Qin Shu had actually been badly startled.
Even after he and Pei Zhao were seated on the soft sofa inside Granny A-Shu’s home and treated to some fresh Yunnan-olive juice, the lingering unease still had not completely faded.
Because Granny A-Shu was blind.
Both of her eyeballs were gone. Only two empty hollows remained, the sockets visibly collapsed inward. Whenever she spoke or walked, her eyelids twitched and opened unconsciously, occasionally pulling apart into a thin slit and exposing the bottomless darkness within.
Yet this blind old woman had just seemed to compliment their clothing. Mm, she had even used a tone that suspiciously sounded like she was praising funeral clothes. Combined with that unnaturally youthful voice, the contrast was so severe that Qin Shu could not stop the hairs on his body from rising.
At the time, Qin Shu had immediately turned around and locked his gaze onto Chen Shui, the only person who might possibly understand what was happening, only to discover that Chen Shui wore exactly the same confused expression, along with a poorly concealed trace of revulsion and chills.
I told you she was weird.
Chen Shui silently mouthed the words, then turned and fled.
He did not even flee alone. He snapped his fingers, had A-Dou hoist him onto one shoulder, and disappeared. The muscular corpse with effectively endless stamina moved like the wind, vanishing among the mountain trees in an instant.
After being decisively abandoned, Qin Shu and Pei Zhao had barely stepped through the door before the exceptionally friendly Granny A-Shu began feeding them all kinds of things.
There was fruit juice and canned walnut milk on the tea table, along with a plate of freshly baked flower cakes still giving off steam.
Qin Shu had never seen flower cakes steaming before. Fresh from the oven, they were completely different from the souvenirs sold in airport shops. The handmade round pastries were slightly irregular in shape, but the ingredients were obviously generous. A rich floral fragrance mingled perfectly with flaky pastry and honey, and eating them while hot was an entirely different experience.
There was another plate of sweets that looked like little snowballs. Granny called them cream huibing, the kind of pastry elderly people still loved even after losing all their teeth. One bite was extraordinarily soft and dense, carrying both a faint pepper-salt savoriness and a rich creamy fragrance. Even after eating several, they never became cloying.
Elio’s Notes: Cream huibing is a Yunnan-style baked pastry made from fermented dough. It is characteristically pale and soft, with a lightly sweet, salty, buttery flavor.
Naturally, Qin Shu liked them, but he ate very cautiously. Before allowing his mouth anywhere near the food, he carefully examined every dessert and drink on the table. Then he pulled Yuanbao out of his sleeve and personally made the little centipede conduct another close-range inspection.
Only after the Cave God’s own son personally certified that there were truly no terrifying Gu creatures or poisonous substances hidden inside did Qin Shu dare start eating.
Seeing the two boys enjoying themselves, Granny A-Shu actually turned around and began making lunch in the kitchen, insisting that they stay for a bowl of sour-and-spicy rice noodles.
According to her, this was the flavor Zhang Mei Jiang had loved when she was little. Qin Shu had originally been somewhat restless, but the moment Granny said that, he suddenly lost all desire to refuse.
Because Xu Qian had gone outside last night to be alone and clear her head, then failed to return all night. It was nearly lunchtime now, and the eyeball still had not come back.
Letting that melancholy eyeball wander around alone made Qin Shu genuinely uneasy. He was terrified someone might catch it, but even when he sent Yuanbao to call for it, the eyeball refused to return.
Since calling it back did not work, he could only lure it with material temptation—for example, the sour-and-spicy rice noodles its girlfriend had loved as a child. That would definitely appeal to the eyeball, so Qin Shu decided to sit and wait.
Besides, Granny A-Shu’s baking really was excellent. Even Pei Zhao seemed to like the soft white pastries and had eaten several more than usual.
Granny A-Shu’s kitchen was actually a small, semi-open room built around a heated brick platform. There was no door, only a thin bamboo curtain that allowed both air and light through.
Whenever the wind blew, the bamboo curtain swayed lightly. Beyond it, Granny A-Shu was already putting rice noodles into the pot, moving with an efficiency far beyond her age.
