Chapter 44: Immortality Is Not My Desire, But I Send My Departed Friends Home

The desolate autumn wind dyed the maple leaves across the mountains of the Jixia Academy in fiery red, while also bringing an increasingly deepening chill.

Several years had passed since that twilight pact on the Dao-Debating Platform. During these years, Zimo’s physical condition had deteriorated at a visible rate, resembling the rapidly withering yellow leaves in the autumn. He had resigned from all official posts within the Academy, pouring all his remaining energy into the final revisions of his lifelong masterpiece—*New Treatise on the Investigation of Things*.

Jiang Yiyi visited Zimo’s dwelling almost every day. It was an exquisite small courtyard planted with an old plum tree, its gnarled branches now twisting and accumulating strength to welcome the harsh winter. The interior furnishings were extremely simple; bamboo slips and scrolls piled high against all four walls, and the air was filled with a rich fragrance of ink mixed with a faint scent of medicinal herbs.

Most of the time, Zimo hunched over his desk. The hands that had once pointed the country’s direction and penned magnificent essays were now covered in age spots, trembling violently to the point where even holding a brush was a struggle. After writing just a few characters, he would have to pause and gasp heavily for breath. Jiang Yiyi would silently hand him a cup of warm ginseng tea or help him grind a fresh pool of ink.

Words between the two grew increasingly scarce, yet that tacit understanding and companionship grew ever deeper.

Watching Zimo’s increasingly cloudy eyes and seeing every breath he took carry a heavy burden, Jiang Yiyi felt a sorrow called "farewell" rise within her heart like a rising tide, washing over her mental defenses bit by bit, cold and bone-chilling.

She remembered him back in Andu, where their relationship was mostly an ignorant, budding romance and she had timidly fled in advance. But this time, she was soberly watching, second by second, as the flame of a dear friend’s life slowly extinguished before her eyes. This feeling of watching helplessly while being utterly powerless was more painful than any sharp blade piercing the heart.

It was not as if she had never thought of a solution. Behind Zimo’s back, she had gone to beg her father.

"Father, is there truly... no other way?" In that familiar Hall of Investigation, Jiang Yiyi’s voice carried a trace of an imperceptible tremor. "You possess so many miraculous elixirs and such inconceivable knowledge. Can you not... can you not extend Zimo’s lifespan just a little longer?"

Jiang Xiuyuan looked at his daughter’s reddened eye rims and sighed softly. He put down the crystal lens in his hand, walked over to her, and said gently, "Yiyi, I do indeed possess elixirs that can forcibly stimulate his vital potential, allowing him to live for a few more years, or even a decade. However, that would come at the cost of overdrawing his final spirit and soul. Living like that, he would lose his sanity, becoming like withered wood, forever unable to think or write again. Do you believe that is what Zimo would want?"

Jiang Yiyi fell silent. She remembered Zimo’s clear and resolute eyes, and the calm composure he displayed when he said, "I do not ask for an afterlife; I only ask for this life to be without regrets." She knew that for someone like Zimo, who valued thought and dignity far more than life itself, lingering on in a degraded state would be the ultimate insult to him.

"The true essence of life lies in the quality of its process, not the length of its duration," Jiang Xiuyuan said, his voice filled with philosophical calm. "With a life spanning less than a century, Zimo has ignited a torch of thought whose radiance is sufficient to illuminate future generations for hundreds or even thousands of years. His life is far more brilliant and much more fulfilled than many cultivators who live muddle-headedly for centuries. As his friends, what we can do for him is not to forcibly detain his mortal shell, but to respect his choice and with dignity, send him off on this final journey of his."

With tears in her eyes, Jiang Yiyi nodded heavily. She understood now that true friendship is not about possession, but about fulfillment.

Finally, on that dawn when the first snow descended, Zimo completed the final stroke of *New Treatise on the Investigation of Things*. The moment he put down the brush, his entire being seemed to have been drained of all spirit and vitality, and he collapsed completely onto the sickbed, never able to rise again.

The Academy’s physicians came and went, in the end only shaking their heads and sighing. Zimo’s life had reached the point where the oil was exhausted and the lamp had burned dry.

