Jing Jiu extended a hand, inviting the old monk to sit.
The old monk softly offered a few words of explanation.
It turned out that Fruitful Accomplishment Temple had heard about the matter and, worried that cultivators would clash over the treasures and suffer terrible casualties, had sent them here so they could provide treatment at any moment.
Jing Jiu found this perfectly normal, because this was simply Fruitful Accomplishment Temple's way.
On first encountering them, you might think these physician monks overly pedantic, hungry for fame, and even rather affected.
But Fruitful Accomplishment Temple had kept up this affectation for thousands of years, so it was bound to earn the respect of the entire world, even the Nether Department.
"And you?" the old monk asked.
"Just looking," Jing Jiu said. "The cave abode isn't real. It's only a prank."
The old monk understood. Such things had often happened in the past.
Before ascending or disappearing, certain mighty figures of earlier generations had enjoyed creating fake cave abodes to play jokes on their juniors.
But the old monk said, somewhat puzzled, "But... True Person Jingyang wasn't that sort of person."
But... that other True Person enjoyed it.
So Jing Jiu thought.
The mountain wind suddenly intensified, scattering the fire inside the temple.
A dozen or so Daoist cultivators rose and swept out of the temple, looking toward a spot in the mountains.
Beneath the night sky, a treasure's radiance faintly shimmered like water, and wind arose from that place.
"The cave abode is about to open!"
"I'll be going on ahead!"
A few cultivators still could not restrain themselves and entered the twenty-mile area before the cave abode opened.
As several streaks of sword light illuminated the night sky, more cultivators revealed themselves in the surrounding mountains.
Jing Jiu rose