"What a nice name! What a nice name!"
"I still think Liu Tiedao sounds better. It's a more elegant name."
"Go away. I'll have to find a husband to take care of my fifth child."
"Yes, that's what I thought."
Lu Liangsheng listened to the conversations around him, smiled as he put away his pen and ink and put them back on the bookshelf, and explained the meaning of the word "Qin" to Liu Gun. The latter laughed so hard that he couldn't stop, and held the child in his arms, teasing and shaking him, thanked him again and again, then carried the child back to the house and handed him to his wife, and came back to continue greeting the guests.
Especially Lu Liangsheng, who was so diligent in attending to the table, fearing that he would be neglected. Others might not know, but how could Liu Gun not know that the scholar was a Taoist master? It could be said that the name gave him some immortal aura, and it was not an exaggeration to say that he was treating a distinguished guest like this.
"Mr. Lu, I am a rough man and I can't say anything nice, but I want to thank you for naming my son. I will drink first as a sign of respect, sir, please drink slowly!"
Seeing Liu Gun drinking the nth bowl of wine, Lu Liangsheng couldn't refuse. In the past two or three years, except for the period of depression and drunkenness that year, today was probably the most he had drunk.
After taking two sips, the scholar put down his wine bowl. He came here for something, and Liu Gun happened to have lived here for three years, so he should be familiar with Liangjie Mountain.
He invited the other person to sit down.
"You have lived in Jishi Town for quite some time. Do you know how to get to Liangjie Mountain?"
"Sir, you have traveled to famous rivers and mountains, and you also know the two boundary mountains in the northwest?"
When asked about the name of this place, Liu Gun was naturally happy. He put down his wine bowl and wiped the wine stains from the corner of his mouth.
"Sir, if you want to visit this mountain, I will take you there tomorrow morning. The terrain there is rugged and it is difficult to find the way, but don't worry, sir. My brothers and I will pass by there one or two days every month to inspect, and we are very familiar with the route."
"Thank you very much. Go and greet the others. You don't have to accompany me."
Lu Liangsheng smiled and bowed to him. When the other party took the drinks to another table, he turned back and found that a chicken leg in the bowl had disappeared. In his sleeve, the Toad Taoist was lying comfortably with the chicken leg in his hand. He licked the grease on it with his long tongue, smacked his lips and savored it. He urged: "Put more in the bowl, otherwise it will be eaten by the pig demon."
On the side, Zhu Ganglie took off his outer layer of clothes, revealing a sleeveless jacket, and ate meat and drank wine in big mouthfuls, his body covered with sweat.
The three men who had been drinking with him were already flushed in the face. They were swaying on the stools, and then, with a bang, they fell asleep on the table.
Among the crowd, Lu Liangsheng was the most polite when eating, and he also ate a lot of delicious food that was hard to find along the way.
The setting sun dyed the world red.
The banquet gradually ended. After eating and drinking, the soldiers and their families from Zhuangzi helped to clean up the place and then said goodbye to the host and left one after another.
After Liu Gun saw these people off at the door, he quickly vacated a room for Lu Liangsheng and the fat black man to stay for one night.
"Mr. Lu, my home is simple, I hope you don't mind."
Liu Gun lit the oil lamp and put it on the table. He said something and went out to the main room. Lu Liangsheng stood at the door and bowed casually. When he entered the room, he saw that the furniture was simple, with only a table and a bed. It might not be possible for him to live with Zhu Ganglie.
"I, an old pig, can just sleep on the floor." The bed was only big enough for one person to lie on, and the pig demon's body might hang over the end of the bed.
He shook his head and said something, then crumpled up the clothes on his shoulders, threw them on the ground using them as a pillow, chuckled twice, and lay down.
Soon, Liu Gun came back with two quilts in his arms and spread them out. "The quilts were dried in the sun two days ago, so there is no smell. Mr. Lu and this warrior should go to bed early. Tomorrow morning, I will call two brothers to lead the way for you two."
"Thank you."
Lu Liangsheng raised his sleeves to see him out. After a busy day, Liu Gun was already exhausted. He returned the greeting, yawned, and went back to his room to sleep.
When I returned to the room, Master and Zhu Ganglie had already fallen asleep. The latter was covered with a quilt with one leg sticking out, and he was snoring from smacking his lips.
Next to the pillow, Toad Taoist took his own bedding, spread it out, wrapped himself in it, and made a slight snoring sound.
Lu Liangsheng had been traveling for a long time and was feeling tired. He took the oil lamp and placed it on the bedside, flipped through a book for a while, then waved his sleeves to extinguish the light and went to bed with his clothes on.
The smoke from the lamps gradually faded, and the deep night passed slowly as time went by. The eastern sky turned pale, and in the azure color, the sounds of chickens, dogs and people could be heard in the village.
The big red rooster stretched out its neck, stood on the crossbar and crowing loudly.
Oh oh... Oh oh~~~
The morning light broke through the clouds, pushed away the blue sky of the early morning, spread to the small town where smoke was rising, and enveloped the village a little further away.
The sunlight shines through the window lattice, casting a golden glow.
Lu Liangsheng stretched lazily and got up from the bed. His master, holding up the quilt, ran to the bookshelf compartment with the clattering of webbed feet across the ground.
