Huh?!
Hands?!
When I realized that what was before my eyes were not my slender and beautiful branches but two flesh and blood human hands, my mind was in total chaos.
Looking down again, fair and clear skin, full breasts, slender limbs, and the graceful curves unique to women extended everywhere on my body; slightly curled and thick dark green long hair, scattered and messily trailing on the ground.
Good heavens! I've cultivated a human form?
Impossible! It must be a hallucination produced at the brink of death!
Suddenly standing up, I looked around in bewilderment, trying to find a reason to convince myself that everything I saw was just an illusion.
The moonlight was clear and bright, the mountain breeze rustled, everything was the same as before.
It's still the Fulong Mountain I'm so familiar with, nothing at all different.
"This mountain is quite spiritual, and I intend to stay here for a long time to practice."
The voice behind me was as calm as ever, but to me, it was like a sudden thunderclap.
When I turned around, I was blinded by a light green — a beautiful green muslin robe dropped from the sky, gently wrapping around my naked body.
"I've granted you human form, firstly because I can't bear to see more of those wronged souls, and secondly because I don't want you to have an ill-fated end. From now on, you will stay with me as a maid." His smile remained unchanged from beginning to end.
He was right in front of me, less than a step away, the hair on my forehead lightly brushed by his breath.
In shock, I looked up at him, who was a head taller than me, opening my mouth like a mute, yet unable to utter a single word.
"Mortals will no longer be able to see your real body, and there will no longer be a sacred tree on Fulong Mountain to protect the common people. From now on, every year on this day, you must return to your real body, and only after twelve hours can you leave. Bear in mind!" Turning around, he looked at my "real body"— a tree that no longer had anything special, solemnly warning me.
I believed him; I wasn't in a fantasyland.
"Who... are you?" I finally asked, my first words in my new identity.
"Do you have a name?" He asked me instead without answering.
A name? I shook my head. That was something I never needed.
"You don't?!" His eyebrows furrowed slightly, as if pondering.
Soon, he relaxed his brows and looked at me intently. "Then I'll call you Shaluo from now on."
Shaluo... Shaluo…
I repeated this word in my mind. Why would he call me this name?! It sounds really strange.
But I liked it.
He fulfilled my dream and gave me a name.
Overnight, I unexpectedly gained such a great miracle.
"Who are you?" Before I could contain my excitement, I asked again.
"Zimiao, Water Lord of the Four Directions, serving the Emperor of Heaven."
Water Lord of the Four Directions? What kind of immortal was he? A common minor deity or someone of high authority? Unfortunately, I knew very little about the heavenly realm. His straightforward answer only added to my questions.
"Haha, don't stand there dazed. Come with me. Practice with me from now on, and achieve enlightenment as soon as possible, striving to get your name in the Heavenly Record of Immortals. Don't waste your spiritual energy." He affectionately patted my head like an elder, then started walking towards the other end of the mountain top.
Practice? Record of Immortals?
I couldn't fully understand his meaning, but one thing was clear—he was good to me.
So, I carefully lifted my feet and took the first steps I had longed for day and night, and left with him filled with joy and anticipation.
From then on, Fulong Mountain lost a tree demon that bewitched people and gained a genuine deity, along with an ignorant little maid by his side.
In the short and silent summer night, the inscrutable thing called fate was already changing quietly…
"One, two, three... nineteen, twenty... thirty."
I squatted outside the cave, earnestly counting the neat scratches on the rock wall.
Beneath the scratches, a plant about a foot tall with seven leaves and a branch, translucent and lush green, grew comfortably among the rugged rocks.
He said this flower is called "Colorless;" it blooms once a year for just a day, and then loses one petal every sixty days. The cycle repeats. It was a little thing he obtained from the Baihua Fairy on Bomingyan[1]. That night, he planted the flower seed, instructing me that when the flower bloomed, I must return to my real body without fail.
So, this flower was planted for me. I felt inexplicably happy.
Also because of "Colorless," I had an accurate concept of time. Each time the flower bloomed, I marked a line on the rock wall. Month by month, year by year, before I knew it, there were already thirty lines on it.
During these thirty years, I lived a happy life.
As for him, my nominal master, he mostly stayed on Fulong Mountain, leaving only three times.
Each time he left, it was on days of heavy rain and flash floods wrecking havoc. I hid in the cave, watching him depart through the dense rain. In the time we spent together, I gradually learned that the "Water Lord of the Four Directions" was the Water God in the heavenly realm, in charge of all the bodies of water in the world. Choosing such days to leave must be because duty called.
However, this third departure was an exception.
It was early autumn at the time, with golden and green landscapes covering the mountains. The sunshine was warm, the mountain breeze gentle, the sky and earth bright and clean.
He didn't ride the clouds, only took my hand, step by step descending Fulong Mountain, arriving at a nearby small town. Marvelous architecture, noisy markets, bustling crowds of people suddenly unfolded before my eyes, attacking my almost degraded vision.
So the human world is this colorful!
Breaking free from his hand, I excitedly wandered between the various stalls and shops along the road, touching this, poking that. By the time I tread most of the city, only a touch of pink remained on the horizon.
He stopped me and took me into a small building with a plaque outside the city.
[1] 百花: all kinds of flowers; 仙子: fairy (generally a female immortal); 薄命: born under an unlucky star; born unlucky (usually of women); ill-fated; 岩: cliff/rock. So Flower Fairy on Ill-fated Rock.
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