CH 100.2

The little Taoist priest rubbed his eyes and his fingers gently stroked the hard-earned hairpin in his hair. “I’m now on the mountain by myself and there are many beasts, I won’t be able to survive. I plan to go down the mountain to open a fortune-telling stall. Although my master and brothers are gone, Qinlian Temple will still exist as long as I am still there.”

“Even if I am the only one left, I will carry the light of Qinglian Temple.”

“Do you have money? Is it enough money to open the stall?” Bai Lixin surveyed the little Taoist priest in front of him. He looked eighteen or nineteen years old and living on his own should be no problem.

“Yes,” the little Taoist priest wiped his tears, “there is money in the Taoist temple. I can only seal up the temple temporarily, and will return when I have the ability to run it. I will take all the books in the Taoist temple away, and also anything else I can take. These were the only things they left me and I must take good care of them.”

“Cheer up.” Bai Lixin said, “If you face any difficulties, go to the Li residence in Fengcheng and find me. Remember, my name is Brother Xin.”

Where there are people, there is a home. This Taoist temple had become a broken home in only one night.

But fortunately, this little Taoist priest was already looking at the future, maybe this was the way of a cultivator.

The little Taoist priest looked at Bai Lixin gratefully and then asked, “By the way, what are you doing in Master Qing’s room?”

“Boy, let me ask you,” Dijia looked at the little Taoist indifferently. “Was there a man who often came to Master Qing? He is chubby and looks fifty years old. There is also a fat man with big head and ears, and small eyes, he is probably in his forties.”

“You mean Lord Li and Boss Huang, right?” The little Taoist priest said without hesitation. “There are a number of people that come to Master Qing, but I have an impression on the ones you mentioned. That sissy fat guy is Lord Li, he often practiced in the Taoist temple. I also have an impression on the other one, he is often in a bad mood and looks like a nouveau riche whenever he comes here. Whenever they visit Master Qing, they go back with a lot of magic treasures.”

“They donate a lot of money to our Taoist temple, and it was thanks to this money that our temple could always be maintained.”

Bai Lixin, “So your Taoist temple is not very prosperous?”

The little Taoist priest, “I can’t compare with other temples, but the year before was okay. Gradually, more temples cropped up in Fengcheng. For some unknown reason, our temple is always having overgrown weeds, and it has become more and more difficult for people to come up here. In the end, people started going to other Taoist temples, and our temple was gradually abandoned.”

Bai Lixin surveyed the little Daoist priest and said, “Get up, isn’t that Taoist Qing giving them so many things just to plunder their money?”

“Ah, that!” The little Taoist suddenly went stiff. Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, he suddenly jumped up, “That can’t be considered a money trap, that is for them to find comfort!”

Bai Lixin: “……”

Sure enough, it was for the money!

He looked around the room and finally found a place to lean on. He leaned against Dijia as he pointed between the latter’s eyebrows. “Does Taoist Qing have a birthmark here?”

A warmth came from Dijia’s chest and passed through the clothing. His body stiffened slightly, and he turned his head to hide his hot cheeks.

The little Taoist priest was relieved from his embarrassment and he quickly nodded. “Yes, there is a red circular birthmark between his eyebrows. Many people liked to practice with Master Qing because that red dot was very much like that of the Taoist Immortal in the paintings. And although Master Qing looked gentle and thinner, he really looked like the Taoist immortal from a distance.”

Bai Lixin, “Aside from him, was there anyone else with such a birthmark in your temple?”

The little Taoist priest, “There can’t be ah. That point is the heavenly spirit treasure point. Who can grow it at will?”

“It’s not a little red egg.” The little Taoist muttered in a small voice.

Bai Lixin’s long eyelashes were downcast, covering his thoughtful eyes.

The letter on that photo called him “evil spirit” and “evil immortal”. In Blue Star, not many people have had double pupils since ancient times, but every person that had double pupils was a genius of the ages.

So double pupils were also called immortal pupils, and there were even rumors that “double pupils” could foretell the future.

It seemed that in this copy, double pupils represented a different meaning. Double pupils meant one had reached the “immortal” realm, or had become “immortal”.

Through the description of the little Taoist priest, Taoist Qing was not a villainous figure, and could be called the Taoist temple’s bread and butter.

The little Taoist priest even had a vague bias and even worshiped when talking about Taoist Qing. This was a little different from his previous guesses.

He originally thought that even if Taoist Qing was not the final villain boss, he should have something to do with Lord Li’s sealed coffin.

Bai Lixin looked at the little Taoist priest. “Did you go on the day Lord Li was being buried?”

Little Taoist priest, “I went, they gave a lot of money to properly bury Lord Li.”

“Lord Li had been a frequent guest of our Taoist temple, and in order to show respect to them, Master, Master Qing, and a fellow apprentice went together.”

Bai Lixin, “Is “Master” the one with the hairpin in his hand? Did he have gray hair?”

