The Temple's New Volunteer

The black and white qi in the sky mingled once more, slowly swirling into the face of a ferocious beast. Its mouth was long, its tusks pointed skyward, and it was impossible to tell whether it was howling in pain or roaring in rage.

As the yin-yang diagram spun, the ferocious beast charged at Chen Du again, trailing black and white qi.

"This Door Is Impassable!"

The beast slammed into the invisible door with a boom, its enormous hooves treading on the frame. Its gaping mouth looked capable of swallowing Chen Du whole, making the door seem small by comparison.

Chen Du worried whether the door could stop it, and whether it might come around and attack him.

So he took out a jade talisman.

[Suppress Demons and Subdue Devils]

It had been made by rewriting a jade tablet.

The beast in the smoke clearly recognized this kind of jade tablet. From the moment he took it out, its gaze followed the tablet.

As soon as the jade talisman was thrown, the beast recoiled sharply, wary of it.

"Hm?"

Chen Du noticed that once the smoke in front of him had retreated, the stone casket that had been sitting there with the demon sealed inside had been trampled to pieces. A huge hoofprint had also been left in the churned-up earth.

It was as if this had been its real purpose in coming close to attack him!

Only then did the jade talisman land.

The smoke, meanwhile, did not look back again, fleeing into the distance.

"Immortal master! It ran away!" Yunzhi recalled the beast's face. "It seemed to be a wild boar spirit!"

"I could tell."

"Should we go after it? I guessed it was going to run, so I quietly left a little trace of spider silk on it. It's faster than me right now, but its stamina is bound to be worse. I can follow the trail."

Yunzhi was clearly apprehensive too.

This was a great demon of a kind she had scarcely ever seen before: powerful and ferocious. Even after being sealed for so long, it had only just broken free and was in an impaired state, yet it had still managed to force out such tremendous power and counterattack them immediately!

It was even audacious enough to act so brazenly in front of the immortal master. It was nothing like someone who had received an education.

Without this treasured sword, she felt she might really have been like an ordinary little insect before a wild boar. Even if the boar had fallen ill, she would have been utterly unable to shake it.

Chen Du took a few steps forward and looked at the hoofprint.

Whether the beast itself was that big or it was the result of a spell, the hoofprint was nearly as large as a washbasin.

The hoofprint was filled with shattered stone.

The jade tablet in the stone casket had broken too.

Chen Du picked up a fragment. He could clearly see that the jade tablet was made of a different material from Door God's and the bookworm's. It seemed capable of holding more spiritual qi.

This demon was cunning too!

It was as if, in that brief moment, it had seen through him and guessed that he would struggle to seal it without this jade tablet. As it left, it had braved the sword qi and the risk of offending the current master of Earth Sage Temple, pretending to attack him when its real aim was to destroy the tablet.

This kind of demon was difficult to deal with.

It was easy to imagine that the longer they delayed, the harder it would become to deal with.

He had met a formidable foe!

Chen Du thought quickly. He took the [Mountain Spirit Body Protection] talisman, made with a jade tablet, from his robes and handed it to Yunzhi.

"With this treasured sword, you have enough offensive power, but your defenses are still lacking. Take this jade talisman. Remember, it only works on this mountain," Chen Du said. "If you can bring it back, I'll credit you with a great achievement. But just do your best. If you're in danger, don't push yourself. Door God and I will return to the temple first, in case he sets his sights on it. Side-Swept Bangs is still at home too."

"Yes!"

Yunzhi took it at once.

With the treasured sword in hand and the jade talisman protecting her, she had no fear of that demon, even if she did not know a single spell.

But he had given the jade talisman to her...

"What about you, immortal master?"

"Don't worry about me. Door God will accompany me back."

Chen Du spoke, not knowing whether the demon had fled far. In any case, he could not show the slightest sign of weakness.

"Besides, I'm only practicing a secret art that makes it unwise for me to use my magic power. I haven't become a mortal altogether. If it really dares to come after me, even if Door God can't stop it, the worst that can happen is that I'll break my prohibition."

"That's true!"

Yunzhi suspected that the demon had reached the very end of Gather Qi into a Sea and was approaching what the immortal master called Then Nurture the Primordial Spirit. But she had never been sure whether the immortal master had already nurtured his primordial spirit and become what people since the Tang and Song dynasties had commonly called an earthly immortal, or had passed beyond that stage into a realm said to belong only to the great immortals and mighty beings of ancient times.

The scene of the immortal master retreating just now came to her mind. His steps had been little different from an ordinary person's, so she guessed that the secret art he practiced might require him to abandon immortality and return to mortal life, or to experience the state of a mortal.

