"": 200,
"": "",
"": "About three days had passed.
"The snow's melted." Wearing thick monk's robes, Xu Lu stood at the entrance to the Prayer Wheel corridor.
The lamas dispersed.
Usually, Xu Lu left fastest, eager to strip off his monk's robes immediately. These past few days, however, he had been slower.
That day, braving the consequences of karma, Xu Lu had gone to see the Tulku, hoping for some guidance on where Little Gray Spirit had gone.
The Tulku had pointed toward the horizon, then at his eyes.
Not a word. Very Zen indeed.
The meaning was clear enough, too: far on the horizon, yet right before his eyes?
Xu Lu kept searching. Using Yin-Yang Arts to locate rat burrows, he enlisted several lamas to dig up a mound near the temple. Inside was a tangled network of rat tunnels. They even unearthed a nest of baby marmots. After all that effort, he still failed to find any trace of Little Gray Spirit.
If he could not find Little Gray Spirit even when the rat was right before his eyes, then Little Gray Spirit must have been determined not to stay with him. Xu Lu had no other options.
As for Bai Xian, it was not yet time for her to leave.
Xu Lu had no idea how much longer he would have to wait.
He had spent over a decade locked in Kong An's dark prison. What were a few more months to him? Or another year or so?
Although the two of them had not spent every waking moment together, surely some affection should have developed over time? When they returned to the Mountain Gate, if Bai Xian proclaimed that Buddhism had its roots in the Dao, wouldn't those old fellows' jaws and eyeballs