Return to Youth

"Master, are there really immortals in this world?"

Inside the Pure Heart Hall of the Purple Heaven Temple, eight-year-old Li Ji'an looked up, his clear eyes filled with childlike innocence, gazing expectantly at the Hall Master, Liu Deshan.

After a long pause.

"So much like him! Just like my Junior Brother..." Li Ji'an didn't get an answer. Instead, he heard Liu Deshan muttering to himself distractedly.

A nostalgic smile involuntarily appeared on Li Ji'an's lips. He then slightly bowed, not wanting to disturb his former Senior Brother, now his Master.

"Infinite Blessings Heavenly Venerate!" After a moment, Liu Deshan snapped back to attention and picked up the roster again. His previously slightly clouded eyes suddenly became much clearer.

"Your secular name is Li Ji'an?"

Li Ji'an didn't need to answer. As Liu Deshan looked at the information on the roster, his heart skipped a beat.

Three days ago, while he was fasting and cultivating, he heard that a child carrying an artifact from his Junior Brother, Chang'an Zhenren, wished to join his tutelage. Although he was in seclusion and couldn't meet the child, he unhesitatingly instructed someone to admit the child into the Pure Heart Hall as an exception.

As soon as he emerged from seclusion today, he summoned the child.

The first glance had already made him lose himself...

And now, he was almost certain—this must be my Junior Brother's child!

"Hmph, you spouted nonsense, telling me not to marry and have children, talking about 'red powder skeletons' and 'moon in the water, flower in the mirror,' about being alone and living a carefree life, and yet... thankfully I didn't fall for your tricks." Feeling inexplicably refreshed, whether it was knowing his Junior Brother had a successor or finally being able to expose his Junior Brother's flaws, Houde Zhenren Liu Deshan seemed thirty years younger.

"Qingyun, come in." Houde Zhenren, in a great mood, called out towards the hall entrance.

"Disciple greets Master." A plump Daoist boy, about Li Ji'an's age, entered the hall like a rolling ball of flesh and sat on a cushion next to Li Ji'an.

"From now on, this is your Junior Brother. Take good care of him in the future. Never bully him. Treat him as a brother, a close friend." Liu Deshan admonished sternly.

"Huh?" The little chubby Daoist boy clearly hadn't seen Liu Deshan act this way before.

"Oh, right, I haven't given you a Daoist name yet. You... how about calling you Chang'an?" Liu Deshan pondered for a moment, then smiled sweetly. He, who was always known for his steadiness and was in charge of the temple's ideological education, actually showed a hint of slyness on his face.

"Chang'an?" This Senior Brother's wicked sense of humor...

"Thank you, Master, for the name." Li Ji'an bowed deeply.

"Chang'an, this is your Senior Brother Qingyun. From now on, I don't care how you get along with the other disciples in the temple, but with your Senior Brother Qingyun, you must be as close as brothers, sharing each other's joys and sorrows." Liu Deshan instructed again.

Li Ji'an lowered his head and tilted his head slightly, catching sight of the Daoist boy Qingyun looking at him in the same way.

He had glanced at the little chubby boy from afar three days ago and had his suspicions, but now he had no doubts.

The ancestral rules of the Purple Heaven Temple prohibited marriage, but for over a hundred years, this rule had basically become a mere formality. The Purple Heaven Temple was a family temple, passing down teachings from master to disciple, generation after generation. It did not accept outsiders, and after a hundred years, it had become almost entirely hereditary.

From the Abbot down to the various disciples and Daoist boys, most of them had families in the county town about ten miles away.

However, the previous Hall Master of the Pure Heart Hall, their Master Shangshan Zhenren, was an exception. He was pure and detached, cultivating himself alone, and had only taken them as disciples.

"Looking at this boy's age, Senior Brother, I'm afraid you got married before I returned to secular life? Heh."

"Alright, Qingyun, take your Junior Brother to get familiar with the temple and explain some of the rules." Liu Deshan seemed to be in a hurry, not even answering the first question that new disciples had to ask. After hastily sending his two disciples away, he left the Pure Heart Hall with a joyous expression.

The little chubby Daoist boy Qingyun looked plump, but his movements were not slow. He pulled Li Ji'an and reached the corner of the side room wall outside the hall in just a few steps.

