The bright moon sank in the west, disappearing into the clouds. The east gradually became darker. In the firelit cave, a crawling lizard quickly hid in the cracks of the rocks, tumbling its feet. Blood dripped down the stalactites onto the hard rock.
Lu Liangsheng looked at Hong Lian who was walking towards the Painted Skin Demon and wanted to say something, but swallowed the words back. His master was busy healing Gongsun Liao, and he had nothing to do. When he turned around, he suddenly saw three figures lying on the ground and moving slowly.
"stand up."
The scholar spoke in a cold voice, scaring the figures crawling on the ground so much that they froze instantly. They looked at each other, and slowly stood up from the ground. In the reflection of the firelight on the wall, they were the three monsters that had fought with Gongsun Liao before.
"Um... this young master."
Among the three monsters, the one with a sheep's head rubbed his hands vigorously. When he saw the scholar walking towards him, he swallowed his saliva and his body trembled slightly.
“… Come to think of it, you may not believe it, but the three of us were just passing by.”
The deer demon nodded, raised his hand and added: "I have never eaten human flesh!"
The tiger demon raised his hands and clasped his fists together: "Excuse me!"
The three demons turned around and were about to go outside, but when they heard Lu Liangsheng's cold snort, the tiger, deer and sheep demons stopped in their tracks and stood there in a daze. Then they squatted on the ground in unison and put their hands together on top of their heads.
"Great Immortal, spare my life!"
Lu Liangsheng was stunned for a moment. He didn't expect that these three monsters were quite funny. However, he could tell whether they had eaten humans or not by just one look. The scholar used the pale blue eye at the center of his eyebrows to scan the three monsters, the tiger, the sheep, and the deer. Except that they were extremely weak, he didn't see any evil spirit on them.
After a moment, he put away his eyes and waved his wide sleeves towards the three demons: "Let's go."
“Yes, yes, yes!”
The sheep demon turned around and bowed repeatedly. The tiger demon next to him stood up straight and raised his hands to the scholar opposite him. He said in a heroic voice: "Thank you, great immortal, for your pity on us who have a hard time practicing. From now on, I will concentrate on practicing in the mountains and will never do anything evil! Goodbye!"
He clasped his hands together, turned around and strode away. After two or three steps, he quickly left, causing the deer and sheep monsters to chase after him, shouting, "Wait for us!"
"These three monsters remind me of those four scholars." Lu Liangsheng watched the three monsters disappear into the gradually brightening cave entrance and laughed. He turned back to see if Hong Lian had finished talking to the Painted Skin Monster, but there was no one in his sight.
Did he go somewhere else to talk
The scholar frowned in confusion. At the same time, Qi You was using a branch to poke a gecko hiding in a crevice. Qi You seemed to know the scholar's confusion, so he moved his mouth and used the branch in his hand to open a corner of the hole in his long mouth.
"He went outside with that Painted Skin Demon."
The cave was quiet, with occasional shouting and cursing from Toad Taoist and Gongsun Liao. The only sound was the rustling of Lu Liangsheng's footsteps through the yellow sand, and he came to the edge of the cave wall that was swept open by Monkey King's stick. Outside the gap, which was as high as a person, the sky was dark blue. Hong Lian, wearing a white dress with cloud patterns, stood on the edge of the cliff. The wind blew, and her black hair brushed against her ears. She looked at the gradually rising dawn in the east and glanced to the side with a smile on her lips.
Hua Hongyi's mouth was covered in blood. She was sitting against a rock. When she noticed the woman coming, she looked at the whitening sky and pursed her bloodstained lips, squeezing out a weak sound.
"… Hong Lian, you win."
The mountain breeze blew her skirt. Hong Lian tucked her flowing black hair behind her ears. He looked at her with a smile and shook his head.
"In fact, you and I are one... It's my selfishness that made you become like this."
"Winning is winning. I am not the kind of person who refuses to admit defeat."
Hua Hongyi didn't look at her. She still stared at the eastern sky. It was about to dawn. She sat there, moved her body weakly, and was silent for a while before speaking again.
"Do you have anything else to say?"
"Well, I think..." Hong Lian blinked and went to sit next to Hua Hongyi, "Let's make peace."
Hearing this, Hua Hongyi was stunned. Even Lu Liangsheng, who was standing at the entrance of the cave, was stunned for a moment. Hong Lian smiled with dimples and stretched out her delicate hand: "Speaking of which, I have always been alone. If you are separated, I am not alone anymore. We should be sisters, right?"
Across from her, Hua Hongyi suddenly smiled, with the same dimples as the girl opposite. She stared at Hong Lian for a while, then turned her face away. Something was stuck in her throat, and she pursed her lips, but did not reach out to hold Hong Lian's hand.
The clouds in the east parted, and the first ray of golden morning sun shone through the gap in the clouds, pushing the edge of darkness to spread across the solitary peak and enveloping the blood-stained woman on the edge of the cliff.
