Revelation of the Way of Heaven

That night, the moon was nowhere to be seen, and even the stars were hidden. It was in this place that Qin Xiaochuan truly understood what real darkness was. The darkness here was a pure black, as if large swathes of viscous ink filled the surroundings. Without lighting, it would be pitch black.

Changsheng Temple is located on a hillside in the northeast corner of Changsheng Village. Less than ten meters from the ferry landing, there is a fork in the road, one leading to the village and the other to Changsheng Temple. Although the road they took did not pass through the village, they could still faintly hear laughter coming from some houses not far away.

It was so quiet in the mountains.

Soon they arrived at the gate of Changsheng Temple. Changsheng Temple was just a small to medium-sized temple. Facing them was a red lacquered wooden gate with gray glazed tiles and upturned eaves. On both sides were two sections of yellow walls, each with a large character "Buddha" written on it.

A cold mountain wind blew by, and immediately above, the sound of dry branches hitting bricks and tiles came from above, creating a feeling of utter desolation.

Zhou Bin stepped forward and knocked on the wooden door. After a while, they heard someone inside ask, "Who is it?" Then the wooden door creaked open, and a young monk wearing a gray-blue robe peeked out.

The monk, holding a flashlight, shone it around them, then gave them a Buddhist greeting and asked, "This humble monk, Huiming, may I ask what brings you here?"

Han Kexin took out her phone from her bag, pulled up the picture of the monk they had seen on the crystal ball, and held it up to Huiming, asking, "We want to find this master, but we don't know if we can see him now."

Huiming glanced at the photo and said, "Oh, this is Abbot Ruzhen of our temple, but he's already asleep and probably won't be able to see you tonight."

Han Kexin frowned upon hearing this, and could only say helplessly, "In that case, we won't disturb the abbot's rest any longer. However, we just arrived here tonight and haven't found a place to stay yet. I wonder if your temple could provide us with a place to rest?"

"This..." Huiming clearly looked troubled.

"Because we need to offer incense tomorrow morning and also donate some money to your temple, it's too inconvenient to go up and down the mountain. We hope you can help us out, Master," Han Kexin added.

"In that case, come in with me. I'll go find Uncle Ruxiang to arrange rooms for you." Huiming finally agreed, opening the temple gate for them as he spoke.

Huiming led them from the path beside the main hall to the meditation room at the back, and said to them, "Wait here for a while, I'm going to find Uncle Ruxiang, who is in charge of logistics."

"Who is it?" Before Huiming had even left, a voice suddenly came from the night.

The crowd looked in the direction of the voice, but the person speaking was not using any lighting equipment. He was standing in front of a dark meditation room on the other side. The light from the temple was very dim when it shone on him, and they could only make out a vague figure.

"Oh, Uncle-Master Ruxiang, these people are here to stay." Huiming answered the man as he walked towards Ruxiang and whispered a few words to him. Then Ruxiang whispered a few words to Huiming.

Afterwards, Huiming led the five people to two empty meditation rooms. Qin Xiaochuan and Zhou Bin shared one room, while Han Kexin, Guo Shiyi, and Xiaoying shared another. The beds in the meditation rooms were large communal beds, but they were very clean, just like a hotel. It seemed that this place was specially prepared for tourists staying overnight.

After a long and tiring day, Qin Xiaochuan was feeling quite exhausted, but it was far from his usual bedtime, so it was impossible for him to fall asleep. He took out his phone, intending to go online, but found that there was only one bar of signal. He could barely make a phone call, let alone go online.

Sigh, he collapsed onto the bed, feeling utterly lost. Being in the mountains was truly torturous; there was no internet, no entertainment, and most importantly, Zhou Bin was a man of few words. He really didn't know how to pass the time that night.

He thought for a moment and finally came up with an idea. He took out the snacks and drinks from his backpack and put them on a table in the meditation room. Then he said to Zhou Bin, "It's only a little past seven o'clock. There's still a long time before we go to sleep. Let's have a midnight snack first."

"It doesn't matter when we sleep," Zhou Bin replied. That's true, his biological clock was already messed up anyway, but he still went over and sat on the other side of the table.

Qin Xiaochuan picked up a bottle of drink and handed it to him, but he shook his head, took out a portable stainless steel flask from his pocket, shook it at him, and said, "I have this."

"Huh, I've never seen you drink before," he said in surprise, but then he remembered something else. "Besides, this isn't a good idea. This is a temple, after all. If they find out we're drinking, they'll kick us out."

"This is not alcohol," Zhou Bin said calmly.

"What is that?" he asked curiously. Zhou Bin did not answer him, but handed him the wine pot. Qin Xiaochuan took the wine pot and brought it to his nose to smell it. A strong smell of blood rushed into his nostrils.

"Blood!" he exclaimed in shock.

"Is that strange?" Zhou Bin frowned. "Of course, we Blood Witches drink blood."

"Uh..." He was stunned; this was the first time he had ever seen them drink blood. He shouldn't have been surprised, because it was a natural thing for vampires to drink blood, and he had actually known this fact for a long time.

However, even so, seeing Zhou Bin gulp down the incredibly pungent-smelling blood from the wine jug (or rather, the blood jug) for the first time still made him feel a little nauseous.

"How much blood do you drink every day?" he asked.

"Not necessarily, it depends on activity level. Blood can provide us with energy. The more active we are, the more blood we need to drink. Haven't you heard that some zombies and vampires can lie in their graves for thousands of years? Because they don't consume any energy, they don't need to drink blood," Zhou Bin replied casually.

He was speechless. He thought of Han Kexin and Xiao Ying, and asked, "So, Han Kexin and Xiao Ying...?"

"Kexin needs it too, after all, she's been through so much today, but Xiaoying doesn't need it."

Why?

"Because Xiaoying is different from us?" Zhou Bin said meaningfully.

This made him even more curious, and he immediately asked, "What's different?"

Zhou Bin glanced at him leisurely, and was about to speak when there was a knock on the door. So he swallowed his words, got up from the table, and opened the door.

Standing outside the door was Guo Shiyi, who asked Zhou Bin, "Are you asleep?"

"You're still awake? Come in," Zhou Bin said.

Upon entering the room, Guo Shiyi's eyes lit up immediately when she saw the snacks laid out on the table. At the same time, she complained, "Hmph, you guys don't even invite us to eat. I'll tell Sister Kexin later and have her come and teach you a lesson."

"No, I thought you were already asleep, so I didn't want to disturb you," Qin Xiaochuan said, somewhat speechless. "What brings you here?"

"We're just like you guys, how could we possibly sleep this early? So we came over to call you guys to play cards together," Guo Shiyi said with a smile.

"Playing cards? Do you have any cards with you?" Playing cards at night is the best way to pass the time.

"No, but I have this." Guo Shiyi handed him a wooden card with a smile, but the pictures on the card were all unfamiliar to him, and he didn't know how to play it.

"Did you make this yourself?" Qin Xiaochuan asked in surprise. Although the wooden cards weren't particularly exquisite, their shapes were quite neat.

"Of course, let's go, we're just waiting for you two." She urged them quickly, while carrying the snacks on the table into their room.

"But I don't know how to play this kind of card game."

"It's okay, I'll teach you," Guo Shiyi said. So the four of them played together until 9:30 p.m. before going to their respective rooms to sleep.