Year 2114 in the Immortal Alliance calendar, Lunar New Year’s Eve.
Argent Apex experienced a snowy night.
The snow that night was unnatural. Argent Apex was inland, and Landscape Metropolis pulled a river closer while Drifting Cloud Sect adjusted the climate. At its core, however, it was still a continental climate with sparse rain. Argent Apex’s yearly snow was mostly ‘like sprinkling sand,’ a far cry from heavy snow. But in this particular year, the snow piled high, clumping in the air and sticking to people. (Tamon: a line from A New Account of the Tales of the World.)
In this weather, Wang Qi didn’t stay at the Argent Apex Immortal Institute but sat in the Argent Apex outer city’s restaurant.
The mountain didn’t keep time, nor did the cold. The cultivators on Argent Mountain didn’t pay much attention to holidays, and the mortals at the foot of the mountain had a simpler notion of ‘year’ and ‘festival.’ Nevertheless, mortals were mortals. Regardless of how little it mattered, they would, at the very least, spend New Year’s Eve with their families. It was amazing Wang Qi even found an open restaurant at this time.
The place wasn’t large but had standards. The restaurant only had one person managing it, a middle-aged man, with his parents both gone and children working somewhere far. He was in no rush to return home. After dismissing the servers, he was going to have a few glasses of wine in the shop, then head home a bit later. As it happened, it was then that Wang Qi showed up, asking for a bowl of noodles.
With Argent Apex outer city being so close to cultivators, it was easy for the manager to discern Wang Qi’s air, noticing that snow hadn’t stuck to him at all. He couldn’t ignore this cultivator and stayed behind to keep the restaurant open for Lunar New Year’s Eve.
Alone in the large establishment, Wang Qi disliked waiting in an empty place, so he lit up a lamp. The gentle flame swayed and reflected in its light Wang Qi’s fair and yellowish face. The restaurant’s cook went home for the new year, and the manager had to make the bowl of noodles himself, with a tiny plate of pickled garlic for a side dish.
With no spiritual energy or herbs, the meal was a far cry from Immortal Institute’s standard food.
[Uh, maybe not as a toddler, since I’d just throw it away.]
[Not wanting to accept this world or anything related to it.]
[I don’t know when, but that man… father, no longer gave me a bowl of noodles on new year.] But if he was hungry, his father would fetch a cold bowl at the beginning of the year.
[Saying ‘I don’t know when’ when it’s only been a few years, hasn’t it?]
[Ha-ha, crossing over is a disaster for any Earth researcher, the same for Divine Province’s Wang family.]
[Few years later, Father passed away.]
[Only then did this dumbass learn his lesson: to sit down every New Year’s Eve and eat a bowl of noodles with his grandfather.]
Wang Qi picked up his chopsticks as he thought.
The noodles were lukewarm and soggy, but he was no longer the same brat that blamed everyone when eating it. Wang Qi used Celestial Entropy to add a bit of warmth to them while exciting the water within the noodles to evaporate it, making it as if they were only now just made.
Wang Qi felt for a long time that Celestial Entropy was unreasonable. In his eyes, entropy amplification was inevitable, based on the second law of thermodynamics. The iron rule dictated time only ever went one way.
Although spiritual energy’s flow didn’t follow the same logic, the only exception in this universe, entropy amplification, was still inviolable. Celestial Entropy could control it on a small scale, but it was impossible for it to cancel the passing time of the universe’s entropy amplification.
Some things in the past couldn’t be made up for. Even those years, those few short years.
Those years would soon mean little when compared to his life that would go on for a thousand years. But those belonged to the beginning of his new life. He could never remove those years’ memories.
At least, it would take many years to come for him to overcome this inner demon.
Wang Qi’s reminiscence came to a head, as did the noodles in his bowl.
The image of an old man on his deathbed came to mind. Old Wang strained himself to reach out to this strange child…
Thoughts affected the soul, and the soul affected spiritual power. As thoughts veered off, resolve waned, and the soul’s control of spiritual power dropped so much it might actually drive it into chaos. In the eighty thousand years of ancient cultivation history, the fall of resolve led to countless cultivators deviating, going insane, and perishing.
Wang Qi’s resolve had a huge gap in it.
He groaned from the sharp pain assaulting him, placing the bowl hard on the table. He threw a silver and left in a hurry.
In the heavy snow, Wang Qi strained to push back the blood welling in his mouth, speaking with self-deprecation. “This is the reward for those of weak character.”
On the lunar New Year’s Eve, he was miserable, but he didn’t want anyone else to be either.
A large snowflake hit his face, making him close his eyes as the cold sobered him somewhat. A matter wave came from behind and scattered the snow.
“That was quick.” Zhen Chanzi echoed from Wang Qi’s ring.
Wang Qi started. “What was?” Orıginal content can be found at 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹✦𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖✦𝓷𝓮𝓽
“You’d usually cry at this point.” Zhen Chanzi smiled. “Like a child.”
Wang Qi denied it on reflex. His two lives combined made him a middle-aged man, not a child.
“Also, it’s rare for you not to throw the ring this new year as well.”
Wang Qi rolled his eyes. “Come on, you’ve seen worse than this.”
“I was right. The more struggles you experience, the stronger your heart becomes.”
Wang Qi shook his head. “I don’t feel it, though.”
“Did that Wu kid make you realize something back then?”
Zhen Chanzi was curious about something. Wang Qi didn’t throw his ring for long, and when he put it back, he said he was going to Argent Apex. It had to do something with Wu Fan.
“Nothing.” Wang Qi gazed at the snowy night with a sigh. “I just felt like I finally understood what I lacked.”