In the past, she might have had doubts. But now, leaving aside things like shaking mountains and quaking the earth, he treated treasured trees and spiritual fruits as ordinary, spoke freely of the deepest secrets of cultivation, seemed to be about to use lightning arts even to discipline his own cat, casually bestowed Greater Earth Evasion on others, and she had personally seen even his divine authority. He liked peach trees, and one came at his summons; he faced a great demon without a change in expression. There were too many things to count. If she still doubted him, her intelligence would be about on par with Door God's.

At that moment, she recalled just one phrase:

"Return the Self to the True."

It was one line from what the immortal master had said, and it also seemed to be the next realm and method of cultivation after nurturing the primordial spirit.

In that case, what she had just said might have sounded like she was underestimating the immortal master.

"What Yunzhi meant was that the demon is very capable, and Yunzhi can't promise to catch it and bring it back quickly. If I can't, it will take at least several days, and there will be no one to attend to you during that time, immortal master."

"Go ahead. Be careful not to attract attention. If anyone checks your ID, it's the same as before: run if you can. If you really can't get away, can't get away, if you can't get away, tell them you came from here. Leave the rest to me to handle for you."

"Yes."

A warmth filled Yunzhi's heart. She said no more, took the treasured sword, and lightly touched her toes to the ground. As if weightless, she drifted gracefully down the slope of the mountain.

"Let's go."

Chen Du turned around as well and headed back the way they had come.

Door God turned into black smoke and traveled along the ground, almost invisible beneath the thick grass.

Fortunately, these were the two demons at his side!

Yunzhi had nearly been won over by him, while Door God was not very intelligent and seemed to hold the seal's owner in great awe, making him easy to subdue too. If they had been other demons, with only these two at his side to call upon, Chen Du would truly have feared they might join the escaped demon and hit it off at once. That would have been troublesome.

It would be even better if he had another person.

Thinking this, Chen Du walked carefully onward.

That demon was so cunning that he could not afford to be careless.

Fortunately, nothing happened along the way.

But just as he returned to the temple entrance, he saw a figure standing there from a distance. It was the young girl with the schoolbag.

"Oh? Didn't you go down the mountain, benefactor?" Chen Du asked warily. "Why have you come back?"

"I..."

The girl hesitated, then said:

"Because it's very comfortable here, Daoist priest, I walked down the mountain and then came back to ask if you're still looking for volunteers."

"Volunteers?"

It seemed she was not a demon in disguise.

Chen Du looked straight at her.

"Yes..."

The girl simply disliked getting too close to people and was actually bold by nature, but now she avoided his gaze.

"It's all right if you're not."

The Daoist priest said solemnly, "It's not that I'm unwilling, but strange things have been happening one after another on the mountain lately. It would be very dangerous to volunteer here."

The girl was taken aback.

What danger could there be in the mountains?

There couldn't possibly be any wild beasts around here, could there?

Could this Daoist priest have seen through me at a glance, realized I can see spiritual qi, and guessed my purpose?

"Don't you need volunteers here, Daoist priest?"

"I do, but I can't take you on right now. If you really want to come, try again next month. For today, go down the mountain first."

"I'm not afraid!"

"..."

Chen Du saw that the sky outside was gradually darkening. He did not know how long she had waited at the entrance that afternoon. Thinking that she still had more than an hour's walk down the mountain and that it would not be safe, and that there also seemed to be no bus back to the city by the time she got down, his heart softened.

"Stay here tonight and go down the mountain tomorrow."

"It costs fifty yuan to stay here for a night. I have just enough money left for the trip home, not a cent more," the girl said truthfully.

Her money's that tight? No wonder she said in the incense burner dream that she had to go home today.

That meant she had chosen coming here to volunteer over taking the bus home today, and had nowhere else to go. Since he had not returned, she had stood waiting at the entrance until now. As the sky grew darker, it had gradually become something of a gamble.

If the temple did not take her on as a volunteer, she could only find some place to squat for the night after going down the mountain. If she paid for even a room at an inn, she would have no money left for the trip home.

"I won't charge you."

"I'll work for you."

Wouldn't that make her a volunteer?

"You're pretty stubborn!"

"A little!"

Chen Du thought for a moment, then nodded and said:

"Then stay for now. As it happens, the other volunteer here went out today. You can work here for the time being. Don't leave the temple unless you need to.

"You can stay in the same guest room you slept in last night. Have a good think tonight, and tell me tomorrow whether you want to stay long-term. If you decide to stay, I'll tidy up the empty monk's room opposite for you. You can leave whenever you like, but if you stay for a full month, I'll give you the same three-hundred-yuan clothing allowance as a Daoist lodging at the temple, as a living subsidy."

Three hundred? That would make up exactly the three hundred yuan!

With her schoolbag on her back, the girl obediently followed him into the courtyard. She did not notice the smoke spreading along the corner of the wall behind her and quietly slipping through the gate.

The main gate suddenly took on an extraordinary texture.