Chapter 180: The Fate of an Egg; Chen Shisan How Would the Master Choose
Chapter 180 – The Fate of an Egg; Chen Shisan How Would the Master Choose
Chen Shisan did not notice the subtle, threatening exchange between Chen Changsheng and the True Martial Sword.
At this moment, his entire focus was anchored on the bridal palanquin resting before him.
After a breath of heavy silence, Chen Shisan finally lifted the crimson curtain.
But upon witnessing the scene inside, the youth who had just stared down death without a flicker of fear felt his pupils violently constrict.
Blood!
The interior of the palanquin was drenched in the thick scent of copper, and Aoxue Hongmei’s face was ruined by deep, bone-exposing gashes.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk!”
“A Peerless beauty reduced to a hideous monster!”
An entirely inappropriate voice drifted into Chen Shisan’s ears.
Glancing sideways at Chen Changsheng, who had materialized beside the palanquin like a ghost, Chen Shisan fought the urge to cleave him in half with the True Martial Sword.
Meeting Chen Shisan’s murderous glare, Chen Changsheng rolled his eyes. “Why are you looking at me like that? She really did turn into a hideous monster.”
“Besides, your beloved is bleeding out. Why aren’t you scrambling to find a physician?”
“Hongmei isn’t dead?”
Chen Changsheng’s casual words ignited a spark of desperate hope within Chen Shisan.
“When did I ever declare her dead? Even if you lack worldly experience, you should at least possess basic common sense.”
“She merely dragged a pair of scissors across her own face. As long as you stem the bleeding in time, there is a high probability she will keep her life.”
“However, if you stand around dawdling any longer, she truly will cross into the Yellow Springs.”
Without another word, Chen Shisan scooped Aoxue Hongmei’s blood-soaked body into his arms, intending to sprint for a healer.
But as he swept his gaze over the surroundings, he remembered the entire population of Jinshan City had been knocked unconscious. Where in the nine heavens was he supposed to find a physician?
“Step right up! Come and take a look!”
“Ancestral Golden Salve! Specifically formulated for scissor wounds to the face! If it doesn’t cure her, you don’t pay a single copper!”
A makeshift apothecary stall had miraculously sprouted on an empty patch of dirt by the roadside, where a ‘charlatan’ was hawking his wares at the top of his lungs.
Even more absurdly, he had erected a wooden plaque explicitly detailing the highly specific ‘miraculous efficacy’ of his medicine.
Chen Shisan: “…”
I swear to the heavens, I truly want to curse right now.
Huff…
Chen Shisan inhaled deeply, forcing his surging temper back down before speaking.
“How much for your Golden Salve?”
“Not expensive at all. Merely one hundred Eastern Pearls, ten thousand taels of gold, and a chest of precious jewels.”
Hearing this extortionate price, the corner of Chen Shisan’s mouth twitched violently.
“You know my utter destitution better than anyone. If you wish to make things difficult for me, there is no need to demand such an impossible sum.”
“Of course I know exactly how many coppers you have to your name, and I know you cannot afford it.”
“But while you are penniless, Aoxue Hongmei is not!”
“I personally counted the Zhao family’s betrothal gifts in the back.”
Chen Shisan: “…”
Is this the true face of a transcendent immortal?
Why is the reality so nauseatingly different from the legends?
…
Three days later.
“Stop staring. Are you leaving or not?”
Chen Changsheng urged from beneath the shade of a tree, but Chen Shisan’s gaze remained stubbornly anchored to the distant thatched cottage.
After a prolonged, heavy silence, Chen Shisan finally spoke.
“Sir, why won’t Hongmei come with me?”
“It is perfectly normal that she refused you, because from the very beginning, she never intended to leave with you.”
“Why?”
Facing the youth’s raw confusion, Chen Changsheng stepped forward, lazily patting the bewildered boy’s head.
“Kid, the two of you belong to entirely different worlds. Therefore, your paths are destined to diverge.”
“Is it because of cultivation?”
“Not entirely. Though, regarding your innate talent, it would be difficult to unearth anyone with a foundation more rotten than yours.”
“Aoxue Hongmei’s aptitude is nothing to boast about, but she is still marginally superior to you.”
“Guiding one fool requires the same effort as guiding two; I wouldn’t have minded teaching an extra disciple.”
