Pursuit of the Truth

1

Zhang Wen Zhang might not like studying, but as the son of a teacher, he believed that he should sound eloquent when he spoke. It was rather difficult for him, however, which was why he listened to the advise of the daughter of his father’s employer, the one he was incredibly fond of and the one who was incredibly beautiful…

He started intentionally showing a thoughtful expression. No matter whether he was sleeping, eating, walking, or doing something else, he would keep a thoughtful expression. This was the method the girl he liked had mentioned to him when they were young. She suggested that he should look like he was constantly thinking about something, and because of that others would believe that he was knowledgeable.

Zhang Wen Zhang abused this method to its limit, and gradually, as he grew up, he began to slowly think for real instead of just pretending to do it.

On the day he married the woman he liked under the envious gazes of those around him, he thought about his life. When they were about to bow to heaven and earth as part of the wedding ceremony, the woman had to drag him down in anger so they could finish the ceremony.

He was very fortunate that the woman he liked had a father who did not love her. Because of that, he completely disregarded the marriage in which Zhang Wen Zhang’s status did not match up to that of his beloved. In fact, the man did not even turn up for the ceremony.

This luck seemed to have accompanied him throughout his life. As he continued pondering it, he thought to have come to understand something, but when he thought about it carefully, he found that he had understood nothing.

Time trickled by. On the second summer since the marriage, there was a night with rain pouring from the sky. There was a storm on that night, and as lightning crackled, his wife was about to give birth.

On that night, his father-in-law threw his head back in the rain and laughed as if he had gone mad. He did not care about the rain drenching his body. His laughter echoed in the air, and there was grief in his voice.

Zhang Wen Zhang stared at his father-in-law in the rain. The man’s crazed expression made him sink into contemplative silence. However, his thinking only lasted for a short moment before it was interrupted by anxiety. Because… his wife’s shrill screams of pain came from the house. Her voice was full of the pain from experiencing a difficult labor.

It caused his heart to tremble, and he could no longer ponder about his life. Fear was in his heart. He was afraid that on this day, he would part with his wife forever. Once the day ended, he might become as crazy as his father-in-law.

As his wife’s pained screams continued ringing in the air and his father-in-law’s laughter grew stronger, Zhang Wen Zhang shuddered. At that moment, someone pushed open the door to his wife’s delivery room. The midwife who was brought over to receive the baby ran out with an expression full of fear.

“Monster… Monster!”

Zhang Wen Zhang’s heart shuddered. He rushed into the house and cast a glance at the room where his wife was giving birth. When he saw her pained expression, he called out to the other people in the room to bring the palanquin. Then, they rushed out of the room.

He wanted to get a doctor, not a midwife, because he had a strong feeling that this birth might cost someone a life. If that was the case, then it was no longer something with which a midwife could help. He needed a doctor to save his wife’s life!

With rain pouring down on him, he walked past the noodle stall which was still open despite the storm. He did not notice the old man sitting on the rock with his gaze towards him. Zhang Wen Zhang in too much hurry to pay attention to those around him.

When he finally brought the doctor whose skills were rather similar to those of Doctor Mo back to the courtyard, Zhang Wen Zhang stared at his wife’s labor room before gritting his teeth and stepping inside. He did not want to wait outside. He wanted to hold his wife’s hand so that he could go through the hardship with her.

But the moment he pushed open the door to the room, someone else pushed it open from within as well. Lightning crackled and thunder roared. At that instant, he saw a baby in the doctor’s arms, and he also saw the body of his wife lying on the bed without moving or breathing.

A loud roar went off in his head. In his ears he heard his father-in-law laughing shrilly outside. His body shuddered, and he walked to his wife. He stared at her pale face which reminded of a corpse, but which still had a smile filled with maternal love on its lips. His heart was torn apart forcefully. At that moment, he no longer thought about life, but instead turned around to glare at the doctor.

An illusion manifested without his knowledge. It seemed like another figure was slowly forming in front of him. As for the doctor staring at him, disbelief appeared on his face, along with some sort of understanding.

Zhang Wen Zhang did not know that his father-in-law had gone through almost the exact same thing in the past, but the difference was that his father-in-law had had the figure appear behind him, while he himself had turned into the illusion, and the figure appearing in front of him was a body manifesting itself to gain corporeal form.

It was also at this moment that a loud rumble suddenly rang out in Zhang Wen Zhang’s head, as if a sealed memory had suddenly been released. At the instant it was freed, he woke up from the cycle of life and death. He opened his eyes from his sleep, and slowly, they cleared from earlier madness and gained clarity. He did not look any different from before, but there was an air of someone who had gained some form of epiphany about him.

