Chapter 591: Side Story · The God of Wealth and the Penniless Ghost (II)

Side Story · The God of Wealth and the Penniless Ghost (II)

As Lei Laomeng's sighing words fell, Nangong Wumeng's movements froze.

Then, on her face, even though she was already wearing the disguise mask personally crafted by the Gongsun family, a flush of red still swiftly spread across her cheeks; her eyes widened, her gaze shifted away, and she stammered, "W-what are you saying?!"

"W-who's going to marry him?"

"I, I'm just…"

Lei Laomeng said with a chuckle, "Otherwise, with your lazy-boned temperament, how could you, while rebuilding the Yin-Yang Reincarnation Sect, still manage to travel all across this great land, relying on your absurd luck to thoroughly explore so many places?!"

Nangong Wumeng let out a huff.

She picked up her tea and drank.

"Did I?!"

Lei Laomeng saw that Nangong Wumeng's expression was calm and composed, yet her hand was trembling so badly it left a blur of afterimages, causing the tea in the cup to shake, the ripples crashing against the cup walls and bursting layer after layer of tea, wetting her sleeve.

Lei Laomeng shook his head, did not poke through her pretense, but simply rolled up the scroll and tucked it away himself rather than handing it to his guards, saying, "I know your temperament too. We've been following behind Your Majesty since he was fourteen; these dozen-plus years, it's fair to say we're as close as brothers and sisters."

"Nangong, all these years you've often been out there, never staying long in Jingcheng before leaving again. I don't know if you're truly that busy or if you have some other thoughts on your mind, but if there's anything, you can tell us."

"Or go directly and ask His Majesty."

"You keep it all bottled up inside, neither saying it nor letting it out."

Nangong Wumeng lowered her head, gave an "oh," then set down her teacup and put on a foolish grin: "Ehh? What are you talking about, Boss Lei? I can't understand a word of it. What, this time you went back to the Beast-Taming Villa and put your own memorial tablet up there too?!"

She wanted to steer the topic away with laughter and jokes, the way she used to.

But Lei Laomeng did not pick up the thread.

In one hand he held the three-foot-long scroll, the other hand clasped behind his back, a jade belt at his waist, his deep-blue robe subtly embroidered with clouds and morning glow; his once-messy hair had been combed neat and tidy, pinned with a crown, the hair at his temples gone white, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and across his brow grown far deeper.

He stood right there, looking at Nangong Wumeng with a gaze that was calm and peaceful.

The foolish grin that Nangong Wumeng habitually relied on slowly faded away as well.

Lei Laomeng smiled faintly and sighed, "Nangong, your sect is gone. You've used your own salary and military merits to rebuild this Daoist temple, the true lineage of the Daoist gate. But is the temple you stand in now still the same sect it was when your master fished you out of the river?"

"Everything changes. The people and things of the past—even if they're still here, they won't be what they once were."

"Master Tianxian died on the battlefield, Yuwen Hua is gone too, Grandfather Changsun died in battle as well… We've come all this way, and so much has really happened."

"Sometimes, I envy you. Every one of us has changed, more or less."

Within Lei Laomeng's gentle smile lay something that Nangong Wumeng—carefree by nature, her Dao-heart almost divinely whole—could not comprehend.

Her gaze shifted slightly, guilty, yet with perfect righteous indignation she said:

"But you're all still you."

"And I'm still me. What has changed!"

Lei Laomeng burst into laughter. He was genuinely happy, because one of his best friends was still exactly like this, but his laughter gradually grew a touch of loneliness. With a smile that seemed to say, "It's time you grew up," he said:

"We are us, yet no longer the us we were at the start."

"After Fan Qing lost his arm, he never touched a drop of wine again. Every year on the day of that last great battle, he carries wine to the battlefield of that time, and drinks himself blind in front of the burial place of Master Yuwen Tianxian, Yuwen Hua, and the others."

"Khan Qibili has become much more steady; the Right Chancellor is gradually acquiring the bearing of a distinguished scholar."

"For people like you and me, looking back at our former selves now—are we really still the same person?"

"So sometimes, I rather envy you. You've always seemed as if you've never changed, carefree and untroubled; nothing else has been able to leave a mark on your heart. But, Miss Nangong—"

"People change. Everything moves forward."

Lei Laomeng said:

"Are you and His Majesty really going to keep your relationship exactly as it was back then?"

Nangong Wumeng's body stiffened slightly.

Lei Laomeng did not deliberately press the point; he touched on it once and immediately changed the subject.

He knew this old friend too well—knew that if he kept going, this woman could pack her bags that very night, turn around and run, and for months on end no one would be able to find any trace of her.

He laughed heartily: "Enough said. General Nangong, I'll head back to Jingcheng to report on my duties. The Empire's strategy for the next three hundred years will all be built upon this scroll of yours. Lei Laomeng, on behalf of the hundreds of millions of common folk of Great Qin to come, thanks General Nangong."

He cupped his fists in salute: "Many thanks, General. Six years of spring and autumn."

Nangong Wumeng fumbled about in a fluster, and finally could only return the courtesy: "You've worked hard."

Then she waved her hand and said breezily, "Ah, Boss Lei, don't be so stiff and serious—it's not like you're Yan Daiqing."

Lei Laomeng said with a slight smile, "The Right Chancellor is now thirty-five, his child already four. He is both gentle and composed, with the bearing of a distinguished scholar, and his joy and anger no longer show on his face. He's long since stopped being that fake-straightlaced fellow you remember, the one who got so angry his face turned red."

Nangong Wumeng was stunned.

