# Chapter 2844: A Stirring
Xiao Lin inherited her father's culinary skills, and the inn continued to be operated by her and Zhang Ruochen.
Zhang Ruochen had even more work to do now.
Boiling water, greeting guests, serving dishes, washing bowls, wiping tables... and so on, many tasks fell upon his shoulders.
When there were few guests, every dusk, Xiao Lin would still habitually stand under the large locust tree, gazing at the evening glow. Whether she was waiting for someone, or just wanted to look at the beautiful clouds, no one knew.
Finally, on a dusk when the sunset glow was blood-red, news of tragedy reached the small town.
A disciple from that Yun-named youth's sect came to the town, returning his belongings.
Xiao Lin inquired everywhere and finally learned that her former lover had died on the Starry Sky Battlefield.
After his death, no remains were left behind. It was said he was devoured by some kind of monster.
Xiao Lin did not know what the Starry Sky Battlefield was, but a strange light appeared in her eyes. She said, "Old man, do you think Brother Yun worked hard to cultivate but didn't come to pick me up because he went to the battlefield? Was he doing something more important?"
Zhang Ruochen wanted to say, silly girl, you are deceiving yourself.
If he still had you in his heart, even if separated by thousands of mountains and rivers, he would keep his promise and come back for you.
But then, he thought of himself.
Wasn't he himself another Yun-named youth?
In some corner of the starry sky, was there also a silly girl like Xiao Lin, waiting for him every day?
Zhang Ruochen sat on a chair at the inn's entrance, preparing ingredients for the next day, using a pebble to grind coarse rice, and said, "I've heard that once you step into the cultivation world, you lose control over your own fate. He must have been a great hero, doing truly important things."
That year, Xiao Lin was already forty-two years old.
But upon hearing Zhang Ruochen's words, she smiled as brightly as she had at sixteen.
For the first time in so many years, she showed such a smile.
But after smiling, she began to cry.
She cried for an entire night.
Perhaps she also knew that Zhang Ruochen was lying to her.
After that, she never went to wait under the large locust tree again. She began to seriously manage the inn.
That same year, she finally married, marrying the town's butcher.
The butcher's surname was Liu. He was over fifty years old and had had a wife before, but she had caught a cold and died the previous winter. The butcher was very good to Xiao Lin. Every time, he personally delivered the meat to the inn, and he would always add an extra catty or two, along with a few extra bones.
A woman and an old man running an inn could easily be bullied.
The family needed such a man.
But all men in the world were the same. The person before marriage and after marriage were often two different people.
The butcher was fond of alcohol. Every time he got drunk, he would beat and scold Xiao Lin.
Zhang Ruochen did not interfere with this matter. He only wanted to be an observer of this world, a decrepit old man on the verge of death. Besides, everyone had to take responsibility for their own choices, didn't they?
But he was ultimately an emotional person. Seeing Xiao Lin bathed in tears all day, aging faster with each passing day, he still went over and asked, "This butcher is no good. Do you need help?"
Xiao Lin shook her head, touching her slightly swollen belly.
After that, Zhang Ruochen asked no more.
But somehow, Xiao Lin began to habitually come to the large locust tree again every day, staring blankly at the evening glow. Perhaps in the sunset glow was entrusted the most beautiful memories of her life.
On the day the child was born, the butcher was overjoyed because it was a boy.
He picked up his butcher knife and went to the backyard, intending to slaughter the old yellow cow.
First, to nourish Xiao Lin's body.
Second, the old yellow cow had lived for too long. The townspeople were all saying it was about to become a spirit.
But the butcher failed to kill the old yellow cow. Instead, it knocked him over and crushed him to death with a single hoof.
Nearby, two big white geese let out cheerful and piercing cries, their eyes proud as they circled the corpse, as if saying, "You useless waste, you can't even defeat a cow, and you still call yourself a butcher?"
