Chapter 1483: Chapter 161: Meeting the Girl Again
Ah Dai gradually woke up from his coma, squinting his eyes against the piercing light as sharp pain coursed through his body. He seemed to be in a simple room, sparsely furnished with only a table and a few chairs. Farming tools hung on the walls, and the glaring light came from outside the window. In his haze, Ah Dai murmured, "Where... Where am I?"
"You’re in my house." A middle-aged man approached Ah Dai. His clothes were plain, his weathered face showing traces of a hard life, making him look like a simple farmer. "Brother, what happened to you? Looks like you’ve had a tough time!"
Hearing the man’s words, Ah Dai couldn’t help but recall the moments before he passed out. He had been running frantically, falling over again and again, each time clawing himself back up, only to fall once more. He didn’t know how long he’d kept going, until his body and will finally gave out, and he collapsed unconscious. That was all he remembered. "Uncle, was it you who saved me?"
"Uncle? Brother, judging by your age, you shouldn’t be much younger than me. Why are you calling me uncle?"
Ah Dai froze, instinctively touching his face, only to be shocked to find his beard had grown over an inch long. Struggling to sit up, he let out a bitter smile: "Uncle, I’m actually only in my twenties!"
The middle-aged man chuckled and said, "Ah! You don’t look it. Little brother, you’ve really had a rough time. Earlier, I was chopping wood on the mountain and found you collapsed on the ground, so I carried you back here. What happened? Got into trouble with bandits?"
Ah Dai didn’t know how to explain it to the man, so he simply said, "Yes, I ran into bandits."
The middle-aged man, being a simple farmer, didn’t press Ah Dai for details, instead smiling warmly: "Feeling better now? Get up, wash your face, and have something to eat. I bet you’re hungry."
Ah Dai nodded. "Thank you for saving me. I do feel a little hungry." Even he didn’t know how long it had been since he’d last eaten. Though True Qi could sustain life, a person still needed food.
The man laughed heartily at Ah Dai’s response. "Alright, then wash up first, and I’ll get you something to eat now." Saying so, he turned and left the modest room.
Ah Dai circulated his True Qi, surprised to discover that he still retained sixty percent of his Life Qi. Despite enduring such heavy consumption over the past days, his energy had not been exhausted.
What Ah Dai was experiencing reflected the greatest characteristic of Life Qi. Although it depleted quickly, his cultivation had already reached the peak of the Life Technique, enabling Life Qi’s self-sustaining cycle to protect him from any true damage. Compared to the last time he left the Elf Forest, he was now on a completely different level. This explained why Xi Wen once said it wouldn’t be easy for him to die, even if he wanted to.
After washing his face, shaving off his beard, and changing into the middle-aged man’s clothes, Ah Dai felt much fresher. Yet his heart remained wooden and numb. After days of hardship, he couldn’t think of any solution other than escape.
The man’s home was in a small village, beside which a little stream flowed, nourishing the surrounding rice fields. After eating the coarse meal, Ah Dai felt much better, his energy gradually recovering as well. Stretching his body, he couldn’t help but muse that if facing everything was so painful, why couldn’t he just settle down and grow old here? This tranquil life seemed most suited for him.
"Brother, where are you from? Where are you coming from? You look pretty strong."
Ah Dai turned to look at the man, giving a bitter smile. How could he even say where he was from? From as far back as he could remember, he’d been in the Empire of Tian Jing, yet he had jet-black hair and eyes from the Empire of Sunset and the Empire of Huasheng. Thinking for a moment, he murmured, "I suppose I’m from the Empire of Tian Jing, from the City of Nino."
The middle-aged man was stunned. "Nino? That’s far from here! I heard it’s icy cold there year-round. You must be a mixed race, huh? We people of Tian Jing are all golden-haired and blue-eyed."
Ah Dai asked in surprise, "This is the Empire of Tian Jing? I thought I was in the Empire of Sunset."
The man laughed heartily. "Of course this is the Empire of Tian Jing! This area belongs to Mica Province, and we’re just over a hundred miles from the provincial capital, Mica City. The Nobles there all love eating rice grown by us, calling it green food untouched by chemical fertilizers and industrial pollution."
Mica Province? The name sounded so familiar! Ah Dai felt like he’d heard of it somewhere before. Nino Small Town, Mica Province—Ah! Suddenly, he remembered. Back in Nino, that old woman who took the girl away had said she was the Governor of Mica Province’s wife, hadn’t she? If that were true, then he was now very close to the girl. The thought of her ignited a fire in Ah Dai’s heart. She was, after all, the first person who mattered to him more than steamed buns. In Ah Dai’s heart, her place was second only to Xuan Yue. He finally knew what he needed to do.
"Uncle, does the Governor of Mica Province live in Mica City?"
"Of course. Where else but the provincial capital does a Governor reside?"
"Then, could you tell me how to get to Mica City? I’d like to go there and take a look."
"Sure, just head north from here, and you’ll reach Mica City. Little brother, you look quite down on your luck—what are you planning to do there?"
