Nightfall

Ye Su said to Chen Pipi, “I have come to Chang’an City and it could be regarded as cultivation of entering the human realm. We’d better not see each other often, but if you really want to come, then come.”

Chen Pipi asked, “Senior Brother, when will you go back to the Taoism temple?”

Ye Su slightly frowned. It was not because there were problems with this issue. It was just this issue reminded him of the most troublesome problem of Haotian Taoism in the past dozen years.

He looked at Chen Pipi and reproached him coldly, saying, “When are you going back?”

Chen Pipi felt so shamed that he awkwardly said in a low voice, “I have to ask teacher.”

“Then go and ask.”

Ye Su said to him with no expression, “When there’s an answer, come and tell me.”

Chen Pipi was driven away from the little Taoist temple. Ye Su tidied up his sleeves and walked towards the Taoist temple. Ye Hongyu followed him quietly. Although she was reprimanded just now, she still couldn’t stop the joy and sarcasm that appeared on her face. The smile on her lips still didn’t disappear until she entered the room.

Ye Su walked to the window and sat down. He looked back at her, and frowned slightly. He seemed to be unhappy.

Ye Hongyu stopped smiling and looked at his brother, stubbornly and calmly. She refused to leave.

She was surprised that Ye Su did not reprimand her, but said indifferently, “You might have lost your tenacity after leaving the Peach Mountain, but it was still a good choice. It seems that Divine Priest of Judgment was polluted by the dirty water in You Prison and became stinky, so you can never compromise even for one thing, and you can not give in to him either.”

Ye Hongyu calmly said, “I understand.”

Ye Su looked at the quiet aura shown by her eyes and said after a long silence, “I hope you will be better than me in the future, but you need to prove it on your own.”

Ye Hongyu pursed her lips and said, “I will prove it to you, older brother.”

Ye Su looked satisfied with her answer. He nodded and said, “Pipi will become the master of Haotian Taoism in the future, and he will need help from a truly strong heart. I believe you will not disappoint me.”

Listening to these words, Ye Hongyu’s lips pursed even more tightly, and she lowered her head and refused to respond.

Because of her silence, Ye Su’s two eyebrows slowly raised like two Taoist Swords unfeelingly. He said with a voice that was gradually getting cold, “Don’t think that I didn’t know of your plot when you secretly provoked conflict and forced Younger Brother to leave the temple.”

Ye Hongyu lifted her head up and looked at him with no expression, “The Haotian Taoism should have been yours.”

Ye Su said with a voice that was cold like ice, “Say that again?”

“So what if I say it 10,000 times? Brother, you are the World Wayfarer of Haotian Taoism. You will definitely become a saint, and Haotian will pass the Haotian Taoism to you for sure.”

Ye Hongyu said stubbornly, “And at that time I didn’t say anything and I didn’t do anything. I just told him that as long as he stayed at the Haotian Taoism, then the abbey dean would certainly pass the Haotian Taoism to him.”

Ye Su upbraided her shrilly and said, “Pipi was still a child at that time! How could you say that to him!”

“This is a fact. Do you think that a child cannot accept facts?”

Ye Hongyu said, “I was also a kid at the time and I knew this was a fact. I really can’t accept the facts, so I wanted to change something. Chen Pipi also knew this was a fact, so he felt guilty and felt that he had done something wrong to you. That is why he will never defeat me, and also why he fled the Zhishou Abbey after hearing what I had to say.”

Her voice was very calm and her statement was also clear. Although the matter she mentioned was related to the most important thing, the succession of Haotian Taoism in the future, she did not show any fear.

The look on Ye Su’s face became more and more strange. It was not angry, but extremely calm, and even his voice was extremely calm, “Have you ever wondered why he felt guilty?”

This sound was not the frozen surface of the lake but the still water in the deep well that nobody disturbed.

“Younger Brother was guilty because he was kind. He respected me and loved me, but he found the Master decided to pass the Haotian Taoism to him. So, he was sad and left.”

Ye Su looked blankly at his sister and said, “You knew what he would do if you said that, and you still said it. You were using his goodness and his love for me to manipulate him.”

Ye Hongyu said with no expression, “So what?”

“Nothing.”

Ye Su slowly raised his right hand slowly, his white blouse that was soaked in rainwater and mud slid down his arm.

He patted Ye Hongyu’s head.

Ye Hongyu did not close her eyes. She stared at her brother stubbornly, and looked at the falling palm. There was no panic in her bright eyes, only calmness.

Ye Su’s heart became slightly soft. The pity that he had tempered away forcefully returned. His hand slowed and eventually landed on the desk in front of the window.

He sighed.

The sigh was full of helplessness, regret, and guilt toward Haotian Taoism.

Ye Su’s palm fell on the desk, shaking slightly. It seemed to be powerless, but in fact, it contained the supreme power and state of this legendary cultivator of Haotian Taoism.

