Lanke Chess Edge
Chapter 160: Staying In Yun Mountain

No matter how unbelievable it seemed to be, only this small paper crane had arrived at this temple. The Dragon Daughter thought for a moment, then wrapped Ji Yuan’s hair around the paper crane’s neck again.

The main door of the temple gently closed on its own after Ying Ruoli left, and no one in the entire River God Temple noticed the intrusion.

The Dragon Daughter walked directly from the temple to the water. She did not swim underwater in her dragon body, but instead used her human form to quickly travel downstream at the bottom of the river.

In the meantime, she carefully observed the paper crane, which she had surrounded in a bubble.

Of course, the Dragon Daughter didn’t know the correct term for it, she just thought it was a pretty little paper bird. She even had the urge to test whether this paper bird would get wet in the water, but she restrained herself.

As the primary deity of the Tongtian River, she traveled very fast through the water, and arrived back at the underwater palace in no time at all.

Putting the paper crane in her sleeve, Ying Ruoli quickly moved towards the back of the underwater palace, passing through several courtyard gates, and finally came to the door of a dark underwater grotto.

Two green-faced Yakshas stood guard holding spears. When they saw the Dragon Daughter approaching, they immediately bowed and clasped their fists in unison.

“Lord River Goddess!”

“Yes! Please feel free, River Goddess!”

Ying Ruoli nodded to the two Yakshas and walked into the grotto by herself.

She passed through the deep cave, the terrain continuously sloping downhill. She traveled about eight or nine li before the view in front of her finally became bright.

It was a spacious underwater grotto sand pool. Jellyfish-like creatures swam around, casting their own magical light. An enormous true dragon lay on the sand, its dragon whiskers swaying from time to time.

“Father, there is a letter from Uncle Ji.”

The dragon’s eye opened, revealing an amber sliver, and the old dragon’s voice sounded.

“Bring it here.”

“Yes!”

The Dragon Daughter took out the paper crane from her sleeve, and it floated quietly in its bubble towards the old dragon.

“Hmm?”

He thought it was a letter; he didn’t expect it to be this kind of “letter.” The Old Dragon suddenly found it quite interesting. His whole body was slightly raised, and his pair of glowing amber eyes brought more light to the dim sand pool.

As if stimulated by the dragon’s gaze, several large clam shells in the sand pool slowly opened, revealing the pearls inside. Suddenly, the entire deep pool became clearer and brighter, as if a light had suddenly turned on.

The old dragon’s two huge eyes converged on this little paper crane. He observed it as he asked his daughter more questions.

“This is a letter from Ji Yuan? He folded a paper bird? Was there anything else?”

“To answer you, Father, this paper bird flew into the hand of my statue in the temple. There was nothing else aside from this, and this bird can truly fly.”

As the Dragon Daughter spoke this sentence, she stretched out her hands to either side and mimed the flapping of wings, indicating that this bird was not floating through the air by absorbing spiritual energy, but instead was able to fly by flapping its own wings. There was a fundamental difference between these two actions.

“Interesting, Ji Yuan always brings surprises!”

The Dragon Daughter smiled, and reminded her father.

“Father, the hair around the paper bird’s neck is some kind of message activation technique. You can read the letter by removing the hair. Your daughter didn’t know about this before, and accidentally read it it first. Please don’t blame me, ok?”

The true dragon glanced at the Dragon Daughter, and his huge body glowed with white light. It shrank in an illusion and transformed into an old man, Ying Hong’s human form.

“Let me just take a look at it.”

As he spoke, the Old Dragon lightly stretched out a hand, and the hair on the paper crane’s neck automatically floated to the side.

At this moment, the paper crane actually flapped its wings twice, and approached the old dragon in the air bubble.

“Wow, it really can fly by itself.”

The Old Dragon smiled and stretched out his hand, letting the paper crane, which had been moving through the water with difficulty, fall into his palm. The remaining spiritual energy on the paper crane presented all of the contents recorded in its body to the Old Dragon’s mind.

Ying Ruoli concentrated on observing her father’s expression. Sure enough, she saw what she had been expecting after a while.

The left side of the Old Dragon’s beard tilted up slightly. He spoke with a surprised expression on his face.

“Bing Province, Changhuan Prefecture? This little thing flew from so far away?”

One couldn’t guess about how other dragon lineages worked, but the Ying family would often go out to travel, control the clouds, and spread rain. They had a thorough understanding of the geography of Dazhen, and were very clear about the distance between these two locations.

However, after expressing his surprised, the Old Dragon merely smiled at his daughter.

“Okay, I have received the letter. You may take your leave.”

“Alright, this daughter will be going now!”

The Dragon Daughter bowed lightly and left the sand pool where her father had been napping.

After the Dragon Daughter left, the old dragon immediately lowered his head and studied the paper crane in his palm carefully. He couldn’t help but poke it a few times, then picked it up, flipped it up and down, and shook it twice, as if to check whether there was some kind of precious pearl or treasure hidden inside.

“How strange! Could it be because of this hair?”

The old dragon took out Ji Yuan’s hair and inspected it carefully, but still couldn’t detect anything. However, when he let go again, the hair floated out of the cave along with the current. It seemed as though it were drifting with the flow of the water without any force, but it gave off a strange feeling of intentionality, and soon disappeared into the darkness in the depths of the water.

The Old Dragon frowned. He hesitated for a moment but did not move, letting the hair go. He then continued to study the paper crane in his hand.

