Volume One: A Thousand Years of Streams - Chapter 40: Unexpected Encounters

Sankou Huangjia Town was located in a remote region, consisting of four small villages and one large village, with a total population of barely a thousand people.

At the center of the four small hamlets stood a verdant green mountain, overgrown with lush foliage, devoid of human traces and lacking any discernible paths.

Nestled within a mountain recess stood a "small temple," comprising a total of thirteen rooms connected front and back by left and right corridors. Fallen leaves blocked the front gate, which had not been swept in ages, and the plaque bearing the temple's name leaned against a door pillar, broken in half and awaiting repair.

As Sun Zikai walked up to this spot, his brow furrowed deeply. The Qingyi Sect had actually fallen to such a desolate state.

Finding the place was not difficult; the villagers all knew where the Qingyi Sect resided. As it turned out, the place still accepted disciples. Young people in the village who harbored aspirations of cultivation but could not enter mainstream sects would come here to get a basic initiation, though very few ever stayed for even two full months.

"Is anyone here?" Sun Zikai called out in front of the gate. "I am Sun Zikai, wishing to enter the sect to seek guidance and study."

No reply came for a long time. Sensing quite clearly that someone was inside, Sun Zikai simply pushed open the ancient wooden door, which was riddled with insect holes. The door creaked open, and he stepped quietly inside.

The courtyard was likewise strewn with fallen leaves, and an aged water vat rested forlornly against weathered stone bricks. Corridors flanked both sides, but the wood and stone were covered in cracks, missing pieces here and there, exuding an aura of utter desolation.

Half-asleep on a reclining chair in the corridor was a young girl, even younger than Sun Zikai. She was actually eleven years old, but being extremely dark-skinned and slender, she looked even smaller.

Sun Zikai walked up to the girl and asked in a low voice, "Are you a disciple of the Qingyi Sect? I am Sun Zikai, come specifically to seek knowledge and inquire about the Dao."

The girl half-opened one eye and replied, "I'm not. I'm just here with my grandfather to see the doctor."

As her voice trailed off, a white-haired elderly man emerged from the corner behind the corridor. After calling out "Eryā," the girl lazily hopped down, supported the old man, and walked out toward the gate.

Sun Zikai followed the corridor to the fourth room. The door stood wide open, and knowing someone was inside, he pushed it open and stepped in.

He saw an elderly man in his septuagenarian years dozing at a desk. Hearing movement, the old man slowly raised his head, glanced confusedly at Sun Zikai, and then remarked, "There's nothing wrong with you. Your complexion is quite good."

"Master, I'm not here to see a doctor; I'm here to study."

The old man looked dazed. At that moment, a man in his mid-forties walked into the room carrying two baskets of freshly picked herbs on a shoulder pole.

Seeing Sun Zikai, the man did not stop what he was doing and barked, "What are you here for?"

"To study."

"Study what?"

"The Dao of cultivation."

"We don't teach that here. We only cure illnesses. Be on your way."

Unwilling to give up, Sun Zikai said, "I heard afar of the great reputation of the Qingyi Sect, and I genuinely wish to come and learn something."

"You want to become a disciple?" the man asked. Without waiting for Sun Zikai to answer, he continued, "Come back after you turn forty."

"Start cultivating at forty? You must be joking. This disciple does not understand."

The man had no desire to waste words with Sun Zikai and stopped talking, lowering his head to busy himself with the herbs. Indeed, the entire temple seemed to consist of just these two people.

Sun Zikai pulled some silver coins from his tunic, though there were truly very few—a mere seventy wen in total—and said, "Then I won't become a disciple. Just taking a look around is fine, right?"

The man shook his head and replied, "Look wherever you like. You don't need money to look around."

"Really? Then I'll go take a look." Putting the silver away again, Sun Zikai walked back to the first courtyard and began to examine the sect closely.

The wood was ordinary wood, and most of the bricks were unbaked mud bricks. Dust was everywhere, yet there were traces of sweeping here and there.

Room after room, even as he walked into the fourth room, Sun Zikai carefully felt out every single corner right under the eyes of the two men.

Seeing this, the man remarked, "There's nothing valuable in this place."

"Are there any books on cultivation? Or centuries-old bookshelves?"

After thinking for a moment, the man replied, "There certainly are a lot of sundries, and some books too, but they haven't been taken out in a very long time. Two hundred years ago, there were basically no people left here. Those miscellaneous items are all in the last four rooms. The keys are with my daughter; wait until dusk, and you'll see her."

Sun Zikai had no choice but to explore the first nine rooms thoroughly. From the fifth room onward, the spaces were essentially abandoned, untouched by people for years. All furniture was gone, but one could still see the large communal brick kangs where eighty or ninety disciples used to sleep in rows. There were also various aged items, most of them damaged.

Sun Zikai lay down on the rocking chair in the first courtyard and waited until dusk, when he finally saw a girl of sixteen or seventeen carrying a food box enter the gate.

Surprised to see Sun Zikai, the girl asked, "Who are you?"

"I'm here to look around. I heard you have the keys to the last four rooms."

"I do, but what is there to see in these broken old houses?"

Sun Zikai replied, "I originally came to study the Dao of cultivation, but the seniors here refuse to teach me, so I have no choice but to find some useful things to look at myself."

