Start from the God of Death and break through the world.

Chapter 1140 Family Reunion

After a bit of playful fighting, Lu Li led Lu Xueqing, who had already changed her clothes, up the mountain.

It's more accurate to say they're entering the mountain than going up, because their temple is only located near the foot of the mountain, and the nearest village is only about ten miles away.

Lu Li remembered that in the early years, some people had come to their dojo to study, and the master had taught them all with all his heart. However, the world was not good, and many people later felt that learning martial arts was useless. Even if they wanted to improve their health, there were many other convenient ways to do things without suffering.

Later, fewer and fewer people came to their temple, which made their lives even more difficult. Usually, the master would go up the mountain to hunt and then go to town to exchange the game for rice.

When Lu Li turned eight, their small family at the dojo became increasingly impoverished because the environment continued to deteriorate. The mountain, which was originally considered to have an excellent ecosystem in this era, was now devoid of animals, and their master could not hunt any prey at all.

As a result, they basically lost all their source of income. However, Lu Li knew that his master still had some savings, so at least they didn't starve to death.

As they approached the temple at the foot of the mountain, Lu Li slowed his pace, perhaps out of a sense of trepidation at the prospect of returning home.

Even though he is now considered a master in the Boundary Sea and has reached a transcendent state, he still hesitates at this moment.

For so many years, he had been dreaming of this day. He even thought how wonderful it would be if everything that happened that night was just a dream. That way, when he woke up, he would be running towards his home in the sunlight, just like he is now, laughing and playing with his master and senior sister.

"what happened?"

Seeing Lu Li stop, Lu Xueqing asked in confusion. She was a person of strong will, and the most devastating moment of her life had long passed. Now, with her martial arts heart, it was difficult for external things to affect her state of mind. So, after adjusting herself, she was ready to put on an act in front of Lu Li's master and senior sister.

"It's nothing... I just wanted to... take a look from a distance first..."

Lu Li's voice was filled with emotion, as if he feared that what he was seeing was a dream, and that he had woken up in a room in the End Space.

Lu Xueqing saw through Lu Li's thoughts and said, "You've already done it, go home and see your family."

On the way here, Lu Xueqing had asked Lu Li about his background out of curiosity, since Lu Li had only said that his master and senior sister had raised him, and had never said who his parents were.

If Lu Li were an abandoned child, it would be normal for him not to know his origins. However, Lu Li reconstructed his true form and communicated with the past, present, and future, so he could naturally look back at his origins in a more advanced timeline.

But Lu Li said he didn't know and wasn't interested. He hadn't looked into his past in the earlier timelines, nor had he dug into his memories from before he gained consciousness.

Because it no longer matters to him who his biological parents are. He was abandoned at birth, so why bother searching for them? Everything he has is already right in front of him.

Upon hearing Lu Xueqing's words, Lu Li calmed down, a smile appeared on his face, and he walked forward.

Just as Lu Li passed through a few large, leafy trees, he saw a girl of about twelve or thirteen years old rushing towards him from the side. The girl thought she was very good at stealth and holding her breath, and launched a sneak attack, slapping Lu Li on the head with her palm.

Lu Li didn't dodge; in fact, he deliberately suppressed his body's instinct for perfect evasion and took the hit.

Feeling that familiar force and touch, Lu Li suddenly felt like crying, yet also wanted to laugh happily. As a result, his expression looked very strange, as if he were both crying and laughing.

"Oh dear, Ali, what's wrong? I was just kidding, don't scare me."

Seeing Lu Li both crying and laughing, the girl thought he had been stunned by her slap. She thought to herself, "I didn't use that much force, how could this happen?"

She was sweating profusely with anxiety, grabbing Lu Li's shoulders and shaking him repeatedly, "Ah Li, wake up! Senior sister won't ambush you again."

She couldn't find Lu Li earlier, and when she saw him come out of the woods, she figured he must have sneaked off to play early in the morning. Sneaking off to play wasn't the problem; the real issue was that Lu Li hadn't taken her with him!

So she wanted to teach Lu Li a lesson, but Lu Li seemed to have turned into a fool.

"Senior sister, stop shaking me, I'm fine..."

Lu Li snapped out of his daze and said that if he weren't a child with an extraordinary cultivation level, he would be dizzy from all the shaking.

