The dust particles on the ruins slid silently. Zhu Ganglie sat on the broken wall holding a rake. He yawned and looked at the figure holding the book with boredom. Toad Taoist stood on tiptoe, poked his head to look at the pages of the book, and muttered what was written on it.
The pages of the book were blank, but in Lu Liangsheng's eyes, vertical lines of words slowly emerged.
"I was born in Qixia Mountain, originally a farmer's son. By chance, I got a little wealth. My family and country were ruined. I went north to study and met a good teacher. Then I started practicing and comprehending the secrets of heaven, hoping to live a long and healthy life..."
With just a few simple words, Lu Liangsheng seemed to have outlined a person's past, just like a series of pictures slowly being sketched out.
Suddenly, I saw a small fenced courtyard in the snow.
The cold wind blew down the tattered fence and wall, and the heavy snow slowly accumulated against the window frames. The cold wind squeezed in through the window gap, and the young man huddled in the thin quilt exhaled a breath, his whole body cold.
The boy's name is Lu Yuan. He will be ten years old this winter. He has a younger sister who is dark and thin. She can't walk very steadily at the age of seven. His father, Lu Laoshi, is gentle and honest and is often busy in the fields. His mother, Li Jinhua, is fierce and never admits defeat, but the family is getting poorer and poorer.
After the cold winter, when I was ten years old, I followed my father and the men in the village to the city to sell the grains harvested from the fields in baskets. When I entered the city, I saw the paper, painting brushes and ink displayed on the street stalls. My feet felt like they were rooted to the ground and I couldn't walk. I looked at them enviously, then looked at my dirty hands, not daring to touch them, as I would not be able to afford the compensation if they got dirty or damaged.
Soon, the stall owner came out and waved his sleeves to chase him away.
"Come on, what are you looking at? If you don't want to buy anything, get out of here!"
The young man looked at the calligraphy and paintings, as well as the brushes and inks, in silence. He knew that his family had no extra money. He lowered his head, pinched the corner of his clothes, and trotted to catch up with his father who was waiting for him. Together they went back to the outskirts of the city to meet up with the men in the village. Halfway through the way, a dragon and lion dance team came over in a lively parade. The crowd was so crowded that after watching for a long time, he came to his senses and realized that his father was no longer around.
He knew he was lost.
He did not cry or make a fuss, but just wandered around the street in fear. Slowly, as night fell, he timidly shrank into a corner of the alley outside a busy house to rest. As the night deepened, in the pitch-black sight, the back door of the yard opened and two lanterns lit, and several servants hurried out carrying a roll of straw mat, looked around, and then trotted out of the alley.
The young man walked out from the shadows and looked at the people who were holding the straw mats in a panic. In fact, he understood a lot of things. He followed them carefully, watching them shoveling soil and digging holes in the suburbs to bury the roll of straw mats. He made a note of the location in his mind and returned to the alley, staring at the brightly lit mansion without blinking.
Later, he extorted twenty taels of silver from the official surnamed Chen, exchanged it for copper coins, bought the pens, ink and books on the stall that day, asked for directions, and walked back to Qixia Mountain.
His father and mother cried with red eyes, but they didn't beat him. However, when he took out the swindled money, he saw his mild-tempered father get angry for the first time. They pinned him to the ground with a wooden stick and beat him until his head was bleeding. He couldn't get out of bed for half a month.
It was difficult to return the money that had been swindled, but the family was finally not so poor anymore, his sister was not as sickly as before, and he was able to go to another place as he wished and study in a private school.
Later, the boy gradually understood why his father beat him that day. He shouldn't threaten his father with such a thing, as it might cost him his life.
Days passed one by one, and a few years later, when I was fifteen, the Sui Kingdom in the north was conquered, and then I heard that the emperor had been changed.
The people in his corner also changed from Chen people to Sui people. Fortunately, the new government was not harsh, and he had some good feelings about it. Even though his parents did not agree with his journey, he was still determined to go north to study and take part in the Sui Dynasty's examination. If he could pass the examination and get an official position, he could probably let his parents and sister live a good life.
Because he was not familiar with the roads in the north, he arrived at a place called Weishan Town after several twists and turns, and met an old man named Qin Xujia. The old man was knowledgeable and made him respect him. What was even more surprising was that he found that the old man knew magic spells that were only seen in strange novels. After hesitating, he begged the old man to take him in as an apprentice. At first, he only followed him to do some chores and study, but later he gradually began to learn some real magic spells.
During those years, in addition to studying, he also practiced Taoism. Later, after he became a disciple, he went to take the Sui Dynasty examination. Five years had passed. Because of his solid knowledge, he passed the imperial examination and was ranked first. He was gentle and polite, and was appointed as a county magistrate. He was filled with joy and wrote a letter to his family and asked the post station to send it back home. Then he hurried to take up the post, hoping that his parents and sister could come and reunite with him.
However, several months after taking office, the letter he sent home fell into oblivion and no news came back. Another year passed, and after his term of office expired, he took the opportunity to return to Beijing to report on his work and returned to the place where he once lived.
What he saw was the collapsed fence of the courtyard due to years of disrepair. His sister had already married and moved away, and his parents were buried in two graves behind the house. Later he learned that a few years ago, the two villages had fought over water, and in the chaos, Lu Laoshi was hit on the head and died after lying in bed for a month. His lonely mother was so sad that she went crazy for a while and ran to the mountains, where she lost her foot and fell off a cliff and died.
When I came back many years ago, my parents were gone.
Lu Yuan knelt in front of the grave and slapped himself more than ten times. He knelt until dark, then slowly got up and took a carriage to leave the village where he grew up. However, his sister was still alive and married in a village more than fifty miles away. He hadn't seen her for many years. His sister and her husband stood at the door uncomfortably, not daring to speak.
