Chapter 143: Chance Encounter
“I’ve already made it all the way to Nanshan Temple?” The Flame Mist Mountain Range was rich in spiritual energy.
Besides the Eastern Abyss Sect, one of the six great sects, there were also the Ziyang Sect and the Xuanmiao Gate, along with a number of insignificant small sects and minor temples.
Nanshan Temple was one of the more notable ones among them, leaving a deeper impression on local cultivators.
It served as a landmark. Seeing it told those cultivators exploring the mountain range that venturing further south from here would take them beyond the borders of the Flame Mist Mountains.
Such small temples were no different from Loose Cultivators banding together.
A temple typically housed ten to twenty people, and at most never exceeded a hundred.
The temple master’s cultivation ranged from late Qi Refining Stage to Foundation Establishment.
Nanshan Temple had declined generation after generation. By this generation, it seemed only a single cultivator at the peak of the Qi Refining Stage remained as its temple master.
That temple master’s surname was Lu… Lu Yuan…
While Song Yan was still an outer sect disciple, he had taken on many sect missions.
Among them were commissions from nearby small sects and temples that sought help from the Eastern Abyss Sect due to a shortage of cultivators.
These included trivial tasks such as collecting hides from low-grade demonic beasts, gathering spirit herbs for refining low-grade pills, and even helping to find lost disciples.
During one mission handover, Song Yan had met this Temple Master Lu.
He was warm-hearted and benevolent, treating the temple’s disciples almost as if they were his own children.
Even when receiving an outer sect disciple like Song Yan, whom no one in the sect cared about, he still offered a cup of spirit tea.
Therefore, Song Yan’s impression of him was extremely deep.
Cultivators of great sects naturally enjoyed the shelter of a great tree, finding many things more convenient.
But such small temples were different. With a dozen or so cultivators huddling together for warmth, a shortage of all kinds of spiritual resources was perfectly normal.
In the turbulent world of cultivation, without resources, all was sorrow.
“I’ve wandered too far…”
Song Yan turned around and headed northeast.
The warm spring sun cast dappled light through the forest. After walking only a short distance and passing through a thicket, he suddenly heard faint gasping sounds mixed within the clear murmur of a stream.
He followed the sound with his gaze.
A shaded path beside a clear stream flowing over rocks.
A young girl sat curled up on a green rock by the stream, her robes and skirt hiked up to her knees, revealing a pale, thin calf.
At this moment, she was biting down on a strip of cloth, scooping handfuls of stream water to clean the wounds on her ankle and calf.
Water droplets mingled with threads of blood, spreading a faint crimson hue across the stream’s surface.
Freckles were scattered across her fair complexion.
Though her clothes were worn and tattered, Song Yan found her remarkably familiar.
“Ju Luyi?”
He of course still remembered this strange girl who had gotten lost in the mountains for nearly half a year while sewing a robe for him.
For some reason, Song Yan’s voice startled her so badly that her whole body flinched. The cloth strip fell into the stream and was quickly swept away.
She hurriedly pulled down her skirt to cover the wound on her leg and tried to stand up.
“Sssh—”
But the sudden movement aggravated her injury, and she sucked in a sharp breath.
However, the girl did not hesitate. She quickly climbed down from the rock.
“Senior… Senior Song.”
She had originally intended to address Song Yan as “fellow cultivator,” but noticing that his robes marked him as an inner sect disciple, he corrected herself.
Instinctively, Song Yan had been about to channel a bit of spiritual energy to heal her wounds, which would have been the quickest method.
But he reconsidered. It would require her to lift her skirt, which was somewhat inappropriate for a woman.
He took an ordinary bottle of healing pills from his cosmos bag and tossed it to her. “Just common healing pills. Nothing valuable.”
Although he had little contact with this girl, he had some understanding of her temperament.
“Thank you… Thank you, Senior Song.”
Song Yan nodded. “What are you… doing here?”
“Lost your way again?”
“No.”
