Another hand gently rested on her head, warm and comforting. Xiao Bangchui couldn’t help but look up into a pair of kind, smiling eyes.
It was the old man standing on the gourd. His hair, eyebrows, and beard were all grey, and he smiled slightly, looking very benevolent. Xiao Bangchui couldn’t help but think of Master, her heart warming as she leaned against him.
“Are you done crying?” The old man looked down at her with a smile. “Where are your family? How could they leave such a little child all alone in the mountains?”
Xiao Bangchui hesitated for a moment. She really couldn’t cry anymore; it had all been an act.
“I, I live in the mountains… with Master… Master suddenly left and told me to find Senior Brother, so I… I left too…”
She intentionally made her words a jumbled mess.
Zhen Yunzi looked a bit surprised. “Master? You live in Qingqiu?! At such a young age, you were able to resist my Tianyin Language Spirit Technique. Could your Master be an extraordinary figure? What is their name?”
Xiao Bangchui didn’t want to engage with him, looking down as if she hadn’t heard.
“I never expected there would be a mortal living in Qingqiu…” The old man standing on the gourd was also somewhat surprised. This place was a lair for demons, with the Nine-Tailed Fox clan hiding in the mountains. Moreover, the terrain was extremely treacherous; mortals couldn’t climb it by hand. He carefully examined the dirty little girl in front of him. The pure aura surrounding her confirmed she was indeed a mortal. How could a mortal live in such perilous mountains filled with demons and beasts?
“Where is your Master? Where did he go?” he asked kindly.
Explaining all this was too troublesome, so Xiao Bangchui silently handed him the letter Master had left in her bundle.
The old man read the letter carefully, raising his eyebrows slightly as he passed it to Long Jingyuan. After everyone finished reading, they fell silent for a moment. Long Jingyuan smiled and said, “Daoist Dongyang, this child is looking for Wu Yue Ting, so her Master must be a disciple of some esteemed figure from your sect?”
The old man chuckled. “What a coincidence! Little girl, what is your Master’s name?”
Xiao Bangchui shook her head; she didn’t know what Master’s name was—Master was just Master.
“What is your Senior Brother’s name?”
This, she didn’t know either. In fact, she had only just learned that she had a Senior Brother.
Seeing that she didn’t know anything, they had no further questions. Long Jingyuan helped tidy up Xiao Bangchui’s messy hair and smiled, “Your Master really isn’t taking good care of you, letting such a little girl look like a boy. Now, since you’re done crying, surely you can tell us where that monster went?”
Xiao Bangchui pointed casually toward the forest, innocently lying, “It flew that way.”
The expressions of the group changed slightly. After a moment, Zhen Yunzi still sighed in frustration, “Qingqiu is its stronghold. If it escaped into the depths of the mountains, chasing after it may be futile. What a pity that months of effort have gone to waste, and it has managed to escape.”
The fox demon’s escape was largely due to this little girl, and he looked coldly at Xiao Bangchui, clearly feeling some blame. “Since you’ve learned spells from your Master and can walk down the mountain alone at night, why were you so startled to see a fox demon?”
Xiao Bangchui continued to turn her head, pretending not to hear. Daoist Dongyang smiled, “The so-called spells are merely some fringe techniques passed down from overseas, used by ordinary folk to ward off evil. If you truly want to deal with that Nine-Tailed Fox, it’s likely to be ineffective. I suspect this little girl’s Master only knows a few scattered spells. Even if they can subdue demons, they would likely be small fry that cannot speak. She has never encountered powerful monsters, so it’s only natural for her to be afraid.”
Saying this, he patted Xiao Bangchui’s head again. “But you’re quite brave to come down the mountain alone in the middle of the night. Aren’t you afraid of wild beasts? This place is full of cliffs and ravines. How will you get down?”
“I’ve never seen any wild beasts in the mountains.” She was telling the truth. In such a large mountain, there were undoubtedly beasts and demons, but she had gone up and down countless times and had never encountered any. Could it be that she was just particularly lucky?
Reaching a large rock, she picked up a thick hemp rope, shaking the copper bells attached to it, causing a ringing sound to echo.
Seeing that the rope was tied to a rock at one end and dropped into a bottomless abyss at the other, the group couldn’t help but feel a chill. This little girl was planning to slide down the cliff using the rope. Just this courage alone was enough to earn admiration from the adults.
“The fox demon is nowhere to be found. What should we do? Should we continue the pursuit?” Zhen Yunzi asked directly, unwilling to waste time here.
Mr. Zhou, who had remained silent until now, finally spoke. He looked to be around fifty, dressed in a grey robe, with an extremely ordinary appearance. His voice was rough and hard to listen to. “We have been chasing this demon for months. Although we haven’t managed to eliminate it, we must have injured it significantly. It won’t be able to reappear for a decade. We shouldn’t pursue it any further.”
Zhen Yunzi sighed deeply. “Very well, Daoist Dongyang, Mr. Zhou, and Long Jingyuan, it has been beneficial to travel with you for several months. You are all profound experts in the mystical arts. If we have the chance in the future, I hope to spar with you. It is truly regrettable that we could not subdue the fox demon today. Since there are no plans to pursue further, I will take my leave first. Farewell.”
This person spoke and acted without any hesitation. After saying this, he waved his long sleeve, and a treasure sword shot out, disappearing from view in the blink of an eye.
The people on the cliff looked at each other in silence. After months of hunting the fox demon, they had been so close to success, only for it to end like this. Long Jingyuan also sighed softly, “…In that case, I will take my leave as well.”
Seeing Xiao Bangchui staring blankly at her, she smiled gently, her expression quite different from her earlier sharp gaze. “Little girl, if you want to go to Wu Yue Ting, just find that old man over there.”
