Amidst the lush, verdant layers of dense forest, a Taoist temple known as the “Number One Temple Under Heaven” stood nestled deep within the woods.
On the moss-covered steps before the main hall of the temple sat a young girl dressed in white Taoist robes.
Propping her chin in her hand, the girl gazed up at the clear blue sky overhead and let out a long, melancholic sigh.
Before her master left on his travels, he had said that today someone would fall from the sky, and she was to follow that person and leave the temple.
Her master also said that person’s fate alignment was very weak, and only by leaving the temple together with them would she be safe and sound.
“Gurgle…”
Ning Xi rubbed her stomach. She had been waiting since 6 a.m., and it was almost noon now.
Yet the person who was supposed to take her away still hadn’t arrived.
Could it be… that her master had lied to her on purpose so she wouldn’t follow him on his travels?
The person she was waiting for simply wouldn’t come, no matter how long she waited.
Ning Xi thought she might as well go find something to eat first to fill her stomach.
She went to the kitchen, familiar with the way, and took out the last packet of instant noodles from the cupboard.
Using a small brass pot with two handles, she cooked the packet of noodles.
Setting up a small table, she sat on the steps, eating her noodles while continuing to wait for her “destined one.”
The instant noodles, enhanced with ham sausage and an egg, were quite delicious.
Just as she finished the last bite, Ning Xi keenly sensed something subtly off in the air.
She looked up at the sky and saw a massive paraglider hurtling toward the temple at an incredible speed.
“Move aside!”
Ning Xi silently calculated the angle in her mind.
No problem, it wouldn’t hit her.
Bo Wang, along with his paraglider, crashed right into the centuries-old ginkgo tree in the very center of the temple courtyard.
He was left dangling in mid-air, and the more he struggled, the tighter the ropes constricted around his body.
“Hey, are you stupid? Why aren’t you calling for help?”
Ning Xi lifted her delicate, porcelain-white face, her elegant brows slightly furrowed, and her rosy lips parted as she said, “Didn’t your elementary school teacher teach you to be polite when asking for help?”
“You…”
As the mischievous little troublemaker from a millennium-old aristocratic family in the capital, Bo Wang rarely encountered anyone who dared speak to him like this.
Oh, wait.
The last person who spoke to him so arrogantly had already seen their family go bankrupt.
Dangling in mid-air, Bo Wang felt both pain and exhaustion. Gnashing his teeth, he asked, “Well then, may I ask, what is your name?”
“Ning Xi.”
In his 22 years of life, Bo Wang had never met anyone as stubbornly single-minded as Ning Xi.
Especially a woman.
“Ning Xi, then go call someone to rescue me.”
Ning Xi opened her eyes, which sparkled like a sky full of stars, and said leisurely, “There’s no one else in the temple. Only me.”
Bo Wang recalled the scene he had seen from the sky.
This was a remote, deep mountain forest.
Indeed, he hadn’t seen any houses nearby.
Wait.
If there was no one else in the temple, then who was this girl in the white dress?
Could she be a ghost?
Despite the blazing sun and bright daylight, Bo Wang felt a chilling wind creeping in from all directions.
His back turned cold, and fine beads of sweat broke out on his forehead.
Suddenly, Bo Wang caught the scent of instant noodles.
His gaze fell upon the brass pot used to cook the noodles.
Having gone hours without food, his stomach began to rumble loudly like an empty city after catching the aroma of the noodles.
Seeing that Bo Wang remained silent and didn’t ask for her help, Ning Xi assumed that as a man, he was too embarrassed to seek assistance from a woman. She didn’t deliberately ask if he needed help either. Instead, she picked up the instant noodle pot and returned to the kitchen to wash it.
This was the first time in Bo Wang’s life that he had been so thoroughly ignored.
He felt both humiliated and annoyed.
Turning his head to glance at his current predicament—dangling mid-air—he was well aware that Ning Xi was now the only person who could rescue him.
“Ning Xi, can you find a way to get me down?”