118 The Nameless (2)
The middle-aged stall owner smiled humbly and replied, “It’s thirty to forty years old. My father used to manage the stall. Now it’s my turn.”
“Ah, it’s a family business!” Jiang Ming gave him a thumbs up, put down the copper coins after eating his food, and left.
Next to the stall was an old house that occupied a large area. It was a martial arts school.
It was the Tiger Hunting Village headquarters in the past. Jiang Ming still remembered how mischievous the current owner of the tofu stall was all those years ago.
“Things remain the same, but people have changed.” Jiang Ming took one last glance at the busy stall and turned to leave.
* * *
Jiang Ming went to Peace Country and did not disguise himself as a stranger anymore. Instead, he changed his original appearance to look a little older and slowly walked into the county.
In the bar, a man with a goatee was behind the counter, keeping the books. Suddenly, his eyes darkened.
“Hello, what do you want to drink?” he asked without even raising his head.
“Where’s Ah Fei?”
“Ah Fei? Why are you looking for my father?” The man with the goatee looked up with a strange expression. It had been a long time since someone addressed his father like that.
“Hu Zi?” Jiang Ming was also stunned.
The man’s hand suddenly stopped. Only Old Jiang, the former owner of the bar, and another person had called him that.
“Uncle Jiang?” The bearded man stared at the slightly older man. He suddenly became excited. “My father is fishing by the river. I’ll take you to him!”
“I’ll leave you to your work. Just ask him to come to my house for a drink tonight!” Jiang Ming said with a smile.
When he heard this, Hu Zi’s expression changed. “Uncle Jiang, you’ve been gone for decades. That yard has been torn down and turned into a field.”
Jiang Ming’s eyes widened, and then he looked helpless. He did not expect that he would lose his home so soon.
“That’s true. They all left!”
Jiang Ming smiled. He remembered a letter that Yu Yan had sent him more than ten years ago. Zhou Wenxiu did not want to waste her time in this small county, so she left with her luggage. It seemed that she was going to join the Flying Cloud Castle.
Jiang Ming was happy to see this.
He understood Zhou Wenxiu. If she really left, it meant that she wanted to carve her own path.
This was the carefree and cheerful Zhou Wenxiu he remembered.
“By the way, who tore down my house?” Jiang Ming asked curiously. Although he had left, he assumed that not many people would dare tear down his courtyard.
“Who else do you think?” Hu Zi smiled awkwardly.
Seeing his expression, Jiang Ming’s eyes flashed with realization.
“Tian Anan!”
* * *
Late at night, the bar’s doors were tightly shut, and a group of people sat around a large table.
More than twenty years had passed, and Ah Fei was now a grandfather. His grandchildren were playing with him.
A woman in her thirties sat at the table with her sleeves rolled up high. She stared at Jiang Ming and said, “Ming, your courtyard collapsed. To prevent strangers from taking over, I made it into a rice field. I was protecting your property, do you understand?
Jiang Ming was a Grandmaster, but he suddenly felt a headache coming on. He quickly nodded and agreed, “You’re right.”
Ah Fei was full of laughter as he held his grandson. “I can testify that your house really had collapsed, and you didn’t show up at all, so I helped to tear it down for farming. I wanted to wait for you to come back and rebuild it, but I didn’t expect you to only show up after two years.”
“Yeah, we can only drink together now.”
Jiang Ming looked at Ah Fei, who was over fifty years old, and then at Li Qingqing, who had wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. He realized that he really should leave.
Twenty years passed in the blink of an eye for him, but for ordinary people, it was a quarter of their lives.
The invisible gap between Jiang Ming and his old friends had been getting bigger and bigger. If he continued to stay here, it would only add to his troubles.
After three rounds of wine, they all left.
Jiang Ming walked toward the Cloudy Dream Mountain Forest under the moonlight. A moment later, a balding old dog came out of the forest and slowly followed Jiang Ming.
Jiang Ming looked at it and knew that it was Black Bean.
Even if it was a dog that had practiced martial arts, thirty years was a long life for a dog.
“The fat tiger died two years ago, and Master Si can’t run anymore!” Black Bean barked weakly.
Jiang Ming nodded. Master Si and the fat tiger did not practice martial arts as early as Black Bean. Even if they had eaten a few mutated herbs, they could still not resist the passage of time.
In the mountains, the wooden house was old and covered in moss.
Master Si walked forward, trembling. From a small bag on its back, it took out a thin book.
Jiang Ming took it and opened it. It recorded the various changes that had occurred in the depths of the mountain forest—the place where the immortal encounter took place, over the past twenty years. The vegetation grew as usual, and everything was normal.
In addition, the birds and animals under Master Si’s command found out that the fire mayfly in the mountain had flown out from the land where the immortal encounter took place.
There was a valley with fiery red miasma floating in the air, and fire mayflies were dancing in the sky.