080

The fog gradually dissipated, but the rain continued to fall.

Jiang Huali sat on a rock, watching Mu Bai's figure appear in the distance.

He was also dragging someone along.

Jiang Huali stood up and saw Huang Shu, who had fainted, and asked, "Why did you faint?"

Mu Bai dropped the leg he was dragging and said, "It's not good to bring it back without knocking it out."

He took out several tranquilizer darts and showed them to Jiang Huali in his palm: "He also used these to attack me."

Jiang Huali reached out and flicked the anesthetic needle, asking with concern, "Are you alright?"

Mu Bai smiled and said, "I'm fine. I used a little trick, and he took the bait."

Just as Jiang Huali was about to search Huang Shu's body, Mu Bai noticed her intention and said, "Let me do it."

Upon hearing this, she stopped what she was doing, took a step back, and nodded, saying, "Okay."

Mu Bai squatted down, emptied Huang Shu's clothes, and put them aside for Jiang Huali to see.

Some firearms, knives, a treasure map, a cell phone, and a GPS tracker.

Jiang Huali picked up her phone, unlocked it with Huang Shu's fingerprint, and browsed through the contents of the phone.

The phone has no signal, and all information is encrypted.

After seeing everything she could, Jiang Huali tossed her phone aside, nudged Huang Shu who was lying on the ground, and asked, "Can you wake him up as soon as possible?"

"Splash—"

A stream of water poured down from the sky and landed on Huang Shu's face.

"Cough cough!"

Huang Shu was jolted awake. Opening his eyes, he saw two men in front of him who looked like bandits, especially the man with white hair. He took a few steps back in terror, supporting himself with his hands, muttering, "Ghost... there's a ghost..."

"Ghosts?" Jiang Huali tilted her head, looked at Mu Bai whose expression remained unchanged, and suddenly smiled. "There are no ghosts on Mount Ling."

Some of them are just a bunch of cute little devils.

She bent down, picked up the treasure map from the ground, shook it, and stared at Huang Shu: "I heard there's some treasure here?"

Huang Shu snapped out of his daze and forced himself to calm down: "You...you're a monster! You're all monsters!"

Jiang Huali stopped laughing and asked, "Who sent you? What do you want to do up the mountain?"

Huang Shu's mind went blank for a moment, and the truth involuntarily slipped out: "The organization sent me here. There are demons on the mountain. They want to capture them and use them as experimental subjects. If the research is successful, it will grant people immortality..."

"What organization? Who told you there are fairies here?"

Huang Shu snapped out of his daze and covered his mouth tightly.

Jiang Huali clicked her tongue and looked at Mu Bai.

Mu Bai understood and grabbed Huang Shu by the neck. Huang Shu's face gradually turned liver-colored, and he struggled desperately but to no avail.

Jiang Huali waved the treasure map in her hand: "Want to live?"

Mu Bai loosened his grip, and Huang Shu coughed a few times before nodding quickly.

"Alright, you'd better listen carefully to what I'm about to say."

...

"Are we just going to let him go like that?"

"Cast a long line to catch a big fish."

As the two walked through the mountains at dusk, Jiang Huali raised her hand, and a blue swallowtail butterfly flew onto her finger.

She said, seemingly casually, "You look good today, is your injury healed?"

Mu Bai pursed his lips, looked at Jiang Huali, and said with an innocent look in his eyes, "Not yet."

"So when do you plan to leave here?"

Mu Bai looked at the butterfly resting on Jiang Huali's hand and asked, "Can I stay here?"

"I have nowhere else to go."

He said this.

Jiang Huali didn't ask why, she just said, "The person who wanted to kill you is no longer down the mountain. The world is so vast, there's nowhere you can go."

"They certainly won't be here," Mu Bai thought.

Jiang Huali added, "It probably won't be peaceful here anytime soon."

The bait has been laid, and it's only a matter of time before the fish bite.

Upon hearing this, Mu Bai seemed to receive some information and said, "I can stay and help you deal with those people."

The butterfly that had been resting on her fingertip flew away, and Jiang Huali withdrew her hand.

"Go back and tidy up the other room; you'll stay there from now on."

A smile appeared in Mu Bai's eyes as he said, "Alright."

"Will he be living here from now on?"

Yuanyuan sat on a small stool and swung her bean sprout legs.

Jiang Huali, who was cooking mushroom soup, nodded: "Yes."

"Why?" The mouse held an earthworm in its hand and put it into its mouth with a "ah" sound. It was an earthworm that Yuanyuan had dug for it yesterday.

Earthworms are not the main food of hamsters, but there has been a lot of rain recently, so there are more earthworms, and we dig some up to eat as a snack.

“He had nowhere to go, so I took him in,” Jiang Huali said.

Jiang Huali kept Mu Bai by her side mainly to collect soul fragments when she left.

His origins were unknown, and Jiang Huali had some suspicions about this. She believed that he should not have any ill intentions towards the demons on the mountain, which is why she let him stay.

Mouse: "But you wouldn't let me live with you before."

“That’s different.” Jiang Huali’s eyes twitched.

The fairies on Mount Ling were naturally drawn to her, and the little mouse even suggested digging a hole to live with her.

Yuanyuan felt a little threatened: "Are you two close? Why can he stay at your house but can't have his own room to live in?"

Jiang Huali added some fire with her spiritual power and said, "He looks like a human, so it would be more convenient for him to live with me."

Yuan Yuan looked at its round body and bean sprout-like limbs. It seemed as if a dark cloud had drifted over its head, and a light rain began to fall, pattering on its heart.

“Aren’t we the best in the world?” Yuanyuan said.

After finishing the earthworm, the mouse explained to Jiang Huali, "We and the mountain god are definitely the best in the world, and that demon is the second best!"