"Tell me the truth, are you also Master's son?" The little Qingyun's face was flushed, and he looked a bit wronged, as if he might burst into tears at any moment.

"..." Just like his 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. It seems my mother lied to me. How could Father have other women?"

Li Ji'an raised an eyebrow slightly. His Senior Brother had become mischievous too.

"Alright, then you'll follow me from now on. I'll make sure no one bullies you. Let me tell you a secret, don't tell anyone else. My dad, he's this guy!" The little chubby boy laughed heartily, boasting and giving a thumbs-up, proud to have Liu Deshan as his father.

Good.

Seeing the little chubby boy proud of his father, Li Ji'an felt genuinely happy for Liu Deshan.

To be the pride of one's son, as a father, Senior Brother should be content.

"Junior Brother, this is the Jade Emperor Hall, it's the Abbot's territory. The Abbot is very fierce and stingy, so don't come here unless necessary.

This is the Dharma Propagation Hall. Every time they go down the mountain to perform rituals, there's so much delicious food..."

The Purple Heaven Temple wasn't large. It didn't have the strict hierarchical structure of "three capitals, five lords, and eighteen heads" found in larger temples. There was only one Abbot, five Hall Masters, and fewer than a hundred disciples and Daoist boys in total across all halls.

Returning to this familiar place felt like yesterday.

"Fifty-four years have passed in the blink of an eye!"

Fifty-four years ago, Li Ji'an awakened his past life's memories. At that time, he had already been transmigrated to this world for eight years. Born to a mother, he was eight years old!

The Immortal Bestowed Dynasty, a feudal imperial world he had never heard of before.

The suffering of the common people in a feudal society needs no elaboration.

However, when he awakened his past life's memories back then, Li Ji'an not only didn't lament his fate but was full of confidence. He wasn't even flustered without a system. With his twenty years of experience as a genuine reader, he was an expert at these ancient feudal imperial dramas.

He initially decided to speedrun the game.

As a result, he was force-fed incense ash, talisman water, and the blood of weasels...

It wasn't until he learned of the existence of Martial Artists that he suddenly realized it was a low-martial, leveling-up script.

Hardship, forbearance, and even humiliation were all necessary at the start.

He endured until both his parents died, and his fiancée broke off their engagement. He knew then that his buffs were maxed out, and it was time for him to emerge.

A son selling his father's land without a second thought, he sold all the few acres of fertile land his family had accumulated over generations for silver and went to the town's martial arts school full of high spirits.

The result... he couldn't even get started in a year.

A son of the mountains and fields, he had lived on the brink of starvation since childhood. His body was weak, and he had no money to buy high-quality medicinal baths or tonics. Furthermore, the level of the town's martial arts school was truly limited.

He was even watching his money run out without being able to get started. He practiced martial arts with desperation, but ended up injuring his internal organs, coughing and wheezing incessantly, appearing like a consumptive invalid.

He couldn't survive in town and had no choice but to sheepishly return to the mountain village.

Fortunately, no one wanted his dilapidated house, so he still had a place to stay.

In the end, he became a tenant farmer, living from meal to meal, his hopes dwindling day by day into despair.

He lived in a daze, dejected and dispressed, waiting for a hope he didn't know if he would ever receive... until he turned thirty. Just as he was about to give up all hope of living, he woke up one day and unexpectedly found that all his illnesses had vanished. All the negative conditions of his body, which had been overburdened and weakened by overwork, disappeared. His body had actually returned to the age of eight, when he first awakened his latent wisdom!

And the timeline had not changed.

Fearing he would be dealt with as a demon, he didn't have time to be surprised by the late-arriving golden finger and hurriedly fled the mountain village.

Ancient transportation was inconvenient, and population mobility was even more restricted by checkpoints. In the end, he could only run back to town to seek opportunities.

Alas... before he could even figure out how to use his golden finger, he was captured by human traffickers and mutilated!

Recalling this, Li Ji'an's heart suddenly clenched, and his face turned pale.

Even though twenty-seven years had passed, and he had returned to youth once, and all the physical injuries were cleared, those five years of experience still haunted his nightmares.

