The dense forest swirled, the wind blew, and the waves rolled to the horizon. This forest is very old, and the trunks in it are as thick as buckets. It takes two or three big men to hug each other. The leaves are stacked on the branches, the branches are stacked on the leaves, and the seams are tightly fitted, and occasionally a little bit of sunlight leaks out.
Xia Houlin jumped up and down in the forest, and the monkeys seemed to be as handy as him. He knew which branch he should land on next, and which branch and leaf he should put his hand on, and he would not fall if he closed his eyes.
Soon, he came to a cemetery.
The cemetery is huge, with hundreds of tombstones and hundreds of broken knives. Densely crowded in the woods, some are backed by big trees, covered with bird droppings and fallen leaves; some tombstones have been broken in two, with scattered rotten fruits beside them; some are well preserved, No one cares.
That is Torazuka.
All the assassins of the Galan generations who were able to retrieve their bones were buried here, and the tombstones were engraved on how many people they killed in their lives, who they killed, and who killed them. Their sabers are inserted beside the tomb, and when they are alive, they will kill for them, and when they are dead, they will be exposed to the wind and the sun by their master's side. Most of the knives were so rusted that they seemed to be broken with a single swipe.
He was terrified of coming to this place as a child. Buried here are all demons, world-shaking villains, and every knife is full of blood. He always felt that there must be a lot of evil spirits floating here, or else there must be ghosts floating from outside to collect debts. Not a good place anyway.
It was only later that I found out that it was just a run-down cemetery.
Most of the Garan Assassins have no father, no mother, no children or daughters, and there are no people who come to worship and sweep the grave. The entire cemetery has never been repaired or cleaned.
Xia Houlin jumped down from the tree and kowtowed three times outside the knife mound.
"My uncles and brothers, heroes and heroes, seniors and friends, this junior is Xiahoulin, the twelfth abbot of the Heart-killing Buddha, and he is about to set off for Huizhou to assassinate an old general. He has no weapons in hand, so he has to come here. Borrow a knife. As the saying goes, we are brothers when we meet in rivers and lakes, not to mention that we are all from Galan. I hope you will bear with me, don't take it as a surprise! I will definitely treat your knife well, wipe it in the morning and evening, and serve it with chickens at night. Duck and fish. Sorry, sorry!"
After praying, Xia Houlin stood up and walked around the cemetery. Don't look at the inside, I don't know how many years ago the knife is, don't break it with a bang when you fight against the enemy, then it's really a break.
There is a new tomb at the outermost periphery. The knife on the edge of the tomb has a single-slot straight blade and an ebony handle, which is restrained and light. The owner of the tomb, named Tang Lan, died in the first month of last year. He was not assassinated, but surrounded and killed by his enemies. Xia Houlin had met him a few times during the Chinese New Year before, and his impression was that he was a stern man. There were rumors that he was a traitor to the Tang Sect and was saved by the abbot before he entered Garan.
Xia Houlin caught the knife at a glance. First, he kowtowed three times in front of the tomb, and then said: "Senior Tang Lan, this junior dares to borrow your knife to use it, and I will definitely sweep the tomb for you in the future. By the way, here is a pack of paper money that I brought, you are below. Don't treat yourself badly, buy a maid or something, and ask me what you want to eat, and I will burn it for you."
Xia Houlin finished burning the paper money, wiped his hand on his body, stood up and drew his knife. This broken knife has some weight, and it is inserted quite deeply. Xia Houlin carefully lifted the knife up, but suddenly, for some reason, he accidentally moved the handle of the knife. A cold needle as thin as an ox's hair shot out from the tail of the knife handle, rubbing Xia Houlin's nose and shooting into the branches above.
Xia Houlin was startled, he let go of his hands and fell in front of Tang Lan's tomb. The word "Thousand Machines" came into view at the blade's body.
"Senior, if you don't want to lend me the knife, it's fine. You don't want to kill me. However, I'm really stubborn. If you don't give it, I want it!" Xia Houli jumped up, geared up his fists, and twisted the handle of the knife vigorously. , until all the silver needles inside were shot clean, then he pulled out the knife, put it in the cowhide bag he brought, carried it behind his back, and returned the same way.
