Wu Dong Qian Kun

5. The Mysterious Stone Talisman

"What is this?"

Lin Dong stared blankly at the object in his hand; it looked like a faintly ash-colored stone piece and was about as big as two fingers put together. Though it looked like a stone, as he rolled it over in his palm, it felt strangely soft. This kind of softness did not feel like that of a stone, yet it was also not like jade and even more not like wood.

Like stone yet not stone, like jade yet not jade, like wood yet not wood.

After Lin Dong had painstakingly climbed to the roof of the cave and searched about, he finally managed to find this stone piece in a hidden crevice. From the location it was found, It seemed like the liquid that had dripped into the rock pool had originated from this object.

Embedded within an extremely clear palm impression in such a dark place atop the mountain. If one were to take a closer look at the impression, he would find that it was so well imprinted that even the lines on the palm could be clearly seen. As he looked at the mysterious palm impression, Lin Dong suddenly realized that perhaps, someone had already arrived at this mountain cave long before he ever did.

"What a mysterious object."

As Lin Dong muttered, he noticed that on this thumb-sized stone piece, some cryptic patterns which looked like some sort of mystical characters were faintly discernable.

These mystical characters covered every inch of the stone piece, causing it to resemble a mysterious stone talisman.

At this juncture, besides the cryptic and profound looking mystical characters on the stone talisman, there were no other unusual aspects. Yet Lin Dong understood that the shining drop of red liquid he had just seen was definitely not an illusion.

"The reason why the rock pool possessed that kind of special property must have something to do with this stone talisman......"

Lin Dong sunk deep into thought. Previously, he had personally seen a drop of light fall into the rock pool, and only this was the only evidence that could explain why the rock pool would possess such a miraculous property.

"Pah!"

As Lin Dong reasoned to himself, the noise of rubble rolling sounded out from outside the cave. Immediately, he stuffed the stone talisman into his inner garments, placing it at the spot near his chest.

"Lin Dong-ge, hee hee, I knew that you would be here."

Just as Lin Dong managed to hide the stone talisman, like a butterfly, a figure fluttered and appeared at the entrance of the cave. The figure was revealed to be a young girl who looked to be about 13 or 14 years old, wearing simple light colored clothes. Yet these simple clothes were unable to conceal the quick wittedness on her small face. Though the girl was rather young, her small face was rather elaborate, her huge eyes glittered, making her look extremely adorable.

Gazing at the young girl, Lin Dong secretly sighed in relief. The girl was not a member of the Lin Family, rather she was adopted by Liu Yan not long after he was born. She was younger by Lin Dong by just a bit, so the two of them had grown up together and their relationship was akin to that of brother and sister, extremely intimate. As she was an orphan, she did not take on the Lin family name. Thus Liu Yan helped choose a good name for her: Qing Tan. And like her namesake, she was full of liveliness like sandalwood.

"Lin Dong-ge, the sky is almost dark, Mother has been calling you for quite a while."

Qing Tan laughed merrily as she approached, her small hands naturally pulling at Lin Dong's arm as she dragged him out of the cave. As she walked, she mumbled: "If the sky had gotten dark, you won't be able to see the rock path here, don't tell me that you planned on sleeping in the cave like before?"