"Daoist friends Lu and Sun, quickly surround this monk!"
The sunset glow dyed the world a bright red.
As the light dust flew, the two monks who were on guard against the fat monk over there lightly touched the ground with their front paws and quickly moved to the next step, secretly practicing the skill of light movement.
If they couldn't deal with the monk in front of them, they could easily escape by just stepping lightly and looking for help. Thinking of a scholar and a Taoist priest coming to help not far away, they hurriedly said:
"Don't let him escape, it will be difficult to catch him next time!"
In front, there was a fat monk holding a yellow cloth bag in one hand and raising his other hand with a ferocious look on his face. He looked from the two monks with his narrow eyes, and when he heard their words, he turned to the scholar and Taoist on the other side and snorted briefly.
"Come here!"
The scholar and the Taoist priest did not make any movement. The two anxious monks turned their heads and saw Lu Liangsheng holding a long sword, looking over at them with his thin lips slightly parted.
"Do you two recognize Taoist Yangming?"
Yangming
The two of them were stunned, looked at each other, suddenly turned around and ran, controlling their magic spells, instantly leaped over the valley and disappeared in the sunset glow.
"Hey, hey, what are you talking about... What Yangming Dao..."
Sun Yingxian chased after the scholar, and halfway through her chatter, her eyes widened.
"Yangming Taoist, the evil Taoist priest we met in River Valley County?"
"If it's not him, who else could it be? Now I understand. The Zhu Ziyi you know wants to use the monk to kill us."
The scholar flipped his wrist, turned up his robe sleeves, and put his sword back into the sheath. While responding to the Taoist priest, he walked towards the fat monk in front of him and raised his hands.
"Qixia Mountain, Lu Liangsheng, I have met this master!"
Not feeling any hostility from the scholar, but instead feeling a calm and generous scholarly aura, the fat monk just nodded, threw the big bag in his hand, put it on his back, turned around, took a big step, and continued to move forward. In a blink of an eye, he had passed two or three meters.
It was not difficult for Lu Liangsheng and the Taoist to keep up. One of them used the technique of shrinking the distance into an inch, and the other used the technique of fast movement to catch up with the fat monk in an instant. In a short while, they crossed most of the mountain.
The bare hilltops and withered old forests passed by Lu Liangsheng's sight in a hurry, and he was also staring at the fat figure in front of him.
The reason why he believed the other party was that he had his own considerations. When he was in Hegu County, Zuo Zhengyang suspected that this pattern was the symbol of the sect of a cultivator, while Taoist Yangming destroyed himself in prison for no reason. Now seeing the pattern on the corpse again, it seemed more like he was silenced.
Even though there may be evil people mixed in an upright sect, they would never use such sinister techniques on their own people. The only explanation is that they are afraid of exposing the people or the sect behind them. Just now when I mentioned Taoist Yangming, the two men's faces changed slightly and they turned and ran away.
The simplest explanation:
They knew that Taoist Yangming had violated a taboo and was silenced by the sect behind him.
What made Lu Liangsheng himself feel ridiculous was that the party that was originally thought to be evil suddenly turned into a good person.
Thinking of this, the figure running in front stopped. Lu Liangsheng withdrew the magic of shrinking the earth into an inch, sank his feet and slowed down. The surrounding mountains were dotted with green fields, forming a contrast between the vitality and the withered and decayed state with the northwest direction from which he came.
"This..." Lu Liangsheng frowned as he looked at the contrast.
Bang.
The fat monk in front put the yellow cloth bag on the ground, ignored the frowning scholar over there, loosened the bag, and two children with pigtails crawled out. They looked about five or six years old and were not afraid of the ferocious fat monk in front of them.
Instead, he stretched out his dirty little hands, took the cake from the monk, sat on the ground, bent his legs, and ate it while looking at the Taoist priest running towards him from a distance.
The youngest one raised his little face and couldn't help but yelled "Wow..."
"Brother, look, that person is running so fast!"
"Yeah, but not as good as Master Monk..."
The two little guys held the biscuits and nibbled on them one by one. The fat monk tore open the monk's robe on his shoulders to reveal his arms. There were several dense wounds on the back of his shoulder, and blood was dripping all over.
When the monk was putting the torn cloth over his shoulders, the scholar in white robe came over. He raised his eyes and the scholar opposite came over, took the cloth strip and passed it under his armpit.
"Let me help you."
Lu Liangsheng bandaged it, tied a knot, and said softly:
“You are actually saving these children.”
Not far away, a Taoist priest who was playing with children raised his head and looked over. The taciturn fat monk was silent for a while, then he opened his thick lips and simply replied with one word.
"yes."
Lu Liangsheng breathed a sigh of relief, sat down beside him, looked at the setting sun in the west, thought for a moment, and asked a question.
