Tick… Tick…
despair…
The sound of raindrops fell. In the small courtyard in the rain, Lu Laoshi was sitting under the eaves sharpening his hoe. In the attic, Zhu Gang came back and pulled up his pants, which were a little small, revealing half of his butt. He followed the Taoist to the room, looked back and saw that Lu Xiaoxian was not there. He kicked out the hen that wanted to follow him into the house and quietly closed the door.
Outside, the continuous drizzle slid over the eaves, dripping and weaving a curtain of water. The water tank standing by the well created circles of ripples.
Through the open window opposite, Toad Taoist felt the coolness of the water vapor, turned over in the bed sheet, and lay on the couch with his butt sticking out. He yawned listlessly, smacked his lips, and continued to snore.
Lu Liangsheng sat at the table, holding the book in his hands and carefully savoring the annotations made by his mentor. Occasionally, he reached out to take a sip of the hot tea beside him.
Without any cultivation, when he becomes the national teacher, he can only rely on his erudition. Whether it is the magic books on Taoism, the moral articles on scholarship, or the study of things that benefits the country and the people, they are all in the room. When he really needs to use them, he can only rely on his brain and his mouth.
Wow~
Lu Liangsheng turned a page with his fingertips and looked at the lines of handwriting on it. Hearing the sound of turning over the bed, he slightly tilted his head.
"Master, are you awake?"
“Wooah!”
The Toad Taoist sat up and stretched, rubbed his eyes, and dangled his flippers outside the couch. He still looked a little confused, and replied casually, "Hmm."
I sat there in a daze, looking at the figure flipping through the book, and it took me a while to come back to my senses.
"Liangsheng, I have decided to go to the cave where I lived to go into seclusion and recover from my injuries as soon as possible."
"So urgent?"
"No hurry, it's been here for several years!"
Hearing the master's somewhat anxious tone, Lu Liangsheng put down the book, turned around on the stool, and looked at his master's expression, which did not seem fake, and frowned slightly.
"Master, are you worried that those big sects will come and cause trouble again?"
Over there, Taoist Toad nodded, stood up from the edge of the bed, and slowly took two steps forward with his flippers on his back.
"Of course. That day, the old Taoist priest from Chengyun Sect said that it was only temporary and he would definitely come again. By the way, Liangsheng agreed to become the emperor's imperial teacher because of this, right?"
After seeing his master point it out, Lu Liangsheng knew he could not hide it anymore, so he nodded, sat back at the table, and looked at the interweaving rain curtains outside the window, the water tanks in the yard, and the old trees.
"Liang Sheng just wants to use the dynasty to repel them. After all, Master went too far back then."
**, Toad Taoist walked back and forth on the bedding. When he heard his disciple's words, he held up his flippers, widened his eyes, and flashed a fierce look. But when he thought that the person in front of him was his disciple, he turned his face away and snorted.
"When I was just transformed, I was still hot-blooded. When I saw your master's wife being killed, I was furious. At that time, I was so angry that I called the wind and rain. There were lightning and thunder, and purple air came from the east... Then, I took revenge."
There were footsteps outside the door. Hong Lian walked under the eaves carrying two bowls of hot soup. She heard the conversation between the master and the disciple in the room, and came in to put the soup on the table.
"Young Master, Master Toad, what are you talking about so excitedly?"
"I am playing... while reminiscing about my past peak times!"
The Toad Taoist patted his belly, indicating that there was still a demon pill in his stomach: "I have decided to concentrate on recovering from my injuries and returning to my peak..."
As he spoke, he probed and took a deep sniff.
“… What kind of soup is this? It smells so good.”
He climbed onto the table, picked up a spoonful of frog webs and asked the little ghost girl to hand him a spoon. He scooped a spoonful, blew on the hot steam, took a sip, and narrowed his eyes.
"It's made with black plums, and there's red date powder, wolfberry..." Hong Lian counted on her fingers what was added, "After boiling, when it's warm, I added a small spoonful of rice wine. I learned this from my aunt. How is it?"
Lu Liangsheng took a sip; it was sweet and sour, and the aftertaste of the wine left a hint of the mellow aroma of rice wine. In his peripheral vision, under the eaves on the other side, the tree demon was pulling his mother as if asking for advice. He then looked down at the bowl in his hand and suddenly felt a little overwhelmed.
He quickly changed the subject and said, "Master just said he wanted to go into seclusion because of the grudges in the past and he was afraid that someone would come knocking on his door."
After returning, Lu Liangsheng found a time to tell Hong Lian and Mu Qiyu the whole story of how he lost his cultivation. As for the Taoist priest, he had already learned about it from Zhu Ganglie.
At that time, he was shouting that he wanted to avenge Lu Liangsheng, but when he heard the three words "Chengyun Sect", he immediately shut up. It seems that everything he learned was related to Chengyun Sect.
Inside the room, Nie Honglian knew that it would be a difficult matter to deal with once those big sects and schools came looking for her. With her current level of cultivation, it was already good enough for her to recover her body. If she used more of her magic power on this matter, it would take her an unknown amount of time to recover her body.
She pursed her lips and muttered something.
"That way they'll find it..."
