Magical Journey: The Other Shore Blooms on the Other Shore

"Hey, are you a traveler?" One day, when Elena was shopping for summer clothes in a clothing store, a portly man came up to her and said.

Could it be that she's trying to pick me up?

Irene subconsciously felt that way.

"How did you figure out I was a traveler?" Elena countered.

“Your clothes are quite different from the local style. Can I ask you for a favor?” said the middle-aged man in the large leather jacket. “Oh, let me introduce myself first. I’m Ryan, the owner of this clothing store.”

Oh, boss.

They must be very rich. Probably, right?

“If you accept this commission, I can give you this dress for free,” said the owner, Ryan.

"Tell me about it." Elena was very satisfied with this 'savvy' person; people who know how to not take advantage of others are the most endearing. She hated people who asked others to do work without discussing the price.

"Take this letter for me. To my mother." Ryan took out a neatly wrapped letter.

"Why not hire a professional postman?" Elena asked. Sending a letter isn't expensive at all; it only costs five silver coins to send a letter from here to Roberta. You know, it would take half a year to fly from here to Roberta even on a broomstick.

“My mother lives in a remote area, where regular mail doesn’t reach, so every few months I ask passing travelers to deliver letters for me,” Ryan said.

Oh, I see.

Elena had no reason to refuse the request; after all, as a traveler, it wasn't difficult to make a side trip to another place. And receiving a decent reward in return was something Elena was happy to do.

Ryan handed Elena a map showing the exact location where his mother lived: "Please. I originally wanted to bring my mother to live with me here, but she still misses her late father and wants to stay there to look after him."

After handing the letter to Elena, Ryan turned to attend to other matters.

Such important figures are always very busy; the price of wealth is a lack of certain freedom. From this perspective, what travelers lack least is freedom.

"Let's go, Qin." Elena gently patted Qin's shoulder as she lay back in the chair, taking a nap with a book over her head.

Is shopping with me really this boring? I originally wanted to help him change into a slightly different outfit, since I haven't seen him wear anything different all year round.

But Qin just closes her eyes and falls asleep as soon as she gets here, there's really nothing we can do about it.

"Finished shopping?" Qin didn't even bother to remove the book from the cover. "Finally—it took a whole hour. Anyone who didn't know better would think you were buying gold bars."

"Heh heh—you're really showing no mercy. Next time you should just stay at the inn; I'll make sure you sleep through it all," Elena retorted.

……

Having left this ordinary country, Elena sat on a broom, carefully studying the map.

Her mother lived in a small village in the mountains.

It has a sense of being isolated from the world. As Ryan said, this place is really far from the main road, and it would be very difficult to find this place for ordinary mail.

To put it nicely, it could be called the Peach Blossom Spring.

To put it bluntly, it's a poor, remote mountain village.

Oh dear, my tongue seems to have become more venomous lately—it must be because of the piano training me.

Having been entrusted with a task, Irene naturally had to do it well. She put away the map and rode her broomstick toward the mountains.

If you're not a magician, getting into these mountains involves navigating winding, circuitous paths that are easy to get lost in. But magic makes things a bit easier; you can fly in a straight line and only detour when there's no other way to avoid it.

They rushed to their destination during the day and slept in the mountains at night.

Three or four days later, Elena arrived at the area marked on the map—a small settlement that seemed to stretch out from one end to the other. Like many villages she had passed through before, it was a small community that appeared to end at a glance.

Given the lack of effective communication channels with the outside world, this situation was entirely expected.

"Excuse me, is Mrs. Arizona here?" Irene asked the old man fanning himself at the village entrance, unafraid of strangers. "Her son asked me to bring a letter."

"Huh?" The old man fanned himself and brought his ear closer. "Who is it? I'm too old to hear clearly."

“Arisen”.

"Who?"

you……

Elena took a deep breath: "I'm looking for Mrs. Arizona. Her son, Ryan, asked me to bring him a letter."

"Are you sure it's Arizona?" The old man looked at Elaina incredulously. "Are you sure?"

I'm pretty sure if you have an ear problem, I wouldn't mind prescribing medication for you, but of course, there won't be any discounts on the price.

"Do you know her?" Elena asked.

