“Hey, Li Yan come sit here with me. The air is cool and refreshing here, it’s good for your soul to sit beneath this Bodhi tree during the day”, said the old beggar while patting the spot next to him.
“So why did you call me old man”, Li Yan said to the old beggar.
“You are different today”, replied the old beggar with a scrutinized look on his face.
Li Yan was stunned for a second but he quickly regained his composure and said “What are you saying old man, have you started smoking these early in the morning …don’t smoke those herbs too much or you really might go senile. More so ever aren’t you blind, so what can you even see?”
“No I just smoked a few ounces of it but that’s not the issue here. The vibe of your spirit has changed. It’s strong now, perhaps too strong for your age. But your soul is just in its nascent form, It’s like your spirit has changed but your soul is the same…what is this? Am I high? Wait a minute, let me predict your future”, the old beggar stooped talking after saying this and began forming circles in the ground and started calculating with his finger while muttering some gibberish like a senile old fool.
One minute passed …five minutes passed …fifteen-minute…
Just when Li Yan was getting bored with his antics he heard a voice calling out to him he turned around to see a young girl around his age calling to him, for a moment Li Yan was stunned, She looked around 16 years of age so she still had her childlike innocence with white chubby cheeks that if you pinched too hard then you would think milk will come out of it, but looking at her beauty Li Yan was sure that she would be a kingdom toppling beauty one day. She had hair as white as snow with glazed blue eyes that seems to reflect the sky itself her skin was as supple as jade while her body radiated holiness. Looking at her all of his worries seem to be ephemeral like clouds in the sky.
Li Yan had seen many beauties in his previous life but none of them were comparable to her. It wasn’t just about her physical appearance but also about her ambiance. Looking at her his head started to spin, he had a conflicting feeling in his heart with a mix of sudden obsession and reverence towards her, ‘What’s happening?’ he thought.
He suddenly remembered all the things he found strange like granny Ming's eyes which seem to contain hidden power despite her old age or the uncanny ability of the beggar who was still performing some divination like a senile old fool, but the thing he found most odd was the beauty of this girl which was otherworldly.
Suddenly everything clicked and he murmured “cultivation…Is it possible?” Back in his previous world, there was a hypothesis of a mythical era when the world was just formed and was in a state of chaos. Demons and gods inhabited the world while humans were just one of the mortal species struggling to survive. Later it was speculated that there was a fierce war between the divines in which the soul of the earth itself was damaged thus forbidding the path of cultivation for the future generations.
“But if it’s not cultivation then how can all these bizarre abilities be explained?” Li Yan began contemplating alongside the old beggar while staring at the fairy-like girl.
“Hello brother, are you Li Yan? Umm…why are you not answering me?” the little girl said in an ephemeral voice.
“Oh sorry got lost in my thoughts. So why are you searching for me and who are you”, Li Yan said with a thoughtful look on his face.
“Hahaha what’s with that look on your face, you look just like an old man. I am Mu Lan my grandfather asked me to bring you to him so I was waiting for you outside the temple. Can we go now, I don’t want to be running errands all day long”
“Your grandfather? It’s my first time seeing Miss Lan in the village, can I ask you who is your grandfather?” replied Li Yan
“Ah, my grandfather's name is Fei Lan he is the priest in the temple. Let me introduce myself again my name is Mu Lan, and I am13-year-old this year and a practitioner of the Light Spirit. We look similar in age so don’t call me Miss, it’s like talking to an adult, you can call me Mue’r and I will call you Li-Li and we can be friends” replied Mu Lan with an excited look on her face.
A practitioner huh, I don’t think I have heard that term before. Then again she said she is just 13 years old and here I thought she was at least 16, so maybe she just had good genes to develop so much, I don’t think the genes from the old priest gave many advantages to her so it may be from her mother side, If she is this beautiful then her mother may be a beauty queen. Huh, why am I thinking such nonsense here, it’s not like me to get fascinated by a beauty of a teenager? It seems that occupying this body has made two different personalities mix with each other, so that’s why I am not able to control my emotion properly. To think a grandmaster of a generation will be reduced to making friends with brats, if the Shaolin monk from my previous life saw me like this then I will die of embarrassment.
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Mu Lan: “Hey Li-Li….are you there ….hey?”
“Don’t call me Li-Li” Li Yan replied a little irritated.
“Yelp, don’t scare me like that we can be friends, can’t we?” Mu Lan said with a teary face.
“Hump, who will befriend a brat like you. My name is Li Yan, I am 16 years old so you can call me Li Yan or brother Yan” replied Li Yan with an indigent feeling.
“What, I am a brat, you are a bully, waah I will tell you to my grandfather”, and so the little brat started crying making Li Yan feel like he just swallowed a fly.
