In the end, Han Li walked into the village, step by deliberate step.
The moment he passed through the village entrance, the sound of joyful music reached his ears. Walking along the narrow dirt path that wound through the village, he noticed something unusual—not a single villager was in sight.
Han Li's heart stirred. This scene and these sounds were deeply familiar to him from childhood. It was clearly a wedding celebration at someone's home, and the entire village had gathered to offer congratulations or simply enjoy the festivities.
Han Li sharpened his focus and slowly extended his spiritual sense. He quickly discovered that every villager, young and old, had congregated at a single location. The place felt oddly familiar—it was the very spot where his own family home stood.
Han Li's eyes widened in surprise.
"Could it be...?" A vague suspicion began to take shape in his mind.
He quickened his pace, swiftly circling around several houses and turning a few corners. Suddenly, the view before him opened up.
There, several hundred villagers had gathered in a cluster before a packed-earth courtyard.
Inside stood several tile-roofed houses that were noticeably better than the surrounding buildings. Red "double happiness" characters were pasted on both sides of the courtyard gate and on the doors of the houses. A small band of musicians played joyfully at the entrance, filling the air with lively sounds.
The villagers stood, squatted, or in some cases sat carelessly on the ground. They clustered in small groups—some whispering amongst themselves, others shouting animatedly over some debate, and still others gazing with unconcealed envy through the courtyard gate.
Beside the adults, children darted about, chasing each other and laughing with abandon.
The sight stirred a wave of nostalgia in Han Li's chest. For a brief, disorienting moment, he felt as though he had slipped back through time, becoming one of those children once more, laughing and running alongside them.
"My, my! Han family's fourth daughter is truly fortunate! I hear the groom is a scholar from the city—a man of real learning!"
"Isn't that the truth? And she's marrying as a proper first wife, no less. She'll go from a village girl to a lady of status overnight!"
"I heard the Han family's dowry is frightfully lavish—dozens of taels of silver snow!"
"They must be rolling in money!"
The clamor of gossiping village women jolted Han Li from his reverie.
"Han family's fourth daughter—that's my little sister! Is today truly her wedding day?" A wave of emotions too complex to name surged through him, churning in his chest.
Acting on instinct he could not entirely explain, Han Li slipped behind a large tree nearby and fixed his gaze unwaveringly on the courtyard gate.
Suddenly, a shout rang out from the distance: "The wedding carriage has arrived! The groom has come to fetch his bride!"
At these words, the crowd stirred. In an instant, the scene erupted into a cacophony of voices.
"The bride is coming out!"
"The new wife is about to appear! Come, come, everyone!"
The children added their excited shouts without hesitation. Han Li's spirits lifted, and his gaze toward the courtyard gate grew eager and intent.
With a creak, the wooden gate swung open, and a dozen men and women emerged. At their center, surrounded and supported, walked a young woman draped in a crimson wedding gown.
The girl had a delicate pointed chin and fine features, appearing to be about sixteen or seventeen years of age. Her face was flushed with shy modesty.
Han Li widened his eyes and studied her features carefully, searching for some trace of the little sister he remembered.
Beyond a faint flicker of familiarity in her brow and the corners of her eyes, there was little that connected this poised young woman with the girl in his memories.
"Ha! 'A girl changes eighteen times before she grows up'—they really do say that for a reason," Han Li murmured with a wry smile. Then his gaze began to drift to the people surrounding her.
"That stout fellow is Third Uncle—I'd recognize him anywhere. Still just as round as ever!"
"And that tall, dark man is my eldest brother, Han Tie. The woman pressed close to his side must be my sister-in-law..."
Han Li continued to point out each relative under his breath, murmuring their names as though the act itself eased something heavy in his chest.
When his eyes settled on a pair of white-haired elders, one man and one woman, the murmuring stopped.
He stood rooted behind the tree, motionless, his expression shifting through a complicated tangle of emotions.
There was joy in his face. There was timidity. And there was a touch of bewilderment.
His parents had aged far beyond anything he had imagined. He remembered that when he had left for the mountain, his mother's hair had still been jet black. Now both temples were streaked with gray. His father, who had once stood so straight and tall, now walked with a pronounced stoop.
Han Li stood in silence, his mind blank and muddled, like a bowl of stirred paste. He barely registered what happened next.
When he came back to himself, his little sister had already been seated in a flower-draped carriage adorned with red silk ribbons and was being carried away into the distance. Beside the carriage rode a scholar mounted on a green horse.
Han Li fixed his gaze on the receding carriage for a long, final moment, then turned to look once more at his parents amid the crowd. He closed his eyes.
After burning the faces of his parents and closest kin deep into his heart, Han Li turned on his heel. A look of steely resolve crossed his face, and he strode with purpose toward the village entrance.
Han Li knew that when he stepped beyond that gate again, his connection to these people might well end here, in this life.
He was fully aware that since learning the Art of Eternal Youth and discovering the existence of cultivators, the path he would walk was one utterly unlike that of ordinary people.
Whatever lay ahead—blessing or curse, fortune or misfortune—he would not regret his choice.