Once the clouds dispersed and the rain cleared, Xing Yan and Ju Ying steered their bamboo raft through the overlapping lotus leaves and back to shore. After landing, they sat awhile on the blue stone beside the lake to dry their clothes in the sun. Then the boy picked up the bronze toad box from the stone and returned to Thousand Birds Cliff with the girl.
Washed by that misty rain, the mountain scenery before them now looked especially clear and luminous. The brilliantly blue sky almost dazzled their eyes.
On the way back, Xing Yan spotted his fellow disciple Tian Renbao, that devoted treasure hunter, on a slope beside the stone path.
Seeing someone he knew, Xing Yan turned sideways and called a greeting down the slope. Hearing someone above call his name, Tian Renbao found a moment amid his busy work to raise his head and answer:
"Hello! Oh, it's Hall Master Zhang..."
He had barely gotten halfway through his greeting when Xing Yan saw his fellow disciple suddenly go slack-jawed, an utterly entranced expression spreading across his round, plump face. At the sight, Xing Yan inwardly cried trouble and hastily warned him:
"Brother Tian, watch your footing!"
-but it was already too late. Before his words had faded, the Highest Clarity Disciple clinging halfway up the slope had rolled into a round little gourd and tumbled to the foot of the mountain in the blink of an eye!
Fortunately, the slope was not steep, and the spot Tian Renbao had been climbing was not far from its foot. Thus, this accident did not become the second tragic mountain fall in two days. The fallen fellow Daoist paused only briefly at the bottom before getting up, stretching his limbs, and waving a greeting toward them above-
It seemed