Xiao Lin saw this from the second-floor window, but she showed neither sorrow nor joy, utterly indifferent.
But later, she still followed Zhang Ruochen to bury the butcher, right next to Old Mu. Old Mu's grave was already overgrown with weeds.
The weather grew colder year by year.
Because the suns in the sky had gone from two to one.
In fact, upon learning that the Yun-named youth had died on the Starry Sky Battlefield, Zhang Ruochen realized that he had not escaped this world at all. Instead, he might be very close to the battlefield.
Poor fool that he was, he thought he had fled to the ends of the earth and would never again interfere in the conflicts between the Heavenly Court and Hell.
The harsh weather caused winters to grow longer and longer.
Sometimes, snow could fall for an entire half year.
No matter how much preparation mortals made, they could not contend with the weather.
Over ten years, more and more people in the town froze to death. The town became desolate and silent, losing the liveliness and clamor Zhang Ruochen had seen when he first arrived.
That year, Liu Shitou turned ten years old.
Shitou—this name was given by the butcher and was kept.
Xiao Lin had aged terribly. She was not yet sixty, but her hair was already gray, and her face was covered in wrinkles. She had been lying in bed for half a month. She knew she would not survive this winter.
Zhang Ruochen placed a stove beside her, helped her sit up, and fed her medicine. Suddenly, he asked, "Your body can't hold out anymore, but I have a way to help you live longer. Do you want to try?"
Xiao Lin did not speak. Her gaze turned to the large locust tree outside the window.
Zhang Ruochen raised his right hand, revealing a seven-colored ring, and said, "I have a divine ring. If you make a wish to it, the wish will come true."
A smile finally appeared on Xiao Lin's pale face. Weakly, she said, "Old man, I know you are no ordinary person. Otherwise, how could the yellow cow and white geese in the backyard have become spirits?"
Zhang Ruochen smiled.
"How... how did we... meet back then... why can't I remember?" Xiao Lin's voice was even hoarser than Zhang Ruochen's, her breath as faint as a silk thread.
Zhang Ruochen said, "You and Old Mu picked me up from the wilderness."
"Your memory is really good. Yes, Father... Father... I'm going to see Father... I remember now... that time... it was Father and me... going to the city to buy goods... on the way back... we found you... back then, back then Father was still young... very young..."
Xiao Lin's wrinkled mouth could no longer speak. She could not even open her eyes.
"Back then, you were also very young, very cute."
Zhang Ruochen laid Xiao Lin back down on the bed. Then, from under the bed, he took out the clapper that Old Mu had once used. By her bedside, he began to strike it, singing in his weathered tone:
"A hundred years, as if drunk, the heart full of spring.
Reclining high on Eastern Mountain, a piece of cloud.
Annoyance, right and wrong brush against the face like dust, worn away completely, the infinite people of past and present."
"Worn away completely, the infinite people of past and present... sigh!"
This was a tune Old Mu often sang when he was alive.
The green mountains remain as ever, how many times has the sunset glowed red, only the young are no more.
When the song ended, Xiao Lin had completely lost her breath. Tears slid from the corners of her eyes, but a smile appeared at the corners of her mouth. She smiled just as she had when Zhang Ruochen first saw her, also in this very room.
Zhang Ruochen thought his heart could no longer be stirred.
But at this moment, he clearly felt bitterness, even deep regret, regretting that he had not done something.
It was at this instant that a stirring appeared inside his body, at the position below his navel.
The stirring turned into a circle, spreading outward faster than the speed of light.
Zhang Ruochen sensed this trace of stirring and even felt the fluctuation of the Wuji Sacred Intent. He was extremely astonished. How could he still perceive the Wuji Sacred Intent?
For decades, he had almost forgotten this first-rank sacred intent that he had cultivated through countless hardships at the Primordial Singularity Point.
