The mountains in Sichuan are steep on all sides. It is difficult to cross the steep foothills and to sail upstream from east to west. Most boatmen are unwilling to pass through the gorges with long peaks and many reefs on the bottom of the water.
Moreover, it would take too much time to go upstream to Hanchuan and then to the heartland of Western Shu, so Lu Liangsheng chose to enter Shu by land. From the heartland of Southern Chen to the west, after passing Xiangfan, he entered the mountains of Sichuan and Shu.
At this time of year, the spring rain continues, dripping on the dense forests in the mountains. On the muddy roads in the mountains, hoof prints one after another are left in the mud and extend to the hills.
The old donkey carried the scholar sitting horizontally on its back. Its tongue jubilantly extended and retracted, sweeping over the falling raindrops. Then, a frog slapped it with its webbed feet, “Don’t move!”
The Toad Taoist held its long ears, controlled its balance, and looked around.
"Liangsheng, does this road lead to Shuzhong?"
Amid the tinkling of copper bells, the old donkey went up the hillside. The scholar on its back closed the book "Boundless Mountains and Seas" and waved his robe sleeves to sweep away the falling raindrops. He then looked at his master on the donkey's head, who was wearing a flowery short-sleeved shirt.
"Master, don't you often look down at the mountains and rivers?"
"Humph, I am old now, so I may not be able to see things clearly."
As he was speaking, the old man who was leaning on a wooden stick and tapping on the ground behind him raised his gray eyes, and raindrops still fell into his slightly opened pupils. He stroked his gray goat beard, his lips moved quickly, and he muttered to himself. After thinking for a moment, he spoke again.
"Master, this road should be the road to Sichuan."
Soon, the spring rain that had lasted for two consecutive days stopped outside the forest, and the sun broke through the clouds and shone on the foothills. A donkey and a toad rested and cooked under a tree beside the mountain path. Lu Liangsheng took out the map and followed the direction marked on the map, silently calculating how many miles he had walked in the morning.
"Following this road, it's about fifty miles to Wanhe County, which is a good place to stay and rest."
Then he looked at Wang Banxia who was chewing a piece of bread: "Can Cheng'en still walk?"
"My disciple is also a cultivator, how can I not be able to walk even this short distance?" Wang Chengen swallowed the biscuit, chuckled a few times, raised his gray head, and looked outside the shade of the trees.
"Master, rest assured. Cheng'en will never slow down the journey."
Taoist Toad held a small bowl and drank porridge. He glanced at the old man and snorted, but said nothing.
Lu Liangsheng scooped a bowl of porridge and handed it to Banxia, then he casually sat down on a stone and took a sip of the porridge. Suddenly, his arm stopped hanging and he vaguely heard the sound of a wheel in his ears.
Wang Banxia, who was sitting on the other side of the campfire, had an unusually sensitive hearing, so he naturally heard it as well.
"Master, it seems someone is passing by here, maybe a merchant."
Lu Liangsheng hummed, he also heard the noise. Soon, there were shouts and the sound of whips coming from the bottom of the hill, as if the wheels of the car were stuck in a mud pit.
"Push harder!" "One, two... Push harder!"
"Push from behind, the horse can hardly hold on."
"Why not unload the goods first? That way the carriage will be lighter and easier to get on. Once we are out of the mud and up the hill, we can load the goods."
Hearing the shouting and the neighing of the pack horses, Lu Liangsheng walked to the edge of the hill with the bowl in his hand, and saw two men below pulling the reins or the ropes on the cart. Behind the cart, there were two more people pushing it. On top of the cart, a big man in a turban was waving a whip and whipping the pack horses that were pulling at them.
Judging from his accent, he is not from Shu.
'It has just rained in the spring, the road is soft and muddy... Let's help them.'
Lu Liangsheng raised his right hand and waved his wide sleeves towards the carriage on the slope below. A breeze blew and the four men who were pulling and pushing the cart suddenly felt relieved. The shaft of the cart, which they had been trying to push up, had fallen into a mud pit. The packhorses, as if they had taken some wrong medicine, excitedly stepped forward and pulled the body of the cart straight up the hillside with a clanging sound.