Li Yan felt a headache coming seeing Mu Lan crying like this. Shit, I should my controlled my temper, what’s the use of getting indigent with a little girl. “Hey, Mu Lan don’t cry, why don’t you tell me what you want and I will get it for you if I can as an apology” saying this he put his hand on Mu Lan's hair and started patting her hair so as to console her.
“Are you sure you will give me what I want?” replied Mu Lan with a pitiful expression with big droplets of tears ready to fall in her hazy blue eyes that will make even a veteran heart go soft.
Li Yan was stunned for a moment again, so he couldn’t stop himself from replying “Ok” but just after he replied he regretted it. What’s wrong with me today, with my spirit I should’ve been able to control the hormones in this body, so why am I getting distracted by her. Now he finally felt how those simps back on the earth who couldn’t control their emotions felt.
“Ok! Then let me call you Lin-Lin and become my friend”, the girl smirked revealing a cruel smile akin to a devil seductress. Her eyes were dry as if the tears earlier were just an illusion.
“No”, Li Yan said just a single word with a stoic expression. Nothing the little devil said will be able to change his will regarding this. Was she kidding, Li Yan was a Legend in his previous world, so how could he lose his self-esteem due to the charm of a little girl.
“But..but…you said that you’d agree to anything, how can you go back on your words. You are a bully...Wahhh. I will say to everyone you bullied me…sniff…sniff”, and she really started crying, making Li Yan feel like shit.
Shit. To think that an old man like me would be presented with such a difficult choice, life is hard but what doesn’t bend will break. Saying so Li Yan made a determined expression as if he had made a life or death decision, and so he faced Mu Lan directly their eyes locking each other, one side had a red puffy eye while the other side had a determined gaze as though making a life-changing decision.
“Mue’r I was just joking with you of course you can call me Lin-Lin, aren’t we friends. So why don’t you be a good girl and stop crying”, saying so Lin Yan patted her head while consoling her.
“Yay! You are the best Lin-Lin”, saying so Mue’r started jumping like a startled little rabbit. Seeing this scene Lin-Lin/ Li Yan couldn’t help but think that he got duped again by this little devil.
“ Mue'r wasn’t your grandfather looking for me, why don’t we go and visit him” Li Yan couldn’t help but remind the distracted little devil of her actual objective.
“Ok Lin-Lin here grab my hand, I heard that when friends walk they walk by holding each other hands, and call me Mi-Mi or Mue’r”, said little loli with an excited expression on her face.
“Hey, where are you going? I am still calculating, I only need a couple more minutes…hey stop, don’t run” the old beggar said out loud but the two birds already seem to have flown into their own world while holding each other hands.
Li Yan was walking towards the temple, his expression was a bit distorted as he was thinking about some issue deeply but the little loli beside him was happily jumping around and talking about various things with him as if they were long-lost friends. Li Yan wasn’t much interested in gossip of a little girl; he was having his own trouble at the moment.
Li Yan was feeling a little giddy, his steps seems to be light and his mind a little heavy at the moment. He realized that the moment the little loli gripped his hand the earlier feeling of faith and obsession seemed to have been infinitely multiplied, even affecting his steel-like willpower.
Li Yan got startled at once, he had a robust spirit gained through worldly experience and life and death from two lifetimes, there shouldn’t have been many things that could faze his will like this. He started calming down his mind according to the Buddhist scripture obtained from the Shaolin temple in the ancient hills of Tibet, which helped to stabilize his will a little but not completely.
Li Yan wasn’t listening to what the little loli was saying, nor did he have the ability to focus on her, or else his emotions will be more affected, so he was simply letting her drag him towards the temple while he focused his mind. As he entered the temple he observed portraits of demons and gods sculpted on the wall all around him, he found many of the figurines similar to the one back on earth like the one in which a snake was devouring its own tail like the myth of ouroboros the world-devouring snake, or the one in which a bird seems to be rising up from flame in a spark of glory which seemed vaguely similar to the legend of a phoenix. There were also portraits that deciphered myths of a heavenly emperor who commanded lightning or that of snake goddesses who commanded beauty and power.
If Li Yan wasn’t an avid researcher in his previous life then he would have found these sculptures and portraits vaguely familiar and nothing else, but since he had heavily explored myths and legends in his previous life he found that almost all the stories conveyed by these portraits to be true which again begged the question, ’where was he?’. Since arriving unto this new world he has been pestered with one question after another but has not obtained a single definite answer.
As he was walking down the temple in a heavy mood, he saw the priest at the end of the temple, the priest was seated in a lotus position while in front of him was a small pond in which different breeds of lotus flowers were blooming. Some were red, some blue, and others had different colors per stem. The priest seemed to be in a state of deep meditation like a devout believer praying to his deity.