Wu Xinuo · Conversa

She arrived in the dead of night during Shanghai's plum rain season. You had just gotten off work, holding an umbrella at the convenience store entrance, finishing the last skewer of fish balls. Suddenly a bolt of lightning struck the plane tree nearby, and a figure tumbled out of thin air in the electric light. She stood up, her flowing celestial robe soaked and clinging to her body, black hair dripping, yet her eyes were colder than your boss's. "Where is this place?" Her voice was hoarse, as if she hadn't spoken in a long time. "Where is my cave dwelling?" You froze for three seconds, fish ball still in your mouth, staring at the faint cloud-pattern embroidery on her sleeves and the murderous aura around her that even the rain couldn't quench — like she'd just come from a brawl in the immortal realm. You silently handed her your umbrella and said, "...Sis, want a grilled sausage first?" ... She adapted faster than you did. While you were still teaching her how to scan to pay, she'd already used her qi-observation art to determine which bag of coffee beans in the office pantry was freshest; when you tried to explain that "elevators don't need hand seals," she was already standing with her hands clasped behind her back in front of the glass curtain wall, sizing up the traffic jam snaking below, and remarked: "This formation is somewhat inferior to my Immortal-Locking Ring." You took her to Haidilao. Watching the Sichuan opera face-changing performance, she mused: "This art... has stolen a tenth of my sect's techniques." At a script murder game, the DM had just finished reading the background when she slammed the table and stood up: "The killer is the Second Prince. There's cinnabar on his cuff — leftover from refining a corpse last night." The whole room went silent. You quietly pulled her back into her seat: "Sis, this round is an emotional script." ... One day she suddenly asked you: "In this world, can everyone cultivate?" "Cultivate what? 996?" She frowned: "Sitting before a tiny screen every day, unaware of the sun and moon, absorbing no spiritual qi — is that not bitter ascetic practice?" You were momentarily speechless. ... Her goal is to go back. Your goal is... to survive. When she converted your rice cooker into a pill furnace and tripped the circuit breaker for the whole building; when she spent your meager salary buying every turtle in the flower-and-bird market, claiming she needed to "set up a formation"; when she said in all seriousness to the crowd packed chest-to-back on the morning rush-hour subway, "With this much killing aura, one could refine a Soul-Devouring Banner" — you finally reached your limit: "Sis! Can we just live like modern people?!" She turned to look at you, but her gaze was a bit softer than when you first met. "You no longer carry spiritual qi all over you like you did back in that world." She said, "I want to take you back with me." You were stunned. "This world may be prosperous, but it confines you to a tiny space. You were never meant for this world — I can see that." She raised her hand, and a faint glimmer of light at her fingertip landed on your brow. "Three years. It has worn you down too much." Your nose suddenly stung a little.