In the night sky, the morning star and the full moon disappeared into darkness, and a pale sky appeared in the east, revealing a ray of morning light.
The feeling of weakness had subsided a lot, and my spirit was slowly recovering in the darkness. Faintly, I could hear the old donkey's groaning and Hong Lian's occasional voice: "Young Master."
After a moment, I could feel a damp and cool towel gently wiping my face and hands.
'It's all right... Pudu Cihang is dead, and the emperor is dead too.'
"… It was the Holy Fire Master of the Fire Praying Sect who gave him a great advantage."
"Oh, right... Master! !"
The thought flashed through his mind for a moment, and Lu Liangsheng regained consciousness. He woke up and opened his eyes. The roof was broken, and a ray of golden morning light illuminated the dirty and messy surroundings. As he slowly sat up, he saw a broken beam resting on the broken stove, and a wooden bed broken into two pieces covered in dust.
Uncovering the Taoist robe covering the scholar, Lu Liangsheng got up along the wall and walked towards the slightly opened door. He could hear the chirping of birds and the smell of herbs.
With a creak, the door was gently pushed open.
"Hey! Whoosh! Hey!"
In the courtyard covered with weeds, the Toad Taoist was basking in the morning sun in a short jacket, with his webbed feet on his round waist, shaking his white belly, twisting his waist in circles, stretching out his frog legs and pressing down, and occasionally jumping a few times on the spot.
On a nearby tree, a Taoist priest was holding a grass root in his mouth, with a half-read book covering his face. He was lazily lying on the treetop, with one leg raised and shaking.
The old donkey lay on his side among the weeds, chewing the grass around his mouth. Then he stood up and saw the figure standing at the door. He excitedly wagged his tongue and ran over happily.
Under the eaves, Hong Lian squatted on the ground, boiling medicine over a low fire, blowing air onto the fire from time to time.
What happened last night was something that a ghost like her could not possibly touch. The Rakshasa ghost sounds very powerful, but if it is put in front of the likes of Toad Taoist, Pu Du Ci Hang, and Shenghuo Mingzun, it is not even qualified to take a look.
Hearing footsteps and the slight sound of the door, she subconsciously raised her face, dimples appeared on her cheeks, and a smile appeared.
"Young Master!"
She stood up, walked around the campfire, and threw herself into Lu Liangsheng's arms, hooking her arms around his back and leaning her face against his chest. She felt the solidity of the painted skin.
With her eyes closed, Hong Lian felt the warmth coming from the scholar's chest and hugged him tighter.
Lu Liangsheng stroked her hair and said with a smile, "It's okay, don't be nervous." As he spoke, he extended his other hand to the old donkey who was running over, "And you!"
After patting the donkey's head twice, two coughs were heard from the yard.
The Toad Taoist held one webbed toad's back and the other under his chin and coughed twice. Hong Lian loosened her hands and quickly got out of the scholar's arms, taking small steps and running quickly to the medicine jar.
With a smile on his face, Lu Liangsheng walked out of the eaves, with his wide sleeves spread to the left and right, and bowed to his master.
"Master, how are you?"
"It's okay, it's okay. I got up earlier than you." Toad yawned after doing his morning exercises. "I'm just a little hungry..."
Although the demon's elixir was damaged and it was originally doomed to die, his disciple used a spell that would allow them to die together. The souls of the man and the demon were bound together, and as long as one of them survived, the other would live forever.
However, this spell also has a drawback, which is that it is equivalent to dividing half of the caster's lifespan with the other party.
"You are so confused."
Speaking of this, the Toad Taoist couldn't help but jump up and hit him on the knee with his frog flippers, but when he saw his smiling disciple, he turned around helplessly and sat on the steps under the eaves, supporting his chin.
"Even if you haven't become a true immortal, your life span is only a hundred years. If you save me, you can only live for another twenty years at most... You are such a goody-goody, why would I accept someone like you as my disciple?"
In fact, there was no hint of blame in Toad's words. He stood up, put on his webbed feet, shook his head, walked back into the house, took out the black-striped gourd from the compartment of the bookshelf, held it in his arms to block his vision, staggered over, and placed it in front of his apprentice.
"Liangsheng, this gourd is a magic weapon refined by my master's innate magical power. Now that my master's soul and yours are connected, you can use it."
The scholar raised his eyebrows: "Can it swallow everything in the world?"
The Toad Taoist clapped his gourd with great pride, nodded slightly, and looked at Chen Yang: "Humph, of course it is."
At this point, he smacked his lips and coughed dryly: "But it can't be used for the time being. It was struck by lightning last time and has not been repaired yet... You can use it when you have time to repair it."