“I know her. But I think you shouldn’t be looking for her,” the old man said.

"How could this be? Where is she?"

The old man pointed to the ground.

The atmosphere suddenly became very tense.

“She passed away three years ago,” the old man said. “She did have a son, but I can’t remember his name.”

He passed away?

Guided by the old man, Elena arrived at the place where Arizona had lived before his death. Because the population here was very small and newborns were rarely born, the house had not been taken back or given to anyone else, even though it was uninhabited.

Elena had expected the house to be dirty and messy since no one lived there, but it was surprisingly clean.

It's obvious that someone comes here to clean every now and then.

Just as Elena was pondering what to do with the letter in her hand, the wooden door was pushed open by another person. Of course, it wasn't Qin; Qin had been standing silently to the side like a statue.

"Excuse me... are you the messenger?" another elderly woman asked. "I heard someone brought a letter to Arizona."

"Um. May I ask who you are?"

“My name is Meshrep, and I’m her neighbor,” said Grandma Meshrep. “Where’s the letter?”

Elena handed the letter to the elderly man in front of her.

If I'm not mistaken, she's probably been helping clean Arizona's house all this time. Giving her the letter shouldn't be a problem. I can't very well take the letter to Arizona's grave and burn it myself.

Mescher took the letter slowly and shakily.

Everyone feels this way at this age. Just surviving is already a huge struggle. Elena couldn't help but wonder what she would be like when she reached Mescher's age, whether life would be just as dull and meaningless.

I'll probably be really bored at that time.

I wonder what I'll feel when I look back on today from that time on.

Mescher carefully opened the envelope, which contained dozens of gold coins and a brand-new parchment.

“Thank you, young lady,” Mescher chuckled. “But I wish my old friend could have received this letter a few years ago.”

“I heard from his son that he writes a letter every few months,” Elena said.

“I guess it couldn’t be delivered here due to some kind of accident. This is definitely the first letter she’s received in nearly ten years,” Meisha said, then sat down with difficulty on a wooden chair.

There were some things she didn't say.

But Elena had also guessed a lot.

Many people opened the envelopes, pocketed the gold coins inside, and didn't even bother to deliver the letters.

Perhaps it was due to various unforeseen circumstances, but the above conjectures are certainly not unfounded.

“She and I grew up together in this little village,” Meishael chuckled. “When she was little, she always told me that she wanted to leave these mountains and see the outside world. She said it was too poor here and she didn’t want to stay.”

Elena remained silent.

"Oh dear, you're getting on in years and you still like to nag. Young lady, you probably don't like listening to this."

“That’s not true,” Elena said.

“You’re so thoughtful. I really hope my son can find a good girl like you,” Mescher said with a smile.

"Where were we? Oh, Alisan always said she wanted to leave these mountains. Until later, she fell in love with a young man in the village, who was quite the heartthrob back then. Since then, she has stayed in these mountains, devoted to her husband and children."

"The couple had a sensible and capable son. Both she and her husband hoped that their son could leave these mountains and see the outside world. Later, he really did it and left these mountains. At that time, he was truly the pride of our whole village."

Mescher looked at him with a kind and compassionate expression.

“If my old friend saw these gold coins, she would surely come to show them off to me that very night—that old rascal.” Mescher laughed, then tears welled up in her eyes. “Alas, what a pity.”

Neither Mescher nor Elena both looked at what the letter actually said.

You can probably guess it without even looking.

Mescher put the letter in his pocket: "I'll burn it for that childish girl tonight. She won't need these coins over there, my dear boy, take them all—I think she'll be happy."

Looking at the gold coins, Elena felt for the first time that they were so hot to the touch, and for the first time, she refused the gift without hesitation.

Meisha did not force Elena to accept the gold coins; she put them all into the old drawer and closed it.

"Oh, by the way, is the outside world beautiful?" Mescher stood up, his cloudy eyes looking at Elena.

Is it pretty...?

Elena nodded slightly.

"What a pity, I've never seen it in my life." Mescher smiled with relief. "It's alright, it's good that my son saw it, that's all that matters."

"Your son?"

“I haven’t heard from him since he left. He’s probably doing well, and that’s enough.” Mescher leaned on her cane and walked away. “The outside world…”