Chapter 97: You Don't Recognize Me?

“So what’s so special about this Black Forest?”
“I don’t know either,” Liang Si shook his head. “I don’t even remember where I read this story. I have no memory from before joining the Upper Cloud Sect.”
“So, is it possible this is an image from your previous memories?”
“I don’t know,” Liang Si replied, helpless.
His past was like a blank sheet of paper—he could recall almost nothing, except for that dream conjured by the old Daoist through an illusion.
“But, Senior Brother! I just wanted to hear a story. Why tell me something so heavy?”
“Because you asked me the other day if a desert could ever become a forest. I’ve been thinking about it for days, and today, the name ‘Black Forest’ suddenly came to me.” Liang Si found it odd himself.
And as luck would have it, with a suspicious character nearby, his gaze landed on the god who had descended from the heavens.
“Why are you looking at me?” The man scratched his head.
His face had become more human-like these days, hair sprouting here and there, though sparsely, making him look rather unkempt—not exactly pleasant to the eye.
“Did you do something to me?”
“Don’t accuse me unfairly,” the man snapped.
It was nighttime, and the two siblings had built a fire. The chicken spirit had yet to return, and with no one to look after them, the man had come over to warm himself by the flames.
Though they found it hard to believe that even gods could feel cold, the siblings didn’t drive him away.
“I find this place strange, too.” He grunted.

Half a day earlier.
“Senior Brother, it’s a good thing we didn’t go in,” Wang Xi said, staring at rows of cured meat in the mirror, her legs trembling as if she suddenly understood something. “Senior Brother, I’m not dead, am I?”
“Hmm?” Liang Si didn’t much care whether Wang Xi was dead or alive.
In his worldview, as long as Wang Xi had been taken in by Wen Jinge, it was his duty to protect her.
Because when they parted, Wen Jinge had handed Wang Xi to him whole and unharmed, though he couldn’t say exactly why.
When he first entered the Upper Cloud Sect, he’d been eager to kill his master, yet he never wanted to disappoint Wen Jinge, even though she’d barely taught him anything.
“Does it matter if you’re dead or not?” he asked.
“Of course it matters. If I didn’t die fifty years ago, I could be sure I’d never hurt you.”
“Oh,” he nodded indifferently.

“Senior Brother, now that you’re at the sixth rank, that mother and son must have been rushing us out for that reason, or perhaps to make you abandon me.” Wang Xi clung to his arm, swinging it back and forth. “But, Senior Brother, why can’t I sense their presence at all?”
“They’re not like profound masters, nor like demons or ghosts. What do you think they are?”
Liang Si didn’t hurry to answer her trivial questions, but continued to gaze absentmindedly at the scene within the memory stone.
Frightened, the chicken spirit had revealed its true form—a plump pheasant, half its feathers plucked for some unknown reason, flapping its wings in a desperate attempt to escape the courtyard.
Sadly, she was timid by nature.
And just then, the fruit trees, the vegetables, even the well in the yard began to transform. The courtyard itself seemed to turn into a man-eating beast, leaving her paralyzed with terror.
“Master, Master, where are you? Are you abandoning me?”
“Master, come save me, please!”
“My good Master, I don’t want to die, save me!”
“Master, cutting off my flesh will hurt—I’m afraid!”
“Boo hoo…”
“You won’t die, so what’s the point of saving you?” The paper man snorted, apparently bored, and stopped watching the memory stone.
“At least you were the one who gave her human form. Now she’s neither human nor demon. If she wasn’t bound to you, she wouldn’t have fallen into such danger.”
“Foolish!” the paper man said again.
He walked ahead, sunlight spilling on him. Wang Xi rubbed her eyes—in that instant, he seemed to be melting.
“Master!”
The chicken spirit in the memory stone let out one last cry. Then, the scene spun; it was as if someone had discovered the stone.
Wang Xi had only time to gasp before a huge maw swallowed everything whole, and the memory stone grew dim.
Silence fell. Who knew if the stone that could transmit images was now broken?
“Throw it away.” Liang Si snatched the memory stone, formed a fire seal with his fingers, and as the stone shattered, a distant blaze erupted—in the direction of that little courtyard.
“Not dead, but can’t come back,” the paper man from the heavens murmured, “How interesting. What an intriguing place the lower realm is.”
“What did you discover?” Liang Si asked him.
He hadn’t noticed the courtyard at first. If Wang Xi hadn’t wanted to go in and buy a melon, he might never have realized there was such a secluded little house nearby.
Naturally, he hadn’t told anyone about this discovery.
“Can’t sense it. Not of this world, yet truly present,” the paper man said, shaking his head in wonder as he looked at Liang Si. “You’re the same.”
“How so?”
“You can’t be seen either. Like a dead man, but still alive.”
Liang Si didn’t understand. Wang Xi was equally bewildered. “What riddles are you two speaking in? That chicken spirit—do you really intend to abandon it?”
“If it can’t be saved, it won’t be saved.”
“What does that mean? If you want to speak, speak plainly. Don’t act like a monk, chanting all day long. My master can’t stand monks, yet she always wanted us to study Buddhist cultivation just so we could argue with them. I think you’d make a fine disciple for her.”
“Wang Xi!” Liang Si had always been gentle as the eldest disciple, but this time, his underlying agitation seeped into his voice.
“Does your master dislike monks or Buddhist cultivators?” The paper man clutched his head and rolled on the ground as if worms crawled in his mind, muttering and foaming at the mouth. “Seems there was someone else who didn’t like them… Who? I’ve forgotten, I can’t remember.”
“Why did I come here?” He seemed to have lost his senses, swaying as he stood up, looking around in a daze before wandering over to Wang Xi. “Girl, kill me, will you?”
“What madness is this now?”
“Madness?” The paper man hesitated. “Someone went mad, yes. We… we came to beg her to kill us. What was her name? She said, ‘Drink today’s wine, sing today’s song, live today’s life’—in this life, she’s called Jinge.”
“Master?” Wang Xi frowned. The paper man patted her shoulder twice—she felt as if her bones might shatter.
She was about to push him off when she heard him mutter, “Girl, at night, it’s not safe here.”
“You don’t recognize me?” Wang Xi seemed to realize something.
“Traveling alone, be careful.”
“Alone… Senior Brother…” Her lips parted. Her Senior Brother was sitting right beside her—how could she be alone?
“Should I recognize you?” The paper man furrowed his brow. “Let me ask you—what’s the greatest sect in the world?”
Wang Xi: …
“And who wields the world’s greatest sword?”
“Wen… Wen Jinge.”