CH 63.1

Lu Qingjiu’s birthday was March, the month where the Spring spirit was strongest. Everything was coming back to life, and the entire world was brimming with vitality. Lu Qingjiu liked busy spring days, liked the warm sun, liked the melted stream, liked the fragrance of grass and trees in the wilderness. When his grandmother was still around, as long as it was Lu Qingjiu’s birthday, she would make a special bowl of chicken noodle soup for Li Qingjiu. Their family couldn’t be considered well-off, they didn’t have the money to buy a cake, so to Lu Qingjiu, this bowl of noodles was enough to satisfy him. In the chicken noodle soup was usually three golden, fried, heart-shaped eggs, which Lu Qingjiu could finish in just a few bites.

Afterwards, Lu Qingjiu left Shuifu village, and hadn’t tasted his grandmother’s cooking for a very long time now. He remembered that at that time, his parents had wanted to bring his grandmother out along with them, but his grandmother hadn’t been willing to agree no matter what, insisting on staying in this remote village as if she was waiting for something.

The morning of the 30th, Lu Qingjiu woke up. The first thing he did after opening his eyes was to grab the wooden box he kept by the head of his bed.

There was still a text lock hanging off the wooden box. Everyday, the words on the text lock would change. Today, Lu Qingjiu checked the lock as usual, but after getting a good look at the text lock, he was shocked.

On the text lock, he’d found three very familiar characters—— Lu, Qing and Jiu, his name. Lu Qingjiu immediately thought back to what the monk Xuan Yu had told him, that his grandmother had left him a present before her passing, and that present, should be the wooden box before him.

His hands shaking slightly, Lu Qingjiu slowly turned the lock, twisting the three characters Lu, Qing and Jiu until they were on the same level. The moment the three characters were in order, the wooden box let out a click, and the tightly locked lock opened.

Lu Qingjiu nervously held his breath. He slowly pulled off the text lock, opened the wooden box, and looked inside.

Inside was a thick notebook. From the looks of it, it was already quite old.

Lu Qingjiu reached inside and took out the notebook, but as he did so, he saw something black fall out of its pages. He stilled for a moment, then picked the thing up. When it entered his hands, he found that thing was actually a black scale, which was somewhat similar to the one he’d gotten the night before. It was just that this scale was filled with scratches, as if the owner of the scale had been seriously injured.

Lu Qingjiu’s thoughts were thrown into confusion. His previous speculation had been confirmed. It seemed that his grandmother had indeed known about supernatural matters, and not only had she known, she’d even had some contact with them. As for this black scale, was it Bai Yuehu’s? Or was it from one of his kin? But what was Bai Yuehu’s race, was he a dragon? But there were so many different kinds of dragons, even in just the Classic of Mountains and Seas, there were already a lot……

Hesitant, Lu Qingjiu placed the black scale into his pocket and flipped open the notebook.

Dfmjerf atf cbafybbx tjv yffc ifoa obg j nfgs ibcu alwf, atf qjqfg tjv jigfjvs yfmbwf sfiibkfv, yea atf ugjmfoei mjiilugjqts kjr ralii nfgs mifjg. Pa kjr Oe Hlcuple’r ugjcvwbatfg’r tjcvkglalcu.

Yqfclcu atf cbafybbx ab atf olgra qjuf, bc la kjr kglaafc j ofk kbgvr: Ktfgf lr kjafg lc Vteloe nliijuf.

Lu Qingjiu’s eyebrows furrowed as surprise appeared on his face. Indeed, with regards to this village’s name, he too had used to find it strange. After all, most of the time, a village’s name was determined according to some local characteristics. The simplest example would be if there were many people with the surname Li, then that village would be called Lijia village. But there was only a little stream without fish in Shuifu village, so why was it called Shuifu?

After reading through a few more pages, Lu Qingjiu finally determined that the notebook before him seemed to be his grandmother’s diary. It was just that the records were rather messy, with no specific times or dates, with only a few notes written when she thought of it. However, judging from the approximate descriptions, his grandmother had started recording her life in this notebook since she was young, and kept it with her all the way until she passed.

“I really like this place. The tenant is also very interesting, and he’s very good-looking too, haha, I think he looks a lot better than I do,” His grandmother wrote, “It’s just that he eats quite a lot, I feel like I might not be able to afford to keep him.”

Lu Qingjiu’s expression stiffened. He had a bad feeling.

Soon, as he flipped more and more pages, his bad feeling came true. The contents recorded in the notebook told Lu Qingjiu, his grandmother seemed to have experienced the same thing as him. She too had met a beautiful tenant, and that tenant had a very big appetite. It was just that his temperament was very different from that of Bai Yuehu’s, gentle, considerate, and “as warm as the spring sun”.

“I really like spring.” The girl who had still been young at that time, very quickly fell in love. “It’s just like him. The lunch he cooked today was really delicious. I asked him if he could cook it for me forever, and he smiled and nodded.”

