Five years later...
The morning sun pierced through the mountain mist, casting a golden pattern of light and shadow across the forest floor, filtering through the canopy and the gaps between the leaves.
The Li Family had been farming near Moongaze Lake for another five years. It had been sixteen or seventeen years since they picked up the mirror. The stone paths on Mount Lijing were now slightly tinted green by moss. The birds on the branches chirped a song, celebrating the start of a new day.
Old Xu sat down, leaning his hunched body against a cold, moss-covered tombstone. His frail hand grasped a handful of soil.
“Why... am I still not dead?” he wondered out loud.
A few years back, Old Xu moved up to Mount Lijing and resolved to watch over the Li Family’s ancestral graves. Despite protests from Li Xiangping and others, they eventually conceded.
Li Xuanxuan built a small hut for him beside the cemetery. The family visited him regularly, bearing gifts. Old Xu was good at making grass crickets and drawing, so the children from the Li Family would run to his place every two or three days. Li Xuanfeng had no friends around his age on the mountain and his father was a busy name, so he grew up playing with Old Xu.
While Old Xu’s days were filled with laughter and playing with the children, he harbored a secret desire for death. Every night before he slept, he would wonder whether it would be his last day, only to awaken as usual the following morning when the sun rose.
Just the day before, Old Xu had managed to make it past his eightieth year.
“Damn, how can someone live up to eighty and not die yet?” he wondered.
He squinted at a distant hill. Bathed in golden sunlight, he caught a glimpse of a small figure on the hill, waving in his direction. The golden sunlight cast a shadow on the child, elongating it across the terrain.
“Xuanfeng is here to see you, Old Master Xuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!”
The child’s clothes were dirty, his face was stained with dirt and his disheveled hair lent him a wild, untamed appearance. He had a small wooden bow in his clutch and a tiny quiver strapped around his waist.
As the child energetically bounced down the sunlit hill, his vibrant energy stood in sharp contrast with Old Xu, who remained curled up in a dim, secluded corner. In this moment, they embodied the opposing ends on the spectrum of life itself, where the exuberance of youth and the solemnity of impending departure converged on Mount Lijing.
Old Xu, momentarily lucid, lifted his head and said, “Xuanxuan, you’re here.”
“I am Li Xuanfeng, Old Master Xu. My father is Li Xiangping, not Li Changhu,” the boy, who was approximately seven or eight years old, corrected him with a mischievous smile and then casually walked over to a tombstone that matched his height near the old man. He loosened the sash around his pants and began to relieve himself while humming a tune.
Just as Li Xuanfeng finished relieving himself and was about to pull up his pants, Old Xu’s eyes suddenly burned with intensity. With a surprising burst of energy, he picked up his cane and hit Li Xuanfeng on the buttocks with it.
“What are you doing, boy? That’s your great-grandfather’s grave,” Old Xu scolded.
Li Xuanfeng was caught off-guard. He quickly pulled his pants up, tied the sash around it, and retorted, “The dead are already dead! I don’t see a problem! How did he die anyway?”
“He was poisoned,” Old Xu replied, his spirit momentarily rekindled by the boy as he managed to sit up and recount a tale from the past.
“Many years ago, when the Li Family wasn’t as influential as they are today, there was a prominent family—the Yuan Family. They poisoned your great-grandfather and your grandfather’s brother in a bid to seize their lands. But then, your grandfather returned with a saber in hand and sought vengeance on the Yuan Family. He killed everyone in that family and redistributed the lands.”
Sitting on a moss-covered and perfectly sized tombstone, Li Xuanfeng clapped his little hands and exclaimed cheekily, “Grandpa did great!”
Old Xu shot him a glare and said, “Great? One of the Yuan Family’s children managed to escape... he came back twenty-two years later and killed your first uncle!”
“What?!” Li Xuanfeng suddenly narrowed his eyes. He knitted his thin eyebrows together and then replied indignantly, “Grandpa did a sloppy job then! It would have been over if he killed everyone in that family, how could he let one escape?”
Old Xu’s gaze hardened as he said, “You sure are a handful! Seems like the Li Family’s wild streak starts young.”
Li Xuanfeng shook his head indignantly and yelled, “Well, it was the Yuan Family who struck first, killing the people of our family! Grandpa only returned to take revenge. And since Grandpa overlooked a child, it’s no surprise that the child eventually returned to take revenge too.”
Old Xu shook his head and sighed. “Revenge is a vicious cycle...”
“If you’re weak, then it is a vicious cycle. But if you’re able to completely wipe out the other family, then no one can come to seek vengeance anymore,” Li Xuanfeng responded with a scowl, his youthful face contorted with an expression of scorn that seemed beyond his years.
After a brief coughing fit, Old Xu managed a self-deprecating chuckle. “I’ve witnessed enough of life and death in my time to become wary of taking lives, but it seems like that’s not the case for you, boy.”
“Old Master Xu,” Li Xuanfeng addressed him seriously, standing beside him as he said, “Sheep graze, wolves hunt sheep, humans consume meat, demons prey on humans. This is a world where you either eat or be eaten. That’s what my father always tells me.”
Straightening his back, Li Xuanfeng mimicked his father’s stern look. With a voice tinted with the wisdom of age, he said, “Feng’er! The world itself is a place of great strife!”
With these words, he burst into laughter while rolling on the ground. His antics drew a mixture of coughs and chuckles from Old Xu.
Once the laughter subsided, Old Xu began sharing a tale.
“In the past, there was a family living on the village’s outskirts. The father was a hard- working man and the mother took great care of their three children. One day, the father saw smoke from a neighboring village. He sent his youngest son, Xu San, to gather firewood on the mountain. Xu San happily ascended the mountain and played there until sunset.”
“He returned home, only to find a bloody scene. There were about a dozen men gathered in the courtyard of his home, surrounding a big pot. In the pot, he saw his parents inside. His two older brothers had been chopped and set aside in two heaps.”
“Terrified, Xu San turned around and fled. He hid in the mountains for ten days, and later learned that a drought had driven the neighboring starving villagers to desperation, leading to the tragedy that befell his isolated home.”
Li Xuanfeng was completely absorbed in the tale.
“I’d murder all of them,” he said grimly.
“But Xu San was a coward. He lived in silent fear for the rest of his life. He didn’t dare to speak a word to anyone and hid in the village his whole life. Xu San loathed those men! He loathed that huge sparrow! He loathed that immortal!” Old Xu yelled.
He reached out and pulled Li Xuanfeng closer, then suppressed his voice as he said, “Xu San overheard a conversation between two servants by the mountain stream, speaking of h-how... how they lured the huge sparrow to Mount Dali to feast on humans. Their goal was to collect the dark qi from the flames for the young master of the Golden Tang Gate. Xu San heard every word, yet fear kept him silent for decades. And Xu San... Xu San... Died... Everyone’s dead.”
Old Xu gasped twice for air desperately. His eyes were bloodshot as he coughed up blood and fell to the side. His hand clung to Li Xuanfeng’s pant leg for a moment before his grip gradually loosened.
Li Xuanfeng stared at him blankly. After a few moments, he whispered, “And now... you’re dead too, Xu San.”
Hot tears cascaded down his cheeks, falling onto Old Xu’s cold, lifeless body. Li Xuanfeng whispered a few words between sobs, then draped himself over the old man’s body and cried loudly. He wept with a mix of grief and anger until he was overtaken by a dizzying wave of emotions.