Well…
Lu Liangsheng took the gourd and played with it. It turned out that it could only be used as a container for medicinal pills now. But that was okay. It was a magic weapon anyway, so he just accepted it.
As for how much shorter his life would be, he didn't care. When it comes to practicing Taoism, it's all about doing what's in your heart. If he didn't save his master and left regrets behind, he would not be happy even if he practiced the holy way for a thousand years.
In twenty years or so, there are still many things you can do, and it may be possible to make up for the lost life span.
The master and the disciple sat under the eaves, basking in the sun and talking for a while. Hong Lian, who had prepared the medicine, asked the Taoist priest on the tree to bring it to the big man with a thick beard in the other room.
He was one of the few people who came to help slay demons and monsters that day. Lu Liangsheng followed the Taoist into the house. The man on the haystack had already woken up and saw the two people coming in.
He managed to stand up and bowed.
"Yan Chixia, nice to meet you two fellow Taoists!"
Lu Liangsheng's magic had previously reduced some of the force on him, so his injuries were not too serious. He drank some medicine to stabilize his internal injuries, rested for a while, and then talked about his origins.
"My sect is just a small sect, not comparable to those big sects. Damn, that centipede monster has been hiding in the capital for so long. I have been to Tianzhi several times but never found it."
The Taoist spat out the grass root and said with a smile: "If you had discovered it earlier, you would have died earlier."
Across from him, the man named Yan Chixia was stunned for a moment, then nodded and smiled, "Indeed, my cultivation is not deep, and encountering such a big monster is like sending myself to death. It's a pity that I realized it too late, otherwise several of my fellow disciples would not have died."
"Yeah." Lu Liangsheng didn't know how to comfort him, so he took the empty bowl and said, "He's dead, so let him rest in peace. Perhaps this incident will make you and me more vigilant in the future. Demons and monsters have never stopped causing trouble. Maybe I can meet Brother Yan again in the future to fight against demons and defend the way of Taoism. I'll have to lend a hand then."
"Haha, I'm not the type to be sentimental, so just a sigh is enough."
Yan Chixia was quite open-minded. He stood up with a laugh, took the sword case leaning against the side, put it behind his back, and bowed to Lu Liangsheng and the Taoist.
"Now that I have finished my business here, I will go back to find the remains of my fellow disciples and bury them, and then report back to the master."
The scholar was worried about his injury and tried to ask him to stay for a few more nights, but the other party was unable to sit still, so he had no choice but to send him outside. Lu Liangsheng raised his hands.
"Brother Yan, see you again if we are lucky enough!"
On the road leading to the courtyard, Yan Chixia strode forward with the sword case on his back. With his back to the two people behind him, he raised his hand and waved: "Haha, we'll meet again at the end of the world!"
"By the way, where is Zuo Zhengyang?"
Watching the man go away and his figure disappear in the woods outside, Lu Liangsheng then remembered that there was another Zuo Zhengyang. As for Min Changwen and Min Yuerou, father and daughter, they were probably in a state of panic in the city at this moment. After all, the emperor was dead, and officials would usually put this kind of thing as their top priority.
"They were taken back by the Min family father and daughter." The Taoist put his hands behind his head, turned around and kicked his feet to walk back: "We are all officials, we won't die, but if we don't eat, we will starve to death."
On one side, the Toad Taoist, who was lying on the donkey's head basking in the sun, opened his eyelids and said lightly: "You just found out? Why don't you go cook? I'll think about what to eat..."
A butterfly flew by in the sunlight, and a thick tongue quickly caught the flying butterfly and pulled it into the mouth.
The Toad Taoist's veins bulged, he stood up suddenly, and hit the donkey on the head with his frog webs.
"That bastard, he doesn't want to learn anything good, but instead wants to learn how to stick out his tongue!!"
Uh hum ah~~
The old donkey neighed and jumped around in the yard with its tongue tilted, trying to shake the toad off its head. The Toad Taoist grabbed the donkey's ear tightly, with one hand still falling!
"You are capable, didn't I see you get mad last night?!"
“I told you to learn from me! I told you to learn from me!!”
The frog's webbed feet kept hitting each other, but the old donkey was excited and ran around pushing the Toad Taoist priest.
As the sun shone down, Lu Liangsheng calmed down and sat down on the steps. He watched Hong Lian run over to separate the two people from the fight. The Taoist priest was cooking nearby. The courtyard was still bustling with activity. Nothing had changed.
…
"It's really lively here."
A light blue horse stopped on the road outside the courtyard. Min Yuerou tied up her hair, smiled, pulled the reins, and the man and the horse walked towards this side.
"But the capital is much more lively than yours."