Unexpectedly, as soon as they reached the lotus pond, she let go of his hand. A twinge of disappointment flashed through Duan Qinghuai's heart. Helplessly, he watched Ning Yitao chatting with the old woman.
Ning Yitao took out the pre - prepared video of the moment when the Sarawa's Gu worm was attacking. "Grandma, take a look. Is this the Gu worm in that book?"
The old woman watched the video change frame by frame. When she saw the Gu worm on Sarawa's neck, her eyes widened suddenly. Then she said excitedly, "This is it! This is one of the Gu worms he asked me to raise for him back then. How could it appear in a foreign country?"
After listening, Ning Yitao put away her phone and fell into thought. "As I expected. What on earth is that so - called 'noble person' scheming? His net is cast so wide."
Duan Qinghuai also sensed something was wrong. "Did he also place the curse on me?"
"If I'm not wrong, it was him. When you're tortured to the point of being on the verge of collapse by other little ghosts, your constitution will be reversed. No matter what forbidden technique it is, with you, it will be twice as effective with half the effort. This should be his goal."
As soon as her voice fell, as if worried that Duan Qinghuai might be scared,
Duan Qinghuai saw the slight curl of her lips. The smile on her youthful and radiant face spread like the flowers on the branches, exuding a sweet fragrance.
She smiled and comforted Duan Qinghuai. "Don't worry. As long as I'm here, no one can take you away from me."
Watching her say this almost like a confession, his heart skipped a beat. Duan Qinghuai clearly felt that his just - normal heartbeat was now out of rhythm again.
Fortunately, Ning Yitao didn't notice. After saying that, she continued to talk to the old woman about Mengmeng.
Strangely enough, the bead containing Mengmeng's soul was wrapped in an unopened lotus flower, emitting a faint, flickering light.
Mengmeng's soul was too severely damaged. The old woman probably wouldn't live to see Mengmeng reincarnate.
Even if Mengmeng could be reincarnated, he couldn't be reborn into the human realm. After reincarnation, Mengmeng might be a blade of grass on the ground, a flower, or a little bird in the sky.
In each cycle of reincarnation, he would cultivate and collect his own soul. However, perhaps in the distant future, when the old woman and Mengmeng were reincarnated, they could become a family again. No one would maliciously disrupt their lives, and they would surely live happily ever after.
Mengmeng was the old woman's reason to live now.
Chu Zhiyuan, who had just rushed over, saw the three of them standing together and finally understood that they knew each other. And the bead in the old woman's hand must have been given by that girl.
That bead was a unique method of storing souls passed down from the Taoist temple, but this method had long been lost in the long - term spread.
If he hadn't seen the record of this in the library once, he might have driven the old woman out.
It seemed that the girl was really the manifestation of their ancestors. A surge of joy welled up in Chu Zhiyuan's eyes.
When the Taoist temple was passed down to him, it was in a dilapidated state. The disciples in the temple had either left or scattered, and now only he was left to guard the temple.
Especially now that the art of metaphysics was on the decline. He was really afraid that the Taoist temple would perish in his generation. He would be too ashamed to face his ancestors even in the afterlife.
"The heavens have not forsaken me. They've sent the ancestor to save the Taoist temple and me," Chu Zhiyuan said, looking at Ning Yitao's back with tears of excitement in his eyes.
Chu Zhiyuan quickly cleaned out the best room in the Taoist temple for Ning Yitao to live in.
Even though the window of his own house was broken and he had no money to repair it, Ning Yitao was actually shocked when she entered the Taoist temple.
She couldn't imagine that the Tianxuan Sect, once so luxurious and resplendent, had become such a dilapidated place in just a few thousand years.
There was only Chu Zhiyuan, a single disciple, in the Taoist temple. If she hadn't been reborn, the Tianxuan Sect would really have come to an end.
***
It was late at night. Leisurely clouds covered the moon. The courtyard was completely silent. Only the faint light from the window lattice and the stars in the sky set off each other. The sky and the earth seemed to merge, hard to distinguish.
Inside the room, red candles were burning brightly. The candlelight flickered. The hanging curtains were dimly lit, semi - transparent. A faint fragrance wafted gently around the four walls, warm and pervasive, making people feel lazy and drowsy.
At this moment, Duan Qinghuai and Ning Yitao were alone in the same room. A young man and a young woman were in a room together.
Don't ask why there was no electric light but only candles. The large Taoist temple was located in a very remote place. Naturally, it had attracted the greedy eyes of many capitalists.
In order to force Chu Zhiyuan to sign the land deed agreement, the capitalists knew he had no money and deliberately made things difficult for him.
Unless he paid dozens of times more for electricity than ordinary people, he had to endure the darkness.
Even the water supply in the Taoist temple had been cut off, and they had to go deep into the mountains to fetch water every day.
He was glad that he was an orphan. Apart from the hardships in life, they couldn't threaten him.
Chu Zhiyuan, who had no money, simply couldn't compete with the capital. But in order to protect the Taoist temple, no matter how high the price the capitalists offered or how many difficulties they created, he never chose to give up the temple. He alone was holding on to the inheritance of the sect.
And at this moment, there were only Ning Yitao and Duan Qinghuai in the room with the flickering candlelight.
Duan Qinghuai had just arrived today. Ning Yitao said that he could sleep in the same room with her so that she could repair her body at night. Duan Qinghuai simply couldn't refuse such a reason.
Zhaocai slept by the lotus pond, where the spiritual energy was abundant. It was more suitable for a spiritual beast like him to practice. Zhaocai just wanted to transform into a human form as soon as possible.
At this moment, Duan Qinghuai was standing beside the bed, so nervous that he didn't know where to put his hands. He couldn't believe that he was going to sleep in the same bed as Ning Yitao soon.
When he turned around, he found that Ning Yitao had quickly made a makeshift bed on the floor for him. The nervous expression on Duan Qinghuai's face suddenly froze. He couldn't help but feel annoyed at himself for having such thoughts about Ning Yitao.
Duan Qinghuai reached out to take the pillow Ning Yitao handed him and returned to his place.
"You sleep first."
Then Ning Yitao waved her hand, and the candle went out. The whole room was plunged into darkness. The moonlight slowly poured into the room through the window, covering the whole room with a faint glow.
By the moonlight, Duan Qinghuai could vaguely see Ning Yitao sitting in meditation on the bed.
Duan Qinghuai, whose mood had calmed down, lay on his side and quietly watched Ning Yitao practice. His thoughts drifted further and further away, recalling the things that had happened since he met her.
Even now, he still couldn't quite believe what it felt like to have someone always by his side. He thought it would be great if they could never be separated.
Just as Duan Qinghuai was about to fall asleep in a daze, he suddenly saw a wisp of golden light stretching out from his body and directly connecting to Ning Yitao.
It scared Duan Qinghuai awake immediately.
But he didn't know if this was something that only happened when Ning Yitao was practicing. Just as he was hesitating whether to interrupt Ning Yitao and ask her now, she suddenly opened her eyes.
She followed Duan Qinghuai's gaze and looked back.
When Ning Yitao opened her eyes and saw the wisp of golden light, her face suddenly changed. It was as if a layer of frost had covered it. Her brows were tightly knitted together, looking solemn and surprised.