Stars fall and locust trees grow

There are eighteen towns in Luozhou.

Each town has a Mingyuejian station, with a dedicated person responsible for collecting various tasks and then transmitting them back to all the task halls of the sect as soon as possible.

Li Chi's main mission on this trip was to help an old woman who lived alone at the foot of the West Mountain in Taiping Town find two wild boars that had been lost for a day.

The old woman's name is Zhao Yue. She has no children and her husband died early. She only has a hunting dog as a companion. She has been making a living by picking medicinal herbs and raising wild boars.

The day before, Old Lady Zhao stayed at the same place to collect herbs as usual, while the hunting dog took the two wild boars to forage for food nearby.

The hunting dog was specially trained. In the past, as long as she blew the whistle three times, the hunting dog would bring the wild boar back to join her and go down the mountain together.

But on the day of the accident, the whistle only called back the hunting dog covered in blood, while the two wild boars were nowhere to be seen.

Old Lady Zhao took a careful look and found the wound on the hound to be horrific, so deep that the bone was almost visible, as if it had been cut open by the sharp claws of some wild beast.

Monsters occasionally appear in the depths of the West Mountain.

Although Mrs. Zhao was worried about her livelihood, she did not dare to go into the depths of the West Mountain alone to look for it, so she could only rush to the town before it got dark and ask Ming Yuejian for help.

Searching missions are the lowest level of all missions. They are usually targeted at ordinary disciples in the outer courtyard, and the rewards obtained are pitifully small.

Li Chi's daily food and daily necessities were all provided by Guchuan Lin Qingqing, even his sword was ready-made, so he didn't need these few spirit stones.

What's more, this was his first time carrying out a sect mission and he had no experience, so he chose a simple one just to test the waters.

Joining him on this mission were two outer court disciples, a man and a woman, who looked to be about the same age as Li Chi.

The three of them agreed to meet at the square in the outer courtyard at noon and go to Taiping Town together.

The female cultivator is named Ruan Nanzhi, she is sixteen years old this year, and has just entered the early stage of the ninth level of the Mortal Realm. She is a precious talisman cultivator. The male cultivator is named Ye Jingxi, he is seventeen years old this year, and is currently at the peak of the eighth level of the Mortal Realm. Like Li Chi, he is a sword cultivator.

When they learned that Li Chi was the disciple brought back by Junior Master Gu Chuanlin and was still in the Xuan Gu realm, the two of them jumped up and down excitedly, obviously already considering him as their big brother.

Wei Li, who had been sitting in his room all day long in meditation and practicing, and was so bored that hair was growing on his head, immediately rushed over when he heard that Li Chi was going down the mountain to carry out the sect's mission, and insisted on going with him.

After a lot of arguing, a few people finally flew towards Taiping Town on their swords.

Talisman practitioners usually rely on flying instruments or flying talismans when traveling, but with Ruan Nanzhi's current ability, she simply cannot afford the cost of flying instruments. As for flying talismans, she is not very good at it at the moment, so Li Chi took the initiative to take her on the "Yan Lingyi".

Disciples in the mortal realm cannot fly swords for a long time. Li Chi also stumbled a lot when he led people to fly with a sword for the first time. They had to find a place to rest for a while after every half an hour of flying, waiting for their spiritual energy to recover, so the four of them did not move forward very fast.

Li Chi also took the opportunity to take out the Luozhou topographic map that Gu Chuanlin gave him during the break, determined the next route, and took out a few spiritual pastries to share with everyone.

The pastries were naturally specially prepared by Gu Chuanlin for Li Chi. Moreover, worried that he might encounter an accident on the road, he also specially drew a teleportation talisman for him. The teleportation location was set at the outer courtyard square at the top of Sumilou Mountain.

Although Li Chi had some concerns about this teleportation talisman that could only teleport two people at a time, he finally accepted it for safety reasons.

About half an hour after Li Chi and his companions left Mingyuejian, a young man in brown clothes landed on Lunyin Island, exhausted, fanning himself.

"Oh my! We are finally here. I am so tired."

Before I saw the person, I heard his voice first.

Before Gu Chuanlin could stand up from the small table, Hu Di kicked the door open and rushed in like a hurricane.

"Huh..." He grabbed the teapot, poured himself three cups of tea and drank them down gulply. After his throat was soothed, he started talking about business.

"I was in Shuozhou the day you sent me the message. When I heard that you wanted to transplant the big locust tree under Weihua Peak to Lunyin Island as a birthday gift for the child, I immediately rushed to the Jiangzhou branch without stopping."

Hu Di raised his eyebrows, "You know, the age of that big locust tree may be older than me, and it is also part of our 29 Yue's property. I really don't want to dig it out and give it away for no reason."

"Didn't you go to Shuozhou just to snatch the other half of the notebook from Fu Xiling?!" Gu Chuanlin pointed out to him expressionlessly.

"Oh my! How did you know?!" Hu Di covered his mouth and chuckled, "Could it be that Fu Xiling came to you to complain?!"

"There are many sentries near Sumilou Mountain." Gu Chuanlin said, "You have always been obsessed with talismans, so you will not let go of the other half easily."

"You really understand me." Hu Di curled his lips.

He propped his chin on one hand and waved a fan with the other. "Come to think of it, I did you a big favor this time. How are you going to thank me afterwards?!"

Gu Chuanlin didn't raise his head or open his eyes: "Thirty top-grade talismans."

"As expected of Mingyuejian's little master, you are always generous!" Hu Di first gave a thumbs up, but then he put away the smile on his face and replaced it with an extremely serious expression, "In fact, in addition to the birthday gift, I have two other things to say about the little friend."

Hearing this, Gu Chuanlin suddenly raised his eyes, "What's wrong with him?!"

"Hey!" Hu Di sighed, then took out a Qiankun bag and placed it on the small table. "That day, I found something under the big locust tree. I thought it was not appropriate to let others know about it, and I was going to Lunyin Island anyway, so I decided to tell you in person."

"However, before you open the Qiankun bag, I still hope you can be mentally prepared. After all, when I first saw these things, my head felt like it was struck by lightning. And you have a special relationship with the child, so I think you will be more shocked than me."

Seeing that Hu Di was so cautious, Gu Chuanlin did not open the Qiankun bag directly. He just injected a trace of spiritual energy and used his spiritual sense to explore it first.

There are only two things in the Qiankun bag.

An ordinary wooden box and the dilapidated body of a young boy.

"I opened the box and looked inside. Inside was a talisman with strange patterns and a small piece of bone that emitted a strange fragrance. There was a layer of black powder at the bottom of the box."

"Although I don't know what the talisman is used for, I saw the child's name and birthday in the corner."

"As for the skeleton...I suspect it is most likely that of a child."