Ten Years Later

Waking up from her sleep, Bai Shuixian recognized that ten years had already passed since she was saved by Zhong Chen. Since then, she had not called him by his name but "Master Zhong". After her vocal had recovered, he had told her that as long as she accepted him as her master, he would teach her everything she wanted to know.

Before her voice recovered though, she had already witnessed the greenhouse, his healing skills, and cultivation. No matter which skill he had, they were all something she wanted to learn and master. Without a doubt, even if he had not spoken out first, she would have already asked him to let her be his disciple.

During the first year that she was his student, she started to learn the basics of growing plants and procuring her own plants. He had started first with teaching her how to tell what soil was the most optimistic for each type of plant. Later on, when she became proficient, he taught her the uses of each plant and which were poisonous and which were not.

It was only through countless sleepless nights and cramming that she managed to learn how to identify a plant without having to look at the books. Immediately after entering the second year of her discipleship, Zhong Chen started teaching her the art of healing. Perhaps it was because he would occasionally tell her the multiple uses of plants, she had an easy time learning how to make balms, pills, and potions.

However, that was the only easy part. Right after that, he taught her how to use needles. Due to her want to know how to do everything, she had used herself as a dummy and tested her skills on her own body.

The ending was not happy at the start and she would injure herself horribly. This went on through the third year and her body was riddled with needle holes. Of course, she did not die yet because of Zhong Chen's care and his medicinal skills.

In the fourth year of her discipleship, Zhong Chen told her to start extending her study on plants and medicine. The only thing was that the more she understood the two subjects, the more distant she got from Zhong Chen. For some reason, she felt that it was intentional as another year passed and he went into seclusion for six months.

Though he informed her of his seclusion, she was not happy. Since the third year, he had stopped cooking for her and the only time that she saw him was when she was struggling with something related to study of plants or the arts of healing. Even when she managed to cook for him, he ordered her to not enter his study so she could only leave the platter of food outside his door and head back to her room.

Despite being saddened by this, she continued furthering her studies on plants and medicine though. Eventually, she became so profound in the study that he no longer had anything to teach her in the two subjects. Since she was such a curious human though, she asked him to teach her martial arts.

Every time she had asked, he had stated that she did not need it yet. Instead, he would teach her how to improve her qinggong or improve on strengthening her spiritual body. He had told her that by improving the spiritual body, it would strengthen her physical body.

Everything that he had always told her was true, so she would follow his instructions. Again, he did not come out of his study though. All of these had occurred after the five year period.

After that period, he had gone into seclusion for a long time and only came out for a month or a few weeks before heading back. Even when he was teaching her how to improve her qinggong, he did not come out to see how she did anymore. Instead, he left a book with instructions outside his study.

He did the same thing with her when he told her to strengthen her spiritual body. Though she listened to every instruction given to her, she became more saddened as time passed. She did not think that as time passed, the more she learned, the more he would hide himself behind doors.

She did not think that she would be surrounded by loneliness once again. After becoming his disciple, she had been having fun. During daytime she would be learning something and at night time if she was bored, she would head to the forest and play around with Zhu Jin.

Though it was not that lonely considering she still had Zhu Jin, there was still another person who contributed lots to her life missing. However, in the seventh year, Zhong Chen had come out for an entire year. This had filled her with happiness, but later on learned that he had only come out to teach her how to read the stars and many more to predict the future.

This had come out of nowhere and there were no books to help her this time so it had taken her a full two years to finally master it. Not only that, within those years, Zhong Chen had made bath soaks that he said would "shed a layer of her human skin to become immortal". She did not quite understand, but she knew that the process was painful and the bath smelled horrible.

Aside from that, she did realize that she had indeed become stronger in weathering the different temperatures and many poisons and medicines had no effect on her anymore. Something that could cause Zhu Jin to faint, made her feel nothing. Even her own concoctions had to be tested on another being instead of her since her body no longer reacted like how it used to anymore.

Once two years passed, Zhong Chen went back into his seclusion, leaving her alone in the temple once again. She wondered if her current feelings were the same he felt after that priestess had left.

She thought, 'This temple is too big for one person alone.'

Coming back into the present, she went into thinking about what Zhong Chen told her yesterday.

"Shuixian, you're sixteen years old now, right?" he had asked.

"Yes. What is it?" she had asked back right after answering.

"I'm thinking that it's time you've left the temple and explored the world," Zhong Chen told her.

"Huh? Master, I think I've explored quite a lot," she said with surprise.

"Have you? Then, have you seen the south sea with its pearls and mermaids?" Zhong Chen inquired.

"No," she answered.

At the time, despite hearing about the pearls and mermaids, she was not happy. For some reason, she felt that he was chasing her out. However, she kept her sad feelings in and did not expose her emotions.

Maybe it was because he had gone for so many months and only came back once in a while, she had toughened her face. It could also be because she had faced too much harshness in her childhood. For whatever reason though, her facial expressions did not change much and even her eyes held little emotions.

"Yesterday, you should have seen an image?" Zhong Chen asked.

Though she was a bit surprised, she knew that it should be normal by now, so she answered, "Yes."

"I believe you should understand that message yourself, Shuixian," he had told her calmly with no sadness or emotions seeping on the surface.

"Master, if I don't follow what is told, what effect will it have?" she asked.

"Shuixian, people that do not follow their fate, will have a bad ending," he answered.

Honestly, she wanted to laugh at herself. This was something Zhong Chen had instilled on her for a long time, but she did not want to listen. She always thought that as long as there was a will, even a human could defy their fate that had coldlessly been chosen for them.

As though he knew what she was thinking, he said, "Shuixian, your name is famous amongst the realms. Your status is powerful enough to move the world. Go out and help according to your destiny."

She had almost cried, but she managed to choke out, "Master-"

He had interrupted her before she could say anything though, "Shuixian, do not trap yourself here. Don't you have a grandmother waiting for you?"

When he reminded her of Su Guang, she had nothing to say back. He was indeed right. There was still someone waiting for her back in the capital.

However, as though making an excuse, she said, "But Master, I have yet to help Zhu Jin."

"Zhu Jin has already been cured. You've already helped him with the potions you make him drink everyday," he responded. "Though he has not shown it to you, he can now transform into a human."

In fact, she had already known this. She was just trying to make an excuse. Despite knowing that there was a family member waiting for her in the luxurious capital of the empire, she did not want to leave the forest.

Zhong Chen had sighed when he saw her reluctance to leave and said, "Shuixian, I have to leave back to where I come from."

This had shocked her even more. Was this the reason why he kept on going into seclusion? Was this the reason why he was persuading her to leave?

"Shuixian, everyone has a place they call home. This place is not it and I merely created this temple to wait for you," he said. "According to what destiny had shown me, that is."

Right after he said that, she had responded with, "I understand. I'll leave tomorrow."