Yuanyuan: "Really?"

Jiang Huali looked into its hopeful little eyes, suppressed a laugh, and nodded.

Yuanyuan cheered up again after seeing Jiang Huali's affirmation.

Mu Bai returned from the foot of the mountain, took off his rain-protecting cloak, his forehead was slightly damp, and his eyes seemed to be a little watery as well.

His white hair was tied up with a blue ribbon, which was given to him by Jiang Huali.

Seeing him sit down beside her, Jiang Huali asked, "Have all those people left?"

Mu Bai nodded: "They've all left."

"They were quite quick," Jiang Huali said.

After all, those "backpackers" were just doing things for money. Huang Shu, threatened by Jiang Huali, naturally dared not slack off and led his men away from Lingshan overnight to report the progress back to the organization.

Some people knew that there were demons on Mount Ling, and they organized people to scout the way, hoping to capture some demons to use for experiments.

Considering that Huang Shu can use a small amount of spiritual power, there should be many people like him in that organization. Nowadays, spiritual power is weak, and even fairies cannot cultivate into human form, let alone humans.

Immortality?

It was just a lie.

Fairies cannot live forever, and the original owner, as a mountain god, was about to dissipate into a deep sleep due to the depletion of spiritual power.

The flourishing and withering of plants, the coming and going of living beings, are the laws of nature.

To fantasize about pursuing a lifespan that is not human is like opening Pandora's box; out of curiosity, one releases calamity.

Because of Mu Bai's sudden appearance at Mount Ling, Jiang Huali suspected that her spiritual power was weakened, which was why she couldn't detect him. Therefore, she has been patrolling the mountain every day recently, paying close attention to anything unusual around her.

Mu Bai naturally accompanied her on the mountain patrol.

If you're eating and living for free, you should at least put in some effort.

No danger was detected yet, but the journey was filled with rescuing rabbit spirits from drowning, putting back bird nests that had been knocked down by the wind and rain, and listening to stories told by flower and grass fairies. Life was like a fairy tale.

This place is sparsely populated, free from pollution, intrigue, and backstabbing; there is only the purity of nature.

Unfortunately, someone is coming to break this tranquility.

Of course, before the villains arrived, Jiang Huali continued to live a peaceful life.

During the time Mu Bai spent on the mountain, he got along well with the fairies.

After all, he appeared very gentle and harmless in this world, and being a fairy himself, he quickly blended in with everyone.

Even Yuanyuan is willing to dig for earthworms with him now.

As the moon rises in the east and night falls, the clear moonlight shines through the mountains and forests, and also streams into the wooden house through the windows.

Jiang Huali had already moved back to her own room, and the storage room had been tidied up, with a new bed made for Mu Bai to sleep in.

Despite Mu Bai's statement that he could sleep on a rattan bed.

With so much rain lately, the roof of Jiang Huali's room was leaking. She wanted to find a mountain fairy to repair it, but Mu Bai offered to fix it, so Jiang Huali let him come and fix it.

Jiang Huali stood outside the wooden house, looking up at Mu Bai, who was reinforcing the leaky parts of the roof with new timber. The moonlight shone on him, casting a soft glow on his long white hair.

As Mu Bai finished repairing the roof and was about to go down, he suddenly bumped into Jiang Huali's eyes.

Jiang Huali asked, "Is it fixed?"

Mu Bai sat down on the edge of the roof and replied, "Yes, it won't leak anymore."

Seeing him sit down, Jiang Huali climbed onto the roof and sat beside him, conjuring two fiery red flowers out of thin air and placing one of them in his hand.

"This flower is very sweet, have a taste," Jiang Huali said, sucking from the base of the flower, she could taste the sweet flavor, with a floral fragrance.

Mu Bai picked up the flower in his hand, put it in his mouth, and the sweet taste spread.

His long hair was slightly disheveled from the recent roof repairs, with a few strands falling by his temples. His eyes were lowered, quietly holding a flower in their depths.

Jiang Huali looked up at the moon, feeling the cool breeze after the rain, and suddenly asked, "Have you ever been to Lingshan before?"

Mu Bai removed the flower from his mouth, seemingly having anticipated her question, and honestly replied, "I've been here."

"When did you arrive?" Jiang Huali asked.

“A long, long time ago.” Mu Bai stared at the fiery red flower in his hand, “You were the mountain god here. You remembered every blade of grass and every tree on the mountain, and that…”

He finally asked the question, his voice barely audible.

Do you remember me?

"What do you think?" Jiang Huali did not answer this question.

With flower juice staining his hands, Mu Bai and Jiang Huali looked at each other: "I was about to die. Before I died, I came to a cave in Lingshan."

"Perhaps it was my destiny to survive, because when I woke up again, it was after you saved me."

Having avenged his great grudge, he killed countless people, his body soaked in blood. Due to the forced fusion, his ghostly aura soared to the sky. With his last breath, he arrived at Mount Ling and returned to the cave that had once saved him.

He quietly collapsed beside the mountain god statue and closed his eyes.

But before he died, he arrived in a time a thousand years in the future.

His fatal wounds had miraculously healed by more than half.

“You don’t belong to this time and space,” Jiang Huali said.

"You guessed it." Mu Bai's breathing was calm, and he did not show the slightest panic in saying such a bizarre thing.

Or rather, he never intended to hide it from the beginning.

That's why it's full of loopholes.

[That's not surprising. Back then, we encountered a spacetime turbulence, and you were transported to a timeline thousands of years in the past. When I transported you back to the correct timeline, it may have caused spacetime disorder.]

The system responded to Jiang Huali.

“No need to guess,” Jiang Huali suddenly laughed.

"I remember you."

She said that.