Qin Shu bit into half a flower cake and discreetly turned sideways to watch. Every movement she made was far too smooth; she did not move like a blind person at all.
She chopped vegetables quickly. Whenever bits of scallion or cilantro flew onto the counter, she wiped them up directly with a cloth and swept them into a basket with the other kitchen scraps. The skins of blanched tomatoes came off in complete sheets, and she tossed them into a small black jar beside the heated brick platform.
Vegetable and fruit peels followed one after another, yet something inside the jar suddenly gave several faint, strange cries. It sounded like a cat wailing deep in a spring night, but with the rough frequency of a crow’s call mixed into it, as if two sets of vocal cords were vibrating together.
Granny A-Shu paused, then accurately kicked the corner of the jar with the pointed toe of her cloth shoe. The unidentified creature inside instantly fell silent.
The entire sequence was so smooth that no matter how Qin Shu looked at it, she did not resemble a blind person. And no matter how he looked at it, she definitely did not possess the agility of an ordinary centenarian.
Meanwhile, the intense fragrance of seasonings boiling inside the pot seized the opportunity to drift rapidly through the gaps in the curtain while Qin Shu was full of questions.
The chili was not overwhelmingly strong. Its main purpose seemed to be adding aroma and color.
Granny A-Shu emerged carrying a clay pot that was bubbling loudly and set it heavily onto the tea table in front of them. A rich tomato sourness immediately rushed into Qin Shu’s face.
The tomatoes had been grown by Granny A-Shu herself, fresh and beautiful, overflowing with juice.
“Granny, should I go get the bowls and chopsticks?” Qin Shu tentatively stood.
He took two steps, and when Granny A-Shu did not stop him, he became slightly bolder.
Her house was small and simply decorated, but she was clearly meticulous and extremely clean. Qin Shu only needed to sweep his peripheral vision over the room once before the vigilance in his heart unconsciously relaxed.
There were no elaborate or luxurious decorations inside, few totems, hanging paintings, or ornaments, but the kitchen gleamed. The cabinets were extraordinarily neat. There was an expensive dishwasher and a dedicated sterilizing cabinet, along with all kinds of iron pots, ceramic pots, and clay pots meant for different purposes. The sturdiest iron wok was even an old premium brand from more than twenty years ago. Back then, buying the complete cookware set would have cost nearly ten thousand yuan.
Qin Shu wondered whether she was simply an expert who loved cooking, or whether she used all these pots and utensils to prepare other things. Perhaps both. That would certainly explain why advanced cleaning and sterilization mattered so much.
He opened the dishwasher and took out three clean sets of bowls and chopsticks. As he naturally turned around, his gaze moved with him and lightly fell upon the black jar near his feet, as though he had merely glanced down by coincidence.
See Through.
Once he had seen clearly, Qin Shu immediately pulled his gaze back to his own hands. The entire process took less than half a second, and then he casually turned and returned to the living room as though nothing had happened.
This was something Qin Shu had practiced over the past week or so by constantly staring at Pei Zhao.
The longer he practiced, the more Qin Shu found ways to amuse himself. For example, he would challenge himself to secretly watch Pei Zhao from different angles while holding his breath, lowering his presence, and trying his hardest not to let Pei Zhao notice that he was staring… although he had never once succeeded.
Still, all that back-and-forth had genuinely made him quite skilled. At least with this kind of extremely brief use of See Through, Qin Shu had already practiced countless times. Repetition had reduced the mental cost to the absolute minimum, and activating and withdrawing it instantly was no problem whatsoever.
As for what was actually inside that little black jar… Qin Shu’s emotions became complicated.
It looked like an entire jar of python flesh in the middle of fermentation. The snake had been cut open and completely deboned, leaving only strange pink chunks of dense meat. Hidden among the flesh was a bizarre long arthropod, a portion of its body tangled and trapped inside the snake meat. Fermented flesh coated in rice wine and white salt was gradually corroding the creature, slowly dissolving and rotting it away.
Terrifying.
Even though Qin Shu understood that this was probably one method of raising Gu, staring any longer really would destroy his appetite. He needed less curiosity. He could not casually look at everything. Eating lunch was more important.
