Chapter 3

After three days, I finally ate my fill.

Ying Que was generous. He took me to the largest restaurant in town.

Pea Pudding circled his legs in delight.

After suffering with me, surviving on scraps picked up by the roadside, a chicken drumstick had restored all his energy.

“I’m sorry, Brother Ying. I lost the deed to the house you gave me.”

With our meal over, I made my shameful confession.

“What’s there to apologize for? I gave it to you, so it was yours. Was that really worth running away over? You even abandoned Pea Pudding.”

Under the table, Pea Pudding barked twice in agreement.

I smiled sheepishly.

Ying Que sighed. “Even if the house in town is gone, you still had your cottage in Apricot Village. How did you become homeless? Where’s Ah Jin? And how did you lose your sight?”

So many questions at once. I didn’t know where to begin.

After thinking for a long time, I answered.

“There was a fire in the village. The cottage burned down, and the smoke damaged my eyes. I couldn’t afford treatment, so I ended up on the streets. As for Ah Jin…”

I hesitated. “He’s gone.”

Ying Que stiffened. “What?”

Realizing he’d misunderstood, I hastily explained, “He isn’t dead. He woke a few days after you left, and he wasn’t simple-minded anymore. He remembered where he lived, so I let him go home.”

Thinking about it, Ying Que must have meant to compensate me in two ways.

One was the deed to the biggest house in town.

The other must have been curing Ah Jin’s condition.

Sure enough, Ying Que sprang up in agitation. “I gave him a heart of keen understanding so you could marry a man with all his faculties, live comfortably, and have a few healthy children together! Don’t you mortals say a life saved should be repaid with marriage? You took him home and cared for him so well. How could he just leave?”

“Well… you can’t really put it like that.”

I spoke frankly. “You can’t force someone’s feelings. Take today. You bought me a meal. If I said I’d repay you by marrying you, would you agree?”

Ying Que was instantly silenced.

I stroked Pea Pudding’s head and smiled in Ying Que’s direction. “Brother Ying, thank you for the meal. I’m afraid I have nothing to repay you with, so… let me bow to you.”

I dropped to my knees to kowtow.

Startled, Ying Que reached out to stop me.

“Don’t do that! What if you shorten my life?”

“Shorten your life? Aren’t you an immortal?”

He sighed beside me.

“I’ve come down to undergo a tribulation. Heaven’s Way has taken my powers.

“Ah Fu, I’m a mortal now, just like you.”

An old man had once told me a story.

He’d said immortals undergoing tribulations first entered the cycle of rebirth, arriving in the world as babies. Only after enduring life’s eight sufferings could they return to the immortal realm.

Yet Ying Que was no different from three years ago.

He couldn’t explain it himself.

Perhaps, he guessed, this tribulation was so perilous that Lord Maori, who governed fate, had decided to go easy on him.

Uneasily, I asked, “What if… you don’t pass?”

“Then I’ll stay in the mortal world until I do.”

Ying Que chuckled. “Someone once broke the Jade Emperor’s crystal cup and was banished to undergo tribulations for nine hundred years. Another immortal started his thousands of years ago and still hasn’t come back. It isn’t such a big deal.”

I was astonished. Apparently being an immortal wasn’t easy either.

“Ah Fu, I’m mortal now. I can’t restore your sight instantly, the way I healed Ah Jin. But whatever it takes, I will cure you.”

His voice was as firm as it had been when he’d learned of the river demon and immediately resolved to face it alone.

My nose stung.

Swallowing the sadness, I smiled and refused. “There’s no need, Brother Ying. You haven’t broken anything of mine this time.

“Besides, your own safety matters more than my eyes. Didn’t you say this tribulation was dangerous—”

Before I finished, a warm palm covered my eyes.

Ying Que spoke gravely. “This time, I’m not trying to make amends.

“I want to help because you’re Ah Fu. Is that not enough?”