The mountain is so huge that it reaches the sky. At the foot of the mountain is the village of Garan, where farmers and children who practice swords live, and sometimes the assassins go down the mountain to supply supplies. Along the Yangchang Mountain Road to the mountainside is the Jialan Mountain Temple, and the assassins' huts are scattered around the mountain temple. Looking down from the mountain at night, it looks like the stars scattered across the sky in the dark night, and under each lamp is an assassin holding a knife. But most of the time, there was no one on the mountainside except the abbot and Xia Houlin. The entire mountain temple seemed to be silent, and there was not a single fire. Xia Houlin drifted like a wandering crow in the empty mountains, looking for a place with a wide field of vision to see the stars in the sky.
Now the mountain temple is lying quietly in the dusk, and the dark old tiles are dyed with a layer of gold. In the middle of the year, most of the assassins are running around outside, and some may have died in that horn. The mountain temple fell alone among the ancient trees, like a clumsy old man who couldn't speak. Half of the buildings were decayed, revealing the rough ebony skeleton, and faint traces of burning could be seen.
That's what he burned. When I was a child, I set off firecrackers, and the cannonballs rushed to the haystacks in front of the mountain temple. The abbot was not there, so he went down the mountain for almsgiving. When he came back, half of the temple was turned into ashes. Xia Houlin was hung under the mountain gate to blow the wind all night, and he never dared to touch the firecrackers again.
He hit a pheasant by the way, climbed the mountain road, passed the mountain gate of the mountain temple, bypassed a thorn bush, and ran towards his home. His house is a bamboo building made of bamboo. There is no place to entertain guests. The main house is divided into two halves. The only wing was used for clutter, and the kitchen was built under the shed.
Before Xia Hou Pei got up, Xia Hou Lin plucked the pheasant, washed it, and put it into the pot. He and this pot have known each other for a long time. Since he was eight years old, he has mastered the knack of standing on the bench to maintain the balance in the wind and rain, and holding a large spoon in both hands to cook vegetables without falling down and being cooked by the large pot.
He was raised by Xiahou Pei like a cat and a dog, and it is really not easy to grow up in peace and smoothness. He was at his happiest before the age of eight. At that time, Xiahou Pei was worried that he would stay on the mountain alone, and would take him with him every time he went down the mountain. When Xiahou Pei went to assassinate him, he was deposited with the shopkeeper of the inn restaurant. When he woke up, Xiahou Pei came back and often brought him roasted sweet potatoes. Two people, one big and one small, squatted on the edge of the threshold and chewed sweet potatoes. Xiahou's mouth was tender, and the sweet potatoes were so hot that they often took a long time to blow before they dared to bite. Xiahou Pei, who is not afraid of being hot, lied to him and told him to blow it for him, but when he opened his mouth, half of the sweet potato disappeared. Xiahou Lin burst into tears, Xia Hou Pei laughed until he fell down, like a trick, he took out a sweet potato from behind and handed it to Xia Hou Lin.
The bad things that Xiahou Pei had done did not stop there. She took pleasure in frightening Xiahou Lin. Since he was a child, he has been told that children will turn black if they drink tea, that they will become stupid if they drink alcohol, that if they don't take a bath and wash their pancreas, they will develop rotten sores. In this way, Xiahou Lin has grown up in fear until now, and he often has nightmares of losing his teeth.
This is all in the past. After the age of eight, Xiahou Pei never took Xiahou Rin down the mountain again.
The smell of pheasants hooked Xiahou Pei. She didn't have her hair tied, and her long black hair was scattered behind her like a splash of ink. She stepped on the clogs and walked to the edge of the pot, and as soon as she stretched out her big hand, she tore off a chicken leg.
"I'm not good at knives, but my cooking skills are good. I'll tell the old man tomorrow, and let you go to the village and become a cook."
"roll!"
Xia Houlin cooked two more dishes and put a pot of small wine, Xia Houpei ate to his heart's content. After drinking and eating, Xia Houluo saw that the time was almost up, and tentatively said, "Mother, I think..."
