Laying the Foundation III

Yao Qing dragged his younger sister Yao Yuanhui, both of them covered in blood, as they ran through the forest with difficulty.

Bursts of barking came from behind them from time to time, neither too close nor too far. The sound neither approached nor receded, as though it were simply dangling the two of them on a line.

"Brother... I... can't run... anymore..." Although Yao Yuanhui usually practiced martial arts as well, she was ultimately somewhat delicate. As a woman, her stamina was lacking, and after running continuously for over an hour, she had already pushed herself to the brink.

Their bodies were covered in wounds torn open by wolfhounds. Their legs and hands were a bloody mess. Though they had applied hemostatic powder, blood still continued to seep out.

"You have to run even if you can't!" Yao Qing said impatiently, pulling his sister onward as they staggered ahead.

The two rounded a small stream and sprinted wildly downstream along its course. They stumbled along, occasionally falling, and the pebbles and gravel on the ground scraped their knees and calves into an even worse mess. The pain was unbearable.

After running for several minutes, the two suddenly froze, slowed their steps, and looked ahead.

There, by the stream and the grassy bank, a middle-aged man sat upright atop a huge bluestone.

His brows were streaked with white, and he wore a Dark Daoist Robe. He held a slender fishing rod in one hand, his eyes closed as he fished.

He sat there as if dead, utterly motionless.

"Could this man be here to intercept us too?!"

Yao Qing was now like a startled bird at the mere twang of a bowstring. They had been blocked and pursued all the way here; whenever he encountered anyone, he had to wonder whether they were some fierce fellow sent to kill them.

Seeing this strange man now, fishing alone beside a stream in this desolate wilderness, Yao Qing grew even more suspicious. The area was filled with ferocious beasts and venomous insects. If he were an ordinary person, at most he would be gathering herbs or chopping wood. Those who truly fished would go to safe, orderly lakes or riverbanks, not here.

Anyone capable of fishing here was likely no ordinary person.

At that thought, Yao Qing's heart sank.

"Could he be here to catch us too?"

Yao Yuanhui also wore an expression of terror and unease.

"Let's go around him from the side."

Then she heard faint barking from behind them again. Clearly, their pursuers were catching up.

"Young friends."

As they spoke, the two saw the Daoist slowly rise from the bluestone and casually set his fishing rod aside.

"You look terribly bedraggled. Did you perhaps encounter some fierce beast or venomous insect deep in the mountains?" the Daoist said with a smile. For some reason, although his smile was clearly gentle, it gave off an intensely vicious air, as if one were standing beside a rabid beast that might suddenly spring up and kill at any moment.

"Daoist..." Yao Qing did not dare lower his guard. "Are you here to fish, or to fish for people?" His words carried a double meaning.

"Naturally, I fish for both people and fish."

The middle-aged Daoist smiled faintly, but his answer was extraordinarily direct.

He was Lin Xin, who had been staying in this desolate wilderness for several days.

At that moment, Lin Xin's gaze fell upon the young girl beside Yao Qing, Yao Yuanhui.

"I have an affinity with this young lady, and have come to take an item from her person. If you have any requests, you may use that as an exchange and ask this poor Daoist to resolve them for you."

The two were slightly shaken. The other party clearly saw how wretched they were, yet he was unafraid of inviting trouble and made such a strange request.

Could he be a bandit? Yao Qing's heart twitched, but he swiftly asked aloud, "May I ask what item you want from my sister?"

"A little door like this."

Lin Xin took a small silver door from his sleeve. It was only palm-sized, miniature and exquisitely crafted.

"Ah!"

Yao Yuanhui immediately cried out.

"You have that thing on you?"

Yao Qing urgently asked.

"I... I do. I picked one up in the grass beside the road... I thought it was a toy, but..." Yao Yuanhui was also stunned and bewildered, unable to understand what was happening. She quickly removed her backpack and took out an identical little door. It was silver as well, with a single eye carved above the doorframe, giving it a distinctly Foreign Land air.

"Daoist, if I give this item back to you, can you help us shake off the pursuers behind us?"

Yao Yuanhui now realized that this thing truly was no ordinary object. It was probably something the man before them had dropped. Thinking of all the strange wonders it had displayed before, she immediately understood that this was a good opportunity.

Lin Xin smiled.

"Certainly."

The higher one's cultivation rose, the more one valued the unseen threads of karma.

If one wished to obtain something, one had to pay something in return. He had always done his best to uphold such principles, lest he go against his own heart.

At those words, the brother and sister both felt slightly reassured.

Yao Yuanhui directly flicked her hand and tossed the little door toward Lin Xin.

Smack.

Lin Xin reached out and caught it, looking somewhat astonished.

She had simply handed it over? Were they not afraid that he would go back on his word and turn around to leave?

Looking again at the brother and sister, their eyes were filled with earnestness. Clearly, they had never even considered such a possibility.

These two fledglings.

Lin Xin shook his head and laughed.

"Aren't you afraid that after taking the item, I'll turn around and leave?"

He asked directly.

"Uh..."

Only then did the brother and sister remember that possibility, and their expressions immediately became rather ugly.

But Yao Yuanhui still stubbornly kept up a stiff upper lip even after death, forcing herself to say,

"We believe you're not that kind of person, Daoist!"

Even she herself did not quite believe what she was saying.

Lin Xin was instantly speechless.

Suddenly, a burst of urgent barking came from behind them.

