"Father passed three years ago. Mother passed two months ago."
Wang Ying stood beside Xiao Mo and spoke slowly.
The little girl who had once split a steamed bun with Xiao Mo had grown into a young woman, married into a family in Qingshan City.
Wang Ying's own daughter was already seven or eight.
"I never thought the village chief's grave and Aunt Chen's would end up side by side," Xiao Mo said with a smile. "I remember how Aunt Chen used to go on in my ear that she'd married the wrong man, and that when she died she meant to be buried as far from that dead old geezer as she could get."
Wang Ying smiled too. "That was Mother, all right. But when Father went, she was the one who cried the hardest. And when she was going herself, she made a point of telling me to put her grave right beside Father's..."
Xiao Mo crouched down and set a jug of wine before the headstones. "Maybe that's what a married couple is..."
Wang Ying's daughter—Wang Qianqian—wanted to step up and tug at Xiao Mo's blue robe, but her mother pulled her back.
Wang Ying pressed her palm to her daughter's shoulder to hold her still. "Brother Xiao, before Father and Mother went, there were some things they told me to pass on to you."
"Mm." Xiao Mo nodded.
"When Father was leaving, he said the greatest blessing of his life was getting to teach a zhuangyuan like Brother Xiao his letters. His only regret was that his own learning wasn't much and there wasn't much he understood."
"Not at all. The village chief taught me a great many things. If not for him, I'd never even have passed the preliminary examinations." Xiao Mo shook his head. "Did he say anything else?"
"Father also said that the most he ever made of himself was a xiucai, nothing to be compared with Brother Xiao. But one thing he did have on you: he'd eaten several decades more rice than you had, so he saw a few things a little more clearly.
Father told me to tell you, Brother Xiao: when trouble comes, don't take things too hard.
At court, the most important thing is to protect yourself. Don't haggle over a temporary gain or loss.
To get out with your whole skin, safe and sound—that's the best outcome there is."
"The village chief had great wisdom," Xiao Mo said approvingly.
Wang Ying glanced at Xiao Mo's profile, bit lightly at her lip, her face hesitant, but she said it anyway:
"When Mother was going, she told me to tell you, Brother Xiao: don't keep clinging to someone who's already left. Immortals and mortals live in separate worlds—gone is gone. Brother Xiao ought to find a wife and have a child, or growing old all alone will be miserable, and there'll be no one to look after you in your last years."
"Heh heh heh..." Xiao Mo chuckled. "That's Aunt Chen, all right."
"Brother Xiao..." Wang Ying started and then stopped. "I think so too..."
"It's fine." Xiao Mo cut her off.
Xiao Mo got to his feet, patted Wang Qianqian lightly on the head, and smiled. "When Qianqian's all grown up, will you look after Grandpa Xiao in his old age for me?"
"I will, I will!" The little girl nodded.
"See?" Xiao Mo said to the girl's mother with a smile. "Looks like there's still someone to care for me and see me into the ground."
Wang Ying: "..."
"All right, Xiao Ying, I'm heading up the mountain. You two hurry back to Qingshan City too, or it'll be dark by the time you get there."
Xiao Mo drew his sleeves together and walked step by step toward Sheshan, until he gradually vanished at the end of the mountain path.
"Mom, why is Grandpa Xiao so old and still hasn't taken a wife?"
The little girl tipped her head back and looked up at her mother, curious.
"Because..." Wang Ying watched the receding figure, "there's no room in Grandpa Xiao's heart for anyone else."
After paying his respects at the village chief's grave, Xiao Mo climbed Sheshan and came to the boulder at the cave mouth.
The clearing in front of the cave was already a mass of blooming Ziyang Grass and Qinglong Flower.
Not far from the cave stood a small hut—Xiaoqing had built it herself.
All these years Xiaoqing had lived there, keeping watch over her sister.
As for Xiao Mo's old courtyard house, every two or three days Xiaoqing went and swept it, so that if Xiao Mo ever came back he'd have somewhere to stay.
Standing at the cave mouth, Xiao Mo looked quietly at the boulder blocking his way.
Though he was nearly fifty, his bearing was as straight as ever, like the old pine in that courtyard—as if no wind, however fierce, could ever bend his back.
"Ruxue, I've come back to see you."
Facing the cave, Xiao Mo spoke slowly.
It was as if he were speaking to her inside the cave, and as if he were talking to himself.
"Don't hold it against me that I haven't been to see you all these years. The reform truly left too much to be done—and after all that work, it still failed."
"But before long, I'll be off to take up another post."
"I'm leaving the capital to serve as governor of Beihai Province. It's a place that sits by the sea."
"You've probably never seen the sea, have you?"
"That's all right. Once you're out, I'll take you to see it."
"And come to think of it, twenty-seven years have gone by in a blink." Xiao Mo smiled. "Look at me—my hair's gone white."
"Brother Xiao..."
Just as Xiao Mo was speaking to Bai Ruxue, Xiaoqing's voice came from behind him.
Xiao Mo turned around and smiled. "Xiaoqing, it's been a long time."
"Brother Xiao... you..."
Looking at the silver at Xiao Mo's temples and how much older he had grown, Xiaoqing felt an ache in her heart she could not name.
It's only five years since I last saw Brother Xiao, and he's aged so much...
"Oh, you mean the white hair? Or the wrinkles? That's normal—people get them when they get old." Xiao Mo said it without a care. "But you, Xiaoqing, you're just the same as ever. You haven't changed at all. That's a good thing."
Xiaoqing said nothing. She stepped forward and stood beside Xiao Mo, and together they looked at the boulder before them.
"With me away all these years, did anything happen here with your sister?" Xiao Mo asked Xiaoqing beside him.
"Nothing happened with Sister. A few years back some rogue cultivators came; I beat them off, and they never came back. But the village chief and Aunt Chen have gone, and Aunt Wang and the others too..."
Xiaoqing went through the village's affairs of the past years one by one—who in Stone Bridge Village had passed away, whose grandchildren had been born, who had passed the xiucai examination, and so on.
Xiao Mo listened closely, nodding from time to time.
"Brother Xiao..." When she had finished, Xiaoqing turned her head, her small hands clenched tight. "You really don't have to keep waiting anymore."
"It's all right." Xiao Mo shook his head.
"But Brother Xiao, you've already waited twenty-seven years... you're nearly fifty. It really has been enough." Xiaoqing had lost count of how many times she had tried to talk him around. "Brother Xiao... let it go..."
The moment the woman's words fell, a spring breeze swept through the mountain woods, tugging gently at the man's white hair and brushing softly over the blue robe that had yellowed and been patched who knew how many times.
"Xiaoqing..."
Xiao Mo looked at the stone before him, his voice drifting slowly out through the mountain woods.
"In the old days... she was always the one waiting for me."
Now...
"It's my turn to wait for her."