Around two or three in the morning, Lin Yuan arrived at the southern entrance of Sanqing Mountain, barely a hundred meters from the tourist service center near the Waishuangxi Cableway.
At this hour, there was no one around. Only through the service center's windows could he faintly see figures moving inside.
Sanqing Mountain was open all day and night, since quite a few tourists climbed the mountain at night to watch the sunrise.
The "Jade Talisman Grand Ceremony" would be held tomorrow. Lin Yuan checked a group-buying app on his phone and found that every hotel and guesthouse within thirty miles was already fully booked.
There were tents for sale nearby, but Lin Yuan had no intention of wasting that money. Instead, he found a spot, sat cross-legged, and closed his eyes to rest.
He did not know how much time had passed when he faintly heard a rustling sound from the woods beside him.
At first, he assumed it was merely the wind and did not find it unusual.
But then a faint whistle suddenly came from behind his head. By the time he reacted, whatever had made the sound had already struck the back of his head.
Lin Yuan's eyes flew open. He spun around and saw a chestnut lying on the ground.
He bent down and picked it up, warily scanning his surroundings, but found nothing suspicious.
"Could the wind have blown it here?"
"But there aren't any chestnut trees nearby."
Lin Yuan sat back down, propping his chin up with one hand while carefully examining the chestnut in the other.
The chestnut was very small, clearly a wild one.
Just as Lin Yuan was pondering this, another similar whistle suddenly came from behind his head.
"Again?"
Having already been hit once, Lin Yuan naturally could not be hit a second time.
He tilted his head to the left and instantly raised his right hand, catching the chestnut thrown at him.
Now he could be certain. This definitely was not the wind. Something was deliberately messing with him.
Lin Yuan turned around, his eyes fixed on the direction from which the chestnuts had come.
It was a pitch-black patch of woods. With the naked eye's night vision alone, he could not see what was inside.
Lin Yuan was highly skilled and fearless. He wanted to see what was playing tricks on him, so he immediately strode into the woods.
He had only gone a few meters when a commotion suddenly came from a tree to the northeast.
The next moment, several chestnuts shot toward his face.
Although Lin Yuan could not see them, someone at his level of martial arts had exceptionally sharp senses and was highly sensitive to changes around him.
He immediately waved his hand,
knocking the chestnuts to the ground.
At the same time, a shrill sound reached his ears.
"Chitter, chitter, chitter."
Lin Yuan followed the sound. Only with the help of the moonlight could he make out the culprit who had been tormenting him with chestnuts.
A wild monkey!
It was squatting on a tree five or six meters tall, grinning at Lin Yuan. Not only that, it would occasionally turn around and present its bright-red rear to him.
Its mockery was utterly blatant.
"You stinking monkey! You actually dared to mess with your Grandpa Lin Yuan!"
Lin Yuan's face darkened as he threw the chestnut in his hand at it.
Although he had never learned how to throw darts, his minute control over his strength still made the chestnut extremely accurate.
Unfortunately, the monkey was no pushover. With its tail wrapped around the trunk, it dropped its body and dodged the chestnut.
Hanging upside down from the trunk, the monkey kept making faces at Lin Yuan, its mockery growing even more pronounced.
This monkey was undeniably clever, but it had an infuriatingly provocative appearance.
His first attack had missed, so Lin Yuan immediately strode toward the tree where it was perched.
Seeing him approach, the wild monkey was not anxious in the slightest. It seemed certain that this man could not catch it in the tree.
The mockery on its face did not fade. Instead, it began waving its limbs around.
"Chitter-chitter, chitter-chitter~"
But when it saw Lin Yuan climb the tree in three steps, grab a branch above him, flip his body, and leap onto a nearby branch, it froze.
"Chitter, chitter!"
Lin Yuan gave a cold laugh. "Stinking monkey, weren't you acting pretty arrogant just now?"
Seeing that things were going badly, the monkey instantly leaped away and grabbed a branch jutting from a nearby tree, intending to escape.
Lin Yuan followed close behind. He planted both feet on the main trunk of the tree he was on, lightly stepped twice, and launched himself like a carp leaping over the Dragon Gate onto the tree the monkey had fled toward.
The monkey did not dare stop. Without even looking back, it climbed and leaped through the mountain woods.
Lin Yuan's speed did not decrease either. He shifted and vaulted through the trees, moving no slower than the monkey.
If it had not been night, with the poor visibility, Lin Yuan would have caught that stinking monkey long ago.
Thus, one man chased while one monkey fled.
The direction they were heading in was precisely toward One Line Sky on Sanqing Mountain.
After an unknown amount of time, the monkey suddenly dashed out of the woods and climbed a huge slab of blue-gray stone on all fours.
The stone was shaped like an egg, untouched by human carving and covered in moss.
