Tap tap tap…
The dim sun hung on the distant mountain top. On the dirt road leading to Lujia Village, the rumbling sound of horse hooves spread over, causing the vendors who collected fish and shrimp from Lujia Village to quickly pull their carts to the side of the road and wait for them to pass.
"Hurry!" "Almost there!"
"The caravan ahead, please make way!"
Amid the sound of horses galloping, we turned the corner ahead and the Fushui County yamen runner who was leading the way pulled the reins, slowed down, pointed to the outline of a mountain village in the distance where the view was wide, and shouted from the side:
"Everyone, that's Lujia Village over there!"
"Whoa!"
The leader of the guards raised his hand to stop the horse team in the rear, looked around, turned his horse's head and headed over to the young man in the middle, and raised his hand: "Sir, Lujia Village is just ahead, there is no danger around."
“Thank you for your hard work, but Lujia Village is Mr. Lu’s hometown. Even if there is danger, it is in the past.”
Chen Jing walked past the guards, took a breath of the mountain air, and felt relaxed. Seven days of traveling had exhausted him, but fortunately he had finally arrived.
At this moment, he smiled complicatedly again, watching the farmers carrying hoes on their shoulders returning home from the fields walking onto the village road, his hands tightly gripping the reins.
Along the way, he had prepared many excuses in his mind, but when he got here, he couldn't help but smile, but at the same time, because he hadn't seen him for a few years, he was a little worried whether Mr. Lu would go with him.
"Three years... It would have been great if my father hadn't humiliated Mr. Lu in the Golden Palace."
He raised his head and sighed with a rather mature tone. After a moment, he waved his whip to call everyone to leave. At that moment, on the hillside not far away, there were a few crackling noises, which startled flocks of birds and made them fly out of the woods. Chen Jing looked over and saw a bluish-white lightning that was just dissipating in the woods.
Dozens of guards spurred their horses into a circle, put their hands on their weapons, and exclaimed, "What's going on?" At this moment, there was a rustling sound in the woods, and then... A few bushes on the edge of the cliff broke open, and a donkey rushed out, dragging a long rope behind it, with a person tied to one end of the rope.
In full view of everyone, not far ahead, an old donkey brayed excitedly and raised its hoof provocatively towards the dozens of war horses. Above its head, there was a toad grabbing its long ears and waving its pipe, then it spread its hooves and ran towards the village in a flash, and the tied-up boy was dragged on the ground and followed away.
"Was that a donkey just now?" "It's faster than our horses..."
"Wait, didn't you notice the toad on the donkey's head?!" "Oh no, there's still a boy, he won't be dragged to death, will he?"
"That toad might be a monster... Your Majesty... Sir, let's not go there."
The donkey had disappeared at the entrance of the village. Chen Jing looked away and waved his hand, smiling at them, "It's okay. I've seen that toad. It's Mr. Lu's pet. As for the boy... Mr. Lu shouldn't be a cruel person. There must be a reason."
He whipped the whip and shouted in a hoarse voice: "Go!"
…
On Mount Qixia, the scholar who was sitting under an old pine tree and chatting and discussing Taoism with a Taoist priest and a fat monk paused with the wine glass in his hand and turned his head to look in the direction of the mountain village.
At the side, Sun Yingxian raised the cup and said "Hey" to him.
"What are you looking at?"
"It's okay, just an acquaintance." Lu Liangsheng turned around, raised his glass and clinked it with him, then gently brushed away the empty sleeves of his robe.
On the muddy road outside the village in the distance, it was as if a gust of wind was blowing, and the horses of the team that was originally running towards the village entrance neighed loudly, stopped their hooves as if frightened, and dared not move forward.
The group didn't care at first and whipped their horses to force them to run for a while. They found that the village entrance, which was less than twenty feet away, was still far away.
"What's going on?!" "We were almost there just now, why do we seem to be stuck in the same place again?"
"Oh, could it be that Mr. Lu used some magic?!"
Amid some uneasy murmurs, a peasant woman carrying a hoe and leading a child looked at them for a few times, then walked into the village in a swagger. Chen Jing and the head guard dismounted their horses, bowed and bowed towards the villagers, performing the etiquette, thinking that they could enter. However, just as they took a few steps, they turned back and saw that the guards under their command all had horrified expressions as if they had seen a ghost.
