"Master, you're not here?"
Yan Se raised his eyebrows slightly.
How could he not be here
It’s impossible that he isn’t here!
When I discovered the door, the first person I looked for was the Master.
In this world, there are only three people who know about that world, and the Master is one of them.
When I came back yesterday, I contacted the Master in a secret way. The Master responded and promised to collect the recipe of Tongtian Pills and take the Tongtian Pills from Mr. Twelve.
How come after one night he is not in the back mountain anymore
"Second Master, where is the Master?"
Yan Se asked again.
Yi Xiaochuan looked at the high mountain outside the capital Chang'an. Half of the mountain peak was hidden in the clouds, and the scenery between the cliffs was unparalleled and beautiful, like a fairyland.
As for the man in front of him who was called Mr. Er, he was tall and slender, wearing an ancient-style crown and hat, an ordinary college summer uniform, and a gold-woven ribbon tied around his waist. He had sharp eyebrows and heroic eyes, a solemn and upright expression, and an air of rigor and courtesy all over his body. The man standing here was as unshakable as a palace.
Han Li stared blankly at the tall crown on his head with a strange expression. It really looked like a washing stick!
"Master Yan, last night the Master suddenly remembered the peony fish in the hot sea in the Far North Desert. I was so excited that I went to the hot sea with my senior brother overnight. Now, all the affairs of the academy are handed over to the disciples. As for the Tongtian Pills and the recipe that Master Yan asked for, I have asked my junior brother to prepare them..."
As he spoke, the expression of the second brother became more and more strange.
"That's great. This is my good friend, Mr. Otsuka Otsuka, and this is his disciple Han Li. They are both good at refining pills and making medicine. If they have Tongtian Pills, they can try to replicate them. I wonder if the Master has told the second gentleman about this?"
"Refine the Tongtian Pill?"
The high crown on the second master's head trembled, and he bowed respectfully and said, "Master's second disciple Jun Mo greets Mr. Yi."
Xiao Yi returned the greeting and said, "Hello, Mr. Er! It's a pity that I don't have the chance to meet you..."
"Haha, there will be a chance... Please follow me..."
After Mr. Er turned and left, the expression on his face was solemn and sad.
In the early morning, the hill behind the academy was shrouded in a light mist. A square stone platform was surrounded by several circles of sparse fences. Faint sounds of roosters crowing and pecking could be heard nearby. Occasionally, the sounds of people reciting books and asking questions could be heard from the school building deep in the stone platform. The mist gradually cleared, and Chen Pipi walked out with his fat body. His eyes, which had been staring all night, were full of bloodshot. His hair, which was usually tied very tightly, looked like it was pulled into a haystack by a chicken and was fluffy and messy. He looked extremely disheveled, not like someone who had read all night, but rather a poor child who had been scolded by his mother all night.
"Junior brother, come here. Master Yanse and Mr. Yi are here to ask you about Tongtian Pills. The academy will be opening for mountain climbing soon, and I need to make good preparations. Junior brother, you will be the one to entertain the two masters." Mr. Er bowed and said, "Master Yan, Mr. Yi, I'm really sorry to leave you."
Chen Pipi smiled somewhat uncomfortably, and under the stern gaze of his second senior brother, he tidied up his disheveled scalp as quickly as possible, and then pulled hard on his wrinkled school uniform. Then he cleared his throat twice and walked forward, bowing very respectfully and politely.
"It's okay, just do your thing..."
Watching Mr. Er disappear in the morning mist in the mountains, Yan Se frowned tightly, then looked at the chubby little fat man in front of him and asked, "Tongtian Pill, is there a problem?"
"This... That..."
He took out a small exquisite porcelain bottle from his bosom and said, "There should be some medicine residue..."
Yan Se's mouth and eyes twitched immediately, and he asked, "Who ate it?"
"Ning Que..."
"Is it him?!" Yan Se's frown finally eased a little, and he said, "So, he can practice?"
"Of the seventeen orifices, only ten are open, standing right on the line between life and death, whether or not one can cultivate."
