Chapter 269 - 169: Glimpsing the Path Again, a New Painter

Chapter 269: Chapter 169: Glimpsing the Path Again, a New Painter

Xie Luohe turned, presenting her back to him. Her mind was a mess of conflicting thoughts. She clenched her fists. The long arrow at her feet began to tremble faintly, mirroring the turmoil in her heart. With each slight tremor, fine cracks spread outward across the stone surface around the fletching.

Time passed quietly.

「In the blink of an eye, it was noon.」

Zheng Xiu took longer to paint than expected. But with one person immersed in his art and the other lost in unspeakable turmoil, neither noticed the time slip by.

"Done."

Zheng Xiu let out a long sigh, placing his brush upon its rest.

Xie Luohe opened her eyes. With a casual gesture of her right hand, the long arrow embedded in the stone wall trembled, pulled itself free, and flew into her grasp.

A smile on her face, Xie Luohe walked barefoot across the flowerbed toward Zheng Xiu.

’Let’s see just who this Scholar painted.’

When Xie Luohe got a clear look at Zheng Xiu’s "masterpiece," the dangerous smile on her face abruptly froze.

After a moment of stunned silence, Xie Luohe’s anger gave way to a sharp laugh. "Who did you paint?"

"It’s you. It’s definitely you."

Zheng Xiu lowered his sleeve and blew gently on the paper to help the ink dry, a smile on his face.

"You!"

Xie Luohe was furious.

On the scroll, a few strokes of thick ink outlined a mountain peak. On the peak was a patch of flowers, and in front of the flowers sat a simple, small wooden cabin.

Next to the cabin was the back of a woman with long hair, barefoot, gazing at the sea of clouds rolling along the horizon.

Xie Luohe recognized it at a glance. Zheng Xiu had painted this very place. And the woman in the painting—Xie Luohe knew instantly that it was her, Xie Luohe, not Feng Bei.

But the problem was,

Zheng Xiu had painted her back!!

’I asked you to paint a Human, and you painted a back!’

Xie Luohe’s anger flared, and killing intent spilled from her eyes.

"I told you, this time I would paint you, Xie Luohe."

Xie Luohe closed and opened her eyes, her composure returning. She hadn’t expected the Scholar to play such a childish trick.

’What was the point of that?’

"Childish." Xie Luohe suppressed her annoyance and said calmly, "Since you’ve finished painting, you can go. I am Xie Luohe."

Xiaotao was a few steps away, so Xie Luohe didn’t say much. But her last sentence seemed to imply: ’You painted what you painted, but it was useless. I won’t be swayed by this, and you won’t win that strange bet. It’s all meaningless.’

She didn’t ask Zheng Xiu to repaint it. In truth, although Zheng Xiu had bent the rules, he had indeed painted Xie Luohe. There was no mistaking it.

Xie Luohe knew she was different from Feng Bei. Even if they had the same face, even if she had Feng Bei’s Dream, she kept things very clear in her mind: Feng Bei was Feng Bei, and she was herself.

Dreams won’t become reality, and reality won’t become a dream.

Zheng Xiu slowly packed up his Art Supplies and shouldered his bamboo basket. Xie Luohe didn’t see the faint trace of disappointment hidden deep within his calm eyes.

"Tomorrow morning, at this same hour, I will be waiting for you on the mountaintop. One painting a day, until you lose."

Enduring his injuries, Zheng Xiu climbed down the rope ladder.

Xiaotao took the passageway.

Before she left, Xiaotao said, "Young Mistress, I will escort the young master back to his room."

As the two of them departed, Xie Luohe stood there, her thoughts a mess in the wind.

’Wait.’

’Stinking Scholar, what do you mean by that?’

’You’re coming back tomorrow?’

"What kind of Human do you take me, Xie Luohe, for? And what kind of place do you think Yunhe Village is? That you can come and go as you please, ascend the mountain when you like, and stay simply because you don’t feel like leaving?"

Xie Luohe flicked the long arrow in her hand. With a sonic boom, it shot toward the heavens.

Zheng Xiu had left the "Portrait of Xie Luohe’s Back" on the table. As Xie Luohe looked at the painting, the corner of her eye twitched. She raised her pale hand, ready to smash both the painting and the table to pieces.

Her hand rose and fell, only to stop dead in mid-air.

After a moment of silence, Xie Luohe stepped forward, rolled up the scroll, and examined it closely in her hands.

「Downstairs.」

"You’re actually alive?"

Xie Yunliu had actually been waiting. He was dumbfounded watching Zheng Xiu walk down from the mountaintop, safe and sound.

Zheng Xiu was baffled. "Were you hoping I’d die?"

Xie Yunliu chuckled. "Heh, I was actually planning to collect your corpse."

Zheng Xiu: "..."

Looking down, he saw that the surging Mountain Bandit Group that had gathered below while he was painting for Xie Luohe had already dispersed, each returning to their own place.

"Who won between you two?"

Zheng Xiu casually asked about the result of their spar.

"Heh, you think I, Xie Yunliu, would lose?"

"Chu Chengfeng couldn’t beat you?" Zheng Xiu asked in surprise.

Xie Yunliu grinned smugly, vigorously scratching his thick hair.

Zheng Xiu gazed at the thick hair on Xie Yunliu’s head, a thoughtful look on his face.

Zheng Xiu dragged his heavy body, bamboo basket on his back, and prepared to enter the prison cell again.

This time, painting for Xie Luohe, Zheng Xiu had not successfully glimpsed the Path. Although he was somewhat disappointed, it was within his expectations. If one could glimpse the Path so easily, there wouldn’t be so few Odd People in the world.

Zheng Xiu discovered that in this world where Martial Heroes flourished, "Miracle Masters" did not exist.

Zheng Xiu didn’t understand why. But after all he had been through, questions had long been brewing in his mind: Why had the Martial World vanished two hundred years ago? And why, two hundred years later, did saving Feng Bei cause the world’s timeline to shift, giving birth to "Ye Weiyang" and "Miracle Masters"? Zheng Xiu had a faint feeling that he would find the answers to some of his questions in the World in the Painting by following in Gongsun Mo’s footsteps.

The existence of this Cannibal Painting was a form of proof.

Proof that two hundred years ago, "Mystics" and "Miracle Techniques" had existed, yet left behind few other traces.

’Only paint Xie Luohe. Same time, same place, same scene, every day. Those are the rules.’

’The stricter the rules, the greater the chance of glimpsing the Path.’

’With Gongsun Mo’s muscle memory, combined with Zheng Shan’s experience in glimpsing the ’Painter’s’ Path, it shouldn’t be too hard. It’s just a matter of time.’