After Feng Ling entered the grotto, Senior Brother Zhishan did not follow. No one knew how much time passed.
The long conversation between Feng Ling and Xuanweizi finally ended at the wei hour, when the sun was setting in the west.
Child Servant Zhi'e accompanied Feng Ling out of the Grotto-Heaven Paradise. Zhishan stepped forward to greet them and insisted on escorting Feng Ling down the mountain with Zhi'e. Unable to refuse his two senior brothers' good intentions, Feng Ling stopped declining.
Time passed. The three of them remained silent as they walked, and the atmosphere grew heavy and oppressive. None of them knew what the others were thinking.
A quarter of an hour later, at a Heavenly Chasm, Feng Ling stopped in his tracks. Zhishan and Child Servant Zhi'e stopped behind him.
"Senior Brothers, you should see me off only this far, or else you'll end up descending the mountain with me!"
Feng Ling shook his head with a bitter smile,
He turned around and looked earnestly at the two men who had kept fobbing him off with "let's walk a little farther."
"Uh..." Hearing this, the two enthusiastic senior brothers scratched their heads, looking somewhat embarrassed.
Zhi'e caught Feng Ling's final words, and his eyes lit up. He yowled, "Wonderful, wonderful! What's the harm in us going down the mountain with you, Junior Brother!"
"Zhi'e!" Zhishan glared at him. The troublemaking Child Servant Zhi'e waved his hands and gave an awkward laugh.
Although Zhishan secretly shared Zhi'e's thought, he was more composed and steady!
"Heh heh ^_^"
Watching his Second Senior Brother shrink his neck in embarrassment, a smile touched Feng Ling's eyes, and it seemed the sorrow of parting was diluted a little.
His fearless, reckless Second Senior Brother seemed to behave only in front of the Eldest Senior Brother and Master. If he followed Feng Ling down the mountain, there was no telling what trouble he would cause!
"Junior Brother... I'm leaving! I entrust Master's care to you two, Senior Brothers!" Feng Ling looked reluctantly at the two men, as different as black and white.
"Go with an easy heart, Junior Brother. Take care of yourself on the road! We'll take good care of Master!
Don't blame Master for not coming to see you off—in truth, he finds parting even harder to bear than the two of us do!"
Zhishan smiled faintly, while Zhi'e fell silent and seemed to sulk.
"Remember, no matter where you are, the Seven-Colored Spirit Severing Mountain will always be... your home!"
Zhi'e, seeming to have thought it through, hurried to add this earnestly just as Feng Ling was about to set off.
"Good! Senior Brothers, you two must take good care of yourselves as well. Junior Brother takes his leave..."
After his final farewell, Feng Ling shouted and leapt from the several-thousand-meter Heavenly Chasm.
Any ordinary person who witnessed this scene would have stomped in fright and cursed him as an arrogant daredevil courting death!
The wind howled past his ears, stirring the clouds and mist.
Feng Ling found several ingenious points on the steep mountainside where he could redirect the force of his fall. His divine Fire-Tipped Spear scraped along the rock as he plunged downward at great speed, sending sparks flying behind him.
He knew that lingering any longer would make him seem sentimental and might cost him the resolve to leave.
"Damn! The Junior Apprentice Brother dared to jump from here with only Seventh-Turn Cultivation. He must be the first person ever to do it!"
Child Servant Zhi'e leaned over the cliff's edge. Seeing the currents churning below, he cried out with exaggerated alarm.
"Has Feng'er left?"
An ethereal, trembling voice rang out.
An old man with a kind, benevolent face had appeared beside Zhishan and Zhi'e.
"Reporting to Master, Junior Brother has left..."
Recognizing him, the two men bowed respectfully.
Hearing this, Xuanweizi let out a sigh, and as he turned and took a step, his figure vanished once more.
In truth, when Feng Ling first began walking with his two senior brothers, he had been thinking, "Let's wait a little longer. Perhaps Master will come after all."
Feng Ling delayed for a long time but still failed to see that figure before leaving. He said nothing, but a trace of disappointment remained in his heart.
Beneath the cliff...
"Splash!" The sound of something hitting water rang out, sending up splashes of white foam...
Heaven bestows great burdens upon those it favors, and the road ahead was uncertain.
From that moment on, Feng Ling's journey of trials began in earnest. Countless hardships awaited him.
"Inside a residence, never hang crafts or paintings that clash with the owner's zodiac sign. The young lady's zodiac is the Rat, so this room cannot contain a craft depicting a great roc spreading its wings... What, you burned it? No, no, no—if you don't mind, give it to this old one instead!"
