"Not going to the capital?"
The evening breeze rustled, and it was the sound of leaves shaking gently. Hong Lian poked out half of her face from the bookshelf and glanced at the master and disciple over there, then quickly retracted her face.
The old donkey was wagging its tail and chewing grass on the side of the road not far away, looking back. The scholar who was standing there with a dry biscuit in his hand suddenly smiled and sat down casually beside him.
"Master, why are you talking about this suddenly?"
After passing Fulin Prefecture and going another hundred miles, they were not far from the capital. At this time, when Toad Taoist said this, he had been hesitating in his heart for many days.
He supported himself on his knees and slowly got up from the ground.
"Master wants to tell you that even if you have a magic weapon that can suppress the soul-demanding Sanskrit sound of the Protector of the Nation, your chances of winning are too small. The path of cultivation he takes is not comparable to that of ordinary monsters. With your current cultivation level, it is almost impossible to force him to show his true form and alarm the City God and other cultivators!"
On the side, Lu Liangsheng was stunned for a moment, pursed his lips, and nodded: "Indeed, but Master, Chen Chao and I have run out of fate, but the people in the city are still here. If we ignore him, even if he turns into a dragon and ascends to heaven, he will still be an evil dragon, another great demon in the world... If we don't get rid of him today, it will be even more difficult in the future."
The scholar broke the biscuit in half and took a bite.
"I also know that this is too difficult, so I'll just try my best. If I only do it for my relatives and friends, it can't be considered as practicing Taoism. If I only do it for the people of the world, it can't be considered as practicing Taoism. Combining the two is what we practitioners should do. Besides, we don't know what kind of person the Dharma Master who protects the country is. We can only know if we can deal with him by trying."
The Toad Taoist shook his head: "You can't handle it. I don't want you to die in vain."
"You have to try..."
"I can't try. My master is a demon. Isn't that clear enough—"
The Taoist Toad glared with his eyes and raised his voice suddenly, causing Lu Liangsheng to tilt his head to look at him. After a moment, the Toad's tone slowed down a little and his eyes shifted to the donkey in front of him that was munching on grass.
"I never told you... My master is actually a demon, a great demon comparable to the demon king, and I know the centipede demon very well."
The evening breeze is blowing gently, and the leaves are rustling in the red glow of the sunset.
At the side, Lu Liangsheng smiled, moved closer to his master, and looked at Old Donkey together.
"In fact, Master, you are a demon. I have known this for a long time."
"Why?!"
The Toad Taoist raised his toad face, looked at his disciple's profile, blinked his eyelids and said, "Damn it, I thought I hid it well."
But then, he shook his face and said:
"It's good to know. So, don't go to the capital. Practice your Dao well in Qixia Mountain. When you have nurtured a sword blank and your cultivation level has improved again, you can go and fight demons and defend the Dao! Do you remember that your master once told you about the wisdom of 'living'? Only by living can you solve all problems!!"
"Master..."
Lu Liangsheng brushed off a birch leaf from the hem of his robe, stood up from the ground, and waved to the old donkey not far away.
"It is true that 'living' requires wisdom, but people are different after all. The cultivation of people lies in the Tao. If you can't even protect the Tao, how can you talk about cultivating the Tao? What's the point of practicing the Tao? You won't ignore the dangers in the world and put the lives of millions of people on the line, and then come out to play around in the world, pretend to be a master and a god, and show off in front of people?"
The scholar placed the bookshelf on the ground onto the old donkey's back, and the sound continued.
"If it is such a practice, I would not bother to do it... It doesn't matter if I don't practice. Similarly, if I can cultivate the Dao and do something practical for the people, it will also be in line with what my mentor said about defending the Dao. This is my Dao, Lu Liangsheng. From the day I started practicing Dao, Master, you taught me to walk the right path, and Master taught me to serve the people of the world... My Dao cannot be changed."
Having said that, Lu Liangsheng looked sideways at the angry toad with a smile on his face.
"Master is a demon. It is the demon's instinct to stay alive. Liangsheng can understand that."
"You understand shit!"
Bubbles bulged on Toad Taoist's cheeks. He picked up his pipe, walked to the bottom of the bookshelf on flippers, climbed up, put the purple-gold and black-patterned gourd inside on his back, jumped down with a snap, turned around and walked away in another direction.
"I will return to the Qixia Mountain Grottoes. If you want to die, go ahead. You are so stubborn that you should stay with your dead master. When I recover, I will come back to avenge you!"
The scholar still had a smile on his face as he watched his master walking away. Inside the bookshelf, Hong Lian's worried voice came, "Young Master..." Over there, Lu Liangsheng turned around, his thin lips slightly opening and closing, and a voice that only he could hear was speaking.
"That's fine."
Then, he took the reins and headed towards Tianzhi in the sunset.
…
"I'm so pissed off!"
"This stubborn disciple! What's wrong with being alive? He can't even save his own life, and yet he still cares about the lives of others!"
"You deserve to die. I'll burn more paper money for you when I get back!"
In the opposite direction of the scholar, the Toad Taoist priest was carrying a gourd on his back, puffing up his cheeks, and waving the pipe in his hand from time to time. He was heading towards the direction of Fulin Prefecture, with his webbed feet stomping on the ground with a whooshing sound.
"I ate countless people in my past. If you knew, would you want to kill me as well..."
Yan Gang pushed aside the bushes and walked outside. He stopped and found a cliff in front of him. He cursed a few words, turned around and prepared to walk east along the cliff to find the way he came.
In front of him, the woods and bushes swayed gently in the mountain breeze. He stopped suddenly, and a familiar feeling arose spontaneously.
"May Buddha have mercy on me..."
An old Buddhist chant echoed in the mountain stream, as if coming from all directions.
In the crimson glow, a thin figure stood in front of the Toad Taoist with one hand in a vertical seal and bowed to the Buddha. The monk's robe was old but clean, and he held a nine-ring staff in his hand, the iron rings of which clanged.
“… Taoist Zixing, I haven’t seen you for many years.”
On the other side, the eyes of the short-bodied toad suddenly shrank, and the red rays of light around the old monk were like the sun, causing a stinging pain in his eyes.
…not the old bald donkey from Zhenhai.
How does he know me
However, I think they are here for me. Never mind. Since I can’t escape from here anyway, I might as well fight for a while to avoid ruining my past reputation!
Seeing the old monk slowly approaching with a staff in hand, Toad Taoist held his breath and concentrated, his body slightly hunched.
"I still have one breath of mana left to use. I can't say if I can defeat this bald donkey, but I can be seriously injured. What's more, I still have the magic weapon life dice in my hand. As long as my luck is not too bad, I can at least exert two or three levels of mana with one breath of mana."
As the old monk approached, the toad's eyes narrowed, the dense bumps on his back turned dark purple, and a demonic aura spread.
"If this bald donkey is moving at this speed and is within a certain distance of me, I can just make a move first and control the battle to within 50 to 60 feet. Even if I can't win, I can still move forward and backward freely..."
The frog gripped the dice tightly with its flippers, and the distance and time of attack calculated at lightning speed flashed through its mind in an instant. It then stepped forward with its flippers with its slightly bent body.
Next second.
Pah~
The webbed head that had just been raised tripped on a stone on the protruding ground, and the body fell to the ground with a loud thud. The dice rolled out of the webbed head a short distance away.
With his face pressed against the dirt, he managed to squeeze out a sound.
"That mother... missed her plan... it's over."
"Buddha have mercy on me!"
The Buddha's name was chanted above the toad's head. The old monk stopped in front of him, his white beard stroking slightly in the sunset glow.