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Chapter 517: I Will Go Mad
"A lifetime? Then the elder sister's beloved must also be of no low cultivation, to have a lifespan of several thousand years."Tushan Jingci responded with genuine earnestness.
In her understanding, the person this celestial woman loved ought to be someone of comparable cultivation to herself.
Though she wondered what kind of young man could possibly have won her regard.
The woman in white gave a soft smile, a faint note of wistfulness in her tone. "He is not a cultivator. He is nothing more than an ordinary person. And how could an ordinary person have a lifespan of two thousand years?"
"An ordinary person?"
At those words, Tushan Jingci's beautiful eyes blinked slowly, and she found herself uncertain for a moment about what the celestial woman meant.
An ordinary person's lifetime, compared to a cultivator's thousand years?
What did the elder sister mean by that?
"Wait!"
Tushan Jingci suddenly came to a halt, finally understanding.
The person this celestial woman loved was actually an ordinary person?
The woman in white looked at the little girl before her, taking in that expression of bewilderment and shock, and said nothing further, only giving a faint, quiet smile.
"Sister, they are ready for you over at the Hanshan Academy. Cun Caiguang has asked you to come over and check whether there is anything else that needs to be arranged."
At that moment, Little Green arrived at the side of Crescent Moon Lake, stepped up beside her elder sister, and spoke in a quiet voice.
When Little Green caught sight of Tushan Jingci, she too could not help a small start.
Who was this young girl? She was as beautiful as her own sister...
"Mm, understood." Bai Ruxue gave a nod, then turned to look at Tushan Jingci, her tone warm. "Little sister, I have some things to attend to, so I must go first. I will not keep you company any longer."
"Please go ahead, elder sister. Do not let me keep you." Tushan Jingci gave a respectful bow.
Bai Ruxue returned the bow with a small nod, then turned and walked away with her sister, gradually moving further into the distance.
Tushan Jingci watched the woman in white's composed and graceful bearing as she walked away, and a note of admiring wonder showed in her expression. It turned out that someone truly this perfect really did exist in this world.
Half an hour later, Tushan Jingci finished the painting before her, packed up her things, and made her way down the mountain.
When she arrived at Xiao Mo's courtyard, he was not cultivating but had his head lowered, packing up his belongings.
"Xiao Mo."
Tushan Jingci called to him with a light, cheerful voice and walked forward happily.
"The Young Miss finished her painting so early today?" Xiao Mo raised his head with a smile.
These days, whenever Tushan Jingci finished a few paintings she would come and sit for a while in his courtyard, and Xiao Mo had long since grown accustomed to it.
"I am done."
Tushan Jingci gave a nod and moved to help Xiao Mo fold his clothes.
But of course Xiao Mo would not have Jingci sorting out his belongings, and politely declined with a smile.
"Xiao Mo, let me tell you, I met a celestial elder sister today while I was painting." Tushan Jingci hopped to one side and said with great excitement.
"A celestial elder sister?" Xiao Mo smiled lightly. "Is the Young Miss still dreaming? Where would there be celestial beings in this world?"
"Well, there are no actual celestials, true enough, but this elder sister was more beautiful than any celestial." When Tushan Jingci spoke of the woman in white, her eyes were full of admiration.
"You have no idea how beautiful she was, and her presence was so exceptional. Every movement she made was graceful and poised, and every word she said left you feeling warm and at ease."
"Good thing I am not a man. If I were, I would be going after her no matter what!"
Listening to Jingci say all of this, and seeing the look in her eyes full of starlight, Xiao Mo found himself genuinely curious.
"Is she really that beautiful?"
"Of course!" Tushan Jingci gave an emphatic nod, but very quickly her expression turned wary. "Xiao Mo! You are not allowed to go and look! If you go and see her, you will definitely fall for her!"
"That is quite an exaggeration." Xiao Mo smiled, continuing to place books one by one into the box to be taken away. "Besides, where in this world is there anyone more beautiful than the Young Miss?"
Hearing Xiao Mo praise her like this, Tushan Jingci felt as sweet inside as though she had eaten a flower cake.
"Flattering me will not work." Her small face flushed a little pink, and she reached out and took the books from Xiao Mo's arms. "You can flatter me all you like, and I still will not take you to meet that celestial elder sister."
"I never had any intention of going." Xiao Mo said, at a loss.
He thought to himself that he was not the kind of person who would be stopped in his tracks simply by seeing a beautiful woman.
"Aah, I wonder if I will ever become the kind of woman that elder sister is someday. If I were like her, you would probably have been completely besotted with me long ago." Tushan Jingci mused as she placed the books into the box.
Looking at the young girl's eyes drifting off into some private reverie, Xiao Mo gave a slight shake of his head and said nothing.
"Oh, by the way, there is something that elder sister asked me, and I could not make sense of it. Would you like to hear it?" Tushan Jingci remembered something the woman in white had said, and wanted to hear Xiao Mo's thoughts on it.
"Of course. The Young Miss may say it freely." Xiao Mo replied.
"Between an ordinary person's lifetime, and a cultivator's several thousand years of life, which of the two is longer and which is shorter?" Tushan Jingci smoothed her skirt and sat down on Xiao Mo's bed, saying it slowly.
Hearing the question, Xiao Mo gave a small start, then smiled. "Why would the young woman the Young Miss met ask a question like this?"
"That is a little hard to explain. It seems that the elder sister's beloved is an ordinary person, and she has been searching for him all this time." Tushan Jingci lowered her head as she spoke, something in her voice suggesting she felt sad and forlorn on the white-dressed woman's behalf.
"I see." Xiao Mo looked thoughtful.
"Xiao Mo, do you have an answer?" Tushan Jingci looked at him with curious eyes.
"What kind of answer could there be for a question like that?"
Xiao Mo's voice was calm and earnest.
"If it is truly as that young woman says, that his whole life was her, then for her it is no different, is it not?"
"That man is already gone. No matter how many more thousands or tens of thousands of years she has ahead of her, what meaning does any of it hold? I am afraid that young woman's heart has already..."
He stopped himself there, leaving the last word unspoken.
Hearing those words, Tushan Jingci lowered her gaze, biting lightly at her lip, turning it over quietly in her mind.
After a long pause, she rose and walked to stand before Xiao Mo, gently taking hold of the hem of his robe with one hand, her voice carrying a sincere and earnest plea. "Xiao Mo! Promise me something, will you?"
"Please speak, Young Miss."
"From now on! No matter what happens, as long as I am not dead, you are not allowed to die either. Do you hear me?"
The tenderness in the young girl's fox eyes at that moment carried a certainty that left no room for argument.
"I do not know whether there is reincarnation in this world."
"And even if there is, I may not be as strong as that elder sister, able to keep searching and searching, on and on."
"So..."
"If you died, I would go mad."