From that day on, Xie Tao would occasionally receive various pastries sent to her by Wei Yan, some of which she had never even tasted before.
He remained reserved, seeming busy as ever, but often enough, he would still reply to her messages.
Within her phone screen, the wallpaper image always struck her with its particular brilliance every time she saw it.
That afternoon, Xie Tao received her part-time salary from the dessert shop.
It wasn’t much, just over a thousand yuan.
Adding to that the money she earned from distributing flyers and selling butter candies online, she could still save some after paying her rent.
Having taken on life’s responsibilities prematurely, Xie Tao was acutely aware of how difficult it was to maintain the ordinary life sustained by necessities such as firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea.
She rarely bought snacks and didn’t eat meat often within a month.
Sometimes, when she finished her shift at the dessert shop late, she would simply have instant noodles for dinner.
But having received her salary today, Xie Tao decided to buy some meat from the market to cook for herself.
However, as she walked home with her groceries, everything in front of her started to blur into shadows at some point.
Only an ancient house stood firm amidst the blur.
Among the surrounding darkness, the lanterns hanging under the eaves of that house were the only source of light she could see.
“…”
Even though this was the second time Xie Tao had experienced something like this, she still found it somewhat unbelievable as she saw it with her own eyes.
A young man in a light-colored short-sleeved shirt leaned against the doorframe, a blade of grass in his mouth, smiling at her, “We meet again, little sister Tao.”
“…I’m in a hurry to go home and cook,” Xie Tao said dryly, holding a bag of vegetables.
Xie Lan clicked his tongue and walked down the steps in his flip-flops, coming up to Xie Tao and pulling her by the sleeve, dragging her towards the tavern’s entrance.
“Perfect, I’ve been craving braised pork. Cook me a meal.”
???
How did he see the meat in her bag with such clarity?
“…That’s my meat,” Xie Tao said.
Xie Lan spat out the blade of grass, “Sister, you’re wrong there. What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine once you step through this door. We don’t distinguish between mine and yours here.”
Hearing this, Xie Tao’s foot retracted just as she was about to step in, and she stood firm outside the threshold.
“Then I won’t go in…”
Xie Lan hadn’t expected her to react like that. He simply reached out, grabbed her shoulders, and effortlessly pulled her inside.
“…”
Xie Tao was completely stunned.
In the end, the vegetables and meat she was carrying ended up being cooked by her in the tavern’s kitchen into three dishes and a soup.
As she sat down with a bowl, grabbed a piece of braised pork, bowed her head to take a bite of rice, and looked up again, she was completely shocked.
“…Where’s my meat?”
She stared dumbfounded at the clean plate, questioning life itself.
Xie Lan and Old Xi, sitting opposite her, exchanged glances and then offered Xie Tao a tacit smile.
“I haven’t eaten human food in a long time,” Old Xi sighed.
“I haven’t had a decent human meal in ages,” Xie Lan sighed.
Old Xi tilted his head, “Is my cooking that bad?”
Xie Lan stared at him and chuckled, “D area.”
Old Xi picked up some stir-fried vegetables with his chopsticks, “You don’t have to eat it.”
“Do you think I’m like you, a thousand-year-old demon? Humans need to eat,” Xie Lan retorted, snatching the vegetables from his chopsticks and stuffing them into his mouth, then pointing at the remaining dishes on the table, “These are edible for humans, you know? Even pigs wouldn’t eat what you make!”
“A demon, a fairy?”
During their conversation, Xie Tao grasped the main point.
Immediately, both Old Xi and Xie Lan turned their gazes toward her.
The girl sitting opposite clenched her chopsticks tighter, her almond eyes filled with a hint of timidity, as if she was somewhat restless.
“That, I just casually mentioned it, don’t be afraid,” said Xie Lan with a dry laugh, then pointing at Old Xi beside him, “He’s not some demon; he’s a deity, this year being… how old exactly?”
Old Xi, eating his meal, calmly added, “One thousand three hundred and sixty-four years old.”
Xie Lan slapped the table, “Ah, right, he is a one thousand three hundred and sixty-four-year-old deity, not some old demon, nothing to be scared of.”
“…”
But the thought of someone being over a thousand years old is quite frightening, isn’t it??
Xie Tao was stunned.
“Little sister, you clearly haven’t seen much of the world. When will you be as calm and composed in the face of situations as your brother Lan?” Xie Lan mused while eating.
Old Xi glanced at him indifferently, perhaps reminded of some past event, chuckled, and remained silent.
Feeling a bit guilty under his gaze, Xie Lan cleared his throat and said, “Of course, it’s quite normal for you to feel this way…”
“Uncle Xi, are you really… a deity?” Xie Tao didn’t want to listen to Xie Lan anymore. She looked at Old Xi sitting across from her, asking cautiously.
When Old Xi met the girl’s curious eyes, he smiled warmly, “As you see.”
In that moment, Xie Tao suddenly saw a faint golden aura surrounding him, swirling and lingering like mist, and despite looking no different from an ordinary middle-aged man, there seemed to be an extra hint of a transcendent and clear spirit in his eyes.
Xie Tao’s eyes widened in shock. She had never imagined that she would one day actually meet a living deity.
She was speechless for a long moment.
“And what about you?”
After a long while, Xie Tao finally looked towards Xie Lan, sitting beside Old Xi.
“Like you, I’m just an ordinary mortal,” Xie Lan said, pouring himself a glass of water and taking a sip.
