"You can go back on your word if you want, but I, Jiang You, keep my promises. A real man's word is his bond!" The young man was incredibly stubborn.
"Heh, what a fine real man you are. Your name is Jiang You — is that what your parents gave you?"
"I don't care what my parents named me. I'm Jiang You. Jiang as in river, You as in wanderer!" The young man's tone was ice-cold.
For a hundred years, the only meaning his life seemed to hold was moving this mountain. Moving this very mountain.
As for why he was doing it — that no longer mattered. He had a goal in his heart, and he'd been striving toward it every single day. That was enough.
Truthfully, he'd wondered before whether this middle-aged scholar had just been joking.
But he'd already persevered for a hundred years. What was another hundred?
What he probably hadn't noticed himself was that after a century, his appearance, his build — practically nothing about him had changed.
A hundred years of time had left almost no trace on him.
And the middle-aged scholar didn't seem to have aged either.
The middle-aged scholar gazed at Jiang You with admiration and let out a soft sigh. "Jiang You — what a fine name. A hundred years have passed, and you never even noticed time slipping away, never felt that there were no days or months in this mountain. Haven't you realized? The flow of time here has been frozen."
Jiang You looked bewildered. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
The middle-aged scholar sighed. "I didn't expect you to understand, but surely you look in a mirror now and then?"
"I don't have time for that. I'm moving a mountain!"
"Don't you get tired?"
"When I'm tired, I pick some wild fruit to eat. When I'm sleepy, I lie down and rest. Once I wake up and have my strength back, I keep moving the mountain." Jiang You said this as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"The Human Race has always been impatient and eager for quick gains. Someone as devoted as you is truly rare. Very well, Jiang You — today I shall bestow upon you a Divine Ability, one that will let you move this entire mountain in a single stroke. How does that sound?"
Jiang You froze. "You... you're finally going to grant me a Divine Ability?"
"Heh, granting you a Divine Ability may not necessarily be a good thing. Of course, while you've been cultivating in my cave for the past hundred years, you've actually absorbed many of my Divine Abilities without even realizing it. You still think you're an ordinary mortal in a body of flesh and blood. Have you ever seen a flesh-and-blood body that doesn't tire? One that doesn't age? The fruit you've been eating grows once every ten thousand years. The spring water you've been drinking is the Fountain of Youth that appears once in a hundred thousand years. Tell me — over this past century, just how many treasures of mine have you consumed?"
Jiang You still looked confused. He still couldn't quite tell — was this man joking, or was he being serious? Why did everything he said sound so outlandish?
The middle-aged scholar counted on his fingers and said, "Very well. Though I've fallen asleep again and woken up again time after time, it seems my mission has truly reached its end. It's time I went to see the Young Master."
"Young Master?" Jiang You was even more puzzled. "Are you someone's servant?"
"Haha, I am indeed someone's servant. It's just that I've been away from home for... I don't even know how many hundreds of thousands of years. I can barely even remember what my home looks like anymore."
The middle-aged scholar let out a quiet sigh. "But fortunately, the task my old master entrusted to me appears to have been fulfilled without failure."
Jiang You stared at the middle-aged scholar as though he were a madman.
Hundreds of thousands of years?
Even an old tortoise couldn't live that long, could it? Even the shameless sect masters of the
At the thought of the Moon God Sect, a sharp pain lanced through Jiang You's heart. For the past hundred years, he'd never allowed himself to think about those things. He'd simply moved the mountain in silence, hoping that this middle-aged scholar could truly grant him a Divine Ability, give him the power to return to the Moon God Sect and reclaim everything he had lost.
"Jiang You, do you want to leave this place?"