Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes, Braised Beef, Stir-Fried Seasonal Greens, Vinegar Fish, and Lichen Egg Drop Soup.

Four dishes and a soup—simple in appearance, yet several required considerable effort: the tomatoes for the scrambled eggs were peeled, the braised beef featured the coveted tenderloin cut—the hardest to snag at the market. The stir-fried greens were picked at their very tender tips. Cleaning the innards of the small fish for the vinegar fish alone was a chore, not to mention the wood ear mushrooms in the egg drop soup, which Mother Fa personally foraged from the fields. Washing them took nearly as long as gathering them… …

In short, these were dishes the Fa family would never make for themselves on an ordinary day. The family enjoyed a rare quiet meal together. The Fa siblings were too busy shoveling food into their mouths to lift their heads, while Mother Fa and Father Fa were simply exhausted—their mouths tired, their bodies even more so. After dividing the last bit of rice in the cooker between the boys, Mother Fa began explaining what she hadn’t had time to say yesterday: She brought over another basket of eggs—not the one she’d brought back yesterday, but the one Father Fa had brought. It was filled to the brim, and by eye, it seemed to hold even more than the basket given to Mulin and Zhi Zhi.“Your classmate loves our eggs, right? These are for him. Don’t let him pay—we’ve known each other for years,” Mother Fa said to Fa Muzhi. 

After a few bites of the last rice mixed with vegetable broth, Fa Muzhi swallowed and replied, “Let him pay. He won’t feel right if he doesn’t. Don’t worry—he’s a young master. His family has money.” She’d repeated this same line countless times, always met with the same response. At a loss for words, Mother Fa shook her head and simply pushed the basket fully toward Fa Muzhi. 

Father Fa couldn’t help but remark, “That boy hasn’t grown tired of our eggs after all these years. He truly loves them! Just like Old Master Fabugui.”

Mr. Fabugui—this name was familiar to Fa Muzhi. He was one of their two major clients. 

The couple discussed these two important customers for a while before Fa Mulin interrupted their conversation. 

He opened his palm, revealing four antique-looking jade-colored medicine bottles.“What are these? They look like quick-acting heart pills.” Father Mu was taken aback. 

Fa Mulin chuckled: “Actually, their function is quite similar to quick-acting heart pills. Hmm… maybe a bit more potent? 

“These are Life-Saving Pills. They can revive someone on the brink of death, or even bring back the newly deceased. The formula isn’t hard to find, but the ingredients are rare. I couldn’t gather them all until recently, when I had a stroke of luck in an ancient cave dwelling. That’s how I finally assembled the herbs and managed to refine them successfully.”

With that, he set aside his usual smile and pushed the medicine bottles toward his parents and elder brother with solemn gravity. “Just five pills—one for each of us. Take one bottle each and keep them on your person. Do not lose them. When I’m not by your side, these could save your lives.” His solemn tone made Father and Mother Fa receive them with equal gravity. Fa Mulin handed Fa Muzhi two bottles—needless to say, the one meant for Fa Zhizhi would be passed on by him. 

The family talked for a long time after that, until 11 PM, before finally heading upstairs. Father and Mother entered one door, while the Fa brothers entered another. 

 This house had only three bedrooms. Father and Mother took one, and since Little Sister Fa was a girl, she got her own room. That left the two brothers to share a room. 

It was a bunk bed. Lying on the top bunk, Fa Mulin didn’t fall asleep immediately. Instead, he continued chatting with his older brother. Watching Fa Muzhi carefully iron the suit he’d wear tomorrow and meticulously find a spot to hang it, he couldn’t help but remark, “It’s good I’m not home. You two get to have a room each.”

“I’d rather share a room with you every day,” Fa Muzhi replied softly, his slender eyes fixed on him. Fa Mulín gave a light tap on his lips. “It’s my fault, little brother.”

Resting his arms behind his head, Fa Mulin gazed up at the old yet clean wooden ceiling—evidently, while he was away, Fa Muzhi had kept the room impeccably tidy. 

After a moment’s silence, Fa Mulin spoke up, “Brother, no…”

“Brother, I’ve always felt I’ve found a place that suits me.”

“Truth is, I’ve wanted to be an immortal since I was very young—or maybe not exactly an immortal. I just never felt that my old life was what I truly wanted.”

“Unlike you, I never liked the textbooks they taught in school. I was better off there than here. I had a knack for it; they kept praising me, so I learned faster and faster, and grew more eager to learn.”