He’s an ordinary person?
Xie Tao was somewhat incredulous.
“But I clearly saw you using superpowers…”
“That’s called sorcery.”
Xie Lan corrected her and then said, “It’s not only immortals who can use sorcery; mortals can also use it with the help of spiritual instruments.”
Xie Tao’s eyes lit up, “Can I see your spiritual instrument?”
“…No.” Xie Lan seemed to be touched by some pain, especially when he saw the meaningful smile on Old Xi’s face next to him, he glared at Old Xi, feeling somewhat resentful.
Xie Tao saw that he seemed a bit unhappy, so she didn’t dare to ask any further.
But she suddenly remembered what Old Xi had said before, so she asked, “Uncle Xi, you said before that someone has bound another person’s fate onto me, can I ask who that person is whose fate is bound to me?”
At her words, Old Xi’s eyebrows slightly furrowed.
“I’m not sure about that yet.”
That was all he said in the end.
“Then, who did this? And why would someone bind another’s fate onto me?”
Why did it have to be bound to her?
This was what puzzled Xie Tao the most.
Old Xi didn’t speak, but glanced subtly at the mobile phone Xie Tao had casually placed on the table. Deep in his eyes, it seemed like there were many emotions hidden that were hard to see.
“Tao Tao,”
After a long while, Xie Tao heard him say, “You don’t have to worry, such things will not happen to you anymore.”
When Xie Tao left the small tavern, it was already past eight o’clock in the evening.
She was mysteriously pulled in by Xie Lan, and mysteriously cooked a meal for the two of them, only having a piece of meat herself…
But this time, Xie Tao finally understood what this small tavern was all about.
On the way back, as Xie Lan escorted her, all the darkness reflected was changing, and she watched as all the scenery around her restored to its original state, her feet no longer stepping on the slightly mossy bluestone slabs, but on the neatly arranged sidewalk tiles.
The shadows of the trees beside the sidewalk were elongated by the dim street lights, Xie Tao heard Xie Lan talking about the origin of this tavern.
The small tavern opens late at night, welcoming all the predestined people of the world.
There are always people who are disheartened, always people who are in difficult situations, if they are lucky enough to break through the barrier and enter this small tavern at night, waiting for them here is not just alcohol, but also the tavern owner and staff who can help them out of their current quagmire.
But not all those who are predestined are good people.
There are always those with ulterior motives, always those who abandon goodness.
If they are unfortunate enough to break through the barrier and enter this small tavern at night, what awaits them is still alcohol, and more so, punishment.
“There are so many punishment sets, with twenty-six letters there are twenty-six modes of punishment, today was mainly a day off, otherwise, I could have opened your eyes.”
This was Xie Lan’s exact words.
And the small tavern operates mainly to accumulate merit.
The incense and merit of the human world are crucial elements for awakening an ancient deity.
Old Xi, as the servant of that deity, has always been engaged in such activities.
The couplets written by Xie Lan inside the door also found a good explanation.
If a good person enters, no matter what difficulties they face at the moment, the moment they step into the small tavern, and by the time they leave, everything will be resolved smoothly.
Of course, if a bad person enters, isn’t it a fateful journey to deliver their head over a thousand miles?
Xie Tao never knew that such magical beings could exist in this world.
This is an era of technology, where gods and Buddhas seem to exist only in distant rumors, and very few people believe in the existence of deities in this world.
Had Xie Tao not seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have believed it.
The universe is a tangible reality.
And so are deities.
It’s just that in today’s world, the divine essence has withered, no longer the realm full of gods and immortals it once was.
Xie Tao sat at her desk reading for a while, then unconsciously looked up towards the half-open glass window.
On a summer night, the stars twinkled with their fine lights, and the cool night breeze brushed her cheeks, lifting the locks of her black hair by her ears.
“Today, I asked Uncle Xi, but he seems not to know who tied someone else’s fate to me…”
She picked up her phone and mentioned the day’s events to Wei Yun.
“I’m really curious about who that unlucky person tied to my fate is… The day Zhao Yixuan choked me, she was really forceful. According to Uncle Xi, if I was choked, he must have been choked by the air too, and if I was in so much pain, he must have also felt inexplicably severe pain, right?”
“…That sounds quite miserable.”
She didn’t know that at that moment, the “unlucky person” she mentioned was holding a few letters in his hand, looking at their contents with a facial expression that fluctuated briefly between dark and light on his cold, white-jade-like face.
In the end, he sneered.
He really wanted to seal this chatterbox’s mouth.
Unaware, Xie Tao spoke to him about the tavern, feeling somewhat amazed:
“Wei Yun, this world seems to be bigger and more mysterious than I imagined.”
And it was the sudden realization that this is a vast, deep, and mysterious world that made her, at this moment, feel even more enthusiastic about life.
There are too many unknown things in the world.
Too many magical things.
People can never predict whether the next second will be better or worse.
Just as she never thought that in over a year of living alone, she had never really gotten used to loneliness.
And like she never imagined that in such a silent, starry night, she could find someone to talk to, just like now.
The phone screen dims and then lights up again.
The nobleman on the screensaver has the most beautiful eyebrows and eyes in the world, like snow on the mountains, akin to the moon amidst clouds.
Getting to know him seems like a magical thing as well.
So, she lights up the phone screen again:
“Wei Yun, it’s really nice to have met you.”
