233: Mo Xue steps down

The morning light peeked through, and a thin mist like gauze gently enveloped Xishi Village.

The first crow of a rooster pierced the silence, followed by the answering barks of dogs, waking the sleeping village.

The moist scent of soil and grass permeated the air, accompanied by the smell of firewood burning in the early-rising households' stoves, composing the unique vitality of a pastoral morning.

A Xue (Ink Snow) pushed open the creaking wooden courtyard gate, still wearing that set of coarse cloth clothes that had been washed until they were somewhat faded.

Her movements were natural and relaxed as she picked up the wooden bucket in the corner and walked toward the well under the old locust tree at the village entrance.

The cold well water was drawn up, and the splashing droplets refracted crystalline brilliance under the rising sun.

An early-rising village woman also came to fetch water and greeted her with a smile.

"Miss A Xue, you're up early!"

"Good morning, Aunt Zhang." A Xue replied with a faint smile, her voice soft and clear, blending into the morning mist.

She carried the water home and began to sweep the courtyard; her movements were not very skilled, yet they carried a strange sense of seriousness and focus.

To her, this was not tedious labor, but a brand new kind of "cultivation" that required immersive experience.

As her fingertips brushed against the cool well water, she felt the rough texture of the bucket's handle and heard the trivial conversations of the neighbors... all these subtle perceptions were silently washing away her consciousness core of the "Regent" and "Master of Reincarnation" that had accumulated over millions of years.

[It is time to live the life of a Mortal.]

This thought was no longer just a plan, but had transformed into every breath and every movement.

She sought out the best carpenter in the village to ask for advice, bought some ordinary wood and tools, and began trying to make a small wooden chair under the eaves of her small courtyard.

Wood shavings curled and scattered beneath her hands, emitting a pleasant woody fragrance.

Her fingers were occasionally chafed red by the tools, even leaving tiny scratches—the pain simulated by this virtual Physical Body was so real, yet it made her feel an inexplicable sense of groundedness.

In the afternoon, she would wear a wide-brimmed bamboo hat and go with the village women to wash clothes by the stream.

The clear stream water flowed with a gurgling sound as the women beat their laundry and loudly chatted about domestic trivialities: whose husband was capable, whose mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were at odds, whose sow had another litter of piglets... These topics were simple, even vulgar, yet full of a vivid, burning earthly vitality.

A Xue mostly just listened in silence, occasionally responding softly when asked.

She learned from them, beating the soaked clothes against smooth stones; water splashed onto her skirt hem and cloth shoes, and the sunlight made her cheeks feel slightly warm.

This "integration" was no easy task.

Deep within her consciousness, the vast computing power belonging to the will of the stars would occasionally and instinctively try to analyze the flow rate of the stream, the spectrum of the sunlight, and the logical chains in others' speech... but she forcibly suppressed these "distractions," choosing only to feel and experience.

One day, Grandma Sun, the oldest person in the village whose children all lived away, accidentally injured her leg and was bedridden, with no one to care for her.

A Xue silently took on the burden.

Every day, she brought food and water to the old woman, wiped her body, washed her clothes, and even patiently listened to the old woman repeatedly ramble about those old stories.

"A Xue... you really are a good girl..." Grandma Sun's cloudy eyes filled with tears, and her withered hand tightly gripped A Xue's, "You're even more thoughtful than my own unlucky daughter..."

A Xue just gently squeezed back and wiped her forehead with warm water.

In her long life, she had seen stars perish and civilizations rise and fall, but at this moment, she felt that being able to make a lonely old woman feel a moment of warmth was no less significant than ruling a divine kingdom in the past.

After this, the villagers' gazes toward A Xue became increasingly warm and accepting.

She was no longer that slightly distant, suddenly appearing orphan seeking refuge, but a genuine part of Xishi Village.

However, beneath the calm, there were always undercurrents.

There was a mischievous boy in the village named Stone, whose parents had died early. He was reluctantly raised by his short-tempered uncle and was often beaten and starved, becoming timid and solitary, like a bird startled by the mere twang of a bowstring. At seven or eight years old, his eyes often held a cowering and numbness that did not belong to a child.

A Xue noticed this child.

She often used the grain she saved to make two coarse flour flatbreads, and under the old locust tree at the village entrance, she would gently call out to the small figure that was always huddled in the corner.

At first, Stone was like a frightened little beast and dared not approach.

A Xue did not force him, simply placing the flatbreads on a clean leaf and walking away to sit down.

Once, twice... finally, hunger overcame fear, and Stone rushed over, grabbed the flatbreads, stuffed them into his mouth, and quickly ran away again.

A Xue just watched in silence.

Until one day, when Stone was eating the flatbreads, he did not run away immediately but secretly looked up at her.

A Xue smiled at him, a smile that was peaceful and warm, without the slightest sense of oppression.

A few days later, after Stone finished the flatbreads, he actually said in a low, indistinct voice: "...Thank you, Aunt... A Xue."

A Xue's lake of a heart seemed to be lightly stirred by this subtle address.

She looked at the child's thin figure and his eyes that finally revealed a glimmer of light, and a decision quietly settled in her heart.

She found Stone's uncle, that man who was drunk all day long.

Without using any extraordinary power, she used only a few baskets of firewood she had chopped herself and a calm but unquestionable conversation—about village public opinion, about the responsibility of raising a child—to make that man sullenly acquiesce to A Xue's care for Stone.

That night, A Xue brought the timid child back to her simple yet tidy little courtyard.

She boiled hot water, washed the grime off his body, changed him into clean clothes, and cooked hot vegetable porridge.

The child was initially restless, but the warm porridge and the reassuring, peaceful aura about A Xue let him slowly relax.

"From now on, stay with me." A Xue gently stroked his withered, yellow hair, her voice calm yet carrying the power of a promise, "If I have a bowl of porridge, you will have half."

[Assuming the name A Xue, living in seclusion in a mountain village, adopting an orphan.]

Stone looked up, his eyes shining with an unbelievable light, his lips moved, but in the end, he just nodded vigorously, and large tears rolled down silently, splashing into the bowl.

A Xue did not say much more, just added another half-spoon of porridge to his bowl.

Outside the window, the moonlight was like water, spilling over the quiet courtyard.

The chirping of insects made the night seem even more secluded.

Ink Snow, the former Master of Reincarnation, the eternal Regent, was at this moment just an ordinary village woman watching over a lonely lamp, watching her adopted child wolf down food.

She felt an unprecedented sense of peace and fulfillment.

The meaning of protection had never been so concrete and minute.

However, right in this warm atmosphere, when her fingertips inadvertently touched the child's overly thin arm, the perception buried deep in the lowest level of her consciousness, which still maintained a faint connection with the will of the stars, seemed to capture from the extreme distance a cold fluctuation that was extremely subtle yet completely out of place with this conscious pastoral landscape.

The fluctuation flashed and disappeared, so fast it seemed like an illusion.

A Xue (Ink Snow)'s movements paused slightly, and she looked up at the deep night outside the window, a faint trace of doubt flashing in her cold, clear eyes, but it was quickly dispelled by the satisfied sleeping face of the child beside her.

She gently tucked the blanket around the child.

A Mortal's life also has treasures that need to be protected and storms that need to be faced.

In this place, her name is A Xue.