Revelation of the Way of Heaven

Thursday, at a restaurant on East Campus Street.

By October, autumn was in full swing, and the plane trees lining the streets were tinged with yellow. Half-withered leaves hung swaying on the branches, as if making their last struggle before parting.

Xia Ruoyi rested her elbows on the table, holding a cup of milk tea in both hands, her gaze fixed on the sycamore tree outside the window, on the sycamore leaves that seemed about to fall.

On the table was her favorite braised pork ribs, but she barely ate more than two pieces. In fact, she barely ate any rice at all, only occasionally taking a sip or two of milk tea.

Perhaps it was because the atmosphere between the two of them was too awkward. From the moment Qin Xiaochuan met her until now, they had been talking about trivial things, and the rest of the time they were mostly silent. That's why she kept looking out the window, as if there was something outside that attracted her.

This damned silence made Qin Xiaochuan feel a tightness in his chest. He was already starving, but now he had no appetite at all.

He knew he had to break this damn silence.

"Aren't you hungry today?" he asked her.

"Mmm." She nodded gently, but her gaze remained fixed on the view outside the window.

He wanted to tell her about an interesting thing that had happened recently, but when he thought about his life recently, he realized that he had been cultivating almost all of it. As for going to the Church of Saint Dexin with Han Kexin, he couldn't tell her. Even if he did, he figured she wouldn't understand.

"I'll tell you something interesting." In the end, he managed to think of something, but it didn't happen to him.

"What?" Xia Ruoyi finally turned her head and looked at him.

"You know, in the Department of Spiritual Studies, you can learn some strange abilities, such as divination, which is using divination cards to predict things that are about to happen."

He tried his best to explain to Xia Ruoyi in a way that she could understand, and she listened attentively to what he said.

So he continued, "Once, a classmate did a divination for himself, and the result was that he would experience a relationship crisis this month and was very likely to break up with his girlfriend soon. The other classmates all thought he would be heartbroken, but surprisingly, he just cursed the divination, saying it was completely inaccurate and utter nonsense. Everyone knew he was just having a hard time accepting it, so they all tried to persuade him to take it easy, but he wouldn't listen. Then, another classmate said a couple of things to him, and the result shocked everyone. Do you know what they said?"

"What did you say?" Xia Ruoyi asked, taking a sip of her milk tea.

"That classmate said, 'Don't worry, you two won't break up. When you were doing your divination just now, I secretly switched your cards.' After he said that, the whole class burst into laughter."

After Qin Xiaochuan finished speaking, he saw Xia Ruoyi give a forced smile. He knew that she didn't find what she said funny at all, and that her smile was only because she didn't want to disappoint him.

Actually, the humor in this story doesn't come from there, but from what the fortune teller says next. Just as he was about to continue, Xia Ruoyi suddenly smiled and said to him, "Next week is National Day, and we have a week off. I'd like to go back home. Are you going?"

Although she spoke casually, Qin Xiaochuan knew she really wanted him to go back, because she gripped the milk tea cup tightly with both hands as she said it.

Unfortunately, he thought, he really didn't want to disappoint Xia Ruoyi, but he couldn't go back on his promise to Mo Yu, so he could only helplessly tell her, "I have something to do next week and can't go back."

He saw Xia Ruoyi's expression quickly darken. She stopped talking and just lowered her head to drink her milk tea, looking very depressed.

Seeing her like this, Qin Xiaochuan felt bad, so he tried to distract her by talking about something else, continuing the previous topic by asking, "Do you know why that classmate who does fortune-telling keeps saying that fortune-telling is inaccurate?"

"Why?" she replied softly.

"It's not that he couldn't believe the result for a moment, but..." Qin Xiaochuan paused deliberately before laughing and saying, "Because he doesn't have a girlfriend at all, so how could he have broken up with her? That's why he said divination is completely inaccurate."

He thought she would at least laugh when she heard the result, but she seemed not to hear it at all and just gave a soft "hmm".

Qin Xiaochuan felt a little embarrassed and didn't know what to say, so the atmosphere became awkward again.

At this moment, Xia Ruoyi stood up and said, "I want to go back to my dorm."

"Okay," he replied quickly. Just as he was about to pay the bill and take her home, he heard Xia Ruoyi say, "You can continue eating. You don't need to take me home. I want to walk around by myself." After saying that, she picked up her bag and walked out the door by herself.

Qin Xiaochuan stared blankly at her disappearing figure at the door, suddenly feeling a void in his heart, as if a stone was pressing on his chest, making it hard to breathe. He didn't even know what he should do next, and just stared blankly at the sycamore tree outside the window.

A withered yellow sycamore leaf slowly drifted down from the treetop.

***********

At 3 p.m. on Friday, Han Kexin arrived at the gate of Mingde University in her burgundy sports car right on time. The combination of a beautiful woman and a sports car inevitably attracted a lot of attention. Qin Xiaochuan and Guo Shiyi quickly got into the car, and Han Kexin took them to the place where she had arranged to meet Mo Yu.

Qin Xiaochuan carried a backpack, which contained all the equipment they had brought. Still affected by yesterday's events, he was in a low mood and barely spoke after getting on the bus.

Han Kexin sensed that something was wrong with him, so she asked Guo Shiyi, "What's wrong with him?"

Guo Shiyi shook her head and said, "I don't know."

Han Kexin then stopped talking and continued driving.

The meeting place that Mo Yu and they agreed to meet was in a small village in a remote mountainous area. It took more than two hours by car to reach the destination.

When the three arrived at the forest farm, Mo Yu had already been waiting outside for some time.

"You're over an hour late," Mo Yu said mercilessly when he saw them.

"I didn't expect the roads here to be so difficult to navigate," Han Kexin said casually.

"This is just the beginning; the road ahead will be much more difficult," Mo Yu said, leading them toward a wooden house he had temporarily rented in the forest.

Qin Xiaochuan looked at the overcast sky, frowned, and said, "It's going to rain, isn't it?"

"It's very likely, but there's no other way; we can't just turn back," Mo Yu said from the front.

The house that Mo Yu rented was located on a clearing in the mountains. It used to be the residence of the forest ranger. After the ranger retired, the area couldn't find a suitable ranger, so the house remained vacant. That's why Mo Yu was able to rent it from a village at the foot of the mountain.

Mo Yu led them into the wooden house, which had no electricity. He used two miner's lamps to illuminate the room.

Then Mo Yu took out a map and spread it on the table, saying to the three of them, "I've investigated these past few days. The 'Dark Night' organization's base is located in a canyon on this mountain." As he spoke, Mo Yu pointed to a canyon on the map.

Qin Xiaochuan looked at the map and saw a huge mountain split open in the middle. The mountain range on both sides of the crack continued to extend forward for a distance, forming a "人" shape. In front of the canyon was a lake, and in front of the lake was a river flowing out from the mountain. The location was quite hidden. He wondered how Mo Yu knew about this place in the first place.