Qin Shu quietly exhaled, carried the bowls and chopsticks back to the sofa as though nothing had happened, and sat directly beside Pei Zhao.
“Thank you, good child.” Granny A-Shu sat on the low wooden chair across from them. She picked up the soup ladle, served herself a bowl of scalding red broth, and drank several mouthfuls first. “I won’t serve yours. Help yourselves. Eat plenty. Soft rice noodles are very easy to digest.”
Her action was obviously another gesture of goodwill. She was deliberately demonstrating that the food she had prepared was safe to eat and contained no malicious trick.
Qin Shu relaxed slightly and cooperatively accepted the ladle. He would never assume that his experience and scheming could compare with those of a healthy hundred-year-old woman, especially when she had genuinely lived through war, tremendous social upheaval, and countless separations between life and death. Their levels of experience were worlds apart.
If Granny A-Shu truly wanted to plot against them, there was no reason to waste so much food and drink. Someone who had survived famine would not casually waste food.
Rather than worrying alone while pretending everything was fine, Qin Shu decided it was better to relax a little. Eat first, think afterward.
He filled two bowls with rice noodles, and the familiar sensation of hunger returned beneath the rich aroma.
He had to admit that the pot looked excellent. The broth was an almost glaring bright red produced entirely from stewed tomatoes, decorated with spices and chopped scallions, with a thin sheen of oil floating over the surface. The snow-white rice noodles had been cooked soft but springy, gently rolling inside the clay pot that retained heat exceptionally well. Layers of steam rose one after another and warmed Qin Shu’s face.
The noodles had soaked up the broth and were both flavorful and pleasantly elastic. They were extremely appetizing, and Qin Shu ate three bowls in one sitting, returning Granny A-Shu’s goodwill with his appetite.
By the end, when all three of them were slightly overfull, the enormous pot had been finished perfectly. There was barely any broth left.
Qin Shu’s plan succeeded. Halfway through the meal, the eyeball stealthily crawled out from beneath the sofa, quietly hopped into the soup pot, and extended wriggling, fleshy tendrils from itself to absorb the remaining broth at the bottom into its body. For a brief moment, the eyeball turned orange-red, then it secretly rolled back into Qin Shu’s pocket and sat there quietly, pretending nothing had happened.
Only then did Granny A-Shu happen to pick up the soup pot. She shook it lightly and said with satisfaction, “Looks like I prepared exactly the right amount. An eighteen-year-old boy should have an appetite like this. Very good. Granny will take the opportunity to wish you a happy birthday too. Study hard and keep improving.”
“Thank you, Granny A-Shu. I’ll study hard…” Qin Shu forced out a smile.
He had felt perfectly comfortable while eating. Now that the meal was over, he became uncomfortable again.
Because Granny A-Shu’s voice was gentle as water. It sounded like that of a woman in her thirties or forties, even carrying a little more elegance than Su Ting Lian’s voice, but her appearance could nearly be described as gruesome.
Whenever she smiled and narrowed her eyes, the shapeless empty sockets were squeezed into strange forms, faintly revealing malformed tissue growing within the flesh. Against the intensely domestic atmosphere of the living room, Qin Shu inexplicably felt a bizarre combination of warmth and horror. It was as though he had somehow acquired a gentle, caring ghost grandmother. The contrast was simply too strong, and it kept getting stronger.
“Granny, thank you very much for your hospitality. Can we talk about serious matters now?” Qin Shu’s expression remained unchanged, but one hand instinctively slipped around Pei Zhao’s waist. He squeezed lightly and decided on a quick and decisive battle.
“Of course. I know why you’re here. Ask anything you like.”
“All right… I’ll list everything I want to know first. You can decide which questions you’re willing to answer. Anything you don’t want to discuss, you can simply ignore.”
Qin Shu lowered his head and thought briefly, then the questions began firing out one after another.
“What do you think about the huge hole beneath the Drum Tower? Based on your experience, can human effort alone solve it? And who in Phoenix Village do you think would be easiest to manipulate into committing crimes? Who would have enough ability to secretly carry out some large-scale wrongdoing without anyone noticing?”
