We Agreed On Experiencing Life, So Why Did You Immortals Become Real? Chapter 670: Did You Come to the Mortal World Just to Meddle in Such Things?

Warm firelight played across Xiao Mo's face.

Feeling the warmth around him, the unconscious Xiao Mo's fingers stirred faintly, and his awareness slowly began to return.

He opened his eyes to find himself inside a small, dilapidated wooden hut.

A fire was burning within the room.

The wooden bed beneath him was rather hard, but a piece of hide had been laid over it, enough to hold in the warmth.

Through the window's paper, which had a few small holes worn through it, Xiao Mo looked outside and saw that the sky had gone completely dark, the world outside perfectly still.

"Where am I?"

Xiao Mo pushed himself upright, shaking his head. The memories from before he lost consciousness came flooding back.

He remembered the two-headed tiger charging toward him and the Village Chief. He remembered the Village Chief falling in the snow, and himself running back to help him up. He remembered the Village Chief pushing him away, sending him tumbling down the slope.

And the last thing he had seen before losing consciousness was the Village Chief's throat closed between the two-headed tiger's jaws.

"You're awake."

Just as Xiao Mo sat staring from the wooden bed, a cool, detached woman's voice reached him.

He looked up toward the doorway.

A young woman in a plain white gown walked into the hut.

She was extraordinarily beautiful.

So beautiful that Xiao Mo lost himself in looking at her for a moment.

A thought arose in him unbidden: a young woman this beautiful had no business being here in the mortal world. She belonged somewhere up in the heavens and from the look of her clothing, she was clearly a person of great wealth or high station yet what would a woman like this be doing in the middle of this desolate wilderness?

"Elder Sister... did you save me?" Xiao Mo asked.

"In a manner of speaking. Let us say you were lucky, and your life is a stubborn one."

Ningxi replied in a flat tone. She set a freshly dressed wild rabbit over the fire and began to roast it slowly.

"Elder Sister, when you found me in the snow, apart from me, was there... was there also an old man, the kind who walks with a cane and has very yellow teeth..."

"You are the only one still alive."

Just as Xiao Mo asked urgently about the Village Chief, Ningxi spoke, and cut him off mid-sentence.

Hearing her answer, Xiao Mo's mouth fell slightly open, his mind going briefly blank.

He had known, even before asking, that the chances of the Village Chief or any of the others surviving were very small yet the heart holds onto a sliver of hope regardless and when that final sliver of hope was extinguished, it was hard to accept.

"You are the only one still alive," Ningxi said again. "Everyone else is dead. That you lived is already something of a miracle."

"I have my own matters to attend to. I will not take you along with me, and you should not expect me to keep you beside me."

Ningxi raised her head and looked at Xiao Mo.

"I will stay here for roughly a month. After a month, the worst of winter will be past. At that point I will leave. As for whether you can survive after that, it is up to you. Is that understood?"

"Yes."

Xiao Mo nodded quietly.

His heart held no particular resentment.

She had pulled him out of the snow. That alone was a life-saving grace beyond anything he could repay. Beyond that, she was even willing to shelter him until spring came. He could not and had no right to ask for more.

With Xiao Mo's words spoken, Ningxi said nothing further.

The wooden hut fell into silence, broken only by the sound of the fire burning, and the occasional sizzle of fat dripping from the rabbit into the flames.

After a long while, the smell of roasting meat began to fill the small, worn room.

Seeing the rabbit was nearly done, Ningxi drew it off the fire, still skewered on its stick, and held it out to Xiao Mo. "It's ready. Eat. As long as I am here, you will not starve."

"Are you not eating, Elder Sister?" Xiao Mo swallowed and looked up.

"I am not hungry. Eat it yourself."

Ningxi set the roasted rabbit on the wooden plate beside the bed, then settled herself near the fire.

Xiao Mo glanced from this beautiful Elder Sister to the roasted rabbit before him. The saliva was beyond managing now. The force of his hunger left him no room for further courtesy, and he ate with unabashed enthusiasm, barely noticing the heat.

When the rabbit was finished, the full feeling in his stomach made it feel truly real, for the first time, that he was still alive.

Xiao Mo raised his head. The beautiful Elder Sister was still poking at the fire.

The firelight fell across her cheek, making her look extraordinarily lovely, and extraordinarily cold all at once.

"Elder Sister..." After a long while, Xiao Mo looked at Ningxi and asked, "Is it far from here to the place where you found me?"

"Not far. In your terms, only three li." Ningxi replied, her voice flat.

"I see..." Xiao Mo thought for a moment. "Then Elder Sister, could you tell me the direction? When morning comes, I would like to go there."

He quickly waved a hand and added, "I will not trouble you, Elder Sister. I will go by myself."

"You want to go and find the villagers?" Ningxi looked at him.

"Yes." Xiao Mo's small hand pressed the edge of the wooden bed, and he nodded.

"There is no need. I have already told you: they are all dead. What would you accomplish by going there?" Ningxi asked, genuinely puzzled.

"I... I know."

Xiao Mo lowered his head and answered softly.

"Elder Sister already saved me. If there had been anyone else alive, I know you would have saved them too. And it has been so long now."

"But... the Village Chief always said to me that people must ultimately be laid to rest in the earth in peace."

Xiao Mo looked directly into Ningxi's eyes.

"It is the last thing I can do for the Village Chief and the others. The last thing any living person can still do."

"You people... you humans are always so fond of doing pointless things."

Ningxi stated this as a matter of plain and quiet fact.

"What does it mean to rest in the earth in peace? When a person is dead, they are dead. Whatever comfort one imagines they are giving the dead by burying them, it has no real meaning. It is nothing more than a consolation the living invent for themselves."

Xiao Mo said nothing in return. He only lowered his head and sat quietly on the wooden bed.

"What a nuisance," Ningxi said, looking at the small boy's downcast eyes. "I have nothing pressing to do regardless. Tomorrow morning, I will take you."

"Truly?" Xiao Mo looked up with sudden brightness. "Thank you, Elder Sister."

"No thanks are needed." Ningxi rose and walked toward the door of the hut. Her voice drifted back to him as she went. "Better to spend the time thinking about how you are going to survive once I am gone."

With her words, the door closed.

Moonlight fell across the ground outside, and across the woman standing within the courtyard.

"Did you come to the mortal world just to meddle in such things?"

Standing there, Ningxi glanced back at the hut, her brow furrowing slightly, as though turning the question on herself.

"Enough."

After a long pause, she shook her head.

"Just this once."