Watching the Mountain

Chapter 206: Chapter 142: Demon Race

He really couldn’t understand it. They had joined the Sect together, but when they met again, things had become like this.

Xu Ran was a bit puzzled and asked, ”What just happened?”

Wang Zhenye shook his head. ”I told her to call me brother, and she actually did it.”

He tilted his head back and sighed. ”To be honest, I’ve known since we first met that Miaomiao has always looked down on me. But since she returned this time, I haven’t sensed any of that old disdain from her.”

”All that’s left is a tranquility that has seen through everything.”

”I feel a little pained, but I can’t quite put my finger on why.”

Xu Ran fell silent for a moment before smiling at him. ”As it happens, I know the answer to your question.”

”Please, Senior, enlighten me,” Wang Zhenye said eagerly.

”You feel pained because you truly see her as your sister.”

Facing Wang Zhenye’s confused gaze, he gave a faint smile. ”Is it not so? Even when she used to look down on you, you always called her ’Miaomiao,’ regardless of her attitude, didn’t you?”

Without waiting for a response, Xu Ran slowly turned and walked away.

’With Wang Zhenye here, I don’t need to worry about Hao Miaomiao.’

He could understand, to an extent, how Wang Zhenye felt. He, too, had once had such a sister.

Her name was Xiaoque’Er.

*

*

*

Hao Miaomiao’s condition was worse than anticipated, perhaps because she had pushed herself too hard. Only seven years after her return, her life came to an end.

She had just finished compiling her medical book.

As she placed the medical text in Xu Ran’s hands, her gaze fell upon him and Wang Zhenye. She finally asked the question she had always wanted to, but never dared.

”I want to know... back when I told you what I wanted to do, did you laugh at me in your hearts? Did you think I was too arrogant, that my ambitions were loftier than my abilities, that I was overreaching?”

Xu Ran and Wang Zhenye exchanged a glance. ”Why would you think that?”

A ripple of emotion passed through her eyes. She lowered her head slightly and said in a small voice,

”For someone as plain and ordinary as me to earnestly declare that I was going to do something so extraordinary... isn’t that laughable?”

”The final result proved it, too. I was never able to achieve it.”

”A world without disease, a world where everyone is free from the clutches of illness... such a thing should be accomplished by those who are born extraordinary. Not by someone like me, who can only engage in wild, unrealistic fantasies.”

Xu Ran looked at her averted eyes, took a deep breath, and spoke in the gentlest voice he had ever used.

”No one in this world is born extraordinary. Every extraordinary person started out as someone ordinary.”

He reached out, gently stroking the cover of the medical text. ”The moment you completed this book, you were already extraordinary.”

”No, in fact, the moment you conceived of that idea and took action, you had already become extraordinary.”

Wang Zhenye, standing to the side, nodded in agreement. ”I was in awe of you back then, Miaomiao, for being able to say something like that. And as for now... I am honored to have a sister like you.”

Hearing their words, Hao Miaomiao seemed to let out a long sigh of relief. She nodded slightly. ”Then... I can be at ease.”

Xu Ran fulfilled his promise as well. He held a ceremony of the highest order, inducting the medical text into the Scripture Pavilion.

Hao Miaomiao witnessed this with her own eyes.

Wang Zhenye handled her funeral. It was very simple, just like the plain dress she wore.

*

*

*

Half a month after Hao Miaomiao passed away, Xu Ran’s slow student, Jiang Ling’Er, excitedly ran up to him.

”Teacher, I’m going to the Demon Race.”