The mountain was high and the road long, so Chen Shi'an still escorted Uncle Lin down in person.
Lin Ming had not forgotten to give Chen Shi'an a generous New Year's red envelope, either.
After the two left, only Lin Meng Qiu and Fat Cat remained in the Taoist Temple.
Without her father beside her, the girl immediately felt much more at ease. Peeling a roasted tangerine and eating it in small bites, she leisurely toured the little temple again on her own.
Pure Dust Temple had three halls and four side rooms, along with a kitchen, a study, an altar platform, and a meditation room, all compactly and harmoniously arranged.
The doors to the rooms were all left ajar rather than shut, so Lin Meng Qiu curiously peeked into each one.
Strangely enough, if this had been any ordinary day, she would certainly have been scared to stay alone in a temple hidden in the mountain woods. Yet she felt nothing of the sort at Pure Dust Temple. Even the statues, incense burners, and posted talismans did not frighten her; instead, they gave her a sense of peace in body and mind.
Pushing open the half-closed door to Chen Shi'an's room, Lin Meng Qiu looked around curiously.
His room was not large. Almost everything she could see was wooden furniture: a hard plank bed about as wide as a student dorm bed, a wardrobe, a desk, and a hardwood daybed beside the desk.
A bundle of old clothes had been curled into a nest on the daybed. Shi Mo probably usually slept there.
She was half right. Fat Cat did sleep on the daybed in summer, but when it grew cold, Fat Cat went to sleep by the stove-
With Chen Shi'an absent, Lin Meng Qiu felt too embarrassed