Li Molin walked past first, indifferently withdrawing his gaze and continuing on his way. Yu Ke and Ji Jue also ignored the old man. Liu Li stopped when she saw the old man. Seeing that he was struggling, she hesitated for a moment, then jogged over and said with a smile, "Old man, let me help you."
Li Molin and the other two did not expect Liuli to run over, but seeing that she had already run over, they had no choice but to stop and wait for her.
The old man stopped chopping trees, panting as he looked at Liuli, a glint of shrewdness flashing in his wise eyes. He smiled and waved his hand, saying, "Thank you for your kindness, young lady, but chopping trees is rough work, and you can't do it."
Liuli shook her head, displeased, and said, "Father-in-law, you really underestimate me. Watch me!"
With a wave of her hand, white spiritual energy condensed into a crescent blade, which struck the mark left by the old man a few times and quickly felled the tree.
Seeing this, the old man showed no surprise whatsoever, but simply smiled and said, "I really underestimated you, young lady. Thank you."
Liuli clapped her hands triumphantly and asked, "Old man, is one tree enough? Shall I cut down another one for you?"
"That's enough, that's enough!" the old man waved his hand and laughed.
"Then I'm leaving." Liuli said goodbye and turned to leave.
"Wait a moment, young lady." The old man called out to her. Liuli turned around in confusion and saw the old man smiling as he said, "Come closer, young lady. I have a poem to tell you, which may be of some use to you."
Liuli hesitated for a moment, but still walked over. She heard the old man say in a low voice, "Please listen carefully to these four lines of poetry, young lady... A towering platform rises from a bottomless abyss, the night is dark with few stars and a full moon shines, at the third quarter of the midnight hour, the azure moon shines through the clouds and obscures the sky!"
Liuli was pondering the meaning of the four lines of poetry, still lost in thought, when she looked up and the old man vanished into thin air. She was shocked and instinctively took several steps back.
She turned her head and saw Li Molin and the other two walking quickly towards her. She hesitated and asked, "Li Molin, was the old man from earlier... just my imagination?"
Li Molin watched from a distance as the old man and Liuli whispered something to each other. After they finished speaking, the old man looked up at him and then vanished into thin air in an extremely strange way. Even though he had been watching the whole time, he didn't know how the old man disappeared. There was no fluctuation of spiritual energy, and no sign of any magical artifacts being used. Startled, he quickly went over. Hearing Liuli's question, he knew that she also didn't know how the old man had disappeared.
He shook his head, his expression grave, and said, "No, what did he say to you?"
Liuli was naturally intelligent, and after a moment's thought, she guessed the clue. The four lines of poetry the old man had told him must be related to the treasure that was about to be born. She stared at Li Molin for a moment, and after careful consideration, she decided to tell him, saying, "He told me four lines of poetry: 'A towering platform rises from a bottomless abyss, the night is dark with few stars and a full moon shines, at the third watch of the night, the azure moon shines through the clouds and obscures the sky.'"
While Li Molin was still pondering with his eyes down, Yu Ke exclaimed with delight, "Young Master, these four lines of poetry must be related to that treasure!"
Li Molin nodded and said, "That's right. Just now, that old man clearly looked like an ordinary human being, but he disappeared right under our noses, and we couldn't see how he disappeared at all."
Yu Ke pondered for a moment and said, "The poem 'A towering abyss rises from the clouds' refers to a location. 'The night is dark, the stars are few, and the full moon is bright' refers to the night of the full moon on the fifteenth. 'Midnight, three quarters past midnight' refers to the third quarter of the hour of Zi. As for 'the azure moon shines through the clouds and obscures the sky'..."
Li Molin interjected, "Then it might be related to the treasure."
Liuli smiled smugly and said, "You should thank me, if I hadn't been kind enough to help that old man cut down the tree, you wouldn't have gotten these four lines of poetry!"
"Yes." Li Molin smiled and said, "I really should thank you."
Yu Ke pondered for a moment and said, "Today is the seventh day of the ninth month, and in eight days it will be the night of the full moon..."
“That’s right.” Li Molin nodded and said, “Yu Ke, send a message to everyone to go to the Abyss. The one with the stone platform on it is the Abyss.”
"Yes!" Yu Ke nodded emphatically.
Not only Li Molin and Liuli, but at the same time, many Buddhist and Taoist disciples who were searching in Qingxu Mountain also encountered an old man. The old man was either caught in a trap or being chased by wild beasts. If anyone took pity on him and helped him, he would tell that person four lines of poetry and then disappear into thin air.
It was fate that brought this together. Normally, the demons were indifferent by nature. If they saw an old man chopping wood, they would either kill him or help him because they found it troublesome. However, this time, there was a kind-hearted person among the demons, Liuli. Otherwise, the demons would probably not have received any hints of the treasure's appearance and would have just wandered around in the mountains, missing the opportunity.
--
Three more days passed, and after a thorough search of the mountains, Li Molin and the other demons finally found the location implied in the poem.
This is a towering mountain range deep in the mountains. At the top of the mountain, surrounded by white clouds, there is a stone platform with a radius of several tens of miles. The stone platform is perpendicular to the mountain. The bottom of the stone platform and the mountain wall are smooth and flat, as if a great master had forcibly cut off a triangular piece of the mountain to form such a platform.
This stone platform faces south, with two tightly closed stone doors on the mountain wall to the north. The entire gate is about three zhang high and two zhang wide. Above the gate are the three large characters "Yuntai Cave", which are carved into the mountain wall three cun deep. The characters are ancient, grand, and imposing.
The outermost edge of the stone platform is surrounded by a railing about half a person's height, made of jade. Leaning against the jade railing, one can look down into a bottomless abyss.
As Li Molin led dozens of people to look around on the stone platform, more and more people arrived one after another. There were Buddhist monks and nuns, as well as a Taoist priest in a blue robe. At a glance, there were probably more than two hundred people gathered on the stone platform. Fortunately, the stone platform was spacious, so it did not seem too crowded.
Li Molin and seventy or eighty men in black gathered on the far right, while nearly a hundred monks and nuns stood in the middle. The left side had the fewest people, consisting of about thirty Taoist priests in blue robes. The three groups gathered together and whispered among themselves, gradually making the stone platform noisy.
These two hundred or so people were mostly young men, their faces still youthful. Many of them walked in groups to the jade railing to peek down, or stood there curiously looking around.
Liuli looked around the entire stone platform. Then, her gaze, which had been wandering back and forth, caught sight of a familiar figure in the crowd. It was a young monk dressed in a gray robe. He was standing among a group of monks and nuns with his hands clasped together. While everyone else was looking around, he stood calmly in place, his aura as still and undisturbed as an ancient well.
Liuli was overjoyed. She glanced over and saw Li Molin whispering something to his men. She quietly retreated, avoiding the group of men in black who were talking together. With a flash of white light, she transformed into a nimble white fox and ran quickly toward the young monk.
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