“Forward! You must ever press forward! You must never retreat!”

“But I am too weary, Master, far too weary! I… I wish to walk no further!”

“Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten everything?”

“Forward! Forward! Forward!”

Forward awoke with a start.

He glanced left and right, momentarily stunned, before remembering he was within the town hall of Qingyang.

The cold sweat drenching his back served as a stark reminder that it had been a long while since he last dreamt. A long while since he last… remembered.

Each day, he deliberately scattered his Dao Yuan, seeking a drunken stupor, lying down to sleep in a haze, and waking with a splitting headache. Not thinking of anything was the greatest blessing.

How difficult it was to find peace within.

If peace eluded him, then he would seek chaos.

If liberation proved unreachable, then he would let himself go.

Let go…

The sky was just beginning to lighten. Within the town hall, bailiffs slept sprawled in various positions.

Forward rose and walked out, clad in a single inner garment. He chose a direction at random and began patrolling the small town – a duty he had recently taken upon himself.

In the current crisis of the plague’s outbreak, only cultivators possessed the means to ensure their own safety.

Wherever people required supplies, wherever the afflicted needed transferring, wherever disturbances arose amidst the chaos… all these matters demanded his attention.

Whether it was the guileless and charming Bamboo Biqiong, or the constantly occupied Zhang Hai, perpetually tending his alchemy furnace, they too were just as busy, never resting for a moment. Only now did a slight opportunity for respite arise.

The truth of the plague had already been announced by Jiacheng, and a comprehensive response had been initiated. Aid from all quarters was arriving. Though the road ahead was arduous, a glimmer of hope was finally visible.

All this, the young man had brought. That young man, so confident and resolute, who declared that the Divine Ability Inner Mansion was absolutely not the end of the path…

But Forward could not remain idle.

He had to keep himself constantly engaged in strenuous work, if only to ward off the dream that had just awakened him. Indeed, in this period, he had discovered a new method to combat his pain: besides wine, unceasing labor was another.

He completed a circuit of patrol, sending the two newly discovered plague patients to the specially cleared isolation area in the west of town. Those who had come into contact with them were already marked for close observation.

The number of afflicted gathered in the western district had risen from the initial one hundred thirty to two hundred forty-seven.

Yet, it was clear that with the implementation of forceful measures, the number of new infections had significantly decreased.

The two Medical Path cultivators dispatched by the Xuan Family of Chong Xuan were now tirelessly treating the afflicted here.

Creating a medicine capable of curing or at least delaying the onset of symptoms was the optimal solution, for from the appearance of symptoms to death, only three to five days would pass. Relying solely on the two Medical Path cultivators to treat patients one by one meant many would likely not even survive until their turn.

Such a medicine was not entirely nonexistent, but those currently available were prohibitively expensive, utterly impractical for widespread use.

For instance, a single Opening Pulse Pill would be sufficient to resolve the issues of a plague-infected individual. But who could afford to invest two hundred forty-seven Opening Pulse Pills for the two hundred forty-seven sufferers in Qingyang Town?

What of the entire prefecture? What of the entire Yang Country? Absolutely no force possessed the wealth, nor the willingness, to bear such a cost.

Cultivators were immune to the plague not because they possessed specific methods against it, but due to their extraordinary physical constitutions.

In fact, the ceaseless diagnosis and treatment by the two Medical Path cultivators was already an extremely costly endeavor. The Dao Yuan Stones they consumed, the consultation fees they accrued, were expenses beyond the imagination of ordinary folk.

Only a power as rich and influential as Chong Xuan Sheng would be willing to send them to Jiang Wang.

He personally escorted the sufferers into the isolation rooms, issued them identification tags, registered their names, and oversaw the unified distribution of supplies…

Only after completing all this did Forward turn to leave.

A line of sight followed him, steadily, persistently.

Forward suddenly turned his head, just in time to see the source of the gaze. From a small window set high in the building on the right, a head peeked out, watching him.