The Tenfold Heavenly Realm was the result of his cultivation of the "Bright King Scripture." The esoterica, pale blood soil, divine mark, and even the rule divine patterns and divine qi were all obtained from the outside.
Only the Wuji Sacred Intent was the crystallization of his entire cultivation, the culmination of his martial arts insights.
It belonged only to him.
The position where the stirring originated was the Xuantai below the navel.
The so-called Xuantai was the second qi sea that Zhang Ruochen had opened by cultivating the fifth layer of the "Bright King Scripture," "Xuantai Pacifying Demon Heaven."
In Daoist terms, Xuantai was also called "Xuanpin."
"The valley spirit never dies; this is called Xuanpin. The gate of Xuanpin is called the root of heaven and earth. It exists continuously, and its use is never exhausted."
The valley spirit refers to the Dao.
Meaning: The Dao that gives rise to all things in heaven and earth is eternal, never dying or perishing. This is called Xuanpin. Xuanpin is the gate that gives birth to yin and yang, the root of heaven and earth. It exists continuously, eternal and inexhaustible.
Zhang Ruochen used his spiritual power to investigate and found that the Xuantai was completely empty.
The Wuji Sacred Intent could no longer be sensed.
Zhang Ruochen did not become anxious or unsettled because of this momentary stirring. He remained calm in his state of mind. The only thing that worried him was the circular fluctuation that had spread outward.
How far had it spread?
He hoped that there were no gods in this star domain, that they had not sensed the fluctuation just now.
After burying Xiao Lin, Zhang Ruochen's life returned to calm. However, he had to take care of Shitou, teaching him to read, cook, wash clothes, and so on.
It was not until Shitou turned seventeen that he finally gathered the courage to say to Zhang Ruochen, "I want to leave this town."
"Where do you want to go?"
"I want to go to the outside world. I want to make my way. This town can't even find twenty living people anymore. It's too desolate, too remote. This inn has no customers at all. Staying here, my whole life will be ruined. There will be no future." Shitou's eyes were full of passion and endless fighting spirit.
This was the look of a youth.
"Alright, I support you."
Zhang Ruochen packed Shitou's bags and sent him off under a brilliant sunset, watching until he disappeared over the last mountain ridge.
After that, Zhang Ruochen never saw him again.
Everyone had to make their own choices.
Everyone's path had to be walked by themselves.
Returning to the inn, Zhang Ruochen stood under the large locust tree for a long time. In his mind, he thought of Old Mu striking the clapper and singing here, of Xiao Lin and the Yun-named youth making their vows here, of every traveler who had come to stay at the inn.
He turned around and finally saw two blurry names on the inn's wall.
"Mu Xiao Lin, Yun Fan."
After so many years, Zhang Ruochen finally learned that the Yun-named youth was called this name.
His aged fingers gently stroked the wall. He shook his head with a wry smile and then walked into the inn.
In the inn's main hall, a drunkard was lying on a table.
Zhang Ruochen was not surprised. He paid no attention and went to the backyard to feed the geese.
This drunkard was an outsider.
He had come to the town in the year Xiao Lin died.
For seven years, he came to the inn every day to drink. He was already the inn's only customer. Although he was dressed in rags and looked very down-and-out, when it came to paying for his drinks, he was not stingy at all.
Zhang Ruochen had once suspected that he was a god attracted by the fluctuation from back then.
But after many tests and spiritual power investigations, he found that the man was indeed a mortal. With Zhang Ruochen's current spiritual power strength, plus direct physical contact investigation, if the man could still deceive him under these circumstances, it would have to be someone like Qingzu or Tai Shang themselves coming in person.
"Old fellow, do you have any more wine? How about roasting these two geese of yours too? They're really fat, ah, tsk tsk... I won't shortchange you on the meat money..."
The drunkard, who should have been passed out on the table, had somehow come to the backyard, appearing behind Zhang Ruochen, staring at the two big white geese, letting out a hehe laugh, his tongue constantly licking his lips.