The morning mist had not yet completely dispersed, dew still rolled on the tips of grass blades, when Li Xiuer, carrying a small bamboo basket, ran lightly up the earthen slope.
Unlike the days before when a light sorrow always veiled her brow, her cheeks were now slightly flushed, her eyes sparkling, a trace of irrepressible joy curling at the corner of her mouth.
She went straight to the Little Locust Tree, put down the basket—inside were a few clean damp cloths and a small wooden comb—she had actually come to wipe and groom the locust tree. As she gently brushed dust off the leaves and cleared cobwebs from the branches with soft movements, she spoke to the tree, her voice full of cheer:
"Locust tree, locust tree! My brother is back! He arrived home last night!"
Lin Tingwan's consciousness had long been awakened by her movements and was quietly watching her. Sensing the long-absent, vivid joy emanating from the young girl, she couldn't help but be infected, her branches and leaves swaying gently in the morning breeze as if in response.
"Brother's a bit thinner, but he's in great spirits!" Li Xiuer continued, her tone filled with undisguised admiration and reliance on her elder brother. "He's been working as an accountant for someone outside, saved some money and broadened his horizons. This time he came back specifically for my sake."
She carefully wiped the locust tree's rough bark with a damp cloth, her movements earnest: "Brother told Dad and Mom not to rush into arranging a marriage for me. He said, it's not a bad thing for a girl to stay home a couple more years, to see more of the world. He also said... he'll keep an eye out for my marriage prospects himself, wants to find a truly reasonable family with solid means, can't just marry me off casually."
At this point, two blushes flew onto Li Xiuer's cheeks, but her eyes were bright and at ease.
Clearly, her brother's return and support had given her immense confidence, temporarily freeing her from that feeling of being pushed along helplessly by fate.
"Brother himself has big plans too!" Her voice rose again, tinged with excitement. "He said, the county office will hold exams next spring to recruit arithmetic clerks, specifically for managing money, grain, and accounts. That's exactly the work he's been doing outside all these years, he's very confident! If he passes, he'll become a proper minor government official, with a salary! With respect! It might not compare to those scholars who study for the imperial exams, but for a family like ours, it's already the very best path forward!" She gestured happily, almost dancing.
She paused her work, looked up at the locust tree's dense canopy, her eyes full of longing: "Brother said, once he's established himself, he'll rent a small courtyard in the county town and bring Mom and Dad over to enjoy life. By then, we can look for a marriage match for me in the county too, the perspective would naturally be different. Our family would be putting down roots outside, slowly prospering."
The morning breeze blew past, carrying the sounds of people working in distant fields and the fragrance of earth. Li Xiuer took a deep breath, the smile on her face slowly settling, becoming peaceful and steady.
"Brother also said..." her voice grew softer, as if recounting, yet also as if thinking for herself, "Shanglu brother's path is the Immortal Path. It's good, and enviable. But that path has its own difficulties too. It faces dangers we can't even imagine, even... trials of the Dao itself. On the road to Longevity, every step is through thorns; it might not necessarily be easier or happier than our lives as ordinary people."
She paused, her fingers unconsciously twining around a hanging locust branch. "We walk the path of the mortal world. Though ordinary, it also has ordinary stability and hope. Brother will earn his future with his own abilities. I... maybe in the future, I can also be like those ladies and young misses in the county, read some books, write some characters, manage my own household well, teach my own children well. Though I can't fly through the skies, burrow into the earth, move mountains, or overturn seas, just having three meals a day, watching the seasons change, seeing my family safe, healthy, and life getting better day by day... seems, not bad either." Her tone gradually grew distant.
After speaking, she stood quietly for a while, as if digesting her brother's words, or as if re-examining that "other possibility" she had once yearned for so intensely yet lost so abruptly.
Sunlight pierced through the thin mist, spilling onto her young profile, gilding it with a soft golden edge. There was still longing for the vast world in her eyes, but that intense pain and confusion born from the severing of the Immortal Path had already been replaced by another, more pragmatic and warmer kind of hope.
The mortal path certainly had its limitations and trivialities, but within it lay the power of familial bonds, responsibility, the possibility of changing one's circumstances bit by bit through one's own efforts, and that tangible, human warmth—all possessing a moving force of their own.
Li Xiuer finally gave the locust tree trunk a gentle pat, like a farewell, yet also like sharing: "Locust tree, I have to go back. Brother is rarely home, there's still much to do. In the future... I'll probably still come often!"
She picked up the bamboo basket and ran lightly down the earthen slope, her figure soon disappearing at the village entrance.
Lin Tingwan's branches and leaves swayed gently in the wind, but her consciousness remained immersed in that young girl's words for a long time.
The words of Li Xiuer's brother were like a lamp illuminating the different landscapes of the two paths—Immortal and mortal.
The Immortal Path was ethereal, certainly alluring, possessing supernatural power and the possibility of Longevity, yet accompanied by unknown great risks and the loneliness of the quest.
The mortal path was down-to-earth; within its limitations, there were also the joys of struggle, the bonds of family, and visible improvement and hope.
Then, what about herself?
She was neither an ordinary person, nor a naturally born spirit creature.
She was a soul from another world, trapped in a plant's body, yearning to be human again, yearning even more to touch that mysterious and elusive "Dao."
Her path was destined to be different from the mortal path of Li Xiuer and her brother, and also distinct from Li Shanglu's ascending Immortal Path.
She had no support from blood relatives, no clear guidance from a master or sect, not even a complete human body to rely upon.
Her starting point was a broken stump, a new sprout, a wisp of stubborn, lingering obsession.
Her path might be lonelier than the Immortal Path, a hundred, a thousand times more difficult than the mortal path.
But...
Lin Tingwan "looked" toward her own roots deeply anchored in the soil, feeling that increasingly solid Spiritual Resonance deep within her Tree Heart, and the vast, boundless, heavy power belonging to the earth that she sensed when connecting with the earth veins.
She had nothing, yet she wasn't entirely without support.
She had this plant body that had endured calamity yet remained unextinguished, the thinking and resilience from her previous life that differed from the beings of this world, over a decade of unvarying "Dormant Gaze" and accumulation, and even that sliver of possibility of being an "anomaly" vaguely glimpsed by a high-level cultivator.
Her path was destined to be a path she carved out herself.
The sunlight gradually grew intense, dispelling the last of the morning mist.
On the earthen slope, the Little Locust Tree stretched out each leaf under the sunlight, performing silent photosynthesis, also slowly transforming that bit of pure solar essence, lunar essence, and earth vein Spiritual Energy into nutrients for its own growth.
The road ahead is long, the Dao ahead is arduous.