The sky darkened and then brightened over time. The morning light pushed the edge of darkness and embraced the quiet mountain village in a golden color.
Oh oh… Oh oh…
The loud crowing of a rooster came to an abrupt end, and the swinging red comb of the rooster retracted into the cage along with its head. In the small fenced yard not far away, a hen was clucking loudly. The Taoist hurriedly grabbed the hen, took out a yellow talisman and stuck it on its head. The hen's flapping and struggling movements suddenly froze.
"Liangsheng, what are you doing with this hen?"
Li Jinhua thought there was a thief stealing the chicken, so she rushed out from the back of the house with a broom, and saw her son and Sun Yingxian carrying an old white hen and about to leave the yard.
Looking at the motionless old hen, his tone was a little hesitant.
"This chicken is too old to eat. Let's put it away. Mom will buy some more tomorrow and you can eat it however you want."
At the beginning, the family was poor and had only two hens that laid eggs. One was stolen and eaten by Lu Erlai, so the woman kept the remaining one. Although the woman was usually very ferocious, she couldn't bear to kill it. In Lu Liangsheng's words, she had developed feelings for it.
On the other side, seeing his mother in trouble, how could Lu Liangsheng not understand, and hurriedly explained.
"Don't worry, Mom. I'm just borrowing it for a while. I'll return it to you later. I promise it'll be in good shape."
"real?"
"When has your son ever lied to you?"
After hearing Lu Liangsheng's assurance, the woman smiled, glared at her son, and calmed herself down.
"Is this your monastic affairs? It has been at home for nearly ten years. It would be a pity if it died. Return it as soon as you are done with it, and don't scare it."
The Taoist priest standing outside the fence waved the hen in his hand.
"The chicken is only six years old, and it's almost become a spirit. I'm not afraid that it will turn into a woman and sneak into the bedroom at night..."
Li Jinhua took a look at the hen in the Taoist's hand and said, "Then you can eat it however you want!" Then she walked into the yard with a broom.
At the gate of the courtyard, Lu Liangsheng turned around and snatched the hen from the Taoist priest.
"What nonsense!"
Then, he walked to the front and shouted to the pig demon in the attic, "Let's go." He followed the scholar's footsteps and carried the pig demon behind him with his wide sleeves rolled up.
"Well, you are wronging me. I am not wrong. After six years, chickens are more likely to become spirits."
"What? What did you say is easy to become a spirit?"
Zhu Ganglie came out carrying a few large banners and caught up with the two men. They chatted and laughed as they walked out of the village, along the path to the west, and along the small wooden bridge to the foot of the mountain.
Birds in the forest were chirping and jumping on the branches, looking curiously at the three people carrying several large banners up.
The old pine trees on the cliff spread out their branches and leaves, and the sea of clouds rolled in. The Taoist who had walked to the edge of the cliff on the mountainside turned back and asked Zhu Ganglie to unfold the flag and insert the five corners.
"Remember, it's the order of gold, wood, water, and fire!"
"I, Old Pig, know better than you." Zhu Ganglie snorted, carried the flag and walked to the five corners. The wooden flagpole broke through the hard soil with a bang and was inserted into the ground.
The Taoist walked to the center, took out a dagger and carved the patterns of the magic circle on the ground. He then took out some cinnabar from the yellow cloth bag, soaked it, and carefully traced along the carved patterns.
Lu Liangsheng, who was standing by, took off his outer robe, revealing his upper body. He went over to pick up the white hen on the ground, used an embroidery needle with a red thread to drill into the hen's comb, and then led the hen in a circle along the five large banners.
Whoosh whoosh~~
Suddenly, a gust of wind blew around, and the forest rustled. The two people and the monster were not far to the side. At some point, Mu Qiyu appeared, untwisted the hem of her skirt, and ran over, jumping and squatting beside them with her chin in her hand, watching them busying themselves.
"Old demon, what are you doing? You are still naked..."
The Taoist suddenly turned around and pointed at Lu Liangsheng who was surrounded by a red line.