Then Qin Shu suddenly remembered Chen Li Chi’s deeply wrinkled face. He paused before asking another question.
“And you’ll be participating in tomorrow’s joint burial too, right? Grand Shaman Chen’s plan is rather extreme, so I’m worried… Do you know about it? Is there anything we need to watch out for?”
“I know. And I’ll be there. But I can’t control that stubborn little old man. He’s been like a stone since he was young—smelly and hard.” Granny A-Shu shook her head, answering the final question first while pouring them two more cups of Yunnan-olive juice. “Good children, don’t rush. Wet your throats first.”
She gathered the bowls and chopsticks into the pot and refused Qin Shu’s offer to help. Carrying everything back into the kitchen herself, she poured the remaining scraps of broth into the black jar.
As she cleaned, she continued speaking. At last, a faint trace of uncontrollable age appeared inside her reflective tone.
“Everyone has their own allotted destiny. That old man is tired. He wants to die, so let him die. When I was young, I didn’t believe in fate either. I always thought… My eyes may be blind, but my heart is not. I must be the special one, Heaven’s chosen child, destined to be different from everyone else. I could fight my way toward survival. I could overturn Heaven and reshape the earth.”
“You really are Heaven’s chosen child, aren’t you?” Qin Shu watched her back. “You have a magnificent past, a safe and prosperous present, and a body healthy enough to move around freely. If this were ancient times, even the emperor would have to respectfully invite you to dinner in person. You could basically do whatever you wanted.”
Qin Shu was deliberately flattering her, but he was also testing her.
“Do whatever I wanted… That’s an interesting phrase. Hahaha.” Granny A-Shu laughed. “What magnificent past? I was simply lucky and fought with everything I had. This world was cruel to me, so I became crueler than the world. I fought harder than it did. If I won, then I became a genius, a hero. If I had lost back then, who today would remember some dried bones lying in a mountain ditch?”
She opened a cabinet. Her thin hand reached into another tiny jar no larger than an egg. After calmly digging around inside for a moment, she withdrew two lumps of soft, moist red clay. There was no unpleasant odor, only the faint earthy smell of soil.
“It’s true. My luck really was excellent. A blind child who couldn’t work, a weak little girl with no strength—I wandered around the village entrance stumbling everywhere. I had countless chances to fall into a cave and die, or tumble into a manure pit and drown, yet somehow I never died. I stubbornly survived and managed to accomplish something. But when I think back on everything now… was I truly lucky?”
As she spoke softly, Granny A-Shu patiently rolled the two lumps of red clay between her palms, gradually forming smooth little spheres, while answering her own question.
“No. Surviving until today is simply the limit of what my allotted destiny permitted me to accomplish. Whether in life or death, there is a limit to the value any person can create, and in the end, that value is destined to be used by the world.”
Qin Shu gave a half-understanding “Oh,” then turned toward Pei Zhao and quietly asked, “Zhaozhao, do you understand what she means?”
“Mm. She believes in fate.” Pei Zhao thoughtfully rubbed the cold cat’s-eye stones around his wrist. “She believes she is also only duckweed carried along by the tide of an era, one small screw inside the machinery of destiny. Every individual struggle, gain, loss, and achievement is merely one piece contributing to the greater movement of Heaven’s Dao. Once that larger course settles into its final shape, the life, death, success, or failure of any single person cannot alter the outcome. Everything is connected through karmic ties.”
“…”
Reading comprehension really did produce different results when someone with a good brain handled it. Qin Shu gave an “Mm” but did not offer an opinion.
Lately, he really had been thinking about allotted destiny more often, especially after another deep conversation with Pei Zhao last night. His mindset occasionally fluctuated and refused to settle.
After all, so many cultivators around him believed in fate. People who rejected it when young often came to believe in it when old, which was enough to suggest that fate and divination possessed some unusual quality. Besides, specialized traditions truly existed—divination, astrology—and some masters genuinely could glimpse another person’s future allotted destiny. If the future could be seen, then the future must leave traces before it arrived. Thinking about it that way, Qin Shu did not dare simply dismiss fate.
