We Agreed On Experiencing Life, So Why Did You Immortals Become Real? Chapter 671: The Gods Do Not Care

The following morning, just as the sky was beginning to lighten.

Xiao Mo rose early.

Walking out of the dilapidated house, he discovered for the first time that he was in a village. But the village looked as though it had been through a war. All the villagers had gone, and not a single person remained.

Not long after Xiao Mo emerged, another door in the courtyard swung open.

Ningxi came out from her room.

"Let's go."

Her tone was as detached as it had been the night before. She did not spare Xiao Mo a glance, walking straight out of the courtyard.

"Com... coming."

Xiao Mo nodded and quickly took up a spade he had spotted in the yard, then followed her out.

Snow was still falling today, though considerably lighter than on the day Xiao Mo had been attacked. Xiao Mo walked through the white expanse and did his best to keep pace with the Elder Sister walking ahead of him but his body was not yet fully recovered from the day before, and after a few steps he would be breathing hard, his legs cold and numb. Even so, after catching his breath he would set off at a small trot to close the gap again.

Ningxi glanced sideways at Xiao Mo working hard to keep up with her, then turned her eyes away without expression. But without any announcement, she quietly slowed her pace.

Just over half an incense stick's time later, Xiao Mo arrived at the place where the beast tide had overtaken them.

The beasts had long since moved on. Most of the bodies had been eaten clean, and what remained were only scattered frozen limbs and half-crushed skulls locked beneath the ice and snow.

Looking at the scene before him, Xiao Mo's stomach lurched with a powerful wave of nausea.

"I told you, there is not a single living person here. Coming changes nothing." Ningxi said flatly.

"It does change something."

Xiao Mo looked at what lay before him, forced down the revulsion, stepped forward, and raised the spade he had brought from the courtyard. He began to dig as large a pit as he could manage in the snow. Then, piece by piece, he dug out what remained from beneath the snow and placed it in the pit he had made, so that the dead might have a resting place in the earth.

Ningxi stood to one side and watched in silence everything Xiao Mo was doing, making no move to help.

The digging went on and stopped and went on again. By noon, Xiao Mo's foot struck something buried in the snow.

He dug it out quickly. It was a walking cane.

He was certain he had not made a mistake. This was the Village Chief's cane.

He dropped to his knees in the snow and began clearing away the deep drifts with both hands as fast as he could.

In the end, what Xiao Mo found was only the Village Chief's body from the waist up, the rest beyond finding. In the old Village Chief's other hand, clutched tight, was the sheepskin map. Even in death, the Village Chief had not let go of that last hope.

Warm tears blurred Xiao Mo's eyes. He wiped them away, lifted the Village Chief carefully onto his back, and carried him over to lay him gently into the pit he had dug.

As the afternoon wore on and the bodies grew too numerous, Xiao Mo dug a second large pit but the digging had gone on so long, and his small body was already weak to begin with, and at last his grip gave out. The spade slipped from his hands, and Xiao Mo pitched forward.

Just as he was about to fall headlong into the pit, he felt the back of his collar seized from behind.

He turned to look. The Elder Sister was standing at his side.

Ningxi pulled Xiao Mo backward, setting him down in the snow, then picked up the spade herself and dug on in his place.

"Thank you, Elder Sister," Xiao Mo said.

"Be quick. The sun will be going down before long." Ningxi said without warmth.

"Yes."

Xiao Mo hurried away to continue gathering what remained.

As the sun drew near to setting, Xiao Mo had collected everything he could find. Most of the bodies had been consumed by the beasts, so the two pits he and Ningxi had dug were more than enough.

When everything was gathered, Ningxi and Xiao Mo shoveled the earth back in together, filling the pits steadily. Then they gathered stones and piled them at the head of the graves, making the simplest kind of marker.

Xiao Mo knelt in the snow before the stones and bowed three times. Ningxi stood beside him without expression.

"What is this map?"

Ningxi had noticed the sheepskin map lying at Xiao Mo's side. She asked about it in a cool tone, for she could sense faint traces of divine power lingering upon it.

"The Village Chief said this map was given to us by the divine spirit." Xiao Mo explained.

"Our village and the villages nearby were all struck by wild beasts and monster-beasts. The village chiefs offered sacrifices to the divine spirit and received a sign: go to the place marked on the map, and a good life awaits. But over the course of all this, what started as more than two thousand people from several villages was whittled down to a few hundred, then to just one. None of us ever reached the paradise the divine spirit promised."

"The Village Chief and the others, right up until they died, were probably still thinking of that place."

Xiao Mo reached out and touched the sheepskin map gently.

After a long moment, he looked up at the Elder Sister beside him. "Elder Sister, do you also believe divine spirits truly exist?"

"I used to ask all sorts of strange questions. Village Chief Grandfather always said it was deeply disrespectful, that one must never question the divine spirits. So when the divine spirit didn't save me, I didn't think much of it."

"But the Village Chief Grandfather and the others made offerings every single day, and held ceremonies at every festival. So why did the divine spirit just watch as the Village Chief Grandfather died?"

"Is it really because the divine spirit was too busy, like the Village Chief Grandfather said?"

Ningxi did not answer at once. She only looked at the rough-stacked stones of the grave marker in silence.

"Do you concern yourself with the ants beneath your feet?" After a long moment, she turned her head toward Xiao Mo. "Just as you pay no attention to ants, why would a divine spirit concern itself with the weak human race?"

Hearing her answer, Xiao Mo lowered his head and said nothing.

"Let's go. It's time to head back."

Ningxi turned and walked toward the abandoned village.

Xiao Mo took one last look at the grave marker, then turned and followed.

The two of them walked through the snow. The sun was sinking in the west, and the red of the evening clouds had stained the whole sky, turning the white world around them a deep, flushed color, laying a faint golden rim across the two figures, one tall and one small.

"Elder Sister..." Xiao Mo raised his head toward the woman walking beside him. "I still do not know Elder Sister's name."

"Ningxi." Ningxi said her name slowly. "You may call me Ningxi."

"All right, Elder Sister Ningxi." Xiao Mo nodded. "Elder Sister Ningxi, my name is Xiao Mo. These two characters. The Village Chief taught me to write them."

With that, Xiao Mo trotted ahead and wrote his name in the snow.

"It makes no difference."

Ningxi only glanced at it briefly, then looked away and continued walking.

"Before long, I will have forgotten anyway."