Weird Topics

The family of four stayed up late into the night talking in Yang Jinshu’s room.

It was only when Zhu Xiurong could no longer keep her eyes open that, at her insistence, Yang Jinshu escorted her back to the new disciples’ residential quarters to rest.

As for the siblings Liu Yunan and Liu Shengsheng, they did not have particularly strong feelings about suddenly meeting in person the maternal grandmother who had previously existed only in their mother’s stories—nor about the fact that she was now a new disciple. More than anything, they were simply happy for their mother.

Only Yang Jinshu, after returning to her room late that night, sat alone beneath the lamplight. Clutching the urn containing her father’s ashes—the one her mother had given her—she murmured on and on, telling her father this and that.

Over the years, she had accumulated far, far too many things she wanted to tell her parents.

That same night, Lin Xiao heard that Liu Yunan’s maternal grandmother was among this batch of new disciples.

Since the following day would mark the first time Lingxian Sect began teaching cultivation courses to the new disciples, Lin Xiao, who would be the instructor on the opening day, still had a few details to confirm with Liu Yunan.

Seeing that the light in Liu Yunan’s room was still on, he went over to find him.

Lin Xiao had assumed that if Liu Yunan’s lamp was still lit so late at night, he must be working.

Yet the moment he entered, he saw that Liu Yunan—who was normally so busy working that he barely had any free time—was sitting at the table with his cheek propped up, staring blankly into space.

Lin Xiao waved a hand in front of him, then sat down beside him and asked, “What are you thinking about so intently?”

Liu Yunan shook his head slightly and let out a quiet sigh.

“I just feel like I can’t quite figure out whether this world is actually vast or small.”

“What happened to you that you suddenly have time to ponder something like that?” Lin Xiao asked, clearly surprised.

Liu Yunan then told him about how they had reunited with his maternal grandmother, as well as the twenty years his grandmother had spent separated from his mother.

“What? You’re saying your maternal grandmother followed a Foundation Establishment cultivator for nearly three years before finally making her way from the cultivation world to the mortal world?” Lin Xiao was utterly stunned.

Was the cultivation world really that far from the mortal world?

Although he had traveled to the cultivation world many times, he genuinely had not known that.

After all, they had the Qiankun Teleportation Disk. While the fare was not exactly cheap, it was extremely convenient. Besides, Lin Xiao had always been short on time, so he had never personally explored the route to the cultivation world.

Hearing how long the journey took, he was shocked, but he could not help thinking that the cost of the teleportation formation disk had actually been well worth it.

Liu Yunan nodded.

“Exactly. It actually takes three years. If the distance between the mortal world and the cultivation world is already that vast, then the mortal world must contain countless other nations beyond our own. And according to Senior Liao, the cultivation world has many other regions besides the Southern Spirit Region we visited. It’s so enormous that I can’t even begin to imagine it.”

“And yet, in a place that huge, my maternal grandmother somehow ended up in the cultivation world. Then, twenty years later, she somehow managed to make her way back and find my mother again.”

After saying this, he sighed once more, deeply moved.

“It’s just a pity that my maternal grandfather was already old. His health had been ruined while they were fleeing, and he didn’t live long enough to make it back…”

Hearing this, Lin Xiao patted him on the shoulder in consolation.

“The dead are gone, and the living have to keep moving forward. At least your maternal grandmother succeeded in finding Aunt Yang, didn’t she? From now on, you should encourage your grandmother to cultivate more. If she can extend her life, then she and her daughter can make up for all the time they lost.”

As he thought of Liu Yunan’s maternal grandfather, Lin Xiao continued, “You mentioned earlier that you wanted to find a suitable place to bury your maternal grandfather in the next few days. I just had an idea. What if we established a dedicated burial ground within the sect for our fellow disciples and their immediate family members?”

“Huh?” Liu Yunan had not expected the topic to turn so abruptly, and he was momentarily stunned. “Isn’t there already the cemetery hill over by the village?”

Besides, Liu Yunan was only seventeen this year. He had never given much thought to death.

“But that belongs to the village. Many people in our sect aren’t from our village,” Lin Xiao explained. “And as the sect continues accepting new members, the proportion of disciples from Shuisui Village will surely grow smaller and smaller. It wouldn’t be appropriate to bury them in the village cemetery.”

He looked at Liu Yunan and continued, “Although we cultivators aspire to achieve immortality and gain eternal life through cultivation, time is merciless. Even I am only at the Nascent Soul stage. No one knows whether we will truly attain immortality in the future, and no one can guarantee that they will never encounter an accident and be able to cultivate peacefully forever. So I was thinking that we might as well establish a place where the dead can rest in peace from now on.”

“Then you could bury your maternal grandfather there as well. Whenever your family misses him, you’d be close enough to visit and chat with the old man.”

Liu Yunan was won over by Lin Xiao’s proposal.

“All right. I’ll go discuss it with Jiang He tomorrow.”

“Mm. You two can make a preliminary plan first. Once the details are more or less settled, I’ll let everyone know when we should hold a meeting,” Lin Xiao said.

Although this was hardly a joyous matter, it was still something that needed to be discussed with the others.

After all, the two great matters in life were what happened before death and what happened after it.

The people of Shuisui Village were not particularly superstitious about such things.

As the two of them continued talking, the subject gradually wandered farther and farther off course.

It was not until the sky outside began to lighten that they realized morning had arrived.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry! Brother Xiao! You have a class to teach!” Liu Yunan sprang to his feet and urged him on in a fluster.

Lin Xiao hastily swept the teaching materials they had been discussing into his personal storage and hurried out to get to class.

Meanwhile, the new disciples’ residential quarters were just as chaotic.

They had been in the sect for two nights, and now it was time for classes to begin.

However, many of the new disciples had only learned how to dress themselves with the help of their fellow disciples the previous day. They still had no idea how to style their hair!

After sleeping only one night, many of them had not looked too disheveled. A little water was enough to smooth down the stray hairs, and overall, they had still looked presentable.

But now they had slept for two nights.

The elaborate hairstyles their household servants had arranged for them before they came had, for the most part, fallen apart.

And today, of all days, they had to attend class.

Unfortunately, styling hair was much more difficult than putting on clothes. There was no way to teach everyone who did not know how to do it in time.

So those who were skilled at hairstyling first gave them all a simple, low-maintenance hairstyle: high ponytails.

It made them look neat and energetic.

Fortunately, everyone had gotten up quite early. With the enthusiastic assistance of their fellow disciples, those with poor self-care skills at least managed to avoid showing up to class with hair resembling a bird’s nest.

By the time the new disciples began arriving at the cultivation hall one after another, Lin Xiao was already seated behind the lectern.

He casually flipped through the textbook he had placed there.