Chapter 32: Chapter 29: Ten Years
Through the tunnel.
Mother Su Yun successfully left Zhang Family Fort.
However, it hadn’t been half an hour.
when the pursuers from the Myriad Demons Sect arrived to kill.
Clearly, the secret passage in the room had been discovered.
Left with no other choices, Su Yun could only place Lin Yuan into a hidden thicket.
“I’ll lead them away,”
“and come back for you later.”
After saying this, Su Yun headed in another direction.
As the wife of the first-class expert Zhang Kun, Su Yun was naturally no ordinary person.
Even just after childbirth, her strength was still above third or fourth-tier experts, and her lightness skill was exceptional.
However.
Two or three hours had passed.
And Su Yun still hadn’t returned.
“She probably won’t be coming back,”
Lin Yuan thought silently to himself.
If Su Yun had managed to shake off the pursuers,
she surely would have returned by now.
Her absence,
implied that she hadn’t managed to elude the pursuers.
The fate of not evading the pursuers…need not be mentioned.
“Sigh…”
Lin Yuan let out a soft sigh.
Just a moment ago, he had been the highly-anticipated heir of Zhang Family Fort.
But now, he had nothing.
“This is troublesome,”
Lin Yuan furrowed his brows slightly.
Now was not the time for regrets.
The urgent matter at hand was how to survive.
This time, Lin Yuan’s situation was extremely difficult.
As a newborn baby, Lin Yuan dared not make any significant movements.
A newborn like him, if he left the swaddle, the only outcome would be to freeze to death.
What about crying loudly to draw the attention of people nearby?
Lin Yuan didn’t know if the ones he might attract would be the Demonic Sect’s pursuers.
Additionally, Lin Yuan’s current environment seemed extremely remote with hardly any human presence.
He feared that any slight noise might attract jackals, tigers, or leopards.
To those fierce beasts, a human baby was nothing but a delicacy.
“What a pity.”
“If it could be a few months later.”
“No, just a few days…”
Lin Yuan felt somewhat helpless.
With his Against-Heaven’s Understanding, given time, Lin Yuan could quickly become stronger.
The first time he traversed, Lin Yuan was only a three-year-old child yet managed to comprehend the Great Arhat Buddha Fist and step into the Innate Realm.
Though a baby’s body had many limitations, it wasn’t completely incapable of resistance, at least there would be some power to fight back.
Soon.
It was night.
The temperature also began to drop rapidly.
Even wrapped in the swaddle, Lin Yuan felt waves of cold.
If it were any other baby, they might have already started crying by now.
But Lin Yuan didn’t because he knew that once he cried,
it would attract nearby beasts and then be carried away and eaten by them.
However.
Even so.
The innate milky scent of a baby was still faintly emanating.
Before long.
Lin Yuan heard rustling noises coming from the nearby bushes.
Listening to the noise, it was clear that it wasn’t made by humans.
“What to do?”
Lin Yuan’s heartbeat began to speed up.
If it wasn’t a human that made the noise, then it must be a beast.
Facing a beast, Lin Yuan was completely powerless, for to a beast, Lin Yuan was just a delicious meal, devoid of any sympathetic emotions.
As the rustling noise continued to approach,
Lin Yuan’s breathing began to slow down.
Meanwhile,
Lin Yuan’s gaze,
suddenly noticed the dry leaves and twigs on the ground.
This was the wilderness, full of plants, and dry leaves and twigs were everywhere.
Staring at the dry leaves and twigs, dots of Spiritual Light suddenly surged in Lin Yuan’s mind.
[You have Against-Heaven’s Understanding, after observing the withered wood, you understand the Withered Wood Breathing Skill]
[Withered Wood Breathing Skill: By utilizing a special breathing rhythm, conceal all traces of breathing, mimicking the form of withered wood.]
In an instant.
Lin Yuan’s aura continued to retract.
The original faint milky scent vanished.
Even Lin Yuan’s skin, originally soft and fair, shifted towards the dark color of dried wood.
From a distance, Lin Yuan looked like a piece of withered wood wrapped in a swaddle.
“Ooh…”
A few meters away, an adult wolf paused, sniffed the air, and emitted a confused low howl,
lingered nearby for a while, and upon confirming there was no scent of food, the wolf had no choice but to turn away.
In the swaddle, as Lin Yuan’s breath disappeared and his consciousness remained, after hearing the rustling sound fade away, he let out a huge sigh of relief.
“Withered Wood Breathing Skill?”
Lin Yuan maintained this concealment secret technique.
Actually, regarding techniques to conceal one’s aura, Lin Yuan had comprehended many during his first traversal.
However.
Those techniques required the support of Inner Qi and Primordial Qi.
And Lin Yuan, currently just a baby, possessed neither Inner Qi nor Primordial Qi.
As for the newly created Withered Wood Breathing Skill, it simply used adjustments in breathing rhythm to achieve the goal of concealing one’s aura.
It was something Lin Yuan could manage at the moment.
“There’s no immediate danger now,”
Lin Yuan kept surveying his surroundings, refusing to lower his guard.
