Li Kong and Yu Mei arrived in front of the village with difficulty in breathing. Yu Mei was too tired to even looked at her surrounding while Li Kong was on the edge of his senses, fearing someone would suddenly appeared behind him but after rounds of checking went without any result, he finally let out a sigh of relief before dragging the lifeless Yu Mei to a nearby tree and they both leaned their back against the tree's bark.
A cool air entered through his nostrils as his body slowly regained its vigor before suddenly he heard Yu Mei was speaking something and turned his head.
"Why don't you use the thing when we're first entered the forest?" Yu Mei glanced at him and asked.
"I can't use it. I ran out of Qi earlier." Li Kong calmly explained.
"Qi?" Oblivious at the terms, Yu Mei looked at Li Kong in confusion.
Realizing his mistake, Li Kong hurriedly tried to make things clear.
"Uh... It's like some kind of fuel to use my technique you know? Like how fire needs wood to burn."
At his explanation, Yu Mei's lips rounded up and she let an "Ooo" sound before staring blankly at the darkening sky.
"How much time do you think we spent inside of the forest?"
"I don't know. Maybe around three hours? I remember the sun is still up high when we went into the forest." Li Kong replied without much thought.
Silence played through for a moment as the only sound where their ragged breathing and after their breathing had stabilized, Yu Mei glanced at Li Kong before asking.
"So when will you check on the west, Li Kong?"
"Probably tomorrow."
"Oh..." She sound a little dejected.
Confused, Li Kong looked at her and raised one of his eyebrows to her, "Why do you sound like that?"
"It's nothing." She hugged her knees and burrowed her face deep in it before revealing a little portion of her eyes to Li Kong. "I just doubt that my father would let me go outside the village for a while because I came home this late."
Hearing her explanation, Li Kong felt like he was enlightened and nodded repeatedly.
'Uncle Yu does seems like that type of person.' He silently mused in his head.
After that, minutes passed by and they both went separate ways and bid farewell to each other.
After arriving in his house, Li Kong spent no time throwing the waist pouch to the bed and immediately darted to the bathroom before emerging back five minutes later and jumped to the bed.
He adjusted his sitting position slightly before suddenly, now, familiar light voice rang in his eardrums.
"Are you sure you don't want to take any break?" White asked.
Li Kong shook his head and said, "No, I don't need it. I'm not that tired and I can feel I'm close to breakthrough so I think I'll be focusing more on my cultivation today."
White didn't object his request and silently watching him from the side like usual.
After approximately five hours, Li Kong finally reopened his eyes and to no surprise, the scenery beyond his window had turned into pitch black as the moon silently hovered on the black canvas of the sky. The moon waned and neared its full completion.
Li Kong watched the moon for a long time. A sense of indescribable longing emanated through his eyes and the dim glint caught by White by chance.
The bead levitated and placed itself on the window stool.
"Do you have something going on with the moon?" White asked curiously.
As if just broken from his daze, Li Kong's head shuddered before he shifted his head to met with the bead's gaze.
"No. There isn't any." After he said that, his eyes shifted back at the moon. The look of longing appeared again on his eyes. "It's just each time I look at the moon, I feel sadness and loneliness coming from the moon. It's like the moon was also looking back to me like I was watching it. Do you know what I am saying, White?" Li Kong redirected his head back at the white bead.
White, in fact, didn't have a single clue about what he was saying but centuries of living experience had led White to the best action for the current moment which was to stay silent.
White ceased from talking for a moment before speaking in a low and nostalgic voice, "You know Li Kong? There was once this person who loved to stared at the moon too just like you."
White grabbed Li Kong's attention and he asked, "Who was it?"
"A fearsome warrior from a certain tribe in the north. His name was Haoyue. I met him in a battle a long time ago. The first time we met were at that time when I was tasked to kill an Everfrost Serpent, I stepped foot on the cold tundra of the north and without any warning, that bastard aimed straight for my heart with a saber and after I took a good look at the person attacking me, the bastard was drinking an alcohol from his gourd.
"After that, I tried to reason with him but he didn't listen and kept on attacking me so we engaged in a fight for hours and long story short, I beat him and when I was ready to knock him down for good, suddenly a room for reasoning was opened." Li Kong could heard a clear scoff coming out from the bead.
"After that we had talk for a moment and when he realized I was there for the serpent's heart, he started treating me like I was his long lost brother and help me killed the serpent.
"With his help, I successfully slain the serpent and when I was about to go back, he asked me if he could join him which at that time I thought to myself saying what possibly could go wrong and agreed with his request without much thought.
"Months later, it turned out he had ran away from his tribe and his tribe dispatched a squad of trained assassin to me, thinking I kidnapped the member of their tribe."
Slowly but surely, the heat of anger permeated from the bead to its surrounding.
"They use all kind of tactic on me. Poison, rains of arrows, direct battle, everything was thrown at me. If there wasn't Yuran helping me at that time, I would be dead anytime soon all because of that bastard carelessness." Even though the bead hadn't had a nose, but Li Kong could hear his breath became heavier as the time went on.
"Um... So what this have to do with the moon?" Although Li Kong was curious about who was this 'Yuran' White mentioned, he recognized there was more important task to do as he attempted to stir away the conversation from White's mind.