Several burly men in fitted clothes rushed out of the forest, each leading black hunting hounds. Cold smiles hung on their faces.

"Run! Why aren't you running now? I'd like to see what damned place you can run to!"

The leader had a face full of flesh. He held a black hound in one hand and a golden-ringed saber in the other, his eyes sinister and vicious.

"Golden Saber Bear Guo Jing!"

Yao Qing recognized him at a glance. This was none other than the villain who had killed his mother and maidservant that night.

His eyes instantly reddened, and his fists clenched tight. If his sister had not been at his side, he might have dared to charge forward and fight this man to the death alone.

"Yo? You still dare glare at me? If you want someone to blame, blame yourselves for seeing my secret that night!" Golden Saber Bear Guo Jing cackled strangely. "Everyone who knows I have three balls is already dead!"

Lin Xin's expression turned strange as he stood to one side, forcefully suppressing his laughter.

Guo Jing...

This fellow was actually called Guo Jing too... and he had three balls...

This was the first time Lin Xin had encountered such a situation, and he suddenly found this man somewhat adorable.

He felt a little reluctant to strike.

"Move! Keep the woman alive! Kill everyone else!"

Guo Jing glanced at Lin Xin and ignored him entirely. Carrying his golden-ringed saber, he led the group of men in a direct charge at the Yao siblings.

"Daoist!"

The Yao siblings had long since run out of strength. Seeing this, they were terrified and hurriedly cried out.

Lin Xin smiled.

He casually plucked a green leafy twig and tossed it forward.

Whoosh!

The twig shot out like lightning, reaching Golden Saber Bear Guo Jing and his men in an instant.

Golden Saber Bear Guo Jing's heart lurched. He had not expected it to be so fast, and hurriedly raised his saber to block.

Pfft!

In an instant, the twig suddenly fragmented and exploded, transforming into dozens of gray streaks that shot outward and blossomed in midair into a beautiful flower slowly opening.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The instant the flower bloomed, blood sprayed from all over Golden Saber Bear Guo Jing and his men. They stood rooted in place, each person riddled with dozens of bloody wounds.

Golden Saber Bear Guo Jing, the sturdiest among them, had been struck the most. His entire body was like a sieve, blasted through with seventy or eighty Blood Caves.

He stopped halfway through his charge, his eyes filled with disbelief.

"Such... such a powerful hidden weapon..."

After uttering those final words, he fell backward onto the ground.

The other dozen or so men, together with their hunting hounds, all collapsed without even a groan. In that single instant, they had died in a crisscrossed heap.

Scarlet blood and the smell of rust instantly spread throughout the entire patch of grass.

Yao Yuanhui and Yao Qing had both gone pale.

Looking at the corpses scattered across the ground, they no longer even had the courage to raise their heads and look at Lin Xin.

When they had first seen this Daoist, they had thought him a righteous master, fair and indifferent.

But now, looking at the corpses carpeting the ground and that miraculous yet incomparably bloody flower of hidden weapons from earlier—

Wave after wave of chill rose within their hearts.

Had they escaped the wolf's den only to meet a starving tiger?

Yao Qing's heart trembled. Though he lacked experience in the martial world, his eye for things remained.

That hidden weapon technique from just now was likely an ultimate art that no one in the martial world had ever even heard of.

"Young friends, since our exchange has concluded, this poor Daoist shall not disturb you any longer." Lin Xin was also preparing to leave.

Now that he had obtained the Bewildering Gate here, he inspected it and found that it had only been used once. His original Bewildering Gate could not be used because its passageway had been fixed.

This Bewildering Gate happened to have two uses remaining. That might represent a World Stabilizing Stone from an entirely new little world.

In his excellent mood, he failed to notice that he had struck too ruthlessly, utterly lacking the restrained demeanor a righteous cultivator ought to have.

Yao Qing could not wait for him to leave.

Lin Xin turned to go, one foot just lifting from the ground.

"Please wait, Daoist!"

Yao Yuanhui suddenly called out.

"Hmm?"

Lin Xin turned back, only to see Yao Yuanhui kneel before him.

"Please show mercy, Daoist, and save my father and the others."

Yao Yuanhui's voice was mournful and piercing. Clearly, she had recalled the tragedy that had taken place at the Yao residence that night.

"Save people?"

Lin Xin could now faintly sense traces of where the threads of karmic affinity lay.

Thinking back on it now, the fact that the Bewildering Gate could actually be picked up by someone from grass beside the road was a stroke of fortune unmatched under heaven.

He focused and looked at the girl again.

He immediately felt that a dense, inexplicable aura faintly coiled around her.

Could this girl be one of the current Children of Fortune?

A guess arose in his heart.

Children of Fortune were nodes within the great tide of the world. There would always be some, more or less. These nodes could affect and transform the situation, or drive the larger course of events forward, regardless of whether those changes were good or bad, righteous or evil.

Whenever one of these nodes fell upon a person, that person became what was known as a Child of Fortune.

All kinds of fateful ties and karmic causes tangled around them. Before they completed the task of their node, they would not easily die.

As nodes, they were swept up and propelled by the force of the greater tide.

To shake them was to shake the great tide of the world. Tug one hair, and the whole body moved; one would inevitably suffer backlash from the greater tide.

This was what was known as a Child of Fortune.

And Lin Xin could now vaguely perceive such invisible power.

Sensing carefully, his heart settled.

"She truly is a Child of Fortune. I just don't know whether she is the only one."