Fuyun Temple
A fleeting cloud beyond the mundane world, hence the temple's name, Floating Cloud.
Their clan leader, the Flower Spirit Clan Chief, once admonished his people, saying that since they were demons, there were three things in this world they must avoid: magical artifacts, temples, and the Demon-Sealing Tower.
Yan Dan has already seen two of them, but the Demon-Sealing Tower collapsed long ago, so it's something she can't see anymore. She spent five or six days with the children, doing everything from catching fish to picking mulberries and even telling stories with Shui Xing and the others, while Liu Weiyang made no progress.
That thug is a real talent; he can do things flawlessly and without any loopholes.
One time, Shui Xing told Yan Dan that ever since Nan Zhao was injured, she had been having nightmares frequently, and her father had consulted a doctor and received medicine, but it hadn't helped at all. Yan Dan then told her that instead of taking medicine, it would be better to burn agarwood in the room to help her sleep, as white sandalwood was the best material for making this kind of agarwood. Unfortunately, white sandalwood could only be found at Fuyun Temple on the top of Baizhang Mountain in the northwest of the village, so Shui Xing insisted on dragging her to the temple.
During dinner, Yan Dan mentioned that she would be accompanying Shui Xing and the others to Fuyun Temple the next day. Liu Weiyang picked up his chopsticks, silently chewing his food slowly, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Yan Dan wasn't sure if he had heard her, but she ultimately took his lack of reaction as tacit agreement.
Yu Mo pushed the short sword from his sleeve in front of her and smiled slightly, "This sword has been blessed with magic by me. Just keep it with you and be careful in everything you do."
Yan Dan touched the hilt of the sword, then picked it up to examine it. It wasn't the first time she'd used this sword; it felt very comfortable in her hand. However, she only needed to find a piece of white sandalwood. Wouldn't it be a huge waste to carry such a fine sword and end up using it to chop wood?
Tang Zhou put down his chopsticks and asked slowly, "You should be back by now, shouldn't you?"
"I heard from Shui Xing that I would stay overnight at Fuyun Temple and return early the next morning."
"If you encounter any danger that you cannot handle, we should know by now. You just need to find a way to hold out longer."
Yan Dan was furious: "Tang Zhou, what do you mean by this? All I'm doing is chopping a piece of wood, and you're cursing me!"
Tang Zhou said nonchalantly, "I just think you're very good at getting involved in trouble."
"You, you, you..." Yan Dan inhaled and exhaled, completely unable to refute.
“Absolutely true.” Yu Mo picked up a handkerchief, wiped his mouth, and commented casually.
Yan Dan was depressed all night because of those words. The next day, before dawn, Shui Xing dragged the sleepy Nan Zhao and pounded on her door. When she saw the longswords in Shui Xing and Nan Zhao's hands, she was utterly speechless. The two of them were carrying such heavy weapons to climb Hundred-Zhang Mountain; if the path was steep, how would they manage? Even disregarding that, even with their weapons, if they encountered wild beasts or ferocious beasts, they would be useless except for putting on a show.
Just as she expected, they were all panting heavily before they even reached the halfway point of the mountain, and in the end, they used their longswords as walking sticks to make their way up.
"Shui Xing'er, why did you suddenly come here? Did you anger your father and run away to my place?" The speaker was an elder, wearing a drab gray robe with the hem casually rolled up and tied in a knot, revealing a pair of large feet wearing hemp shoes underneath.
Yan Dan wasn't quite sure if this person could be considered a monk. She had seen many monks in the mortal world, and because of their vegetarian diet and ascetic practices, they were generally thin with a solemn and dignified appearance. But the one in front of her had a shaved head, and the six ordination scars on his head were clearly visible. He was a bit overweight, and his whole body looked oily. Although he lacked solemnity, he seemed very approachable.
Shui Xing jumped onto the old man and said a few words in a coquettish tone. The old man kept patting her head with a smile. Finally, she remembered that there were other people behind her, and turned to Nan Zhao and Yan Dan and said, "This is my Uncle Fayun. He was a good friend of my father when he was young. It's a pity that he has become a monk now."
Yan Dan bowed slightly and asked, "How are you, Master?"
Fayun nodded and clasped his hands together, saying, "You must have had a long and tiring journey, young lady."
Nan Zhao also bowed and said, "We have troubled you."
"What...is your name?"