As he looked at such warm words, Lu Qingjiu, however, began to feel pained. Because in his memories, he had never met his grandfather. And the title of “grandfather”, was a taboo in this household. When he was a child, he had once asked his grandmother about it, but his grandmother had told him to not ask again.

“You don’t have a grandfather,” his grandmother said, “Good Jiu-er, don’t ask me about it again.”

From then on, Lu Qingjiu had never asked again.

Lu Qingjiu continued reading, and found that more than half of the rest of the diary entries had been torn out. It could be seen that when she had torn out the latter half, his grandmother had been particularly agitated, because she’d even almost torn the diary in two.

“I understand now,” His grandmother wrote later, “I’m willing to make such a choice, because I at least have him, if I have him, that’s enough. It turns out the reason behind why they wanted me to come back was because of this. The Lu family only has me left. I’m the only one, this is my responsibility.”

Lu Qingjiu didn’t know what she meant by responsibility, but his mood became heavier and heavier. He felt that something had happened to his grandmother.

After that, there were many pages that had been left blank in the diary, as if his grandmother had lost interest in recording her life down. Following that, there appeared some words that made Lu Qingjiu feel particularly uneasy.

“He changed, how could this happen?”

“How could this happen? I don’t understand.”

“They sent a new tenant over, but I couldn’t take them.”

“Why, why…… Why, why, I don’t want to give up, I can’t give up.”

“I’m pregnant.”

“Everything’s over.”

Lu Qingjiu clutched the notebook in a tight grip. Getting pregnant out of wedlock was a huge crime in the past, but fortunately, because the Lu family was of very high status in Shuifu village, she hadn’t been chased out, but she just hadn’t been able to attend some formal gatherings and would occasionally be greeted by some glares from the villagers. After Lu Qingjiu’s mother had been born, his grandmother had sent her out of Shuifu village, letting her grow up outside. But later on, his mother and father had been busy with work, and had no way of taking care of the young Lu Qingjiu, so he had been sent to his grandmother’s side, and had spent his childhood with this kind old lady.

What happened between his grandmother and her beloved tenant? What did she mean by “changed”? Lu Qingjiu felt as if he was standing before a dark abyss. If he took a step forward, he would fall in. His reason told him that he should stop, but his curiosity drove him to continue forward.

Lu Qingjiu flipped the notebook to the last few pages and saw a message that his grandmother had left for him.

“Qingjiu, when you see this notebook, I will probably already be dead. I want to apologise to you, your parents’ death wasn’t an accident, rather, they were murdered by someone. It’s just that the murderer has already been punished as he should, and it wasn’t voluntary on his part. Please don’t blame him. There are a lot of secrets in Shuifu village. I don’t know how much you know, but if it’s possible, I don’t want you to know too much.”

As Lu Qingjiu read, he felt his body become colder and colder.

“Our Lu family has a special bloodline. We were born to be the guardians of Shuifu village, just that the Lu family’s bloodline is thin, I don’t know when it’ll break. I was very happy that you left Shuifu village, and I hope that you won’t come back so that everything can completely end. But I was still worried about what might happen after I’m gone, so I’m leaving you this notebook. I really hope that you won’t open it, and that you won’t see this.”

But clearly, his grandmother’s wish hadn’t come true. Driven by fate, Lu Qingjiu had still come back, returning to this remote village.

Lu Qingjiu felt a lump in his throat. He continued to read.

“But if you see this, maybe it’s not a bad thing. You have your own path to walk, grandma can’t make your decisions for you. Shuifu is a very special place, it connects the boundaries of two worlds. The Lu family has been guardians here for thousands of years, but what we guard isn’t the village, it’s a person. Qingjiu, have you met a new tenant? What you have to guard is him. As long as he’s alive, only then will Shuifu village be able to continue to exist. If he dies, or something happens to him, it will have serious consequences. You absolutely must not have any feelings for your tenant. This is absolutely wrong, the members of the Lu family will always pay a heavy price for it.”

Lu Qingjiu thought, how had his grandmother felt as she wrote those words? Was she thinking of that person who she had once loved so deeply? But this was clearly contradictory, when you used all your strength to protect a person, how could you not have any feelings for them? Could a human without feelings still be considered human? Besides, they were clearly so weak, why was it them who had to guard their powerful tenant? He really couldn’t understand.

His grandmother clearly wasn’t able to give a perfect answer. After leaving a last sentence of “Qingjiu, grandma loves you. If you run into something bad, please take another look at the things in the box.”, the message abruptly ended.

The last paragraph had been written very messily. It could be seen that the person who had written this had been in a terrible state. These should be his grandmother’s last words.

Lu Qingjiu’s fingers rubbed the paper, feeling its roughness against his skin. He pretty much understood what his grandmother meant, but there were still some things he didn’t understand. However, now, they were already no longer important. Holding the notebook tight to his chest, he got up and went to look for Bai Yuehu.