The spiritual energy used to convey information through objects had disappeared, as if the father and daughter’s two “readings” of this letter had exhausted the power of the paper crane. However, the Old Dragon was of the opinion that this paper crane would likely not turn back into an ordinary piece of paper.

He carefully controlled and transferred some spiritual energy into the paper crane. Sure enough, the paper crane began to flap its wings again. Following the path of his own spiritual energy, he finally discovered the two hidden words on the paper crane’s wings, and also understood the paper bird had been folded.

The old dragon grinned, as if discovering these hidden secrets were quite remarkable achievements.

. . .

At the top of Yun Mountain’s Yanxia Peak, Ji Yuan finished watching the sunrise and completed his training under the morning glow. Then, he descended the peak and returned to Cloud Mountain Temple.

Qi Wen had dressed and washed up, and was now arranging the poles and buckets put on his clothes and finished washing, and was arranging his shoulder pole and buckets at the entrance to the kitchen from the courtyard, preparing to go down the mountain to fetch water. When he turned around, he found Ji Yuan standing in the inner courtyard of the temple.

“Good morning, Mr. Ji! Are you up too? I didn’t hear your door open.”

“Good morning, Taoist Priest Qi Wen. In fact, I got up earlier than you, and I have already gone out for a walk.”

Qi Wen suddenly understood.

“By the way, Mr. Ji, there is porridge cooking in the kitchen pot. It should be ready while I go fetch water from the bottom of the mountain. I’ll be heading out first.”

“Can I be of any help?”

Ji Yuan took a look at the two buckets. They were larger than the buckets he had used in the small pavilion on Tian Nui Lane. It must be very tiring to carry them up the mountain, particularly as there was a very long stretch of mountain trail without any stairs going down from Cloud Mountain Temple.

“No, no, you can just take a seat. I’m used to running errands, so I can make the round trip in no time.”

Qi Wen quickly refused, and hurried out of the yard with the empty buckets.

Ji Yuan walked over and gently closed the courtyard door. He then moved to the kitchen. The charcoal in the stove was burning faintly, and the fire was not very strong. He opened the other kitchen door and glanced at the place where he had hung the fish tail the night before. There was now only a piece of straw rope rope left, which seemed to have had a hole bitten straight through it.

Based on the scenery outside, Cloud Mountain Temple was located just above the cloud line for the mountain range. From Ji Yuan’s current point of view looking down, all he could see was a sea of white clouds only a dozen feet down, making Yunshan Temple truly look like an immortal landscape in the sky. The Taoists who had built Cloud Mountain Temple really knew how to choose an excellent location.

. . .

The pace of life of ordinary people in this world was very slow, and this was particularly true for Cloud Mountain Temple, especially since, in the few days that Taoist Qingsong was drunk and asleep, there was no need for them to go down the mountain to sell their fortune-telling.

However, Qi Wen was still very worried about his master’s health. From the third day onwards, he kept asking Ji Yuan when Taoist Qingsong would wake up.

Fortunately, Qi Xuan woke up on his own in the early morning of the fifth day.

At this time, Qi Wen happened to have gone down the mountain to fetch more water. Ji Yuan was sitting on a cushion under the star map in the main hall of the temple, reading the “Imperial Discourse.” book in his hand. The spiritual energy in this mountain was like a misty fog invisible to the naked eye, that gathered around the entire Cloud Mountain Temple. At this moment, he noticed that Taoist Qingsong was awake.

Taoist Qingsong felt like he had experienced a very long dream, the content of which was so chaotic that he couldn’t remember any of it clearly. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the ceiling of the room.

“It’s already dawn! Was I really drunk?”

Qi Xuan slept for almost five days, but he didn’t feel lethargic at all; instead he felt refreshed.

He threw back the quilt, stood up from the bed, and stretched at his waist, feeling his muscles and bones pop. He felt relaxed all over, but his mouth was quite dry.

He walked to the table inside the room and weighed the large ceramic teapot in one hand. It was full.

Qi Xuan poured himself a cup of tea and drank it in one gulp. Still feeling thirsty, he poured himself another cup. Finally, he tipped the spout of the teapot into his mouth and drank all the liquid directly from the teapot in one breath.

“Haaah… I feel much more comfortable! What kind of wine did Mr. Ji give me to drink?”

As he talked to himself, Taoist Qingsong suddenly seemed to think of something. He stretched out his left palm to divine carefully, and his expression changed from dull to astonished.

“Could it be that… immortals really have the elixir of life?”

What Qi Xuan found even more mysterious was that he could clearly see that his lifespan was now much longer, but he could no longer see anything else about his future clearly. It felt like he was looking at flowers through fog; although he could not see them clearly, he knew that there was beautiful scenery in front of him.

“Haha! As far as I know, there is no such thing as an elixir of life in this world. Good morning, Taoist Qingsong!”

Ji Yuan’s clear and peaceful voice came from the door, bringing Taoist Qingsong back to his senses. He turned to the door with a grateful smile.

“Good morning, Mr. Ji. I was too drunk last night, and must have made a food of myself. Did you rest well last night?”

“I slept pretty well!”

Ji Yuan chuckled.

“I would like to borrow some precious space here to practice for a while. Would you be willing?”

“Of course, feel free to ask for anything. You just stay here, hahaha…”

Anyone would be in a good mood to knew that they would not be dying early. Taoist Qingsong just felt that the air in the mountains was fresher and more pleasant to breathe, as if every breath were invigorating his five internal organs.

T/n: Happy New Year!!!