“They?” After double-checking the items he needed to bring tomorrow and confirming everything was in order, Fa Muzhi returned to his bunk. Hearing his brother’s question, Fa Mulin jumped down from the top bunk, squeezed onto Fa Muzhi’s pillow, and began telling him about his master’s teachings. Finally, he pulled out a book:

“Brother, did you know? Not long ago, I got my hands on an ancient text—see, this one right here. It says there’s a legendary tree called the Jianmu that connects heaven and earth. Legend has it that even ordinary mortals without cultivation can become immortals just by climbing it. Don’t you think our tree here, being so magical, might be that very Jianmu?”

“And since we inherited this courtyard and live beneath this tree, could we be the legendary Qingmu Clan?”

His face aglow with excitement, Fa Mulin looked at his elder brother, eyes sparkling. To prove his point, he flipped the ancient text to a specific page and shoved it right in front of Fa Muzhi’s face—

Ugh… stinky— Fa Muzhi waved away the rancid ancient tome wafting foul odors toward his nose, frowning. “People with the surname Qingmu sound like trees; we have the surname Fa, which sounds like tree-choppers. It doesn’t even match, okay?”

“And I was just about to mention—how long has it been since you cleaned out your Sumeru Space? Everything you pull out reeks.”

Fa Mulin gave a nervous chuckle.

He didn’t put the book away either, instead placing it on the bookshelf against the wall: ” Who cares if it’s real or not? You love reading, right? Kill some time flipping through it~ Hey, and these few books here—one of them’s an alchemy manual. The formula for the Life-Saving Pill I gave you today is in there, and the one for the motherwort pills I gave you before, too. I’m not into alchemy myself. Those five Life-Saving Pills were made by someone else anyway. They’re just rotting here, so you might as well take them.”

“Speaking of books, you should return the ones you borrowed from the library. I left them on the desk in my room, along with some other things you might need. Tomorrow… don’t forget to pick them up,” said Fa Muzhi.

“Thanks, bro! Oh, and don’t worry about returning these books—I bought them myself.”

“Got it.”

“Oh, and make sure you always carry those pills with you!”

“Got it.”

The brothers chatted a little longer, but their nighttime talk was finally cut short by a loud shout from their mother next door. They promptly turned off the light, lay head-to-head on a single pillow, and gazed at each other. Before long, both were fast asleep.

Then, the next morning, when Fa Muzhi woke up again, the spot beside him was already empty.

Fa Mulin had left.

“That boy snuck away again. Sigh, I know—he just couldn’t bear to watch the family part ways,” Mother Fa sighed.

Though Fa Mulin was gone, Father Fa and Mother Fa remained. But seeing them dressed in the same clothes they’d worn when they arrived, it was clear: they too would soon depart.

They lingered just long enough for one last breakfast. Mother Fa prepared a meal for the three of them and steamed a full refrigerator of buns for Fa Muzhi. Father Fa walked around the house, picking out spots that needed fixing and making minor repairs—well, truthfully, there wasn’t much that needed fixing, but he found something to occupy himself with. The family sat down together for breakfast, then climbed back up the tree as one.

This time, they didn’t hold hands.

Unlike Fa Mulin, who was accustomed to leaving without a word, Mother Fa insisted on seeing the children off each time, and this occasion was no exception.

Watching the Fa Muzhi vanish into the treetops, her gaze fixed on her eldest son’s retreating figure, the smile on Mother Fa’s face suddenly faltered. Sighing softly, she murmured to Father Fa beside her, “Buying a school district home only scattered us to the four winds. Moments like this make me wonder if I made the wrong choice…”

Unable to bear his wife’s dejection, Father Fa immediately comforted her: “It wasn’t a mistake! We got homes in the catchment areas for both the Affiliated High School of Zhongdu University—Blue Star High and the Xingtian Sect of Qiushui Realm. That’s practically unheard of anywhere in the world… no, the entire universe!”

“Besides, A-Zhi is still in our original neighborhood. He still needs this school district, does he?”

The parents’ murmurs seized the moment Fa Muzhi’s feet touched the branch on the other side of the world.

Gazing back at the path he’d come, as if he could see his parents still standing there through the distance, Fa Muzhi lingered no longer on the branch. The moment the smart-controlled window automatically opened, he leaped, landing lightly in the room on the other side.

Gently setting the large basket of eggs he carried onto the floor by the window, he finally let out a soft sigh—

Sorry, Dad, for making you worry for nothing.

Truthfully, he hadn’t stayed in their original place, nor had he used the school district his mother had truly desired.