“Auntie, did you just say… my grandmother?”
The woman, with a basket hanging from her arm, frowned and looked at him strangely. “Did you lose your mind after going out for a trip? I said your grandmother. Hurry back and see her.” As she turned to leave, Jiang Xu stepped forward and tugged at her sleeve, swaying it gently while blinking. “Auntie, could you take me there?”
The woman looked at him with pity for a moment and gave in. “Then be quick about it, I need to get home.”
Jiang Xu nodded vigorously and followed.
The woman led him through many streets, finally ducking into a dim alley before stopping in front of a dilapidated wooden door. She glanced at Jiang Xu, her eyebrows twitching. She lifted the cloth covering her basket, took out a sesame flatbread, handed it to him, and then hurried away.
Holding the still-warm flatbread, Jiang Xu stared at the two ragged, old New Year paintings on the wooden door that had long been torn by the wind. A strange emotion welled up in his chest—a sour, swelling ache that was hard to bear.
Whose feeling was this? Was it his… or the child’s who shared his name?
He reached out to push open the weathered door. In the instant the dust swirled, it felt as if some long-buried memories were breaking through the soil of his mind. Light and shadow flickered before his eyes, and frame by frame, images began to surface.
“A-Xu?” A frail, elderly voice came from inside the wooden shack. Jiang Xu snapped out of his trance. Hearing that voice, his nose instantly stung, and a single tear escaped his lashes, rolling down his cheek.
He reached out to wipe the tear, but a flash of white light appeared. In the next moment, he was standing inside the room. An old woman lay on a bed. The interior was even colder than the outside; the walls were grimy and black, and the furnishings were pitifully simple. Aside from a small table in the center and a battered little stove, there was only the bed where the person lay.
Upon entering the room, those memories rushed in clearly. A young child sat in the middle of the room, holding a cattail leaf fan, fanning the small stove to make the flames burn brighter. A pot sat atop the stove, emitting the faint, sweet scent of porridge.
Just as Jiang Xu took a step, the child turned his head and smiled. It was a face strikingly similar to his own adult self.
He hesitated to move forward, but the child smiled happily and called out sweetly, “Grandmother.”
Jiang Xu spun around and saw a kind, white-haired old woman pushing open the door. She was clutching a paper-wrapped bundle. The old woman walked in chuckling. Jiang Xu reached out to touch her, but his hand passed straight through—he touched only emptiness.
“Sit down quickly, Grandmother. Why did you go out again?” Little Jiang Xu took the paper bundle with a half-reproachful tone. His eyes lit up at the scent. “Buns!”
The old woman patted his head affectionately and took the fan from him. “Eat quickly.”
Little Jiang Xu took out a warm bun, broke it in half, and held it to the old woman’s mouth. His voice was crisp and childish. “Grandmother, you eat too!”
The room wasn’t so cold because of the small stove. The scent of buns and their laughter formed a warm tableau. Jiang Xu watched the scene grow increasingly blurry, his eyes wet.
This seems… like my memory. But why did I never know about this? Why do I only remember things from my real life?
The scene shifted again. Little Jiang Xu was surrounded by a group of older children. The copper coins he had worked so hard to earn were scattered on the ground, quickly snatched up by the other boys. The leader stood with hands on hips, pointing triumphantly at his nose. “You must have stolen this money!”
Little Jiang Xu lowered his head. He was much thinner and shorter than these boys. He offered a weak defense but was shoved aside. The children surrounding him began to kick and punch, singing a rhyme they had made up: “Jiang Xu, Jiang Xu, so shameless! No dad, no mom, no upbringing!”
Jiang Xu’s brows knitted tightly. He stepped forward, trying to push the children away, but he couldn’t touch them. He could only watch with gritted teeth as Little Jiang Xu was beaten. Finally, having had their fill, the children dispersed, leaving behind a bruised Little Jiang Xu, his body covered in marks.
The boy curled into a ball, looking like he was in terrible pain. His eyes were red, but he didn’t cry. Jiang Xu felt a sharp pain in his heart. He stepped forward to embrace him, gently patting his back. “It’s okay, it’s okay now.”
The scene shifted again to a riverside during the apricot blossom rains. Jiang Xu stood under an apricot tree, watching a teenage Jiang Xu crouching on a rock, washing clothes in the stream. He had grown into a youth; the coarse cloth clothes couldn’t hide his unmistakable youthful vigor, though he was still painfully thin. The wrists holding the wooden mallet were more slender than most boys’, and his thick black hair was tied high, revealing a pale, handsome profile.
The youth seemed tired. He stopped to rest, wiped the sweat from his brow, and scooped up a handful of spring stream water. A white apricot petal floated in his palm. Though only in his teens, his features were already stunning, his lashes long and curled. His jade-like eyes sparkled with a brilliant smile at the sight of the petal. The youth and the gurgling stream together painted a picture of absolute tranquility.
Jiang Xu couldn’t help but smile along. But the silence was soon broken. A stone hit the teenage Jiang Xu’s back. He stood up as a group of tall youths strode over, looking at him with disdain. “Hey, who gave you permission to use the water here?”
How can these people be such bullies? Jiang Xu couldn’t stand it, but these were memories; he couldn’t intervene. He could only watch through gritted teeth.
Teenage Jiang Xu calmly pulled down his rolled-up sleeves, turned to pick up his basin, and tried to walk around them. But the basin was slapped out of his hands. The lead youth grabbed his wrist viciously. “You look like a girl, and you act like one too. Bah! No balls!”
