Standing on a ridge, Luo Wanya looked out and saw a temple in the distance: "How come there's a temple here? The tiles are clean and there are no weeds, which means there are people here."
A member of the Parents' Association of the Alien World explained, "This should be the Great Compassion Temple. In the past, when the Mechanical God Cult was rampant, it squeezed out Buddhism and suppressed Taoism, so many monks were forced to flee to the wilderness. Some became wilderness dwellers, while others with firm faith chose to continue being monks. There were no temples in the wilderness, so they followed the wilderness dwellers to migrate. Along the way, they helped the wilderness dwellers with their work, but they did not take money or ask for anything. Even though they worked a lot, they only asked for three meals a day."
The parent-teacher association member continued, "They also know medicine. Once, when a plague broke out in the wilderness, they treated the sick and saved lives. After saving many people, the wilderness people built a temple for them in the mountains. Next to the temple are fields cultivated by the monks themselves. If any wilderness people can't survive, they can stay in the temple for 30 days. Every 30 days, a group of them would go to the wilderness to treat the sick."
Luo Wanya watched silently. There were too many fake monks in this world, which overshadowed the kindness of the real ascetics.
Xiao Qi muttered to herself, "Could there be some reclusive master in this temple? What if there's a demigod hiding there..."
Luo Wanya shook his head: "If there were a tradition here, the wilderness people wouldn't be crowding around the fire pit. They're just ordinary monks. Let's go and try to persuade them. The people from the Western Continent who are chasing us are right behind us. If we pass by here, we might become a burden to them. Let's take them with us and build them a temple after the war is over."
Xiao Qi and Luo Wanya crossed the mountain to visit Dabeisi Temple. The monks in front of the temple were fertilizing the vegetable garden, and their clothes were patched with dozens of patches.
Luo Wanya stepped forward, clasped his hands together, and asked, "How many monks are here?"
An elderly monk put down his dung ladle: "137."
Luo Wanya said, "Everyone, the flames of war are about to reach this place. Come with us."
The monks looked at each other, seemingly not too worried about the war. Instead, seeing the parents' association members looking pale and emaciated, a young monk immediately limped into the temple, shouting, "Master, Master, there are refugees!"
"Why are there such young monks in the temple?" Xiao Qi asked curiously.
Some people explain: "If a disabled baby is born in the wilderness, the heartless parents will simply abandon it, while the kind-hearted parents will travel thousands of miles to Dabeisi Temple and entrust the child to the monks there to raise."
Xiao Qi was stunned. No wonder many of the monks in the temple looked strange, and some were even using sign language.
These monks were indeed ordinary people, not practitioners, and each of them had a physical disability.
It turns out that even in this chaotic world of power struggles, there are still people living quietly in a corner of the world.
Monks welcomed them into the temple, carrying baskets of vegetables, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, as if they had prepared them in advance.
Luo Wanya instructed, "Send these to the elderly, children, women, and kids. Adult men can dig up the tree roots to eat themselves. Anyone who tries to take them should be driven away."
Xiao Qi led a group to deliver food, and the limping little monk skipped and hopped along beside them.
Luo Wanya looked at the abbot in front of him and said, "The enemy will be here soon. They will probably try to find out our whereabouts from you. If you don't tell us, you may have to face torture and forced confessions."
The abbot was also deaf and mute. A monk nearby translated Luo Wanya's words to him in sign language. The abbot thought for a moment and responded in sign language: "Then we will tell them your whereabouts."
Luo Wanya: "..."
Could this be my own boss pretending to be an abbot on the street?!
However, after thinking about it, he realized that with a force of 330,000 crossing the border, the traces would be impossible to hide, and it wouldn't matter if the other side informed the Western Continent.
Luo Wanya led the team away. The Great Compassion Temple was just a small episode on the journey, but it brought a lot of peace of mind to the members of the parents' association.
Eight hours after Luo Wanya led his team away, a puppet army airship landed at the temple gate.
A puppet army officer jumped off the airship and shouted, "Did the parent-teacher conference just pass by here?!"
The abbot remained silent.
The puppet army officer shouted sternly, "Are you deaf? I'm asking you a question!"
A monk nearby whispered, "The abbot is indeed deaf."
officer:"……"
The abbot used sign language, but the officer couldn't understand it, so he looked at the monk beside him.
The monk translated: "The rise and fall of a nation is the responsibility of every citizen; you should not aid and abet the wicked."
It turns out that these monks knew what was happening in the Federation. The wandering monks brought the news back to the temple and prepared food for the parents' meeting in advance.
The officer sneered, "A bunch of monks coming to condemn me?"
At this moment, the abbot raised his middle finger.
Young monk: "Damn..."
"This doesn't need translating!" the officer laughed angrily. "What kind of wild monks are these? Kill them all!"
At this moment, instead of informing the puppet troops of the parents' meeting as he had told Luo Wanya before, the abbot waved to the monks, grabbed a rolling pin from the kitchen and a hoe from the field, and started hitting the puppet troops.
The puppet troops raised their weapons.
In an instant, a cloud of blood gushed from the officer's chest, and he fell backward.
Only then did the sound of sniper fire reach the temple from afar.
Gunshots rang out one after another, revealing that snipers were lying in ambush in the mountains, spanning nearly a thousand meters, and accurately sniping the puppet troops one by one.
Normally, a single sniper is assigned to a regular unit, but there are at least dozens of snipers lying in ambush here.
With just one round of firing, all the puppet troops outside the airship were killed.
The airship quickly ascended into the air, but outside the temple's vegetable garden, a group of parents rushed out shouting, and bolts of lightning struck the airship down from a distance.
