"There are no trees in the temple. The temple is hidden in the snow-capped mountains. According to legend, it will reveal its true face only two days a year, and it is impossible for those who are not sincere to see it."
Sean's old voice spoke calmly. The temple is of great significance to him. Because he knew the relationship between the temple and the little girl, Chen Pingping paid a huge price to capture him back to the Kingdom of Qing. Ku He, who had received the most benefits, wanted to kill him, but the little Northern Qi emperor hoped to get help from the gods.
But what is a temple? It's just a temple.
Xiao En suddenly felt that his turbulent first half of his life was fake, and only the second half of his life behind bars was real. Looking at the darkening sky outside the cave, the old man said with a dull expression, "Master Fan, do you believe that there is really a god in this world?"
Fan Xian was silent, thinking of his own rebirth, thinking of that box, and nodded: "I believe in the existence of God more than anyone else in this world."
"What is God?"
"If I knew what God is, I would be God."
Xiao En glanced at him with admiration, and said, "It's really rare for someone as young as you to be able to see so clearly." He paused and said, "However, His Majesty was still young at that time, so he couldn't see clearly." clear."
Fan Xian knew that the story was finally about to begin, so he couldn't help feeling nervous and looking forward to it.
"Do you know what the world looked like thirty years ago?"
"Wei is dominant and may unify the world at any time."
"That's right. At that time, the old man was already the leader of the Great Wei Guoti Cavalry, and he was His Majesty's confidant." Xiao En recalled the past, but his expression was a little weird. It was about to die, but there was only indifference and calm, "The world of that day was the world of Wei State, and all the talented people were in the court, but the ones who really provoked the court, apart from the late emperor, were two pairs of brothers."
Fan Xian looked at the old man's expression and seemed to be able to persist, he was a little relieved, and replied softly: "One of the couple is naturally you and Zhuang Mohan."
"That's right, my brother is more accomplished than me." Sean's face softened, "And he is more affectionate than I am. I was imprisoned by Qing State for twenty years, and he still remembers me. I owe him."
"Why does no one know that you are a pair of brothers."
"The reason is simple. My reputation is too vicious. I don't know how many Qingliu have been killed in secret. As a scholar, he naturally doesn't like me, and I don't want to have anything to do with him." Xiao En replied flatly.
Fan Xian paused and changed the subject: "Who are the other pair of brothers?"
"It's Zhan Qingfeng and Kuhe."
"Zhan Qingfeng? The father of the founding emperor of the Northern Qi Dynasty, a famous general of the generation?" Fan Xian was finally shocked. It turned out that Ku He had such a close relationship with the Northern Qi royal family! It's no wonder that back then they devoted all their efforts to protecting the current queen mother and emperor, and the royal family respected Ku He's lineage so much.
"Ku He is Zhan Qingfeng's younger brother. He has determined to be an ascetic monk since he was a child, practicing the way of heaven and man, and strives to prove the way and enter the temple one day." Xiao En said sarcastically: "People in the world believe in temples, but Who has really seen it since the millennium? It’s just that those ascetic monks are preaching everywhere, living more pitifully than beggars.”
"But the temple really exists." Fan Xian reminded him.
"That's right." Xiao En closed his eyes tightly, "At that time, the late emperor passed away, and the young emperor came to the throne. Although this emperor treated us courtiers pretty well, for some reason, he was extremely afraid of death. What is the art of immortality?"
Fan Xian said: "At that time, the Northern Wei Dynasty was dominant, and as the emperor, he didn't have anything to worry about. Naturally, he would think about these things."
Xiao En continued: "So at that time, Ku He took the opportunity to enter the palace and persuaded His Majesty to send a mission to the sea to find the traces of the temple, saying that if the immortals of the temple taught His Majesty the immortal law, they would naturally live forever. His Majesty listened to this, There is no reason for disapproval..." He said with a wry smile: "As the leader of His Majesty's confidant Tiqi, this matter naturally fell on me."
"Ku He is the proposer, and he is extremely fanatical about the temple, so naturally he will not stay out of it." Xiao En said lightly: "With the efforts of the whole country of Wei, I don't know how long I have been searching, and finally found a clue, so I and Ku He He then led a team of one thousand to the north."
Although the dying old man said it calmly, Fan Xian knew that the process at that time must have been quite complicated. The temple is worshiped by the world, but it is illusory and there is no trace. It is an amazing thing to be able to find definite clues.