Lei Laomeng, in a manner both gentle and cruel, sketched out the passage of years and the transformation of people right before her eyes.

Lei Laomeng turned, waved his hand, and said, "The world says all things follow the constant principle of change, so everyone laughs at the fool who carved a mark on his boat to find a dropped sword. But think carefully—you, me, all of us who long for the experiences of the past, aren't we also carving marks on the boat to find the sword?"

"I'm off, Nangong."

"Think it over. I'll have wine ready in Jingcheng, waiting for you to come drink."

Lei Laomeng walked off into the distance, chatting and laughing merrily with the little disciples of the Daoist temple, pulling out plenty of pastries, then calling for the scouts he had brought along to leave together. These scouts were each between seven and eight chi tall, long of leg and limb, unsmiling and taciturn.

But after leaving the Daoist temple by barely a li, they could hold back no longer.

"Lord Lei, is that really the legendary one of the first core members of our Fire Qilin Army, who took part in that great expedition of tens of thousands of li back then, followed the Imperial Sovereign across nearly every battlefield in the realm, and yet never once suffered so much as a blade wound—General Nangong?!"

"The legendary founder of Great Qin's first special scout unit, Vanguard General Wumeng."

"That prodigy who could break through just by jumping off a cliff!"

"Great Qin's God of Wealth!"

"The martial-world legend who never runs out of money?!"

The scouts crowded almost right up to Lei Laomeng. Lei Laomeng laughed heartily and said, "Yes, yes, it's all her. But you know only the stories that have been passed around, and they're quite a ways off from the real her."

"Mm, but at least one thing won't be wrong."

Lei Laomeng grinned: "This woman has never been poor a day in her life, ha ha."

He led the cavalry scouts away into the distance.

Inside the Daoist temple, Nangong Wumeng, dressed in plain, threadbare Daoist robes, watched them leave from afar, muttering, "What do they mean by Great Qin scout corps? It must be that fellow Wen Qingyu, spouting nonsense again."

"What do they mean by carving a mark on the boat to find a sword?"

Nangong Wumeng grumbled.

The expressionless little girl behind her said, "Master is running away, that's all."

Nangong Wumeng flew into a rage, picked up the little girl, and with both hands squished the little thing's still-baby-fat cheeks flat, saying, "A tiny Daoist child, what would you know?"

The little Daoist child showed no ripple in her eyes, staring at this teacher who had picked her up.

She said, "Then Teacher, you're hiding here—who are you waiting for?"

Nangong Wumeng said decisively, "No one!"

The little Daoist child rolled her eyes wildly.

"Waiting for His Majesty?"

Nangong Wumeng squatted there, one hand propping up her chin, and said, "No, and besides, that person is His Majesty—Qin Huang, His Majesty, who swept across the world and unified the Nine Provinces. I'm just an orphan from the jianghu."

"Where would I have the reason to wait for him to come?"

The little Daoist child looked at her master.

Even through that mask of disguise, she could see her master's eyes, and within those eyes was a feeling she could not yet identify—was it sorrow, or quiet? Or perhaps a faint sense of inferiority?

She had never imagined that her heartless teacher could wear such an expression.

From the moment Nangong Wumeng picked her up, her master had always been heartless and carefree.

Nangong Wumeng was the first person she had ever seen.

She also had no parents; thinking about it now, she must have been abandoned. There was a jade pendant at her waist with the character "Xie" carved on it. She would have frozen to death, but on that mountain there was a Bai Hu, and the Bai Hu carried her back.

So she grew up drinking the Bai Hu's milk.

She had an elder brother and a younger brother.

Her elder brother was a black tiger, and her younger brother was a Bai Hu.

In any case, she was just a weak, powerless little girl; if there was anything, go tell her useless elder and younger brothers.

Her intelligence had reached the age of three, and she would have become a wild child, but that day, while hugging her younger brother and kicking hard, she suddenly heard a cracking sound, and then looked up.

An old tree on the cliff had fallen, and on it were two bright red fruits.

Then, her teacher dropped down from the sky like a chicken-flying-dog-jumping ruckus.

The little thing's eyes went wide at the time.

She saw behind this beautiful, fairy-like person, a whoosh as an enormous, dazzling golden light burst forth, and then she saw her mother, elder brother, and younger brother all pinned down by her teacher and petted like stroking cats.

In the end, she was carried off. Her teacher, frowning and worrying, thought it over and over, took the meaning of "the great Dao follows nature," and gave her the name 【Xie Ziran】. Only, over these years, it was unclear whether it was this teacher taking care of her, or she taking care of her teacher.

She really didn't know why her teacher had inexplicably found her.

Xie Ziran sighed expressionlessly, patted her teacher, and said:

"Then Teacher, you're not waiting for the Emperor."

"You're waiting for Li Guanyi?"

"Mm."

Nangong Wumeng answered. Xie Ziran had thought her teacher wouldn't answer; hearing the reply, she herself was stunned, instinctively raised her head, and saw that her teacher was still wearing the disguise mask.

But even the disguise mask could not completely conceal the woman's ears beneath her dark hair, burning red as fire.

"Then will he come?"

"I don't know…"

………………

And on this day, an old man, having passed through layers of checkpoints, crossed the Central Plains, the Eastern Sea, and the Western Regions, finally succeeding in arriving among the mountains.

Tu Shengyuan raised his hand, his sleeve slid down, he wiped the sweat from his forehead, then wiped the fruit he had found on his clothes, didn't mind, put it in his mouth and bit down hard—crunch crunch—juice splattering everywhere.

The old storyteller threw back his head and let out a long howl, sighing with emotion.

"Finally, finally!"

"This old man is safe!"