"The beams in a residence should be odd in number, not even, or misfortune will befall the household. Old sir, your home has one beam too many. Take it down at once... What, pay someone to do it? No, no, no, it's no trouble. This old one can manage it with one hand!"
"Little one, please tell your family's elders: planting an elm tree behind the house brings great fortune, but planting a poplar tree brings misfortune instead... what, you already paid a Daoist priest to handle it? No, no, no, that was all just a swindler's trick!"
"Very well. This old one will help you transplant the poplar behind your house to the front courtyard!"
"Rest assured—this old grandfather never takes payment or leaves his name when doing good deeds!"
.....
An old Daoist priest traveled under the banner of a wandering cleric, helping countless impoverished people afflicted by illness escape their suffering. He accepted no payment and earned praise from everyone along the way!
Soon, the title of "Living Bodhisattva" spread far and wide—wherever he went, his renown followed!
"Disciple, I am teaching you the External Avatar Technique because I have an important task for you! For certain reasons, your two senior brothers and I cannot show ourselves for now. You must investigate the trail of the Evil Spirit Master Organization and find its headquarters. This will give you experience through trials and help you accumulate boundless merit. Finally, remember this when you encounter Evil Spirit Masters: do not act rashly. Eliminate them if you can, but act within your abilities!"
The old Daoist priest walked along the small path leading out of Ancient Well Village. Recalling Xuanweizi's words in the Grotto-Heaven Paradise, he smiled faintly, feeling a sense of release and understanding settle in his heart.
The old Daoist priest was Feng Ling, traveling the world under the identity of his Clone, "Ling Weiyun."
In my previous life, I, Feng Ling, killed countless people. Though it was not my true intention, my hands were stained with blood!
Yet in this life, I uphold justice, punish evil, and promote good. Fate truly is a wondrous thing! Very well... I will repay the sins of my past life with the good deeds of this one!
Having thought this through, Feng Ling's heart was filled with immense relief, and a vague yet grand outline of the path he would walk in the future had begun to take shape.
"Creak~!"
Feng Ling returned to a spot near the village and pushed open the door of a crudely built, temporary thatched hut. He pulled the roc painting scroll from his robes and examined it with a frown.
He closed his eyes and let a thread of Ghost-God Power seep into it, sensing it with care.
Deathly Energy!
Feng Ling's eyes snapped open. "It seems Ancient Well Village still harbors strange phenomena. I cannot leave until this is resolved!"
Ancient Well Village was the seventh small village of a hundred households struck by calamity that Feng Ling passed while tracking an Evil Spirit Master's trail on his way to the Cangmang Mountain Range.
He had finished treating the afflicted villagers and intended to investigate the anomaly in the village's ancient well before departing quietly. Unexpectedly, the matter was not fully resolved!
"Ah well, I'll go again tomorrow. Dusk has already settled over the sky, and today's practice is not yet done!"
With this in mind, an octogenarian elder, full of vigor, began performing a soft, flowing set of boxing forms.
A gentle breeze stirred his snow-white hair, giving him an air of immortal grace!
Several hundred meters north of Ancient Well Village.
A small mountain stood several hundred meters north of Ancient Well Village. A Daoist Temple stood on its slope, and an old Daoist priest lived there with three apprentices.
"Master! Something terrible has happened! An old Daoist has appeared in Ancient Well Village, seemingly from nowhere!"
"Such a panic, what an unseemly display. So what if he's come? There's no shortage of old Daoists wandering about in their twilight years—what's there to make such a fuss over? Keep being this jumpy, and I'll have you taken as bait to lure a ghost!"
The Bull-Nosed Daoist sat in the main hall and set down his teacup with a frown. He harshly scolded the fellow disciple who had rushed into the rear courtyard in a panic. He dismissed the report, assuming Feng Ling was an old Daoist wandering through his later years to enjoy the mountains and rivers.
The disciple trembled when he heard this, his scalp prickling with unease. He still remembered how, not long before, the arrogant Bull-Nosed Daoist had used his previous senior brother to lure a Vicious Ghost, resulting in his death!
Everything had been prepared, but the Bull-Nosed Daoist's twisted fondness for toying with ghosts drove the Vicious Ghost into a frenzy. The ghost ignored its own survival and clawed and bit that senior brother to death!
"But..." The disciple knelt on the ground, trembling as he protested in a low voice: "He cut off... our source of income!"
Every time a shell cracks open, it is a new birth...
Amid all the chaos and troubles of this world, may the Sage offer everyone a Pure Land of the Soul.