New Year

Fireworks exploded in the night sky, and the sudden flash of white light illuminated Qin Ran on the desolate mountain.

On this snowy night, Li Shiyin was setting off fireworks, while Qin Ran was watching the fireworks.

The fireworks Li Shiyin set off were from her family's stash, in the backyard of her home, together with her elder brother, lighting up the dazzling fireworks.

Meanwhile, Qin Ran was watching other people's fireworks. He was alone on a mountain outside the city walls, in the darkness, getting drenched in the rain, watching the fireworks lighting up someone else's night sky.

He was on the outskirts of Qingyuan City, while his parents in this life were inside Qingyuan City.

Qin Ran was someone who placed a lot of emphasis on ceremony and tradition. After arriving in this world, even though he lived alone, he would still observe the traditional festivals from his past life. He would pay respects to his master on Tomb Sweeping Day; make rice dumplings on the Dragon Boat Festival; burn paper money on the Ghost Festival; make mooncakes on the Mid-Autumn Festival; set off firecrackers on New Year's Eve.

He remembered the festivals from his past life, but... he always spent the festivals alone.

In fact, his family in this life were all still around - both parents alive and well, right in Qingyuan City, close to the Dao Sword Sect. If he wanted, he could make the trip back and forth in a day. It was just hard to say if he felt any emotional connection to them.

He had gone up the mountains to cultivate at a very young age, probably only five years old. Plus, he was originally a wandering soul in a different world. How could anyone expect him to have feelings for the parents in this world?

Although he kept tabs on them and secretly helped to make their lives better, in the end, he never met up with them again.

If Li Shiyin had not said she was going home for the new year, perhaps he would not have thought to come here on this day of the new year, to "go home".

"Home" was inside the city, but right now, standing here, what he felt was a loneliness from the entire world. This loneliness had nothing to do with cultivators or mortals, but was because he and this world were out of sync.

The new year... the world was extremely lively, but he had no part in that liveliness.

It rained all night, and Qin Ran, a water-element mage, was drenched to the bone. It was not until dawn that he finally entered Qingyuan City.

When the faintest sliver of light appeared in the east, illuminating the world a little, he turned and left, moving away from Qingyuan City.

Qin Ran located the direction of the Dao Sword Sect, and took step after step, walking back to Dan Peak like a mortal. Perhaps... that was the only place he could call home.

From Qingyuan to the Dao Sword Sect, if he had used his abilities as a cultivator to fly or teleport, he would have arrived in the blink of an eye. But walking like an ordinary human, it took Qin Ran over ten days to make the journey.

He walked step by step, through mud-covered paths, through roads overgrown with thorns, over jagged rocky terrain, across wide rivers and streams, through places without roads, where giant trees and boulders blocked the way. His clothes tore and his shoes fell apart as he slogged through the mud, thorns, gravel and streams barefooted.

He did not know why he insisted on traveling this way, but this was the path he took... as if crossing tribulations on the path of cultivation; to find a home, a place of spiritual belonging, also required "crossing tribulations".

Along the way, he saw hunters who ignored the new year and the cold, venturing alone into the mountains; he saw emaciated, pale old beggar women pleading by the roadside; he glimpsed birds and beasts lurking in the roadside woods; he came across dead bodies on the road; he saw corpses and skeletons in the thickets...

He witnessed the living beings of this mundane world. It seemed that no matter which world, which era, the lives of commoners at the lowest rungs of society were always the same.

The suffering of all living beings.

The new year signified an ending of the old and a beginning of the new, an omen of better days, new hopes for life, a time for... happiness. It should be a time of joy.

But what did this new year have anything to do with the multitudes mired in misery? What did it have to do with him, Qin Ran?

Qin Ran walked several hundred miles in the rain, looking no different from the hobbling beggar women on the roadside, before finally making his way back to the Dao Sword Sect.

He gazed up at the mountain gate of the Dao Sword Sect, and wondered - what difference was there between him, a cultivator of the martial world, and the common people of the mortal world? There was no difference from the wandering destitute beggars.

Looking as shabby as he did, he was even driven away by petty and vicious fellow cultivators... Such an esteemed immortal sect like the Dao Sword Sect, beggars should keep their distance.

So in the end, there was not much separating man from immortal.

He did not bother pursuing the wrongdoing of those outer sect disciples, merely taking out his identity token on his own and opening the passage array into the Dao Sword Sect.

Arriving at Dan Peak, Qin Ran looked up at the mist outside formed by the mountain-protecting grand formation that he had slowly built up bit by bit with his own hands. Dan Peak - this used to be his home in this different world.

But...

Having come this far, he realized that perhaps a person's home was not any one place, but a certain someone instead.

"Sigh!"

He heaved a sigh, and waved his hand to open up the array passage...

And saw that someone.

He didn't know when, but it had stopped raining. On the grassy lawn in front of the little wooden cottage at Dan Peak, two blurry figures in red and white were chasing each other playfully - the red one was Li Shiyin in her red dress, the white one was Chasing the Wind in his snowy fur.

These two rascals could never sit still for a day.

Qin Ran passed through the array and stood watching them from the lawn.

"Master?" Li Shiyin was the first to spot Qin Ran's return, and she dashed over excitedly, originally wanting to give Qin Ran a big bear hug, but halted abruptly when she saw the sorry state he was in. "Master! What happened to you?"

She added, "You look just like Li Shiwen now."

Chasing the Wind ran over as well, and circled Qin Ran, sniffing him all over. The big furball shook his head repeatedly: "Daddy, did someone bully you?"

Qin Ran held down Chasing the Wind's constantly swiveling cat head, and smiled at Li Shiyin as he asked, "When did you come back?"

"I've been back for many days already!" Li Shiyin replied. "I came back right after the new year, of course!"

She looked Qin Ran over, and suddenly her two hands fidgeted with the edges of her dress. Finally, with a maiden's shyness, she lowered her head and said softly, "How would I know Master wasn't at Dan Peak?"

The shy charms of a young maiden were too tempting - Qin Ran desperately wanted to stride forward and wrap her in a tight embrace, to cherish her tenderly, but he didn't. Through tremendous strength of will, he held himself back.

He looked away and answered, "I went wandering about."

Hearing this, Li Shiyin glanced down at Qin Ran's feet and saw that his shoes were torn apart, with a few toes poking out from the uppers.

She took out two pairs of shoes from her cosmic bag and handed them to Qin Ran, her voice growing even smaller, "Master, shoes for you."

These were shoes Yang Yanqi had given to her before she left home. Yang Yanqi had told her, "This is a custom from your mother's side. If you like a boy, you give him shoes, so his steps will never leave your heart."

These were love tokens, signs of affection.

Qin Ran didn't know their meaning. Assuming they were ordinary gifts, he smiled and accepted them, saying, "Thank you."

Hearing the commotion of Qin Ran's return, Long Qiqi poked her head out from the greenhouse. Seeing Li Shiyin's demeanor, she frowned, "Why is Li Shiyin acting so girly today?"

The family of three walked towards the little wooden house. Qin Ran raised his head and saw that the skies that had been overcast, rainy or snowy for over a month, finally cleared of clouds, with rays of sunlight peeking out at the horizon.

The new year had arrived, and so had the spring.