"It's time to go."
After saying that, he went into the small door, stretched out a webbed hand and slammed the door shut.
Over there, Lu Liangsheng heard footsteps outside, and then Liu Gun shouted outside: "Mr. Lu! Everyone is here, when are we leaving?"
As expected, he comes from a military background, so he does things in a decisive manner.
Lu Liangsheng opened the door and saw two more men outside. They were both strong and powerful, carrying long weapons and short swords on their backs, and one of them even had a bow on his waist.
Most of them knew the scholar in front of them, so they all raised their hands and said, "Hello, Mr. Lu!"
"You two are too polite. I will have to trouble you and Brother Liu to lead the way for me."
Lu Liangsheng was polite for a while. Over in the kitchen, Liu Gun's wife had prepared breakfast. She was an ordinary-looking woman. When she saw the four of them still standing outside, she politely invited them to eat before continuing their journey.
"My wife was born in a wealthy family. A few years ago, the barbarians invaded the border and there was no one left at home, so she married me... Hehe... It's a blessing from my ancestors."
These words made the two soldiers laugh.
Seeing Liu Gun squatting at the door with a bowl in his hand and a smile on his face, Lu Liangsheng felt happy. Happiness in the world does not necessarily mean having a lot of wealth or many wives and concubines. It is also a very good thing to have a good wife and live together until old age.
After dinner, Lu Liangsheng pulled Lao Lu and Zhu Ganglie, followed Liu Gun and the other two people out of Jishi Town, and climbed up the ridge along the familiar route at the foot of the mountain and passed through the sparse woods.
From the morning light to noon, the weather was extremely hot. Liu Gun and the two soldiers could hardly walk anymore. They sat down on the ground, panting, and blew the wind on their faces.
Among them, the soldier with a bow hanging on his waist unscrewed the water bag and took a sip.
"Mr. Lu, take a break first. It's still a few miles from here to Liangjie Mountain."
Liu Gun wiped the sweat from his forehead and nodded: "Yes, Mr. Lu, what are you looking for?"
Not far away, Lu Liangsheng stopped and loosened the reins. The old donkey, shaking the bell, snorted and swung its tail slowly towards the shade of the tree. The scholar drank a sip of water, looked at the ridges that stretched across the sky, and said with a smile: "I heard that there is a peak that suddenly fell from the sky in the Liangjie Mountains. I don't know if it's true, so I want to come and take a look."
"So this is what you are looking for, sir."
The man with the gun on his back laughed loudly. He had heard the legend about this place and told the scholar everything about it.
"… I also heard about it. Many years ago, there was no Five Finger Mountain there. It was said that it fell from the sky during the reign of Emperor Shun of the Eastern Han Dynasty. It was said that it was recorded in the "Han Shu Tianwen Zhi". It said that there was a meteor as big as a bucket, traveling from the northwest to the east, eight or nine feet long, and the sound was like thunder…
Hmm... Let me think about it. I remember the last time I heard the military commander Sima bragging over a drink, he said that there was a land dragon turning over between Longxi and Jincheng. Isn't Jishi Town located between the two cities? Oh, Sima was so proud at that time that he said he could read and knew more stories than me. "
Although it was just hearsay and there was no way to verify what the man said, Lu Liangsheng didn't think about the truth or falsehood. He just wanted to meet the monkey, ask about the situation on behalf of Lishan's mother, and then go back to pick up Qu Yuanfeng.
"However, before I left, my mother told me not to see my true self and not to mention my name. Could it be that she wanted me to go to Qiaozhuang to see the divine monkey, and that I could also say that I was waiting for her to see me?"
The mountain breeze blew, and his hair fluttered. Lu Liangsheng withdrew his gaze from the endless mountains outside, stood up and cupped his hands towards the three people over there.
"You three may as well wait for me here. My companions and I will go there by ourselves and return before dark."
Zhu Ganglie, who was under the shade of a tree, lowered a bunch of branches, opened his eyes, sat up, and howled, "I, Old Zhu, won't go either. Monkeys are nothing to look at. They're annoying to look at."
The three people over there looked at each other. Although they were soldiers, they had walked hundreds of miles on the rugged mountain road in one breath and were indeed very tired. Now they had no choice but to stay here and wait.
Watching the man and the donkey continue to move forward, the two soldiers who came to help asked Liu Gun in a low voice.
"Who on earth is Mr. Lu? Up to now, I have noticed that there is not a drop of sweat on his face."
"Yeah, ordinary scholars don't have this body, they are better than us."
Liu Gun glanced at the black man sleeping with his legs crossed under a tree in the distance, propped up his knees and moved closer to the two men, waved his hand, which made him very arrogant, and said in a rather arrogant manner:
"You probably don't know this, but Mr. Lu is a Taoist master. Back in the Southern Chen Dynasty..."
The words of the past were blown away by the wind. The scholar left this place and walked over the top of the mountain leading the old donkey. From afar, he saw a mountain like a human palm standing abruptly between the two mountains.
"That should be it."
Covered by the forest, the man pulling the old donkey turned into an old man in a dark brown robe and with a long white beard, and walked up to the Five Finger Mountain.