Volume 1, Chapter 182 – Master Mama Through A-Yao’s Eyes

At the same time, the golden mist enveloping A-Yao brought no violent emotional shock.

Instead, it brushed gently across her consciousness like a warm, weightless veil.

The scene around her blurred like ink spreading through water, slowly shifting and changing.

When A-Yao could “see” clearly again, she found herself unable to move or speak.

Her perspective felt strange, as though her gaze were fixed somewhere high above, looking down at a slight angle.

Her vision was somewhat blurred as well, as if she were looking through a barrier, and the colors appeared dull and muted.

She was in the small courtyard of an old, rustic Daoist temple.

The temple seemed to have fallen into disrepair. Plaster peeled from the mottled walls, and weeds grew between the roof tiles.

At the center of the courtyard stood an old pagoda tree stripped bare of leaves. Beneath it was a stone well covered by a wooden board.

Farm tools and firewood were piled in one corner.

Was this… the Heavenly Maiden Temple?

A-Yao struggled to shift her “gaze.” At last, she saw the crude stone statue in the corner of the courtyard, about half the height of a person.

It depicted the vague figure of a woman. Wind and rain had eroded its face until only the barest outline remained.

And now, A-Yao’s “consciousness” seemed to reside within that stone statue.

Was this where she had spent countless years before her “birth”?

A-Yao felt a flicker of curiosity, but even more confusion. Was Elder Die Wu’s assessment meant to send her back into the stone?

Just then, the temple’s battered wooden door creaked open.

A woman in a coarse cloth dress entered, carrying a small wooden bucket. Her hair was casually pinned up with a wooden hairpin.

A-Yao’s “gaze” instantly froze.

Was that… Master Mama?

No, that wasn’t right.

The woman bore a strong resemblance to her, but her bearing was different, as was the color of her hair.

This “Master” possessed none of that cool, otherworldly serenity, the sense that nothing in the world could trouble her heart.

Weariness was plain in her eyes and brow. Her lips were faintly pursed, making her look both stubborn and troubled.

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Her coarse dress had been washed almost white. The cuffs and hem were patched and spattered with mud.

A pair of worn cloth shoes covered her feet.

She set the bucket beside the well, lifted the wooden cover, and turned the winch with practiced movements. Even so, it took tremendous effort to draw up half a bucket of water.

Some of the clear water splashed out, soaking the hem of her dress and the tops of her shoes.

She frowned and muttered something under her breath, apparently grumbling about it.

Then she carried the half-full bucket to the vegetable patch on the other side of the courtyard.

A sparse scattering of wilted greens grew there.

She picked up a battered wooden dipper and carefully watered the vegetables one scoop at a time.

Her movements could hardly be called practiced. In fact, they were a little clumsy.

She watered them unevenly, drenching some spots while missing others entirely.

She remained crouched there, staring at the vegetables for a long while before sighing.

When she finished, she set down the dipper and walked beneath the old pagoda tree, where a small stone stool stood.

Without caring whether it was dirty, she sat down and leaned against the cold, rough trunk.

She pulled half a hard, darkened steamed bun from inside her clothes and nibbled at it in tiny bites.

Her gaze drifted blankly toward the gray, hazy sky beyond the temple’s low wall.

Sunlight filtered through the pagoda tree’s bare branches, casting broken patches of light over her.

The wind was chilly. It stirred a few stray strands of silver hair across her forehead, and she shivered, drawing her collar tighter.

The entire courtyard was so quiet that only the wind and the faint sound of her occasional bites could be heard.

Run-down, cold, lonely, and even… a little wretched.

A-Yao stared, utterly transfixed.

This… This was Master Mama?

The Master Mama so powerful that people called her an Empress? The one who could refine beautiful lotus platforms and had even the formidable Auntie Qingxuan and Auntie Lingshuang circling around her?

How could she be… like this?

She looked like the most ordinary mortal woman, fretting over her next meal and a few stalks of vegetables while living in a Daoist temple with a leaking roof.

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She wore patched clothes and gnawed on a hard steamed bun, her eyes filled with exhaustion and uncertainty about a future she could not see.

A-Yao’s little mind could not make sense of it at all.

The illusion seemed to sense her confusion. The scene began to flow, like a painted scroll unfurling at ever-increasing speed.

She watched “Master” live the same life day after day:

She rose before dawn to gather firewood in the nearby mountains, dry branches leaving tiny cuts across her delicate hands.

