When I left, it was the end of the year, and every household was in high spirits. No matter how rough or miserable the past year was, the future was always full of hope, and with hope one was entitled to happiness.
Now that I have returned, it is already early summer, not too hot, and the mountains are green and full of vitality.
The contrast between the two gives people a strong sense of change.
As a Taoist who respects tradition, my master was upset about the fact that the incense offerings in the temple had been cut off for several months. He had to put the Zhenwu flag, which carries the souls of the ancestors, on the incense table, and asked me to lead Brother Yaozi, Lao Bai and others to kneel in a row, confessing to the Zhenwu flag, and explaining how many things we did and how many demons and monsters we killed during this trip, as if he was defending himself.
Wushuang entered here for the first time, blinking his bright eyes, staring at the Three Pure Ones on the altar. The Taoists had no expression on their faces, but seemed to have a thousand words to say. That gaze made Wushuang's heart tremble. This wild child who grew up in the mountains knew how to write the word "home" for the first time. So after staring for a while, he kowtowed seriously with tears in his eyes, and his head banged. Lao Bai, who was picking his nose secretly, grimaced when he saw this. Obviously, he couldn't understand why this silly boy would be crazy and self-abuse for no reason.
Shunzi wandered around the yard, fumbled for three incense sticks from somewhere, and bowed to the square incense cauldron in the temple again and again, muttering his father's name in a mysterious way, as if praying for his father. Finally, he inserted the incense sticks into the incense cauldron tremblingly, but the operation was improper, and the incense burned the clothes. All his thoughts immediately disappeared, and he sat on the steps and sighed at the hole in the clothes.
After all, it was a journey of life and death. Although I don't like the Hai Gang, I still like this fool.
After resting for a while, Zhang Xinya was generous for once and took Shunzi down the mountain to prepare a big meal. Seeing that the other party was shy, we stuffed our only remaining cash to this kid as travel expenses, and eagerly sent him to the train.
Life seemed to be back on track all of a sudden.
My master arranged a lot of homework for me. There are countless talismans in Taoism. Each talisman is absolutely superfluous and has its own use. He gave me a copy of "Shangqing Xuanfu" and asked me to practice making talismans every day. He went into the house and started to retreat again.
I know that the matter of Lord Shui still put too much pressure on him. The experience of this trip has clearly told us that the half-step heavenly master is a towering existence in the Xuanmen industry. However, the higher the Tao, the higher the devil. The enemies we have to face are different. The half-step heavenly master also seems bleak. My master undoubtedly wants to go further, so he retreated in such a hurry.
With him as an example, I dare not slack off and practice very diligently.
As the saying goes, a poor scholar is rich in martial arts. A qualified warrior is made of countless money, and a qualified cultivator is similar. The waste is huge. The yellow paper and cinnabar and other materials saved by my master are consumed at a speed visible to the naked eye...
I practice constantly every day, and I have a deeper understanding of the power of Xuanwei. The two earth spirit beads are jumping in my abdomen all day long. Gradually, I actually realized that I have some control over them. A large amount of spiritual power is sealed on the talismans through the red pen in my hand. Every night I am exhausted and have a splitting headache. Overdraft is not much more comfortable than extreme physical consumption.
Wushuang wanted to build a tomb for old man Li, but old man Li had nothing. Except for the soul-calling pen, the symbol of the ferryman, he left nothing for Wushuang.
There can be no corpse in the tomb, but there must be one or two things of the deceased, right?
Wushuang, who was anxious, lurked in my room again and again, with a sly look. I saw that he had no good intentions. He looked like a thief even if he didn't steal anything, so I kept an eye on him. Sure enough, not long after, I saw him sneaking in and trying to steal the ancient painting left by Zhiniang. This painting had accompanied that old pervert for a long time, and it was also a close-fitting thing. It was very suitable to build a tomb for him.
I got furious and acted like a closed disciple. I chased Wushuang and almost kicked his butt. Finally, I grabbed his collar and warned him fiercely that Zhiniang saved my life and I owed her a favor. I heard that her residual soul was reincarnated, which finally gave me the possibility to repay her. This painting is her hope. If you dare to steal this painting again, you will be paralyzed and unable to take care of yourself!
Wushuang was depressed and tossed and turned at night. Perhaps he thought of Old Man Li again, so he hugged the pillow that Old Man Li had used and rubbed his face back and forth. A foul smell almost killed him. He lifted the pillow and saw a pair of hard and torn socks underneath.