About two meters above the stone's upper-left side, an ancient pine grew horizontally from a crack in the rock.
The pine was about as thick as a bowl. An old man in a tattered Daoist robe lay across its trunk. He was lying on his side, using one bent arm as a pillow while the other reached straight down to rub his navel. One leg was extended and the other curled up, his body shaped like a dog crouching or a dragon coiling.
The old man had his back to Lin Yuan, and Lin Yuan could faintly hear his snoring.
After the wild monkey arrived, all traces of panic vanished from its expression. It climbed onto the pine and looked provocatively at Lin Yuan.
It was as if it had found its backer.
But at that moment, Lin Yuan no longer cared about the wild monkey. From the instant he saw the old man, his gaze had not left him.
Lin Yuan leaped down from the five- or six-meter-high tree without making the slightest sound.
When the wild monkey saw him walking toward it, it repeatedly cried "chitter" as a warning.
The sleeping old man seemed to sense the commotion as well and woke from his dream.
He slowly rose from the tree trunk and stretched lazily.
Then he began to chant:
"I love to sleep, I love to sleep. No felt mat beneath me, no quilt above. A slab of stone for a pillow, a straw rain cape for bedding.
When thunder cracks and lightning flashes, ghosts and gods are startled, yet I sleep soundly through it all.
Idly I think of Zhang Liang; when bored I ponder Fan Li. What need have I for Meng De? Do not speak to me of Liu Bei.
Those three or four gentlemen merely fight over a little pointless anger. How could that compare with me atop the green mountain, amid heaps of white clouds, relaxing my brow, freeing my belly, and sleeping soundly? What do I care whether the jade rabbit rises in the east or the red sun sinks in the west?"
Lin Yuan listened quietly. Although the old man's accent made some of the words difficult to hear, he could still sense the carefree, transcendent spirit within them.
The old man looked up at the wild monkey in the tree and scolded it, "You troublesome monkey, you're always causing trouble for me."
"Chitter, chitter."
The wild monkey seemed to be explaining something. It cried out while waving its arms animatedly in front of him.
The old man wore an expression as though he understood.
Then he jumped down from the tree and landed on the huge blue-gray stone.
Only then did Lin Yuan get a clear look at the man's true appearance.
Although the old man's beard and hair were completely white, his complexion was ruddy and his eyes shone brightly. His body was straight as a pine, without the slightest stoop.
If he put on clean white clothes, tidied his face, fixed his nest-like hair, and tied it into a Daoist topknot, he would truly have the bearing of an immortal.
Yet he was a complete mess. He was barefoot, draped in a loose, tattered Daoist robe, with his chest and navel exposed and a gourd hanging from his waist.
Lin Yuan studied him, and the old man studied Lin Yuan in turn.
There was a red glow at his heavenly court, and thunder seemed to flicker in his eyes. His aura was as deep as an abyss, and his body was shaped like that of a tiger or leopard.
"This can't be... How could such an appearance exist in a young man?"
The disheveled old man seemed to have witnessed something unbelievable. He hurriedly leaped down from the stone.
Then he walked around Lin Yuan, examining him from head to toe.
"Not leaking, not overflowing, your entire body perfectly unified. Wonderful. Bizarre."
"Little one, how old are you this year?"
Lin Yuan looked at the strange man before him and asked, "Daoist Priest, are you cultivating here on Sanqing Mountain?"
"Young man, how rude. I asked you first, so how can you turn around and question me?"
"If we're talking about rudeness, it should be your troublesome monkey."
The wild monkey was truly full of spirit. The moment Lin Yuan spoke ill of it, it seemed to understand him and immediately bared its teeth at him.
The disheveled old man instantly denied any connection. "That troublesome monkey? What does it have to do with this old Daoist?"
"You dare say that monkey isn't yours?"
Lin Yuan had witnessed the intimate way the old man and the wild monkey interacted just moments ago.
"Young friend, you're mistaken. It's a monkey, born of nature and raised by nature. I'm a human. How could I raise it?"
"In that case, Daoist Priest, please stay right here. I'll deal with it first, then answer your question."
With that, he leaped onto the huge blue-gray stone and headed toward the ancient pine.
When the wild monkey saw Lin Yuan approaching, its earlier arrogance, bolstered by its human backer, immediately wilted. Panic replaced it.
Its eyes darted toward the disheveled old Daoist, as if begging for help.
The old man immediately gave it a meaningful glance. The wild monkey understood at once, leaped forward from the tree, and landed directly on the old man's shoulder.
By the time Lin Yuan turned around to chase it,
the old man had already taken off with the monkey. He sprinted along the mountain path ahead and vanished in the blink of an eye.
In the end, the old man's voice rang out through the mountains, deep as a great bell.
"Young friend, why bother quarreling with a wild monkey?"
Before you continue