In an unnamed scenic maple grove in Northern Qian Province, Li Ling walked slowly beneath a paper umbrella.
All around him, countless mountains blazed red, their outlines veiled in mist and rain, like a maiden in her chamber draped in a thin white gauze.
Fresh rain had fallen on the empty mountain, tinting the peaks a dark blue-green. Occasional cries of birds and beasts drifted through the layered cliffs and ridges, making the surroundings seem all the more vast and desolate.
Li Ling tilted his head slightly, glanced at the winding stone steps above, and continued onward.
Not long before, he had been flying toward the location the Demon Suppression Bureau had reported to Zhu Lisheng. But as he passed this place, a sudden, inexplicable stirring had made him stop and wander the mountains after the fresh rain, as though following a passing whim.
It was an entirely spontaneous impulse, yet it was by no means without a source.
Mighty cultivators understood their hearts and saw their true nature. Their Primordial Spirits resonated with heaven above and humanity below, granting them an inexplicable sensitivity to people and events bound to them by karma.
Li Ling possessed an innate soul anomaly, and his spiritual standing nearly approached that of a peak Nascent Soul cultivator.
He trusted his intuition, so he had descended and wandered at leisure.
The sky around him gradually darkened, yet a faint, mysterious light seemed to flicker in his eyes, and his pace remained unhurried.
Only after a little less than a quarter of an hour did he reach a level stretch near the summit, where a dilapidated Daoist temple appeared before him.
Inside the temple, two people sat facing each other across a campfire.
They were Yao Lingxian and the mysterious figure whose aura never remained constant.