Looking back now, it's fortunate that he was tough; otherwise, his senior sister would have worn him out when he was young.

You know, when he was just a baby, his senior sister used to tie a rag around his body and make him crawl around the dojo to help mop the floor...

"Phew...you scared me to death! Tell me, were you pretending on purpose...?"

The girl named Lu Gui patted her chest and breathed a sigh of relief. But just as she was about to scold Lu Li, she noticed a little girl standing a few meters behind Lu Li.

The girl was exquisitely beautiful, with skin so tender it looked like you could squeeze water out of it. Her hair was neatly combed. If it weren't for the fact that her clothes looked like those of a local villager, Lu Gui would have thought she was a rich young lady from the city who had run away.

This little girl was cute and sweet, with a somewhat timid look in her eyes, but she had an indescribable aura that made people feel a little intimidated.

Lu Gui was no ordinary person after all. She only looked for two seconds before she came to her senses, grabbed Lu Li's shoulders tightly, and straightened him up. "Ali, tell me honestly, where did you kidnap this girl from?!"

"What do you mean by kidnapping... Senior sister, you're really rude. I'm still a child myself."

Lu Li pursed his lips and said.

"Stop fooling around, tell me quickly. I'll take them back. The mountain roads are difficult to travel. How worried the parents must be if they can't find their children."

The senior sister urged, "Since the temple's business declined, very few people have gone into the mountains. Even adults rarely come, let alone children. She doesn't think the other person came here on their own."

"Senior sister, this girl is Lu Xueqing. I met her by the mountainside when I came down to play. She said that her family suffered a famine and her parents couldn't survive when they tried to escape to this side of the mountain. She was homeless and had to dig wild vegetables to eat by the mountainside."

Lu Li made up a story off the top of his head.

The senior sister looked at Lu Xueqing suspiciously, "Little sister, tell me, is what he said true? He didn't bully you or coerce you, did he?"

Lu Xueqing couldn't help but chuckle as she watched Lu Li being reprimanded by his senior sister. But when she was asked the question herself, her heart skipped a beat. "N-nothing..."

She wanted to say that her mother was still alive and what did he mean by "didn't make it through"? But she also knew that Lu Li was just making things up to fit the current situation, so she didn't argue with him.

"Really?" However, Lu Gui looked at Lu Xueqing with even more suspicion, scrutinizing her from head to toe. "You look clean and tidy, not like someone who has fled famine. Ali said you dug for wild vegetables, but you don't have a speck of dirt on you."

Lu Li looked at his senior sister with some surprise, thinking to himself, "Is my senior sister really that smart? Shouldn't she be so oblivious that she would have been fooled by me?"
"I...I, before Brother Ali brought me here, he had me wash by the mountain spring."

Lu Xueqing, quick-witted as ever, explained that for someone who never lies, acting and lying like this was still a bit difficult for her.

Actually, she had originally intended to tell Lu Li that he could go home by himself, and she could find a place to cultivate or try to contact the space to go back. But Lu Li insisted on dragging her along, and she couldn't refuse him, so she went along with him.

"Oh, I see... How pitiful..."

Although Lu Gui found Lu Xueqing's hesitant speech somewhat suspicious, he believed that his junior brother would not actually kidnap anyone. Since the little girl said that she had come from a famine, perhaps that was the case.

She wasn't confused about Lu Xueqing's hair color, because in this era, due to genetic engineering, people with all sorts of hair colors have inherited them, and purple hair and green hair are not uncommon.

Lu Xueqing's hair was snow-white, not a dull, pale white, so she didn't think the other person had premature gray hair; she just thought the other person had a special hair color.

Therefore, she also felt that although Lu Xueqing came from a famine, her family must have been well-off before. Otherwise, an ordinary family would not have spare money to do genetic engineering modification, and they would not have been able to raise such a beautiful girl.

Despite some doubts, she led Lu Li and the other person back to the dojo.

Upon entering the dojo, Lu Li saw a martial artist wielding a wooden sword. He was extremely skilled with the sword and moved with incredible speed, leaping several steps across the wall in a single bound.

"That's a wall I just cleaned yesterday!"

However, Lu Gui, who had just entered the dojo, let out an angry shout, causing the man who was performing martial arts with flair to pause in his movements.

