I made the entire cultivation world cry

Chapter 195 To the Senior (Seeking Monthly Tickets)

Jiang Yi slept soundly through the night. Don't ask her why she was able to sleep; if she couldn't sleep, all the insights she gained yesterday would have been in vain.

quack!

Before dawn, Bai Yu was pecking at the door like a madman. Jiang Yi woke up and opened the door, and Bai Yu grabbed the hem of her skirt and led her downstairs.

Everything downstairs was the same; the beds were neatly made, but Xiao Wujiu was nowhere to be seen.

On the table where the zither used to be, there was a wooden box with a letter pressed down with a silver hairpin. The letter was addressed to "Senior".

Xiao Wujiu left alone, taking only his paulownia wood zither with him.

quack!

Bai Yu kept calling and flapping its wings. Jiang Yi smiled bitterly. Who said that a stupid goose doesn't understand human separation?
"Let's go, I'll take you to him."

Jiang Yi waved his hand to collect the things on the table and led Bai Yu to the burial site that Xiao Wujiu had prepared for him on the mountaintop.

The mountains were as dark as ink, and the sky had not yet turned a pale white.

As Jiang Yi stepped onto the mountain path, bursts of zither music drifted down from the mountaintop; it was the song he had composed for himself, "Never Regret."

Jiang Yi paused slightly, but Bai Yu suddenly rushed up the mountain like a madman.

The mountaintop drew closer, and the music grew clearer. Bai Yu tripped over a protruding tree root, rolled twice, struggled to her feet, and stubbornly continued charging forward.

As the first rays of dawn pierced through the clouds, Jiang Yi and Bai Yu finally reached the mountain peak. She had done it intentionally, wanting to hear the last song and also to preserve his dignity in the end.

The music stopped abruptly at that moment, its lingering notes scattered by the wind.

The tomb, built of bluestone, was open. Xiao Wujiu lay in the coffin he had made himself, holding his paulownia wood zither. The talisman for warding off evil was neatly affixed to his forehead, making his face appear even whiter than fresh snow.

The smile on his lips was still vivid, as if he had thought of something interesting before he breathed his last.

Cluck cluck! Cluck cluck!
Bai Yu spread her wings and jumped into the tomb, her goose beak pecking fiercely at Xiao Wujiu's collar.

It tore the tassels off the zither, then pecked at Xiao Wujiu's drooping hand, its black bean-like eyes slowly welling up with tears.

"He lived his life to the fullest, and in the end... he had no regrets."

Jiang Yi took Bai Yu out and helped Xiao Wujiu close the coffin. When filling the grave with soil, Bai Yu clung tightly to the mound, so Jiang Yi had to use her spiritual power to move it aside.

The newly erected tombstone was gilded by the rising sun, and seven new characters were carved on it: "Mr. Xiao who grows radishes".

"It has a more down-to-earth feel than the original 'Xiao Wujiu's Tomb'."

Jiang Yi sat down in front of the tomb and took out the box, the silver hairpin, and the letter from her storage bag.

As the letter unfolded, Bai Yu suddenly walked over and quietly rested his head on her lap, wanting to hear what Xiao Wujiu had to say last.

……

Dear Senior:

By the time you see this letter, you should have buried me already, right?
Wujiu expresses his deepest gratitude!

With the Cold Dew season approaching, the thought of saying goodbye suddenly makes me feel a little lost, so I'm writing this letter to you in advance.

Baiyu, that silly goose, has gotten fatter again recently. I suspect it stole some of the chicken feed from Old Wang next door, but it stubbornly denies it and squawks at me as if to say, "Why are you slandering my innocence?"

I'm too lazy to argue with it. Huh? I've actually picked up my senior's way of speaking, haha.

When I die, Baiyu will either be stewed or adopted by the village children. In any case, it won't go hungry. Senior, you don't need to worry about it. Geese have their own way.

A few days ago, while teaching the children to write, Sui Sui asked me, "Teacher, how do you write the character for 'death'?"

I casually scribbled a couple of lines on the sand table, and she tilted her head and looked at it for a long time before saying, "Sir, why does this character look like a person lying in the ground laughing?"

I was stunned for a moment, thinking to myself that this girl has talent and is better than me.

When I was her age, I would spend all my time dreaming of the ancestral sword manual, hoping that one day I could cleave this damned fate with a single sword strike.

It's funny, I don't know much about my ancestors. I only heard my father, who died young, say that our ancestor could flatten half a mountain with a single sword strike.

By my father's generation, the family had fallen on hard times, leaving only a few tattered books, a zither, and a rusty sword.

When I was ten years old, my father got drunk and pointed at me, saying, "If you had spiritual roots and could cultivate, how could our family line have ended?"

I took it seriously. Every day at the hour of Yin (3-5 AM), I would get up and breathe in the morning sun, filling my stomach with cool air, thinking that I could cultivate spiritual roots. But all I did was burp and nothing else.

When I was sixteen, I stole the last spirit stone from my family and ran to a sect to test my spiritual roots. Guess what happened?

The spirit-testing disc lit up for a moment and then went out. I begged the steward to test it again, but he glanced at me and said, "Mortal, don't block the way."

That day, I squatted at the entrance of someone's mountain and ate three cold steamed buns, thinking to myself, a person can't just live for a lifetime and wait to lie down in the ground, can he?
Later, I worked as a镖局 (bodyguard/escort), a马交易 (horse trader), a食傻房 (restaurant accountant), and even learned a couple of "仙术" (magical arts) from a swindler.

In my craziest year, I even stabbed myself in the heart, wanting to see if there was any trace of divine destiny hidden in my mortal body.

