"Every year, immortals come to the city to test spirit roots and recruit disciples. Children with spirit roots are taken away by the immortals, and after that, they never return."
Jiang Zhaoye's interest was piqued. "Recruit disciples? When?"
"Autumn." Ah Ya blurted out without having to think. "Every year, right around when the weather just starts turning cold, notices are posted in the city. Then the immortals arrive from the sky aboard flying ships."
Listening to Xiao Ling's translation through his earpiece, Jiang Zhaoye nodded. Although he was a bit surprised that a child like Ah Ya knew all this so clearly, he still took mental note of the information.
Then, another question occurred to him, and he frowned, asking, "Do the immortals... not care about you? For instance... the refugees outside the city, the famine... do they not intervene?"
On Blue Star, diverting water from south to north, constructing dams, altering the weather, or reversing disasters were effortless feats for high-rank psionicists. As a result, present-day Blue Star faced almost no threats to its people outside of war, to say nothing of tragic sights like miles of strewn corpses or exposed bones left to rot in the wild.
Ah Ya snapped his head up, looking at him with a very strange expression, as if he had just heard something utterly unthinkable.
"Why would immortals care about the affairs of mortals?" he said, his tone carrying pure and genuine confusion. "As long as demonic cultivators aren't slaughtering whole cities or wiping out kingdoms on a grand scale, the immortals won't get involved."
"How exalted are the immortals? Mortals... are nothing more than ants. If they die, they die. What does any amount of famine have to do with the immortals?"
The child spoke with utter naturalness, as though stating the most ordinary fact imaginable.
It was as if it were an unshakeable ironclad law.
Jiang Zhaoye fell silent.
Sitting in the desolate, dilapidated house, he watched this thin, small child speak the words "mortals are nothing more than ants" in the calmest tone imaginable, cold as if he weren't even referring to himself... A chill rose uncontrollably in his heart.
Such an absurd sense of contrast made him involuntarily miss Blue Star.
On Blue Star, although psionicists held high status, they were equally bound by the law. Protecting ordinary citizens and safeguarding their homeland were responsibilities that all psionicists embraced from the moment they began cultivating.
In fact, the very existence of the Psionic Bureau was meant to handle all manner of disasters and crises to ensure the safety of regular people.
But things were different here.
Here, the so-called "immortals"—the practitioners—seemed to have become a completely different species from mortals. They existed like deities, truly elevated above ordinary human beings... No, even the gods and Buddhas in myths held duties to protect their believers and balance the wind and rain.
These beings were not even equal to gods.
They cared nothing for famines, nor for life and death, concerning themselves only with their own cultivation. In their eyes, mortals were no different from weeds by the roadside.
Jiang Zhaoye suddenly had a moment of realization as to why those people died, and why Ah Ya lived with such hardship, vigilance, and caution. Because in this world, no one would protect them.
Everyone could rely only on themselves, like stray dogs struggling to survive in the cracks.
Jiang Zhaoye was silent for a long time before speaking up. "Then... does Ah Ya want to become an immortal?"
Ah Ya froze for a moment and couldn't help lowering his head again, his coarse hair standing on end, showing a dead-grass yellow in the dim light.
Jiang Zhaoye noticed that this child seemed particularly fond of keeping his head down.
After a long silence, Ah Ya finally spoke in a voice so quiet it was nearly inaudible. "I do. But Ah Ya's spirit root is too poor... It was actually tested before. Ah Ya only has the worst kind, a miscellaneous spirit root. The immortals won't take me."
The child's voice was very calm, but Jiang Zhaoye could tell that beneath that calm lay a surging tide of emotion.
Showing high emotional intelligence, he didn't press the matter further. Instead, he pulled another steamed cake from his bundle and held it out. "Want more?"
Things being as they were, eating came first.
Ah Ya didn't answer whether he wanted to eat or not. He simply took the steamed cake and carefully tucked it into his shirt. As he hid it, he stole timid glances at Jiang Zhaoye, as though intending to save it for the next meal.
Watching this, Jiang Zhaoye felt his heart ache slightly once more, but he said nothing.
Taking his silence as tacit approval, Ah Ya relaxed, his face showing a hint of happiness.
Only at moments like this did his face display the pure colors belonging to a child,
rather than behaving like an old soul in a small body.
Feeling he had stayed long enough, Jiang Zhaoye stood up, patted off the dust on his clothes, put the veiled hat back on, and walked toward the doorway.
Reaching the doorway, he turned back to look at Ah Ya, who was standing there in a daze. "I... am staying at the White Foal Inn in the south of the city, Heaven-rank Room No. 3."
"If you... ever need anything, you can come find me."
Holding the steamed cake that puffed out the chest of his clothes into a large bulge, Ah Ya tilted his small head up and stared at him absentmindedly, a flicker of light flashing through his dark pupils.
Without waiting for his answer, Jiang Zhaoye turned and walked out of the dilapidated house that was practically a hazard. Ju City was surprisingly vivid today. He narrowed his eyes, straightened the dagger at his waist, and stepped into the golden sunlight.
Behind him, Ah Ya stood in the dim, dilapidated house, his small frame leaning down to glance at the steamed cake in his chest before raising his eyes to look at the departing back at the doorway. His gaze darkened slightly, carrying an indescribable emotion.
He seemed to be weighing something. After a long moment, he shoved the steamed cake deeper into his chest and rushed after him.
Jiang Zhaoye hadn't walked far from the broken house when he heard a pattern of light, rapid footsteps behind him.
He glanced back to see Ah Ya following three or four paces behind him. Seeing him turn around, the child instantly halted and snapped his head down, standing rigidly in place as though he had done something wrong.
Jiang Zhaoye felt like laughing. "Why are you following me?"
Being a top student to begin with, combined with the heightened senses and mental strength from cultivation, he had already gained experience after mimicking Xiao Ling for so long. His speech was gradually becoming much smoother.
Ah Ya raised his head, his dark, bright eyes stealing a timid glance at him, his trembling eyelashes looking surprisingly long in the sunlight. "Where is... Benefactor going?"
"Just walking around."
Ah Ya thought about it seriously before saying, "Ah Ya can lead the way for Benefactor."
After saying that, as if afraid of being rejected, he hurriedly added, "The eastern side of the city, every street and alley, Ah Ya knows them all!"
Seeing the child's apprehensive yet expectant expression, Jiang Zhaoye did not refuse.
After all, he genuinely needed a guide. Although Xiao Ling could gather intelligence, there were things that couldn't be discerned from data alone.
"All right." He nodded with interest. "You lead the way. I'll give you silver and buy you food."
Ah Ya's eyes brightened, but he quickly suppressed his excitement, nodding rapidly with eager hums. Walking ahead of him, he looked left and right vigilantly, glaring like a young beast at the lurking "neighbors" around them, and tactfully chose the path least rough on the feet as he led him out of the alley.
Rate on N.U.
