Chapter 22: The Snow Mountain Garden

"Do you also enjoy flowers and plants?"

Another woman in purple robes asked him from within the mirror. Lu Xing observed her refined and graceful demeanor—elegant, detached from the worldly, and reminiscent of a young lady from a noble household—and gave a slight nod.

The woman in purple smiled. "If you continue further up, not far from here, there is a garden I used to tend. However, it has been many years, and I am not sure if it still exists."

"There is a garden on the snowy mountain?"

Lu Xing looked at the blizzard filling the sky above and immediately felt intrigued. After clarifying the location, he quickened his pace up the mountain.

"Does this silly boy not know how to traverse the void?" the Empress in the mirror laughed.

"Likely not," another replied.

"What does it matter? Let him run; it’s quite amusing."

Lu Xing pressed onward. After asking the woman in purple for directions twice more, he finally reached the spot—a giant boulder engraved with the words "Stop, Traveler."

"Just go right in," the woman in purple said.

Lu Xing nodded and stepped forward. The swirling snow vanished, and he found himself surrounded by a thick mist. When he turned back, even the boulder was gone.

"It seems it is still here," the woman in purple said with a hint of joy. She guided Lu Xing: "Follow the steps of the Tiangang Bagua, then reverse them, and you will pass through the formation."

Lu Xing dared not move, asking, "Senior, how does one perform the Tiangang Bagua steps?"

Many of the beauties in the mirror began to laugh, and the woman in purple wore a look of helplessness. This was the simplest way to break the formation; she had designed it that way years ago because she disliked trouble and wanted accidental intruders to leave quickly. She never expected someone to be unable to perform the Tiangang steps!

The Empress, seated on her dragon throne, rested her chin on her hand and laughed. "Don't bother with the effort. Why not let him use the mirror to break the formation? It will save him from forgetting how to do it next time."

The woman in purple hesitated for a moment before sighing. "Very well. Since I am no longer part of the Three Realms, there is no use in keeping this garden. Lu Xing, just use the mirror to break the formation and enter. If there are any herbs in the garden that have gained sentience, let them be."

Lu Xing did not know how precious sentient herbs were, but seeing that none of the figures in the mirror cared, he abandoned the thought of capturing any.

He raised the treasure mirror with his fairy-like, jade-white palm and turned it gently. The mirror instantly emitted a brilliant light, slicing through the layers of mist and revealing the reality around him.

Lu Xing was stunned.

Before him lay a garden overflowing with a colorful haze. Various spiritual plants were thriving; treasure trees hung with bright red fruits, emerald vines bore massive gourds, and fairy herbs emitted a mystical glow. On the ground, seven or eight strange-looking children were rolling about, while on the roof of a thatched hut, three little toddlers were sunning their bellies, and two others were running and playing in the dirt.

Within the garden, at least a dozen strange-looking children stared back at Lu Xing in mutual shock.

The next moment.

"Ah!!"

With several sharp screams, the children either transformed into rays of spiritual light and fled into the sky, burrowed into the ground and vanished without a trace, or reflexively reverted into herbs, their stalks trembling in fear.

Only one half-grown child remained—a pink-cheeked, jade-carved little girl. She stood before the thatched hut, clutching a tiny bucket, frozen in place.

Lu Xing offered her a smile. "Hello there, little sister."

The girl looked up at the mirror in his hand. The next moment, she dropped the wooden bucket, let out a wail, and ran toward him, throwing her arms around his thigh and crying until her face was covered in tears and mucus.

Lu Xing patted her head and asked the spirits in the mirror, "What is going on?"

The woman in purple said softly, "So many years have passed. You have survived the transformation tribulation and attained human form."

The little girl, who had transformed from an herb, could not speak; she only looked at him with wide, teary eyes.

Lu Xing looked at the spiritual plants now being gradually covered by the snow and felt a pang of regret. "I should have learned the Tiangang steps. Now that your formation is broken, I fear the garden won't last."

"In the Three Realms and the Six Paths, what can truly last forever?" the girl in the blue dress remarked casually.

The woman in purple added, "Without anyone to tend it, the formation would have slowly dissipated anyway. You need not worry."

"Then what about her?" Lu Xing patted the little girl's head again. She looked like a human child of five or six, quite adorable.

"She was a green lotus I planted by the gate years ago. Perhaps she absorbed some of my essence and was able to take human form. She recognizes the mirror and mistook you for me."

The woman in purple pondered for a moment before saying to Lu Xing, "I would like to ask you for a favor."

"Senior, please speak! Though I know no spells, and I barely know how to use this mirror," Lu Xing replied. To him, the mirror was like a computer; he only knew how to double-click shortcuts on the desktop without knowing what would happen afterward.

"It is nothing major. Just hold the mirror toward her, and I will operate it," said the woman in purple.

Lu Xing nodded, told the little girl to stand still, and pointed the mirror at her.

The woman in purple in the mirror reached out a hand toward her, smiling slightly. "You have tended this garden for me for many years. Today, I bestow upon you a stroke of fortune. How far you can cultivate from here is up to you."

A point of spiritual light emerged from the mirror and landed on the little girl's forehead.

"Hmm."

Her small body swayed. In a daze, she turned around, walked back to the hut, stumbled, and fell face-first into a flower pot, transforming back into a lotus flower that took root there.

Lu Xing watched as, within seconds, the three or five emerald leaves were joined by a pale pink bud, surrounded by a five-colored haze. Faintly, one could see the little girl curled up inside the bud, clutching her knees.

A faint, sweet scent of lotus drifted through the air.

The Rainbow Fairy smiled. "A thousand years from now, which sect's ancestor will she be, or which family's elder?"

The beauties in the mirror laughed, though some sighed, as if they had experienced such things before.

Lu Xing could not wait a thousand years, so he asked the woman in purple and the others, "Seniors, if we just leave her here like this, will she be alright?"

"She will leave if she encounters danger," the woman in purple replied.

Only then did Lu Xing feel at ease. She was the mistress of the garden and would least want to see her hard work destroyed. Of course, that only applied to the sentient or transformed herbs; she likely let the ordinary flowers and plants fend for themselves.

After watching the lotus for a moment, Lu Xing began to wander through the garden. As he walked, he chatted with the spirits in the mirror, learning that the woman in purple had lived here for a very long time.

She did not say exactly how long, only mentioning that she never actively sought out spiritual herbs. They were all seeds she found in the storage bags of other cultivators who had died on the snowy mountain.

When Lu Xing asked for her name, she simply smiled and said she had no name and no surname, and had never walked the mortal realm—she did not even have a title like the Rainbow Fairy.

Lu Xing did not know if it was true, but inside the hut where she had lived, he found many pieces of furniture—teapots, cups, pillows—all in different styles.

"They were all things others had no use for. I just picked them up and kept them. If you can use them, take them; if not, throw them away," the woman in purple laughed.

Lu Xing nodded. Although it was strange for a refined lady to be picking up things in the mountains, she was a fairy, after all, and could not be measured by ordinary standards.

He sighed with regret, "It is a pity there are no shoes." He was still barefoot.

"Hee hee hee."

The girl in the blue dress in the mirror laughed, kicking her crystal-clear, jade-like feet in the stream. "Even I, your elder, have no shoes to wear. What shoes would you wear? Don't wear any from now on; keep me company!"

Lu Xing glanced at the mirror, but unfortunately, the view was too far away to get a good look at her feet. Or rather, he couldn't see if she was wearing shoes or not!