The result... naturally, was just a mouthful of scalding blood, so hot that I never dared to take life lightly again. The senior asked me why I refused to treat this terminal meridian?

Actually, I've tried it.

When I was twenty, I tried everything I could, even tying up a little mountain demon and forcing it to transfer spiritual energy to me. As a result, I was in so much pain that I couldn't get out of bed for three days.

At the age of 22, a female cultivator offered to heal me, but it turned out she was a member of the Hehuan sect and only wanted to absorb my essence... Fortunately, her cultivation level was not high, and I was able to escape unscathed.

At twenty-five, I was still unwilling to give up, so I went to jump off a cliff again to find the "immortal's cave," only to end up hanging on a pine tree halfway up the mountain.

It was then that I realized that it's better to live a fulfilling life than to struggle to die.

Growing radishes is still the most practical thing to do.

Plant a seed, water it, fertilize it, and wait for it to grow.

If you're lucky, you can harvest a basket of radishes.

Even if you're unlucky, at least you've witnessed the spectacular sight of seedlings breaking through the soil.

Strangely enough, the moment I buried the seed in the soil, I suddenly understood my father's saying, "Swordsmanship is not as good as farming."

When I was a child, I thought he was just trying to trick me into giving up my spiritual practice and going to farm.

When my father was young, he was a famous swordsman in the martial arts world. But when he was thirty years old and dying, he held a hoe and buried himself in the ground, saying that if he wanted to practice swordsmanship again in his next life, he would be a dog.

The sharpest sword in the world is never used to sever fate, but rather to learn to coexist with it.

Just like how, even though I knew the Cold Dew season was approaching, I still tied straw ropes to the newly planted peach saplings outside the yard to prevent frost damage, hoping that they would bloom with beautiful flowers next year and bear a few sweet fruits in the autumn.

By the way, I re-engraved the tombstone, changing "Tomb of Xiao Wujiu" to "Tomb of Mr. Xiao, the Radish Grower".

That day, my senior called me "the radish grower," and I felt a sense of warmth, as if she were a real cousin to me, with whom I had no blood relation or family ties.

Also, if you ever encounter a crying Sui Sui who says, "The teacher lied to me. He clearly said he would teach us how to write the character '寿' (longevity)," please tell her that I secretly drew an extra little sun on her sand table that day, bigger than everyone else's.

Tell Aunt Wang, who makes shoe soles, that I really don't have any hidden illness, and tell her not to spread rumors, otherwise I might reveal her secret crush on Butcher Li.

My father couldn't break the curse that he would die at the age of thirty, so he gambled on having a child with spiritual roots to break the curse. As a result, he passed away early, and my mother raised me alone, eventually dying young from exhaustion.

I also had an aunt who died young at the age of thirty, without ever getting married.

My grandfather had the same idea as my father back then. He had a son and a daughter, but he only stopped when he saw that neither of them had spiritual roots.

I can't follow their example and ruin good girls. The Xiao family's fate will end with me.

I suddenly remembered that I still had half a jar of plum wine buried under the pear tree, and the red leaf bookmark tucked in the sheet music was only half-finished. I hadn't even taught Bai Yu to recognize the entire "Three Character Classic" yet.

Ultimately, it was too late. If there truly is an afterlife...

(The ink spreads out here, as if the writer had paused for a long time.)

Senior, if you ever meet me again in your next life, please prepare a jar of strong liquor for me to drink, to commemorate this acquaintance.

If I am unfortunately reborn as an animal in my next life, then please pretend you didn't see it.

During this time, because my senior was practicing medicine, I was enjoying the good life, and I felt really bad about it, so I used the one tael of silver that he gave me the other day to make a silver hairpin.

The hairpin's tail is carved in the shape of a crane's feather, because the feeling I got from my predecessor was that of a free and unrestrained crane riding the wind, which is enviable.

A cultivator like you, senior, is exactly what I envision a cultivator should be like.

With the spirit of orchids and the virtue of plum blossoms, and the courage of a swordsman and the heart of a zither.

My ancestors passed down their wealth to me, but there wasn't much left. I pawned the sword to raise money to build this small courtyard and buy half an acre of land.

I can't bear to part with Qin; I want to hold her and come with her.

The remaining few zithers that I made myself, if you are interested, you can take them with you. There are also some zither and sword manuals and zither-making diagrams passed down from my ancestors.

These are all mortal possessions. I hope you won't find them offensive. If you happen to meet someone who truly loves the instrument in the future, you can give them away. That way, when I meet my father in the afterlife, I can give him some peace of mind.

That's all. That's all. It wouldn't be nice to keep rambling on.

I only hope that on the day of Cold Dew, I can play "Never Regret" again and see the sunrise on the mountaintop one more time.

—Xiao Wujiu's last words
(There is a line of small print on the back of the letter: When you have time, please ask your senior to scoop out that half jar of plum wine for me and drink it. Remember to give Baiyu a bowl, but he has a bad temper when he drinks. When he drinks too much, he likes to make loud noises, like he's cursing in the street, haha.)
　There's a bonus chapter after this one on Qidian Reading, which is an AI-generated audio version of Xiao Wujiu's letter. I created it using screen recording on my phone and various clumsy methods, including adding Doubao (a Chinese online shopping platform).

　　I'm not a professional, and Doubao's abilities are limited, so please just listen casually. I just wanted to present my hard work to everyone in a slightly better way. There are bound to be flaws in the audio, so please bear with me.

　　There is background music, but it's a bit quiet, so I recommend listening with headphones.

　　If there's a handsome guy who specializes in recording this, I'd love to record an even better version!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)