Over there, Lu Liangsheng smiled, took another sip of the plum soup, turned the pages of the book, and said, "How do I know? I ran into them right after I came down the mountain and before I even entered the city."
However, when he got to this point, the scholar's smile froze. He looked at the contents on the paper, but he couldn't concentrate at all, and his head was buzzing.
When I thought of Mount Li, my mother's words echoed in my mind.
'Misfortunes come with the same fate. If you encounter difficulties on your way, you must remember your original intention. Only then can you gain something. Make good use of the boundless mountains and seas. Don't let down the ancestors who planted the trees. Cause and effect will continue.'
The Old Mother of Mount Li can know the future... Lu Liangsheng had guessed this before, but now he chewed over her words again and again, and slowly tasted something different.
Misfortune dwells together... It means that misfortune dwells on me and Master, doesn't that mean we dwell together
… On the way back to Chang'an, I encountered Chengyun Gate, which was a difficult journey. I still remembered my original intention and achieved success. My mother saw all the choices I had not made at the beginning…
'The mountains and seas behind are endless... Don't let down the ancestors who planted the trees, what does the cycle of cause and effect mean?'
How to use the boundless mountains and seas? !
…
On the side, Hong Lian was still talking, but Lu Liangsheng didn't listen at all. He turned around, took out a long book from under the pile of books and placed it in front of him. He pulled out a long page of paintings and stared at the mountains and rivers on it.
"Sir, what's wrong with you?"
Hong Lian walked closer and looked at the painting that the scholar was staring at intently. Apart from the undulating mountains and rivers and the wandering white clouds, there was no difference from the past.
“Nothing has changed up there?”
"There is no change..."
Lu Liangsheng looked at it for a while, a smile slowly appeared on the corner of his mouth. Soon, in the sight of Toad Taoist who was sitting at the table drinking soup with a bowl in his arms, the scholar walked to the bookshelf, took out the easel that had not been used for a long time, and set it up in the room.
Seeing the young man about to start painting again, Nie Honglian chuckled and floated over to help grind the ink.
"Sir, what are you going to draw?"
"Mountains and seas..."
Lu Liangsheng spread out a blank scroll, took the pen envelope, dipped it in ink, poured it on the white paper, and slowly began to sketch.
Even though he has no magic power now, it does not affect his painting skills.
The tip of the brush dragged the ink around, drawing out blue ink like smoke and rolling waves. In the blue smoke, he drew cliffs and surging rivers hitting the rocks. There was a tortoise shell lying on it, with dark red scales on its limbs and a long neck and a bird head, stretching its neck and singing loudly.
According to memory, after the tip of the pen dropped the tortoise shell, the tail drew a long snake coiled on the tortoise shell, as if resonating with birds and beasts.
"Is this a turtle?" Nie Honglian stared at the strange-looking thing above in confusion. She always felt uncomfortable when it was staring at her.
Lu Liangsheng smiled, and based on the name recorded in the book in his memory, he wrote the words "Xuan Gui" in a corner of the painting.
Subconsciously, he wanted to pick up the bowl and spray out a mouthful of water mist, but then he remembered that he had no magic power left and could not perform any magic.
Looking at the black tortoise drawn on it, which remained motionless for a long time, Lu Liangsheng put away his pen in frustration and put it on the desk.
"It seems I'm overthinking it."
"Of course you think too much. If you can easily recover your cultivation, those cultivators will never let you and me leave so easily!"
The Toad Taoist muttered something, picked up the bowl, and gulped down the last bit of soup.
ton!
ton!
ton!
Hiccup
He burped comfortably, then waved his flippers contentedly, jumped off the table, fell down, got up nonchalantly, crawled under the bed, and after a moment, dragged out a large bag and straddled it.
"Let's go and send the master to the mountain for retreat!"
"Now?" Lu Liangsheng was a little surprised.
"If not now, do we have to wait until next spring when the flowers bloom?" The Toad Taoist carried the package on his back, dragged the black-patterned gourd, and walked step by step to the door of the room. He turned back and said, "Don't delay, otherwise, when you go to Beijing next year, your master won't be able to leave..."
Lu Liangsheng sighed, and without packing up his easel, he took a paper umbrella, went outside and opened it, put his master on his shoulders, looked at the heavy bundle in his hand, and couldn't help asking, "Master, what's in this?"
"Eat... um, the medicine needed to heal Master's injuries."
The Toad Taoist quickly waved his webbed hands to move away the baby, almost leaving an afterimage.
"Don't look, there's no place for you!"
"Okay, I won't watch it!"
Lu Liangsheng smiled, tilted his head and shouted towards the courtyard: "Everyone come out for a moment."
Standing in the rain holding a paper umbrella, he saw the Taoist, Zhu Ganglie and Mu Qiyou sticking their heads out. Then he realized that the Toad Taoist was going to the mountain to meditate in seclusion, and they all cheered to see him off.
After all, we may not see each other for several months.
They left the courtyard together amid the noise. In the sound of the rushing rain, in the silent room, a wisp of green air floated out from the erected easel, swirled in the air for a few times, and sank into the "Boundless Mountains and Seas" spread out on the table.
At the same time, Lu Liangsheng, who was walking out of the village with everyone else, felt an itch on his back...