Yan Dan raised her finger and tapped her chin, feeling a little strange. During her question and answer with Master Fayun, he only glanced at her briefly, but now he was staring at Nan Zhao for a rather long time.
Although Nan Zhao was somewhat surprised, he still lowered his head and said, "My name is Nan Zhao."
Fayun looked up at the sky and murmured, "Nan Zhao, Nan Zhao... you've grown up so much in the blink of an eye..." He suddenly came to his senses, grabbed Nan Zhao's shoulder, and asked with a slight bow, "Nan Zhao, how old are you this year?"
Nan Zhao's face suddenly turned pale, as if he was choking on his breath, and his voice grew softer and softer: "Almost, almost sixteen..."
Yan Dan's heart skipped a beat. Something was very wrong.
She couldn't help but glance at Master Fayun again. She noticed a large black mole between his eyebrows, and the force with which he was gripping Nan Zhao was considerable, as the frail young man was almost swaying.
Fayun slowly released his grip, sighed deeply, and said, "So much time has passed..." The sigh was quite desolate. In the end, he simply swayed his body, turned around, and walked into the temple.
Seeing that he had left on his own, Shui Xing hurriedly called out, "Uncle, we came to ask for a piece of white sandalwood!"
Fayun shook his sleeves, but didn't stop walking: "If you want it, just go and get it yourself, just don't damage the trees behind it."
Taking advantage of a lull in Shui Xing's speech, Yan Dan lowered her voice and asked Nan Zhao, "Have you met this master before?"
Nan Zhao shook his head, his face deathly pale: "I've never seen him before... but I noticed the mole between his eyebrows, and it looked very familiar, like I'd seen it before..."
Yan Dan asked again, "What did you feel when you saw his mole?"
Nan Zhao thought for a moment, then gritted her teeth and said, "...I'm scared."
Yan Dan reached out and stroked the piece of white sandalwood in her hand, then slowly immersed it in clear water. Surprisingly, the water began to emit a faint lotus fragrance.
As Yan Dan did these things, she relied entirely on her skill, turning the piece of sandalwood over and over several times, lost in her own thoughts. Nan Zhao said that he hadn't seen clearly who had poisoned him that day. Nan Zhao now said that when he saw the black mole between Fa Yun's eyebrows, he felt as if he had seen it somewhere before, and he felt afraid.
Fayun's mole is quite well-placed, both in size and location. As long as you recognize it as being between his eyebrows, you won't mistake it for something else.
If the perpetrator of the previous two bloody incidents was Master Fayun, then what was the reason for the two people shouting "curse" before they died? Putting it all together, it makes absolutely no sense.
The fragrance in the room grew stronger. Yan Dan took the agarwood out of the basin of water, intending to find a place to dry it. She pushed open the door and went out, only to find that night had fallen and there were only a few sparse stars in the sky, not even a moon. So she casually placed the agarwood on the windowsill.
Looking at the pure white agarwood, she felt a sense of satisfaction. There are countless kinds of people in this world, and each environment nurtures different individuals. Yan Dan had few interests, but making agarwood was one of them. In her spare time, she would try different scents, eventually discovering that the lotus scent was the most calming. And she herself happened to be that lotus flower with profound cultivation. Actually, making a true piece of agarwood required far more complex procedures than what she had made before, but since Nan Zhao needed it urgently, she could cut corners as much as possible.
Yan Dan put away the incense, looked around, and then, after a series of twists and turns, sneaked from the outer courtyard of Fuyun Temple, which was reserved for female members of the household, into the inner courtyard's meditation room. She had already taken precautions, walking this path back and forth three times during the day, so even in the dark at night, she was unlikely to get lost. She stealthily reached the outside of the meditation room and saw that the window panes were tightly closed, with flickering candlelight shadows on the paper windows.
Yan Dan nervously took a step closer, then another, until she stood motionless against the wall. She had originally intended to walk to the window and poke a hole in the paper windowpane to look inside, but that would mean casting her own shadow on it. If the monks caught her doing that, wouldn't she lose all face?
She held her breath and focused intently on the movements inside the meditation room. She heard several light footsteps moving from one end of the room to the other, suggesting that the person inside was very uneasy and was pacing to distract themselves.
After an unknown amount of time, the window creaked open, and Fayun's bald head peeked out. He looked around, then closed the window again. Yan Dan suddenly had a very inappropriate thought: Fayun's expression when he peeked out was both nervous and expectant, like a poor scholar in a play waiting for a rendezvous with a rich young lady.
