Though the path up the mountain was muddy and full of potholes, the hunchbacked old man shuffled carefully along. When he could not step over a puddle, he waded straight through; when he slipped and fell, he felt about and climbed back up. Before they had climbed far, both grandfather and granddaughter were covered in mud.
Was enduring hardship and proving one's devotion the way to gain an audience with the Demon Venerable? Watching the hunchbacked old man fall and rise again and again, watching the little girl struggle to help her grandfather climb, Mu Bai began to doubt the deities atop the mountain. If they were compassionate and sought to deliver all living beings, why did they watch people suffer to worship them? Why did they only grant wishes after accepting people's offerings and wealth?
"Sir, when was this Three Deities Palace built? And who built it?"
"A few years ago, for some reason, a great many people suddenly died in the villages around here. First their bodies burned with fever, and by the time they died, their faces were scorched black. Even the physicians renowned for hundreds of miles around were helpless. Almost every household was holding a funeral then. Jing'er's parents left the two of us at that time, too. Come to think of it, it's been three years now..."
Speaking of the disaster three years before, the old man's face filled with deep sorrow. The little girl pressed her lips together, fighting back the tears in her eyes. She had already lost her parents; she did not want the only family she had left to leave her, too.
"There was a man named Shen San in the next village, the third son in his family. Originally, all three brothers were idlers who cared for nothing but