Big Black, dozing belly-up after eating his fill, opened one eye and glanced at the little beggar, somewhat displeased that she had compared those tax collectors and constables to dogs...
Lü Bufan did not respond to that. He merely said, "I'm just a minor Martial Warrior. I can't save all of you. Go... live your lives as best you can. In this world... there will always be people who listen to reason, places where reason can prevail!"
The little beggar knelt on the ground... "I want to find a master and learn martial arts! I want to uphold justice and kill these villains too!"
Lü Bufan smiled helplessly. "Then all the more reason to stay alive. First, lower your head and learn the skills! Then never forget the resolve that made you want to learn today... I still have to find a brother of mine. Besides, I don't have the ability to take you all in!"
The little beggar kowtowed and said softly, "I understand! Thank you, benefactor, for avenging our parents... I'll take them southwest right away. We'll find somewhere to settle eventually! Could you leave us your name?"
Lü Bufan turned to look at this girl of ten or so...
To have kept herself and two little ones alive while struggling through the town and wilderness, she had to be a sharp-minded, resilient girl!
"My name is Lü Bufan! Once, just like you, I was a little beggar wandering from place to place!"
"My name is Ling'er! Feng Ling'er! I'll remember you, benefactor. Take care...!"
The little beggar Feng Ling'er rose, carrying a large bundle of food and holding her two little followers by the hand. She bowed to Lü Bufan once more, then cautiously slipped into the bushes and ran off into the distance.
Lü Bufan's heart clenched...
The big black dog suddenly sneezed!
"Ow!"
A figure tumbled out of a tree, covered in white frost and shivering with cold...
"What are you doing, venerable sir? One look from you and I'd have understood. No need to sneeze!"
Lü Bufan cried out in delight, "Master Huang Jiu!"
A while later, the big black dog lay belly-up and resumed snoring.
Eating the braised meat Lü Bufan eagerly handed him, Huang Jiu said to the little brat with the ingratiating grin, "What? Not going to spar with your master Huang Jiu in Rock-Paper-Scissors anymore?"
Lü Bufan hastily said, "How could I? Betraying our masters and disgracing our ancestors, being disloyal and unfilial-how could anyone from Two Realms Village do such things? It's just that your righteous bearing and heaven-reaching cultivation filled me with admiration..."
"Enough, enough... stop making me sick! You want to ask me to help those three little beggars, don't you? Don't you know what Two Realms Village is like? Do you really think taking them back there would be appropriate?"
Lü Bufan pulled a miserable face. "I understand. That's why I didn't dare think along those lines... but... but..."
Huang Jiu scoffed. "What? Feeling pity? Can't bear it? There are so many people in Huqi Town whose homes were shattered, whose wives and children were scattered! Why don't you save them all?"
"I'm just a minor Martial Warrior! Killing Constable Ma nearly got me beaten to death... how could I save so many people?"
Huang Jiu smiled. "You could ask us, or Big Black, to help."
Lü Bufan looked up and replied, "Back then, wasn't it precisely because you masters wanted to save more people... that you ended up injured and crippled? And Uncle Shameless, the Village Head... he even lost his life. These things... you could surely handle far better than I could! What need would there be for me to worry about them?"
Huang Jiu froze for a moment, then quietly studied this mortal disciple before him.
At some point, the big black dog had opened his eyes. He glanced at Lü Bufan.
Huang Jiu nodded. "All right, I promise... I'll go protect those three children in a moment, then find them somewhere else where they can settle down and learn some skills! That little girl has the makings of a Martial Warrior... her aptitude is actually much better than yours!"
"Huh? Thank you..."
"Get lost! Quit babbling. Go gather some dry wood and roast the braised meat, and bring me one of those flasks of country liquor in your bundle!"
"Right away! I brought that liquor for you masters in the first place. Hehe, a token of your disciple's filial devotion!"
Lü Bufan happily fetched Huang Jiu two bottles of country liquor, then darted off to gather dry wood.
Huang Jiu opened a bottle, took a sip, and said softly, "Master Black! This little brat, that mindset of his makes you feel... how should I put it? His heart is vast!"
Big Black ignored him.
Huang Jiu took another sip and continued, "A common mortal's aptitude, a fate of rolling in mud, and yet he has a heart like this! Untainted by the mortal world's dust, clear on good and evil... he dared kill on his first trip down the mountain, yet saving people didn't go to his head!"
Big Black rolled over, looking rather pleased with himself.
Huang Jiu said quietly, "My admiration, my admiration! Master Black, you truly see a thousand miles and have the discerning eye to spot a pearl!"
After drinking two flasks of country liquor and eating half a catty of braised meat, Huang Jiu flew up onto a branch, swept his hair back with a flourish, and went off to find the three little beggars...
Huang Jiu said he would take them to a secluded sect over a thousand li away, where a female Martial Warrior at the peak of the Eighth Realm presided!
As for whether the little girl and the two boys would have the chance to become disciples, that would depend on their own fortune.
Lü Bufan rested in the woods for half a day and took one of Granny Yu's pills to tend to his injuries. Only then did he take the big black dog down the mountain, skirt the town, and head toward Old Dragon Gully.
Old Dragon Gully was over sixty li from Huqi Town, a notorious deathtrap in the surrounding area.
It should originally have been a river valley, but for some unknown reason the river had dried up, leaving only a gully.
