His Appearance

With the start of a new day, Bai Shuixian had already packed her bags. In fact, she did not have much to carry. Physically, that was.

She had thought that even when she was leaving, she would not get to see Zhong Chen's face, but he actually came out to give her a few items before heading back to his study. The things he gave her was a magical bag, a few rare herbs, and some potions he stated could not be found in this continent. Bai Shuixian was a bit bitter as it felt as though he was kicking her out of the temple, but she was still happy at the same time.

Bai Shuixian was especially happy with the magical bag that Zhong Chen gave her. If there was a secret of the world that could not be told and was known, but not known at the same time, it would be magic. The continent that she lived in had lots of magical properties, but no common person knew.

In the decade that she stayed with Zhong Chen, he had educated her in multiple things and one of those was the secrets of the world and earth. Many people said that immortality was impossible unless one was willing to forego all greed and sin. Only, they did not know that they were wrong.

All one needed was to cultivate and use what nature gave to eventually become a person of undying age. However, it was to be noted that cultivating immortality was different from cultivating to strengthen the body. It was also different from cultivating martial arts.

Sighing, Bai Shuixian wondered why Zhong Chen never taught her how to fight. He taught her basic defensive skills, but that was all. The rest of the minimal physical skills she learned was from hunting animals with Zhu Jin.

Though she was an immortal now who could live for a long time and her body was strong enough to withstand all cold and heat, she did not know how to fight. However, shaking her head, she let it go. Zhong Chen had given her his bag that he always carried with him.

All the items that she had received from him were not normal and she knew that it was likely she would never witness them again, so she could only be happy with what she had.

Once she exited the door of the temple, Bai Shuixian walked forward. After about ten to twenty steps out, she looked back. Seeing the temple, her eyes dimmed and she tried her hardest to remember every detail of the temple.

Immediately after taking a glance at the greenhouse that she had expanded over the past decade, she turned away from the temple and jumped down the mountain. Though she was not taught how to fight, she was taught how to run. Her qinggong was probably the best any human had seen and it was so fast that others would think she was teleporting.

If when she was jumping down the mountain, she looked back at the temple, she would see though that it had disappeared. Perhaps Bai Shuixian would never know the reason why her master so urgently urged her to leave the forest. At the same time, perhaps she would also never know that the place she considered to be her home for ten years would disintegrate into dust.

Upon reaching the outskirts of the inner layer of the forest, Bai Shuixian called out Zhu Jin's name. Though it was just an outskirt, this was actually the white tiger's favorite place to be at. It was a spacious plain with lots of trees to provide shade with a few good locations having the sun shining at while the wind blew, following the stream that was just a few meters away.

However, calling out Zhu Jin's name again, Bai Shuixian heard no response nor sound, so she decided that he was not here but at his cave instead. Leaving the inner layer of the forest, she entered the middle layer and headed towards his cave. It was the same cave that he had brought her to take a bath right after their exhausting chase and sprint.

"Zhu Jin," Bai Shuixian shouted out at the front entrance of the cave.

Immediately, a gruff voice could be heard back, "What?!"

"I'm leaving the forest, do you want to come with me?" she asked loudly, her voice echoing in the cave halls.

Right after she said that, silence was all that she got in return. Albeit a bit confused, Bai Shuixian thought that it was probably because he did not want to leave the forest. However, after a little waiting, Zhu Jin came out of the cave.

"Wait… wait… Repeat what you just," Zhu Jin asked with a pant. "I don't think I heard you correctly."

"Well, I'm leaving the forest," Bai Shuixian repeated with a light tone.

"Leaving? So fast?" Zhu Jin instantly asked back when he heard her.

"What do you mean it's so fast?" she questioned with scrunched brows. "I've been here for a decade. Do you know how long that is? That's an entire ten years."

"Oh, right… I forgot," he stumbled out, scratching the back of his head embarrassed.

