The old woman was not in very good health. She once fell into a river when she was a child. Although she was rescued in the end, her lungs and internal organs were damaged.
Although I once drank the magic water that my father said was a treasured treasure, the bottom of the bottle had been rinsed with clean water countless times, and there was only a little bit of medicinal power left in the "magic water".
That "magic water" really prevented her from having a relapse when she was young, but as she grew older and weaker, and entered her twilight years, she would have severe breathing problems if she was exposed to a cold.
The old woman's name is Li Yue. She is the wife of Fang Wende, the Grand Secretary of the Central Palace of the current imperial dynasty, and her status is prominent.
Looking at the three or four children chasing and playing in the garden, Li Yue's eyes were full of kindness. Occasionally, she squinted at the sky, where there were slowly floating white clouds in various shapes.
For a moment, the sight of the sky seemed to bring her back to her childhood, when she sat on the hillside with her two brothers, chewing some grass in her mouth, supporting herself with her hands on the grass, and looking up at the sky.
At that time, they looked at the white flowers floating in the sky, some near and some far, and imagined them into various shapes of mountains and wild animals in their minds...
I always wonder if I can fly up there to see if there are any legendary immortals on the "other side of the mountain"...
"When I get old, I always like to recall some past events!"
Li Yue felt her eyes a little sore, so she slowly closed her eyes and smiled at herself in her heart.
And at a time when no one here could see it at all, in front of the door of an old house built of mud and stones in the corner of the garden, a phantom suddenly appeared as the space slightly fluctuated.
Li Yan looked back at the old woman who was resting with her eyes closed and gently rocking on the recliner in the garden. He sensed a very familiar connection with this person.
That was a connection with the same blood power as his, and now in this courtyard, he also sensed that there was an old man whose blood power was also close to his own.
Although the other ten or so people also have a connection with his blood, the strength of their blood has weakened a lot.
Li Yan did not want to alarm these people, so he just stood quietly in front of the door of the old house, staring at the dilapidated double doors in front of him that revealed the vicissitudes of life.
For a moment I felt very familiar, yet extremely strange.
What was familiar was the house in front of him. It was the residence of the two males in the family, where he and his third brother had lived for fourteen years.
Although the house has been renovated, it still overlaps with the original memories.
The reason why it is strange is that the old houses around the house are no longer there, my parents' main room is gone, the main room in front is gone, and the short courtyard wall has also disappeared.
This is no longer a courtyard that can be reached in a few steps. As long as you stand on the platform in front of the courtyard, you can see the endless Daqing Mountains in the distance.
The courtyard was already more than ten times larger, and everything in front of him made this house seem very unfamiliar.
Li Yan's face was dull because he did not find his most familiar relatives in this courtyard. He did not even find anyone familiar to him in the entire mountain village.
Li Yan stood motionless in front of the old house. His original home had long been unrecognizable, but the house where he had lived allowed him to find some memories.
A deep feeling of sadness rose in his heart, and he knew the result without having to guess.
This house represents the thoughts and concerns that my parents have for me, otherwise I would not be standing here so alone.
After standing there for a long time, Li Yan took a deep breath, and his figure suddenly became blurry and unreal.
The next moment, the double old doors did not open, but Li Yan had already stepped into the room and then stood in front of a big bed.
The furnishings in the room are exactly as I remember them.
The room was not very big. It only had a large wooden bed, a long table at the head of the bed, and a stool, which almost took up most of the space.
Li Yan seemed to see himself sitting on the edge of the bed, swinging his legs, while his third brother was sitting on a stool, holding his half-extended and half-bent lame leg with one hand, rubbing it occasionally, and speaking with a serious face.
"Old Five, why did you make your parents angry again? You ignored your studies and secretly followed Uncle Guo Xin and the others into the mountains. Do you think your life is too long..."
"Third brother, those beasts can't hurt me. This time I encountered a..."
There was no one sitting on the bed, and the figure on the stool disappeared again, leaving only the words that were almost forgotten in my mind.
Li Yan moved his gaze to the long table in front of the bed with an expressionless face. He had been reluctant to use his spiritual sense to see through the room.
He just didn't want to know everything in advance, he just wanted to see the furnishings in the house with his own eyes. Perhaps this was the most realistic way.
When Li Yan saw clearly what was on the table, his body could no longer control the trembling. There were six spirit tablets, arranged in three layers, upper, middle and lower.
Placed at the top are the "spirit tablet of the deceased father, Mr. Li, whose name was Chang Fujun" and the "spirit tablet of the deceased mother, Mrs. Li, whose maiden name was Xiulan".
Below these two tablets are the "spiritual tablet of the deceased father, Mr. Li, whose name was Wei Fujun" and the "spiritual tablet of the deceased mother, Mrs. Li, whose maiden name was Yu".
At the very bottom are two tablets: "The spirit tablet of the late father, Mr. Li, whose real name was Lord Wenwu" and "The spirit tablet of the late mother, Mrs. Li, whose maiden name was Mulan".
Li Yan could tell from the names on these six tablets that they were all set up by direct descendants, otherwise the names on the tablets should be different.
Li Yan stared blankly at three of the tablets, which contained the names of his father, mother and third brother.
"All deceased?"
Although Li Yan had guessed it in his mind, after seeing these three names with his own eyes, he felt an inexplicable pain in his heart.
He fantasized countless times that when he returned to the small mountain village, he would see his relatives in his dreams, but in the end it was just a dream, ruthless and chilling to the bone.