Wushuang was overjoyed. This pair of torn socks belonged to Old Man Li. The day before we set off, Lao Buzheng found that his socks were torn, so he tucked them under the pillow and secretly wore Wushuang's socks and ran away, so Wushuang was barefoot the whole way. When we arrived at Quanzhou Port, Zhang Xinya couldn't stand it and bought a pair of socks.
Now that he finally found a close-fitting item, Wushuang came to me in a hurry. He threw the stinky socks in front of me, and I felt terrible. I had never seen anyone's socks worn sour and spicy, so I asked Wushuang with a dark face, don't you want to wash them?
Wushuang said, this is the best, with his smell, the tomb is his, otherwise who knows which unlucky person will live in it.
I have already picked the location of the tomb, it is next to a small hill on the back mountain of Zhenwu Temple. The locals call that hill Fei'e Mountain, because the whole mountain looks like a flying goose. The location of the tomb is to the east of Fei'e Mountain, slightly to the north, surrounded by a hundred flowers, with a strong momentum and a beautiful cave. From the location point of view, it is right behind the buttocks of the flying goose, so the tomb can be called the goose butt cave, which can lay golden eggs and must bring blessings and wealth.
Brother Yaozi cut wood in the back mountain and processed a coffin in the coffin shop. It is not exquisite, but it is not bad. He put the old man Li's smelly socks in the coffin, chose an auspicious day, and buried it.
It was a cloudy day with heavy rain. My master came out of retreat to see us off. We stood on the grave and were soaked. I couldn't help but think of the scene when old man Li rushed out to lead the zombie king away. I felt sad.
Maybe it was because of the death of the rabbit and the grief of the fox. Lao Bai suddenly said that no one could escape this knife in the world. Since this is a Feng Shui treasure land, if one day I accidentally die, I will bury myself here.
I said, after I die, I will also be here. We will be companions in the underworld, and it will not be in vain that we are brothers in this life.
A ridiculous goose fart hole agreement was made. Zhang Xinya brought two bottles of high-proof Erguotou, and several people drank until they were drunk.
Unable to bear Wushuang's pleading, on the 37th day after the tomb was built, I wrote a memorial with a red pen, lit two candles on the grave, burned the memorial, and asked about the soul of old man Li. This is grammar, and it can be hard, but it is easy to cause trouble. I think it is better to follow the procedure honestly.
The memorial was burned. If there is a response from below, there will naturally be a ghost to answer.
However, there was no response for a long time!
Wushuang became stubborn and asked if the people below looked down on them as ferrymen. If not, they would use force!
He just stood up, and one of the candles "clicked" and cut in half, and the flames went out.
I turned pale.
This is also the response of the underworld.
Two candles are extinguished, which means that the person is extremely evil and is being tortured in the underworld. Any plea is useless.
One candle is extinguished and cut in half... This means... the person is not in the underworld! ! !
In other words... the soul is scattered?
Wushuang turned around and asked me, "Brother Jingzhe, what does this mean?"
I laughed, trying to act as natural as possible, and whispered, "It's good news, old man Li...may not be dead!!"
In that situation, how could he not die if he was caught by the zombie king?
I sighed in my heart, thinking that old man Li must have been scared to death.
However, my statement made Wushuang happy.
I don't know what he thought in his heart, but the tomb was built, and he had put an end to his worries. Since then, he has never mentioned old man Li again.
Tianmeng has been very quiet recently. Qingzhu sent us to the shore and parted ways with us. He didn't arrange any tasks or say anything else.
They have no tasks, and we have no income.
After going back and forth, we have already run out of money.
Everyone is obviously very capable, but they are on the verge of starving to death.
Poor people are full of tricks, rich people are full of conscience, people are afraid of poverty, brother Yaozi's eyes were fierce, and he asked if he wanted to find a tomb to do some things.
I looked at my master and didn't say anything, and brother Yaozi put out the fire. My master didn't object to going to the tomb, but he didn't like the job of a tomb robber. If you do this kind of thing, you will be easily kicked out, so it's better not to cause trouble.
So, the coffin shop at the foot of the mountain opened again.
My master asked me to go out of the mountain and go into the world to solve those filth that entangled ordinary people. This is a good way. Obeying my master's will can also solve urgent problems. Although good things with money will become taking money to help people eliminate disasters, which is not in line with my master's style, but we can't just let the Buddha make good connections and not let the Taoist make money to eat, right?