As a result, the man lost his balance in mid-air and barely managed to land with a backflip, thus avoiding a face-first fall.

To maintain his masterly demeanor, he forced himself to stand still after the backflip, even though his body wasn't very stable. He turned his back to Lu Li, put his hands behind his back, and acted as if nothing had happened. "Ah Li, how much of Master's Little Leap Technique did you comprehend just now?"

Lu Li was a little nervous, but he knew that his master valued his reputation. In the past, he might have exposed his master's silly side, but today he gave his master a lot of face. "Master's movement skills are simply divine. In ancient times, Bodhidharma crossed the river on a reed. Today, Master has leaped over the wall. Your disciple admires you."

"Ali!"

Lu Gui looked at Lu Li in shock, "What's wrong with you today? This old guy is clearly just trying to fob me off, and you're actually taking his side?!"

Faced with his senior sister's questioning, which was forcing him to take sides, Lu Li responded perfectly today, saying only one sentence: "I'll clean the wall in a bit."

"That's okay."

Lu Gui immediately beamed with joy.

"cough……"

At this moment, the master turned around, seemingly a little embarrassed by Lu Li's praise, "Ah Li, Master only showed a small part of his skills. As for crossing the river on a reed, Master is far from being good enough..."

At this point, Lu Feng looked at the little girl standing behind Lu Li with confusion, "Who is this girl...?"

Lu Li tugged at Lu Xueqing's sleeve, and Lu Xueqing reacted, "Greetings, Master. I am Lu Xueqing, and I would like to become your apprentice here."

However, his master suddenly unleashed an even faster speed than before, appearing beside Lu Li in a flash. He pulled Lu Li to a corner against the wall, bent down, and whispered, "Ah Li, where did you pick up such a pretty girl? Her family must be very rich, right?"

Lu Li was both amused and exasperated by his master's expression. He knew his master had misunderstood and thought Lu Xueqing had genuinely come to become his disciple. Seeing that Lu Xueqing was clean and had white hair, he assumed she was from a well-off family and was thinking about how to ask for an exorbitant amount of money.

Of course, they charge tuition fees for running their dojo, but they haven't had any students in recent years.

“Master…you’ve misunderstood. Sister Xueqing is a refugee who came here from famine. She is all alone and has no one to rely on. She wants to learn martial arts with you and become a great hero who can change the world in the future.”

Lu Li explained.

"You brat, our family is almost starving. Tell me, are you blinded by lust and tricked this pretty girl into coming to learn martial arts, saying you'd take her in?"

Lu Gui raised his hand as if to strike, and asked threateningly.

Lu Li was puzzled, but he pretended to be clueless and asked, "Master, what does 'bewitched by lust' mean?"

This stumped Lu Feng, because he felt he had used the wrong words. In his eyes, Lu Li was just a little kid who couldn't even distinguish between boys and girls. So he started stammering, "Um... well, anyway, it just won't work. I'll go and try to find other relatives for her."

Lu Li knew that his family was not wealthy, and he often went hungry. From his master's perspective, his family really couldn't afford to raise any more children.

This is a very real issue, and it has nothing to do with whether or not one has compassion. For Lu Feng, Lu Li and Lu Gui are his own children, so of course he has to prioritize the livelihood of his own children.

Lu Li had anticipated this, so he looked at Lu Xueqing and said, "Master, she dug up a treasure while digging for wild vegetables today. If I give it to you, can she keep it?"

"What can a child dig up? No, not even the most precious treasures..."

Lu Feng shook his head without thinking, assuming that the child had dug up some industrial waste at the foot of the mountain and was treating it like a treasure.

But before he could finish speaking, he saw Lu Xueqing take out a gold nugget about the size of a child's fist from the small cloth bag on her back. There was still some dirt in the cracks, and it really looked like it had just been dug out of the ground.

Lu Feng's eyes widened, and he almost flew past in a "sand-descending goose" style. He bent down and grabbed Lu Xueqing's two small hands, and more importantly, he held the gold nugget in his hands.

"...It's not impossible!"

He squeezed out the second half of his sentence, his face beaming with joy, "Well, little girl, this thing is too heavy. Let me help you carry it."

Lu Xueqing felt a little strange and looked at Lu Li, thinking to herself, "Your master is not quite what I imagined."

(End of this chapter)