At this moment, the morning sun had just risen, its light scattering golden flecks across the distant sea. The diligent Restrained Tassel People had already begun their daily routines. Everything was as usual, except for the sudden appearance of an unfamiliar girl in white robes in the village.
Lei Xiuyuan followed a few villagers for a while and soon caught sight of her. The girl stood by the well, nervously greeting every passing villager with her newly learned, halting Overseas Language: "Hello, have you eaten? Hello, have you eaten?"
The "Divine Miracle" she had performed the previous night had spread throughout the village by morning. Now, the villagers' gazes held a mix of awe and lingering wariness, though any hostility had completely vanished. Those she greeted were first startled, then bewildered, before silently retreating a few steps, unsure how to respond to her.
Li Fei suddenly noticed Lei Xiuyuan standing not far away. His hair was loose, his robes carelessly open, and he simply stood there with his arms crossed, watching her expressionlessly. She quickly beamed at him and greeted, "You eat, okay now?"
Wrong again! The nearby villagers couldn't tolerate such mistakes and immediately hissed in disapproval. Li Fei looked around in confusion, seeking answers, but everyone hastily avoided her gaze. Then Lei Xiuyuan said something, and the villagers respectfully dispersed to tend to their fields, ending their merciless scrutiny of her.
Lei Xiuyuan slowly approached Li Fei. When she looked at him, her eyes shone brighter than ever—yet entirely different from the awed brightness in the villagers' eyes. Had she rushed down here right after waking up? The Crystal Bead String at her ear swayed unevenly, and one of her sash ties was left undone. On anyone else, such dishevelment might have invited improper thoughts, but on her, it only accentuated her innocent charm.
His gaze shifted to her shoulder—the ever-changing Nine-tailed Fox wasn't perched there today. She had actually dared to come alone.
"The well is an important object that provides daily water for the villagers," Lei Xiuyuan said as he reached her, speaking deliberately. "Standing here like this, you're preventing others from drawing water."
What was he muttering about? Li Fei stared at him blankly. It had never occurred to her that there would come a day when she and Lei Xiuyuan couldn't understand each other. Why could she remember the Overseas Language but had forgotten the Central Land Language?
"...What did you say?" She forced a laugh. When Lei Xiuyuan simply gazed at her in silence, she gasped, "You really can't understand me, can you?"
As she leaned closer, the loose sash allowed her collar to gape slightly, revealing jade-like skin below her neck. Lei Xiuyuan averted his eyes and turned to leave, but she abruptly grabbed his sleeve, nearly pulling his outer robe off his shoulder.
"Xiu Yuan, wait!" Without thinking, Li Fei reached for him as she always had before. "You must have many hidden wounds again, and that horn—we need to treat it quickly—"
Before she could finish, her hand was flung aside. She froze, startled by the icy look in Lei Xiuyuan's eyes—ah, she had been so overjoyed that she'd forgotten herself. He had already lost all memory of everything.Li Fei slowly withdrew her hand and smiled at him. "If you feel any discomfort, tell me early. Don't worry, I'm very smart. I'll learn the language here quickly."
Lei Xiuyuan remained silent and quickly walked away from her.
Li Fei silently watched his retreating figure. After a long while, a gust of wind howled, and Ri Yan, as small as a thumb, rode the wind to land on her shoulder, yawning loudly. "So? Got the cold shoulder again?"
Li Fei shrugged. "It's alright."
Perhaps it was due to the language barrier that he hadn't said anything infuriating this time. But upon reflection, from the moment she met Lei Xiuyuan until now, he had never looked at her with such icy eyes. She had always been treated gently by him. Even when they had a falling out at the Academy, the way he looked at her wasn't like this.
She used to agonize over whether Lei Xiuyuan liked her. Compared to now, his eyes back then practically held fire.
Her heart still lingered at the Heavenly Thunder Fire Sea, where the young man who had constantly struggled with himself had won the battle through unhesitating death. If she could, she would have held him tightly—whether it made him cringe or not, whatever it took. She would have said all the sweet words and done all the corny things.
But unbeknownst to her, time had quietly changed everything. Now, she faced a stranger who had forgotten the past. Thus, she could only tuck away her passionate emotions, approaching him cautiously like a wild cat, as if meeting for the first time, hoping he would fall for her again and praying he would remember everything.
Ri Yan absentmindedly licked his treasured fur and said, "What if he never remembers? Will you waste your whole life here? If you ask me, just leave him be. If he's meant to remember, he will. Let's go explore somewhere else. The world beyond the sea is vast—what's the point of being stuck on this island full of fools?"
Li Fei frowned. "You're always so discouraging! I'm doing my best to charm him!"
"Charm him? You?" Ri Yan burst into unbridled laughter. "You don't have the talent for it. Give up!"
"Then what should I do?" Li Fei took a deep breath. "What can I do? I won't leave."
Seeing her eyes redden, Ri Yan sighed inwardly. Since childhood, though she had often lived in fear due to her identity and later suffered humiliation when it was exposed, she had always been fortunate in matters of the heart. That brat Lei Xiuyuan had never mistreated her—even he had to admit that. So now, facing hardship, she was on the verge of tears.
Deliberately, he snorted coldly. "Even if you stick to him for a hundred years, you'll just be a hundred-year-old Sticky Worm! What charm? He'd have to be a ghost to like you!"
Li Fei looked at him helplessly. "Then tell me what to do. Ri Yan, you're a Demon. Do you even understand these things?"
