There was a well in the temple, and the water looked quite clear. However, people were hesitant to draw water blindly for drinking. After drawing water, each family collected it in a basin or bucket and let it settle before using it.
Unless they were fleeing famine, they would usually use a new well. They would place a turtle in the well to see if it could survive. If, after a while, a small, long-lived animal like a turtle could survive, it meant the water was fine.
The temple had dozens of rooms, large and small. The villagers almost got into a fight over a room.
"What are you doing? We're all from the same village. Why are you arguing? During this period of refuge, we must stick together!" The village chief was a man of his own ideas. Furthermore, he was also a cultivator at the sixth level of the Qi Refining Stage.
He was the strongest person in the village. Even among the surrounding villages, he could be considered a master. Unfortunately, his talent was limited. After half a lifetime of cultivation, the village chief had only reached the sixth level of Qi Refining.
He wasn't as lucky as Sangmu, who had a Taoist priest take him directly to the academy for training. He had to rely on himself. But it was good to stay here, living a simple and ordinary life. If only there hadn't been this drought, it would have been great.
"Village chief, I have children at home and they are weak, so I want to..." said a villager.
"We have been staying on the road for more than ten or twenty days. Who doesn't want to live in a house?" said the second villager.
"That's right." said the third villager.
"I have an old mother who is over 70 years old at home, and my family also wants to live in a house." said the fourth villager.
“…”
"Enough! Who doesn't have elderly, weak, sick and disabled people in this family? If the water source hadn't dried up where we live, who would want to leave their hometown and flee like this?" Village chief Zhou scolded everyone, and then spoke with empathy.
"Everyone trusts me, Zhou Fugui, so they let me, an old man, be the village chief. I've been leading the way all along the way. Although our village has been separated from other villages, we're lucky. We found a dilapidated temple here. Some of the rooms in this temple are larger, so we can squeeze in with several families. We can cook in the yard outside."
"The smaller rooms can be used by larger families. I've looked around, and there are at least forty or fifty rooms here. We can squeeze in, but we can." The village chief said this, and seeing no objections, he walked away. His family, spanning three generations, consisted of only four people. The village chief didn't move into the courtyard rooms, but instead slept on the floor in the lobby with his family.
Even though it was a lobby, it was still a place to shelter from the wind and rain. It was much better than sleeping in the wild before.
During the period of evacuation, there weren't many rules to follow. At most, men and women were separated and crammed together. But in this situation, who would want to be separated from their family? They were all crammed into rooms as a family unit.
"Everyone, disperse and do as the village chief says." A young man took the lead, and the villagers dispersed one after another.
The Sang family all moved into the room chosen by Father Sang. There were ten people in their family, and they chose a larger room.
Living with them was Zhou Peng's family. Zhou Peng himself was a cultivator at the second level of Qi Refining. His only special feature was his immense strength.
There are five people in his family. Zhou Peng is 30 years old, with an elderly mother who is 49 years old. He has two sons and a pregnant wife.
I saw that there was also a woman in labor in the main room of the Sang family, so I wanted to come over and squeeze in. This way, the two women would have more topics to talk about.
Everyone in the village had found a room. It was getting dark. Some families started preparing dinner, while others, to save food, decided to wait and eat at the next rest stop.
"Boom!" Thunder roared. A light drizzle soon began to fall. Those eating outside quickly gathered up their pots and pans and ran back to their rooms.
Only Li Shaotian, his wife, and thirteen-year-old son were left without a room. He was from another village. He hurriedly packed his bags and ran to the Sang family's door to shelter from the rain. It had just begun to rain when they arrived, so they didn't get a room.
"If this brother doesn't mind, he can come in and squeeze in with us." Sang Mu looked at the Li family and saw that there were not many people there.
Li Shaotian looked at his wife and children and said shamelessly: "No, no, it's great to have a place to shelter from the rain. This is my wife, Wang Mei, and my son..."
Li Shaotian was embarrassed. This young man was not his son at all. He was a powerful senior who could fly and even produce a lot of food out of thin air. Because of him, he and his wife were able to survive on the road to escape the famine. Otherwise, they would have starved to death.
They had been pretending to be a family all the way together, but he didn't even know his name.
"My name is Li Jingyu." Li Jingyu said coldly.
At Sangmu's invitation, the Li family went inside to take shelter from the rain, but they just stood near the door.
"Xiao Jin, let's continue." The "continue" that Sang Mu meant was to continue practicing.
Xiao Jin? Li Jingyu's heart tightened when he heard the name. Could it be the Xiao Jin he knew?
After Sang Jin's death, he found the valley and leaped off the cliff. He sensed a trace of Sang Jin's spirit at the bottom of the cliff. But he couldn't find her there. That's when he decided to jump off the cliff. He wanted to find Sang Jin.
But who would have thought that after he jumped, he would shrink, while his cultivation remained in the space around him. Later, he encountered Li Shaotian and his wife, who were fleeing famine. Only then did he realize that he must have arrived on another continent, and that the cliff must be a node or gap in space and time.
Sang Jin was also startled when she heard Li Jingyu's name. She pushed through the crowd and walked out the door, only to meet Li Jingyu's gaze as he looked at her.
A smaller version of Sang Jin faces off against a smaller version of Li Jingyu.
"Come in with me. There's plenty of room here." Sang Jin said in her clear childish voice.
When everyone in the Sang family was asleep that night, Sang Jin took her mother's hand off her chest. She quietly put on her straw sandals and walked out the door.
As she walked, she used her mental power to explore something.
"Are you looking for me?" Li Jingyu suddenly appeared in front of Sang Jin.
"爅爅?" Sang Jin tried to call out.
"Xiao Jin, it's me." Li Jingyu could now confirm that this was the Sang Jin he was familiar with. Because she was the only one who would call him Xiaoxiao.
"Good boy, how did you become like this?" Sang Jin's spirit possessed this body. Could it be Li Jingyu's too? Is it such a coincidence?
"Let's go. I'll take you somewhere first." Li Jingyu grabbed Sang Jin's shoulder with one hand. He mobilized his spiritual energy, stepped on his jade-bone umbrella, and lightly jumped onto the roof.
He raised his hand and arranged a centrifugal array of reinforced plates. No one below the Spiritual Transformation Stage could hear their conversation.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