Little Taoist, “Huh, you know my master? That’s him.”

“So Taoist Qing and your master also went on the day of the burial,” Bai Lixin cupped his chin in serious thought, “Let me ask you a very serious question. Does your Taoist temple or Taoist Qing have the habit of raising ghosts?”

“This, this, this…” On hearing Bai Lixin’s question, the little Taoist priest’s face went white. He shuddered and spoke, “How is that possible?! We are a proper Taoist temple! We exorcise evil spirits, eliminate demons, send and tell fortunes, read faces, that’s what we do!”

“……” Bai Lixin, “That is quite a lot.”

“Of course,” the little Taoist priest frowned regrettably, “but I did not learn the art well, and can only tell fortunes. Thank you for your help today. How about I read your fortune for you? I am very accurate. You guys wait here, I’ll go get the ticket!”

And before Bai Lixin or Dijia could say a word, the little Taoist priest had already taken off like a gust of wind.

The world was quiet for a few seconds, and Bai Lixin’s gaze fell on the yellow talisman.

The monster that killed Lord Li must have killed Taoist Qing seven days later.

Could it be that in order to kill the monster, Taoist Qing risked his life to use this talisman to draw it out, but as a result, he was no match for the monster’s attack? With the last bit of his strength, he tried to seal the monster in his body, but ended up sealing it in the photo?

In the period of the Republic of China, there was a law that said people shouldn’t just take pictures. That taking pictures was equivalent to the absorption and sealing of the human soul into the photo.

To this day, that law was nothing but an absurd fallacy.

But how did that unfounded rumor spread?

Just as Bai Lixin was pondering, that ghastly voice suddenly rang out, “It seems that you have already found out how Taoist Qing died.”

Bai Lixin looked up; it was the creepy white-faced Taoist with expressionless eyes.

“Thank you for bringing out the skeletons of me and my brothers,” the Taoist’s stiff face struggled to tug at the corners of his mouth, but ended in failure. “As promised, I’ll tell you what happened to Taoist Qing.”

“First, it was wrong for Taoist Qing to cheat people out of money, but he was not exactly cheating either.”

“It is true that an evil spirit haunted Lord Li, and after investigation, Taoist Qing ended up being haunted by a fox demon.”

“The madam died tragically, and Lord Li was blackened. That person made ill begotten wealth, and Qing only exorcised evil in order to help the Taoist temple.”

“Boss Huang, incidentally, came along. He often sold fake antiques and made ill-gotten gains.”

Bai Lixin, “Let’s not look for excuses; hurry up and get to the point.”

The Taoist master’s expression stiffened for a second. “Okay, I’ll continue. Everything was fine at first, until Lord Li’s death. Qing then realized the seriousness of the problem, and in order not to let the fox demon harm people, he used a talisman to lure it out. He intended to subdue that fox demon because it was cunning and ferocious.”

“Qing was attacked and defeated, but before dying, he used his last strength to make his soul a medium, sealing the fox demon in the picture frame. That night, we tried to cast a spell to completely destroy that fox demon, which could also be a consolation to Qing’s spirit in heaven. Unexpectedly, the fox demon had a thousand years of cultivation, and through the practice of killing, it had cultivated double pupils and became immortal.”

“We could only devote all our strength to temporarily suppressing the fox demon.” The Taoist master paused, “No, it should now be called the fox immortal.”

“We died, but that fox immortal was only sealed. Even though it can’t be killed, as long as the seal is not broken, it will never leave the seal.”

“In addition, we burned the photo so the seal is broken, it can never get out.” The Taoist master sighed, “In the end, the world has escaped a catastrophe, and our sacrifice wasn’t in vain.”

Taoist master, “That is what happened. Rest assured, there will be no more problems. You can live a peaceful life without worry. But if you would like to thank us for our sacrifice, could you please help my poor disciple rebuild Qinglian Temple?”

His dark pupils looked at Bai Lixin eagerly. Bai Lixin did not respond to that and instead asked, “Then what happened to Lord Li’s coffin? You gave him a coffin of locust wood, and nailed so many steel nails on it. Weren’t you raising an evil spirit?”

“You even know that?” The Taoist master looked at Bai Lixin in amazement. He paused for several seconds before shaking his head, “But you only know one thing; you don’t know the other.”

“A coffin out of locust wood doesn’t only give birth to evil spirits, it also gathers souls. When we went to take care of his funeral, we found that his soul was about to disperse, so we made him a coffin out of locust wood. We nailed the coffin because we didn’t want his soul to disperse, and we didn’t nail them all the way in so that he could easily push them out when his soul had coalesced well.”

Bai Lixin, “So that’s how it is.”

Taoist master, “I’ve told you what I know, so I also ask you to help the last descendant of the Qinglian Temple.”

He seemed to have used up all his strength as his body was becoming blurry.

Just as he was about to disappear completely, rapid footsteps came from outside, and the little Taoist priest ran in the moment he completely disappeared.