Sun Yingxian, who got the Taoist book back, did not leave in a hurry. He covered his head and kept asking questions.
"Hey, hey... Are you really going to give the book back to me without any conditions?"
"Did you know there's a monster in your village, a toad, the kind that can talk!"
"... You should put forward a condition... If you don't say anything, I will feel anxious."
Walking past the construction site that was about to be disbanded and preparing to go home for dinner, the villagers watched the Taoist follow the young man in green clothes back towards the small fenced courtyard.
After walking for a while and seeing that there were not many people around, Lu Liangsheng turned around.
"The toad you mentioned is my master."
Sun Yingxian opened and closed her mouth slightly, but couldn't speak for a long time. She raised her hand and pointed at the fence over there.
"That monster is your master?"
In front, Lu Liangsheng turned back and continued walking forward.
"My master is not a monster. He was just injured by someone and turned into that appearance by magic."
After turning the fence and entering the gate, the Taoist wanted to ask more questions, but when he saw Li Jinhua and Lu Laoshi over there, he was quite polite in greeting.
The woman under the eaves prepared dinner and invited the Taoist priest to join them. Anyway, the family was well-off now, so adding an extra pair of chopsticks was not a big deal.
Lu Liangsheng had no objection and made a gesture of invitation.
"Let's eat together."
"You should have treated me to a meal." Sun Yingxian pointed at the wound on the back of her head, "It still hurts... I won't be polite then."
The kitchen was not big to begin with, and with the addition of a Taoist priest, it became even more crowded. There was one more dish of cooked meat in the meal than usual. As soon as it was placed on the table, several pairs of chopsticks rose and fell in the blink of an eye.
“Why so fast…” The Taoist held the bowl in his hand. Before he even put down his chopsticks, there were only a few pieces of meat scraps left in the dish. He opened his mouth, quickly pushed the meat scraps into the bowl, and ate a few mouthfuls of rice.
Then he said: "By the way, this Taoist priest can subdue demons and monsters. If the female ghost in your home..."
Bang!
The tip of the chopsticks hit his forehead. Li Jinhua glanced over and said, "Eat."
"oh."
Sun Yingxian quickly lowered his head and chewed the vegetables in big mouthfuls. Around him, Lu Liangsheng and Lu Xiaoxian saw his frustrated look and laughed out loud.
After dinner, it was already dark, so Sun Yingxian was asked to stay overnight. When she returned to the room, the first thing she saw was the Toad who was sleeping soundly.
Although he knew that he was Lu Liangsheng's master, he still couldn't help but hold the bronze mirror in his hand.
"Is he really your master?"
Lu Liangsheng ignored him and went to tidy up the bedding. Sun Yingxian turned her gaze elsewhere and settled on the painting on the wall.
"That Rakshasa ghost is here... Tsk tsk, there are all the people, demons, and ghosts in your room."
Nie Honglian poked her head out while stroking the scroll, and fiercely stared at the Taoist who was looking at her: "If you look at me again, I will dig out your eyes."
"Humph, I don't care."
Sun Yingxian turned her head away and swaggered to look around the room. She couldn't help but flip through a few books on the desk. When she saw the contents, she put them aside with a tingling scalp.
"I didn't expect you to read this kind of academic book..."
Over there, Lu Liangsheng made the bedding, woke up the sleepy Toad, and answered softly without even looking at the Taoist behind him.
“Reading opens up the mind.”
However, Sun Yingxian did not respond, but stared at the Toad Taoist. After a while, the latter uttered a word.
"If I hadn't lost all my cultivation, I wouldn't have allowed a Taoist like you to stay here."
“Bah, my master said that it is we who are responsible for slaying demons and eliminating evil…” The Taoist clenched his fists, looked at Lu Liangsheng standing beside him, curled his lips, stopped talking, and unclenched his fists.
"I respect the old and love the young, so I won't argue with you."
The toad half-opened his eyelids and said calmly, "That's her mother."
"How dare you scold me!"
"That's his mother, quack."
"Ah... I call you mother!"
"I don't even know who my parents are. Go ahead and kill them!"
"I call you mother!!!"
…
One of them was embarrassed to take action because of Lu Liangsheng's face, and the other was still resentful after being chased in the morning, but he couldn't do anything. The man and the toad just argued in front of the bed. Even Nie Honglian floated down curiously and sat beside them to watch for a long time.
After a while, the toad ran to drink water because of a dry mouth. The Taoist ran outside angrily with a red face and jumped onto the roof, unwilling to live in the same room with the toad.