In truth, Jiang Xu wasn’t effeminate; he was just thin from childhood malnutrition. Because of his beauty, he often drew the jealousy and loathing of his peers.
He pursed his lips and picked up the basin, but the group was relentless. They wouldn’t let him go, trying to push him into the water. Jiang Xu watched in helpless anxiety, but the scene shifted again. The river vanished, and he found himself in a vast, snowy wasteland.
The world was entirely white, and snow continued to fall steadily from the sky. A piercing, bone-chilling wind blew.
Jiang Xu raised his hand to shield his face from the wind and snow, but suddenly caught the scent of blood. He stopped abruptly, squinted through the storm, and saw a figure lying in the boundless snow. The person was also dressed in white, but the blood flowing from them looked like red plum blossoms blooming in the white expanse.
He hurried over. The teenage Jiang Xu reappeared, wearing thin cloth clothes and carrying a basket of dry firewood on his back. He stopped before the fallen person. Jiang Xu followed closely and froze when he saw the person’s face. That face, breathtakingly beautiful even in the freezing snow, was his Master—Wen Hexue.
How is this possible? Jiang Xu no longer had the capacity to recall the original plot of the book. Everything happening now had exceeded the plot. What he was experiencing didn’t feel like the “original owner’s” life—it felt like his own.
Teenage Jiang Xu hurriedly set down his basket. Looking at Wen Hexue’s blood-stained robes, panic flitted across his face. He tore a strip of cloth from his own clothes, gave the wound a simple binding, and with great difficulty, hoisted the man onto his back. He walked away, step by step, through the thick snow.
Jiang Xu watched blankly. Vaguely, he thought he saw Wen Hexue open his eyes for a moment as he was being lifted, but the snow was too heavy to be sure.
So ‘Jiang Xu’ and Wen Hexue had known each other a long time ago. Then why did the original book say they didn’t know each other?
Suddenly, the storm intensified. The wind swirled the snow into great heaps. Jiang Xu blocked his face. When he opened his eyes again, he was in a quaint little courtyard. A peach tree was in the yard, in full bloom.
A man in white sat at a small stone table under the tree. Just from the silhouette of his back, he looked elegant and refined—an immortal in a painting drinking wine under the blossoms.
Jiang Xu walked slowly toward the tree. The face he saw was indeed Wen Hexue’s. He stood quietly to the side. Soon, a tall youth ran out of the house with a smile, holding a plate of pastries like a treasure. Teenage Jiang Xu sat beside Wen Hexue, leaning close, laughing and calling him “A-Xue,” urging him to taste the pastries he had made himself.
This Jiang Xu was completely different from the character in the original book; he was a bright, radiant youth.
Moreover, his relationship with Wen Hexue seemed very close. The usually cold and dignified Wen Hexue did not withhold his smiles in front of him.
Why did it turn into “they didn’t know each other” later?
Jiang Xu came to his senses, looking at the two before him. He felt this scene was incredibly familiar—so familiar it felt as if he had experienced it personally.
A few peach petals drifted down, landing in the teenage Jiang Xu’s hair. Wen Hexue, with a smile in his eyes, reached out to pluck the flower away with a tenderness Jiang Xu had never seen.
Jiang Xu stared blankly. For some reason, as he looked at Wen Hexue’s smiling face, a sense of pain surfaced in his heart. A peach petal drifted down; he reached out to catch it. It landed right in his palm, then gradually dissolved like a snowflake, leaving only a faint fragrance. Jiang Xu slowly closed his eyes and clenched his palm.
The fragrance and the sound of the wind faded away. He opened his eyes to find himself back in the void he had first entered. Silence reigned all around.
All those memories—he wasn’t sure whose they were—converged in his mind. The things he had just witnessed and things he hadn’t yet seen rushed in like an unstoppable tide, filling every corner of his heart. It felt as if they belonged in his head. Jiang Xu looked vacantly at the palm where the petal had rested. When he looked up again, a person identical to him was standing there.
The man wore a black robe with dark red patterns on the wide sleeves—suppressed yet decadent. From his features to his build, he was exactly like Jiang Xu. The only difference was a dark red frost-flower mark between his brows, and his eyes were deeper, heavier. He watched Jiang Xu quietly for a long time before whispering, “You’ve returned.”
Jiang Xu stared at him blankly, yet felt no fear. He gave a low “Mhm” and asked, “Who are you?” After what he had just witnessed, he suspected this person might be himself, but he needed a reason to believe it.
The man suddenly smiled. He took two steps forward but stopped abruptly, retreating to his original spot. He simply looked at Jiang Xu. “You’ve already guessed. Why bother asking?”
He raised his hand. A red string flashed on his wrist before vanishing. His long finger pointed across the space toward Jiang Xu’s brow. A speck of red light sank into him. Jiang Xu froze, his hands opening wide as he felt his body grow hot.
The man withdrew his hand, his eyes hiding complex emotions. He stared intently at Jiang Xu and suddenly gave a very light laugh. This smile dispersed the heavy gloom in his features. He whispered, “I am glad to see the current you, Jiang Xu.” As soon as he finished speaking, he vanished into the illusion.
In the next second, a rush of water enveloped Jiang Xu. When he opened his eyes again, he was standing perfectly intact within the celestial palace, directly in front of that mysterious water mirror.
Before he could process everything, a familiar voice sounded from behind him.