The old and indifferent voice kept echoing in the cave, and the sky and mountains outside the cave were gradually dimming. Fan Xian listened silently, asked questions at the right time, and his brain was running rapidly. Worshiping the advancing route of the team, I re-drawn a rough map in my heart.
…
…
Time seems to have returned to more than 30 years ago, and the light breath of Huangshan outside the cave has also turned into a snowstorm. In the memory of the old man, Fan Xian seemed to have seen an expedition team composed of thousands of people, struggling to move forward in the wild and incomparable Northland amidst the snowstorm. Those people were wearing leather boots and wrapped in thick leather clothes, with only two eyes exposed, but they still couldn't stop the bone-chilling cold wind blowing into their bodies.
In front of the team were the two leaders of the team, Xiao En, who was in his prime at the time, and the extremely young, devout ascetic monk Ku He.
The team went farther and farther north, the harder it was to go, and the fewer people there were. Some people froze to death, some fell into the ice valley and disappeared, and some were caught by the raptors in the sky and died. As the expedition progressed, the team became shorter and shorter, and the atmosphere became more and more eerie.
The sky and the earth were all white, and due to staying in this boring and cold environment for too long, some people in the team gradually became blind, and were ruthlessly abandoned by Xiao En in the wilderness. Some cold-resistant scavenging wolves were waiting for those Death of the blind.
Everything happened quietly, even something as tragic as death.
The team walked for a long time, and finally came to a mountain in the extreme north. There was only a narrow path leading into the mountain, and the snow was so thick that it had already covered the color of the mountain itself. It looked like a continuous iceberg. Absolutely.
After the team of more than a hundred people walked into the mountain, they found that behind the Daxue Mountain was still a world covered by ice and snow, and even animals had become very few. The team camped tenaciously, trying to find traces of the temple here, but many days passed without finding anything.
In winter, there is heavy snow, the mountains are closed, the sun is gone, and the food is exhausted.
The strongest man survived to the end. In the endless night, Xiao En and Ku He sat back to back in the tent, surrounded by piled corpses. The fire never went out. The clothes gave these two strong men the last ray of warmth, a ray of hope.
※※※
"That's God's wrath."
In the cave, Xiao En opened his eyes with some difficulty, the scarlet in his pupils became thicker and thicker, but there was endless fear in his eyes: "The temple knew that mortals were trying to find them, so the heavens were furious and descended on the boundless dark."
Fan Xian glanced at the old man and said softly after a while, "That's called Ji Ye." He confirmed the location of the temple again in his heart.
Sean naturally didn't understand what the polar night was, but that memory was obviously very deep in his memory, and he said with a dazed face: "Ku He was eating human flesh extremely sweetly and stingily, and at the same time, he was extremely devoutly going to heaven. Praying, I can't help but despise him. Unexpectedly... maybe in the end he really touched the gods in the temple, so the sky... suddenly dawned."
Fan Xian couldn't help but look at Xiao En, wondering how these two people could survive the months-long polar night? Even if there are people to eat meat and tents to burn, the loneliness and the struggle between two people may drive people crazy.
Xiao En suddenly laughed, and said: "It was dawn in no time, and Ku He and I were at the end of our lives at that time, but we suddenly found hope, and the strength that came from no one knew where it came from, supported us to continue living go down."
"Then you found the temple." Fan Xian picked up the dagger, put it beside him, and asked softly, "What is the temple like?"
…
…
Outside the Daxue Mountain many years ago, two people who were so thin that only their bones remained walked out of the tent with difficulty. Their sunken eyes, sallow complexions, and swollen gums exposed when they breathed all revealed A message—these two are dying.
The light of the day was finally no longer so stingy and only came out for a while, and some animals woke up from the deep cave again. Although the two powerhouses were at the end of their battles, they were still much more ferocious than those beasts, so they received a lot of supplements, and re- stood up.
That day, they squinted their eyes and looked at the big snow mountain in front of them in a daze, but they didn't know where the temple they were looking for was.
There is only a vast expanse of whiteness and the land is so clean.
Suddenly, a ray of light came down from the blue sky, and the light at the Daxue Mountain had a very strange twist, very abruptly, a beautiful temple appeared in the mountain out of thin air.
This grand temple is built on the mountain, with black stone walls and light gray long eaves, which is inexplicably solemn.
Ku He stared at the mountain in bewilderment, and suddenly fell to the ground excitedly, crying loudly towards the direction where the temple appeared, extremely miserable. Sean froze in place, and after a long while, he woke up and sat down in the snow, unable to stand up for a long time.
This is the temple.