Don't farm, cultivate immortality!

I don't know if it's happy because the planks have been replaced, or because someone has replaced them for it.

In fact, mandrills are not solitary animals like tigers and black bears; they live in groups, and their structure is very similar to that of humans.

It's hard to say whether an old mandrill separated from its kind feels lonely.

After staying in the room for a while, Yan Huai'an, who was sitting against the wall, gradually stopped holding his sword.

She loosened her grip on the sword, picked up a kiwi fruit from the side, held it in her palm, peeled off the unsightly skin, and took a bite.

After seeing it with her own eyes, she may finally believe that there is an old mountain spirit in this world who carries a sword and gazes into the distance on the cliff all day long.

"Brother Zhuang Xing, I remember you said you had a diary? Can I take a look?" Xiao An asked.

"Let me show you." Zhuang Xing opened the cabinet compartment and picked up the old diary.

Xiao An couldn't reach the pages, so she had to ask Zhuang Xing to turn them for her.

She read with great interest, and only when she got sleepy did she go back to the stone to rest.

When Xiao An was in school, the old mandrill climbed onto the roof again. Perhaps it was waiting, or perhaps it was keeping watch.

That night, Zhuang Xing slept in this secluded little house.

He slept very well; sleeping in this room was much better than in the suburbs, as it kept out the night wind.

In his hazy state, he heard the sound of pages turning. When he woke up, he saw Yan Huai'an flipping through the diary. She was sitting by the window, sunlight shining on her face.

She flipped through the pages one by one, until she reached the last few pages. After reading the diary, she gently placed the thread-bound book back into the cabinet.

After getting up in the morning, the two bid farewell to the old mountain demon and headed deeper into the mountains.

"Goodbye!" Zhuang Xing waved. "I'll come see you again!"

His bag contained more wild fruit, and in his right hand were two fresh fish that he had just caught, tied with straw rope.

The old mandrill sat on the roof, waving its arms, and they parted ways.

As Yan Huai'an walked down the mountain, he grasped a strand of his hair.

She suddenly turned around and saw the shadow of the old mandrill.

What was she thinking at that time?

The female warrior lingered there for a few seconds. Zhuang Xing couldn't guess what she was thinking, but he felt that there was a sad atmosphere emanating from her.

Is she feeling sad for the old mandrill?

Or perhaps... she's feeling sad for herself...

Chapter 232 Immortal Temple in the Mountain

After leaving the pine forest, Zhuang Xing followed Yan Huai'an and plunged into the deep mountains and forests.

With streams and mountains as companions, and clouds and moon as companions, we spend our days and nights sleeping in the wilderness.

Twenty days have passed in the blink of an eye.

Summer wasn't over yet, but the further Zhuang Xing went, the cooler the weather became.

Later on, it wasn't just cool, it started to feel cold.

He was walking on a mountain ridge. To make it easier to walk, he broke off a bamboo stick. As he used it to cross the hillside in front of him, he suddenly felt a soft snowflake fall on his forehead.

The snowflakes melted on his skin. He stretched out his hand, looked up at the sky, which was half sunny and half cloudy. In the distance, he could see sunlight shining through the gaps in the clouds onto the forest floor. The place where he was was covered by dark clouds, and snowflakes were falling.

Autumn hasn't even arrived yet, and it's already snowing.

As he walked further, fog rolled in all around. Walking in the fog, it was difficult to tell which way to go, and even the sunlight could not be seen. Zhuang Xing suddenly realized that this was some kind of magic.

"Sister, should we continue walking?" he asked.

"Yes," Yan Huai'an said, "We're almost there."

She didn't find the fog strange at all. It seemed she was determined to walk into the fog, so Zhuang Xing followed her closely.

As if afraid that he would fall behind, Yan Huai'an simply took his hand and pulled him forward.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, they finally emerged from the fog.

A road appeared before them, a repaired road. Looking ahead along the road, Zhuang Xing was surprised to see a large mountain.

The mountains themselves are nothing special, but they are quite different from the mountains that can be seen everywhere.

It was a snow-white mountain, covered in a blanket of white snow.

Zhuang Xing had just walked across the mountain. No other mountain outside had snow like this one. He wondered how this snow-capped mountain had been formed. It seemed to have a spirit. The mist he had just passed through was probably a spell used to conceal the snow-capped mountain, to prevent outside creatures from entering.

"Sister, are we going to this snow mountain?" Zhuang Xing asked.

“Yes.” Yan Huai’an nodded.

A chilly breeze blew from the mountain, and Zhuang Xing shivered. He hadn't expected to come to such a cold place. When he left home, the weather was so hot that he wanted to take off all his clothes, so he was only wearing a thin shirt. Now that he was in front of this snowy mountain, he had to circulate his Qi to resist the cold and follow the female knight up the mountain.

"How come it's snowing on this mountain?" Zhuang Xing asked as he walked.

"I don't know," Yan Huai'an said.

The female knight-errant always speaks directly and never beats around the bush.

If you say you don't know something, then you really don't know it.

Zhuang Xing stopped asking questions and followed her slowly up the mountain.

It seems that someone lived here a long time ago. He saw the ruins of an abandoned village, some dilapidated pavilions standing by the roadside on the way up the mountain, as if they were for people to rest. In some places, he could still make out the stone tablets that were erected in the past. The characters on the tablets were very ancient, not from the present or the previous dynasty, at least not from the last one or two hundred years.

