Volume 1, Chapter 383 – Death

Shi Lan found Xiong Hu’s way of thinking rather difficult to understand.

But there was something about Xiong Hu that she found herself inexplicably yearning for: a kind of pure ease.

Unbound, unfettered, free and transcendent.

She had no memories from before. She did not know where she came from or what she was supposed to do. Whatever she did, encountered, or felt, she simply let things happen as they came.

When she did certain things, it was simply because she wanted to do them, not because she was being pushed by outside forces.

That particular quality in Xiong Hu drew her in.

Shaking her somewhat groggy head, Shi Lan started walking toward the edge of the mountain range.

There were more than a hundred li of mountain road ahead. In her current condition, whether she could make it out at all was still hard to say.

Seeing Shi Lan’s somewhat unsteady steps, Xiong Hu turned around and let out a whistle toward the mountains.

Not long after they left the cave, a rank gust of wind rushed at her. Shi Lan’s vision darkened, and she stopped short. A huge striped tiger, over five meters long, had suddenly appeared before her.

Its pupils were dark green, its shoulder height towering, its fur pale yellow, its stripes vivid, and its limbs thick and powerful. The aura it gave off was terrifying.

The tiger lowered its head and crouched before Shi Lan, its meaning obvious.

This tiger was no ordinary beast. Shi Lan saw intelligence shining in its eyes. It understood human nature.

Shi Lan glanced back at Xiong Hu, then slowly climbed onto the tiger’s back.

“I usually call it Little Flower.”

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Xiong Hu walked to her side and patted Little Flower on the head.

Little Flower rose and dashed toward the forest’s edge. Xiong Hu did not climb onto its back. He ran beside it, still keeping a safe distance from Shi Lan.

Lying prone on the tiger’s back, Shi Lan felt the fierce wind whistle past her ears. Mountains and forests passed under its paws as though it were walking on level ground, and she did not feel the slightest violent jolt.

As they crossed through the woods, her peripheral vision would often catch sight of scattered corpses.

Shi Lan had taken several days to cover more than a hundred li of mountain road, but on Little Flower’s back, it took only a little over two hours for her to reach a small road not far from the entrance to the mountains.

“You escaped from prison. There’ll definitely be a wanted notice out for you. Won’t that cause trouble?”

“They don’t recognize me now.”

Xiong Hu waved a hand indifferently, sent Little Flower away, and then stepped onto the road.

He physically blocked a passing car, then opened the door and reached in to haul the cursing driver out of the seat.

Shi Lan glanced at the driver’s terror-stricken face, then got into the car when Xiong Hu beckoned her.

…

Shi Lan stayed in the hospital for a full week before she was discharged.

What she did not know was that in just those few days, nearly half the underworld had been hit by an earthquake.

Night Owl’s leader, Old Glutton, was dead, killed outside Yunhai City.

That almost instantly meant a huge gap had opened up in the market, and the number of people eyeing that piece of the pie was beyond count.

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Hao Fei received the news very late. He did not know until the police announcement came out.

Thinking back to Shi Lan taking those materials from him, Hao Fei was silent for a long time, a chill rising in his heart for no reason.

He had originally thought it was all just some farce.

…

After leaving the hospital, Shi Lan went to Qi Pingxia’s home. She did not go inside, only stood at a distance and looked for a while.

The despondent look on Qi Yuanjun’s face had faded somewhat, but Mother Qi was still dazed, as though her mind were elsewhere.

No matter how many of them had died, it no longer held any meaning for her. Qi Pingxia was never coming back.

Shi Lan stood outside the door for a long time before finally turning away. She suddenly realized that everything she had done had, all at once, lost all meaning.

She did not understand why, and she wanted to find the answer.

…

In the blink of an eye, twenty years passed.

Over those twenty years, Shi Lan went to many places. She crossed mountains and plains, went to the ends of the earth, visited lonely islands in the ocean, ventured deep into primeval forests, and lived for long stretches in the most bustling and prosperous cities in the world.

Everything she saw and heard only left her feeling emptier inside, and made true ease all the harder to attain.

She was never able to find that same purity she had seen in Xiong Hu.

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In her eyes, all living beings were burdened with shackles. After tasting every flavor life had to offer, all she found was one thing: bitterness.

She had never seen pure happiness. Even happiness was always mixed with one worry or another.

Over the years, she saw many people reach their end. No matter how dazzling or brilliant their lives had been, everything came to an abrupt stop the instant their hearts ceased beating. All the past vanished like smoke, scattered like dust, buried in a bottomless abyss without the faintest echo left behind.

All of this left her more and more lost. She did not know how she ought to view her own life.

Before death, it seemed as though everything lost its meaning. Behind it was nothing but emptiness.

No matter what she did in life, once she died, none of it would have anything to do with her anymore. Whether one’s name was remembered for ages or cursed for ten thousand years, it all seemed to become a joke.

She had approached many people on the verge of death and listened to what was in their hearts.

Some faced death with calm composure. Though there was reluctance, there was not much regret.

Others were full of unwillingness, but when asked what exactly they were unwilling about, they could not answer. Their ordinary, muddled lives left them unable to find a single memory worth cherishing.

For twenty years, Xiong Hu followed her day after day, always keeping a distance of two meters, neither drawing close nor leaving.

Whatever she wanted to do, he merely watched in silence and never once interrupted her.

As time passed, Shi Lan had gotten used to it.

In the end, she grew tired and returned to the Yunhai City where it had all begun.

More than twenty years had passed, and Yunhai City had changed considerably.

When Shi Lan revisited old places, she found very few familiar faces. After asking around in many places, she managed to learn only fragments.

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Qi Pingxia’s parents had moved away many years ago. Mother Qi had been so sick with grief over missing her daughter that by the time they moved, her mind was already no longer very clear.

Zhang Guang’s children had all grown up, married, and established their own lives. He had become a hands-off boss and was now traveling around the world.

Shi Lan also went to the prison. Song Run had long since served her sentence and been released, and no one knew where she had gone. The prison guards had been replaced batch after batch.

There, she saw Hao Fei.

During a crackdown on the underworld, he had failed to evade it and had been given a heavy sentence.

When they met again after more than twenty years, Hao Fei recognized Shi Lan at first glance, even though she had not yet been fully grown back then and differed greatly from the woman before him now.

…

Shi Lan walked over every inch of Yunhai City. In the end, she stopped on a stretch of beach. She turned around, violet color spreading through the depths of her brown eyes, looked at Xiong Hu, and spoke softly:

“How do you view death?”

“It is an inevitable ending.”

“And what are all the people in this world like, in your eyes?”

“They’re all remarkable.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Xiong Hu gave an answer that greatly surprised Shi Lan.

“All life is precious in my eyes. They are all a part of this world. Even when facing an outcome that is already destined, they still strive to live lives of brilliant color. That is why they are remarkable.”