"Anyways, I asked you," Bai Shuixian reminded Zhu Jin.

Tilting his head in thought, Zhu Jin asked, "Are you going to be staying with humans?"

"Naturally," she answered. "I can't possibly live in isolation."

"Why can't you?" he asked with curiosity.

"Because Master Zhong said so," she instantly replied.

Humming in deep thought, Zhu Jin said, "Alright. I'll go with you. I should start learning how to live with humans anyways."

Bai Shuixian sighed, "You're indeed right about that. I think I should too."

Zhu Jin stared at her for a while and slowly said, "You've been living with a human… How can… Just… how can you say that?"

"How can he be considered human? Master is a god and immortal," she retorted back.

"Whatever," Zhu Jin remarked. "Anyways, where do you plan to go?"

"I think we should start with a village," Bai Shuixian answered.

"A village?" Zhu Jin repeated questionably.

"Yes," she nodded. "I think a village would be the best place for us to start to learn how to integrate ourselves into human society. Do you not agree? A village does not have too many people and nor are there many politics that we have to worry about. Also, no one will question us if we, two strangers, were to settle there."

"Hm… It seems you are right about that," Zhu Jin agreed.

"Of course, there are more reasons," she continued. "Master only told me to follow my destiny. He didn't tell me where to go nor how I should go about. In that case, I might as well roam in a random village and live a normal life. I'm too lazy to care about the details of the world."

"I feel that it's just you being plain lazy," Zhu Jin remarked. "You can just do some divination and you would know where to go."

"Hey! How could I do that? Don't you know? Exposing heaven's actions will incur their wrath on us," she exclaimed with fake shock.

Zhu Jin scoffed at her, but started packing. Whilst he was in the cave moving about, Bai Shuixian examined him. She seemed to remember that this was the first time she had seen his appearance.

He possessed white hair with black tips and though his eyes were black, there were stripes of white that could be seen upon observance. Aside from that, he was very tall and muscular. If she had to estimate, he was probably one point eight meters tall. (A/N: 1.8 meters = 6 feet = 183 centimeters)

By the time she was done looking at his appearance, Zhu Jin had also finished packing.

"I'm done," he announced. "So, where should we head?"

"I think there's a village west of here," Bai Shuixian said.

"Okay," Zhu Jin responded and moved to an open area, prepared to transform to his animal form.

"Wait," she stopped him.

"Hm? What's the matter?" Zhu Jin asked.

"I think it's better that we use qinggong to travel. It's much faster than your animal form. Besides, if a villager was to see a girl riding on top of a white tiger as gigantic as you, they would freak out and run away," Bai Shuixian explained. "If we want to integrate smoothly, we need to walk in like normal humans."

"Do humans just walk into a village and then say they want to settle there?" Zhu Jin asked, unknowing of the procedures to enter a village.

"Hm…" she hummed in thought. "I think… That should be it? Well, just in case… Let's…"

As Bai Shuixian said that, she sliced her clothes and in a few spots, she also cut herself.

Tilting his head in confusion, he asked, "Um… Hey, even if you are into self-harm, I'm not… Okay?"

"But, don't you think this will make it easier for us to enter a village?" Bai Shuixian asked cutely with a tilt of her head. "Now, all we need to do is follow the river."

"Follow the river?" he asked, even more confused.

"Yes," she nodded her head enthusiastically. "I heard that villagers are super nice and always rescue those who had fallen into water."

"You barely speak to anyone, where could you have heard that?" Zhu Jin asked.

Coughing, Bai Shuixian answered weakly, "I stole a few scripts from Master… Uh… They told some stories about how a man met a woman…"

"Are you really sure that this will work?" Zhu Jin asked with suspicion.

"Well, it worked in the story, so it should work in our situation too," she answered.

Sighing, Zhu Jin agreed. With his sharp nails, he wounded himself. Immediately after, they found a river to follow, wetting and dampening their clothes with blood dripping.