The characters have a unique rhythm, each one is very complex. Rather than characters, they are more like some kind of carved spiritual energy, with many mysterious aspects. He saw some symbols related to writing talismans in them.

Perhaps this place was once a sect of cultivation, like Xuanqing Temple?

He had a vague guess in his heart that when he reached the middle of the mountain, a Taoist temple appeared in front of him.

Compared to the damaged roads at the foot of the mountain, this Taoist temple is still well maintained.

Someone swept the snow in front of the gate, revealing the blue stone slabs.

The relief carving in front of the Taoist temple is quite unique. It depicts a dragon soaring through the clouds, and the most eye-catching feature is the pair of wings on its back.

Zhuang Xing had only seen this dragon in books. Legend has it that there are four kinds of dragons: Yinglong, Jiaolong, Chilong, and Qiulong. The one with wings is Yinglong.

“A water snake transforms into a jiao after five hundred years, a jiao transforms into a dragon after a thousand years, a dragon becomes a horned dragon after five hundred years, and an yinglong after a thousand years.”

Jiaolong, Chilong, and Qiulong are all a grade lower than Yinglong.

This is a divine beast, a celestial beast. It is rare for a Taoist temple to carve Yinglong in front of its gate. Those who dare to carve it like this are either trying to pretend to be the "number one temple in the world" to cheat people out of incense money, or they are celestial temples that can suppress Yinglong.

The fact that a Taoist temple was built in such a desolate place, yet snow still fell in the middle of summer, and that there was a relief of an Yinglong (a mythical dragon) carved in front of the temple gate, made Zhuang Xing realize that he had followed Yan Huai'an to an extraordinary place.

Before he even entered the door, Zhuang Xing saw two boys walking towards him.

A boy and a girl, both with round faces, bright eyes and white teeth, wore gleaming gold rings around their necks, hands and feet.

The two boys were so beautiful that they were perfect, neither too beautiful nor too ugly. Zhuang Xing did not believe that such boys and girls could be born.

The tails behind the boy confirmed Zhuang Xing's idea; they made no attempt to conceal them, allowing two thick snake tails to emerge from behind their Taoist robes.

This appearance is a transformed form, and one should not judge the age of these two people by their appearance. The tails behind the boy are a clear blue like jade and a warm white like a bright wall. Judging from this, they may have cultivated for hundreds or thousands of years.

Looking at the boy's forehead, there are two small protrusions, indicating that he has already transformed into a dragon.

No wonder they dared to carve Yinglong on the temple gate; this Taoist temple does not belong to people.

The boy saw Yan Huai'an but didn't say anything. The two looked at each other, then extended their hands and smiled, inviting Yan Huai'an and Zhuang Xing to come in as if welcoming guests.

Zhuang Xing bowed respectfully and performed the ceremony before following Yan Huai'an inside.

The boy led them inside. This Taoist temple was not large; compared to Xuanqing Temple, it was a very small place. You could take in the whole place at a glance. It was no different from a Taoist temple where people lived, with a kitchen, a main hall, and a well.

The boy led Zhuang Xing and Yan Huai'an into the main hall, where a painting of Yinglong was hanging instead of the place where the ancestral master and immortals should have been enshrined.

After the boy arrived at the main hall, he retreated behind the portrait, as if he were a guardian deity on either side.

The portrait was so lifelike, it looked like it would come to life at any moment.

The painting actually came to life; the ink-wash dragon suddenly coiled within the painting.

"You found it?"

A deep, resonant sound, like the tolling of a bell, echoed throughout the hall.

“Found it.” Yan Huai’an nodded.

She took out a stone from her bosom and held it in her palm. The stone was half white and half black, and it was the Yin-Yang Stone that she had obtained from Zhuang Xing.

"How many years have you been searching?"

"I don't remember."

"Xiaoqing, how many years has it been?"

“Reporting to our ancestors, it has been over four hundred years since you picked up Sister Yan,” said the girl with the blue snake tail.

"Four hundred years..."

"It has been four hundred years."

Chapter 233 The Method of Raising Ghosts

In the painting, Yinglong looks at the Yin-Yang Stone in Yan Huai'an's hand. Xiao An suddenly appears, as if he has been forced out of the stone.

Faced with the scene in the hall, Xiao An hid behind Zhuang Xing in fear. The boy over there covered his face with his sleeve and chuckled, as if he found the little ghost girl's timid appearance quite amusing.

"Humans are yang, ghosts are yin, and they can actually combine with this yin-yang stone. It's a pity that the yang energy is too strong and the yin energy is too weak. In the long run, it will become a burden." Yinglong in the painting said, "Xiao Yan, you brought them here to help them?"

"Yes." Yan Huai'an nodded.

"What are the names of those two people over there?" Yinglong asked.

"Reporting to senior, my name is Zhuang Xing, and the person traveling with me is Wei Xiaoan." Zhuang Xing gave the two of their full names.

The boy called the owner of the voice in the painting his ancestor; heaven knows how many years of cultivation this great senior had accumulated.

Even the Valley Master of Hundred Flowers Valley is inferior to the people in this temple, so he naturally treated them with utmost respect and dared not be presumptuous.

"How did you meet this brat?" Yinglong asked again.