"Hey, hurry up and hold it!" "The horse is frightened!"
At this time, someone discovered a young man in a white robe standing on the hillside, his robe fluttering in the wind, holding a bowl in his hand, looking strange.
However, the horse refused to move when the carriage was still on the ground. The driver was so frightened that he broke out in a sweat and sat down, gasping for breath. If the horse had been frightened and rushed down the steep cliff in a panic, he would have almost died.
The four people at the bottom of the slope ran up at this time, and when they saw the coachman and the carriage parked safely, they also breathed a sigh of relief.
"It's really the blessing of the mountain god." "Otherwise I would have died."
"But it's really strange. He couldn't get up for a long time, but he ran up the slope in the blink of an eye..."
After the four men and the driver checked the goods, they remembered the young man they had just seen and discovered that he had already sat under a tree on the roadside ahead. There was a bonfire and an iron pot on the ground, and it was obvious that he was also in a hurry.
"Five of you, please bother me."
When the five men drove the carriage over, Lu Liangsheng put down his bowl and chopsticks, stood up and walked towards them with a smile, bowing to them.
"Can I ask if Wanhe County can be reached by this road?"
The turning shaft of the cart slowed down, and the man driving the cart looked at the polite and gentle man in front of him, who was standing next to a blind old man and an old donkey, and he probably felt that they were not bad people.
He returned the greeting with his hands and said, "That's right. Sir, if you keep going along this road, you will reach Wanhe County. You will arrive in the afternoon."
"Those guys are also going to Wanhe County, right?"
Suddenly, an old voice sounded from the side. The five businessmen turned their heads and saw that it was the blind old man who followed the scholar. His eyes were dull and half-closed. He was nodding his head and looking at the forest on the foothills outside the hillside. His gray goatee fluttered slightly in the wind, and he looked like an immortal.
I was a little hesitant at first, wanting to reject the scholar's words.
"This old man looks like a master..." "Yes, our car got stuck in a pit just now. Could it be that this old man used magic?"
"The bad guys can't tell."
"There are only two of us, so there's no need to hurt..."
Listening to the five people talking in whispers, Wang Banxia couldn't help but straighten his body, his calm eyes adding to his mystery.
"I happen to know some strange arts, and I can tell your fortunes when you go out. If you go to Wanhe County, why not take me with you, how about that?"
The five men looked at each other and thought that it was indeed nothing to take an old man with them. They could even tell their fortunes, and the divination results were pretty good.
"Master, Cheng'en will take their carriage."
"Go ahead, go ahead."
Lu Liangsheng didn't care about anything. He watched him get on the carriage, exchange a few words with the five business travelers, then ride on the old donkey and follow their carriage along the mountain road. They arrived in Wanhe County around dusk.
The not-so-high city wall stretched on both sides of the city gate. Soldiers in full armor could be seen patrolling between the battlements. Not far from the city wall, a carriage coming from the official road stopped. Wang Banxia got off with a ruddy face and a big smile. He said goodbye to the five people and gave them instructions in a very master-like manner.
"Remember what I said. Do not drink alcohol or quarrel with others for two days."
After hearing the other party leave, he turned and ran towards the old donkey nearby, took the wooden stick thrown by Lu Liangsheng with a smile, followed the donkey, and entered the city gate with the words "Wanhe" written on it.
Compared with the quietness of the forest, the hustle and bustle of the city seems like a different world.
Between the low eaves on both sides, the long street is bustling with pedestrians. Walking on the wet green tiles, men and their wives stroll through the streets. Children on the wheelbarrows they push look enviously at the roadside stalls selling a row of colorful sugar figures and the blue flags passing by. The teahouse is bustling with people. A waiter carrying a long-spouted teapot fills a table of tea for drinkers, then walks to the door and shouts loudly in the unique Sichuan dialect to attract passers-by on the street.
