Chapter 481: You’d Clearly Been Gone for Less Than a Single Day
On the morning of the second day after Tushan Xinhua left, Xiao Mo packed up his things and prepared to move into the detached courtyard at the foot of the mountain.
Tushan Jingci had also, for once, not slept in. She woke up before Xiao Mo left.
After breakfast, Tushan Jingci and Yueshi accompanied Xiao Mo to his new residence.
They arrived at the foot of the mountain.
It was a bamboo courtyard.
The bamboo courtyard was hidden within a bamboo grove.
It was about two sizes smaller than the courtyard where Tushan Jingci lived.
But for Xiao Mo alone, it was more than enough.
And this place really was secluded and tranquil.
He had lived on Elementary Learning Peak for so many years, yet if no one had told him, Xiao Mo would never have known that there was actually a courtyard hidden in this bamboo forest at the foot of the mountain.
He guessed that some scholar of Elementary Learning Peak had once studied here and built this place as a residence. After that scholar left, Cold Mountain Academy had never rented the bamboo courtyard out again.
“Young Lady, Sister Yueshi, please go back first. I can clean this courtyard myself.” Xiao Mo turned around and bowed to the two of them.
“Xiao Mo, let me help you clean.” Tushan Jingci looked at him reluctantly, as if she did not want to leave so soon.
“Young Lady, you are too precious to be helping a servant like me clean. If Madam found out, I’m afraid I’d be punished.” Xiao Mo shook his head and said with a smile, “But once I’m done cleaning, if you want to come sit here, you may do so anytime.”
“All right...”
Tushan Jingci lowered her head. Afraid Xiao Mo would be blamed by her mother, she did not insist, though there was a trace of disappointment in her expression.
“Then go ahead and get busy. If anything comes up, if you need anything, come find me halfway up the mountain anytime.”
“All right. Thank you, Young Lady.” Xiao Mo nodded.
“Then I’m going now.” Tushan Jingci clutched her skirt in her small hands.
“Take care, Young Lady.” Xiao Mo bowed again.
Tushan Jingci had taken only a few steps when she turned back and said to Xiao Mo, “Oh, right. Don’t forget. When I go to class, you still have to come with me.”
“I remember. That is my duty to begin with. I wouldn’t dare forget.” Xiao Mo smiled.
“I-I’m really going now...”
“Mhm.”
Tushan Jingci still wanted to say something, but she did not know how to put it into words.
And somehow, the girl felt that the moment she opened her mouth, she would burst into tears.
In the end, she could only keep turning back every three steps as she slowly walked out of the courtyard and left the bamboo grove.
“All right. Time to work.”
Looking at the courtyard full of fallen leaves, Xiao Mo rolled up his sleeves, picked up a broom, and began sweeping.
Even though he could have cleaned the entire courtyard spotless with a single spell art—
Xiao Mo still preferred doing it by hand.
There was no special reason for it. It was simply that while cleaning a courtyard, his heart would settle into a natural kind of calm.
For Xiao Mo, who cultivated Great Dream of Yellow Millet, that too was a form of cultivation.
Half an hour later, Xiao Mo had swept the fallen leaves from the courtyard until it was completely clean, wiped all the dust from the furniture, and laid out the bedding.
In the afternoon—
Xiao Mo looked at the lush green bamboo in the grove, the tender bamboo shoots pushing up from the ground in the distance, and listened to the chirping of insects. Without realizing it, he slowly closed his eyes and began cultivating Great Dream of Yellow Millet.
Very quickly, he entered a state of complete absorption.
Who knew how much time passed.
A clear breeze swept through the bamboo grove, setting the leaves rustling.
One bamboo leaf drifted down from the air and happened to brush across Xiao Mo’s cheek.
“Young Lady, stop fooling around.”
Xiao Mo spoke almost on instinct.
But when he opened his eyes and looked around, there was no one there at all.
Only a single bamboo leaf had landed on his thigh.
“I really am...”
Xiao Mo picked up the bamboo leaf and muttered half a sentence to himself, then closed his mouth again, shook his head, and could not help but smile.
In the detached courtyard halfway up the mountain, after finishing lunch, Tushan Jingci tried to read for a while.
But the more she read, the more she realized that Xiao Mo’s face kept appearing in her mind, and she simply could not focus.
She put the book down.
Then she wanted to go find Xiao Mo.
But Yueshi stood in front of her. “Young Lady, Madam said that you are not to go looking for Xiao Mo without cause.”
“Sister Yueshi, you don’t have to tell Xiao Mo.”
“Young Lady, that won’t do.”
“Sister Yueshi... just let me go...”
“Young Lady, please do not make things difficult for this servant.”
No matter what she said, no matter how she coaxed or pleaded, it was useless against Yueshi’s obstruction.
Knowing that Sister Yueshi only obeyed her mother’s orders and would never let her go out, Tushan Jingci could only return to her room in frustration.
She lay back down on the bed and stared at the pale pink bed curtains, her beautiful fox eyes blinking slowly.
Scene after scene drifted through the girl’s mind.
At that moment, she remembered many things.
She remembered how, in the past, whenever Xiao Mo sat in the courtyard with his eyes closed in meditation, she would always sneak out of her room and tease his face with a leaf.
Whenever that happened, Xiao Mo would slowly open his eyes, his tone full of helplessness.
She remembered how, when Xiao Mo had fallen asleep before, she would secretly creep into his room, sometimes drawing on his face, sometimes slipping into his blanket and stuffing two fingers into his nostrils.
Every time she woke him up like that, she would beam at him, yet Xiao Mo never got angry. At most, he would merely let out a soft sigh.
She remembered that even though Xiao Mo cultivated Daoist spell arts, even though he was practically half a Daoist priest, he learned Confucian studies very quickly.
And it seemed as if he understood everything.
It was only that when he came across questions that were hard to answer, he would fall silent.
He always seemed to be like that.
As she thought and thought, drowsiness gradually came over the girl. She slowly closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Near evening, awakened by the birdsong outside after having slept her fill, the girl stirred from her dreams.
Still half asleep, she rubbed her eyes, got out of bed, and walked out into the courtyard, mumbling groggily, “Xiao Mo, stop cultivating and come play with me...”
But when her vision cleared, she saw that the courtyard was empty.
Only then did she come fully back to herself—
Xiao Mo had already moved out.
Looking at the quiet courtyard, the girl sat down on the stone stool where Xiao Mo used to sit most often.
No one knew how long she sat there before she rose and walked to the side room, then pushed open the door.
This had been Xiao Mo’s room.
Inside, only the original table, chairs, and wooden bed were left. Everything else had already been moved away.
The girl crouched down and gently sat on the threshold.
She felt as though her heart had become empty too, just like that empty room, as though there was nothing left inside at all.
If there was anything remaining, it was only the faint trace of his scent still lingering in the room.
“You’d clearly been gone for less than a single day.”
The girl hugged her knees and looked at the empty room, her pink fox eyes trembling slightly.
“So why...”
“Why does it feel like you’ve been gone for such a long, long time?”
“Stupid Xiao Mo...”
The girl hugged her knees tighter and buried her head in her arms. Her clear voice trembled faintly.
“Stupid Xiao Mo...”
“Why...”
“Why are you all I can think about?”
Today I had some things to take care of during the day, so I stayed up late and posted one chapter after midnight. I figured that if I really didn’t have time to write, then at least I’d still managed to update one chapter before taking a day off.
But I didn’t expect my train of thought to still be pretty good tonight, so I finished the other chapter too.
Still, I really do need to build up a backlog. Otherwise it’s too troublesome.