Virtuous Spirit Temple, A Wish To Live Forever

"Oh, I'm really sorry. Are you okay?"

Tian Yongheng says apologetically as he looked down at the person who bumped into him, reaching out to lift the latter up by his arms.

"It's alright! No worries!"

The ordinary looking student who bumped into Tian Yongheng hurriedly replied as he rushed into his class at the opposite direction, but before he could open the door, he was abruptly stopped by one of the people who were with Tian Yongheng.

"Don't you have eyes? Can't you see that brother Tian is walking by here?"

The student was surprised at first, however, hearing the other party's words, his eyes showed a hint of panic as he almost bowed down to apologize.

At that instant, Tian Yongheng's eyes narrowed vaguely as he quickly stopped the student from bowing down.

He gave a nasty side eye to the person who stopped the student, causing the former to look away in shame.

"There's no need to go this far, and it was my fault I bumped into him. I apologized, and he accepted my apology. The matter is over now."

Everyone around them subconsciously took a couple of steps back, afraid of accidentally offending someone with such a high status as Tian Yongheng.

It was obvious that the person who stopped the student was trying to curry favor with Tian Yongheng. He hastily looked down and apologized to the student first and then to Tian Yongheng.

*Ring!*

Before the matter could escalate further, the sound of the school bell ringing brought a sense of relief to all those in the surroundings, and they quickly dispersed. The student who had bumped into Tian Yongheng also left shortly after thanking him.

The young man with the surname Hong glared at the person who blocked the student from before and snorted coldly, making all of his lackeys to shiver in fear.

On the other hand, Tian Yongheng stared at the direction the student from before had left, a strange sense of unease growing in his subsconcious. Thinking that he was being overly sensitive, he chose to brush it off and headed towards the class along with Hong and their group.

...

A few hours later.

As the class came to an end, Tian Yongheng called out to the young man surnamed Hong, "Brother Hong Wen, I'm afraid I won't be able to hang out with you all today. I have to go somewhere with my family."

His face showed a look of regret, making his words appear sincere.

Hong Wen nodded in understanding as he let out a soft sigh.

"It's a pity then, brother Tian. Let's meet again tomorrow at your birthday party then."

Tian Yongheng gave him a slight nod before leaving the classroom.

I'd rather sleep in my room than go out partying, but I've already promised them...then there's dad's connections as well. I can't back down now.

With a status like his, it was inevitable for him to be surrounded by people with all kinds of malicious intents, be it freeloading off him or taking advantage of his influence, which he didn't really like but also couldn't say out loud because quite a few of those people were connected to his family's business, not to mention that he had to take the Tian Family's reputation into consideration as well.

He thought of multiple ways to avoid the meetup tomorrow, but after not being able to find an answer in the short term, he just let it be and walked towards the school parking lot. His younger sister, Tian Qi'er, was already waiting for him there by then.

"Why were you waiting for me? I thought you might have already left by now." Asked Tian Yongheng as he got into his car and started it.

"Mom called. She said both of us can just directly go to the mountain at the backside of the city where the Virtuous Spirit Temple is, and that they'll be waiting for us. We'll go to a restaurant owned by one of father's friends for dinner after that."

Tian Qi'er replied in a nonchalant tone of voice as she took out her phone after getting into the car.

"Virtuous Spirit Temple? The one which was a hot topic in religious communities a while ago? So it's already been built and open for the public, hm.."

Tian Yongheng mumbled under his breath and glanced at Tian Qi'er, who was too focused on her phone to answer, and let out a heavy sigh as he began driving.

After half an hour, they finally reached right below the top of the mountain, which was the highest a vehicle could go up, and got out of it.

Walking for another 5 or so minutes, the shadow of the temple built with granduer entered their vision. Right outside of the temple were figures of their parents and an old man dressed in a daoist robe, possibly the daoist priest overseeing this temple.

Both of them bowed to the daoist priest in a respectful manner, and then walked towards the temple.

However, the next moment, they were stunned to see that there was no diety statue or anything of the kind in the temple.

They turned to look at the old daoist priest in confusion.

The daoist priest looked to be around 70 years of age, with a long beard and white hair.

He smiled at them and spoke in an ancient voice, "Children, you don't need to be so shocked. There is indeed no deity statue you can pray to here, instead, you can write a wish here in a paper and hang it on the temple gates.

This temple may not have any diety, but any person who hung their wish here had it fulfilled.

It shows how great the luck of this place is. They say the deity who this temple was originally built for has no true form, but he's a benevolent entity who will fulfill any one of your wish."

Hearing the daoist priest's words, Tian Qi'er scowled in disdain inwardly but didn't show it on the surface. She didn't believe in superficial things such as luck.

However, her older brother sure did.

Even though Tian Qi'er didn't believe it, she still wrote her wish and hung it on the gates of the temple.

Soon after, she spotted their parents taking a casual stroll around the mountain peak and quickly went to them, only to find out that they had already visited the temple and were just waiting for the siblings.

At last, it was only Tian Yongheng left standing at the temple entrance. He also wrote his wish on a piece of paper from the pile of them stuffed inside a box which the daoist priest took out from inside the temple.

However, at this moment, the daoist priest glanced at the contents in his wish accidentally, and couldn't help but shake his head.

"Child, your wish should be related to you, not your family. Wish for what you want, not what your family wants."

He looked at the paper in Tian Yongheng's hands with four words written on it.

'Prosperity for my family.'

Tian Yongheng was surprised. Coming from a family with generational wealth, he never really had anything else which he didn't already have. Being grateful, he only wanted his family to never fall and continue to prosper.

Aside from that, even though he believed in the supernatural, his actual wish for himself was too unrealistic, even though he believed that there was definitely a way to achieve it.

He fell into deep thought, and after contemplating for a while, he finally picked up another piece of paper and wrote on it, hanging it on the temple gates and bowing to the daoist priest once again before walking away towards his parents.

A virtuous deity who can fulfill any wish?

Why haven't I heard of him before, though?

Soon, the Tian Family left the mountain range together.

When the daoist priest's eyes landed on what was written as Tian Yongheng's wish, he widened his eyes in shock and just stared at the piece of paper hanging at the temple entrance for a long time.

There were only two words written on the paper.

'Eternal Life'.