Chapter 1465

Character Side Story: Yunye Temple Master · Li Jingming

Li Jingming's master passed away early, and Li Jingming, in his early twenties, took over the burden of Yunye Temple from his master's hands.

On the day before his master left, he grabbed Li Jingming's hand tightly, not letting him go find a doctor, and said with a smile while coughing:

"Living is natural, and dying is natural. Don't do useless things, don't perform meaningless acts.

The decay of the skin is not death; forgetting is the true departure.

Your master protected me for a lifetime, and now, I have to go find him. I'm afraid he'll be lonely.

But you are different, you still have Yunye Temple.

Remember, pass Yunye Temple... down."

His master let go and left freely. Li Jingming didn't cry or make a scene. He carried his master up the mountain and buried him in the place his master liked to watch the sunset the most. The villagers down the mountain learned of this and came to pay their respects, but over time, they lost interest.

To them, the departure of the old temple master was heartbreaking but not a pity. The new temple master was young and handsome, and the most pitiful thing was that he didn't have a partner.

So, Yunye Temple suddenly became a temple for marriage for some reason. Families within a ten-mile radius who still had daughters to marry were always willing to drag their daughters to the temple to pray.

Most girls weren't interested in these superstitious things, but after seeing the temple master's appearance, their hearts became much more sincere when they held incense and bowed.

Some girls were even willing to bind their hair and practice asceticism, accompanying the desk forever, just to seek a status.

However, Li Jingming did not comment on this.

He just focused on managing the miscellaneous affairs of the temple and continued to copy the ancestor scriptures by the way.

Yunye Temple has a rule: if the temple master is alive, his biography will not be shown to the disciples. That is to say, it wasn't until Li Jingming's master passed away that he knew what his master had recorded in the scriptures.

It's interesting to say that before adopting Li Jingming, his master was also a mischievous troublemaker. The scripture records were full of complaints about mountain practice and complaints about the ancestors' lack of dignity. He once imitated the ancestors to swindle the villagers but was beaten up by the villagers, and imitated the ancestors to steal chickens and dogs but was caught by the police and thrown into the station.

For this reason, his master's master was lonely in the temple for a while.

After being released, his master complained to his master's master, saying that he had no chance to be an official anymore. His master's master laughed and said: "In the future, you will be the temple master, which counts as an 'official' in size."

His master was happy, but shook his head: "Compared to being an official, I would rather be a disciple, at least you can still protect me."

His master's master laughed and scolded: "People have life and death, how can I protect you for a lifetime?"

"Then you just die slowly, protect me until I die, and then you die, wouldn't that work?"

"Wicked disciple!"

It was such a reckless master who seemed like a different person after his master's master died.

The scriptures from that period were not blank, but large sections of records missing his master's master. They were called his master's scriptures, but they were actually more like excerpts of memories of his master's master's past.

His master could not accept the pain of his master's master's departure, was heartbroken, contracted a serious illness, and almost died in the temple, causing Yunye to break its incense. Fortunately, a pilgrim discovered him and saved his master. His master was also extremely scared, fearing that Yunye's incense would break in his hands.

But at that time, Yunye Temple was small, and what family had children willing to invest in "practice" in the door?

Not to mention practice, even life was tight.

Such hopeless days lasted for a period of time, until that day, the master in the scripture memory seemed to have changed again.

At that time, his master's master had been gone for years. His master was "lonely and helpless," often unable to sleep at night. One day, seeing the sunset, he recalled the days of watching the sunset with his master's master, so he walked along the mountain road, chasing the sun, unwilling to watch it go down.

This journey went further and further, and by the time the sun went down, he was already far from the temple.

His master had sorrow in his heart and was unwilling to look back, so he kept moving forward. He climbed over mountains, crossed rivers, and walked to a place with lights, but stayed away from the lights, walking onto the highway. He wanted to see if this straight road could lead him to where his master's master went, but he didn't expect that by midnight, he would hear the sound of an infant crying on this deserted highway.

A Daoist practitioner has a righteous spirit and is naturally not afraid of ghosts. He walked toward the sound of crying, only to see an infant in swaddling clothes, covered in blood, thrown into the grass by the side of the road. It was obvious that he had been abandoned.

Encountering such a thing on the road should have made him feel sympathy, but at that moment, he felt extremely happy. This feeling was as if his master had led him here to accept a new life, continuing the incense inheritance for Yunye Temple.

He picked up the infant tremblingly, waited for a long night, and seeing that no one returned to look for him, he carried him back to the temple.

When he pushed the door to enter the temple, it happened to be dawn. A ray of morning light shone on the mountain top, leaping over the temple roof, and the main hall shone at the right time, as if illuminating the road ahead for Yunye.

He was inspired and named the infant in his arms: Jingming.

As for the surname, he took the "Li" character from his master.

Since then, the records on his master's scriptures began to be detailed, all related to Li Jingming.

When his master left, Li Jingming didn't leave a single tear, but flipping through the scriptures, he didn't know how many copies of tears he had lost.

His master said that he also had the great ambitions of the ancestors, but the country was stable and there was nowhere to display them, so he could only take good care of Yunye, which could be considered not abandoning the ambition of Yunye.

Since then, the ambition of Yunye became the ambition of Jingming.

Then, one day many years later, the gods descended, bringing a 【Faith Game】 to the world.

That day, Li Jingming, who was sitting in front of the hall burning incense and copying scriptures, was suddenly pulled into a pure white room by a force. Facing such a strange scene, Li Jingming was also panicked, but when he saw the tokens of the two gods in front of him, he abandoned the other without hesitation and chose the old photo engraved with his master's figure.

The power of 【Memory】 filled his body, and he became a memory traveler at the starting point of his destiny.

And when he became a memory traveler, he used the talent given to him by the gods to use a memory trip on himself.

That was his first time returning to the past, returning to the moment when his master held him and stepped into Yunye Temple.

He stood in front of the hall like an invisible person, watching his master, who hadn't slept all night but was still full of energy, holding an infant and pushing the door in, smiling and saying to his master:

"Morning light shines on Yunye, obtained disciple Jingming!"

At that moment, he suddenly fell in love with this game.

He also finally realized that memory does indeed exist eternally. At least under the gaze of 【Memory】, memory can be manifested, and he can also go find those memories that belong to Yunye Temple but were lost elsewhere.