Another hand gently rested on her head, warm and comforting. Xiao Bang Chui couldn’t help but look up, meeting a pair of kind, smiling eyes.
It was the old man standing on the gourd. His hair, eyebrows, and beard were all grizzled, and he wore a slight smile, appearing very benevolent. Xiao Bang Chui was reminded of her master, and her heart warmed. She leaned slightly towards him.
“No more tears?” The old man smiled, looking down at her. “Where’s your family? How did they leave such a little one alone in the mountains?”
Xiao Bang Chui mumbled for a while. She indeed couldn’t cry anymore; it had been an act from the start.
“I… I live on the mountain… with my master… He suddenly left, telling me to find my senior brother, so I… I left too…” She deliberately made her story confusing.
Zhen Yunzi’s expression showed slight surprise. “Master? Do you live on Qingqiu Mountain?! At such a young age, you could not resist my Celestial Sound Spirit Language. Could your master be an extraordinary expert? What’s your master’s title?”
Xiao Bang Chui didn’t want to answer him and lowered her head, pretending not to hear.
“I never expected mortals to be living on Qingqiu Mountain…” The old man standing on the gourd was also quite surprised. This place was crawling with monsters, with the Nine-Tailed Fox Demon clan hidden in the mountains. Moreover, the terrain was extremely treacherous, impossible for mortals to climb barehanded. He carefully examined the dirty little boy before him. The child’s aura was pure, indeed a mortal. How could a mortal survive in this perilous mountain filled with beasts and monsters?
“Where’s your master? Where did he go?” he asked kindly.
These things were too troublesome to explain, so Xiao Bang Chui silently handed him the letter her master had left.
The old man read the letter carefully, his eyebrows slightly raised. He passed the letter to Dragon Quiet Yuan Jun beside him. After everyone had read it, they were momentarily speechless. Dragon Quiet Yuan Jun smiled and said, “East Sun True Person, this child is looking for Wuyue Palace. Could her master be a disciple of some great master in your sect?”
The old man also smiled: “What a coincidence in this world. Little girl, what’s your master’s name?”
Xiao Bang Chui shook her head. She didn’t know her master’s name; he was just “master” to her.
“Then what’s your senior brother’s name?”
This she knew even less about. She had just learned she had a senior brother.
Seeing that she knew nothing, the others had nothing more to say. Dragon Quiet Yuan Jun helped her tie up her messy hair, chuckling lightly: “Your master is quite careless, raising a little girl to look like a boy. Now, no more crying. Can you tell us where that monster went just now?”
Xiao Bang Chui casually pointed toward the forest, lying with an innocent expression: “It flew that way.”
Everyone’s expressions changed slightly. After a while, Zhen Yunzi finally sighed with frustration: “Qingqiu is his lair. If he escaped deep into the forest, pursuing further would likely be futile. Months of effort wasted, and he still got away.”
The fox demon’s escape was largely due to this little girl. He looked coldly at Xiao Bang Chui, with a reproachful tone: “If you’ve learned magic from your master and can walk down the mountain alone at night, why were you so frightened upon seeing the fox demon?”
Xiao Bang Chui continued to turn her head, pretending not to hear. East Sun True Person smiled and said: “So-called magic is just some unorthodox practices from overseas, used by common folk to ward off evil spirits. It would likely be useless against that Nine-Tailed Fox Demon. I guess this little girl’s master only knows some scattered magic tricks. Even if he could subdue demons, they were probably just small creatures that couldn’t even speak. She’s never seen powerful demons before, so it’s natural for her to be scared.”
He patted Xiao Bang Chui’s head again: “But you’re quite brave, coming down the mountain alone in the dead of night. Weren’t you afraid of wild beasts? This place is full of cliffs. You can’t fly, so how did you get down?”
“I’ve never seen any wild beasts on the mountain,” she said truthfully. Of course, such a large mountain couldn’t be without wild beasts and monsters, but she had never encountered any in her countless trips up and down. Could it be that she was particularly lucky?