In their sight, the two people who walked out seemed to be pulled back by invisible hands, but the two did not feel it at all.
Chen Jing stood there for a while, not knowing what he was thinking of. He asked the guards to dismount first and sat down on the side of the road, just to rest. Even if he couldn't enter the village tonight and couldn't see Mr. Lu, he would just treat it as sleeping in the open air for a while.
"Mr. Lu may be testing me..."
The group of people also had time to rest, so they quickly dismounted and sat down on the dirt road outside the village, eating their dry food with some cold water.
On the Qixia Mountain to the west of them, a fat monk holding a teacup put a smile on his fat face and put down the tea. Fa Jing's cultivation was not bad either, or he had some other way of perceiving, and he noticed that there were many more unfamiliar auras at the foot of the mountain over there.
"Mr. Lu, it seems that you are unwilling to meet that acquaintance."
"If I refuse him in person, I'm afraid I'll hurt his reputation. It's better to let him back down this way." Lu Liangsheng looked at the wine glass in his hand, brushed away the needles on the illusion stone table, sighed, and frowned slightly.
"It's not about my relationship with his father, but I want the world to be unified and stable. But if I help him, too many people will die... No matter what's good in the north or the soldiers of the Chen Dynasty, they are all Chinese people."
The Taoist drank the wine in the cup, propped up his chin and laughed: "If you hit me, people will die anyway."
The empty cup was slowly refilled with wine. The scholar opposite laughed and said, "At least fewer people will die. Besides, if I, a cultivator, participate in the changes in the world, will other cultivators also get involved?"
Lu Liangsheng stood up, walked to the edge of the cliff with his hands behind his back, and looked at the sea of clouds in the setting sun.
"… If I take the initiative to use the Dao to stir up the change of royal power in the mortal world, things might get worse."
Fa Jing bowed his head with his seal in the vertical position towards the empty place: "Buddha, have mercy on me. Fellow Daoist Lu, you see it clearly."
"This kind of thing is too much for me to think about, so I won't talk about it anymore." Sun Yingxian was most afraid of things that were complicated. He waved his hands repeatedly and shook the wine glass: "Let's talk about the three little guys becoming my disciples tomorrow."
"What's there to say?"
Lu Liangsheng came back and drank the wine in one gulp: "It will come to fruition naturally."
He stroked his sleeves and clinked his wine glasses with the two of them.
"Drink up!"
As the sky gradually darkened, in the small fenced courtyard, a young man in tattered clothes lay straight on the bed, staring at the ceiling with numb eyes.
Li Suian came in after wrung out the towel, wiped the black face of Yuwen Tuo, laughed a few words, and patted his fluffy hair that was caused by the electric shock.
"Master, I saw him in the inn before. How could you kick him? Now you're in trouble, and you still want to run away? Can't you just practice Taoism well?!"
After a scolding, Li Sui'an stood up and prepared to go out to wash the towel, then turned back and lowered his voice.
"Based on my many years of experience as a waiter, Master is a narrow-minded person. You should be careful in the future!"
On the bed, after Li Suian went out, Yuwen Tuo blinked, jumped down from the bed, opened the curtain with his fingertips, glanced at the donkey shed in the distance, saw the old donkey lying in the trough, and the toad was fighting with a white hen. He turned around and climbed onto the bed, gently pushed open the other window, and jumped out!
As night fell, the foothills in the distance took on a sinister outline.
Amid the rustling sound of footsteps, the embarrassed young man quickly stepped over the ridges of the field and finally climbed onto the muddy road.
"You never thought that after I was caught, I would run away again, right?!"
The night wind blew on his body, and Yuwen Tuo's dark face could not help but smile, revealing his white teeth. The next second, there was a chorus of "Ha" sounds, exploding on the road ahead.
That was the sound of several people shouting together.
"I… "
The smile froze and the young man stopped. Torches lit up in the darkness over there. Within the range of the flickering flames, eight burly men lined up in a row, their chest muscles trembling.
"Young man, you can't run away—"
In Yuwen Tuo’s eyes, eight people pushed towards him like a chariot!
"ah-"
The screams were clear and loud in the dark night. A group of people who were still sitting at the entrance of the village heard the complicated screams. Soon after, eight strong men carried a young man and passed by them.
Everyone shuddered.