Chapter 152

  Festival of Sins (IV)

  The orchard itself was located to the back of the village, practically pressing against it, and was loosely fenced off by some scatterings of wood and stone. It was cleaved into two, as far as I could tell--on the left, they looked like plum trees, while on the right, they looked like... well, they didn't look like grapes, at least not any of the ones I knew.

  I watched grapes grow woven into a literal metallic net, but not on a tree. So, yet another thing that differs from back on Earth.

  Anyway, the atmosphere here really was a bit... drab.

  There was a strange haze seeming to cover the entire thing, and when the wind would blow, I noticed that the way trees behaved was... wrong.

  "An illusion," I mumbled.

  "A relatively high-grade one," Long Tao affirmed. "But it's not set up by a cultivator. This is a good opportunity." Oh no. That smirk. That damned smirk.

  "... opportunity for what?" I asked tentatively.

  "To train their wills."

  "..." Oh, so it's for the kids. Yeah, that's fine.

  I almost shrugged but maintained my dignified expression--or, well, what I thought was one, at least.

  "There are five entrances," Long Tao said. "All of us will take one while Master watches over us." They all looked over at me with strangely... determined expressions.

  I mean, I know why--it seems they've made it their mission to put me in harm's way basically never. Does it make me feel small, like a chestnut?

  Yes.

  Do I sometimes wanna crawl into a bedroll and cry myself to sleep?

  ... no comment.

  "Be careful," I warned, though I didn't feel too fearful. They all had innate resistance to illusions because they were protagonists, not to mention the Art of Survival.

  Speaking of which, Wan Lan actually managed to gain initial mastery and has changed her appearance--she is now a black-haired, black-eyed, flat-nosed, slightly hunched young woman who looks closer to 20 than she does to 16.

  "V-Venerable One, is... what is happening?" Oh, right. I forgot that the old man was here.

  "The orchard's failed yields and the sleeping of the villagers are connected," I said. "Whatever is causing it resides somewhere in the orchard. Just be a bit patient; the kids will find a way."

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  **

  Long Tao stepped past an innocent-seeming tree but immediately realized he had been drawn into an illusion.

  Wan Lan was actually correct--a spirit was the cause, but probably not the kind she imagined. It was not a sentient spirit; the best he could tell, it was a parasitic vine that somehow found its way into the orchard.

  Somebody probably planted it on purpose, as this wasn't exactly the sort of place something like that would grow.

  There was a duality effect to it--the reason why the harvest never happened was because the vine initially drained the force of the trees from the orchard to grow strong enough to be able to influence people.

  The clouds lifted over what specific kind it was when he saw the vision in front of him--it wasn't that of horror or pain, or some distantly savage memory, no. It was the opposite.

  A young woman sat on the bed, her hair haphazardly strewn and forehead covered in sweat, while in her arms she swaddled a newborn babe. The hazy surroundings turned into a rather decorated room.

  She looked up and met his gaze, her lips stretching out into a smile.

  "Tao, you've come back!" she said. "Look at her. She's breathtaking." He let his instincts guide him, as though having surrendered to them, and walked over. "I told you, didn't I? I felt it in my bones that it would be a girl."

  His fifth Dao Companion and one of his three greatest sins.

  She was always on his mind, somewhere, like a memory that would never leave. This moment right here that the parasitic vine was recreating was one of the happiest moments of his life. At the time.

  In hindsight, though, it was a memory warped in pain.

  "What should we name her? Maybe Zexi, after my aunt? Or Shuren. I really like Shuren."

  They did end up naming her that, ultimately.

  "What's wrong?" She looked up when he remained silent, seeming confused. She was... beautiful.

  But not in the immortal way in which cultivators were.

  After all, Lian'er was a mortal--she had Null Roots, an affliction so accursed that cultivators treated her as a bad omen. Nobody wanted to even look at her, let alone touch her.

  At this moment, he didn't know that--he merely considered her a normal woman. Beautiful, kind, and extremely spirited.

  "Your last words to me," he said, sighing. "Were 'I forgive you'. How, Lian? It ate away at me for so long. It made no sense. It was an act that could never be forgiven. So, I convinced myself that you were lying--that it was your revenge. That you were trying to confuse me. For a while there, I'd gone mad. Shuren left before she'd turned fifteen... and I never saw her again. Years later, I tried looking for her, but that damned child actually went into the Silence. Just like you, she was driven by something that I never had."

  "Tao'er, what are you talking about? You're scaring me. Forget that; look at her. Why don't you take a seat and stay with us?" The illusion was slowly cracking by the edges. It made sense--the tiny parasitic vine spirit couldn't actually contain Long Tao's soul. The only reason the illusion didn't shatter as soon as it was conjured was because he let it happen.

  "I've learned too late, Lian," he said as the walls began to fade. "Just how accursed the Heavens truly are. How much superstition and ancient lies hold us hostage. And for what? For an ascension to a hall full of raving lunatics and hypocrites who would sacrifice all of creation just to continue holding that seat? When I drew that blade through your heart, I told myself I was doing it for you: death was preferable to living with your curse. But... you weren't cursed. None of us are, really. Just random things... struggling."

  The illusion shattered, and he found himself back in the orchard.

  His route wasn't the one that led to the vine, but he already knew that. If he destroyed the parasite too quickly, other kids wouldn't have a chance to experience it.

  Though they were all mightily resistant to negative illusions, it was entirely different when you were offered the perfect heaven rather than being trapped in an imperfect hell.

  At least one of them, he garnered, might need some... convincing to come back.

  He didn't turn around and leave but instead went ahead to investigate precisely how something that wasn't even native to this realm chanced upon this random little orchard in the middle of nowhere.