Walking to a large rock, she picked up a rope as thick as an arm, shaking the copper bells attached to it. The jingling sound immediately rang out.
Everyone saw that one end of the rope was tied to the rock, while the other end disappeared into the deep abyss. The abyss was so deep that one couldn’t see the bottom, and even a glance made them feel dizzy. Yet this little girl planned to slide down the cliff using this rope. Her courage alone was enough to make the adults admire her.
“The fox demon has vanished without a trace. What now? Should we continue the pursuit?” Zhen Yunzi, unwilling to waste more time here, asked directly.
Mr. Zhou, who had been silent until now, finally spoke. He appeared to be in his fifties, wearing a gray robe, with a very ordinary face and a harsh, unpleasant voice: “We’ve been chasing this demon for months. Although we couldn’t eliminate it, we should have severely depleted its vital energy. It won’t be able to resurface for at least ten years. Perhaps there’s no need to pursue further.”
Zhen Yunzi let out a long sigh: “Very well. East Sun True Person, Mr. Zhou, Dragon Quiet Yuan Jun, traveling with you all these months has been most enlightening. You are all masters of profound mystic arts. If fate allows, I hope we can exchange insights in the future. It’s a great pity we couldn’t subdue the fox demon today. Since we’re not pursuing further, I’ll take my leave now. Farewell.”
This man was direct in his words and actions. No sooner had he finished speaking than he left. With a wave of his long sleeve, a precious sword shot out, and in the blink of an eye, he was flying away on it, soon out of sight.
The remaining people on the cliff looked at each other in silence. After months of pursuing the fox demon, they were on the verge of success, only for it to end like this. Dragon Quiet Yuan Jun also let out a soft sigh: “…Well then, I’ll take my leave too.”
Seeing Xiao Bang Chui staring at her blankly, she couldn’t help but smile. Her smile was quite graceful, a stark contrast to her earlier piercing gaze as if she were a different person: “Little girl if you want to go to Wuyue Palace, ask that old gentleman next to you.”
As she finished speaking, her body suddenly flashed with a brilliant light. She was now wearing a colorful silk scarf, its surface shimmering like precious jade. She floated down the cliff lightly, the scarf seeming like a pair of wings supporting her, and in the blink of an eye, she had flown far away.
Mr. Zhou cupped his hands towards East Sun True Person, said nothing, and with a flicker of his form, he too disappeared.
Now only she and East Sun True Person remained on the cliff. The old man’s sleeves fluttered as he stood on the gourd, smiling as he observed her, not saying a word. Seeing him reminded Xiao Bang Chui of her master, and considering his earlier help, among these people, she felt closest to him.
What should she do? He seemed to be from Wuyue Palace. Should she ask him to take her to find her senior brother? He looked very kind, always smiling. He should be easy to talk to, right? She knew what kind of children adults liked.
Xiao Bang Chui cleared her throat and called out affectionately: “Grandfather, can you take me to Wuyue Palace?”
East Sun True Person smiled, neither nodding nor shaking his head: “Try to catch up with me.”
His form suddenly flickered, turning into a gust of clear wind, disappearing from her sight in an instant.
Xiao Bang Chui was stunned for a moment. Where did he go? She looked around. The cliff was full of strange rocks, the moonlight was cold, and there wasn’t a single human shadow, only her own shadow stretched long by the pale moonlight.
Suddenly, a figure flashed at the edge of the cliff. It was East Sun True Person’s white robe. Xiao Bang Chui immediately understood, quickly wrapped the rope around her wrists, and leaped off the cliff, climbing like a monkey.
It took Xiao Bang Chui less than two hours to climb from the top of the cliff to the bottom. She hurried along the narrow path in the middle of the cliff and soon entered the forest. The night wind howled, and darkness surrounded her. She craned her neck, looking around, when suddenly she saw a figure flash not far ahead. With her sharp eyes, she immediately recognized it as East Sun True Person from earlier.