The girl lowered her head, mistakenly thinking Song Yan was mocking her previous “grand achievement” of spending half a year sewing a single robe.
“I came here to deliver a custom-ordered robe.”
She slightly raised her face, her eyes full of defiance.
Whether from shame or anger, her originally fair little face was now flushed red.
Her freckles had turned scarlet.
“Delivering a robe?”
Song Yan paused, thinking to himself—so someone really did commission her to make a robe?
“Yes. Temple Master Lu of Nanshan Temple contacted us. He wanted to have a batch of new robes sewn for the temple’s disciples…”
“But he didn’t have that many spirit stones.”
“So I voluntarily took the job at a lower price.”
“Senior Lu paid the spirit stones and left. It seemed he was going to find some kind of cultivation resource for his disciples.”
As she said this, a hint of envy flickered in Ju Luyi’s eyes, but she concealed it well.
“He told me to finish the robes and deliver them to the temple.”
The girl stopped here and said nothing more. “…”
Song Yan watched her calmly, saying nothing.
If everything had gone smoothly, she wouldn’t have been injured. There was likely more to the story.
However, he was not the type to meddle in other people’s affairs.
“Do you need me to escort you back to the sect?”
“No. I wouldn’t want to trouble you.”
The girl bowed, her steps unsteady, and was about to sit back down by the stream.
“When it gets dark, I still need to go up the mountain.”
“Up the mountain?” Song Yan looked suspicious. “What mountain…”
“Tainan Mountain.”
Tainan Mountain was the peak where Nanshan Temple stood.
She still wanted to go up the mountain?
Now he was truly interested. Going up the mountain was one thing, but why wait until dark?
Song Yan keenly sensed something unusual. He slightly raised his head and gazed toward the direction of Nanshan Temple.
“Tell me about it.”
Hearing these words, Ju Luyi looked up at him.
She met a pair of clear eyes.
“What happened at Nanshan Temple?”
Song Yan’s features were refined and his tone gentle, yet the girl felt an air about him that brooked no argument.
The words she had been keeping inside slowly came out.
“Nan… Nanshan Temple was attacked in retaliation.”
The girl’s words were shocking.
“When I arrived at the temple, all the male disciples had already been killed. The female disciples… a few were still alive.”
“I… I was discovered by those three. I stumbled and scrambled down the mountain.”
“…”
Song Yan’s expression remained calm, but inwardly he was deeply shocked.
He couldn’t help but ask, “What about Temple Master Lu?”
“From what those three were saying…”
“Temple Master Lu appears to have been killed while searching for spiritual resources outside.”
“…”
Nanshan Temple…
Destroyed just like that?
He let out a soft sigh.
At first hearing, it seemed unbelievable, but upon reflection, it was perfectly ordinary.
It was enough to make one clench one’s teeth in sorrow.
At this very moment, who knew how many such small temples and minor sects within the borders of the Chu Kingdom were heading toward destruction.
The strong devour the weak—an unchanging truth since ancient times.
“Three of them were able to wipe out the entire temple… How did you manage to escape?”
Ju Luyi’s cultivation was only at the third level of the Qi Refining Stage.
Her opponents were at least at the middle or late stages of the Qi Refining Stage.
“Those three were at the time…”
“They were…”
The girl seemed unable to bring herself to speak, and paused.
“…The one who attacked had unstable magical power. I also summoned my magical artifact to offer some resistance, so I only suffered injuries to my legs.”
Song Yan understood.
He nodded. “However, according to you, these people were utterly vicious. Why didn’t they chase you down the mountain?”
“…”
The girl was taken aback.
Then she smiled, though the smile carried a hint of self-mockery.
“Heh…”
“Little Ju…”
“Little Ju is ugly, with dark spots on her face—an ill omen, a bringer of disaster.”
“Penniless, thin, and small—no man would ever harbor evil intentions toward Little Ju.”
For her, strength and fortune were certainly enviable.
But weakness and ill fortune could also be put to use!