Seeing him turn, the window abruptly slammed shut.

Perhaps they struck their forehead.

“Ah!”

A scream.

Perhaps they fell.

Though the glance was fleeting, Forward, with the keen eyesight of a cultivator, had seen the scene within the small window.

It was a child.

A child so thin as to be skeletal.

Forward was contemplating whether to go and investigate when the small window creaked open once more.

The small boy was likely standing on a stool, leaning over the window, looking at Forward with a mixture of curiosity and fear.

Forward attempted a smile.

Though his smile was not particularly radiant, it seemed to give the small boy courage.

“Today,” his lips were pale and tinged with green, and his voice lacked strength, “is my seventh birthday!”

That childish voice, green and tender, suddenly shattered many sealed fragments of memory.

Forward was momentarily lost in thought, remembering that he was still relatively young himself.

By his reckoning, five years had passed since his Coming of Age, a time when he should have been a vibrant, promising youth.

Yet, his long-untended appearance, with its rather dispirited stubble, made him seem far more weathered than his years.

It was a pity… How could Forward not see? This small boy’s life force was already like a flickering candle in the wind.

“Ah!” Forward exclaimed, “Congratulations on growing another year older!”

“Thank you!” The small boy first nodded his head in thanks, then asked, a little curiously, “Sir, are you the Bodhisattva who helps us? Mother says… you are all Bodhisattvas.”

With the Buddhist holy land of Suspended Temple situated in the East Domain, the doctrines of the Buddhist faith were widely disseminated here.

A Bodhisattva was a level of attainment within Buddhism, sometimes also referring to those with great merit.

“We do not rely on Bodhisattvas. When faced with hardship, we rely on our own effort!”

Forward instinctively wanted to speak thus, but he knew he was truly unworthy of such bombastic words.

Where was he, a person who made an effort?

So he only asked, “Do you have any wish?”

The small boy thought for a moment, a little shy, a little hesitant, yet unable to suppress a hopeful anticipation: “Every year on my birthday, Mother always gives me two eggs…”

This should be easily resolved.

Forward thought to himself.

“Where are your father and mother?” he asked the small boy upstairs.

The small boy said with a touch of sadness, “Father told me they went out to earn my school fees, otherwise when the plague disappears, I won’t be able to go to school.”

Forward was silent.

At this time, in this place, where could one possibly earn money?

The paths open to this small boy’s parents upon leaving were only two: recovery, or death.

If they had recovered, they would not have failed to return to see their child. Thus, the outcome was obvious.

Earning school fees was merely a gentle lie.

“You want to eat eggs for your birthday!” Forward said.

“Wait for me!”

He turned and ran towards the outside.

He collided with a bailiff at the guard post who was preventing people from entering.

“Do you have any eggs?” Forward asked.

“Huh?” The two bailiffs exchanged bewildered glances, not understanding the meaning of this cultivator sir’s words.

Forward leaped away.

“Do you have any eggs?”

“Whose home has eggs?”

Forward didn’t care too much, asking loudly as he walked.

An old woman trembled as she took down a piece of cured meat from a beam: “Do you want cured meat?”

“No need, thank you!”

After asking many people, Forward finally realized that finding eggs in Qingyang Town was, in fact, very difficult.

Not to mention eggs, even chickens had been eaten.

As a cultivator, he had never concerned himself with such trivial matters, which was why he was unaware that basic necessities were so scarce.

Finally, he rushed back to the town hall and shouted at Little Little, who was buried in a pile of documents, “How can the supplies in Qingyang Town be so poor? Did Jiang Wang not even spare this much wealth?”

Little Little lifted his head, baffled, “You didn’t know? The plague has broken out throughout the entire Yang Country! It’s not a problem of wealth now, it’s a problem of having money but fundamentally being unable to buy supplies!”

“Then is this kind of thing just to be ignored? Because you can’t buy supplies, you just give up?”

Forward couldn’t explain his sudden anger. He only felt a ball of fire burning uncomfortably within his heart.

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