Falling Dreams Of Fang Hua

Chapter 3: Foster Father Fang Hua

Were all Immortals so removed from the attractions of the mundane world?

I carried this question inside me for three days until I wanted to pound my head with my own fists. It was too oppressing.

Recently, the beautiful person always watched me eat before leaving. He would return to the residence after a long while, pleased, and then spend the entire afternoon reclining on a bamboo mat to doze.

Fang Hua never arranged any work for me to do, and spoke to me very little. He seemed to have thoroughly forgotten a person like me existed. Even if I tried to increase my popularity by wandering back and forth before him, he never looked directly at me. Despite this ill-treatment, he always arranged for three meals a day and waited upon me. It was as if I wasn't led here to be ordered about, but to enjoy a happy life filled with ease...

Seriously, what a weird guy...

—

Midday.

As usual, he cooked some dishes and placed them on the table. Without even touching the chopsticks, he immediately ignored me to grab his robes and head out the door. I quickly swallowed a few mouthfuls of rice, used my sleeve to wipe my mouth and bent forwards, holding my breath as I tailed along behind him.

The house he built here was pretty out of the way. There weren't even any neighbors around, and a field of medicinal herbs grew behind the building. The shade of the green trees was dense beneath the summer sun and beneath it, a pond of water rippled with jade-green waves that gave people an immeasurably cool feeling.

A white-robed silhouette disappeared into the ancient forest.

Huh...

Weird, why did he slip into a place where the birds wouldn't even go to poop? Enduring the rays of the scorching sun, I broke into a run until I found and leaned against the back of an ancient tree. My neck craned around to look quietly.

Huh...

I saw the beautiful person rise to the sky with a leap, his image reflected in the pond below. The white robes were airy as his foot stepped lightly on the surface of the pool without stirring a ripple. Then, slender hands stretched forward to grab something I couldn't see as his body slowly floated to the ground, as lovely as an immortal's. Only now, there was the stem of a lotus flower in his hand.

Ah...I didn't know he could set the mood so well. Using qinggong[1] on a hot day to approach the water's surface and gather lotuses was pretty yuppie. At that time I really wanted to express the surging within my heart.

The beautiful person was like a painting, with long hair swirling in the air and flowers falling in riotous profusion. He flawlessly tore off the petals from the lotus flower...please take note, he tore them...and then stood up, placing them in his mouth as he began to chew.

His expression then was as if he was trying a delicate, delicious flavor of the mortal world.

I clung to the old tree, eyes wide as I watched this so-called immortal fly upwards. In the span of a second, he had gathered various flowers into his hands, settled into the tree, and stuffed them all into his mouth.

After seeing him move like floating clouds and flowing water, I became as dumbstruck as a wooden chicken. His table manners were refined, his lips slightly part in a way that radiated appeal. Even if he had been eating the Five Grains[2] or similar, he'd still look dazzling. Whoever heard of someone who ignored normal food in favor of such non-human things...

Wait, a proverb said: many esteemed men of noble character do not follow normal conventions. His high martial prowess definitely had something to do with his diet. Perhaps those flowers could improve the potency of one's inner energy?