The mind has no heart

Cold wind whipped about like blades, and snow flew around, falling to the ground.

Lu Zhou opened his eyes and found himself seated in a dull-yellow horse carriage, which shook left and right. He could hear a young girl speak in a soft and gentle voice beside him.

Outside the carriage was a sea of buzz and commotion. Hawkers were trying to sell their goods, people were yelling and others exclaiming. Children were making a din. Eldery were carrying basket.

Lu Zhou heaved a deep sigh.

He knew he could no longer go back. He was originally a ordinary officer in black company. Howerver, he'd gotten drunk from the new chief's celebration, and when he woke up from his stupor, he found himselft in this present world.

It had been a week since then.

He sniffed at the air, smelling a wafting aroma of wine, mixed with the fragrance of pies and fried nuts.

" Sigh...The Osman Winery's white osman wine is getting more and more fragrant," the personal sevant girl in the carriage, Little Qiao, whispered in a childish voice.

Little Qiao was only twelve this year, but with her natural dollish features and petite figure, she looked no different from ten-year old.

Her small, chubby face carried a natural blush. She donned a small green cotton skirt and her hands were now rubbing a hair tie she was preparing to tie up Lu Zhou's hair with when they alighted.

This kind of hair tie was made of the expensive bark of a species of rubber tree which emanated a light fragrance. The only bad thing about it was that it stiffened when the weather got cold and needed to be warmed and softened by rubbing it with warm hands.

Lu Zhou laughed and kept silent. Meanwhile, the carriage quickly came to a stop.

He pulled back the carriage's veil and alighted, stepping onto the greyish white street covered with bluestone tiles, each as big as a face basin.

On the street, carriages and horses led by people travelled in either direction. Hawkers chatted with ladies who were out on a stroll, and wives appeared in public and laughed without care or restraint, peals of laughter resounding incessantly on the street.

Lu Zhou his head and saw the winery ahead. On a white retangular signboard, three giant words was carved beautifully - The Osman Winery.

Lu Zhou nodded. From Little Qiao's hands, he received a silver-bordered white paper fan and shook it open like a rich young master. A scenery of maountains and a rive interwined with each other was painted onto the fan, and a poem had been written on the side. It was clearly the work of a great literaty.

He followed the servant into the familiar winery.

It was divided into two stories. The hall on the first story was presently filled with many of those who were listening to song performances.

A young lady dressed in green stood in the middle of the empty space, her clear voice twisting and turning melodiously. Beside her, a middle-aged woman was playing a flute.

The song being performed was called Triangle Paths, a tragic love story about a general on a mission of conquest and a fox lady in the mountain wilderness.

But it was a shame that those present were a boorish bunch, and only few somewhat cultured ones among them were barely able to understand the song. The rest of them treated the two ladies like thin air.

Those who tipped were even fewer.

Lu Zhou paused. Seeing how lively it was, he sat down on an empty seat on the first story.

" Who picked Triangle Paths ?" He asked the servant casually.

He held an uncommon status here in The Osman Winery. Had it been an upscale place of enterainment on Earth, he would have been a ordinary guest.

In a small northen city like this White Path City, such spending was enough to make one a hawkers on the street.

" It's Young Master Sheng. Young Master Sheng Lu," the servant replied softly.

After pulling Little Qiao down onto a seat, his gaze swept the crowd on the first story and quickly landed on a pale and frail gentleman clad in white robes. He was fanning himselft lightly with an ordinary fan he held in his hand.

Lu Zhou shook his head after seeing the eyes of the young master glued to the young girl who's singing.

" Young Master just warned him last time. That lad's really a rotten egg! " Little Qiao pouted angrilly.

Lu Zhou smiled and started listening to the song quietly.

Dishes soon filled the top of the mahogany table. Lu Zhou grabbed some stir-fried meat slices with lettuce and started eating.

He also drink a mouthful of white osman wine, drinking it as if it were a normal beverage. The faint and sweet floral fragrance mixed up in it made it taste like fruit juice.

' Food and clothing fit for royalty, without any lack or want, and I've even got a pretty servant girl to warm my bed...this lifestyle is way too decadent,' sometimes Lu Zhou would think about simply living the rest of his life this way. The pursuit of his previous life was to eat, drink, and laze around anyway.

He ate another mouthful of dishes, and drank another mouthful of wine. Then, he opened his mouth so Little Qiao could put in a salted ice prawn she had just shelled.

Those ice prawns were the local speciality of this snowy northen city. Just a casual scoop in a thick ice hole would draw up a large amount of translucent prawns.

Those were ice prawns.

They were half the length of a normal prawn but were a fresh delicacy. The meat melted instantly in one's mouth, serving up an indescribable gastronomic pleasure.

Of course, it was extremely pricey.

It was already considered extravagant for an average person to eat it once a month. Who could enjoy it during every meal like him?

Lu Zhou enjoyed the delicacies and wine before him while listening to the song, but his mind was elsewhere.

He had already arrived in this ancient China-like world for so manu days. Yet, according to his observations, this world was riddled with many strange happenings.

Initialy, he'd thought that he had gone back into the ancient times, but later he discovered otherwise.

The customs, the habits the weather and the climate hete were all vastly different from those during the times of any other dynasty or in any place that he knew of.

As he was thinking of these things, the winery's main doors opened again.

A group of muscular men dressed in short robes filled in, finding a table near the corner and sitting down immediately.