"Let's drink tea. Wanhe's newly made honey tea. Come and have a drink. It's very delicious. It's a little bitter at first, but it becomes sweet after a sip. It's not good. I won't charge you, Wenwenzi, for it."
Accustomed to southern and northern dialects, Lu Liangsheng felt a bit overwhelmed when he arrived in Shu and heard the local dialect. He could still hear some words clearly, but there were some unique languages that could not be explained by magic.
There were also special products from Shu on the street. Leading the old donkey and taking the eldest disciple for a stroll on the street, they found an inn and went in. Fortunately, the waiter in the inn could speak southern dialect, so Lu Liangsheng and Wang Banxia were not confused.
He handed the old donkey over to the servant to take it to the backyard to send samples, fed it some fine food, and booked a room with two beds. Wang Banxia fell on it as if he was paralyzed, with his head covered, and stretched comfortably.
In the bookshelf, Taoist Toad walked out of the small door of the compartment weakly, dragging his pipe. He yawned, smacked his lips, and looked with drooping eyes at his apprentice who was making the bed.
"When are we going to eat? Order some Shu specialties for me to try."
"Master, do you want to go down with us?"
Lu Liangsheng spread the quilt, brushed off any dust that might be on it, went to get some water to wash his face, turned around and said something, and the toad over there climbed onto the bed, lay on it, rubbed the pillow with its arches and stretches, and raised its hand to shake it with its back to the scholar.
"I will not go, so as not to scare others."
"What about Cheng'en?"
Looking at the other bed, Wang Bandia was already fast asleep, wrapped in the quilt.
Lu Liangsheng shook his head, opened the door with a creak, and walked to the lobby on the first floor. It was past dinner time, so there were not many people eating, only a few tables of people eating and drinking. When the waiter saw the scholar coming downstairs, he hurried forward.
"Sir, what would you like to order? Local dishes or hometown dishes? We can cook them for you at home. If you don't like crowds, I can bring them to your room later."
Thinking of his master's instructions just now, Lu Liangsheng sat down at a nearby table and said, "Let's try Sichuan cuisine."
The waiter was about to announce the names of the dishes when suddenly, another waiter came running in breathlessly with a basket of vegetables on his shoulder from the front door. He walked straight past Lu Liangsheng's table and pointed outside the door while speaking to the shopkeeper who was dozing with his chin on his hand at the counter.
"The shopkeeper... Doctor Li... Doctor Li is back and is seeing patients in the clinic..."
The shopkeeper, who had been awakened, was about to get angry, but when he heard it suddenly, he picked up his robe and rushed to the backyard. Lu Liangsheng looked at him curiously and asked the waiter who was reporting the names of the dishes beside him.
"What happened to your shopkeeper?"
"It's not my shopkeeper, it's the shopkeeper's father who's sick." The clerk put the rag on his shoulder and said without thinking, "Doctor Li is famous in our city. He has great medical skills. He was invited by the county governor to see a patient a while ago. He just came back now. The shopkeeper is anxious and wants to take his father to see a doctor."
"I see."
Lu Liangsheng nodded. After a while, all the dishes were served. He asked the waiter to put them in the guest room. Curious about the doctor, he inquired about the location of the clinic and followed the address the waiter gave. There were people coming and going on the long street, while one side was crowded with people. Among them were many coughing and groaning patients with pale faces or red eyes who were supported by their family members and waited outside for treatment.
It was not a surprising scene at first, but Lu Liangsheng frowned slightly, and the scabbard of the Xuanyuan sword that was used as a pendant on his waist began to tremble.
He looked towards the entrance of the clinic and clearly felt a gloomy aura.
"A ghost?"
Under his sleeves, he put two fingers together and formed a spell, at which moment a familiar voice suddenly sounded behind him.
"Mr. Lu?"
Lu Liangsheng dispersed his fingers and turned around to see a man in black with a scruffy beard standing in front of a store with two long swords crossed behind his back.
The hat was slightly lifted, revealing a face that was none other than Zuo Zhengyang.