With this upset sigh, countless cracks appeared on the table and they spread toward the table legs. Then, cracks also appeared on the bluestone floor and they spread to the corners. They went up along the wall. The bright window paper began to break. In the end, cracks came to the beams and pillars.

The desktop broke into hundreds of small pieces of wood and fell to the ground. The legs of the table cracked into thinner wood pieces and also fell to the ground. The cracks in the bluestone floor gradually became deeper, like a black abyss. The wall coverings were peeled off, and the window paper was broken. The beams and pillars were twisted and broke down.

The table was broken and fell down.

The floor cracked.

The wall fell down.

The beam was broken.

With the sound of a crash, this remote house in the Taoist temple collapsed like building blocks. Smoke and dust filled the air as those cracks continued to spread outwards, and all other buildings in the Taoist temple were broken into pieces.

All the buildings in the Taoist temple collapsed into smoke and dust. Fortunately, those cracks that destroyed the wall were extremely amazing. They cut the hard and heavy construction materials to pieces, and when the buildings fell down, they followed some pattern that could not be identified and didn’t kill the people inside them.

The air after a bout of rain was very fresh. At this time, the little Taoist temple was filled with dust and littered with ruins. The skinny Taoist and two child Taoists were covered in dust, and climbed up from the ruins. They covered their noses with their sleeve and coughed constantly. They looked extremely miserable.

Ye Su stood silently between the broken bricks and wood, and he was surrounded by dust and gravel. However, his face and clothes were still clean and free from any dust.

If he was willing, when he took the ladder and repaired the roof, he could be covered with rain and mud.

If he was unwilling, even it was full of mud and rain, none of it could even touch a small part of his clothes.

“You are my sister, after all. Don’t push me to kill you.”

Ye Su looked at the Ye Hongyu and calmly said, “If you still insist on standing in front of me with such a stubborn gesture, I really don’t know what will happen next.”

Ye Hongyu wiped off the dirt and tears on her face and glared at him. She said hatefully, “Brother, I will be more powerful than you one day. By then, you will never be able to kill me. I will stand in front of you again, and I will still insist on taking back what should belong to you.”

After saying this, she turned away and left the little Taoist temple.

Ye Su looked at her back and watched her disappearing outside the little Taoist temple. He was silent.

“What the hell happened?”

The skinny Taoist stamped and hit his chest with his fists painfully. He looked at the ruins of the little Taoist temple and started to tremble, because he remembered his savings and effort for decades and his experience of raising funds like a beggar to build this temple. His voice was full of sorrow.

Ye Su slightly frowned and looked back at him and said, “I’ll give you some money to build a new Taoist temple for you.”

“Is this about money? Is this about money?”

The skinny Taoist was full of grief and anger. He clutched his taoist robe tightly, trying to avoid death due to heartache. He yelled and said with a dry voice, “Every brick in this Taoist temple was bought and brought back by my own hands. I know their original position. And now, I have nothing. I forgot their original position. Is this about money? These were my life! How can they be brought back?”

Ye Su looked at the bricks and blocks that were cut into extremely small pieces in front of him. After a brief silence, he said, “You are right. New bricks can only build a new Taoist temple. When the old one was destroyed, it will not come back. There has never been something called rebirth in this world. There is only new life.”

After saying this, his face became slightly stiff and stood in the ruins, unmoving.

Ye Su did not know why this ruined Taoist temple could give such a feeling and make him say what he had said subconsciously.

He only knew that since he traveled to countries to find a way to pass the test of life and death, his own state had grown and become harmonious. His state, which had gradually become calmer like a mountain, after the previous tremors, showed the signs of becoming loose again.

How could the skinny Taoist know Ye Su’s situation at this time? The skinny Taoist looked at Ye Su’s silence and thought that Ye Su did not want to get into trouble, and grew angrier. He wiped away the tears and took the child Taoists to the ruins to rescue some useful things.

The collapse of the Taoist temple made a loud sound. The local residents rushed over and looked at the ruins. People whispered and returned to their homes to get tools to help.

Many of the residents’ houses had been damaged by rainstorms, but they felt that the skinny Taoist was old and weak, and the child Taoists were young and powerless. So, they postponed their own business and came to help the skinny Taoist.

The previously tragic Taoist temple had suddenly become a lively construction site. Although there was no way to rebuild a Taoist temple in a short time, the working loud songs, laughter and the sound of work seemed to foretell that in the near future, the Taoist temple would become what it was.

The skinny Taoist wiped his tears, bowed with hands folded in front to express his thanks, a sincere smile stretched on his face.

It was already dawn.

Ye Su woke up from his meditation. He watched as the ordinary folks busied themselves around him. He looked at the smile on their faces, and thought about those words that the skinny Taoist had said.

The skinny Taoist walked over to Ye Su and took a look at his eyes and tried to curse at him, but did not dare to do it subconsciously. He thought about Ye Su’s words after the Taoist temple collapsed. He rubbed his hands nervously and asked, “You are really willing to pay?”

Ye Su looked at him and said seriously, “If you want, I can build a Divine Hall for you.”

…