Chapter Thirty-Eight: In the End, All Must Part Ways—Choosing a Town to Settle

The wind on the plateau remained as crisp and pure as ever.

Ling Qingzhu’s aura grew ever more restrained, the intangible “Sword of the Mortal World” now concealed within her heart’s sea. Apart from her ethereal, cool temperament, she seemed no different from any ordinary woman. On the way down the mountain, she was silent.

Not until we returned to the ordinary SUV did she stop and turn to me, her expression solemn in a way I had never seen before.

“Sir,” she performed a Daoist salute once more—not in gratitude this time, but as a farewell.

“I think it’s time for me to return.”

I was not surprised; I simply watched her calmly.

She spoke slowly, “This journey down the mountain has brought me gains greater than a hundred years of arduous cultivation. Now that my Dao heart is newly formed, and my sword intent freshly awakened, I must return to my sect, enter seclusion, and fully integrate these insights into the Shushan sword technique. Only then will I not have wasted this journey.”

Her reasoning was sound and sincere. Cultivators who achieve something must preserve and solidify it; seeking progress too hastily only weakens the foundation.

“Daddy, is Sister Qingzhu leaving?” Yiyi tugged at my sleeve, her little upturned face filled with reluctant sadness. After months together, she had grown accustomed to this beautiful, fairy-like, gentle sister.

Ling Qingzhu knelt down, gently stroking Yiyi’s hair. In her calm, deep eyes, for the first time, shone a pure tenderness from the heart.

“Yes, I’m going home,” she said, taking a warm jade pendant from her bosom. The translucent jade was engraved with a tiny sword, shimmering faintly. “Yiyi, this is for you. Wear it, and you’ll remain safe and healthy, untouched by evil.”

It was more than a talisman—it was a token infused with a trace of her own sword intent, priceless beyond measure.

Yiyi received it obediently. “Thank you, Sister Qingzhu.”

Ling Qingzhu stood and looked at me one last time, her gaze clear. “Sir, all feasts must eventually part. I don’t know when I’ll again hear your teachings.”

“Go,” I said, looking toward the distant horizon. “Your path lies in Shushan, but also in the world. When you wish to leave, leave; when you wish to return, return. There’s no need to force fate.”

“Qingzhu understands.”

She gazed at me deeply, as if to engrave my image in her heart. Then, she turned without hesitation, walking into the wilds. Her figure receded, step by step, until she became a barely visible stream of light, soaring into the sky and vanishing beyond the horizon.

She departed decisively, leaving no trace of hesitation. This was the demeanor of a sword immortal.

“Daddy, will Sister Qingzhu come back to visit us?” Yiyi stared at the sky, murmuring.

“If fate allows, she will.” I started the car, turning it in the opposite direction from where we had come.

“Where are we going now?”

“We’re heading to Jiangnan,” I said, a hint of longing in my voice. “To a place with little bridges, flowing water, and black-topped boats. Isn’t that what you wanted to see?”

“Yes!” Yiyi’s attention was quickly drawn to the new destination, her sadness washed away by anticipation.

The wheels rolled on, and we bid farewell to the vastness of the West, journeying toward the gentleness and subtlety of the East.

From the plateau to the water towns, we crossed half of China.

The scenery outside shifted from snowy mountains and deserts to verdant hills and rivers. The air grew moist and warm, replacing the dry, biting chill.

We finally chose a Jiangnan ancient town called “Andu” as our new home.

There was none of the bustle or commercialization of famous water towns here; only the original simplicity and tranquility remained. A clear river ran through the town, its banks lined with white-walled, black-tiled homes, each household growing flowers and grass at their doors. The stone-paved roads, polished smooth by time, sometimes saw elderly folk dressed in indigo-printed cloth, leaning on walking sticks, passing by slowly.

Time seemed to slow its pace here.

“Daddy, it’s so beautiful, just like a painting,” Yiyi leaned on the stone bridge’s railing, watching the black-topped boat glide beneath, speaking happily.

“Shall we settle here?”

“Yes!”

Soon, I took on a new, legal identity—Jiang An, an ordinary traditional Chinese physician seeking his roots with his daughter from the Central Plains—and made our home here.

On the west side of town, near the river, I acquired a small, elegant two-courtyard old house. The front courtyard could serve as a clinic, the back housed a tiny garden, just right for us to live in.

I named the clinic “Anhe Hall.”

An, for the town’s name and my own state of mind; He, for the harmony I hoped for in this life.

In the weeks that followed, Yiyi and I, like any ordinary father and daughter, prepared our new home together. We picked furniture, planted flowers in the garden, and hung the sign for “Anhe Hall” ourselves.

The school season soon arrived.

I enrolled Yiyi in the town’s central elementary school, where she would begin her third-grade studies.

On her first day, I held her hand as we walked along the morning’s stone path. The mist had yet to clear, thin vapor drifted over the river, and the air was filled with freshness.

“Daddy, will I make new friends?” Yiyi was both excited and a little nervous.

“Of course you will.” I smiled, squeezing her hand. “You’re so adorable, everyone will like you.”

I watched her at the school gate, her small backpack on her shoulders, looking back at me three times with every step into the campus. My heart surged with a long-lost, pure sense of satisfaction.

This was what I wanted.

Not power and glory, not immortal longevity, not reverence from others.

But to send my daughter to school on a quiet morning; to sit behind the counter on a warm afternoon, listening to bird song and the murmuring river outside; to spend a tranquil evening helping her with homework, telling her a bedtime story.

I turned toward “Anhe Hall.”

The clinic’s door was open, sunlight pouring onto the green stone threshold, everything so peaceful.

A new life had begun.