"Hey! Did you come to the wrong place? You're not from the town, are you? You must have been scammed. The Qingyi Sect hasn't been able to take in disciples for two hundred years. Originally, they might have taught people cultivation, but as a small sect with no foundation, everyone preferred to run off to mainstream sects. Who would want to come to this mountain ditch? Later on, when disciples vanished, the sect's administrators lowered the recruitment standards and let anyone in. As a result, even more disciples ran away, and they weren't even honest, stealing all the valuables from the sect."

The girl paused for a moment and continued, "When the disciples were gone, the elders fled too, leaving only the Sect Master's family behind. They had taken an oath never to abandon the sect, so they stayed here, generation after generation, acting as medical healers. Their medical skills are quite good, and cheap too, so people from all around within a ten-li radius are willing to come here for treatment."

In truth, Sun Zikai had detected spiritual energy on the old man and the man, but it was extremely faint—not even reaching the Qi Condensation stage, merely sufficient to channel spiritual energy into mixing or refining medicinal herbs. Still, this was far more useful than ordinary medicinal prescriptions.

Sun Zikai asked, "So you are the descendants of the former Sect Master?"

"No, their bloodline died out long ago. Young people can't endure the life here, so we only find people in their forties or fifties who are willing to spend their whole lives guarding this mountain ravine to pass down the trade. The Qingyi Sect actually has ancestral precepts requiring descendants never to abandon this broken place for generation after generation."

"Are there any bookshelves left behind?"

"What bookshelves?"

"Bookshelves that have existed for several hundred years without rotting."

"I think there are some. I've seen them in the ledgers. Follow me." Leading Sun Zikai, the girl entered the second room, pulled an old chest out from a cabinet, and opened it to take out some ledgers. Brushing off the dust, she picked one out and said, "These are items from a hundred years ago. Because things were stolen so badly back then, the administrator at the time kept a record of what was left and then locked all those items away in the last four rooms."

Flipping through a few pages, the girl said, "Look, it's right here: One damaged wooden rack."

"One? Only one?"

"Yeah, there must have been plenty a long time ago, but they rotted away long ago. Only one didn't rot, and it's still broken—oh, I remember seeing it when I went inside as a child, it has a hole missing in it."

"Take me to see it."

"Alright." The girl first delivered the food box to her father, then retrieved the keys and led Sun Zikai to the eighth room.

As soon as the door was opened, a pungent, spicy odor rushed out. The things inside had been stored for too long, and most of them had decayed.

Sun Zikai silently summoned a gust of wind to sweep into the room. The sky had already grown dark, and the girl, holding an oil lamp, led him inside.

The contents of the room were eclectic: gong sticks, whetstones, half a wooden bed frame, and even a hanging noose... The girl even specially emphasized that someone had actually hanged themselves with that rope.

After searching for only a short while, the two spotted the wooden rack. Sure enough, a chunk was missing from it. As soon as Sun Zikai stretched out his hand and touched it, a dense surge of energy seemed to awaken something within the rack.

Sun Zikai instantly sensed multiple elemental energies within the wood, which originated from the same source as the patch on the Dusky Dust Sect's artifact.

He saw a complete energy matrix inscribed upon the rack. That was actually spiritual intent, brought to an extremely high degree of spiritual refinement, approaching the level of pure energy. It resembled a sealing technique; only by breaking the seal could the secrets within the rack be unlocked. For anyone else, this was an impossible task—not even masters of major sects could accomplish it, for none of them had reached the level of perceiving spiritual intent. Yet in Sun Zikai's eyes, it was merely a simple spell that could be unsealed with a gentle nudge.

Sun Zikai said, "I'm buying this." He once again produced the seventy wen.

"What use is this broken rack anyway? Besides, it's not worth that much."

"Sell it to me. Is this enough?"

"I have to go ask my father first. Wait here." The girl ran out, and before long, ran back with a look of disappointment on her face. "My father said the sect has rules: it's not for sale. You can only look at it here; you can't take it out."

"Very well, I'll stay here for the night then."

The girl hesitated slightly, but when Sun Zikai placed all seventy wen into her hands, she felt a bit more at ease. She had been afraid Sun Zikai might steal something, but all the items in this room combined were not even worth twenty wen.

The girl promised to return the money to him first thing in the morning, and then went back to fetch a bedding roll to place inside the room. As soon as the girl left, Sun Zikai immediately pulled the wooden rack forward. Sensing that no one was around, he grabbed the core of the energy spell and gave it a gentle twist. The spell instantly unlocked.

The wooden panels began to change color, gradually decomposing to reveal a box. Sun Zikai was utterly perplexed, because just moments ago, beneath that wood panel had clearly been solid timber with no other objects present. This was wrong—the object hadn't been hidden using a sealing spell; rather, through some arcane method, it had been teleported here out of thin air, much like the bracelets belonging to Jiang Yujin and Wen Yiru. This had to be spatial sorcery.

Upon opening the box, Sun Zikai discovered an old ledger. As he reached out to touch it, a wave of anxiety gripped his heart. This was not his own stray thought, but rather his mind being manipulated by the ledger.

Resisting the unease, he opened the first page and instantly vanished from the room.

He stood amidst the ruins of a dilapidated sect, with a fallen plaque resting beside him bearing the inscribed characters—*Fengyang Sect*.