"Not us, only he is naked."
Lu Liangsheng came over with the red thread and tied the other end to the needle. At this point, there was no need to hide anything, so he smiled and said:
"Recover your cultivation."
Qi You said "Oh", and felt that these complicated spells were a bit boring. But she had nowhere to go, so she ran to the eaves of the thatched cottage and spread her long sleeves. The vines and branches nearby began to move, slowly extending and growing, entwining and interweaving to form a wobbly chair. She sat on it and looked at them from side to side, especially the tattoos of strange beasts on the scholar's back, which made her feel novel and even a sense of closeness.
After a while, the sun rose above the clouds. The Taoist stood up, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and put the cinnabar and paintbrush outside the formation.
"Okay! Lao Lu, go sit in the middle."
This set of Five Elements Yin Yang Divine Communication Formation is quite difficult to form. The magic patterns arranged in the middle are different from the 'Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, Qiankun Yin and Yang' and the like. Moreover, this magic formation is not very useful and is rarely used by those who practice Taoism. After all, communicating with the gods can be accomplished without the help of magic formations.
But another use is that for people like Lu Liangsheng, who have lost their magic power but have the opportunity to recover, it makes it extremely precious.
Lu Liangsheng nodded and stretched his muscles. The strange beast patterns on his back corresponding to the five internal organs squirmed as his skin and flesh stretched. Mu Qiyu, who was sitting on his back with his legs crossed, couldn't take his eyes away from the vivid tattoos.
'That's nice... ' she thought.
The sea of clouds rolled, and birds flew over the branches and landed on the thatched cottage, preening their feathers. In the sunlight, Lu Liangsheng took off his shoes, walked barefoot into the magic circle drawn by the Taoist, and sat cross-legged.
Sun Yingxian grabbed the hen with the yellow talisman attached to it, covered the hen's head with her hand, and looked at Zhu Ganglie.
"Are the five elements flags ready?"
Over there, the pig demon nodded heavily: "It's done!"
The next moment, the Taoist bit his index finger, and a bright red blood drop touched the yellow talisman. He quickly withdrew his hand and made a finger gesture to stand upright between his eyebrows.
"All four directions, ghosts and gods, listen to me. I will borrow your divine power to activate the divine formation..."
His lips moved rapidly as he muttered something, and as he finished the last sentence, he pressed his finger against the back of his hand that was covering the chicken's head, and shouted, "Command!"
The light of Dharma flickered, and with the hen as the medium, five large flags rushed out along the red line, and the first one to rush out was the "gold".
"Old Lu!" the Taoist shouted to remind him.
Hearing this, Lu Liangsheng closed his eyes instantly, and based on his past experience of peeking into the small world within his body, he quickly entered a state of meditation. The darkness surged in like a tide and embraced him in.
There was darkness in his closed eyes, but as a surge of magical power rushed over, Lu Liangsheng vaguely saw something different.
There seemed to be a dark shadow moving in the distance, and there was a faint roaring sound in my ears.
Then... there was a roar, and the black shadow seemed to have seen Lu Liangsheng, and it ran towards this side with rumbling hooves.
The explosion was like the sound of metal clashing.
With a bang, the black shadow stopped. It was tied up by something and its whole body was almost pulled over. Lu Liangsheng took a few steps forward, wanting to see it more clearly.
"Chains?"
As I took a few steps closer, I saw a two-foot-thick iron chain extending from the darkness and around the neck of the giant beast above the huge black shadow.
The iron chain was as black as ink, as if dotted with blue ink.
Amid the clanking sound of the iron chains, the black shadow climbed up, stepped on the iron chain with a dull sound, and pounced on Lu Liangsheng.
The strange beast that entered Lu Liangsheng's sight had a four-horned bull head, huge scarlet eyes, and long hair like a waterfall that trembled as it pounced. It stared fiercely at the person in front of it, baring its fangs and roaring loudly.
"roar-"
It was the last painting the scholar drew yesterday.
Zhu Huai, also known as the fierce beast.