But if he were asked to accept it completely, he felt equally uncomfortable. He simply could not agree with it entirely.
Until he personally witnessed some supposedly predetermined path come true, he did not want to make any declaration about intangible fate. He had only just turned eighteen. There was plenty of time and plenty of room to be wrong.
He had every reason to question things, and he ought to maintain some degree of doubt toward everything.
So Qin Shu remained silent and waited while Granny A-Shu rolled the pills into their most perfectly rounded shape.
Holding the two smooth red spheres, Granny A-Shu returned to the living room and personally handed one to each boy. Her expression was solemn.
“Keep these safe. When absolutely necessary, swallow them. This red clay was prepared using a secret art bestowed upon me by the Cave God. Countless ages of Phoenix Village’s wind, frost, snow, rain, and the essence of all living things are condensed inside… Not that false god. The true Cave God.”
“Thank you.”
Pei Zhao remained perfectly polite—and perfectly unceremonious. He immediately accepted the red pill, his decisiveness making Qin Shu freeze for a moment.
Qin Shu looked down at the small sphere resting in his palm. A strange warmth seemed to spread through his skin. It wound through the lines of his flesh, flowed rapidly toward the center of his brow and into his dantian, and instantly erased the uncomfortable fullness left from lunch.
Good stuff.
The little object clearly looked like nothing more than a pale-red ball of clay, a completely ordinary handful of soil, yet when Qin Shu brought it closer, he found that he simply could not make out what it contained. The harder he stared, the more quickly dizziness and heat flooded his head, as though he had swallowed some absurdly potent traditional medicine meant to nourish the body.
This was definitely excellent stuff. Yuanbao was already making a scene inside Qin Shu’s mind, practically drooling with greed.
Qin Shu asked quietly, “Granny A-Shu, this pill must be very valuable. Why are you giving it to us so easily? You don’t need to ask us more questions? What if I’m actually something terrible?”
Granny A-Shu laughed again. She bent down, opened a drawer beneath the tea table, took out a small burlap pouch, and handed it to Qin Shu. “A blind person cannot see the colors of the flowers and grass in this world, but often becomes better at music, better at cooking, and better at seeing the human heart.”
“Child, there is no person beneath Heaven who is purely and absolutely good. There are only little balls of mud formed from conscience and selfish desire kneaded together until black and white are difficult to distinguish, then seasoned with upbringing, experience, and faith. Different times provide different heat. What flavor of human heart will ultimately be cooked from all that? That is far too complicated. One has to live to my age before one can roughly tell at a glance.”
“…That is an extremely specific metaphor, but it makes sense.” Qin Shu accepted the soft burlap pouch, curiosity immediately rising. “Then Granny A-Shu, what do I taste like to you? What about Zhaozhao?”
“Ha. What flavor can a child barely into his teens possess? You’re a blank sheet of paper waiting for others to write upon it. But… I like this sheet of white paper. Ordinary ink cannot stain it. Splash a little water on it and all the writing dissolves away, no matter who put it there. If someone truly wanted to dye this white paper in brilliant color, they would either have to soak it in thick blood… or melt down some extravagant supreme treasure of Heaven and Earth merely to add a little color. How picky.”
Qin Shu listened in confusion and instinctively squeezed the burlap pouch in his hand. Then his fingers instantly stiffened.
He abruptly shoved the pouch deep into his sleeve.
It was full of Gu creatures—living ones, exactly the kind Yuanbao liked to eat. Granny A-Shu had additionally given him an entire pouch of premium centipede feed, top quality personally endorsed by a demigod.
Meanwhile, Granny A-Shu continued evaluating the “flavor” of the human heart. She turned toward Pei Zhao, her empty eyes suddenly closing completely as the soft folded eyelids sank inward until they almost filled the hollow sockets.
“…Your flavor.” She fell silent for a moment. “A treasure of Heaven and Earth. Poor thing. The death aura won’t disperse anymore. Covered in such heavy, dark karmic entanglement, broken almost beyond recognition… Dressing yourself beautifully and brightly won’t change that. You would be better off thinking about how you intend to become whole again.”
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