Xiahou Pei waved his hand before he could finish speaking: "Forget it, don't think about it."
"I haven't said it yet!"
"I know what you're going to say," Xia Hou Pei said while picking his teeth, "I want your mother to accompany you to get that young master out, right?"
"As expected of my mother, mother and son are of one mind." Xiahou flattered her with wine.
"Forget it, you don't want to come out at all."
"That's when he was obsessed. Mother, you don't know, he is born to read, Mr. Dai Shengyan, you have heard of him, praised him as 'beautiful and talented', 'Wen Zhui Han Liu, Shibi Li Du' , wouldn't it be a pity that he didn't go to study?" These were actually Dai Shengyan's praises to Li Dongyang, the family of the dynasty, and Xiahou Lin planted them on Shen Jue, hoping that Xiahou Pei would agree.
Xiahou Pei was unmoved.
"I'll ask Master Qiu to accompany me." Xiahou threw his chopsticks.
"You think Brother Qiu can promise you?" Xiahou Pei hummed.
Xia Houlin: "..."
"Go on your own if you have the ability. What's the point of asking an elder to help you pave the way?"
Xia Houlin was silent for a while, then turned his head and said, "What way have you paved for me? You never cared about me since I was a child. When I was eight years old, if Master Qiu hadn't carried me back, I would have starved to death. It's here." Xia Houlin was eight years old, and Xiahou Pei left him on the mountain, he knew nothing, he sat in the room and cried in the dark, until he was so hungry that he couldn't make a sound, and happened to meet Qiuye returning to the mountain. , brought him back to his yard to feed him with water and food, and he didn't starve to death.
Xiahou Pei was ashamed and said, "I can make a living by myself at the age of eight, and I thought you could do it too. Before I left, I taught you how to cook and cook. You're good if you don't."
"And my brother." Xia Houlin lowered his head and pinched his fingers, "If it wasn't for Mo Jia, I wouldn't even know that I have a twin brother."
Xiahou Pei didn't speak for a long time, Xiahou Rin looked up at her, she was holding the wine glass, not knowing what she was thinking, Xia Hou Rinfu lowered his head again, pouted, and said, "I heard that he was on the top of the black-faced Buddha, I'm going to find him."
There is a huge cliff on the south side of Niubi Mountain, which cuts down like an axe, but does not cut out a straight cliff, and vaguely reveals a huge Buddha statue with folded hands. The rocks and soil of Niubi Mountain are all black, and the Buddha statue is naturally black, so the assassins call it the black-faced Buddha.
Xiahou Lin only looked at it from a distance. It wasn't that he didn't bother to go up there to play, but it was too steep to go up at all. I don't know how his brother and the abbot got up and down.
"You took a photo in the water yourself, didn't you see it?" Xiahou Pei said.
This bastard didn't even want to go and find his brother! Xia Houlin patted the table and said, "Mother, how can you do this! Are you not afraid that he will hate you?"
"Probably not." Xiahou Pei said, "Murdering Heart has taught him to be an idiot. Except for using a knife, he can't even speak."
"… "
Xia Hou Pei turned to his side. She was still holding the wine in her hand, but she didn't drink a single sip. Her fine hair blocked her eyes. Xia Hou Lin couldn't see her expression, only her voice seemed to have aged a lot in an instant.
"What can I do if I go to see him? Xiaolan, sometimes a mistake is a mistake. Even if the hands and feet are calloused, the end of the dead can't make up for it."
"I... I didn't say you were wrong, just a little cruel." Xia Houli scratched his head.
"No, it was my fault that I gave birth to you."
Xia Houlin was stunned.
"Didn't you say I don't care about you? Boy." Xiahou Pei stood up, took out a stack of documents from the house and threw them into his arms, "I'll take you to the business this time."
"Huh? Really?"
"I'll guard the gate for you, and you go in and fight the general yourself. Whether you win or not, I won't go in, and I won't look back. All I do is kill anyone who wants to go in. ."
"Then if I lose, who will come out?"
"Simple." Xiahou Pei raised the corners of his lips, his smile was cold and arrogant in the wind, "Your mother, I will die with you."