Chapter 3

At some point, the sky began to drizzle again, and the young man quickened his pace, returning to his home.

His home was located in the lowest residential area at the foot of Mount Tiantai, where ordinary people without any innate talent for immortality arts lived, earning their living by selling their labor.

It was easy to imagine that there would be no grand buildings or mansions here, and certainly no upper-class residents. The most secluded corner was where the young man’s home was.

It was an old stone courtyard, numbered 57, situated at the farthest corner of Mount Tiantai’s array, and it was the only property the young man owned.

In the courtyard, a few low-grade medicinal herbs were sparsely planted. As a pharmacist descended from the Flame Clan, planting medicinal herbs was almost a natural instinct. Even Flame Clan descendants who did not become pharmacists would plant some medicinal flowers and herbs in their courtyards to nourish their minds and spirits.

Behind the herb garden stood a dilapidated stone house, covered with vines, with a few lazy morning glories hanging from it, comfortably enjoying the nourishment of the autumn rain.

Although simple and dilapidated, this was the young man’s home, his herb garden, and his alchemy workshop.

He could not afford the high-end alchemy workshops at the academy, so he could only refine medicines at home, even buying materials himself. Except for a few essential main ingredients that he had to use from the academy, the rest were grown by himself.

Fortunately, the previous owner of this courtyard was also a graduate of the初级仙法学院 (初级仙法学院 translates to "初级" meaning "初级" and "仙法学院" meaning "仙法学院", but in this context, it should be translated as "初级仙法学院" meaning "初级仙法学院"), and had left behind many seeds and unripe herbs, saving him a lot of trouble.

After leaving the orphanage with a meager income, he bought this courtyard and for a while, he was penniless. During that time, he was so destitute that he couldn’t even afford to buy clothes, and for almost a year, he wore the academy uniform. Fortunately, the uniform of the初级仙法学院 had a simple dust-removal function, otherwise, he would have had no clothes to change into.

Actually, as a pharmacist, he did have some income, but the money he earned from refining medicines was all spent on various flowers and gifts to give when he confessed his love.

Hand-folded paper cranes, yellow ribbons said to bring luck, 999 roses representing love, glittering starfish, and seven-colored paper—these beautiful and adorable but not-so-affordable gifts almost drained all his finances.

And the return? As expected, it was zero. In terms of investment, he could no longer be described as just losing money. It was common for the girls to accept his gifts and then reject his confessions, and a few even played pranks by accepting his gifts multiple times before rejecting him.

But that was all voluntary. Even knowing that his love was unrequited, he still gave his heart to them.

Love has no right or wrong.

Fate has no right or wrong.

It’s just that he didn’t catch the bluebird of love, watching the bird representing happiness fly away in front of him.

“Sigh, is it really my fault?” After sighing, the young man pushed open the simple wooden door and entered his home.

Calling it a home might be a stretch; it was more like an alchemy workshop. Except for the bed in the corner and a few books, the room was filled with herbs being processed.

In the center of the room stood a large cauldron, essential for refining medicines.

“Fire Spirit Grass, Seven Snake Fruit, Three-Month Vine.” Standing next to the cauldron, the young man habitually added a few processed herbs to the boiling medicinal soup.

The medicinal soup in the cauldron had been simmering for three years. Although it wasn’t of high quality, it was sufficient for refining a few basic potions, which were the products the young man had been using to sustain his living over the years.

However, after adding the herbs, the young man realized that he might not need to refine medicines anymore after tomorrow.

What would it be like to enter the Buddhist path? The young man imagined it would involve chanting scriptures, meditating, and practicing Zen, all of which had nothing to do with refining medicines.

To be honest, he wasn’t fanatically passionate about alchemy. Although he was a descendant of the Flame Clan and had a natural talent for it, he was only slightly better than the average person, far from being excellent.

Almost every Flame Clan descendant was a half-chemist, inheriting the great Flame Emperor’s bloodline, which gave them a natural resistance to toxins and an affinity for plants. Wherever Flame Clan people lived, there were always various medicinal herbs, and the Flame Clan produced the most divine pharmacists. Historically, eight out of ten famous divine pharmacists were from the Flame Clan.

