Chapter 230 — No Regrets

Ming Li was startled. "Why is that?"

The waiter shrugged. "You can thank those damned beast-demons for that. When they overran this place, everything for hundreds of miles around was laid to waste. Even the fish in the river beyond the city walls were swept up clean. To this day, never mind a Mei fish fit for cooking—you'd be lucky to see a single fry."

Ming Li looked bereft, and for some reason his face dimmed a shade further. The waiter sighed for a good while before remembering himself and hastily asking, "Sir, why not order something else?"

Ming Li stared blankly into the distance and said offhandedly, "Never mind. Just bring a few dishes and some wine—whatever you think fit."

The waiter nodded and turned to go. He had gone only halfway, however, when three more people entered through the doorway. The waiter was startled, thinking to himself that business had actually turned for the better today, and hurried to greet them. To his surprise, the three only glanced around the tavern, and then, catching sight of Ming Li, one of them suddenly cried out, his voice carrying a note of astonishment.

Ming Li heard the unusual cry, and the voice sounded somewhat familiar to him. He turned to look, and was himself taken aback. As the saying went, the world is small and no one stays a stranger—the three standing there were none other than Zhou Yixuan, Xiao Wan, and Ye Gou, and it was Zhou Yixuan who had cried out.

He could not say why, but the sight of these three stirred in Ming Li's heart a sudden, groundless warmth. They were not close friends, true enough; yet in his present state of mind, spying Zhou Yixuan and the others amid the vast sea of strangers was better than any fine scenery.

The look of surprise on Zhou Yixuan's face vanished in an instant, replaced by a broad grin as he hurried over, the cloth banner hung from his bamboo pole—"An Immortal Points the Way"—fluttering in the wind. Stopping before Ming Li, he chuckled, "Who would have thought! To meet again in this very place."

A faint smile touched the corner of Ming Li's mouth. It vanished in a flash, but he said, "Please, elder, sit."

Zhou Yixuan nodded and sat down without a trace of ceremony. The waiter, standing to one side, asked softly, "Are you all together, sirs?"

Zhou Yixuan shot him a glare. "What nonsense—if we weren't together, would we be sitting at the same table?"

The waiter nodded again and again. "Yes, yes. Then please be seated, sirs, and I'll see to the food and wine at once."

Zhou Yixuan kept chuckling, but he caught the waiter by the arm and casually ordered seven or eight more dishes and three or four pots of fine wine. The waiter nodded without cease and hurried off to see to it.

Beside him, little Wan's face was not nearly so cheerful as her grandfather's. On the contrary, it had gone dark and rather sour, and when she saw Zhou Yixuan pull the waiter back again to order more dishes and wine, her expression grew gloomier still. Several times she seemed about to speak, but each time she held her tongue. Only after the waiter had gone did she let out a cold laugh. "Grandfather, ordering all that food—surely you must be thinking that a savior is sitting here before us, and you mean to treat him handsomely to repay him?"

Zhou Yixuan's face darkened. "Little Wan, what nonsense are you spouting? What sort of bond do we share with Brother Ming Li, that it could be measured in dishes and wine?" So saying, he turned back and smiled at Ming Li, then sighed and shook his head. "Look at this He Yin City. After the catastrophe, men's hearts are not what they were. Not a one will come to have their fortunes told. Hard times indeed..."

Little Wan's expression shifted. She glanced at Ming Li, then fixed Zhou Yixuan with a fierce glare, her face coloring. Ming Li, however, seemed to notice nothing at all; he said only, coolly, "Indeed. Set your mind at ease, old sir. Once, I had the good fortune to be looked after by you for many days. Let this be my treat, then, to repay you."

Little Wan's face flushed crimson at once, but Zhou Yixuan looked as though his old heart were greatly comforted. He nodded and smiled. "Good, good. The child is worth teaching!"

The Wild Wolf Daoist looked at Little Wan, then at Ming Li, and seemed about to speak, but held his peace.

Just then the waiter brought up several plates of cold dishes and two pots of wine. Zhou Yixuan, without a shred of ceremony, took a pot and filled every cup at the table, then raised his own. "We are all wanderers of the wide world, and to meet here is a rare stroke of fate indeed. Let us drain this cup."

With that, he tipped back his head and drank it down in one go, then swayed his head slightly, evidently well pleased with the flavor. Ming Li watched him, the corner of his mouth twitching—whether in a smile, it was hard to say, for the muscles of his face looked utterly rigid, and even a smile might not show there. Slowly he too lifted his cup and set it to his lips; but after a moment he gave a sudden sigh, laden with a certain helpless bitterness, as though what he held were the most bitter thing in the world's the world and he could not bring himself to drink it. Slowly he set it back on the table.

At this, Little Wan, seated beside Zhou Yixuan, could hold back no longer and needled him. "A rare stroke of fate indeed! I wonder who it was that caught sight of someone's figure from far down the street and came hollering after him, scheming for a free meal!"

Zhou Yixuan did not change expression. He only shot Little Wan a glance. "Children say what they please, children say what they please!"

Ming Li seemed to take no notice of Little Wan's words. He had looked absent-minded and lost in thought all along; yet Little Wan, who had known him for years, was seeing him in such a state for the first time, and could not help feeling uneasy. She asked him, "What's the matter with you? Is something wrong?"

Ming Li was silent a moment, but he did not answer Little Wan. Instead he turned to Zhou Yixuan. "Elder."

Zhou Yixuan had just poured himself another cup and drunk it. He smiled at the address. "What is it?"

Ming Li's gaze was somewhat hollow. He said in a low voice, "I remember that ten years ago, when I was still a youth just descended from Canglan Mountain, it was here in He Yin City that you once cast a fortune for me—is that not so?"

Zhou Yixuan and Little Wan both started. The Wild Wolf Daoist was utterly at a loss; of that old affair he naturally knew nothing. Zhou Yixuan knit his brows slightly and thought it over. "Mm, I recall a little of it. What of it? Why should you suddenly ask about a thing so long past?"

Here his face took on a mysterious look, and he lowered his voice to Ming Li. "You are not, ten years on, about to tell me our reading was wide of the mark, and demand your fortune-telling fee back?"

"Grandfather!" Little Wan scolded him; she had plainly reached the end of her patience. She shoved Zhou Yixuan aside and said to Ming Li, "Brother Ming Li, is something weighing on your mind? Perhaps... you could tell me."

Ming Li looked at her. In the weariness of his eyes there surfaced, for once, a trace of warmth; yet he still shook his head gently. "It is nothing. I merely wish to ask the old gentleman a few questions."

Zhou Yixuan straightened his garments and cleared his throat, and at once that air of sage-like dignity welled up in him, so that the little tavern hall seemed to glow with his presence, and he alone reigned supreme.

"Speak, then," he said mildly. "Such is the bond between us that there is nothing you may not say to me. But the fee for the reading must still be paid, mind you." At the last, heedless of Little Wan's flushed face beside him, he winked at Ming Li.