Out of our expectation, the next day we mentioned it to the director, he immediately agreed and also exhorted us that “a belief is true only if you believe in it”, and that we must be sincere, not considering it as superstition; instead, he told us to believe it but not be addicted to it.
Li Long Fei drove a car to pick us up. It was hard to describe his car, which was older than “old”. Smell of gasoline prevailed inside it, while the doors and windows were not closed tightly, thus wind would come in when the car was running. It reminded me of when I was a child sitting in my uncle's tricycle along the “bumpy” road.
“Hey.” While I was in the car, I teased this eccentric "Dragon King", "You must be the poorest immortal I've ever seen.”
"Hehe, sorry." Long Fei had a nervous smile on his face as he stared straight ahead. His hands were tightly gripping the steering wheel, and I could vaguely see that his hands were trembling. Suddenly, a woman crossed the road, which caused Long Fei to hurriedly stop, after which the car shut down. Long Fei quickly reignited the car and found that the car could not move. He tried several times but still couldn't make it move, so he looked down to see what was going on.
"Hey," Liu Shuai couldn't hold it in anymore and reminded him, "You didn't put it in the first gear. This way the car will shut down after you release the clutch.”
"Oh, that’s it." Long Fei came to a realization. Just as he was about to put the car in gear, he stepped the throttle straightly to the bottom, causing the entire car to start shaking.
"Forget it," Liu Shuai said while trembling in fear, "Sit at the back, I’ll drive, otherwise we may not be able to arrive at your temple."
Long Fei looked at us in embarrassment, and obediently got off the car to switch seats with Liu Shuai.
"I'm so sorry," Long Fei sat in the front seat as he watched Liu Shuai steadily driving his car. "I really don't have enough donation in my temple. I saved up for many years to buy this car. I usually don't use it, but today I have to pick you guys up, so I drive it."
"No wonder," I saw that Liu Shuai was driving steadily, so I smiled and comforted Long Fei, “It does not matter if you don’t receive much donation. Once our Director heard that we are going to your temple, he immediately gave his approval. It seems that you really hide your strength. Even our director knows about it."
"It's weird," Liu Shuai said as he looked ahead. He was able to easily drive a broken car, and he voiced out his doubt, "Why could our director know about your temple?"
“Well. That's from this spring," Long Fei did not need to drive, so he felt a lot more relaxed. Hearing Liu Shuai's question, he started the conversation right away.
“Stop it!" If Long Fei wanted to start the story from the beginning of the year, he probably wouldn't be able to finish it even when we got to the temple, so I hurriedly interrupted him, “You don’t need to be so detailed. Just tell us the major points."
“The major points…” It turned out that Long Fei was not good at being concise. After pondering for a long time, he finally said, "Your director's sister had no child after being married for a couple of years, so she came to my temple this spring to make a wish and when she went back, she became pregnant. Hence she thought my temple was very holy. Your director was with her when she came back. He probably heard about his sister’s story and thought my temple was holy as well.”
“Got it." I nodded my head, so it turned out that there was a reason behind the director’s belief in such things. Then Liu Shuai asked, “There is a question. Long Fei, how do you know which one is our director? You haven't seen us with our director before. How do you know which one he is? Are you watching us? "
Liu Shuai’s question seemed to be reasonable for me. Li Long Fei was not proficient in divination, and we only met for two or three times. Beside, we had never appeared in front of him together at the same time. How could he be sure that the guest from half a year ago was our director? It was really strange. I looked at Long Fei and waited for his response.
"That's not difficult,” Long Fei smiled. "He also had a wish that day, and one of his wishes was for his subordinates to be safe and healthy. Amongst the names he mentioned, there are Hao Ning, Zhou Yuan and Liu Shuai. I have few pilgrims here, so my mana is limited. Although I can not fulfill all their wishes, I always check these wishes in free time. I can memorize these names, and when Master Zhang Quan told me your names, I was amazed that what a small world it is…"
Long Fei continued to chatter on his own, but I was touched. The director was only accompanying his relative to fulfill her wish, but he included us in his wishes. Although it wasn't a big deal, it proved that he was very concerned about us. I wondered what Zhou Yuan would think after knowing all this.
“Sigh, I did not expect that Zhou Yuan would do such a foolish thing and lose his soul.” Long Fei was still talking. "I wonder if this counts as my bad work performance? Sigh, I can't figure it out. Hey, here we are. Turn right and you will see it.”
Long Fei pointed forward. Then Liu Shuai drove the car to the right and parked it in the parking lot. After we got off the car, Liu Shuai and I found out why Li Long Fei's temple had little donation.
It was surrounded by factory walls. We could hear the sound of all kinds of electric drills and lathes occasionally. The road was wide and sparse, and there was no place for pilgrims to eat or play, except for a small shop, while the owner was playing mahjong with a few friends. There were not many people coming and going. The places I had been to, like Wutai Mountains, were surrounded by all kinds of facilities and inns, thus anyone who passed by, whether they believed Buddhism or not, would come to pay their respects.
However, this temple was quite interesting. It was built in front of a lush and verdant mountain. The mountain was not tall, but for some reason, it felt very suitable for this temple to be built in front of it, as if it was not built, but grew up naturally.
"How is it?" Long Fei embarrassedly asked us, "Is it that bad?"
"A mountain needn't be tall and can be holy with the presence of a dragon." I modified an ancient line. “It seems very good to me. This mountain and temple is majestic but not that tall, and it does have its grandeur."
Long Fei was very happy when he heard me praising him. Just as he was about to bring us into the temple, Liu Shuai grabbed him. "You haven't told us how to get the Immortal Tying Rope. Why are we going in?"
"Oh, you are right." Long Fei also realized that he had not told us what to do yet, so he stopped and brought us to a cool place. "I have a few more Immortal Tying Ropes hidden under the Dragon King's statue."
"Why don't you just take it out by yourself?" I wondered why he called us here for this sort of thing. Could it be that the statue was too heavy to lift?
"No," Long Fei quickly waved his hand, "If this Immortal Tying Rope is taken out just like that, it will be completely useless, and it'll be an ordinary rope. Only with Formless Donations being poured into it will it truly be an Immortal Tying Rope."
“What is Formless Donations? What is that thing?" I asked, at the same time looking at Liu Shuai who had the same doubtful expression.
"Huh?" This time, it was Long Fei's turn to be surprised, "Don't you know about the Formless Donations? It is a very important thing for immortals. "