The reason he became an alchemist was that it was the fastest way for him to become self-sufficient when he was young. He didn’t like being a burden to others, even though the battlefield orphanage was a public institution established by all races, he didn’t like the atmosphere there.

Independence and self-reliance, making decisions for himself in everything, that was his character. After noticing the pity in the eyes of the people at the orphanage, he no longer wanted to stay there.

Choosing his own path, no matter how difficult, he never regretted it.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine breakups did not mean he had given up hope, but rather that he had realized he had hit a dead end.

What do you do when you encounter a dead end in a maze? You take another path, exploring more possibilities. That was the decision he had made.

Sitting on his slightly cold stone bed, the young man took out his diary.

He bought this diary after his hundredth breakup, which had exactly 999 pages. Later, he added a bookmark at the end, making it a thousand pages.

Why did he specifically choose a diary with 999 pages? It was because at his hundredth breakup, he finally realized his strange constitution and foresaw his many more failures.

Each breakup left a scar in his heart, a scar that did not fade with time but deepened instead.

Because he always put his heart into it, the pain of a breakup was even more intense.

Even so, he kept trying, bravely confessing his love when he felt the spark.

And then, he would break up.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine times in love, nine hundred and ninety-nine times heartbroken, after waiting for three days and three nights at a designated place with a weak body, he finally sighed and filled the 999th and last page of his diary.

From then on, this diary, which recorded all his heartbreaks, had no more blank pages, and he finally realized that his love might never succeed.

Because the gap between him and them was too great, and the ordinary him was far from matching them. He was just an orphan picked up from the battlefield, a student at the small Mount Tiantai初级仙法学院.

They were beautiful figures who occasionally passed by, often accompanied by guards and companions, completely different from him, a lonely and ordinary person.

But love has no reason. He met them, bravely confessed his love to them. Everything was genuine, with no falsity, as if there was an unbreakable bond between him and them.

Flipping to the first page of the diary, there was a tall, slender girl with green dragon horns, his first love. She was the idol of many, and the first person he confessed to.

Now, he realized that it was just a one-sided love. When he was young, she treated him like a child. Although she had hugged him, it was clearly not a romantic gesture but the care of an elder for a child.

She was that gentle person, the first person he fell in love with, and she taught him what love was.

Unfortunately, the gap between them was too great, and she had long gone to a distant battlefield, with no news of her for many years.

He still remembered her response when he confessed to her as a young boy.

“Be good, I’ll consider it when you grow up, but not now.”

That was his first rejection. Although he was unusually mature for his age, his first confession failing did leave him with some psychological scars.

Continuing to flip through the pages, the second and third girls were also from that time. They were all young then, but girls seemed to mature faster in matters of love, so his confessions ended in failure.

Flipping through the pages, the young man relived his past.

Sweet memories, bitter memories, and memories that made him laugh and cry. Each page was a trace of a bygone era. From the orphanage to the Mount Tiantai academy, he met them, parted ways, and their brief encounters left unforgettable memories.

Many of the girls he confessed to, he didn’t even know their names, and even now, many of the 999 pages contained names he didn’t know.

Perhaps, most of them had already forgotten him, an ordinary boy who inexplicably confessed to them, but he remembered each and every one of them.

Those were all full of memories, his years of love.

Finally, the diary flipped to the 999th page, the last mysterious girl.

She was the girl closest to him, the one who brought him the happiest times, the one he waited for three days and three nights, risking illness and attacks by wild beasts.

Unfortunately, he didn’t wait for her, and he couldn’t find any trace of her.

The mysterious girl, like when she appeared, quietly disappeared from his world.

Where is she now? Where are the other 998? He sincerely wished them well, grateful for fate bringing them together, even if it was just for a moment.

He didn’t regret meeting them, and he didn’t regret falling in love with them.

Even now, as he decided to let go of the secular world and enter the Buddhist path, he had no resentment towards them.

“May you be happy and safe—Meixue.” Writing his name and a short blessing on the last bookmark, the young man gently closed the diary, deciding never to open it again.

The fine rain of autumn silently turned into white snow, just like the winter sixteen years ago, when a small infant was found under a blood-stained plum tree by a general leading a large army.

In the cold snow, the infant was covered in plum blossoms, as if protected by them.

The general who picked up the infant named him Meixue, right under that plum tree.

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