Fortunately, his sister's husband was also a gentle and honest farm man who reminded him of his father. He did not stay here for too long. He left after leaving some money, because from his sister's timid and cautious eyes, he could see that they were from two different "worlds".
When I left, it was not yet fully light. I looked back at the lead-blue Qixia Mountain, which was winding and endless. Perhaps, I would never have the chance to come back.
Afterwards, he returned to Chang'an, reported on his work, visited people, made friends, and did what ordinary officials did, but he never slacked off in his practice of Taoism. At night, he often met and communicated with Taoists he knew. Gradually, he became famous. After a few years, his official career went smoothly, his practice of Taoism improved, and he even married the daughter of the Minister of Personnel. Perhaps in the future, he would become a high-ranking official in the court.
But soon, he began to have physical problems. He often felt that his soul was unstable, as if it was about to leave his body. Even the ghost of the Chang'an City God came to arrest him. Relying on his advanced cultivation, he caused a big commotion in the City God Temple. Only then did he learn that he was listed as a dead person in the Soul Binding Book.
Afterwards, he discovered a hidden magic circle in his home, which had the effect of taking souls and taking lives. After investigating the whole matter, he realized that it was his master who wanted to occupy his body to continue to live forever...
In fact, some people can’t understand why their parents’ hard-working generation can’t live a satisfactory life, and why they themselves, who are born kind, can attract malicious intent.
Soon, he pretended to be ignorant and came to Weishan Town. When his master was off guard, he killed him, pulled out his soul and tore it to pieces. He then sent the town to various states, and never allowed the other party's soul to reunite and reincarnate in the next life.
After that, people gradually changed. They became strong and competitive. They competed with others in the court. During their cultivation, they would kill anyone who spoke rudely. A few years later, the fact that he knew magic was known by Emperor Yang Guang, and he was recruited as the national teacher. He took advantage of his power in the world to collect rare treasures from all over the world, refine magical instruments, and improve his cultivation. If others refused to give him something he liked, he would borrow the power of the army, his own cultivation in the realm of gods, and various formations to kill entire families. As long as the monsters in the mountains produced monster pills, he would kill them and use them to refine pills.
Unconsciously, he went from the spiritual realm to a height that was difficult for ordinary practitioners to reach - the realm of cutting through the void.
But later, a strange phenomenon occurred in the sky. Something invisible to others fell from the sky. Lu Yuan, who was well versed in human knowledge and magical powers, could not tell what it was. He also found nothing after looking through all the ancient books and secrets he had collected.
Later, the world changed, and the people in the world became violent. People started to curse and fight over a little dissatisfaction, and people gradually began to die. In some places, the government decrees were so harsh that people were forced to raise the banner of rebellion, and the whole world was plunged into war.
He tried his best to stop them and killed one group after another. Whoever dared to raise the flag would be killed, but in the end he could not kill them all, and the emperor also died in a foreign land.
Then, Lu Yuan realized that these rebels had traces of gods descending from the earth...
Perhaps what the First Emperor did when he said, "I will live as long as the heaven and be the king forever" was right.
The world was in turmoil due to war and the emperor was dead. Lu Yuan knew that he had taken the wrong path and had reached the end of it. As the imperial teacher, he was tied to the dynasty and if the country was destroyed, he would also die.
Fortunately, during that period, among the magic weapons collected, there was a magical artifact called Kunlun Mirror. It might not be impossible to use it to reverse time and start over.
Lu Yuan stood on a high cliff, looked up at the moon hidden by dark clouds, and stubbornly walked along this long road. In the end, he failed and he had taken the wrong path.
"Let's start over again, even though we only have one chance..."
…
The surging images stopped as the last word of the content fell.
Lu Liangsheng closed the book, closed his eyes, exhaled deeply, held the volume in silence, walked out of the ruins, and sat quietly on the broken rocks.
On his shoulder, the Toad Taoist retracted his flippers from the side of his head. He saw everything that happened. He slid down from his disciple's shoulder, with his two short legs hanging, and sat side by side with Lu Liangsheng, basking in the warm morning sun and looking up at a cloud floating across the blue sky.
"That is his life, not yours. The path you will take in the future will definitely be completely different from his, because..."
Toad patted his apprentice's thigh, looked at the brilliant light falling on his face, and turned around with a smile: "... Because, you have us."
Toad Eyes moved, and the scholar looked in the direction indicated by his master. He saw the old pig leaning on a rake, the crying Qingfeng, the pouting Qiyou with his chin propped up, Li Sui'an who was walking towards him and talking and laughing with Shelong in the distance, as well as Yuwen Tuo, Yan Chixia and others who were greeting each other.
An old donkey was chewing grass and running excitedly with its reins swinging. It was neighing in the sunshine and jumping and dancing happily.
Lu Liangsheng looked at them with a smile on his face.
"Well... I have you guys, this is the biggest difference from Lu Yuan."
In the sunshine, in the mind of a smiling scholar, in the corner of memory, in the lighted study, in the flickering light, a human figure is cut out on the wall.
Lu Yuan held the brush, stroking his long beard, looking at the book, and wrote the words stroke by stroke.
… When we were young, we were determined to say goodbye to childishness and refused to look back; when we were a little older, I thought I was mature and felt that I had wasted my time, and I couldn’t bear to look back at those mistakes, ups and downs, cruel yet beautiful youth; after getting older, I gradually realized that we were actually just afraid to face the kind, pure, and even idealistic self of the past.
Liangsheng, you must find another way in the future.