Speaking of Yan Dan's interests and hobbies, making agarwood is one, and writing plays is another.
Following the usual script, the next scene should be a meeting at the pavilion where they pour out their hearts to each other. Yan Dan couldn't help but think that Fa Yun had shown that expression when he saw Nan Zhao, and then sighed about whether it was sixteen years or not. Could it be that Nan Zhao was actually Fa Yun's son? But Fa Yun didn't need to say he was from Luo Yue, so wouldn't Nan Zhao be an illegitimate child?
Just as Yan Dan was getting lost in thought, a clear sound of a wooden fish being struck suddenly came from the meditation room, mixed with Fayun's chanting, which sounded rather dignified and solemn.
Yan Dan's head was throbbing from the chanting, and she felt a urge to retreat. Just as she was about to slowly move back, she heard Fa Yun's low voice from inside the room: "You really came."
Upon hearing the sound, Yan Dan immediately pressed herself tightly against the wall and moved closer to the window.
“I know you’ll remember, after all, back then…” Fayun suddenly fell silent, and the other person in the meditation room also remained silent.
Yan Dan strained to lean forward, trying not to let her shadow appear on the window paper, yet still wanting to see what was happening inside. She saw a plump figure hurrying around the meditation room, his shadow flickering on the window paper.
Suddenly, a soft, somewhat delicate voice rang out: "Cause and effect, retribution. You have sown the seeds, and you must reap the fruits. Your good days have been far too long..."
Yan Dan suddenly felt goosebumps all over her body in the night wind.
That person spoke in a high-pitched voice the whole time, both delicate and soft, which she found a little hard to accept.
Fayun let out a rapid roar, as if the sound came from his throat. After a moment, he stammered, "You, you..." He paused, only repeating the same sentence over and over again: "How could this be? How could this be?" No one answered him, but he kept asking, his voice completely distorted.
Yan Dan was almost about to burst through the door. But a demonic intuition kept her rooted to the spot, not daring to even breathe. She was a demon who had become one halfway through her life, and unlike other demons, she rarely relied on her instincts to make judgments. Her intuition was pitifully rare, but this time, it was so strong.
The person completely ignored his terrified question and instead chuckled softly: "Weren't you once very affectionate towards me? Why are you so scared now?"
Yan Dan was stunned. These words sounded... this was clearly a romantic tale. Could it be that she had actually misunderstood?
Before she could even finish her reverie, a hissing sound rang out, and a patch of blood spread across the window paper beside her, the crimson spots forming an eerie arc.
At the same time, the door was flung open with a bang, and Fayun, his overweight body, staggered and fell to the ground, his face contorted, as he screamed hoarsely, "A curse! It's a curse! Hahahaha, good riddance, good riddance..."
Yan Dan hurriedly leaned over to look, only to find the meditation room empty and deserted, with the northwest-facing window rattling in the night wind.
That very night, Master Fayun lay in a cold coffin, the fatal sword wound slicing from his chest down to his ribs, the cut uneven.
He was the third. And how many more will die after him?
Who was the murderer?
Why did Master Fayun say it was a "curse" before he died? In fact, not only him, but the two people mentioned the curse before him also mentioned it. What is the mystery behind this?
Yan Dan handed the sandalwood to Nan Zhao, who held it. She had been preoccupied ever since she came down from Fuyun Temple. Even now, she still had no clue what to do.
She could not forget the moment when that person spoke in a soft voice about cause and effect, and she clearly felt an inexplicable sense of fear from the bottom of her heart.
What kind of fate will the demonic image generated by the divine artifact, paper ink, lead them to?
Yan Dan exhaled, squinting slightly at the bright, clear sunlight. At that moment, after Master Fayun uttered his last words, he immediately collapsed and died. The monks from the other meditation rooms, hearing the commotion, all rushed over. Yan Dan had no choice but to use her magic to create an illusion, concealing herself and carefully making her way back to her room.
If you were caught red-handed at that time, then it would be hard to explain.
She thought with some frustration, Tang Zhou had previously said that she was highly skilled at getting involved in gossip, and now it was exactly the case. It was just that she didn't intentionally get involved; gossip just happened to cling to her.
Suddenly, Shui Xing's voice faltered, trembling as she pointed ahead: "Sister Yan... over there..."
Yan Dan subconsciously looked up and saw that the road ahead was completely dark.
Corpse beetle.
The carrion beetles crawling swarmed toward them, crowding the road.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