As she spoke, a brilliant light suddenly enveloped her. She was draped in a colourful silk shawl that shimmered like jade. Light swirled around her as she gracefully descended into the abyss, the shawl resembling wings that lifted her away in an instant.
Mr. Zhou clasped his hands in salute to Daoist Dongyang, saying nothing, before disappearing with a flicker.
Now, only Xiao Bangchui and Daoist Dongyang were left on the cliff. The old man, still standing on the gourd, looked at her with a warm smile, remaining silent. Seeing him reminded her of her Master, and since he had previously helped her, she felt the most at ease with him among these people.
What should she do? He seemed to be from Wu Yue Ting; should she ask him to take her to find Senior Brother? He looked very kind and smiling, so he should be easy to talk to, right? She knew well what kind of children adults liked.
Xiao Bangchui cleared her throat and cheerfully called out, “Grandpa, can you take me to Wu Yue Ting?”
Daoist Dongyang smiled but neither nodded nor shook his head. “Why don’t you see if you can catch up with me?”
His figure suddenly swayed and transformed into a wisp of clear wind, disappearing before her eyes in an instant.
Xiao Bangchui was momentarily stunned. Where did he go? She looked around; the cliff was filled with jagged stones, and the cold moonlight left no trace of anyone, only her long shadow stretched by the dim light.
Suddenly, a figure flickered at the edge of the cliff—it was Daoist Dongyang’s white robe. Xiao Bangchui instantly came to her senses, hurriedly wrapping the hemp rope around her wrists, and jumped off the cliff, climbing like a monkey.
From the top of the cliff to the bottom, Xiao Bangchui needed less than an hour. She walked briskly along the narrow path in the middle of the cliff, and in no time, she entered the forest. The night wind howled past, and everything around her was pitch black. Stretching her neck to look around, she suddenly spotted a figure flickering in the distance. Her keen eyes instantly recognized it as Daoist Dongyang.
“Grandpa!” she called, but he seemed not to hear, floating three feet off the ground on his gourd, leisurely drifting forward.
Xiao Bangchui took off running after him, disregarding the rugged mountain path. She stumbled and ran for about three or four miles, yet that figure remained at a consistent distance—no matter how hard she tried to catch up, she couldn’t get any closer. She gasped for breath, stars dancing in her vision, and could hardly run anymore, leaning against a tree to catch her breath.
As if he noticed she was too tired to continue, the floating figure stopped, still keeping his distance. The gourd swayed as the old immortal smiled, was this a test for her? Or was he just toying with her?
She felt like she might cough up blood from exhaustion, yet she was also afraid he would escape, so she stared intently at the white figure. White hair, white beard, and billowing sleeves reminded her of Master, and thoughts of his sudden departure and the letter he left behind urging her to find Senior Brother flooded her mind.
With gritted teeth, she suddenly summoned an unexpected strength and started to chase again. The old immortal on the gourd began to float forward slowly again, repeating the terrifying nightmare of being unable to catch up.
After an unknown amount of time running, the east began to glow faintly with a blue light. Suddenly, something tripped her foot, and she tumbled and rolled for quite a distance, hitting her head hard against a rock. She felt a loud “buzz” in her head, and her vision went dark as she fainted.
Not far away, Daoist Dongyang stopped in his tracks. She had chased him for five or six miles, proving to be a resilient child, but what a pity.
Earlier, when he had been talking while patting her head, he had secretly released spiritual energy to test her meridians. Her aptitude wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t particularly good either—just average. If he were to take her back as a disciple, her cultivation would likely be capped at around two hundred years.
Such disciples were never lacking in Wu Yue Ting. Their various sects only lacked true prodigies, especially with the impending arrival of “Sea Fall,” which called for preparedness.
Ancient people often said diligence can make up for incompetence, but these immortals who grasped the Great Dao understood that this phrase was merely a comfort for mortals. Without good aptitude, no amount of effort and sweat could yield achievements proportional to the investment. Only with excellent aptitude combined with extreme effort—and sometimes luck—could one achieve success.
This child hadn’t learned any spells at all, lacking any foundation, and her physical strength was mediocre. If she could chase for more than ten miles, that would be good, but this way of being neither here nor there offered no possibility of reaching the state of enlightenment—what a pity.
Daoist Dongyang sighed lightly. It seemed he could not take her to Wu Yue Ting, but he could do her a favour and send her to the town. He would seek out that Senior Brother for her when he returned to the sect.
Sorry, little girl.
He turned to float over to pick her up when he suddenly felt a chill in the forest, and the birds flew up in fright. He couldn’t help but be slightly startled, glancing up at the sky. It was the time when Yin and Yang intersected, the moment of chaos between the Yin and Yang hours, when demons roamed and night beasts returned to the woods, making it the most dangerous time in the forest.
The little girl lay unguarded in the woods, which was very dangerous.
Daoist Dongyang swiftly flew back, and when he saw Xiao Bangchui sleeping under a tree, he couldn’t help but exclaim softly. The miasma of demonic creatures in the forest seemed to touch a wall several feet away from her, all retreating in avoidance. What was even more astonishing was that countless insects and ants beside her were slowly moving away. She lay in the damp, dirty mud, yet not a single bug crawled over her.
Did she carry some kind of talisman? No, it didn’t seem so. Most talismans radiated spiritual energy, yet he felt none from her. It could not be a talisman. Was it due to her constitution? What kind of constitution was this? This child seemed to be an orphan. Could it be an inherited special constitution?
He recalled her earlier words on the cliff—how she lived in the mountains but had never encountered wild beasts, which was impossible. But seeing this scene now, he found himself believing it. Was it a constitution that wards off evil and filth?
Daoist Dongyang fell into contemplation. If that were the case, even if her aptitude wasn’t great, he could still make an exception this once.
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