Although the elixir he left behind had the effect of prolonging life, he had just established his foundation at that time, and the elixir he took out was not as good as Zhao Min's.
That kind of elixir could allow an ordinary mortal to live to 130 or 140 years old, and it was already a legendary elixir.
When he left, his parents were already over sixty years old, and Li Yan had been gone for nearly a hundred years. Nothing could withstand the passage of time.
If Li Yan were to follow his current methods, he could naturally help them extend their lifespans, although it might only be for a few months or years, but there would be no more chances.
Li Yan felt a sharp pain in his heart, but his expression became more and more dull, and his eyes were on Li Wei's spirit tablet again.
"Third brother, you left too. You should be about 130 years old now, and you never waited for my return..."
Among Li Yan's five siblings, he has the best relationship with Li Wei and Li Xiaozhu. His eldest and second sisters got married early and their in-laws live far away, so they can only come back once every few years. Li Yan naturally gets along best with his third and fourth brothers, especially Li Wei, who is both his brother and his father.
…That night, Li Wei and Li Yan lay back to back.
"Old Five, you should stay calm when encountering things in the army. You should endure what you can endure and don't force yourself to stand out."
"Um!"
“If, if there is a war, don’t rush to the front when no one is watching, fall a few steps behind…”
"Um!"
"Don't worry about home. With the allowance you get from joining the army, I will take good care of your parents. Use your monthly salary to buy yourself more meat!"
"Well, Third Brother, you should do more farm work. Parents are old."
"Okay, as long as I'm here, Dad and Mom won't go hungry!"
… …
"Fourth sister... I will come back to see you next New Year, but I wonder if you will be home by then?"
"loquacious!"
… …
"Fourth sister, when I'm settled, I'll bring you some rouge and powder from the city!"
"Old Five, sister, wait, woo woo..."
Scenes from the paintings passed before Li Yan's eyes.
"Fourth sister, you are not here either!"
Li Yan's heart ached again. On his expressionless face, tears finally appeared and flowed down slowly!
"They left this house and placed the memorial tablets here one by one, waiting for my return..."
Li Yan's eyes swept across the remaining three tablets. The one next to Li Wei should be the tablet of his third sister-in-law. He remembered that his third brother called her "Xiao Yu" at that time.
But the two tablets below made Li Yan a little dazed.
"Li Wenwu, is that the little guy?"
Li Yan remembered a child wearing a green bellyband running across the ridge of the field. His third brother told him that his name was "Wenwu".
"He's dead too..."
A desolate and biting coldness filled the air. The pills he left behind were only enough for his parents and his third brother. If Li Wenwu lived to this day, he would be a hundred years old.
But this is not an age that an ordinary mortal can live to, so the little guy in the bellyband also passed away!
The sadness in Li Yan's eyes deepened. He waved his hand gently, and except for the spirit tablets of his parents and Li Wei, the other three spirit tablets flew up and hovered on both sides.
Li Yan bent his knees and fell to the ground with a plop. His voice was low and choked.
"Dad, Mom, Brother, Lao Wu is back, Lao Wu is back!"
As he whispered, he had already bent his head and his body was shaking continuously.
This time, he did not call him "Third Brother" again. In his heart, Li Wei was the eldest brother and worthy of his kneeling.
Although his brother and sister-in-law are like his mother, Li Yan still only wants to kneel down to these three people in his heart.
In his mind, there is always a dilapidated courtyard in a small mountain village, with several people sitting around the courtyard under the bean-yellow oil lamp!
This is roughly Li Yan's personality. He values family affection, but he also takes it lightly. He doesn't really agree with people he has never gotten along with.
After a long time, Li Yan slowly stood up, waved his hand lightly, and put the three suspended spirit tablets back in place.
Li Yan looked at an incense tube placed on the side of the table, then walked over slowly, reached out and took out a few long incense sticks, blew lightly, and the smoke curled up, and the incense burned with sparks.
He held the long incense sticks above his head with both hands, tapped the air three times, and then gently inserted it into the incense burner in front of the spirit tablet.
Then, he sat down on the stool in front of the long table and fell into a long silence again...
When the sun was about to reach noon, Li Yue, who was half asleep, suddenly felt that the surroundings had suddenly become completely quiet. There were no more birds singing, no more breeze blowing, and even the voices of the children had completely disappeared.
She opened her eyes in confusion, and was surprised to find a short-haired young man standing in front of her. His attire was different from that of the man from the dynasty.
Especially her short, shiny black hair that looked like black thorns made her look extremely special.
As long as one is not bald, anyone who is a member of the dynasty will be convicted of a crime for wearing such a hairstyle. The lightest punishment is a beating with a stick and being confined to the house for a year.
Li Yue was shocked. As the wife of a high-ranking official in the court, she was also listed as an important assassination target by the enemy country.
This time when she returned to her hometown to visit her relatives, she brought a lot of bodyguards with her. Not to mention those who were scattered outside the mountain village, there were at least five top martial arts masters lying in ambush in this garden.
They were all powerful men recruited by Academician Fang at great expense, but at this time, someone sneaked up on them quietly.
Even though she had experienced many ups and downs due to her noble status and position, and had long developed the mentality of remaining calm even when faced with a mountain collapse, Li Yue's face still changed drastically when she was stared at so closely.
As she was shouting, her eyes met the other person's eyes.
Li Yue felt as if she saw two invisible black holes.
In an instant, her consciousness stopped functioning, her voice got stuck in her throat, and she fell into an unconscious state.