o some kind of candy thief. After Fan Xian finally pacified him by throwing him a handful of copper coins, he pointed him in the right direction.

Fan Xian headed off that way, walking for a long time before finally coming to the sad realization that the place that the boy had said was not where he should have been at all. He had already reached the edges of the city, a place he did not know at all. Though he was quite proud of his stamina for walking so far, he was not so proud of his intellect.

A single temple stood in this desolate place.

To find such desolate area in a bustling city was no easy feat. It was, perhaps, not so much desolate as it was unusually clean. On the eaves, beams and pillars of the temple, there was not a speck of dust to be seen

As he craned his neck up to look at the black wooden building, he couldn't help but be reminded of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing in his former life, though the temple in front of him was much smaller, and it seemed less connected to the mysteries of heaven and more concerned with secular beauty.

The main entrance was covered in thick black lacquer and looked extremely solemn. On a flat horizontal tablet above the gate stood the words: "Temple of Qing".

Fan Xian used his tongue to extract the last remnants of candied berries from between his teeth. He looked at the golden-painted words above him that designated this sacred ground, and he was filled with a feeling that was hard to describe.

This was the Temple of Qing. It was said that this was the only place in the Kingdom of Qing connected to the Temple of the Void; this was where the royal family came to make sacrifices to Heaven.

When he was in Danzhou, Fei Jie had said that the Heavenly Altar was three miles away from the imperial palace, which Fan Xian took to mean a place that was three miles away, never guessing that "three miles away" was a part of its name. .

Fan Xian's jaw hung open. Before he came to the capital, he thought that since no one knew where the temple was, he had to come and see the Heavenly Altar at the Temple of Qing, because there was a question that had bothered him for 16 years, a question to which he had never found an answer:

Why had he come to this world?

In the novels he had read in his previous life, Xiang Shaolong[1] had his reasons, there was a reason for the adventures that followed, and ultimately, no reason was needed.

But Fan Xian was filled with deep doubts. He needed a reason, something that explain to him how he could have clearly died and been reborn in this world.

He never would have thought that that the child would have pointed him in the direction of the Temple of Qing. This realization made him feel somewhat dizzy. Perhaps there was some faint and mysterious connection between him and the temple. Perhaps this was fate.

He was firmly convinced that the candied hawthorne berries had brought him to his destiny.

As he stepped forward, all was quiet around him. He softly opened the heavy wooden gate, which seemed not to have been opened in many years.

...

"Stop!"

An angry shout came through the air.

[1]: Xiang Shaolong is a character from a series concerning a man who was sent back through time.