On the verge of his departure, Zimo’s room was packed with people. There were white-haired old scholars who had once engaged in fierce debates with him, now bearing faces full of grief; there were men in the prime of life who regarded him as their spiritual mentor, eyes brimming with tears; and there were even many young students kneeling outside the door, sobbing in silence. Zimo, the great Confucian scholar who had dedicated his entire life to the Jixia Academy, had long since won everyone’s respect.

He signaled for the crowd to withdraw, leaving only Jiang Xiuyuan and Jiang Yiyi behind.

At this moment, Zimo’s complexion was as sallow as paper, and his breathing was so faint that it seemed it could cut off at any moment. Yet his eyes brightened at the very end of his life, shining with a sudden, transient revival of spirit.

He first looked toward Jiang Xiuyuan, mustered all his remaining strength to cup his hands in salute, and said in a hoarse voice, "Academy Head Jiang... for Zimo to have received your... teachings in this lifetime... I am supremely fortunate. The study of the investigation of things is... is a great Dao that can truly allow... the human race... to understand principles and grow strong... Please... I beg you... to pass it down..."

Jiang Xiuyuan solemnly returned the salute and said in a deep voice, "Rest assured, Zimo. The Dao is being passed on, and the fire will never be extinguished. This *New Treatise on the Investigation of Things* of yours is the finest spark."

Zimo smiled with gratification, a smile that smoothed out the wrinkles on his face. He turned his head, his gaze falling gently upon Jiang Yiyi, and his withered, stick-like hand groped along the blanket.

Jiang Yiyi understood instantly. She stepped forward, sat on the edge of the bed, and gently placed her warm, delicate hand—unchanged through decades—into his icy palm.

Zimo laboriously tightened his grip on her hand, that feeble strength feeling like his final attachment to this world. He looked at her, his eyes filled with reluctance to part and a sense of release.

"Yiyi..." His voice was as soft as a dream murmur. "Sixty years ago... when we first met in the Hall of Investigation, you looked just like this... Now, I have grown old and frail... Longevity... truly is wonderful, and yet... truly so bitter..."

Jiang Yiyi’s tears could no longer be held back; they rolled down like broken pearls, splashing onto the back of his withered hand, leaving a warm patch.

"Do not cry..." The corners of Zimo’s mouth strained upward, forming a smile far uglier than tears. "To have known you and Academy Head Jiang, to have glimpsed the vastness of heaven and earth, and from the mist of ‘Heavenly Dao majesty’ to have beheld the true faces of the world... such as ‘gravity’ and ‘stars’—in this life of mine, I have no regrets."

He paused to catch his breath and continued, "It is only... only a pity... that I can no longer accompany you to see more of this world’s scenery. I cannot... watch you use the study of investigation of things to explain... the mysteries of cultivation; cannot... watch the true ‘man-made lightning’ illuminate entire cities; cannot... watch humanity board giant iron birds and fly up... fly up into the clouds..."

His words were filled with boundless yearning and imagination for the future, yet none of it would he ever see.

Clasping his hand tightly, Jiang Yiyi choked out, "I will! Zimo, I will see all of it for you! I will write down everything I witness, and in the future... if reincarnation truly exists, I will recount it all to you!"

"Hehe... silly girl..." Zimo smiled, the final glimmer flickering in his eyes. "Promise me... for my sake... look closely... at this... world..."

His voice grew fainter and fainter, and the strength of his grip on her hand gradually loosened. The light in his eyes flickered like a dying candle in the wind for one last time, and then completely dimmed.

That hand slid powerlessly downward.

Zimo—a rare talent of the Jixia Academy in a century, the pioneer who perfectly integrated Confucianism and the study of the investigation of things, and the most vital confidant in Jiang Yiyi’s life—passed away peacefully in the winter of his ninety-ninth year.

Jiang Yiyi sat motionlessly by the bedside, maintaining that exact posture for a long, long time. She could clearly feel that the warmth in that hand was slipping away bit by bit, growing as cold as the ice and snow outside the window.

In this moment, she came to deeply understand what "longevity" truly meant.

Longevity was not the romanticized carefree existence of sharing eternal youth with the heavens found in myths. It was a destiny—a destiny destined to continually bid farewell to the past and continuously send off every single person who had ever warmed one's life. It was a grand and eternal loneliness, where you stood in the river of time, watching those around you swept downstream one by one, while you could only remain forever frozen in place.

That sorrow, like an invisible snow-capped mountain, collapsed with a deafening roar, burying her completely.