Volume 2, Chapter 59 (Chapter 97): Back to Life

At dawn, somewhere around Krorän.

Each of the roads in that desert plane had no end in sight, and mounds upon mounds of rocks were scattered upon them.

They were ten metres high and undulated from time to time, and the rising sun gradually brightened them, dyeing each mound a golden red. From a distance, it looks as if a giant dragon with countless scales is deep in slumber.

Such a remote and dangerous place was not suitable for any human to reside in, but a figure could be seen hurriedly bouncing across the mounds.

An adult man in full white, imbued in a silver light, phasing in and out of vision with a sword by his side.

The desert morning sun was blazing hot on his back, and Bai Kai stopped upon reaching an oasis.

He calls it an oasis, but really, it was just a muddy reservoir of water, surrounded by caves that barely stretched out to anything. Stopping, he went straight to a cave dug out by the corner of the oasis, deliberating about avoiding the Euphrates trees by the cave.

The trees were a symbol of perseverance, but Bai Kai never liked them.

Rumour has it that the souls of tortured warriors clung onto these trees, and their twisted thoughts formed the twisted boroughs of the trees.

He doesn’t know if this rumour is true, but on this desolate plane, it certainly felt as if they were reaching out towards him.

Bai Kai walked forward, and before he could enter the cave, a person greeted him.

It was an old man with a white beard and cloudy eyes, wearing a sheepskin jacket covered in grime and dust. A rusty pipe was pinned to his waist, and he leaned on a brick-red willow cane.

“Master!” Bai Kai called out.

A gleam of light suddenly flashed in the old man’s eyes, and his figure disappeared in a flash. When he reappeared, he was behind Bai Kai and pinched his buttocks hard.

“Master! You can’t be doing this in public! What if the police arrest you?”

“Nonsense! What police? We’re the only people here!”

The old man teased with a hearty smile, looked past Bai Kai, and looked behind him, asking, “Why are you alone? Where’s Lu Ming?”

“Ah, he’s…” Bai Kai hesitated to speak and lowered his head.

“Dead?”

“Well…”

“Ah,” the old man sighed and looked towards the vast plane with his hands behind his back, “To live is to suffer. At least he gets to reunite with her.”

After a pause, the old man turned around to look at Bai Kai and changed the subject: “Speaking of which, you took the effort to come all the way here, surely not just to see me. What do you want?”

“I wanted to head over to Jingjue. For Yibei. Took a detour to see you.”

“Oh, good, good. Do you need my help?”

“No need. You still need to look after these trees, don’t you?” Bai Kai said, peering into the dark cave.

“Of course, but don’t you want to stay overnight? Just like good old times, between a master and his student.”

Bai Kai glanced at the dark cave behind the old man and said with a wry smile, “The Wikstroemia is a big girl now, is she not? I’m afraid the cave can’t fit all three of us.”

“She’s gone,” the old man said, eyeing the cave behind him.

“Ever since she knew about Lu Yibei, she has been wanting to see him,” the old man expressed. “Told her that he’d be an ordinary person for the rest of his life, but she retorted and said that ordinary people should be protected. I’m afraid she’s already in Huacheng by now.”

“Strange,” the old man continued. “I thought the both of you would have seen each other by now.”

“Fortunately not.”

Bai Kai shuddered upon thinking of that bloom. He tasted the horrors of the Witch that went by Wikstroemia, and since then, the fear of women has been instilled in him.

Fortunately, the outside world is beautiful, and the girls outside are even more beautiful. Hence, he was known as the King of the Night in the streets of Huacheng, and his nimble fingers earned him the title of the Kitty Whisperer.

The old man knocked his willow stick on the ground, taking Bai Kai out of his daze and saying, “Stay with me tonight. It’s lonely being out here alone.”

“I don’t know about that,” Bai Kai shrugged. “What happened to preaching about self-respect? Sharing a bed between us, that might be.”

“I don’t care!” the old man huffed. “I don’t want to be alone!”

“Right, of course.”

“Let me head over to the village, and I’ll prepare some mutton stew when I get back,” the old man said.

“And I’ll go get some wine!” Bai Kai said.

“And when you come back, I’ll keep the cave light low, and we can…”

“Sleep in the same bed!” the two said in unison, and that night, the cave was filled with a strange, homosexual atmosphere.

Huacheng University of Technology, in Professor Ma Shi’s office.

Professor Ma sat at his desk and muttered to himself.

“He’s alive? Back from the dead? Did he fake his own death?”

Earlier, a guest came to Professor Ma’s office. It was the young man who sent him the bamboo scrolls a few days ago.

Deviating from his professional appearance, the young man was unkempt, with dark circles around his eyes, as if he had seen something terrifying.

“My father is alive.”

Professor Ma was stunned at the time and then laughed. He thought the young man was joking and comforted him by saying, “I think you miss your father too much. It’s common that you’ll have dreams that…”

“No. I believe that he has come back to life.”

The young man interrupted Professor Ma, then looked around in a panic as he lowered his voice, “There is a tradition of returning fallen leaves to their roots; when people die, they have to be buried where they came from, but my father was not buried even after a week.”

“My elder brother was busy, and so was I when I came to you. When I went back home, I was so exhausted, and…”

As the young man spoke, his whole body trembled. His teeth chattered as if he was feeling cold all over, and it took him a while to adjust his mood and continue talking.

“I saw my father. He was sitting in the shadows in the corner of the room and smiling at me. It was dark, but I could see his pale face as clear as day. He touched my forehead, just as he did when I was a child, but I was petrified—his hand was warm, and he told me to come and take the scrolls back.”

“I woke up the next morning sweating. When I came over to his coffin, it…”

The young man stopped talking and fell silent. Professor Ma had already guessed that the coffin was probably empty.

“P-please, return the scrolls.”

Professor Ma found it peculiar, but for the sake of his father, he accepted.

But before that, he needs two days to completely reproduce the text on the bamboo scrolls for subsequent research.

“It’s impossible; it’s…”

The young man left his office like a corpse, and Professor Ma continued to mutter to himself.

No matter if it was true, for his father’s sake, he should return the scrolls, but…

“Why?”

He shook his head before continuing his research once again.