Chapter 872: Divine Beast?
"Jiang Ruoxue… you…"
I stared blankly at her. It had been a very long time since we'd last seen each other, and I never imagined we would reunite under circumstances like this.
Before I could utter another word to Jiang Ruoxue, Old Sun cut in again. "Hey there, little sis, since you two are talking, I'm officially one of 'Jidao' now. Anything you need, just let me know."
My mind was a bit of a mess at that moment; I barely registered what Old Sun was saying. After staring at me and Jiang Ruoxue for a moment, he seemed to get the hint and said, "Alright then, I'll go take a stroll. You two chat."
Once Old Sun was far away, Jiang Ruoxue let out a sudden giggle.
Five years had passed, and she was exactly the same as before, without even the slightest change.
That's the strange thing about the 'Land of Finality.' No matter how long you've been apart from someone, as long as you remember them, you'll find they're still wearing the same clothes, sporting the same hairstyle, carrying the same look in their eyes. Apart from going completely mad, it's hard for anyone here to change.
"I thought you were dead," I said.
"What kind of talk is that! You looking for a beating again?" Jiang Ruoxue rushed at me, acting like she was going to rough me up. I dodged her swiftly.
Just like the first time we met, she was overly familiar, and I was full of disdain. Yet neither of us actually disliked the other.
I really liked Jiang Ruoxue.
After a brief scuffle, we sat back down. She looked at me with a cheerful expression. "You've been busy these past few years, huh?"
"Hmm?"
"I keep bumping into people from 'Jidao' these days, but the thing is, I never know any of them," Jiang Ruoxue said. "I figure that's all thanks to you."
"I've persuaded a lot of people, but it's still not enough." I shook my head. "The 'Land of Finality' has its own rules, after all. These people could forget about 'Jidao' at any time. To keep 'Jidao' active, I have to keep working."
"Don't wear yourself out too much," Jiang Ruoxue said. "Everything depends on 'cause and effect.' If 'Jidao' is meant to be a huge organization, it'll grow on its own even if you do nothing. If 'Jidao' is destined to fail, you'll fail even if you exhaust all your skills."
She truly was the same as always. No matter how long we were apart, the moment we met again, we were instantly at ease with each other.
"By the way, what brings you here all of a sudden?" I asked.
"Well... it's a long story." Jiang Ruoxue smiled sheepishly. "I found out there's this girl hanging around in this area whose beauty is absolutely earth-shattering. I was thinking of making her my wife. Plus, I kind of missed you, so I figured I'd come see you. The trip took me over five hours! You should see this girl... she must be about one meter eighty, looks like a celebrity."
Classic Jiang Ruoxue. She always managed to leave me speechless with just one sentence.
"You... came all this way looking for a pretty girl?"
I'd almost forgotten that this was who Jiang Ruoxue was... Good thing she wasn't a guy.
"Huh?" She stared at me with a puzzled look. "Are you jealous? Then let me rephrase. I actually came to see you."
"Alright, alright..." I shook my head and let out a sigh.
After a few seconds of deliberation, I asked again, "Ruoxue... do you really like girls?"
"Me?" She raised an eyebrow. "Remember? I told you I'm the same as you. I only love myself."
"But your behavior seems..." I didn't know how to phrase it without sounding offensive, so I trailed off mid-sentence.
"It seems like I like a lot of people, but I really do only love myself," Jiang Ruoxue said. "I like being with you because you have a good personality. Being with you makes me feel happy, so I stick to you. That's also a way of loving myself."
"And what about that 'earth-shatteringly beautiful' girl?" I pressed on.
"She really is stunning. Probably the most beautiful person I've ever seen. So being with her would probably give me a kind of pleasant, joyful feeling too," Jiang Ruoxue replied. "If I found out our personalities didn't click or our worldviews clashed, I'd probably just stop there."
I felt like I understood what Jiang Ruoxue was saying. Indeed, ever since I started socializing with others, I'd realized that everyone in this world has their own way of living. They are perfectly self-consistent within their own logic of behavior. This is knowledge you could never learn from books.
"So for me, it doesn't matter whether it's a guy or a girl," Jiang Ruoxue said. "If I'm happy, I'll talk more. If I'm not, I'll just turn and leave. Someday, you might find out I've made friends with a celebrity, or you might find some tacky guy with bleached hair standing next to me. All of that is just a small 'effect.' The 'cause' is simply to make myself a little happier."
I nodded after hearing that. Honestly, I wasn't jealous. I was even happy for Jiang Ruoxue.
"What have you been up to lately?" Jiang Ruoxue asked again. "Just recruiting members for 'Jidao'? Any other fun stuff?"
"I..." I paused and then spoke. "I don't know if you'd call it fun, but that White Sheep is back."
"White Sheep?" Jiang Ruoxue nodded. "Isn't that the 'cause' of everything? Did you two get back in touch?"
"Yes." I thought for a moment. "There are two things on my mind right now... Since you're here, can you help me figure them out?"
"Go ahead."
I first told Jiang Ruoxue about the situation with Old Sun, along with the answer derived from 'cause and effect.'
I said I suspected that the White Sheep would eventually break away from the 'Zodiac' and become a higher-order existence. It's also possible that whoever ends up changing this place isn't the White Sheep at all, seeing as this was the result I got after many uses of 'Detecting the Future.'
"Ah, you shameless jerk..." Jiang Ruoxue blurted out before I'd even finished speaking, catching me off guard.
"Wh-what?"
"Oh, well done... I was wondering why I kept getting dizzy while walking all these years!" Jiang Ruoxue said with a look of disgust. "You've been using my 'cause and effect' to detect the future? That process is already huge! Already takes so much out of me! Are you trying to kill me?"
"I..."
She crossed her arms in front of her, looking furious. "I'm telling you, Yan, it's only because it's you. If it were anyone else, I would have been long gone."
I knew Jiang Ruoxue too well. If she could say something out loud, it meant she wasn't truly angry. When she was really mad, she'd just be silent with a blank expression.
"I was wrong about this..." I said, a little guiltily. "I didn't think about that aspect... I'm sorry."
"Forget the sorry..." Jiang Ruoxue pouted. "Come over and give me a kiss, and we'll call it even."
"Fine, then just stay angry."