He looked up at the sky. He looked out at the lands around him. He looked at the Seven Peaks of the First Heaven. He looked at the Fourth Peak. He looked at Ke Yunhai’s Immortal’s cave. Then he closed his eyes and thought about all the things that had occurred here.
In the very beginning, he had admitted that he was wrong. Later, he was whipped. After that, inside the Demon Immortal Pagoda, he was doted upon by Ke Yunhai, his father in this life. All of these things were unforgettable memories for Meng Hao.
He suddenly had the strong desire to offer thanks to Ke Jiusi. He wanted to thank him for sending him to this place. He wanted to help Ke Jiusi achieve his aim, and do the same for himself.
“The love of a father is like a mountain….” Perhaps this new line of thinking influenced his Dao of alchemy.
That night would be the last night he concocted pills in the Second Plane.
As for what medicinal plants he used to concoct the batch of pills, Meng Hao didn’t even remember. He was submerged in his respect for Ke Yunhai, in the beauty he had experienced in the past days, and in the emotions that existed between father and son. That was what he was thinking about as he placed the ingredients into the pill furnace.
The flavor and aroma of these medicinal plants represented various shades of Meng Hao’s heart. They mixed together as he began to concoct, and he completely disregarded any thoughts of success or failure. There were only memories. Memories of everything that had happened in his place. Memories of Ke Yunhai and his fatherly love. Memories of his own childhood, and the vague image of his own father.
No moon hung in the night sky.
Meng Hao concocted without even thinking about it. Soon, the pill furnace began to thrum with an indescribable sound. It sounded like a song of Immortals, like a funeral dirge, sometimes cheerful, sometimes melancholy.
The song contained reluctance to part as it slowly drifted out. It echoed about the Fourth Peak, causing everyone to suddenly lift up their heads and look toward the location atop the mountain from which the song originated.
It was like a wind that swept over the hearts of everyone present. It caused ripples to appear that nudged the memories in their hearts, making them recall their past.
Within the depths of their own memories, everyone was different.
Some were like children who had just grown up. Such ones looked at the stooped figure of their father and realized that he was already an old man, and then… they felt pain in the depths of their heart.
Others remembered how they used to be when they were young. When their father was strict, rebellious thoughts would bubble up in their hearts and they would grumble inwardly: “Would you just stop blabbering!?”
However, after many years passed, when they faced their white-haired father as he lay sick in bed, they would clasp his emaciated hand. Tears would stream down their face, and they would moan to themselves, “Father… please, just talk to me a little bit more, okay?”
There were many people who subconsciously ceased to practice cultivation. As they recalled the past, they stared up at the mountain peak and began to weep silently.
Xu Qing opened her eyes. As she looked around blankly, pain rose up within her. She thought about her home, and the vague image of her long dead parents.
“I want to go home….” she murmured.
The song echoed out from within the pill furnace to fill the entire Fourth Peak. Meng Hao didn’t know it, because he was completely lost in thought. Concocting pills is like making music, or carving wood. One can take inexpressible thoughts and feelings and pour them inside the creation.
The sound of the medicinal pills being concocted had started out ordinary and mediocre. But now, it contained emotion. It contained Meng Hao’s thoughts and feelings, almost as if it had a life of its own, a spirit. The music of it exceeded all the sounds that nature could produce.
After all, the most moving thing of all is love…. And although romantic love is beautiful, it pales in comparison to the selflessness of family love.
Gradually, the disciples on the Third Peak and the Fifth Peak heard the song of the pills being concocted. The song needed no explanation; as soon as they heard it, they stopped cultivating and stood there mutely. Everyone began to think of their father.