Lu Liangsheng lay back on the bed. He felt bored listening to the talk, so he flipped through a book to read. Then, he felt tired and fell asleep.
When I woke up the next morning, I no longer felt the pain in my body. The sunlight poured in through the window lattice, and outside the window, birds were singing in the treetops.
In the yard, Sun Yingxian got up for no apparent reason and was practicing boxing. His tattered Taoist robe fluttered in the morning light. He landed in mid-air and pushed open his palm, causing a faint sound of wind. The treetops not far away were shaking gently.
He turned around, bent one leg, and punched with his palm, heavy and powerful. Apart from his appearance, he looked like an immortal.
Lu Liangsheng stood beside the water tank, washing himself and watching quietly.
… This Taoist not only knows the art of talismans, but also martial arts.
... If he had seen through my true strength that day, I would have been no match for him... It seems that his cultivation is much higher than mine.
As he was thinking about it, Sun Yingxian stopped practicing and took a breath, then looked over and raised his chin.
"It's your turn now. Let me open my eyes."
Lu Liangsheng laughed and took a sip of warm water, "I don't know how to fight or kick, this is the only thing I know!" He took out a wolf-hair brush, but the joints on the brush shaft gave off a devilish aura that made the Taoist run over quickly.
"This is the antennae of a centipede... It's so big... I'm afraid it has become a spirit."
Sun Yingxian looked at the boy again with an expression of disbelief: "Did you kill the centipede monster?"
"No, it was the other party who let us go."
Talking about what happened that night, Lu Liangsheng did not hide anything and told it frankly. In the morning light, he took out a piece of paper, spread it out, and drew a bird.
“… You don’t want to see it, this is my way.”
With a flick of the pen tip, the ink bird in the painting suddenly blinked its eyes, its feathers glowed with color, and it flew out, standing beside the water tank and singing.
It attracted a few birds to land from the treetops and circle around it, chirping.
Although this scene was surprising, Sun Yingxian was also a cultivator, so she could naturally see what was going on, and then... she screamed.
"That night, you used illusion?"
Lu Liangsheng withdrew the magic power from the painting, and the bird standing on the water tank gradually faded and disappeared, and he put down the brush.
“… Because there is no other way.”
“Ah… I actually fell for this low-level technique.” Sun Yingxian squeezed her hair hard and took two steps back and forth. After calming down, she thought about it carefully and felt something was wrong.
He frowned and said, "Illusion. When my master was still alive, he also knew how to do it. It was just a trick. But yours... why is it so lifelike?"
"Your master can't draw."
The Taoist looked at the brush in the boy's hand and the bird painting, and rubbed his face: "It's true. I might as well teach you some martial arts skills as a way of repaying the favor of the book."
Lu Liangsheng nodded: "I only have the formula, but I don't know any moves. It seems that I have gained a lot in the past few days."
"Your master didn't teach you? That's right, how could a toad teach you?"
Sun Yingxian probably didn't want to owe anyone a favor, so he stayed in Lujia Village and taught him a set of Qianyang Palm unarmed kung fu, saying that it was taught to him by his master and was considered to be orthodox Taoist kung fu. During the process, he also taught Lu Liangsheng the Qiankun Zhengdao set, and occasionally they would compete with each other, and most of the time he would win.
After all, Lu Liangsheng had just gotten started, and that illusion had caused the Taoist to suffer a lot of losses, to the point where it was basically difficult to distinguish between the real and the fake.
After becoming familiar with each other, Sun Yingxian would also talk about her often mentioned master.
"… My master is well versed in metaphysics and has a hand in exorcising demons. I only learned a little bit of his skills. Unfortunately, one day, he said he was going out with his fellow practitioners to exorcise a huge demon that ate countless people. Less than half a month later, he came back with a purple poison on his body. His whole body was black and purple and festering. He died within two days."
This is also one of the reasons why Sun Yingxian wants to fight to the death when he sees a monster.
The Toad Taoist opened his eyes, snorted, and continued to crawl in the sun. The bumps on his back appeared dark purple in the sunlight.
This went on for two months.
In the morning, he taught Lu Liangsheng some moves. In the afternoon, the two of them went out of the village together to gather the Yanhe magic circle again. Sun Yingxian also knew a thing or two about this. After discussing with each other, they made a lot of improvements to the previous one. Although it was simple, it surrounded Beicun and Lujia Village.
Unconsciously, people from the two villages discovered that the fish and shrimp in the river had become more abundant and much larger than those in other places.
Before word of this sudden change spread, the weather turned cold and heavy snow fell.