These muscular men were clearly not locals. Their dressing indicated that they seemed to have come from the Central Plains Neither their clothing nor bearing were as rough as the notherners.

" Ai "

The leader amonh them was a bald man with bronze earrings and a fierce-looking face. Yet here he was, sighing.

" The days are getting worse. "

" Don't worry, big brother. If we can't go past Chen Village, we'll just take the second route. Skirting around Yang Village will work, too" another man said with a frown.

" What do you know? I came to meet up with you guys precisely via that route. They're not much better off than the people at Chen Village...there's plenty of dead there too," the bald man's fierce-looking face trembled and turned even more sorrowful.

" What on earth happened? Tell us big brother, so we can learn a thing or two," a man urged.

The bald muscular man sighd again. " I don't know the soecifics either. I just know that quite a few fishing vilages by the Jiang Li Lake have been affected. Seems like a water ghost has been hounting them."

" Water ghost!? No way!"

Lu Zhou's table was not far from them and he could hear their conversation which they made no effort to conceal.

At first, he was simply listening for fun, but little did he expect that those men started chatting about some superstitious things.

The Lu Family in his present life was one of the several most wealthy families in this snowy northen city. Saying that they lived high off the hog would be an understatement.

If it was on Earth, they would be at least billionaires.

During those past few days, coming our for a drinks, he had heard more than a few rumours about demons, spirits, gods and ghosts in the winery. But they were largely gossip.

This was the firts case that involved people who had a personal encounter, so Lu Zhou raised his ears and eavesdropped attentively on their conversation.

It was a good thing that they did not hush it up. They continued chatting loudly about the strange occurances in the fishing vilages.

" That water ghost...I saw it with my own eyes .. it was over ten feet tall, with green face and fangs, covered with lots of seaweedm Oh my goodness, If I, your big brother, didn't run fast enough, you wouldn't be able to see me now," the bald man was still having the shivers as he recalled it.

" Big Brother, is the water ghost real?" One of them was skeptical.

" Are you sure you didn't make up this story?" Another of them sneered.

Having heard to this point, Lu Zhou found it hard to believe too. It was probably another boast by some boor from god-knows-where. He had seen many of this kind of people already.

Having eaten something and drunk some wine, he made a servant bring over the singing lady's song list and casually looked it over.

Triangle Paths was not bad, but didn't suit the atmosphere. He wanted to change it to a mre joyous tune.

" PA!"

But, right at that moment, the bald man slapped the table with his palm, his face now red.

" You really think that I, Boos Zu, only knows how to boast!? Look, look at what this is! That's a piece of bone left behind by the water ghost! I secretly picked it up after the incident!"

He retrieved a piece of jade-like stone gingerly from his chest and slapped the tabletop with it.

" Isn't that just a piece of mixed jade?" One of them sneered.

" Mixed jade? This mixed jade?! Go eat crap!" The bald man's face was red with rage.

" This brother over here. Can you show me that thing?"

A mild voice rank out from the side suddenly.

Lu Zhou was standing beside their table with a smile on his face. His gaze swept across the green piece of jade on the tabletop.

" This thing...you dare to take it? This was left behind by a water ghost," the bald man remarked in suprise.

He had merely taken it out to show it off for a while and was planning to throw ut away a little later.

After all, it was left behind by something inhuman. If it led the water ghost to him, he would really be in deep trouble.

" It's ok. I just want to take a look," Lu Zhou did not believe in any tale about a water ghost. It just seemed to him that the piece of jade could be purchased from shops and stalls everywhere.

But, for some strange reason, the moment he saw this piece of jade, he knew something was different about it.

The bald Boss Zu glanced at Lu Zhou and saw that he carried an extraordinarry aura about him, dressed in clothes worn by the rich.

He wore a green robe and a white fox fur jacket. On his head was a jade officer hat, and on his feet, there were black-soled shoes with cloud pattern embroidered on them with silver threads.

The cost of his entire outfit was enough to pay for a few months's worth of spending at The Osman Winery, and probably enough to equal an average household's annual expenditure as well.

" Well, Young Master, if you want it, er...just a couple of silver will do!" The muscular man ventured after some hesitation.

" Deal," Lu Zhou leyt Little Qiao take out two piece of silver and place it on the table.

" It's yours now," the bald man took the jade and stuffed it in Lu Zhou's hands decisively. The few of them exchanged glances with each other, rose from the table and left.

Without another word, Lu Zhou watched them leave. He held up the jade in his hand for a closer examination.

' A couple of silver. If this was on Earth, then we're talking about a thousand dollars worth of purchasing power. Only in this life I can spend so extravagantly,' he shook his head. A silver meant nothing to him. According to the memories of his present body, his average montly expenditure was at least above a hundrded of silver.

Thingking of this, he complained in his heart about what a prodigal the previous host of this body had been.

Ignoring the stares of the surrounding onlookers, he held onto the jade, called Little Qiao and left the winery, heading towards the horse carriage waiting outside.

Yet right after stepping out of the winery, before he was even halfway there, he abruptly stood still and placed the jade in the heart of his palm.

There and then, in the middle of his right palm, the jade started melting!

> Absorbed 2 Origin Points <

A rang of cold voice sounded inside his head.

He stood rooted to the ground in shock. Refocusing his sight, he saw that the jade was already gone from his palm.

' Just now that was....'