Chapter Thirty-Two: An Immortal’s Daily Life in the Mountains, Part One

After so many years apart, the little girl who once had yellow hair had at last blossomed into a modest, unassuming flower of her own. Cloud Blossom was nearly a grown young woman now, with brows and eyes like a painting and skin smooth as fine jade. Years spent cultivating in the mountains had also given her an innate spiritual grace, an untainted, otherworldly air. If Master Dustless were to see her now, he would surely sigh with emotion and feel a pang of loss: my daughter has grown up at last, and who knows what sort of scoundrel will get the better of her?

With her master gone for years and still not returned, Cloud Blossom, as the eldest disciple, felt that she now had the duty to shoulder the responsibilities of their sect. As though she had grown up overnight, she not only practiced diligently herself, but also joined with Cloud Spirit in strictly disciplining Cloud Fox, who was always looking for shortcuts and shirking his duties. Even Cloud Fox had begun to miss the old great demon, Dustless, and longed for his return. Hard work never failed those who endured it: after years of secluded cultivation without concern for outside affairs, Cloud Blossom finally shed the mantle of a novice and, two years ago, entered the stage of grain abstinence. From then on she no longer touched mortal food and drink, becoming a true immortal maiden in name and in fact. Cloud Spirit had also improved, while Cloud Fox, aside from having grown fatter by another full circle, seemed almost unchanged. Heaven only knew how Cloud Fox would explain himself when Dustless came back.

Daoist cultivation valued the harmony of movement and stillness. The best times for quiet meditation and gathering vital energy were at night and at dawn, when the sun had just risen. But once the sun climbed high into the sky, Cloud Blossom would stop meditating and first go to the side chamber to see whether Cloud Fox was still there. Finding that the fox was still snoring away, she shook her head. So long as he did not run off, all else could wait until Master came back to deal with him. Then she would greet Cloud Spirit by going to the altar where the spirit dwelled and lighting three sticks of incense, offerings intended for the ancestral patriarch, with some portion shared by Cloud Spirit as well. During the day, Cloud Spirit could not come out. She had not yet reached the point where she could wander beneath the sun in broad daylight.

Cloud Blossom was a hardworking child. The hard years of her childhood had left deep marks in her heart. Though after meeting her master and stepping onto the path of immortality she no longer had to worry about hunger or cold, she had still developed the habit of being fond of food, even though she had not eaten anything for two years already.

Once, Cloud Fox somehow stole back a watermelon from who-knows-where, and it was much larger than itself. No one knew how it had carried the thing home. In the end, though the watermelon was eaten by the fox alone, its filial devotion was admirable, and Cloud Blossom and Cloud Spirit decided to forgive it for that earlier disappearance. Later, Cloud Fox left behind a few seeds, which Cloud Blossom collected and used to open up a tiny melon patch only a few paces wide in front of the cave dwelling. Full of hope, she planted the watermelon seeds there. Not for the watermelon itself, but simply to fulfill a childhood dream.

It was the dream of sitting together with father and mother, brother and sisters, and eating watermelon. Though her parents were long gone, she now had a master, a junior sister, and even a fox she was not entirely sure counted as a junior brother. Taken together, they might as well have been family.

Every morning, Cloud Blossom diligently used the dewdrops she had gathered, each carrying a faint trace of spiritual energy, to water the melon vines, and at night she even asked Cloud Spirit to nourish them with moonlight. She had seen how watermelons were grown. Though she did her utmost to cultivate an unprecedented, peerless giant watermelon, after two years the seeds had sprouted and the seedlings had come up, but to this day they were still only seedlings, showing no sign of growing any further. This left Cloud Blossom deeply discouraged. Could it be that she had planted them the wrong way? But everyone in her hometown had done it exactly like this. Could there be something wrong with Cloud Fox’s seeds? Yes, that had to be it. One could always count on Cloud Fox to be unreliable.

