Familiar?

Chu Suiyan's expression changed, and Chu Liuxue also looked over calmly.

But Su Tianhe's mind was not sharp enough. The furrows between his brows could crush a bug, yet he couldn't figure it out.

"Strange, strange, it's right on the tip of my tongue, but I can't say who he looks like..."

Chu Liuxue's gaze shifted back as she counted the crabapple leaves above her, while Chu Suiyan mocked him.

"Don't waste your effort. I thought you were going to reveal some earth-shattering truth."

"Oh, I really feel like I've seen him before, but I've seen too many faces..."

Su Tianhe fell into his own world, and the siblings each drifted into their own thoughts, ignoring him.

When dawn breaks, they still need to repair the house.

Su Tianhe spent a peaceful time at Peach Blossom Mountain. Originally, he didn't like lingering in one place for too long; he would get bored.

But this place seemed to have a kind of magic that made people slow down involuntarily.

Scooping moonlight in his hands, the fragrance of flowers filled his clothes.

No wonder Chu Liuxue was unwilling to leave.

Su Tianhe wasn't staying at Peach Blossom Mountain for free. His father wanted him to find out who had enchanted the young Valley Master, making her unable to return to Sky's End Valley.

Now he understood. It wasn't entirely Chu Liuxue's fault; if it were him, he wouldn't want to leave either.

He had few tasks each day, or rather, the people living in this mountain didn't like to find unnecessary things to do.

Chu Suiyan practiced martial arts and swordplay, Chu Liuxue brewed tea and cooked soup, and Tao Mian was the most carefree, following his interests and doing whatever came to mind.

One day, Su Tianhe even saw the Immortal hanging himself upside down from a tree.

Su Tianhe asked what he was doing, and he said he was communicating with the spirits of heaven and earth in a brand new way, achieving Unity of All Things.

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Su Tianhe couldn't help but look at his feet, somewhat anxiously hooked on the branches.

"...Are you stuck?"

"Why don't you give me a hand?"

Su Tianhe lightly tapped the ground, flew up, and pushed his back, flipping him over. Tao Mian sat on the tree, still not coming down.

"Are you going to do it again? If you do, I won't help you."

"Stingy... Don't worry, I'm just enjoying the view here."

This was a thousand-year-old banyan tree, large and deep-rooted, with lush branches and leaves. Tao Mian stood in its middle-lower part, and Su Tianhe had to look up to see him.

"I heard the young Valley Master say you've lived on this Peach Blossom Mountain for over a thousand years. Haven't you gotten tired of the scenery after all this time?"

"How could I get tired?"

Tao Mian asked the young man back, one hand resting on the trunk, his face purely puzzled.

It was as if Su Tianhe had asked an obvious question.

Su Tianhe was stumped, not knowing how to respond, so he randomly made up an excuse.

"The trees and flowers in this mountain haven't changed for hundreds of years; the scenery is the same all year round. If it were me, I'd be bored in ten years, let alone a thousand."

Tao Mian just laughed.

"That's because you don't belong here."

He extended a hand.

"Want to come up and see?"

Su Tianhe didn't refuse the Immortal's invitation, leaping up to land on the same branch as him.

Apart from the branches and leaves swaying a bit, the banyan tree's trunk remained unmoved.

Tao Mian let him touch the rugged bark, and Su Tianhe did as told.

"How does it feel?"

"Rough."

"What do you think you touched?"

"Isn't it obvious? Tree bark."

At this point, Su Tianhe felt a bit awkward.

"Can you touch anything else? Bugs?"

Tao Mian said he also touched tree bark.

"...Did I just listen to nonsense?"

Tao Mian laughed, placing his palm on the brown wrinkles as well.

"Young man, impatient. Listen to me. I also touched tree bark, but not just this small piece at the moment."

People say all things have spirits, and like people, they grow, change, age, and perish with each breath.

Su Tianhe touched the tree's outer skin, seeing only the shell left behind by life after each transformation.

But what the Immortal sensed was the blazing fire that once burned within.

He reached into the ashes, tracing its past, those passionate, grand, and vibrant times.

Su Tianhe seemed to understand, yet not fully. The wisdom the Immortal had comprehended over a thousand years wasn't something one could grasp overnight.

But he thought, perhaps as the Immortal himself said, those who don't belong here can never truly comprehend.

The Immortal was a man of the mountain, and the mountain was in the man.

He belonged here.

"I know you have your purpose."

Tao Mian suddenly said, without any preamble, just casually bringing it up.

Su Tianhe's skin prickled with goosebumps.

"Of course I do. But it's more my father's purpose than mine..."

The Immortal just smiled without speaking, not exposing his words, but instead directing his gaze to the stream winding below the tree.

"Look at that water. Though obstructed by strange rocks and disturbed by falling flowers and floating leaves, it continues to flow forward, not easily altered by any external force. Even if you block it entirely with stones, there will be gaps for it to seep through. Bit by bit, day by day, it will eventually overcome the obstacles."

Su Tianhe also looked at the clear, delightful stream.

"Are you saying you'll ignore any interference like the stream?"

"No," the Immortal shook his head, his gaze distant, "What I want to be is the riverbank."

Letting the stream flow, allowing the flowers to drift.

"But I always fall short."

That day, Tao Mian and Su Tianhe lingered in the mountains for a long time. At dusk, Tao Mian was the first to descend.

Su Tianhe sat quietly for a moment, intending to follow the Immortal's figure and leave together.

But he caught a whiff of something unusual.

He frowned, following the source of the scent.

Then, at the entrance of an inconspicuous cave, he smelled blood.

It was the blood of a demon, and also of a monster.

Su Tianhe wondered who dared to cause trouble under the Immortal's nose, truly audacious.

He approached the cave and looked inside.

Inside, a large pool of blood had accumulated, and three mangled bodies were piled together, fresh.

To call them bodies wasn't quite right; it seemed one was still weakly groaning.

Atop the heap of flesh sat a "person," licking the blood from his palm.

Their eyes met across the distance.

It was Chu Suiyan.

Chu Suiyan's first reaction upon seeing Su Tianhe was to kill him too. His hand turned into a claw, and his pupils changed.

Su Tianhe easily blocked his attack, grabbing an arm and lifting the young man high.

"Do it cleanly," he seemed somewhat dissatisfied, "Don't let him notice, the Immortal is very perceptive."