"Master, are there really Immortals in this world?"
Inside the Purple Cloud Temple's Pure Heart Hall, eight-year-old Li Ji'an looked up, his clear eyes filled with childish innocence, expectantly gazing at Immortal Master Liu Deshan, the Master of the Hall.
A long moment passed.
"He's so alike! So very alike! Just like my Junior Brother..." Li Ji'an didn't get an answer, but instead, Liu Deshan's somewhat dazed murmur.
A nostalgic smile involuntarily bloomed on Li Ji'an's lips. He then slightly bowed, not disturbing his former Senior Brother, now his Master.
"Boundless Heavenly Venerate!" After a short while, Liu Deshan came back to his senses, picked up the roster information, and began to read it. His slightly cloudy eyes suddenly cleared a few shades.
"Is your common name Li Ji'an?"
Li Ji'an didn't need to answer. Liu Deshan's heart pounded as he looked at the information on the roster.
Three days prior, while he was observing a fast and cultivating, he heard that a child, bearing the token of his Junior Brother, Immortal Master Chang'an, wished to become his Disciple. Although he was in seclusion and couldn't meet him, he unhesitatingly ordered for the child to be exceptionally admitted into the Pure Heart Hall.
Today, as soon as he emerged from seclusion, he summoned the child.
The first glance made him lose himself...
And at this moment, he could almost certainly confirm—this must be my Junior Brother's child!
"Hmph, you lectured me with twisted logic, telling me not to marry and have children, saying that beautiful women are mere skeletons, that everything is like flowers in the water and the moon in a mirror, that one should be alone and live a carefree life. And what happened in the end... Luckily, I didn't fall for your trick." A sudden feeling of exhilaration came over him, perhaps from knowing that his Junior Brother had an heir, or perhaps from finally being able to expose his Junior Brother's shortcomings. Houde Zhenren Liu Deshan seemed to have grown thirty years younger at this moment.
"Qingyun, come in." Houde Zhenren, in high spirits, called out towards the outside of the hall.
"Disciple greets Master." A chubby Daoist child, similar in age to Li Ji'an, entered the hall like a meatball, wobbling, and sat down on a meditation cushion beside Li Ji'an.
"From now on, this is your Junior Brother. You must take good care of him in the future, and absolutely must not bully him. You must treat him as a brother, a beloved family member," Liu Deshan sternly admonished.
"Ah?" The little chubby Daoist child had clearly never seen Liu Deshan act with such an attitude.
"Oh, right, I haven't given you a Daoist name yet. You... why don't you be called Chang'an?" Liu Deshan pondered for a moment, then smiled. He, who was always known for his steadiness and was in charge of the Daoist temple's ideological education, actually showed a hint of slyness on his face.
"Chang'an?" Senior Brother's mischievousness...
"Thank you, Master, for bestowing the name." Li Ji'an bowed deeply.
"Chang'an, this is your Senior Brother Qingyun. In the future, no matter how you interact with the other Senior Brothers and Junior Brothers in the temple, you must maintain a deep brotherly bond with your Senior Brother Qingyun, sharing both joy and sorrow," Liu Deshan reminded him again.
Li Ji'an lowered his head, tilting it slightly, and just happened to see Daoist child Qingyun looking at him in the same way.
Three days ago, he had seen this little chubby fellow from afar and had his suspicions; now, there was no doubt left.
The Purple Cloud Temple's ancestral rules prohibited marriage, but for over a hundred years, this rule had essentially become a dead letter. The Purple Cloud Temple was a temple passed down through generations, Master to Disciple, not accepting outside visitors. After a hundred years, it had almost become a single lineage.
From the temple Master to the supervising Disciples below, most still had a home in the county town ten miles away.
However, the previous Master of the Pure Heart Hall, also their Master, Shanshan Perfected Person, was an exception. He was pure of heart and desire, living a solitary life, and only took them two Disciples.
"Looking at this kid's age, Senior Brother must have married before I even returned to secular life, right? Heh."
"Alright, Qingyun, take your Junior Brother to familiarize himself with the temple, and explain some of the rules." Liu Deshan seemed to have something urgent. He didn't even answer the first question new Disciples must be asked, and after hastily dismissing his two Disciples, he left the Pure Heart Hall with a joyful expression.
The little chubby Qingyun looked plump, but his movements were not slow. He pulled Li Ji'an and in a few steps, they reached the corner of the side room wall outside the hall.