It should be noted that among the 330,000 members of the Parents' Association, 99% are cultivators. Any random guerrilla team would have an average level B or higher, and there is even an elite team specializing in the Pantheon Thunder Force!
If the puppet troops wanted to hunt down this group, it would be hard to say who would be chasing whom without the cover of the airships.
The lone airship crashed erratically into the mountains. Luo Wanya emerged from the nearby woods and looked at the abbot: "A monk does not lie. You promised to tell them our whereabouts, why did you change your mind? And weren't you just about to kill someone with that hoe? Isn't that breaking the precept?"
The abbot used sign language.
The young monk translated from the side: "We plan to return to secular life today."
Luo Wanya: "..."
What a group of monks who can adapt to any situation!
Luo Wanya waved to his family behind him: "Take all the monks away. We can't leave them here to die."
However, it was at this moment that Luo Wanyi's satellite phone rang.
Suddenly, news of the mistress's death came from afar. Luo Wanya stood in front of the temple, holding a satellite phone, stunned for a long time, not knowing what to say.
The mountain wind howled past, exceptionally chilly.
Birds were chirping in the forest, their calls sounding like sobs.
After a moment of confusion, he turned to Xiao Qi and said, "Xiao San is gone. Let's move on; we still have a lot to do."
At this point, Qing Chen had been missing for 24 hours, and no one still knew where he was.
...
...
The black spider's safe house was quiet.
Qing Chen gripped the black Eye of True Sight tightly in his hand, his entire being seemingly dead, utterly silent.
The room was dimly lit. Yi was sitting on a box of supplies, resting his chin on his hand, watching curiously as Black Spider opened a can and ate small bites with a spoon: "When was this safe house prepared? Why was such a special safe house prepared?"
Black Spider replied, "I've wanted to kill Duke Storm for a long time, and I started preparing back then. But even though I had a way to escape, I found that I couldn't kill him."
Yi asked again, "Are you worried that you will die this time? The Western Continent is definitely searching for us throughout the city. Once we are found, we will all surely die."
Black Spider shook his head: "I'm not afraid. Actually, I'm terrified of death, otherwise I wouldn't have kept putting off Duke Storm, or even dared to seek revenge on Marquis Wendy for violating my mother. But this time, I don't know why, I'm really not afraid."
Neither of them knew how long they would hide; they figured they'd have to wait until Qingchen woke up, at least.
Yi muttered to himself, "I wonder what Qingchen is going through that's keeping him from waking up."
Chapter 976, See You at the Next Intersection
7:05 a.m.
Qingchen stood at Xingfuli Station in the fifth district of City 5, waiting for the light rail train to arrive as scheduled.
Looking at everything before him, he felt as if he had forgotten something, or as if he had never remembered anything at all.
At 7:10, the light rail arrived at the station.
Qingchen stepped onto the train and quickly walked towards carriage number 2.
He gripped the handrail in the carriage, his body swaying slightly with the light rail as the train weaved through the buildings in the city's early morning, like a white Pegasus.
It made a rumbling sound.
At 7:35, the light rail arrived at Ginkgo Station. Outside the window, there was a huge ginkgo tree. In autumn, the ginkgo leaves were golden and scattered all over the ground.
Within a radius of several dozen meters around the ginkgo tree, it seemed as if the sunlight was gilded, solid and magnificent.
Qing Chen glanced at the car door and saw a girl with pigtails wearing headphones walk up and stop a short distance away from him.
They were two meters apart, and he had to peer through the gaps between the passengers to catch a glimpse of the girl's profile.
Just then, someone patted him on the shoulder and said with a smile, "Good morning!"
Qing Chen looked over and saw that Zard had also boarded the train at this stop. He was standing behind Xiao Liu with his arm around Xiao Liu's shoulder. Xiao Liu chuckled and said, "What are you looking at? Why are you daydreaming?"
Xiao Liu leaned closer, following Qing Chen's gaze through the gap to look at Yang Yang not far away, and immediately chuckled softly, "How many years has it been?"
Zard asked, "Qingchen, have you done your homework?"
Qingchen said, "I've written it, so you can copy it. But if you don't study hard, you won't be able to get into Qinghe University next year."
Xiao Liu said nonchalantly, "Someone like me is destined not to go to university. I don't have any great ambitions. Once you get into Qinghe University, I'll set up a pancake stall at the university gate. Then you can persuade your classmates to patronize my business. Aren't I good at business? I'll give you a commission!"
Qing Chen: "..."
Xiao Liu asked, "Why are you working so hard to get into Qinghe University?"
Zard said from the side, "I know!"
As he spoke, he gestured toward the girl with his lip: "I heard that Yangyang is going to take the entrance exam for Qinghe University, so he's going to take it too, hehehe."
Qing Chen was silent for a moment: "I feel like you're not as likable anymore since you've returned to normal."
Zard scratched his head: "What do you mean? What do you mean by 'after I'm normal'?"
"Let me copy your homework."
Zard and Xiao Liu took out their LCD screens on the light rail and frantically did their homework by looking at Qing Chen's answers. They even deliberately changed a few options wrong, otherwise the teacher would get suspicious.
Qingchen, Zard, and Xiaoliu wore identical school uniforms, just like the friends everyone had in their youth. There was always someone with a bag slung over their shoulder, someone who didn't do their homework the day before, someone who talked big, and someone who secretly loved a girl, keeping their feelings hidden deep inside.
Qingchen watched the two of them copying homework and for some reason felt a sense of comfort.