Half a day later.
Yunxi District, shantytown.
The endless Three Thousand Great Mountains were shrouded in a cold mist, the uneven shanty houses on both sides appearing desolate and rundown.
As the carriage slowly traveled along the muddy and familiar road, the atmosphere inside the carriage became somewhat subtle.
"Master, did we used to... live here?"
Qing Jun lifted the curtain, looking at the low, dilapidated, and crooked houses outside the window, and the ragged children playing at the alley entrance, her little face full of disbelief.
She had only been away for a few months, but the home that was once familiar despite its shabbiness now felt so strange and... unbearable, after experiencing the grandeur of the Lingyin Sect and the serene elegance of Lisong Valley.
Chen Ye raised the curtain for Qing Jun, also looking at everything before him with complicated emotions, feeling as if a lifetime had passed in a blink.
It seemed,
those days of scrambling to repair the leaky roof with a straw raincoat still lingered in yesterday.
The carriage stopped in front of their old, now-abandoned home.
The sight before them made Li Qiuyun slightly startled.
That was a shabby house haphazardly built with green bricks and thatch, the thatch roof sparsely scattered by the wind, walls covered in moss and cracks, and an old wooden door creaked in the cold wind, as if it could fall apart at any moment.
"This place... I’ve been here before."
Li Qiuyun fell into memory, suddenly couldn’t help but smile slightly,
"Back then, I was inspecting the loose cultivators in the shantytown, and Uncle Chen’s house happened to be within my inspection range. Uncle Chen was so cautious at that time... sizing me up several times through the door crack before daring to open the door."
It’s truly unbelievable that the once anxious loose cultivator has now become the one being guarded by me.
Chen Ye was dissatisfied: "Was I really that frightened? What do you mean by ’daring to open the door’...?"
He pushed open the partially ajar wooden door and walked in first.
The scenes inside the house filled him with even more emotion.
The damp air was mixed with a subtle smell of mold.
Light streamed in through holes in the roof, casting mottled beams onto the dusty ground.
He seemed to see that rainy night again, waking up startled from this very kang, rainwater dripping through the roof holes, hitting his face coldly.
He seemed to see that silver-haired little girl curled in the corner, trembling all over, yet still wanting to offer him tea.
"Master?"
Zhiwei had, at some point, come to his side, looking at her master’s somewhat entranced profile, she called softly.
This place was where nightmares began for her and her junior sister, yet it was also where they... found a new life.
"Nothing. It seems no other loose cultivators have come to live here during this time."
Chen Ye came to his senses, looked around at the small house that bore witness to all his initial struggles and fears, and said with a sigh,
"Although it’s old, it deserves a good cleaning. After all, it’s our first home as master and disciples."
Speaking, he rolled up his sleeves.
He didn’t use magic, but like an ordinary mortal, he fetched a broom, starting to sweep the dust on the ground.
Zhiwei saw this and quietly found a cloth, carefully wiping the scratched wooden table.
Qing Jun watched as her master and senior sister busied themselves. She hesitated for a moment, pouting, picked up a broom taller than herself, and began sweeping too, although her actions looked more like battling with the dust.
"What’s this..."
Chen Ye’s gaze was suddenly drawn to an oiled paper package that had rolled into a corner and was covered in dust.
He bent down to pick it up, wiping off the dust.
Opening it, a cooling medicinal aroma wafted into his nose.
Inside the oiled paper, the dark green ointment had dried and clumped, but Chen Ye recognized it at once:
This was the Spirit Medicine Ointment he thought had been stolen by Taoist Zhang!
"Strange."
Chen Ye caressed the oiled paper package, puzzled,
"I remember this ointment was kept in a larger clay pot... Could it be that after Taoist Zhang stole the ointment, he deliberately repackaged it in oiled paper and put it back in my home? Um... probably not."
He looked at his two busy disciples, understanding most of it in his heart.
It was most likely stolen by one of his disciples.
He could understand; at that time, his disciples might still have been wary of him, with thoughts of running away at any moment.
As for now...
Chen Ye shook his head, putting the oiled paper package into the Storage Bag without alerting the two disciples.
Let the past stay in the past.
...
Shunshui Street.
When Chen Ye led the two disciples to Li Dageng’s small courtyard, even before knocking on the door, a dark shadow barked and rushed out from the yard.
It was the large, glossy black dog, Yuanyuan.
Seeing Qing Jun, it showed not a hint of fierceness. Instead, it wagged its bare tail excitedly, circling around her, occasionally nudging her small hands with its wet nose.
"Yuanyuan! I missed you!"
Qing Jun giggled, hugging Yuanyuan’s neck, rubbing her little face against its soft fur, the two intimately together.
Just as Yuanyuan’s tail was wagging vigorously, its eyes inadvertently caught sight of Chen Ye standing behind Qing Jun.
Seizing the moment when his two disciples weren’t looking, Chen Ye flashed a sinister smile. This dog should be lucky it was a female beast; otherwise, Chen Ye might have already thought of making dog meat hotpot!
Hum! Even I haven’t been hugged closely like this by my disciples!
In an instant, Yuanyuan felt an invisible chill run up its spine from the muddy ground.