"Oh, right." It seemed Li Kong's attempt was successful as White realized he had gone off-topic then he cleared his throat before continuing.
"After clarifying to his tribe and apologizing to me, he kept pestering me to let him joining me and I reluctantly agreed and after that we became companion, walking through the vast land together and sometimes in a night just like this, we would blankly watched at the moon and started drinking till our stomach full and he would started to blabber out about his tribe affixation on the moon and how the moon reminded him so much about his family at home and he wanted to go home."
"Why did he left if he missed them so much?"
"I asked the same question too and his reply? He simply told me that it was because he wanted to explore the outside world. Fortunately, he didn't have wife yet at that time or else we would've sent him back to the tribe. But even so, it was still quite selfish, isn't it? To leave your whole family just to experience the world outside."
Hearing White's question, Li Kong pondered deeply for a moment but couldn't find the exact answer to it so he remained silent.
"It's okay if you can't answer it now. Not every questions need an answers. But be sure you won't make any decisions you will soon regret. Do you understand me?"
Li Kong nodded in response which White received with satisfaction.
"Now, let's sleep. There are still things for you to do tomorrow, Li Kong." The bead slowly floated and wrapped itself on the piece of fabric on top of the bedside.
Li Kong followed White's instruction and lied his back against the soft part of the bed and his consciousness plunged into the deep darkness.
...
Li Kong woke up before the rooster crow. He forcefully dragged himself out of the bed and then he walked through the hallway to the kitchen and grabbed some water and washed his face.
Feeling the drowsiness leaving him, Li Kong shook his head from any water that still remained on his face.
After that, Li Kong decided to take a jog around the village as he waited for the time for training to come.
While jogging, he encountered many other people and greeted them and suddenly, he was reminded about the ruckus in the farm yesterday and decided to check on the farm.
When he had entered the farm's vicinity, there weren't any loud moos like yesterday so Li Kong quickly went to search for Wang Lan and found him standing at the same spot yesterday.
"Hey, uncle!" Li Kong said from a great distance.
Though a little startled at the sudden sound, Wang Lan discovered that Li Kong was heading towards him and waited for him to arrive in front of him.
"Good morning, Li Kong." Wang Lan spoke with a smile.
"Hmm?" Li Kong questioned his uncle's state of being. "Is something good happened, uncle?"
"Oh, Li Kong. You wouldn't believe this but since this morning Manman had turned back normal!"
"Is it true?" Li Kong couldn't believe what he was hearing and put his point of focus at the field beyond the fences and true to his words, the brown cattle differed greatly since he last looked at her yesterday morning.
Manman was standing still in the field as the other cow roamed around Manman as if noticing something unusual about their screaming friend.
Looking at the relaxed brown cattle, he was washed by relief and another worry had left his heart but seeing the abrupt transformation of the cattle, Li Kong couldn't contain himself and asked to his uncle what had happened.
"What had happened, huh?" Wang Lan repeated before grinning.
"Hahaha! It's all because of the doctor's works! Praise the doctor!"
"The doctor?" Li Kong questioned.
"Yes." Wang Lan nodded. "The doctor come in the evening yesterday saying he heard that Manman wouldn't stop mooing at the morning so he concocted some kind of medicine inside a pouch for Manman. He said it was to calm her down and when the doctor tried to apply the medicine to Manman, she started running around in circle but after the doctor successfully held the pouch in front of Manman's nose, suddenly she stopped panicking and acted calm."
Wang Lan paused for a moment before continuing. "At first I was doubting but seeing things now, the doctor had truly save Manman. Praise the doctor!"
Looking at the cheerful Wang Lan, Li Kong subconsciously smiled and celebrated the moment together with his uncle.
After moment of celebration, the pair had awaken from their eureka but joy was still evident on his uncle's expression.
Uncle must be very worried at Manman for a long time. Without his knowledge, a curved crept out from the corner of his mouth.
"Can I get in, uncle? I want to greet Manman." Li Kong asked.
His uncle broke from his daze and replied, "Of course, you can. Come, follow me."
Li Kong followed his uncle with light steps and when his uncle opened the door to him, he happily skipped through it and went to his favorite's cattle location.
"Manman!" Li Kong prepared his arms to embrace the cow.
He arrived in front of the cow and rubbed his head gently with his palm.
"How is it going, buddy? Are you okay?" Li Kong held her jaw with both of his arms but Manman didn't responded.
"Manman?" Li Kong realized something was wrong as he rubbed his palm against the fur on his head but Manman stayed still and didn't do anything beside absentmindedly staring at a direction.
Slowly, Li Kong felt something weird had happened to his beloved cattle. He stared deeply at her big, round eyes and found there wasn't any light coming out from there and she looked like in trance, completely unaware of her surrounding.
His frown becoming deeper and deeper each time a second had passed.
Li Kong slowly reached out his hand to the cow but.
"Li Kong, are you done there yet?" Wang Lan screamed from the other side. "I need to clean up the barn!"
Having no choice but to leave, Li Kong retracted back his hand and slowly walked back to the door and taking a last glance full of concern at the cattle before leaving the farm and continued his jogging.
After coming full circle to his own house, Li Kong rested for a while before wiping the sweats off from his body. Then, he retrieved the white bead and gently put it in his waist pouch and left the house to the forest.