Nightfall

From when the darkness covered the cliffs until the morning light shined into the cave, Ning Que had been looking at the original cuts on the cave walls for the entire night. Like a blind person, he carefully touched those cuts until his hand became a little bit red and even started to peel, but he still could not find any secret left by Youngest Uncle.

After meditating, diligently reading books, and forcibly suppressing the anxiety in his heart and pretending to be calm for ten days, he was exhausted. Especially after a fruitless night, all the negative things in his mind suddenly broke out.

His uncombed black hair ran over his shoulders and his face was full of fatigue. Looking at the two books on his knees, Ning Que muttered something that no one could hear clearly because his voice was dry and weak.

Sangsang walked into the cave with a pot of clear water and glanced at him worriedly.

Ning Que took the wet towel and rubbed his face with it absentmindedly. When he wiped off the goop from the corners of his eyes, he tore a very narrow wound on his face. The pain made him frown repeatedly.

The wet towel was cold. He had two red marks on his cheeks, either from fatigue or pain. The crimson color, which appeared on his slightly pale cheeks due to the lack of sunlight, made his face not very good-looking. He looked very unhealthy, as if he had been sick for a long time.

His spirit was extremely bad and, naturally, his speed of reading and studying had substantially decreased. He held two books and tried very hard to read, but he found that he seemed to still be the loser who read the Classics in the old library but could not cultivate. In his eyes, the ink characters started to float out from the paper, and began to swim like tadpoles and could not be caught.

He reluctantly put the book aside and closed his eyes to review what he had learned in the past few days. However, his spirit at that time was too poor. He had lost his clarity and had a great deal of deviation in his memory. When he thought about the difficult question of the Origin on Primordial Qi of Nature, he could not remember what Senior Sister Yu Lian had said even though she had explained the answer just the day before yesterday.

Because of being annoyed and worried, the thoughts were naturally expressed. His husky, exhausted voice was so ambiguous that he just murmured to vent his negative emotions.

However, he did not expect for Sangsang, who had been quietly sitting beside him sewing the soles of shoes, to suddenly say something that was actually Senior Sister Yu Lian’s explanation from the day before yesterday.

Ning Que was stunned for a while, and then he remembered that his little handmaiden’s memory had always been better than others’.

Sangsang began to repeat the lecture given by Yu Lian and Chen Pipi. However, Ning Que’s mental state was too poor to listen. After listening for a while, he shook his hand to signal that there was no need to continue.

He tossed the two books beside the futon as if they were rubbish and stood up and stretched. He yawned and walked slowly to the entrance of the cliff cave and looked out at the world outside.

The cliffs behind the back of the mountain of the Academy were really beautiful. However, the lines on the cliffs were like knives that pierced the heart of anyone who saw them. But they were not real knives after all, they were still lines when you had gotten used to them.

The blue sky over the cliffs would never change. It just stayed there, calmly and silently. In Ning Que’s eyes, the original beauty of it had gradually turned into the rigid blue paint of the worst painter.

The same for the clouds and mist around the cliffs.

Looking at the scenery outside the cliff cave, Ning Que suddenly felt chilly and thought, “It’s been only ten days, and I have busy with cultivation. I haven’t even paid attention to the scenery, but I’m already sick of it. So how can I survive for ten months, or even ten years, in this cave?”

As he began to feel empty and lonely, the stone path underneath the plateau suddenly sounded lively. The sound was a mixture of footsteps and quarreling.

It seemed that the never-changing cliff scenery, with the addition of these voices, suddenly flew away and became fresh, showing a completely different beauty than before.

The emptiness and loneliness had never been associated with the landscape, it was only about people.

…

…

“It is too hard to climb! It’s terrible! Twelfth Brother said that we couldn’t get up. I suggested to shout and say hello to Youngest Brother at the waterfall. That is enough to show our love, but you forced us to climb up here!”

Ninth Brother, Beigong Weiyang, panted for breath. He complained as he exasperatedly waved his antique vertical bamboo flute. It seemed that he wanted to push all his companions off the cliff. The mountain breeze blew through the flute and a low note rang out. It sounded like a cry, but resembled Ninth Brother’s huffing and puffing even more closely.

Fifth Brother wiped the sweat from his forehead and took off the dripping wooden chessboard on his back. He looked at Beigong Weiyang and mocked him and said, “We managed to climb up in the end.”

Beigong Weiyang cautiously moved toward the edge of the cliff. He looked down from the cliff, and then he moved backward like lightning. He patted his chest and said, “I’m just worried that we won’t be able to get down later.”

Seven Senior Brothers had come to visit him, making Ning Que very touched. He stood at the entrance of the cliff cave and waited for them excitedly. He waited for a long time and found that they were still only quarreling with each other, and finally, he could not help saying loudly, “Hey, I’m over here!”

…

…

The disciples in the back of the mountain of the Academy were always obsessed with their own things. Besides, as the back of the mountain was so large, they could not meet every day. Sometimes, they even did not meet for one or two months. However, they did not grow distant because of this. As Ning Que was the Youngest Brother among them, naturally, he received much love from his Senior Brothers.

