In addition to spending time with his Master, Bai Hao had begun to search for his own path to becoming a sovereign. At the same time, he had been tasked with watching over Xiaobao, which involved putting out a lot of fires caused by the disaster-duo of Xiaobao and the little turtle. However… now that everything had settled down, Bai Xiaochun had come to the conclusion that Bai Hao needed to get married and settle down. Unfortunately, Bai Hao wasn’t interested in that, and always used the excuse of having to watch over Xiaobao and the little turtle to push the matter off into the future. After this happened several times, Bai Xiaochun had a very “serious and important” meeting with Xiaobao, who was his true successor, to give him the responsibility of making sure Bai Hao fell in love and got married. Off to the side, the little turtle listened… and his eyes began to sparkle as he realized that he had found a new goal in life.
Peace and serenity reigned. Song Junwan, Hou Xiaomei, Zhou Zimo and Gongsun Wan’er kept Bai Xiaochun very happy. In the end, the cultivation world had become exactly like he had always imagined it could be, free from fighting and killing.
And yet, there was still one last thing he regretted.
On one particular day, Bai Xiaochun was standing in a courtyard on a mountain some distance away from Arch-Emperor City, bathed by the glow of the setting sun. Turning his head, he looked off in a certain direction.
“That should be the place….” he murmured. He took a step forward, and vanished. When he reappeared… he was in one of the distant border regions of the Vile-Emperor Dynasty. There, at the edge of a remote village, was a temple.
It was a small temple, with two maple trees flanking the entrance, their leaves as red as fire. As the leaves slowly dropped from the trees and drifted to the ground, they made a particularly entrancing scene.
It was evening here too, and the fiery red evening cast light onto the tiles and bricks of the temple, making it look like the ….
It was very peaceful, and for a long moment, Bai Xiaochun simply stood there in front of the temple with his eyes closed, listening to the sound of scriptures being sung within the temple. The singer was a woman, her voice soft and filled with piety….
As soon as he heard that voice, he thought back to memories of the past.
As he stood there, he seemed to become one with the crimson evening sunlight.
Time slowed as an autumn wind suddenly kicked up, lifting his hair and causing rustling sounds to rise up as the fallen leaves swirled into motion. However, it almost seemed like the leaves and the wind understood that scriptures were being sung in the temple, and did not compete with the woman who was singing them. The scene was perfect.
Later….
Bai Xiaochun opened his eyes, sighed, and walked toward the temple. Reaching out, he placed his hand on the red-lacquered door of the temple, then pushed it open. Inside, he saw a statue of the Eternal Mother, illuminated by an oil lamp.
In front of the statue… was a woman, on her knees, head bowed, singing to the statue.
She wore simple, homespun garments, and had long black hair that flowed down her shoulders. She almost seemed to be part of the temple around her….
Bai Xiaochun stood there quietly, listening to her sing. It was a song about a lifetime devoted to religion, a lifetime spent alone in an ancient temple, with only an oil lamp for company.
A moment passed, and the woman suddenly seemed to realize that she wasn’t alone. But she didn't look over her shoulder. She shivered, and a tear ran down her cheek, landing on the ground in front of the oil lamp, splashing out into the shape… of a flower. A flower filled with emotion and memory. Previous Chapter Next Chapter
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Chapter
1314: His Choice
Everything Bai Xiaochun had just seen faded away, becoming an eternal memory.
He opened his eyes, to find himself still standing at the prow of the boat in the River of Time and Space. After a moment, he looked away from the Eternal Flower on the right.
The old boatman took out another jug of alcohol, took a sip, and then looked at Bai Xiaochun.
“That flower really suits you. It’s not going back to the beginning, but neither is it the true ending.”
Bai Xiaochun didn’t say anything, and it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. He looked at the flower on the left, and then the flower on the right, and finally, closed his eyes again.
“Why don’t you take that flower on the right? It seems wonderful to me. Although, both of them are actually acceptable…. Trying to pick between the two seems like a very difficult choice.” The old man sighed. Truthfully, not even he would have an easy time making this choice.
“One of them features a set conclusion. Although it would conform to your desires, everything is already set.
“The other features endless possibilities, and a future brimming with options. Maybe you could make things more perfect. Maybe you could get rid of all your doubts, and make your future exactly the way you want it.”
The old man shook his head. “How will you pick…? Would you like to have a drink while you consider?”
With that, he held out his jug of alcohol.
“There’s no need.” Bai Xiaochun said. Opening his eyes, he looked out at the two flowers. Smiling, he reached out….
The End.
1314. One Life, One Lifetime. A Will Eternal!
(In Chinese, the number 1314 rhymes with the characters that mean “one life, one lifetime” or essentially “one’s whole life.” It's a very sentimental and somewhat romantic number) Previous Chapter Next Chapter
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Epilogue
Years passed. Ages.
The Eternal Spirit World glittered with bright light, and its 1,080,000 worlds glowed radiantly. Generations of powerful experts came and went. Archaeans. Sovereigns. As the saying goes, after the rain, the spring bamboo blossoms. These new experts became like shining stars within the eras in which they lived.
The Eternal Immortal Domains became the brightest star among all the other stars.
Eventually, Bai Xiaochun left the Eternal Immortal Domains, taking his friends and family with him. Afterward, his story became a legend, and then a myth. Even years later, people would still talk about the stories, which to some extent was the ultimate explanation of the history of the Eternal Immortal Domains.
No one knew where Bai Xiaochun went. All they could do was study the most ancient records in the Arch-Emperor Dynasty, where they found only the vaguest of clues. Apparently, whoever left the records behind wanted people to know that Bai Xiaochun, along with his friends and family, had gone to some unknown location, where they would spend their days in complete happiness.
People accepted this version of events, and it soon came to be official history in the Eternal Spirit World.
With every generation that came and went, cultivators would attempt to search for Bai Xiaochun, in the hopes of personally meeting the most powerful person to ever exist.
And yet, none of them ever succeeded.
**
Outside of the Eternal Spirit World was a vast starry sky filled with endless mist that made it difficult to see very far in any direction. And yet, it was now possible to see someone flying through that mist at top speed, an emotional expression on his face.
“I did it! I finally… escaped!!” He looked like a young man, fair and pure, dressed in a white robe. As for the expression on his face, it was one of pure delight, like a caged bird that had just been freed….
“Those women are too much! I'm the honest one! The sincere one! What gives them the right to bully me?!” He sighed. From the gleam in his eyes, it could be seen that although he wasn’t any sort of villain, he was by no means the honest type.
Of course, this young man was none other than Bai Xiaochun.
In the ancient records it said that he took his family and friends to some unknown location to live in happiness. Although that was true, after enough time passed, Bai Xiaochun simply couldn’t take it any longer. That was just his personality. It was exacerbated by the fact that Song Junwan, Zhou Zimo, Hou Xiaomei and Gongsun Wan’er were very strict with him. It eventually reached the point where he bristled with anger….
“They won't let any other women even talk to me! They don’t let me go out alone, and they even have the audacity to say that I cause disasters wherever I go! They’re worried that I’ll destroy our home?! I could deal with that, but then they actually forbid me from concocting medicine!