Ri Yan flew into a rage, leaping up in an instant. "Fine! I won't bother with you anymore! Figure it out yourself! All this man-woman nonsense—if you're not tired of it, I am!"
Seeing his tiny white figure about to dart away, Li Fei called out urgently, "Where are you going? Teach me more of the local language. I can't understand what they're saying."
Ri Yan didn't look back. "Learn it yourself! You have a mouth, don't you?"
Speechless, Li Fei watched him fly away. Ever since the Seal broke, this fox hadn't stayed still for a moment, always wandering off who-knows-where.She looked around. The village was unusually large, and though the villagers busy with farm work still occasionally stole glances at her, they no longer crowded around. Glancing back at Lei Xiuyuan's courtyard, she saw the gate tightly shut. It was probably best not to provoke him further for now.
Spotting a few friendly-looking women drawing water nearby, Li Fei straightened her clothes and hair before approaching them with a warm greeting: "Hello there, have you eaten yet?"
Lei Xiuyuan opened his eyes, gazing at the golden light sword in his palm. Since recalling how to channel spiritual energy into his body, it was as if he had suddenly awakened—one by one, the Immortal Techniques he once knew returned to him. Yet the spiritual energy here was sparse. Though Still Mountain had more abundant energy than other places, it still felt insufficient. He must have stayed somewhere with much denser spiritual energy before—channeling it shouldn't have been this strenuous.
As the glow of Metal Element Spiritual Energy gradually faded, Lei Xiuyuan lost himself in thought. For some reason, the white-clad girl came to mind again. Half a month had passed since her appearance, and his courtyard had become unexpectedly quiet. The villagers, who used to come to him with troubles almost daily, hadn't knocked on his door recently.
This island of the Restrained Tassel People was flat and vast, with Still Mountain as its only peak. The mountain's air was fresh, and its spiritual energy surprisingly rich, keeping demons at bay. For this reason, Still Mountain became sacred to the Restrained Tassel People, who imagined it as a deity protecting the entire island.
As a fake Divine Envoy, the respect he received came with responsibilities—like subduing the Great Demons lurking in the sea that the villagers couldn't handle, which kept them from fishing offshore. Later, it escalated to the villagers bothering him with every minor issue, even sprained ankles. It was beyond ridiculous.
Having not enjoyed such peace in so long, Lei Xiuyuan found himself unaccustomed to it. Pushing open the courtyard gate, he saw a large crowd gathered in the distance, chattering noisily about something.
As he drew closer, a breeze carried a faint, lingering fragrance past him—this scent... it was hers. The villagers immediately made way for him with reverence, some exclaiming eagerly, "Divine Envoy! She says she's not the Mountain God Goddess, so she must be the Mountain Spirit serving under the mountain god! That white Nine-tailed Fox from before must be a divine beast raised by the mountain god!"
Mountain Spirit? Divine beast? Lei Xiuyuan neither confirmed nor denied the villagers' wild speculations. At the center of the crowd, the white-clad girl sat astride a ferocious and bizarre-looking beast, healing an injured villager. The Healing Net enveloped the man, his minor wounds closing almost instantly, drawing awed cheers from the onlookers.
Noticing many others still bleeding from injuries, Lei Xiuyuan frowned. "What happened?"
A villager explained, "That Ferocious beast came from the sea—we don't know when. The moment it landed, it snatched two people. When we tried to fight it, many got hurt instead. Thankfully, the Mountain God Goddess—no, the Mountain Spirit girl was here. She tamed the beast—see, the one she's riding now! She can even heal wounds! I knew she couldn't be a bad person!"So easily trusting others, just like always—Lei Xiuyuan secretly laughed to himself.
Li Fei didn’t notice Lei Xiuyuan’s arrival. After healing the last villager with the Healing Net, she stood up and waved her hand. The Ferocious Beast she had been riding was lifted as if by an invisible hand and placed before the startled villagers.
"Kill?" she asked eagerly in her halting Overseas Language.
Seeing how the terrifying beast was more docile than the tamest cat under her control, the villagers couldn’t help but feel pity. They waved their hands repeatedly. "No need, no need! Just drive it away!"
Li Fei hadn’t spent the past half-month idling around the village for nothing—she could now understand the simplest phrases well enough. She immediately complied and shooed the beast away. Suddenly, she caught sight of Lei Xiuyuan standing not far off. Her eyes instantly brightened, and though she fought the urge to rush over, she still approached with a smile, stammering in broken Overseas Language, "You—you came out?"
Lei Xiuyuan gazed into her shining, black-crystal-like eyes for a long moment before finally responding indifferently, "Mhm, yeah."
With that, he turned and walked away again. Li Fei stood frozen for a while before suddenly exclaiming, "You just spoke Central Land Language?! You can understand me?! You were pretending not to understand before?!"
Yeah.
Lei Xiuyuan still didn’t turn back.
Li Fei could no longer hold back. She rushed forward and carefully grabbed his sleeve, pleading urgently, "Wait, wait! Xiu Yuan! You clearly know Central Land Language! Have—have you remembered anything else? Like who I am?"
No.
Lei Xiuyuan remained silent.
Li Fei chased after him, questioning him relentlessly, but he stubbornly played deaf, not uttering a word. Was he pretending not to understand Central Land Language again? Helpless, she could only watch his retreating figure and ask in her clumsy Overseas Language, "Nothing… remembered at all?"
Finally, Lei Xiuyuan reacted. He stopped and turned to look at her, murmuring, "Xiu Yuan—is that me?"
OpenNovel