compelled, she sat up and left the room, wanting to go over to the young man and ask him questions, but stopped herself in place; they were guests, and he didn't have to give her that art. To bother him would be rude, even if he were a junior of several dozen generations.

  "Hm? Madame? Are you alright?" the young alchemist happened to pass by just then, asking her in quite broken and fragmented L'tish. She didn't make any comments, as it was already quite rare for any outsider to even know of the language's existence, let alone speak it in any manner, even a broken one.

  "That boy you're with," she said. "He handed me a rather... curious art."

  "Hm? Oh. Heart-Stitching Art?"

  "You know of it?"

  "Hm," he nodded and smiled. "He handed it to me too, at one point. Entirely unprompted. I thought it was a bit silly at first and chose to indulge him, but reading through it... it's quite fascinating, in more ways than one. I didn't think you'd find it valuable, too."

  "It is," she said. "Which made me curious of him. The children, too, I suppose. If it is a secret of sorts, I'd rather you not loosen your tongue."

  "Ha ha ha, no, not at all. Truthfully, I know as much as you do; I met them not too long ago and have been shocked repeatedly ever since. I'd learned that, when it comes to them, it seems that the world is weaving a tale curated specifically for their journeys."

  "Interesting," she said. "Maybe they may be the ones to pull the wool off this place."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Ah, nothing. Just an old woman's ramblings."

  She excused herself with a faint smile and went back to her room; it was, in more ways than one, preposterous to suggest some random children still wet behind their ears would be able to do something that even she couldn't. Well, she could, but not without jeopardizing her Dao.

  Taking out the tome, she read through it once more, soaking in the words that left her slightly rattled. Indeed, these words contained traces of Dao--there wasn't a breath of it, or a guide toward it, or even anything truly specific. But they were written by someone who understood Dao.

  And here? There was nobody like it.

  Not even those flaunting masters of the Holy Lands--for Dao was not about the cultivation realm or the ability to uproot a mountain and throw it at someone.

  It was what separated those still dwelling among these here mortal planes and those who ascended beyond the veil and into the upper layers of heaven.

  The wheels of fate turn in ways and manners that leave men silent and dumbfounded, she once again realized; she'd seen it many times before, one way or another, yet it had never gotten any easier to accept it. Somebody had simply strolled into her small hometown and offered her a silent accord of the ages--one that had turned a muddy, dark future into one of endless possibilities.

  ... and all he asked, in return, was to be fed and sheltered.

  More than that, however, he knew. He knew something that nobody else did--not even her Master was ever able to see it or discern it. And yet, he saw it mere hours after meeting her.

  Was it really true? That he was uniquely equipped to discern the hearts of others? Or was his mumbling self a thick veneer hiding a monster beyond monsters deep within?

  For now, at least, she couldn't tell.

  And she didn't want to.

  It was a game played by all, and she would not disturb the nature of existence. Not when it had gifted her future she was certain she would never get.