Family Cultivation: I Become a Mirror-Chapter 64 Xu San
Five years later.
The morning sun broke through layers of mountain fog, sprinkling down through gaps in the treetops and leaves, casting light fragments of pale gold across the ground.
The Li Family had farmed by the banks of Wangyue Lake for another five years, and it had been sixteen or seventeen years since Mirror was found. The stone paths on Lijing Mountain were gradually turning green, birds were chirping in the branches, presenting a scene of renewal.
But Xu Old Man sat blankly next to a gravestone covered with green moss, his stooped body echoing the coldness of the tombstone, his withered hand gripping a clod of earth tightly.
"Old man... how come you’re not dead yet?"
A few years ago, Xu Old Man went up to Lijing Mountain, saying he would watch over the Li Family’s graveyard, and since Li Xiangping and the others couldn’t persuade him otherwise, they let him be.
Li Xuanxuan built a small hut next to the graveyard on Lijing Mountain for him. He would often bring things to visit him. Xu Old Man could play tricks, weave grass crickets, and even draw a bit; the children of the Li Family would run to the hut every two to three days. Li Xuanfeng, without playmates of his age in the mountains and with a busy father, grew up playing with Xu Old Man these years.
Xu Old Man would play with the children with a smile, but in secret, he was awaiting death. Every night before sleep, he would think, "Should I die tomorrow?" But the next day, he would still wake up as usual, with the sun rising normally.
Just yesterday, Xu Old Man’s reluctant and tottering eightieth year had arrived.
"Damn it, how can someone live to eighty years old and not die?"
Xu Old Man squinted his eyes, looking towards the distant hillside where a small figure was waving under the golden sunlight, the backlight from the sun stretching his silhouette long.
"Xuanfeng is here to see you~ Xu——Old——Man——"
The child was covered in dirt, with mud on his face and hair disheveled, looking somewhat handsome and even bearing a bit of a wild and unruly air, holding a small wooden bow with a tiny quiver tied around his waist.
The child hopped and skipped down from the hillside bathed in golden sunlight, while Xu Old Man was languishing in a dark corner, struggling for life. At that moment, the two of them were like the two poles of the world, coming face to face on the waist of Lijing Mountain, one at the dawn of life, the other at its dusk.
"Is it Xuanxuan who has come?"
Xu Old Man’s consciousness cleared up a lot as he lifted his head and said, stumbling over his words.
"Xu Old Man, I am Li Xuanfeng, my father is Li Xiangping, not Li Changhu."
Li Xuanfeng giggled, untying the rope on his trousers, found a gravestone about his height next to the old man, and humming a tune, started to pee against it.
Barely having started peeing, Li Xuanfeng was just about to pull up his trousers and finish when Xu Old Man’s eyes bulged, and with effort he lifted his cane, smacking Li Xuanfeng on the buttocks, and scolded:
"You bastard, that is your great-grandfather’s grave."
Li Xuanfeng stumbled, shaking off his indignation. Then he pulled up his pants, tied the rope, and said with a look of defiance:
"He’s already dead! What’s wrong with peeing on it? How did he die?"
"Poisoned to death."
After this exertion, Xu Old Man seemed to have perked up a bit, sitting up with effort, he began to narrate:
"Many years ago, your Li Family wasn’t as strong as now. There was a big family called the Yuan Family. They poisoned your great-grandfather and your second grandfather, seeking to consolidate the land."
"Later, your grandfather returned with a knife in hand and wiped out the entire Yuan Family, then took their land to distribute."
Li Xuanfeng propped himself with his small hands, sitting on a medium-sized mossy gravestone beside him, giggled and exclaimed loudly:
"Served them right!"
Xu Old Man glared at him and then continued to speak: 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞
"What’s so good about it? The Yuan Family... one child escaped, and twenty-two years later returned to kill your eldest uncle!"
"Huh?!"
Li Xuanfeng’s eyes suddenly narrowed, his slender eyelashes twitching above his nose. He cursed:
"It’s all because Grandfather didn’t do the job properly. He should have killed off the family completely so that none could escape."
The elderly Xu stared at him blankly, then whispered:
"What a bad seed! You members of the Li family have been bad from a young age."
Li Xuanfeng shook his head defiantly, raising his voice:
"Why should the Yuan family be allowed to kill members of my family, to slaughter one of us, then wait to be annihilated by us, while if we kill one of their children, we should wait for them to come seeking revenge? What’s this about good or bad?"
The elderly Xu also shook his head, his voice grave:
"When will this cycle of vengeance ever end..."
"If one’s hand isn’t firm, then of course the cycle of vengeance never ends. If one exterminates the whole clan, what grievances are left to avenge?"
Li Xuanfeng cursed, a look of disdain on his immature face, not at all resembling a child of seven or eight.
The elderly Xu coughed twice, saying with self-deprecation:
"Having seen too much life and death, this old man is scared of killing, yet turns out to be less decisive than a child like you."
"Uncle Xu."
Li Xuanfeng stood solemnly by his side, then said:
"Sheep eat grass, wolves eat sheep, humans eat meat, demons eat humans; the world is naturally a cycle of you eat me, I eat you."
"My father said this."
He straightened his back, assuming a serious demeanor, and put on an air of old age as he said:
"Feng’er, the world itself is in great strife!"
Having said that, he laughed heartily, rolling around on the ground and inadvertently making the old Xu on the ground laugh along with him, coughing as he did so.
After laughing for a while, the elderly Xu slowly began:
"Once there was a family that lived on the edge of a village. The father toiled tirelessly in the fields, while the mother took good care of their three children."
"One day, seeing the neighboring village abuzz with activity, the father sent his youngest son Xu San to chop wood in the mountains. Xu San went up the mountain cheerfully, playing wildly until the evening before returning."
"But when he got home, Xu San was met with bloodstains everywhere. A dozen people were sitting in his courtyard, a large pot set up, with his parents inside. His two older brothers had already been clean shaven, piled up in two mounds."
"Xu San was terrified. He turned and ran, hiding in the mountains for ten whole days. Later, he heard that the neighboring village had suffered a severe drought, and the villagers, driven by hunger, had no way out. His house was distant from the village, hence this great calamity."
Li Xuanfeng listened intently, his face cold as he murmured low:
"I would kill them all."
"But Xu San was timid, a coward all his life. He didn’t dare say anything and hid in the village for a lifetime. Xu San hated them, but Xu San hated that big bird and that Immortal even more!"
The elderly Xu cried out in confusion for a while, then hastily pulled Li Xuanfeng over, his voice urgent and deep:
"Xu San saw two servants releasing water in the mountains, they said... they said... they lured that big bird to Da Li Mountain to feed on people, in order to collect the Flame Nether Qi for the Young Master of the Tang Jin Sect to practice Qi Cultivation. Xu San heard it clearly but was too scared to speak for decades."
"Xu San, Xu San, uh... dead, they’re all dead."
The elderly Xu gasped twice in quick succession, his eyes blood-red as he spat out several mouthfuls of blood, his head lolling to the side as he fell to the ground, his hand that had been clutching Li Xuanfeng’s trouser leg slowly loosened its grip.
Li Xuanfeng stared blankly at him, it took quite a while before he suddenly spoke:
"Xu San, you too are dead now."
Warm tears flowed down his face, falling onto the cold, stiff corpse of the elderly Xu. Li Xuanfeng sobbed a few times, then lay on his body and wept bitterly, until he was dizzy and his eyes blurred, weeping with indignant grief.