"What do they steal these children and women for?"
“I don’t know.”
I don't know whether the monk really didn't know or was deliberately not saying anything. His face was full of flesh and it was difficult to see any other expression. Every time he opened his mouth, he only said two or three simple words without any extra words. The Taoist beside him was so anxious that he jumped up and down, wishing he could pry his mouth open and make him say a few more words.
The fat monk looked at the two of them, then turned back, put up his seal, closed his eyes, and spoke every two or three words:
"When I first came here, I thought they were the ones who saved people from suffering. I didn't expect that one day, I accidentally saw them setting up a magic circle..."
The monk had a slight stutter. Lu Liangsheng smiled, stretched out his hand to hold down the agitated Taoist, and said, "No hurry." Then he asked the monk.
"Master, what kind of magic circle is that and what is it used for?"
"Earthly evil fire..." The monk closed his eyes and shook his fat head: "The northwest... land... is suffering from a severe... drought, and this is the reason..."
After saying this, he opened his eyes and looked at the red western clouds.
"The fire of the earth is burning, the water vapor is rising but not falling, and all living things are suffering..."
"Master, do you know how to break the formation?"
The monk shook his head: "I don't know."
Lu Liangsheng frowned slightly and thought of something: "If the drought was caused by humans, why wouldn't they be punished by heaven?"
"I don't know." The monk thought for a moment and shook his head again.
On this side, Sun Yingxian was most annoyed by this kind of temper. She got up from the ground, scratching her ears and cheeks and walking back and forth.
"You don't know this, you don't know that, and yet you, a grown monk, have been wrongly accused of stealing a child. Aren't you afraid of bringing shame to the temple behind you?"
The fat monk continued to shake his head.
“Don’t be afraid!”
The bright red glow was suppressed by the encroaching night to the other side of the mountain. A bonfire was lit in the woods. Lu Liangsheng asked the two children to sit by the fire to keep warm. He took out a few pieces of dry food and shared them with the Taoist and the monk. With a "pop", he broke off a branch and threw it into the fire.
Crackling…
The burning dead wood made cracking sounds and a few sparks rose with the hot air. Lu Liangsheng's demeanor was gentle and simple, the Taoist was impatient but true to his nature, and the remaining monks were taciturn. After a short time together, they became more familiar with each other.
"Fat monk, which temple are you from?"
"I became a monk in Wanfo Temple... My teacher is Zhenhai, but... I have already... left the temple to practice."
Lu Liangsheng broke off a dry branch and threw it into the fire. The firelight shone on his face and his eyes turned to the big monk opposite him.
"Master, is the merit complete?"
"... I was... kicked out... um... I ate too much... I can't recite the sutras well..."
Well…
Lu Liangsheng and the Taoist were stunned for a moment, the corners of their mouths twitched, and then they laughed out loud.
"I won't... tell you."
The monk frowned, put on his monk's robe and stood up. The Taoist beside him stopped laughing and waved his hand, saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I really couldn't help it, please don't leave."
"I'll send these two children away, as I have something else to do late at night."
The monk asked the two children beside him to put the cloth bag into the bag, put it on his other unshang's shoulder, and looked back at the scholar and the Taoist priest.
"The two donors turned against us midway, which must have alarmed the other party... They will definitely move the children and women they looted tonight. It's just right to rob them halfway."
Lu Liangsheng brushed off the dust on his hands, then stood up, strapped the Yuelong Sword back to his waist, and bowed:
"I'd like to lend a helping hand."
The Taoist priest at the side clapped his hands and stood up, nodding in agreement: "That's right, even if you can't beat them, you can still cheer on the sidelines."
Monk: “…”
After a moment of silence, the fat monk took two steps and turned around.
"Poor monk, the Dharma is pure."
Lu Liangsheng smiled and spread his sleeves, then bowed again in return.
"Qixia Mountain, Lu Liangsheng!"
The Taoist priest also cupped his hands: "No sect, no school, Sun Yingxian!"
The monk nodded with a flushed face, and then he used his skill to make his body light. His fat figure was like a flying swallow into the forest. His sleeves rustled in the wind, and then he disappeared into the night.
Lu Liangsheng withdrew his hand, looked into the darkness for a while, and then turned to face the Taoist priest.
"Let's go back too. Master is getting impatient."
"Wait." Sun Yingxian untied the water bag, unscrewed the lid, and poured the water onto the fire.
laugh…
Tsk tsk…
The clear water extinguished the flames, and a large cloud of white smoke floated across the scholar's vision.
Lu Liangsheng watched the bonfire on the ground die out little by little. In a moment of absent-mindedness, his fingers suddenly clenched.
"Maybe... there is a way."
He whispered softly.