"Oh, that's amazing." Yan Se nodded with satisfaction and said, "Well, the elixir is gone, do you have the recipe?"
"This... that... how about we ask the scholars?"
Yan Se's hand holding the small porcelain bottle froze, his expression sullen. Now, he finally understood why the Master had gone to Rehe overnight to eat peony fish, and why the Second Master had escaped with an excuse.
I feel like yelling "mmp" in my heart.
Tongtian Pills!
Is that all
"No hurry, let me take a look at this bottle of medicine."
Yi Xiaochuan just said comfortingly that the extraordinary identification could not identify the elixir.
He handed the bottle to Han Li, sniffed it, shook his head and said, "Master, this cannot be deduced!"
"Then ask the scholars!"
Yan Se covered his face with his hands, feeling too embarrassed to face anyone.
Things didn't seem to be developing in the direction he wanted.
Tongtian Pills are extremely important. As long as they can be successfully copied, even if they only have half of their effectiveness, the Tang Dynasty will surely become a prosperous era for spiritual practice and will be more than capable of resisting foreign enemies.
Now a great chaos is about to break out. Although there has been no invasion from extraterrestrial civilization for the time being, who knows whether a door connecting to some unknown world will appear in the next second.
But now, Tongtian Pills seems a little out of reach.
Everything is moving in an unknown direction.
As for going to Haotian Taoist Sect and Zhishou Temple to ask for Tongtian Pills, he had never even thought about it.
Even if you shamelessly ask for it, Master, I won’t give it to you!
We can only place our hopes on the scholars in the back mountain.
Yan Se knew that this scholar was a strange man. His lifelong ideal was to read all the books in the world.
Zhuangzi said: My life is limited, but my knowledge is unlimited.
Very inspiring words, but you should know that he also wrote afterwards: To pursue the infinite with the finite is already dangerous! To become a wise man after that is even more dangerous!
Translated, Zhuangzi said: Life is limited, but knowledge is endless. It is very dangerous to use limited life to pursue endless knowledge!
Several people went deep into the back mountain and walked a few steps towards the cliff. They saw a cliff cave about tens of meters high. Birds were flying in and out quickly above the cave entrance. On the gentle slope of the outer edge of the cliff cave, there was a two-story wooden building.
The surface of the small building is covered with traces of wind and rain and traces of bird droppings. I wonder how many years it has been standing silently under this cliff.
There is an open-air stone platform under the wooden building, on which there is a huge desk, on which are piles of books.
Behind the mountain of books sat an old scholar with gray hair.
The old scholar held an old book in his left hand and a half-bare brush in his right hand. He occasionally recited a few lines to the book, then picked up the brush to write numbers on paper, and then continued reading. I don't know what wonderful things he saw, his long eyebrows flew up in the wind, and his facial expression was extremely wonderful, as if he was about to dance.
The old gentleman was reading and copying books with great concentration and without distraction. Neither the flocks of birds crowing and flying above the cliff cave nor the approaching Otokogawa and his group had any effect on him. It was as if the whole world except the books disappeared instantly as soon as he started reading.
Wonderful! Wonderful!
The old scholar found another wonderful thing in the book. He copied the sentences onto paper as quickly as possible, then put the half-bald brush between his lips and licked it. He seemed to have tasted the most wonderful thing in the world, and he danced with joy.
"We won't go over there, Mr. Twelve, you go ask!"
Yan Se thought of the old scholar's character and began to hesitate.
After climbing up the stone platform, Chen Pipi bowed to the old man behind the mountain of books and said with a smile, "Scholar, long time no see."
The scholar did not move, as if he had not heard or seen anything.
Chen Pipi called out many times until he arrived in front of him.
It was a long time before I heard the old scholar's words.
"What are you doing? Go away, don't disturb me while I'm reading..."
"Tongtian Pills? That thing can't be refined anymore. Many medicinal materials have become extinct..."
"Okay, okay... I'll write it to you, you can go quickly..."
"Take it and leave quickly. I won't talk to you anymore! How can you finish reading so many books if you don't hurry up? Do you know what you are doing? You are murdering my life and destroying my life! Go, go, go..."