At this point, Chen Changsheng paused, leaning in close to murmur near Chen Shisan’s ear.
“Although I prefer not to be so brutally direct, if I do not dissect this clearly, your thick skull might never grasp it.”
“When Aoxue Hongmei became the paramount courtesan, it appeared she was cornered by circumstance, but she actually held a choice.”
“She could have chosen death to prove her unyielding heart, but she did not.”
“Right now, she indeed possesses a fierce defiance, but in the grand war against the Dao of Destiny…”
“…the moment you bow your head once, you forfeit any right to turn the board over.”
Hearing this grim philosophy, Chen Shisan turned his head.
“But if Hongmei had chosen to end her life back then, how would the outcome differ from today?”
“Indeed, there wouldn’t be much of a difference.”
Saying this, Chen Changsheng took a step back, spreading his arms wide.
“Do you finally comprehend the crushing weight of fate?”
“Destiny is always this suffocating. Every cultivator beneath the heavens screams about severing their fate, but how many have actually managed to cut the threads?”
“Although I deeply desire to see you sever yours, even I do not truly know what it looks like to break the wheel.”
Chen Shisan lowered his gaze, digesting the words before speaking.
“Then what does everything I have fought for amount to?”
“It barely qualifies as not being pulverized by fate… for now. Whether you will be ground into dust in the future, I cannot say.”
Staring into the distance at the thatched cottage, Chen Shisan seemed to grasp a heavy truth from Chen Changsheng’s cryptic words.
“Is this the true reason Hongmei ruined her own face?”
“Correct. Aoxue Hongmei did not disfigure herself to reject Zhao Ke; she did it to reject you, the stubborn fool willing to throw his life away.”
“She wants you to cast her aside, to forget her, and to start anew.”
Hearing the absolute finality of it, Chen Shisan plunged back into silence.
“Sir, let us leave.”
He spoke the words quietly, turning his back on the cottage and walking away.
What torrent of emotions churned within the stubborn youth’s chest at that moment, no one in this world could know.
Seeing Chen Shisan seal his lips, Chen Changsheng bounded after him with a flippant, easygoing grin.
“Alright, kid. To encounter a woman of such caliber in your short mortal life, you should be profoundly content.”
“It is an impossibility for all bonds in this world to conclude in absolute Perfection.”
“If it bothers you that much, I’ll just introduce a few ethereal fairy maidens to you in the future.”
“Really?”
Chen Changsheng: ???
“Brat, I always took you for a devoted seed of infatuation. I never expected you to be such a fickle scoundrel.”
“But even if your heart is a wandering rogue, shouldn’t you at least pretend to mourn for a few days before moving on?”
“Your front foot hasn’t even left the city, and your back foot is already plotting your next romance. That’s a bit too utterly heartless, don’t you think?”
Observing Chen Changsheng’s exaggerated shock, Chen Shisan asked in a flat, unreadable tone, “Sir, is there someone you hold in your heart?”
Chen Changsheng: “…”
“Why in the heavens are you asking me that?”
“I simply wish to know… if the woman Sir loved made the exact same choice as Hongmei, how would Sir choose to respond?”
Confronted with this piercing inquiry, the perpetually sardonic and carefree Chen Changsheng fell completely silent.
Because his ancient mind was suddenly dragged back to a silhouette from an impossibly long time ago.
Back then, as she lay dying, she had spoken words terrifyingly similar to this.
Yet even today, after weathering countless epochs, Chen Changsheng still did not know how to face this question.
“What a joke! I, Chen Changsheng, roam unfettered between heaven and earth. How could I ever be shackled by such trivial mortal attachments?”
“My list of beautiful confidantes could form a line stretching ten miles out of this city!”
“But has Sir ever looked them in the eye and confessed that you loved them?”
Chen Changsheng: “…”
When did I fail to notice that this brat possessed such a venomous tongue?
“Keep your nose out of an immortal’s affairs, and stuff your damn mouth!”
Chen Changsheng hurled a hard-boiled egg at Chen Shisan, storming ahead in a flustered, indignant huff.
Catching the egg in his palm, a genuine, quiet smile broke across Chen Shisan’s face.
Because Chen Changsheng was only the second person in his life to ever give him an egg.
Five years ago, a single egg had saved his life from starvation in the gutters.
Five years later, he had received another egg… and this egg had completely rewritten the trajectory of his fate.
…