After passing Lanruo Temple where we had spent the night, we arrived in the north of Shangyong County, where it started to rain heavily.
The road leading to Chang'an became muddy and difficult to travel, and the woods were filled with the sound of rain hitting leaves. Lu Liangsheng used his magic power, and the surrounding grass and dead branches flew over to build a pergola against a big tree.
The old donkey was lying at the innermost part, with a bookshelf placed on one side. There was a small bonfire burning, and Wang Banxia was sitting cross-legged, pinching his fingers and muttering something.
Throwing a dry branch into the fire, Lu Liangsheng listened to the sound of rain and thunder outside, holding the book and quietly turning the pages. The Toad Taoist lay on his spread-out robe, with his webbed hands behind his head, one leg raised and shaking, and with his eyes closed, he leisurely hummed the song that Hong Lian had sung before.
"When I first saw you, my lover, I still remember the mist and rain in my past life...
Wearing the robes and holding the bowl to beg for alms... Hum hum na ge lang..."
As if he had forgotten the rest of the lyrics, he hummed for two paragraphs, and then the Toad Taoist sighed happily: "Master, I miss the little ghost girl singing songs. I shouldn't have been so ambitious in the first place. It would have been better for me to stay in the human world, satisfy my hunger, and listen to the wonderful music of the human world."
Hearing his master suddenly talking to himself, Lu Liangsheng raised his eyes and saw a few wet birds flying in from outside the straw shed and landing on the outstretched branches. The scholar smiled at them and flicked his robe sleeves, and the wet feathers gradually dried. The four flying birds jumped up and down in the shed excitedly with their claws, looking at the scholar over there curiously.
Ignoring the birds in the forest, Lu Liangsheng lowered his gaze to the pages of the book. The faint majestic aura contained a gentleness that attracted the birds to come closer unconsciously, standing on the scholar's shoulders and legs and chirping. Even the toad monster lying on the hem of his robe did not seem afraid.
The pages of the book turned with a swish, and Lu Liangsheng suddenly spoke and asked the humming toad a question.
"Master, you said the man in white robe is an old friend, then what kind of demon is he?"
"A demon is a demon. Why do you want to know so much about it?"
The Toad Taoist suddenly straightened up, sat up, smacked his lips, and flipped up the edge of his robe with his webbed feet. He looked at the water curtain hanging in the straw hut, and his eyes almost narrowed into a slit.
"Anyway, you won't run into them if you go to the northwest."
The scholar closed the book and became interested. He looked at the small figure of his master sitting there and said with a smile, "Just asking, since he can be compared with the master, he must be a great demon too."
The last two paragraphs of this statement made Toad Taoist feel quite comfortable and he nodded slightly.
"Haha, how can we compare them? I once saved his life. When I was traveling across the mountains and rivers, he was still running around in the sand..."
As he was talking excitedly, he jumped down from his robe with a soft "pa" sound. Lu Liangsheng quickly put down his robe and stood up. The Toad Taoist quickly got up from the ground, dusted himself off, put his hands behind his back, touched his butt, and walked to the door of the straw hut swayingly.
"This monster is only slightly inferior to my master, but he is also very powerful. Among the monsters in the northwest, he is also one of the best."
Lu Liangsheng raised his eyebrows and asked, "Who is the first one?"
Over there, the short toad turned its face slightly and waved its webbed feet.
"Of course it's for the teacher!"
As the word "Master" came out, Wang Banxia, who was counting on his fingers and muttering something by the fire, suddenly slapped his knees and shouted.
"good!"
The master and the disciple stopped talking and turned their heads to look over. The old man felt four gazes and quickly stood up and bowed to Lu Liangsheng, then bowed to the Toad Taoist.
"Master, Master, I'm sorry for being rude. I just calculated my junior brother's situation with my fingers and found that it was mostly auspicious. I think he will definitely be promoted to a high position and receive generous salary when he returns to the capital. Cheng'en can also move to Beijing..."
In the excitement, he almost said out loud what was in his mind. Wang Banxia stopped talking and breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, fortunately, he almost said something that made his master mistakenly think that he was a person who was greedy for wealth and fame.
Lu Liangsheng over there was no longer the young man who had just left Mount Qixia, so how could he not know what he meant? However, he did not care and tried to persuade him about the art of observing qi and astrology.
"Cheng'en, although this technique can be used to observe the fortunes of fate, it cannot be used to predict the future in detail. Some things have their own cause and effect. If you spy too much, it will only make the normal things in the future become unclear and cause variables!"
It is not easy to practice, let alone for an old man of his age. When he accepted Wang Chengen as his disciple that day, he also performed the respect of a teacher and apprentice. Naturally, he was considered as Lu Liangsheng's disciple. How could he favor one over the other
"You started practicing Taoism too late, and you mostly learned the art of observing qi and astrology. Your life span may be short in the future, but you must not be greedy for fame and fortune. You should give guidance to those who are lost and confused, and accumulate good karma. Who knows, you may be able to prolong your life and achieve positive results after overcoming disasters. Remember not to do things that will damage your good karma..."
Taoist Toad watched his disciple teaching patiently, dragged Qian Yin's long sleeves, walked to the campfire, lay down lazily, and slightly closed his eyelids.
"You are acting like an old scholar again, preaching to others."
The wind mixed with raindrops fell in the forest, and the branches and leaves of the thatched hut were shaking. It was impossible to stop for a while. The campfire was warm, and the Toad Taoist curled up on one side and yawned out of boredom.
Lu Liangsheng picked up the bookshelf again and savored the stories in the classics carefully. A few birds in the shed landed on the old man's messy hair, combed their feathers and huddled together to peck at each other. Occasionally, they listened quietly to the sound of the scholar reading over there.
…
"Hurry! There's a hut over there!"
"Oh, luckily I found a place to hide from the rain."
On the muddy path, a carriage rolled through the mud and water. The driver and several young men on horseback came not far away. They were soaked all over and shivered as they got off the horses. They pointed at the thatched hut over there and shouted into the carriage. After a while, the curtain was lifted, and three women holding paper umbrellas came down, supporting each other, holding up their skirts and running to the thatched hut over there with the four young men in the rain.
"Why don't you stay in the car? Why are you running out here?!"
"Yes, the car won't get wet in the rain." "Brother Chengwen, how can you talk like that? How can you let three girls ride with the driver?"
"Hey, there's someone in the hut!"
When the four young men running in front were talking to the woman behind, the one in front suddenly spoke, and the group of seven saw a bonfire burning in the straw hut, an old man with messy hair, a scholar in a white robe, an old donkey in the innermost part, and bookshelves next to it.
"Brother, can you please let me in to take shelter from the rain?"
One of the seven people was quite polite and spoke first. However, before Lu Liangsheng could say anything, another person beside the young man who spoke first interrupted him and waved his sleeves, causing several birds in the shed to fly everywhere.
"Brother Chengwen, the thatched hut is standing by the roadside, and it is not his, so why bother to care about it? You are over 20 years old and have not passed the imperial examination. You are just a poor scholar and do not deserve our courtesy."
Lu Liangsheng frowned and looked at the seven wet men and women. Behind the four young men in front, one of the three women, who was wearing a green lotus dress, saw the face of the scholar opposite her and her pretty face suddenly broke into a smile.
She knew this scholar very well.