Time slowly passed.
In the blink of an eye, half a day had gone by.
Lin Yuan felt a strong sense of hunger.
Every cell in his body was screaming for food.
[You have Against-Heaven’s Understanding and, tormented by hunger, you realized the Hibernation Breathing Skill]
Against-Heaven’s Understanding saved Lin Yuan once again. The Hibernation Breathing Skill greatly reduced the bodily wear of Lin Yuan, and in combination with the Withered Wood Breathing Skill, made him no different from a true piece of withered wood.
Two days later.
Lin Yuan clung to his last bit of consciousness.
Just then,
a Taoist in a Daoist robe descended from the sky.
“Someone’s here?”
“And a Taoist?”
Lin Yuan’s spirit lifted.
This was the first living person he had seen in two days.
“No matter.”
“If I keep going like this, I’ll really die.”
Lin Yuan quickly deactivated the Withered Wood Breathing Skill and the Hibernation Breathing Skill.
Although the Hibernation Breathing Skill greatly reduced the bodily wear of Lin Yuan,
it was only a reduction.
As a newborn infant, surviving for two days was already the limit.
To continue dragging this out, even the Hibernation Breathing Skill wouldn’t hold.
With this thought, Lin Yuan gathered all his strength and cried out aloud.
As the infant’s voice sounded,
the Taoist clearly heard it.
“Is it an abandoned infant?”
The Taoist looked to be middle-aged, his expression filled with weariness.
“Hmm?”
“Is it an abandoned infant from Zhang Family Fort?”
From the pattern on the swaddle, the Taoist guessed Lin Yuan’s identity.
“This jade pendant? Is it Brother Zhang’s jade pendant? Is this Brother Zhang’s child?”
The Taoist’s eyes suddenly moistened.
He was Changqing, who had received a letter from Zhang Kun several months ago,
saying he had discovered traces of the Myriad Demons Sect.
Changqing immediately set out for Zhang Family Fort.
However, he was ambushed by several protectors of the Myriad Demons Sect on the road,
which delayed him for several days.
By the time he reached there again,
everyone in Zhang Family Fort had already perished.
Just as Changqing was disheartened and about to return to Mount Longhu to report,
he unexpectedly heard Lin Yuan’s crying, and this infant was Zhang Kun’s son.
“Very good, very good,”
“Brother Zhang’s bloodline continues.”
“Brother Zhang’s bloodline hasn’t been severed.”
Changqing immediately picked up Lin Yuan, feeling him for a while.
In Changqing’s view,
an infant like Lin Yuan,
left outside for half a day, would probably freeze to death.
Although he didn’t know how long Lin Yuan had been there, the surrounding environment indicated it was definitely more than half a day.
Therefore, Changqing planned to use his own Primordial Qi to supplement the infant’s Origin Source.
Even though this act was a great consumption for him, Changqing didn’t care.
Because his late arrival led to the massacre at Zhang Family Fort, if even the last bloodline of Zhang Family Fort couldn’t be preserved,
he truly couldn’t face living in this world.
“Hmm?”
“There’s no injury on the body?”
Changqing was stunned.
He discovered that the infant’s body was very healthy, except for weakened vitality, probably due to hunger, there were no other major issues.
“Incredible,”
Changqing murmured to himself.
“Child, from now on, you are a person of Mount Longhu.”
Changqing held Lin Yuan in his arms.
He immediately embarked on the journey back to Mount Longhu.
At the Mount Longhu True Martial Hall,
Changqing stood before Master Cang Qing, articulating everything that happened.
Master Cangqing, the current sect leader of Mount Longhu’s Celestial Master’s Mansion, was a venerable figure in the martial world of his time.
“The current Sect Leader of the Myriad Demons Sect is brilliant and strategic, having stepped into the Celestial Phenomena Realm, which is why he commanded his disciples to raid the lands to assert demonic might,”
Master Cang Qing spoke slowly.
Soon he took over Lin Yuan from Changqing’s hands.
“Poor child,”
Master Cang Qing sighed deeply.
“Mr. Zhang lived a heroic life. With his death at the hands of the Myriad Demons Sect, our Celestial Master Mansion will definitely not let this go,”
“By the way, has the child been named?”
Master Cang Qing asked.
“I found a jade pendant in the swaddle engraved with the characters ‘Mountain Peak.’
“It must be the name Brother Zhang chose for the child,”
Changqing said softly.
“Mountain Peak, Mountain Peak,”
“All right, from now on, your name will be Zhang Shanfeng,”
Master Cang Qing spoke slowly.
That is how Lin Yuan came to reside on Mount Longhu.
Initially, Changqing was worried that Lin Yuan’s crying would disturb others,
but after spending a few days together, Changqing found that Lin Yuan was extremely well-behaved.
He never cried out; when hungry, he would just open his round big eyes and stare at him.
He was unreasonably sensible.
As for the infant’s need for milk… there were many villages at the foot of Mount Longhu, which included women who had recently given birth.
Changqing would shamelessly ask these women for some breast milk, managing to barely keep Lin Yuan alive.
In this way, ten years passed.