Fortunately, at the age of thirteen, in Shangyi County, ten miles from Purple Heaven Temple, Li Ji'an, with one deformed arm and a wound on his back that would never heal and continuously festered, met Shangshan Zhenren, the former Hall Master of Pure Heart Hall at Purple Heaven Temple.

Little Qingyun suddenly turned his head and happened to see the look of terror on Li Ji'an's face.

"Junior Brother, don't be afraid, Senior Brother is here." Clumsily shielding Li Ji'an behind him, Little Qingyun pointed at the statues in the hall and said hurriedly, "They're fake, all fake, just clay figures."

Snapping back from his memories, Li Ji'an looked at Little Qingyun, who was standing in front of him, and a loving smile appeared on his face.

After this incident, Little Qingyun no longer took Li Ji'an around the temple and decisively returned to Pure Heart Hall.

However, as soon as they reached the outside of the Pure Heart Hall's living quarters, Little Qingyun suddenly stopped. He saw a group of Senior Brothers from the temple waiting at the entrance, and among them were Senior Brothers from the Discipline Hall.

"Oh no! Did they find out I spat in the food of the Hall Master of Internal Affairs Hall?" Little Qingyun shivered instantly and instinctively hid behind Li Ji'an.

Swish

Seeing the figures of the two, the group of people surged forward, their faces filled with urgency, completely devoid of the usual tranquility and detachment of Taoists.

"I was wrong, I was wrong, I'll never dare to do it again." Little Qingyun was almost scared to tears, retreated a few steps, and fell to the ground with a plop, covering his head and begging for mercy.

"You..."

However, after waiting for a moment and not receiving any reprimand, nor anyone pulling him, Little Qingyun, in his fear, peeked 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 was instantly relieved.

"They want to bully Junior Brother!" The next moment, he was filled with rage.

"I'll go find my dad." But he himself didn't dare to rush forward to face these fierce people from the Discipline Hall.

"Huh?" Before he could tiptoe away, he saw that all of the group had actually knelt down beside Li Ji'an.

Their faces were no longer urgent, but instead showed affection and tenderness.

He even clearly saw the Senior Brother from the Discipline Hall, who usually had a fierce face, squatting in front of Li Ji'an, gently stroking his head, with faint tears in his eyes...

"He looks... so much like him..."

"Junior Brother... is your name Li Ji'an?"

"Li Jichang, no no, I mean Uncle-Master Chang'an is your..."

"Don't ask what you shouldn't ask!"

"Uncle-Master... is he okay?"

Li Ji'an looked at this group of grown children and smiled with relief.

Because he had experienced the rain and was given an umbrella by his master, he was more willing to hold an umbrella for those who were caught in the rain.

Twenty-seven years ago, after enduring five years of purgatory, he was brought back here by Shangshan Zhenren. He was thirteen that year.

Those five years of experience made him feel that this place was a true paradise, so he settled down peacefully and actively offered suggestions for the development of Purple Heaven Temple. His initial mindset as a transmigrator was immersed in his master's kindness.

During this period, using his knowledge from his previous life, he improved the phosphorescence and smoke special effects for the Dharma Propagation Hall, adding tricks like "grabbing Yin souls with bare hands from a boiling oil pot," "retrieving objects from thin air," and "holding true fire in his mouth." Through methods such as "hiding a letter in a fish's belly," "auspicious signs appearing at Purple Heaven," and "a white jade turtle," he made the originally obscure Purple Heaven Temple a sought-after place among the officials and nobles in Shangyi County, greatly increasing its revenue.

On this foundation, the Abbot agreed to his request to establish a Hall of Compassion 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 Hall of Compassion had been personally rescued by him.

Ten years later...

The oldest child was now in his twenties and had become the Discipline Manager of the Discipline Hall.

A moment later, a group of Taoists bowed three times towards the direction Li Ji'an pointed.

"Junior Brother, you can come to us with any problems from now on."

"No one in the monastery will bully you."

"We're all brothers from now on..."

"Junior Brother... he's actually this amazing? Why?"

Qingyun stared at the scene with wide eyes, not 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 than you are?" Qingyun looked at Li Ji'an with newfound respect and envy.

Water doesn't compete to be first, it competes to flow endlessly!