He closed his eyes. As his memories returned and he woke up from the cycles of life and death, he remembered everything. He was not Zhang Wen Zhang… but Su Ming!

He was True Morning Dao World’s Su Ming, the Abyss Builder’s Su Ming, and the Su Ming who had prepared and activated the Mortal Refinement Art on a broken planet to refine the white ring!

He remembered everything… but he could not remember the cycle of lives he had gone through. His memories reached only up to the moment when he stepped into the world formed by the Mortal Refinement Art.

In silence, Su Ming turned his head around to cast a glance at the body of the woman lying on the bed. He saw her face, and he shuddered lightly.

The woman looked like Bai Feng from his memories, or rather, as Bai Ling from Dark Mountain…

‘In this cycle, she was my wife…’

In silence, Su Ming raised his right hand and tapped Bai Ling’s body gently. A wave of life force immediately surged into her. Even though her life had been about to disappear a moment ago, she slowly opened her eyes.

She stared at Su Ming, and a smile bloomed on her frail face.

“Let me… take a look at our child…”

Su Ming stared at Bai Ling. With his memories recovered, he couldn’t help the complicated emotions in his heart. However, they did not reflect on his face. Instead, he nodded and took the baby from the doctor’s arms before returning to Bai Ling’s side. The two of them stared at the baby together, and the smile on Bai Ling’s face showed maternal love.

“He looks quite like you, but he’d best not be as silly as you,” Bai Ling said with a smile, but there was still a hint of weakness to it.

Su Ming closed his eyes and hid the complicated look in his eyes. He sighed in his heart.

Time passed, and in the blink of an eye, three years went by.

During them, Su Ming stayed by Bai Ling’s side. He no longer pondered over life, because life was right before his eyes. There was no longer anything to ponder about it. He was in a cycle of life, an illusory life. Within it, everyone was asleep, and only Su Ming was awake. He looked at the people living their lives in happiness, anger, sadness, and joy. He watched Bai Ling’s gentleness towards him, watched as his child grew up, and the emotions he felt could not be described with words.

At certain times, waking up… was a form of suffering. If Su Ming had not remembered everything, he could have lived happily as he did in the past, but now, even if he wanted to live happily, it had become impossible to immerse himself in it completely once he knew that it was all fake.

Three years after Su Ming had regained his memories, Bai Ling’s father closed his eyes and left the world.

Another three years passed, and Su Ming’s father in this cycle, the teacher, also reached the end of his life.

Being born, growing old, getting sick, and dying were all parts of a person’s life. The noodle stall from the past was no longer around. It was empty, as if it had disappeared without a trace in this time and place.

The child grew up, and wrinkles appeared on Bai Ling’s face. When an ancient air surrounded Su Ming’s body, time had walked a long path with Su Ming and Bai Ling in this cycle.

Bai Ling was happy. Even if she was old, every single time she looked at Su Ming, gentleness would appear in her eyes. When she whispered to him, she would talk about their childhood in this cycle, about how they had stayed together since they were young.

Su Ming, too, gradually stopped thinking about his past. He slowly allowed himself to immerse himself in the cycle. As they counted the white hairs on their heads, they slowly grew old together.

Then, their daughter married of. Then, the mercilessness of time aged Bai Ling’s body as decades passed. More wrinkles appeared, and on a midnight several years later, she held Su Ming’s hand. While staring at the starry sky beyond the window, she whispered under her breath…

“I had a dream. I dreamed of a mountain which housed an ancient tribe. I dreamed that I was a girl in that tribe, and I was dressed in white mink fur. There were some pretty embellishments at the center of my brows, and you… were a person from another tribe. One day, there was a blood moon, and you carried me on your back… At dawn, you circled the mountain with me. You did not want to send me back…

“I dreamed of a promise. A promise made between us…” Bai Ling mumbled. There was a smile on her lips. She did not manage to finish speaking though. Her words turned into murmurs, and she closed her eyes for the last time.

Su Ming held Bai Ling’s hand, and nostalgia appeared in his eyes. He watched her life gradually flow from her body and the world go through a cycle of sixty years.

One year later, Su Ming sold the courtyard, because there were no longer any people in his memories of this place. As time passed, he became the oldest person in the county town. He witnessed all the changes during the cycle of sixty years, and far too many people living and dying. Then, he sold his property, built a platform at an empty spot in the county town, and there, he built a noodle stall.

He made noodles, brewed soup, weaved grass puppets, and watched lives pass as he counted the cycles of life and death quietly in his heart…

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