"Tell me the truth, are you also Master's son?" At this moment, little Qingyun's face was a bit flushed, looking somewhat wronged, as if he might burst into tears at any moment.
...Just like Senior Brother when he was little, not very smart.
Li Ji'an shook his head decisively.
"Really? Phew~ You scared me to death. That's good then. It seems my mother lied to me. How could Dad have other women?"
Li Ji'an raised an eyebrow slightly. Senior Brother had also become mischievous.
"Alright, then from now on, you'll follow Senior Brother. Senior Brother will ensure you're not bullied. I'll tell you a secret, don't tell anyone else, my dad, he's this!" The chubby child laughed heartily, boastfully giving a thumbs-up, very proud of having Liu Deshan as his father.
That's great.
Seeing the little chubby child proud of his father, Li Ji'an was genuinely happy for Liu Deshan.
To be the pride of his son, as a father, Senior Brother should be content.
"Junior Brother, this is the Jade Emperor Hall, it's the Master's territory. The Master is very fierce and stingy, so don't come here if there's nothing important.
This is the Dharma Propagation Hall. They always get lots of delicious food when they go down the mountain to perform rituals..."
The Purple Cloud Temple was not large. It didn't have the strict Rank System of those big temples with their "three chiefs, five Masters, eighteen heads." It only had one Master, five Immortal Masters overseeing halls, and the Disciples and Daoist children in all the halls combined numbered no more than a hundred.
Revisiting the old place felt like it was just yesterday.
"Unconsciously, fifty-four years have passed!"
Fifty-four years ago, Li Ji'an experienced his Awakening of Past Life Memories. At that time, he had already Transmigrated to this world for eight years, born from a mother's womb, eight years old!
The Immortal Bestowed Imperial Dynasty, an unheard-of feudal imperial world.
The suffering of the common people in feudal society needs no further elaboration.
However, when he had his Awakening of Past Life Memories, Li Ji'an not only didn't feel sorry for himself but was full of confidence. He didn't even panic without a System. With his twenty years of experience as a legitimate reader of web novels, he was very familiar with this kind of ancient imperial script.
He initially decided to quickly clear the game.
But then he was made to drink mouthfuls of incense ash water, talisman water, and even weasel blood...
It wasn't until he learned about the existence of Martial Artists that he suddenly realized it was a low-level martial arts cultivation script.
Hardship at the beginning, endurance, and even humiliation were all necessary.
He endured until his parents both died and his fiancée broke off their engagement. He knew that his buffs were fully stacked, and it was time for him to emerge.
Like a prodigal son, he sold off the few acres of fertile land his family had accumulated for generations, turning it all into silver. Full of youthful vigor, he went to the martial arts academy in town.
But... he couldn't even get started after a year.
A farm boy from the mountains, he had hovered around the poverty line since childhood, his body was weak, and he had no money to buy high-quality medicinal baths or tonics. Furthermore, the martial arts academy in town was truly limited in its level.
As his silver ran out and he still couldn't get started, he practiced martial arts desperately, injuring his internal organs instead. He coughed incessantly, clearly a sickly ghost.
Unable to survive in town, he had no choice but to slink back to his mountain village.
Fortunately, the mud house was unwanted, so he still had a place to stay.
Eventually, he became a tenant farmer, living from hand to mouth, his hope turning into despair day by day.
He lived in a daze, melancholic, waiting for a hope he didn't even know if he would ever find... Until he was thirty, just as he was about to lose the will to live, he woke up one day to find that all his sickness was gone. All the negative conditions of his overburdened, overworked body had disappeared, and his body had actually Returned to Youth, to the age of eight, when he first had his Awakening of Past Life Memories!
Yet, the timeline had not changed.
Worried about being treated as a demon, he didn't have time to be surprised by the belated Golden Finger and hastily fled the mountain village.
Ancient transportation was inconvenient, and population movement was even more restricted by three passes and five checkpoints. In the end, he could only run back to town to seek opportunities.
However... before he could even figure out the use of his Golden Finger, he was caught by human traffickers and mutilated!
Recalling this, Li Ji'an's heart suddenly twitched, and his face turned pale.
Even though twenty-seven years had passed, and he had undergone Returning to Youth once, with all physical injuries cleared, the five years of that experience still haunted him with nightmares.
Fortunately, at the age of thirteen, in Shangyi County, ten miles from the Purple Cloud Temple, Li Ji'an, with a deformed arm and a perpetually festering, unhealing wound on his back, met Shanshan Perfected Person, the former Master of the Pure Heart Hall of Purple Cloud Temple.
