Once the gray had fully dispersed, Jiang Xingzhou could finally see the scene before him clearly.
An enormous stretch of peach trees.
Truly enormous, spreading from beneath his feet to the far edge of sight, pink-white petals packed densely along the branches, with a thick layer fallen on the ground.
The air carried a faint, clean sweetness. Mountains stood in the distance, green under a blue sky where clouds drifted lazily.
Jiang Xingzhou stood in place for a long time without moving.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” He looked around. “Which scenic spot have they dumped me in?”
He took a couple of steps forward. Grass underfoot, soft to tread on. The wind swirled petals up, and a few drifted past his eyes.
Honestly, it was beautiful, the unreasonable kind of beautiful, the kind where any random snapshot could be a wallpaper.
But he wasn’t in the mood to admire scenery.
Because he’d spotted a small wooden cabin ahead.
From where he stood, the cabin wasn’t large, built among several peach trees. He could see a low table set at the door, a tea set on it, and someone sitting there drinking tea.
Jiang Xingzhou was about to step forward when something suddenly felt off.
He looked down at himself.
The sleeves were wrong.
His arms were in wide sleeves, moon-white, with subtle embroidery at the cuffs. When he raised his hand, the sleeve slid down and bared a stretch of wrist.
Jiang Xingzhou stared at his wrist for two seconds.
Then he shot a hand up to feel his hair.
His fingers found strands and followed them down from the crown of his head: past his shoulders, no end yet. He kept feeling downward, reached his back, and further down, his waist.
His hair now reached somewhere below his waist. He grabbed a handful of it, and it filled his palm with a heavy weight.
“What’s going on?”
He pulled the length of hair around to look at it.
The hair was black, and in good condition, smooth and sleek, loosely tied with a cord.
He looked down at the rest of himself.
Robe, sash, boots: a complete, tidy outfit from top to bottom, the fabric pleasant to the touch, though the style was entirely foreign to him.
He lifted a foot and waggled it.
The boots were black, the soles thin enough that he could feel the undulation of the grass through them.
“They even changed my shoes.” He set the foot down. “Full-service operation, huh.”
He tugged at his hair again.
Jiang Xingzhou pulled hard, and pain promptly followed.
He felt his face. Same features as always, nose and eyes unchanged.
That eased him slightly. At least he was still human.
“Fine.” Jiang Xingzhou flung his hair back, but it was too long; it swung over and slid right back, plastered across his face.
He scraped the hair off his face and took a deep breath.
“Deal with that later.”
He walked toward the cabin.
Only up close did he get a clear look at the tea drinker.
The person seated was a little old man, white-haired, his face well-lined. He sat behind the low table, cup in hand, sipping at his leisure.
Another empty cup sat on the table.
The old man glanced up at him.
“You’ve come.” His voice was raspy. “Sit.”
Jiang Xingzhou did not sit.
“You’re the one who was talking to me just now?”
The old man set down his cup.
“The one who spoke with you earlier was not this old man.”
“Not you?” Jiang Xingzhou frowned. “Then who?”
“That, this old man does not know either.” The old man stroked his beard. “This old man was merely ordered to wait here for Your Excellency.”
“Wait for me to do what?”
“To help Your Excellency refine the power within your body.”
Jiang Xingzhou heard this and waited two seconds.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“So you don’t even know who that voice was. Whoever it was just hauled me over here, and you took his word for it.” Jiang Xingzhou looked at the old man. “You’re not afraid you got the wrong person?”
“There is no mistake.” The old man poured another cup of tea and pushed it toward him. “The power in Your Excellency’s body, this old man could sense it from three li away.”
Jiang Xingzhou looked down at himself.
“What power? I can’t feel anything.”
“Your Excellency cannot yet refine it at this moment, so naturally you feel nothing.” The old man lifted his cup and took a sip. “Once this old man helps you open your meridians, Your Excellency will be able to sense it.”
Jiang Xingzhou pulled over the straw cushion across the table and sat down.
“Fine. Then first answer a few things for me. One, where is this. Two, what’s the deal with these clothes and this hair. Three, how do I get back.”
The old man set down his cup.
“This place is called Taoxi Realm, a small world of its own. What Your Excellency passed through just now was the Interworld Rift. As for Your Excellency’s appearance and attire…” He pointed at Jiang Xingzhou. “This is Your Excellency’s original form.”
Jiang Xingzhou looked down at his sleeve.
“My original form? I originally looked like this?”
“Precisely.”
“Then what were those twenty-some years before?”
“Those were also Your Excellency.” The old man considered. “Simply not all of Your Excellency.”
Jiang Xingzhou picked up the tea, poured it into the cup, and took a sip.
The tea was warm, bitter at first taste, with a sweetness rising on the tip of his tongue after he swallowed.
“Fine, I’ll let that one go for now.” He set the cup down. “Third question. How do I get back?”
“Your Excellency cannot go back.”
“What?”
“The passage between the two worlds has already closed.” The old man said it very calmly. “Having come here, Your Excellency cannot return.”
Jiang Xingzhou’s hand froze around the cup.
“Say that again.”
“You cannot go back.”
“Didn’t you just say you were ordered to wait here for me? Ordered by whom? If that person could haul me over here, why can’t he haul me back?”
“This old man does not know who that person is. This old man was only entrusted by someone to wait here for a person of destiny bearing great power. As for anything else, this old man knows nothing.”
Jiang Xingzhou stared at the old man for a good while.
“So what you’re telling me is, someone yanked me out of my world, dumped me into this whatever Taoxi Realm, then didn’t even show his face and had you waiting here to receive me.”
“You don’t know who he is either, you don’t know why he brought me here, and all you know is you’re supposed to help me refine some kind of power.”
The old man nodded.
“Your Excellency summarizes it very clearly.”
“Then what else do you know?”
“This old man knows only how to help Your Excellency refine the power within your body.”
“And besides that? Nothing else, really?”
The old man thought about it earnestly.
“This tea was freshly picked this morning. How does Your Excellency find it?”
Jiang Xingzhou drew a deep breath.
“The tea’s fine.” He set the cup down on the table. “But you really know how to get on my nerves.”
“Your Excellency must not give in to anger.” The old man refilled his tea again. “Anger scatters the qi, which harms the refinement.”
“I don’t care about refining anything.” Jiang Xingzhou said. “Back home I’ve still got a mortgage to pay off, there are grapes in my fridge, and tomorrow at three in the afternoon I’m supposed to review revised proposals from three teams. And you’re telling me now I can’t go back. You think I can just accept that?”
The old man heard him out and fell silent for a moment.
“This ‘mortgage’ Your Excellency speaks of, what is it?”