In the desolate mountains, the forest shade was gloomy and sinister. Thunderclouds churned overhead, rumbling dully.
Rain appeared from nowhere, then came pouring down in sheets.
Inside a dilapidated Taoist temple somewhere in the mountains.
Guan Die, Guan Qing, and Yang Jie rushed into the temple in a bedraggled state.
Coming from the forest, they had to circle around a flight of stone steps to enter the temple.
The three of them had been fleeing all the way, nearly losing their sense of direction, when it suddenly began to rain midway through.
It had not rained for who knew how long, yet it had to start pouring at this very moment.
They feared falling ill from the rain. Besides, tracks were difficult to follow in a downpour, and they had run such a long distance that even if someone pursued them, they should have lost the trail.
Moreover, with the rain lashing down, if they kept fleeing while exhausted and strained, their constitutions might not withstand it. They might escape being killed by their pursuers only to fall sick with fever and die instead. That would truly be an injustice.
Thus, taking shelter from the rain in the Taoist temple became their first priority.
The temple was divided into upper and lower sections. The upper section stood on a higher terrace, but the connected rows of single-story rooms all had leaking roofs and could not shield them from the downpour at all.
Only a small hall in the lower section, where the deity statues were enshrined, offered any real cover from the rain.
Guan Die and the other two rushed into the small hall, panting heavily, and sat down in a corner.
The weather had originally been stiflingly hot, but the pouring rain swiftly brought down the temperature. Their clothes