Little Qingyun suddenly turned his head and happened to see the look of fear on Li Ji'an's face.
"Junior Brother, don't be afraid, Senior Brother is here." Awkwardly shielding Li Ji'an behind him, little Qingyun quickly pointed at the divine statue in the hall and said, "They're fake, all fake, they're just clay sculptures."
Snapping out of his memories, Li Ji'an looked at little Qingyun, who was shielding him, and a loving smile appeared on his face.
After this incident, little Qingyun no longer took Li Ji'an to tour the temple and decisively returned to the Pure Heart Hall.
However, just as they reached the side chamber of the Pure Heart Hall, little Qingyun suddenly froze. A group of Senior Brothers from within the temple were waiting at the entrance, and among them was even a Senior Brother from the Discipline Hall.
"Oh no! Has the matter of me spitting in the meal of the Immortal Master of the Internal Affairs Hall been discovered?" Little Qingyun instantly shivered and subconsciously hid behind Li Ji'an.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!~
Seeing the two of them, the group of people surged forward, their faces filled with urgency, completely lacking the usual tranquility and detachment of Daoists.
"I was wrong, I was wrong, I'll never dare again." Little Qingyun was almost scared to tears. He stumbled back a few steps, fell onto the ground, and begged for mercy with his head in his arms.
"You..."
However, after waiting for a moment, he heard no reprimand, nor did anyone pull him. In his panic, little Qingyun peered through the gaps in his fingers.
He saw that the group of people were all surrounding Li Ji'an.
"They're not looking for me?" He instantly breathed a sigh of relief.
"They're going to bully Junior Brother!" The next moment, he was filled with righteous indignation again.
"I'll go find my dad." But he didn't dare to rush forward himself to face these fierce people from the Discipline Hall.
"Hmm?" Before he could even tiptoe away, he saw that the group of people all knelt down beside Li Ji'an.
Their faces were no longer urgent; instead, they had changed to expressions of affection and gentleness.
He even clearly saw the repulsive-looking Senior Brother from the Discipline Hall, now squatting in front of Li Ji'an, gently stroking his head, with faint tears in his eyes...
"He's so alike... He's really too alike..."
"Junior Brother... Is your name Li Ji'an?"
"Li Jichang, no, no, I mean Junior Martial Uncle Chang'an is your..."
"Don't ask what you shouldn't ask!"
"How is Junior Martial Uncle...?"
...
Li Ji'an looked at these children, now grown up, and smiled contentedly.
Because he had been drenched in the rain and given an umbrella by his Master, he was more willing to hold an umbrella for those caught in the rain.
Twenty-seven years ago, after five years of purgatorial suffering, he was brought back to this place by Shanshan Perfected Person. He was thirteen years old then.
Those five years of experience made him feel that this place was true paradise, so he settled down and actively offered advice for the development of the Purple Cloud Temple. His initial Transmigration resolve also became immersed in his Master's kindness.
During this time, relying on his knowledge from his previous life, he improved the phosphorus fire and smoke effects for the Dharma Propagation Hall, adding tricks like retrieving spirits from an oil pot with bare hands, Void Realm retrieval, and breathing true fire from the mouth. Through methods like "hiding a brocade book in a fish's belly," "auspicious signs appearing in Purple Cloud Temple," and "white jade turtle," he transformed the originally obscure Purple Cloud Temple into a popular spot among the officials and nobles in Shangyi County, greatly increasing its income.
Based on this, the Master agreed to his proposal to establish a Charity Hall within the temple to shelter children who were born into suffering but were powerless to resist.
By the time Li Ji'an was thirty, all eighteen children in the Charity Hall had been personally rescued by him.
A decade had passed since their separation...
Now, the oldest child was already over twenty and had become an enforcer in the Discipline Hall.
A moment later, a group of Daoists respectfully kowtowed three times in the direction Li Ji'an indicated.
"Junior Brother, if you have any problems in the future, you can always come to us."
"In the temple, no one can bully you."
"From now on, we are all blood brothers..."
...
"Junior Brother... he's actually that amazing? Why?"
Little Qingyun stared, dumbfounded at the scene, not even realizing that Houde Zhenren had appeared beside him at some point.
"Because his father is, this!" Houde Zhenren gave a thumbs-up.
"Ah, Dad... Oh no, Master, you mean... his father is even more... this?" Little Qingyun was filled with awe and looked at Li Ji'an with envy.
Flowing water does not contend for the first, but for the endless flow!