So Cloud Blossom laid all the blame on Cloud Fox, yet she still could not bear to give up on the little melon plants she had grown. Every day she dutifully tended them, and every day she spoke to them, hoping they would grow up soon and not betray her hopes. After a while it became a habit: if she did not say a few words to the seedlings each day, she felt uncomfortable, as though something were missing.

That day, Cloud Blossom was complaining to the seedlings that perhaps her master had even found herself a mistress outside and forgotten to come home, and maybe he had forgotten he still had a disciple to think of, when she suddenly felt a disturbance in the distance. She hurriedly rose and looked to the west. In the blink of an eye, a figure appeared within her line of sight. Cloud Blossom’s eyes immediately turned red.

At that moment, the fox’s sixth sense proved astonishingly sharp. With a wag of its tail, Cloud Fox darted out, only to see Dustless descending in front of the cave dwelling, his gaze meeting Cloud Blossom’s head-on. In an instant, it became a streak of afterimage and threw itself into Dustless’s arms. Only after burrowing into his embrace did it suddenly sense that something was off. Looking back, it saw that Dustless had not returned alone. Behind him followed a very beautiful fox, a magnificent female fox indeed. She was red as the sun at the edge of the sky, so dazzling that Cloud Fox could hardly keep its eyes open.

Clearly, the Fire Fox had also noticed this white counterpart of its own kind. Then, as a fox newly awakened to love and with little experience in dealing with female foxes, Cloud Fox grew shy and buried its head in Dustless’s chest, no longer daring to lift it. As for the white monkey, who cared about that?

“Th-then, Cloud Blossom, you’ve grown up. You really are a big girl now.” Dustless and Cloud Blossom stood facing each other for a long while, and he could not help feeling a little awkward. He suddenly did not know how to face Cloud Blossom, who had grown into a maiden in her prime, so he clutched the fox and tried to speak of anything at all.

“Master, you said you’d be away for two or three years. Do you have any idea how many years it’s been now? Don’t think you can just get away with it.” Cloud Blossom puffed up her cheeks in displeasure.

“Uh...” Dustless’s gaze drifted away. Then he suddenly noticed Cloud Fox’s odd behavior, and looked at the Fire Fox beside him, who was also staring fixedly at Cloud Fox. At last, he seemed to understand. Lifting the shy Cloud Fox, he said, “This youngster is shy. Look how red his face is.”

In truth, Cloud Fox’s face was covered in white fur; no one could tell whether it had turned red or not. Still, it was embarrassed beyond measure, and its tail kept lashing hard across Dustless’s face in fierce protest. Dustless had no choice but to lean back to avoid that fluffy great tail.

With a sudden snort, Cloud Blossom finally could not help laughing. All her resentment vanished at once. Seeing this, Dustless at last relaxed. Cloud Blossom had been Dustless’s first disciple, and after so many years together he had practically treated her like a daughter. Now that his daughter had grown up, he had begun to feel a little afraid of her.

Once the matter was spoken through, everything became easy. Bringing Cloud Fox and the Fire Fox with them, everyone returned to the cave dwelling, and Cloud Spirit also came out. She could not bear the sunlight, but inside the cave abode she could still appear for a short while. With everyone finally assembled, the place buzzed with chatter. In truth, most of it was Cloud Blossom talking with Cloud Spirit. Somewhere along the way, Cloud Fox had also managed to sit beside the Fire Fox. The Fire Fox gave Cloud Fox a glance and ignored it, while Cloud Fox grew excited and even dared to reach out with a paw to touch her tail. Watching from the side, Dustless could only cover his eyes. No one else knew how fiery the Fire Fox truly was, but he knew perfectly well.

Sure enough, just as Cloud Fox was secretly pleased that its little scheme had succeeded, a paw suddenly struck sideways and sent it flying far away. The cave dwelling burst into laughter. No one felt the least bit sorry for the poor Cloud Fox.