Immortal Travel of Longevity

The waiter was bewildered...

His gaze inevitably fell upon the gentleman in the green shirt.

Chen Changsheng felt his gaze and looked over as well.

Their eyes met.

The waiter blurted out in shock, "You are..."

Chen Changsheng offered a warm smile. "Your shopkeeper is drunk. Help him to rest."

Shopkeeper Liu waved a hand dismissively. "I'm not drunk. Ugh... I'm not drunk..."

But even as he mumbled, he slumped forward onto the table.

The waiter snapped back to his senses and hurried over to support him.

The waiter called out a few more times, but Shopkeeper Liu did not respond.

He parted his lips, his gaze once again falling on Chen Changsheng.

He did not know what to say.

The lingering shock in his heart likely made it impossible for him to gather his wits.

Chen Changsheng stood. "I'll give you a hand."

Together, they helped the shopkeeper downstairs and all the way into his room to rest.

The waiter caught his breath, tucked the quilt around the shopkeeper, and turned to look at Chen Changsheng standing nearby.

Chen Changsheng spoke first. "It is getting late. This Chen will take his leave now."

The waiter opened his mouth to speak, but the words caught in his throat.

"When Shopkeeper Liu wakes," Chen Changsheng said, "pass a message to him on behalf of This Chen. Tell him that This Chen has never looked down on him."

The waiter gave a wooden nod, committing the words to memory.

Chen Changsheng hummed in acknowledgment, then repeated, "It is getting late. This Chen will leave now."

Only after Chen Changsheng walked out of the room did the waiter snap out of his daze.

"I'll see you out, Mister!"

He hurriedly chased after him.

He followed him all the way to the entrance of the tea house.

The waiter swallowed hard before finally calling out, "Guest! Guest!"

Chen Changsheng looked back.

The waiter asked, "Guest... are you truly Chen Jiucha? Mister Chen?"

Chen Changsheng nodded. "I told stories here in my early years."

Astonished, the waiter pressed, "But, Mister Chen, you look... far too young, don't you think?"

Chen Changsheng touched his own face and nodded slightly. "You make a fair point."

With that, his palm swept over his face.

Right before the waiter's watchful eyes, that handsome, youthful visage suddenly began to age.

His jet-black hair steadily shifted to a salt-and-pepper gray, wrinkles etched themselves into his skin, and a beard grew out.

In the mere blink of an eye, he had transformed into an elderly man.

The waiter's eyes widened, and he scrambled backward in pure fright.

Carelessly, his foot caught on the threshold, and he went tumbling backward.

He hit the ground with a heavy thud, crying out in pain.

Seeing this, Chen Changsheng clicked his tongue and muttered, "I said it would scare people."

He shook his head, then turned and walked away.

Sprawled on the ground, the waiter stared blankly, unable to recover his wits for a long while.

It was as if he could not believe the scene he had just witnessed.

He lay there panting for a moment.

Then he scrambled up from the ground and sprinted out the door. But when he looked down the street again, the man's figure was nowhere to be seen.

The waiter stared blankly down the empty street.

In a daze, he felt as though he had just understood many things.

That was right...

Strange Tales, Strange Tales... how could the gods, ghosts, immortals, and Buddhas in those stories possibly have been penned by mortals?

...

He left the tea house.

Chen Changsheng followed the direction etched in his memory.

He wanted to eat a bowl of noodles.

The noodles in Qingshan City had once been unparalleled, and they remained so even today.

However, not many noodle shops were open nowadays. It was likely because business was hard to maintain in these chaotic times.

When he arrived, it was just as he had expected. The noodle shop run by the Wang Family father and son was closed. Chen Changsheng then tried checking their home. The main gate was shut tight, locked from the outside. It looked as though no one had been there for a very long time.

A child happened to step out from the neighboring courtyard. Seeing Chen Changsheng standing before the door, he asked, "Old man, who are you looking for?"

Chen Changsheng asked, "This Chen is an old acquaintance of this family. Do you know where they went? I see the gate is locked—did they move away?"

The child blinked, having no idea.

Instead, he simply turned around and called out for someone.

"Dad! Dad..."

Before long, a middle-aged man walked out.

The man told Chen Changsheng, "His family... they are all gone."

Chen Changsheng froze for a moment. "Gone?"

The man nodded. "That year when the Yan Army entered the city, the soldiers scouring for wealth took liberties with his wife. Brother Wang was so furious that he grabbed a woodchopping knife from the yard and killed the man. That very afternoon, he tried to flee with his wife, but they were eventually caught and thrown in prison. Later on, it seems he died in his cell. As for his wife, I heard she was sold to a brothel, or something like that..."

Chen Changsheng furrowed his brows as he listened.

He asked, "May I ask your surname, little brother?"

The man cupped his hands. "Old man, my surname is Zhang. Just call me Zhang Tai."

Chen Changsheng then asked about Brother Wang's parents.

Only then did he learn that the Wang parents had both passed away from illness. It was a plague that had spread from the west back then, and they had not been able to pull through.

Zhang Tai sighed. "Those soldiers who entered the city weren't human; they were no different from bandits. Brother Wang suffered this Tribulation with nowhere to turn for justice. Sigh, it's been many years now, and the Yan Army has since been wiped out. I suppose it's their just deserts. You shouldn't grieve too much, old man."

Chen Changsheng remained silent.

His hand, hidden within his sleeve, quietly performed a divination.

Then he lowered it.

Madam Wang, unable to bear the humiliation after being sold, had taken her own life. The Yan Army soldiers who had orchestrated all of this were also already dead.

"I came too late..."

Zhang Tai offered, "Come inside and have a seat, old man."

"I won't sit down." Chen Changsheng shook his head. "Does his family have any descendants left?"

Zhang Tai replied, "They did have a daughter. After the disaster struck back then, no one knows where she went."

Chen Changsheng nodded. "Thank you for letting me know."

Chen Changsheng departed.

His mind drifted to that bowl of noodles.

He also thought of the letter Doctor Wang had left for him back then, silently asking in his heart, 'Are you eating well? Are you living well...?'

The children of an old acquaintance, yet he, Chen Changsheng, had arrived a step too late.

They were already gone.

The wicked had also died under the saber and sword.

Though the enemies were dead, who could be satisfied with them simply dying like that?

Chen Changsheng could not help but feel a hollow sense of loss.

When he looked up, raindrops were beginning to fall.

It had started to rain in Qingshan City.

Before long, the sky blurred into a hazy gray.

The continuous drizzle felt like the return of spring.

He simply found a spot by the street to sit down and take shelter from the rain.

Chen Changsheng's gaze was somewhat vacant. Only after everything had already happened did he finally find out, leaving him feeling entirely powerless.

If he had been around more often, how could such a tragedy have occurred?

Resentment welled in his heart, yet he had nowhere to vent it.

He muttered under his breath, "Thieving old heavens..."

Why must it torture him like this?

He clearly remembered the bright, hearty face of the Wang Family's young master. Through the turning of the years, the boy was already gone, and now Chen Changsheng had nowhere to even direct his strength.

Chen Changsheng let out a long sigh, left with no choice but to stare blankly into the continuous drizzle.

He always thought about how nice it would be if things turned out a certain way, but the matters of the world were always like that...

Always entirely unexpected.

Always leaving a knot of gloom in one's heart.

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