The Senior Brothers and Sisters worried that their Youngest Brother had been imprisoned and left alone, and that he would complain too much and be ill. They asked for permission from the Headmaster and had come together.

However, when they saw their pale Youngest Brother, they did not know what to say. These weird people from the back of the mountain were really not good at comforting or encouraging others.

They cast their eyes on Wang Chi because they knew that he loved thinking and public speaking. The most important thing was that he ranked 11th, and he was the youngest aside from Ning Que. Therefore, such a difficult task would surely be given to him.

Wang Chi was silent for a long time and organized the words in his mind. Finally, he squeezed out a false smile and said to Ning Que seriously, “Since the Headmaster did not stop us from coming up to the mountain to see you, then we will come to see you every day. If you think about it this way, it wouldn’t be too bad even if you can’t get out in the end. It’s actually a good opportunity to learn something.”

Ning Que’s face suddenly grew dark, and he said, “Eleventh Brother, I’m not a wildflower in the mountain forest that can only understand but not speak. Can you say something a little bit more auspicious?”

Fifth Brother rushed to the front with his chessboard to alleviate the awkwardness. He sat in front of the line at the entrance and threw the urn containing the chess pieces to Ning Que and said, “The best way to forget your problems is by playing chess.”

Ning Que held the chessboard and said gloomily, “My body can’t cross the line, so how can we play chess?”

Fifth Brother realized this problem. As he reached out for the chess pieces, he said, “You tell us your moves, and Eighth Brother will make the moves for you.”

Eighth Brother waved the wide sleeves of the school uniform and walked over like a deity and then sat down beside Fifth Brother. He looked at Ning Que and said, “Youngest Brother, though I do this to keep you entertained, you have to do it seriously. Although I’m playing on your behalf, I still do not want to lose to him.”

Beigong Weiyang sneered off to the side and said, “I heard that teacher gave Youngest Brother three books. Given his condition now, he must be exhausted. How can he play chess with you?”

Ning Que thought that Beigong Weiyang was thoughtful.

Beigong Weiyang turned to Ning Que and said, “Youngest Brother, let me and Ximen play a song for you to calm you down.”

Ning Que was silent for a second, and then said to Fifth Brother, “Senior Brother, I’ll leave first.”

…

…

The sound of the melody was great and the sound of the chess pieces knocking on the wooden board was good as well. However, when they were added to the sound of Fifth Brother’s yelling and Eighth Brother’s constant suggestions to Ning Que about where to move the pieces, it was no longer beautiful. The cacophony could not be described.

At this time, the cliff cave was no longer silent and lonely, but became like the busy market in Southen City of Chang’an. Ning Que held a chess piece and wondered to himself if this could be regarded as a retreat?

Suddenly, he missed the previous emptiness and loneliness.

Fourth Brother, who had been silent the entire time, could not stand it any longer. He drove those weirdos away and said to Ning Que, who was relieved, “They were just trying to be nice.”

Ning Que answered sincerely, “I can tell.”

Fourth Brother also said, “The things that we have learned are not helpful for you to pass the test. Today, we mainly came here to cheer you up. Is there anything you want?”

Ning Que smiled and shook his head. He was prepared to ask Sangsang to make tea for his Senior Brothers. Although he was now a prisoner of the Academy, he still had some good tea inside the hut.

However, when he looked at Sangsang, he discovered that the little girl was standing at the edge of the cliff with Sixth Brother and pointing at the hut. He did not know what they were saying as Sixth Brother kept nodding.

…

…

When Sixth Brother walked back to the entrance of the cliff cave, everyone found out what he had been discussing with Sangsang.

Those two were preparing to completely renovate the hut. They planned to not only just reinforce and refurbish it, but mainly they wanted to build a shelter to connect the hut to the cliff cave.

If it was on the ground, such a reconstruction project would not be considered a big issue. However, the hut was on the plateau. The transportation of materials alone was a great problem.

Beigong Weiyang’s face suddenly became pale as he looked at the narrow stone path.

As expected, his prediction was not wrong.

Fourth Brother looked at the crowd coldly and said, “All of us shall help.”

…

…

These weirdos looked like ill and weak people who only cared about chess, trees, or music. But all of them were, after all, the Headmaster’s core disciples. In fact, they were all great cultivators in the upper Seethrough State.

New trees, old stones, and numerous materials were continuously sent to the cliff plateau. Sixth Brother built using his own hands. This seemingly difficult task was successfully completed in less than half a day.

The hut was given extra height, fixed by 14 beams at the edge of the cliff. Wang Chi snuck over to the grass hut on the mountain and stole a lot of frost-colored grass, their teacher’s favorite. He fixed it onto the beams tightly with a thin metal chain. It looked not only beautiful, but was impervious to heavy storms.

The porch between the hut and the cliff cave was designed more elaborately. Unstripped thin trees were used to build the structure and straw mats stolen by Seventh Sister from Second Brother’s yard covered the structure. Many holes were cut into the mats and green vines passed through them, which added a touch of vitality to the sky.

Standing at the entrance of the cave and looking at the beautiful new plateau and his smiling Brothers and Sisters covered with mud and sweat, Ning Que felt the cold mountain wind become warm.