Hua Hongyi closed her eyes as if enjoying the sunshine, and raised her stunning face. Bursts of black smoke rose from her body and dissipated in the air.
"Hong Yi." Hong Lian called her in a low voice.
Black smoke rose, and in the golden sunlight, Hua Hongyi opened her eyes, turned her head, revealed a gentle smile, and called softly.
"elder sister."
The next moment, the skin with the beauty painted on it shed off and fell to the ground like a dead object. Amid Hong Lian's cry, "Hong Yi," the painted skin was exposed to the sunlight and gradually turned into a sticky puddle that emitted an unpleasant smell.
"Hongyi...sister..."
Nie Honglian stared blankly at the sticky pool on the ground. For a moment, she couldn't understand why it was unwilling to reunite with her, at least to keep its soul immortal.
"It was her own choice."
Lu Liangsheng walked over, pressed down her slightly trembling shoulders, sat down on a rock nearby, held Hong Lian in his arms and smelled the faint fragrance of her black hair.
"She has consciousness, she is no longer you, she will have her own path to take, just like my master said, some people will stop when they are stuck, but some people will not give up and continue to look for other paths. Hua Hongyi can't walk anymore, maybe a series of setbacks made her lose hope to continue."
The scholar comforted softly. In the cave entrance behind him, two figures were squatting behind the broken rock wall, looking at the man and woman leaning against each other.
"Old Toad, you said that? When did you become so knowledgeable?"
"When did I say that... Yes, that's what I said. Following a bookworm apprentice, I've read a lot of books, so naturally I have some understanding of the words of the saints!"
Outside, Hong Lian, who was sitting in Lu Liangsheng's arms, felt much better. She raised her face, blinked her beautiful eyes, and said softly, "Master, you are wrong. That sentence seems to be said by Uncle Hua, not Master Toad."
The cheeks of the Taoist Toad squatting at the entrance of the cave puffed up. Gongsun Liao next to him turned his face away, unable to hold back any longer, and burst into laughter, making the Toad so angry that his eyes widened and the two long whiskers around his mouth danced.
"Why is this little ghost girl remembering these unimportant things?!"
The man and woman sitting on the edge of the cliff did not pay attention to the two old men who were eavesdropping at the entrance of the cave. They hugged each other and watched the morning sun gradually rising above the mountain top and into the clouds. Lu Liangsheng had never experienced such peace with his beauty in his arms. Looking at the yellow mountain ridges, he suddenly had an idea in his mind, and he stood up and walked down the mountain.
The bookshelf slung on the old donkey's back broke free from its restraints and flew straight up the cliff, landing at Lu Liangsheng's feet. Having been together for many years, Hong Lian knew what the young master was going to do, so she went over to help grind the ink.
Qi You pouted and came out in her long skirt, "I want to help too."
Lu Liangsheng set up the easel and spread out the paper, then smiled and spread his palms towards her. The latter smiled, turned her long skirt and turned into a brush which fell into her hand.
After Hong Lian had ground the ink, Lu Liangsheng sat down on a rock, looking at the mountains in the distance and near. With a faint glow from the tip of his brush, he sketched the scenery in front of him on the blank scroll.
"Sir, these views are not that great..."
Hong Lian spoke with some doubt, but the scholar sitting in front of the easel just smiled, put his other hand on his knee, pinched out a spell and tapped it on the paper, pulling a wisp of green line out and flying along the spell to the brown and barren mountains.
"What does my disciple want to do now?" The Toad Taoist conjured up a bowl of steaming noodles from nowhere. The aroma of braised pork wafted out, causing Gongsun Liao to swallow his saliva: "Old Toad, is this how you use your magical energy? It just so happens that I haven't eaten for a long time, so let me have a taste."
"Get lost."
…
With the brush tip moving on the easel on the cliff, he painted the barren mountains with lush green leaves and swaying grass below where birds flew by.
"Hong Lian, watch."
Lu Liangsheng added the final touch, put down his brush, and took out the Pill of All Demons from his sleeve and held it in his palm. He had not thought about how to deal with this pill before. Since it came from this northwest world, he might as well return it.
He used his magic power to activate the suspended demon pill, drawing out the originally forced and gentle demonic powers inside, and transformed them into countless magic lines that floated into the painting.
The inky blue mountains, rivers and grasslands suddenly came into color. Hong Lian, who was serving on the side, subconsciously raised her eyes and looked outside the mountain. Her red lips slowly opened, and she was so shocked that she couldn't close them.
In the field of vision, the undulating mountains between heaven and earth seem to be dotted with green stripes by a paintbrush. Tender saplings sprout from the barren soil, growing vigorously in the sunshine. Their branches and leaves stretch out and spread, forming a green umbrella that spreads all over the mountains and fields.
Clear springs flow through the dry mountains, green grass grows luxuriantly in all directions along the direction of the water, and birds fly over the mountains, singing curiously and happily.
A painting of mountains, rivers and streams truly unfolds.