Slaying the Divine, Ascending the Path

31

On the way back, Qi Mo carried his wine gourd. Suddenly, he asked: "Is he good-looking?" "Who?"

"Guan Ji."

I glanced at him, about to mock his lack of observation, but then heard Qi Mo softly say:

"In my eyes, he's just a monster. Dark and hideous, with sticky eyes, severed limbs, and the low, dark mutterings from his mouth."

I was silent for a long time: "...He's good-looking, very cute, even cuter than the rabbits on Penglai Mountain." I stopped walking, amidst the falling autumn leaves at the base of Penglai Mountain, and asked Qi Mo:

"Brother, are you clear-headed, or are you confused?" Qi Mo stood a few steps higher than me.

He looked at the veins of a maple leaf in his palm and didn't answer my question but said instead:

"A cultivator should abstain from grains early on. Even if not, the diet should be light. Otherwise, it's against the sect rules, punishable by severe penalties. 'They follow the rules, I'm the exception.

'I was born into a family of generals and ministers, grew up wealthy, loved fine food, good wine, salty, oily, spicy, always secretly breaking the rules—' Qi Mo took off his wine gourd, took a sip:

'But they don't like it. Earthly delicacies make them sleepy and weak.'"

The sect always said that worldly food and grains make the meridians muddled, hindering cultivation. But I never expected.

The truth to be so simple.

Qi Mo didn't answer my question but seemed to have answered it.

He turned around, drinking his wine, humming a tuneless song: "Behold my lands, vast and wide, where tales of gold and jade reside.

See the beacon fires of war, where iron horses gallop afar. Wolves and jackals run their course, amidst the demons of remorse.

Life's but a grand dream in the end, how many autumns does one spend..."