She struggled to turn the soil, sow seeds, and pull weeds in a small patch of barren land behind the temple. When exhaustion left her unable to straighten her back, she would sit on the edge of the field and stare blankly into space.

She carried a battered basket down to the village at the foot of the mountain, trading the firewood she had gathered or the wild vegetables she had dug up for a little rice and flour.

She almost never smiled. Her brow was always faintly furrowed.

She would sigh over vegetables that refused to grow, and when she was tired,

she would sit on the threshold and gaze into the distance, grumbling in a voice only she could hear:

“When will this life ever end…?”

“It’s already been five years. Why hasn’t the System come yet…?”

“I’m so tired… I want to go back…”

“Why is it so hard just to stay alive…?”

A-Yao did not really understand what “the System” was or what she meant by “going back.”

But she could clearly feel that this “Master Mama” was unhappy, exhausted, lonely, and even a little… desperate.

And so A-Yao kept “watching.”

Her initial shock, confusion, and disbelief gradually subsided into calm.

Then… somewhere in her heart, a bittersweet ache began to spread. It hurt a little, yet somehow felt warm.

She seemed to… understand now.

Master Mama had not always been so powerful.

Master Mama had once been weak and struggling too, worrying about her next meal or a single piece of clothing.

Master Mama had also known confusion and exhaustion. There had even been times when she wanted to complain.

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But seeing Master Mama like this…

A-Yao was suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to embrace the figure crouched by the doorway, sighing.

Not for any other reason.

Simply because…

She was the Master Mama who had brought A-Yao out of the stone and given her a new life.

The scene shifted again, growing brighter and more cheerful.

One day, “Master Mama” seemed to have traded for something at the foot of the mountain that made her happy.

She spun around the courtyard in delight and even flashed the stone statue a silly smile.

“Hey, stone, I got really lucky today!”

A-Yao saw what looked like a small packet of malt candy.

Master Mama broke off a tiny piece. After a moment’s hesitation, she gently placed it in the stone statue’s slightly open palm.

“You can have some too.”

She spoke with a smile, her eyes sparkling, though she soon glanced ruefully at the candy that remained.

“Ah, there’s hardly any…”

Ants soon discovered the piece of candy on the rough stone palm and carried it away.

But that clumsy act of “sharing,” imbued with the scent of sweat, dust, and earth,

seemed to carry a warmth that branded itself deep within A-Yao’s consciousness.

The final scene showed “Master” sitting on the stone stool, mending her clothes by the last light of the setting sun.

Every now and then, she looked up at the stone statue. Her eyes were tired, yet they held an indescribable softness and longing.

“Stone, oh stone, do you think things will get better someday?”

“Will I… end up dying here one day, just like that old man?”

“If only… If only I had someone to talk to…”

The warm light of the setting sun gilded her figure in gold.

The dilapidated Daoist temple, the wilted vegetables, the weathered stone statue…

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Everything seemed to soften.

A-Yao’s “vision” blurred.

A painful ache filled her heart.

Suddenly, she missed the Master Mama of the present more than anything.

She missed the cool and powerful Master Mama who gently rubbed her head, refined beautiful lotus platforms for her, taught her junior sisters, and kept the entire Immortal Palace running smoothly.

But she also missed…

The Master Mama before her, who complained and sighed, clumsily grew vegetables, and shared her candy with a stone statue.

They were both her Master Mama.

The person who had brought her out of the cold stone and into this warm, lively world.

The golden mist began to disperse. The dilapidated Daoist temple faded like a painting losing its color, gradually vanishing.

A-Yao’s consciousness returned to her body.

She was still standing on the martial practice ground, surrounded by the other disciples, with Elder Die Wu on the elevated platform.

The little girl lowered her head and looked at her small hands, then touched the warm lotus mark between her brows.

She did not talk with the others.

But her eyes were brighter and clearer than ever before.

They held an understanding unique to a child, yet utterly sincere.

She seemed to… love Master Mama even more now.

It was not the kind of love born from worshiping the strong. It came from knowing that Master Mama had once been small too, struggling so hard just to carry on.

It was the kind of love that made A-Yao want to stay beside her forever and ever, so Master Mama would never have to return to the life she had once endured.

She had passed the assessment.

To A-Yao, it had felt more like a warm history lesson about her “Master.”