LADY LIN'S FIRST-EVER JOURNEY TO IMMORTALITY

106-110

Lin Luoran doesn't try to help Li out of the pond. She sits casually on a stone and says carelessly:

"You are cruel to the bear when you ruin its eyes, but what you do is so kind to the monkeys... The bear comes here and makes trouble every few days to rob the monkeys of the spirit wine, and every time it comes, monkeys are hurt or killed. The bear is a huge threat to the monkeys! This is how cultivation works. It's all up to you what you do with the spells."

Lin Luoran hopes that Li Xi'er can understand from this fight that not all killings are bad.

Li Xi'er remains silent for a while and says: "Sister... Thank you."

Li is innocent, but not stupid. She is aware that no one who doesn't really care about her will step up the effort to make her understand these truths.

"However, sister, how do you know about this?" Li Xi'er asks. It is strange that Lin Luoran knows about the back story in such a short time.

Seeing that Li Xi'er has got over with her guilt, Lin Luoran stands up and walks away. Then she turns around and blinks to Li: "The old monkey told me about it!"

What? The old monkey can talk? Li has been together with Lin all the time and she never heard the old monkey talk... Except for the time when she was fighting with the black bear — the old monkey should have been dead back then!

Li Xi'er sees Lin's blinks and realizes. She screams:

"Sister, you tricked me!"

Lin Luoran laughs: "Come on! It will actually die if we don't hurry!"

Li Xi'er jumps out of the pond and shakes the water off like a proud little rooster. Though her right hand is hurt, the wound is honorable, right?

"Sister, wait for me..." Li Xi'er follows Lin with folded arms, but Lin has already walked through the waterfall.

***************

In the treehouse, the old monkey is lying on the chair and resting. It looks fine.

Li Xi'er has also healed thanks to Lin Luoran. She shouts to the old monkey "So you can talk all the time, and you didn't die back then. You think I'm a fool?"

The old monkey bursts out a dry cough: "Fairy, please don't be mad..."

Li Xi'er was annoyed. She thought that this kind old monkey was dead, so she risked her life fighting with that strong black bear. It now turns out that the old monkey is fine. Also, Sister Lin has long since known about this and they teamed up to trick her.

"It was hurt, but the injuries were on its skin, which look serious but were easy to heal... As for talking, if you hadn't tried to save it, it wouldn't have begged me to help you because it couldn't bear to see you get hurt, and I would also be fooled by it."

The old monkey is embarrassed: "I'm so sorry. The two of you are so kind and different from the human cultivators in our monkey legends. I was being such a bad person."

Li Xi'er is amused by its words: "You are not a person, ok? You were being a bad monkey!"

"Yeah, bad monkey. Fairy, you're right." The old monkey bows. In fact, Lin Luoran can see that it likes Li Xi'er very much, and it seems to like Li more than herself who actually has cured its wounds.

Li Xi'er is happily playing with the old monkey, and she thinks of a problem after a while. She looks at Lin Luoran and asks cautiously: "Sister, can't we stay here just for another day?"

"You will want to stay for two more days if I let you stay here for another day. We don't have time for that."

The old monkey is also dispirited. All the monkeys know that human cultivators can come in the secret land once in a hundred years, and it is impossible for the monkeys to go outside.