1: Chapter 1 – Crossing a World, Capturing a Fairy Opportunity 1: Chapter 1 – Crossing a World, Capturing a Fairy Opportunity “Midnight, something is about to come out from underneath this stone slab!”
This sentence was uttered by Li Laoer, the “Current Temple Master” of Liu Lin Temple when he was descending the mountain.
Lin Xiaosu didn’t believe a single punctuation mark of this sentence.
He was a university graduate who had been highly educated, and was a civil servant candidate currently gearing up for his second attempt, how could he believe that something would crawl out from a huge bluestone?
But what could he do?
He had promised Li Laoer that he would spend a night guarding the Liu Lin Temple!
This began when Li Laoer’s wife fell ill, and every time she did, she went crying to Lin Xiaosu’s mother, unable to stop once she began at all, crying about when Li Laoer peeked at Widow Feng bathing in their village twenty years ago as if it happened yesterday.
Out of consideration for his neighbor, and seeing that this Second Aunt always gave him good things to eat, and of course, also considering his long-standing bare-bottomed playdates with her daughter Hu Ya, he went to fetch his uncle from the mountain.
Never did he expect that once he came, he couldn’t leave!
His uncle mentioned that today was the “Ecliptic Change Day,” and someone had to stabilize the “Profound Gate” in the Taoist Temple, otherwise, something would crawl out from beneath this spot at midnight.
Lin Xiaosu was not without objections, but he couldn’t overcome the stubbornness of the old man.
Thinking of Hu Ya’s increasingly prominent chest, Lin Xiaosu impulsively slapped his chest and said, “Uncle, stop worrying, isn’t it okay if I help you guard the temple?”
With this promise, the uncle happily went home to comfort his wife about an affliction from twenty years ago, leaving Lin Xiaosu alone amidst the chaotic winds on the mountain peak…
Fortunately, the uncle had a daughter.
No sooner had he descended the mountain than his daughter climbed up.
She brought a basket to deliver dinner to Lin Xiaosu.
Lin Xiaosu had always been psychologically traumatized by the dinners prepared by Hu Ya, and why so?
This girl was bizarre in her ways; she would catch rabbits in the mountains, grope for frogs in the fields, yank big snakes by their tails from between the rocks, poke wild boars’ buttocks with a huge stick, making the sows flee from her presence like ghosts and the boars hang their heads in shame…
Without exception, all these wild flavors ended up in her cooking pot, and Lin Xiaosu had been tricked into eating them so many times that he had to habitually check the bones every time to see if what he was eating was what it seemed.
Today’s chicken should be legitimate.
But at this moment, given Hu Ya’s pose sprawled spread-eagled and half-undressed on the bluestone slab, was it appropriate?
Lin Xiaosu glanced again at the time on his phone…
One minute left until midnight.
He turned off his phone, his gaze moved to Hu Ya lying spread-eagled on the ground, and he told himself: Once midnight passes, I’ll have completed my uncle’s request.
I’ll carry her to sleep on the bed behind, as it’s cold on the ground…
Neither the mountains shook nor the earth moved.
His uncle indeed made up a ridiculous story!
Just as Lin Xiaosu internalized this fact…
A faint light streaked by.
Extremely weak, seeming like starlight from the heavens, or perhaps like a firefly that had flown into the Taoist Temple.
It came from under the bluestone slab right beneath his buttocks.
Lin Xiaosu took three steps, positioned himself directly above this speck of light, knelt down, and pressed one eye against the light, trying to see what was inside the stone.
With this glance, his entire being turned to stone!
By day, this stone appeared utterly ordinary, but at this moment, it seemed to have opened a Heavenly Window…
Through the “Heavenly Window”…
Inside the stone, there was an endless galaxy.
Within the galaxy, an ancient stele.
On top of the stele, a bare tree with only a single branch adorned with over a dozen leaves, each leaf radiating a spectrum of light, extremely peculiar, seemingly like a miniature cosmos.
Beneath the stele, there was a crystal coffin, within which clouds and mists floated.
Once Lin Xiaosu’s gaze fell upon the coffin, his soul was greatly shaken; there was a person inside, a female corpse lying quietly in the coffin.
Below her neck, clouds and mists covered her, only her face was exposed.
Even just her face still gave Lin Xiaosu the utmost shock.
Describing her beauty as making fish sink and wild geese fall, or making the moon hide and the flowers ashamed might still not suffice…
She didn’t seem dead.
She seemed to be peacefully sleeping under the vast starry sky.
Her sleeping posture was of a beauty that no painter in the world could capture.
Without knowing when, Lin Xiaosu felt his consciousness shift, transformed into a little silver fish, swimming above this utterly beautiful face, quietly observing the sleeping fairy.
Suddenly, a leaf on the stele above flicked, dropping a dewdrop.
This dewdrop glimmered with a spectrum of colors, seemingly traveling through endless time and space, dropping downwards.
It was about to land on the eyelid of the corpse.
Lin Xiaosu was startled, instinctively blocking it.
With this block, a chilling sensation pierced his bones, and a mysterious message entered his Sea of Consciousness: Heavenly Tao Wisdom Eye, perceives the minutest, Reverse Time…