Chapter 217 — Homeland
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 3 of 7
With a smile, she lifted her head and set off toward the main road.
Her steps had been light at first, but somehow they suddenly slowed. Her delicate brows drew faintly together; deep in her heart, something important seemed to have flashed past, and yet she could not catch hold of it.
Deep within her memories, something seemed quietly to be waking.
She stopped and stood still. The scene just past replayed swiftly in her mind, and the woodcutters' words echoed once more: "That one there, you'd best not take. Years ago it was a lively village too, but it's all ruined now—nobody left."
"There used to be a temple in that village—they say it was very efficacious."
Lu Xueling suddenly gave a violent start. A moment later, she slowly turned around and once again looked toward that weed-choked path, seemingly already swallowed by the lingering shadows of time.
Ten years—how much could change in ten years?
A face, a mood, or a hatred?
No one can truly understand another—and sometimes, not even oneself. But this one road alone had truly, utterly changed.
For there was no longer a road here.
The wild grass grew thick and lush, year after year, covering over the history of the past, bearing witness to time's heartlessness. Until a solitary figure in white quietly drew near the dust-sealed place.
Among the weeds, broken walls and ruined remnants could still faintly be made out. In the breeze that met her face there was long since no trace of that old smell of blood; there was only the faintly green, fresh fragrance of wild grass.
She passed through one ruined doorway after another, gazing at the stone steps and walls that leaned every which way, quietly mantled in moss. Those smiles and laughter that had once been, the happiness that had once been possessed—had they all scattered with the wind?
Lu Xueling's face was faintly pale, and her slender, delicate hands gripped Tianxuan more tightly. In this abandoned village, it was as though someone's gaze were quietly fixed upon her.
She even had a feeling of being unable to breathe.
Yet she never stopped walking, only paced on in silence, past every house. Once upon a time—who still remembered the people here?
Until she saw that ruined temple.
Unlike its surroundings, the ground around that long-shattered temple, for some reason, bore not a blade of grass. To call it a house was perhaps less apt than to call it a few pillars; only on the few shattered stones still lying scattered on the ground could the vague shapes of divine images be made out, betraying what had once stood here.
Lu Xueling slowly walked over.
No wild grass, no moss—everything here seemed out of place with its surroundings. For what reason, no one knew; even the grass that grew so stubbornly was unwilling to enter this place.
Or was it that the old resentments and grievances had all gathered here?
Then in the dead of night, would someone weep and whisper, pouring out the past?
Lu Xueling whipped around—at some point, tears had come glinting into her eyes.
Liu Miao Village!
This place, long since swallowed by oblivion.
She sat down quietly in a corner, motionless, as if listening in silence to something, or feeling something.
Wind came from afar, stirring her black hair where it drifted softly at her temples.
Sun rose and moon set, morning and dusk, day and night, dawn and evening; the stars shifted in their courses.
Above the firmament white clouds shifted like grey dogs, vanishing like shooting stars. Time flowed like water, and in the end departed so resolutely, never pausing for any soul.
From somewhere in the distant weeds came the sound of insects. Apart from the wind, it was the sound most full of life in this place. Perhaps in another ten years, this place would become a thriving settlement again?
Or perhaps it would remain forever just as it was.
And who cared?