According to Qingzhu's estimation, our place should be the hardest hit area by those dirty things in the Yinren Inn, and there will be a lot of things.
After the coffin shop opened, we did receive some cases, but the results were not what we imagined...
An old man who dressed very elegantly and looked very educated always felt a chill on the back of his neck at night. Occasionally, he looked back and saw a few children running around in the house. We went down the mountain to his house and didn't find any signs of evil spirits. Instead, we found that there were many photos of little girls on the old man's mobile phone. Judging from the angle, they were clearly secretly taken! !
That's right, this old man is a dead pervert, a pedophile!
In the final analysis, it was just a little remorse that flashed through his mind by chance that made him hallucinate. After repenting, he still followed and secretly took photos the next day.
Zhang Xinya said that if this kind of person is not killed, sooner or later there will be children who will suffer.
Brother Yaozi also said that if it really doesn't work, just kill him in the wild with a knife.
I thought about it and felt that we were not knights, so it was not appropriate to do so. It was not a good experience to end someone's life. After thinking hard for a long time, I came up with a more suitable plan. I told the old man seriously that there was indeed a little ghost haunting him. I would help him solve it with 100,000 yuan.
The old man did not believe me, so I splashed eel blood on his door that night, wrote an evil talisman, led the evil ghost into the house, and appeared to save him in the chaos.
The old pervert worshipped me with all his heart. After I performed a great dance for him, I said that the little ghost had been killed. While the old pervert was at ease, I took the money and turned out to call the police immediately...
...
Recently, all the things I have received are like this! !
There was a man who slept with his widowed sister-in-law and thought his brother was coming to him to take his life, and he hoped that we would beat his brother to death. There was also a coal boss who ran a coal mine and died, and he relied on the black and evil forces to suppress him. He hoped that we would kill the evil ghosts that entangled him, and by the way, arrange a five-ghost fortune-bringing event to make him glorious again...
I didn't see the evil ghosts that wanted to take his life, but... I have seen countless people who eat people without leaving any bones!
I don't like this feeling very much. After contacting a few of them, every time I see a well-dressed person on the street, I can't help but wonder what he is like behind the scenes...
Zhang Xinya didn't care so much. She was very happy. For a money-loving person, nothing can make people more physically and mentally happy than being rich in the small treasury.
In the blink of an eye, two or three months passed.
The talismans I made have accumulated a box, and they are useless.
Why doesn't the Water King come to trouble us?
This is a question I have to think about every day. My intuition tells me that the calmness is because he is holding back a big move. Compared with the chaos in other Xuanmen, the calmness here is the most dangerous. The Water Prince is a qualified opponent. If we do it, we must do it to the extreme.
There is no answer to such questions, but we still have to live our lives.
Every day, I either practice martial arts with Wushuang or write talismans. In the afternoon, I will go to the coffin shop to replace Zhang Xinya.
This day, Zhang Xinya was unwell, so I didn't go to the back mountain and stayed in the coffin shop directly.
The old man who sells vegetables at the foot of the mountain came again. During the days when I was tortured to death by the Earth Spirit Pearl, Zhang Xinya and others stayed with me all the time. It was all this old man who delivered vegetables to us every day. Since then, we bought food and drinks from the old man on the mountain. When we occasionally went to Taiyuan, we never purchased these, even if we knew that the old man sold them a little more expensive.
The old man's surname is Qi. He has been around for a long time and is very familiar with us.
When I saw him coming, I was busy wiping the Tianguan Blade while calling him Uncle Qi without looking up.
According to the past interactions, Old Man Qi would not come to bother me. He would put down the dishes, take the money from the box on the counter and leave on his own. No one interfered with anyone. This way of getting along is very comfortable for people like us.
So, I ignored him and did the things at hand. After a while, I looked up and found that Old Man Qi had not left yet, looking at me hesitantly.
"What happened to you today?"
I stood up with a smile and asked tentatively: "We are so familiar with each other, just tell me what you want to say. Is there any money missing from the food on a certain day? It's okay, just tell me the amount and I will make it up to you right away."
Old man Qi still didn't say anything, but slowly lowered his head...
I restrained my smile and asked softly: "Is there something wrong?"
Unexpectedly, old man Qi actually sobbed, and finally knelt down in front of me, hoarsely saying: "Xiao Wei, please help me!!"