Ever since people had begun living nearby, they had noticed how eerie the place was. In every season, day or night, not even a birdcall could be heard in the gully.
Then many people who entered to hunt or gather herbs vanished without explanation, and piles of white bones appeared near its entrance from time to time...
After that, no one dared enter again.
Once, an Immortal Sect cultivator who refused to believe in such sinister things rode a magical artifact into the gully to seek treasure. Supposedly, all three warrior retainers died inside, while the cultivator himself fled like a panicked dog bereft of its home and hurried back to his sect...
According to rumor, not only were there no heavenly materials and earthly treasures inside... the place was crawling with restless souls and vicious ghosts enough to drive anyone mad.
Lü Bufan sat beneath a tree not far from the entrance, with a pile of yellowed bones on the ground beside him.
Big Black had initially shown some interest in Old Dragon Gully, but once they reached the entrance, he became listless and lazy again.
Lü Bufan prodded the bones with a branch, then put himself in order, picked up the short sword, and took a wooden stick in his other hand before cautiously entering Old Dragon Gully.
It was damp and eerily quiet, without even the chirp of an insect.
Lü Bufan advanced step by step. Gradually... the slopes on either side grew steeper, and rampant vines and shrubs blotted out the sky and sun.
A strong smell of sulfur drifted out.
"Could there be one of those hot springs mentioned in books here? They say the water comes from deep underground and can nourish the bones and dispel damp and cold!"
Over the past two years, Lü Bufan had read quite a few books under his master, Master Ming.
Fortunately, Lü Bufan had taught himself to read years earlier, and the Village Head Shameless had kept plenty of books in his house.
"No wonder there aren't any birds. This sulfur smell has driven all the insects away. Why would birds come here when there aren't any bugs to eat? Hehehe..."
As Lü Bufan walked, he carefully searched for the faintest traces of anyone having passed through.
Suddenly, a narrow, jagged stone stele appeared beside a constricted opening farther up the valley, with quite a few scattered bones piled nearby.
Several large characters were carved on the stele: Forbidden Land of Death... let the living go no farther!
Lü Bufan carefully turned over the bones, his expression grave.
Splash, splash...
The sound of flowing water startled the fully absorbed Lü Bufan. He turned to look, only to find that Big Black had actually trotted over beside the stele, lifted a hind leg, and was urinating on it!
Lü Bufan was speechless...
Big Black ambled deeper into the valley, and Lü Bufan followed with his head lowered.
All that excitement for nothing... what sort of being was this grand fellow? Why would he fear some damned Old Dragon Gully?
A pair of eyes suddenly appeared beneath the shade of a nearby tree, watching in puzzlement as the man and dog's backs vanished into the mist.
The dark figure was just about to follow when it suddenly whipped its head toward the stele as though its fur had stood on end!
A nose cautiously stretched forward and sniffed. Then... a huge, stout black bear rolled its eyes back, convulsed, and collapsed to the ground, so terrified it lost control of its bowels and bladder!
A small, thin figure struggled desperately out from beneath the bear. A little girl shook its enormous head with all her might...
"Black Bear! Black Bear, what's wrong? Don't scare me... have you been poisoned? Did you eat something strange again?"
Lü Bufan led Big Black through the thick mist and suddenly discovered that the valley ahead had narrowed into a fissure!
Overhead, only a thread of daylight showed through.
As the last wisp of mist dispersed, a cluster of swaying, indistinct shadows slowly emerged through the rock walls on either side, revealing rotting faces as they drifted straight toward Lü Bufan...
"G-ghosts?"
Lü Bufan instinctively reached for Big Black beside him.
"Big Black! Big Black...? Master Black... where did you go? Help...!"
Terrified almost out of his soul, Lü Bufan turned and ran!
Lü Bufan fled in abject terror.
In an underground cave beneath the valley, a little lizard spirit skilled in illusions lay prostrate on the ground, trembling.
Before the little spirit sat a big black dog with a look of utter disdain.
Lü Bufan ran madly toward the exit, only for a small figure to collide squarely with him!
"Ow... that hurts!"
Lü Bufan staggered, then hastily raised his short sword and stared tensely at the figure in the thick mist.
A little girl lay sprawled miserably on the ground. She raised her head, looked at Lü Bufan, and said, "You're so hard! You..."
Lü Bufan...
"You've got some nerve! Why did you enter Old Dragon Gully? Did you leave poison along the way? Hand over the antidote..."
Lü Bufan carefully examined the little girl on the ground and asked, "Do you live here? I came to find a friend..."
The little girl sat on the ground as though sulking. "I'm the only person here! Did you poison anything or not?"
Lü Bufan suddenly glanced behind him. "Let's get out of here! It's full of ghosts inside! It's too dangerous!"
The little girl burst out laughing. "So you saw ghosts? You're a boy, and you're scared of those?"
Lü Bufan asked dubiously, "Aren't you scared?"
"That's strange. Didn't the White Phosphorus Snakes guarding the entrance stop you?"
"I didn't see any snakes."
The little girl froze, then slapped her forehead. "Oh no! They've all run off... I was wondering why so many living creatures had come in these past two days!"
Lü Bufan calmed himself. "What exactly is going on? What about the people who came here for refuge a couple of days ago?"
"Forget it, forget it. I'm leaving too. Someone took those people away. I don't know whether the person you're looking for was among them."
"Where did they go?"
"Western Liang!"