“Grandfather!” She called out, but he seemed not to hear, slowly floating forward on his gourd, three feet above the ground.
Xiao Bang Chui started running, ignoring the rugged mountain path. She stumbled along for three or four miles, but the figure always remained neither far nor near. No matter how hard she tried to catch up, she couldn’t get any closer. She was panting, seeing stars, and couldn’t run anymore. She leaned against a tree, gasping for breath.
As if noticing she was too tired to run, the floating figure stopped, still neither far nor near. The gourd swayed up and down, with the white-haired old immortal on top smiling. Was this a test? Or was he just toying with her?
She was so tired she felt like coughing up blood, but she was afraid he would run away, so she just stared intently at the white figure. White hair, white beard, fluttering sleeves – she thought of her master, his sudden departure, the letter he left for her, telling her to find her senior brother.
She gritted her teeth, somehow finding a fierce burst of strength from somewhere, and started running again. The old immortal on the gourd also slowly started floating forward, repeating the terrifying nightmare of never being able to catch up no matter how hard she tried.
She didn’t know how long she had been running. The eastern sky had already started to show a faint blue light when Xiao Bang Chui suddenly tripped over something. She tumbled and rolled for quite a distance, her head hitting a rock hard. She felt a “buzz” in her brain, her vision went black, and she fainted.
East Sun True Person, not far away, couldn’t help but stop. She had chased him for five or six miles, which showed some perseverance for a child. But it was a pity.
Earlier, when he touched her head while talking, he had secretly released his spiritual power to probe her extraordinary meridians. Her aptitude wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t particularly good either. She could only be considered average. If he were to take her back as a disciple, she would probably reach her limit after about two hundred years of cultivation.
Wuyue Palace never lacked disciples of this caliber. What all the major immortal sects needed now were natural-born geniuses. After all, the “Sea Calamity” was approaching, and it was better to be prepared.
The ancients always said that diligence could make up for a lack of talent, but these immortals who had attained the great Dao knew best that these words were just self-consolation for ordinary people. With poor aptitude, even if one put in a thousand or ten thousand times more effort and sweat, the achievements gained would not be proportional to the enormous input. Only with excellent aptitude plus extreme effort, and even then, some luck was needed, could one successfully cultivate.
This child truly hadn’t learned any magic at all and had no foundation. Her physical strength was also average. If she could have chased for ten miles or more, it might have been better. But being neither here nor there, there was no possibility of reaching the realm of true achievement. What a pity.
East Sun True Person let out a soft sigh. Well, he couldn’t take her to Wuyue Palace, but he could do her a favor and send her to town. He would look for that senior brother of hers when he returned to the sect.
Sorry, little girl.
He turned to float over and pick her up when suddenly he felt an ominous wind howling through the forest and birds flying up in fright. His heart skipped a beat. He looked up at the sky – it was the time between Yin and Mao, the chaotic moment between Yin and Yang. This was when monsters came out and night beasts returned to the forest, the most dangerous time in the woods.
The little girl was sleeping defenseless in the forest. It was very dangerous.
East Sun True Person flew back quickly, only to see Xiao Bang Chui sleeping under a tree. He couldn’t help but let out a soft “Oh?” The miasma of monsters permeating the forest seemed to hit an invisible wall several feet around her and dispersed. Even more surprisingly, countless insects and ants slowly avoided her. She was sleeping on damp, dirty ground, yet not a single bug had crawled on her.
Was she carrying some kind of evil-repelling treasure? No, it didn’t seem so. Most treasures had spiritual energy, but he couldn’t sense any at all. It wasn’t a treasure. Then it must be 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 remembered earlier on the cliff when she said she lived on the mountain but had never encountered wild beasts. It seemed impossible, but now seeing this scene, he believed it. Was this a constitution that repelled evil and filth?
East Sun True Person fell into deep thought. If so, even though her aptitude wasn’t particularly good, it might be worth making an exception this once.