Chapter 230 — No Regrets

Ming Li smiled faintly. With a touch of reassurance he patted Little Wan, who looked ready to explode with shame, then turned to Zhou Yixuan, a look of bewilderment coming over his face. "Elder, you make sport of the world and your insight is beyond the common run. There is a matter that has troubled my heart, and I would ask you: tell me, we men live out our lives—for what?"

At these words Little Wan and the Wild Wolf Daoist both started, gazing at Ming Li in perplexity. Zhou Yixuan, however, knit his brows; the bantering look faded from his face by degrees, and his manner grew grave. He did not answer glibly and at once, but pondered a long while before saying slowly, "Your countenance is not as it was—something has gone amiss with you again, has it not?"

Ming Li was silent a moment. Then he said in a low voice, "My honored master and his wife passed away some days ago."

"Ah!" Little Wan and the Wild Wolf Daoist both cried out in shock. Zhou Yixuan knit his brows, sighed, and said softly, "So Tian Buhui is gone as well. A pity."

Ming Li said nothing. Zhou Yixuan closed his eyes briefly, then his expression returned to normal. "No wonder grief is written on your face. But parting in life and death is the common lot of man; none may escape it. You are not of the common clay—why let yourself be drowned in it?"

The pain on Ming Li's face deepened. "But their passing—I cannot escape my share of the blame for it!"

Zhou Yixuan said mildly, "If that be so, then pay what you owe, and have done. Why torment yourself here?"

Ming Li was startled. He faltered, "Pay what I owe—what is it I owe?"

Zhou Yixuan said, "Let me ask you: when your master and his wife passed, did they bear you any grudge?"

Ming Li's head sank slowly. After a long while he said slowly, "No. My master and his wife were as weighty as mountains in their kindness to me. Even to their final hour they held me in their thoughts, and took this unworthy, unfilial disciple back under their wing..." His voice had grown faintly choked by the end.

Watching him from beside, Little Wan felt her own eyes sting and redden without her knowing why.

Zhou Yixuan smiled faintly, a subtle light flickering in his eyes, as though he had leapt beyond this mortal world and seen through all its ways. "Then let me ask you again: when your master and his wife passed, was there any trace of regret in them?"

Ming Li hesitated, then slowly shook his head.

Zhou Yixuan smiled. "There you have it. You ought to rejoice for them. To die without regret—is that not the finest end they could have had?"

Ming Li raised his head and looked at Zhou Yixuan. His lips moved faintly, and his face was full of bewilderment.