A scholar
The bearded man holding the heavy blade turned his eyes away, looked at the temple gate where rain was drizzling, and frowned. He saw a figure dressed as a scholar walking in in the rain.
"What a courageous scholar! He actually didn't even try to hide when he saw weapons!"
As a man who traveled around the world, he was extremely observant. The bearded man noticed that the scholar who entered the temple did not have a single wet mark on his robes, and he immediately narrowed his eyes.
"It seems that... this scholar is a martial arts expert hired by these two men and women to help them. He is not touched by raindrops, and his internal strength must be extremely high. He should take the initiative to attack!"
Just as the man leaning against the wall shouted, "That young man, don't come in!" and the woman shouted, "Pharmacist, don't talk!", the bearded man turned his wrist, and the blade of the knife was facing the temple gate. The blade whistled, and the small bonfire burning on the ground was blown down. The blade that passed through the flames pulled horizontally, and there was still a step away from the scholar. Suddenly, there was a bang, as if cutting on iron, and the big man took a half step back.
In an instant, he didn't understand what was going on at all. He stopped retreating and the bearded man shouted "Ah--" and turned the tip of the knife, suddenly poking the fire on the ground. Countless sparks and flaming wood flew in the sky.
The big man rushed in with a knife.
There were loud shouts and continuous slashing of swords. In an instant, the temple was boiling with the sound of bang bang. The man leaning against the wall stared in amazement at the scholar who was standing calmly among the countless sword lights. He could not have expected that the other party actually had such powerful martial arts.
However, just as this thought flashed through his mind, the sound of the heavy sword hitting something suddenly stopped, and as sparks flew all over the sky, the scholar held the sword's edge with two fingers and suspended it in the air.
The big man pulled the blade, but it didn't move at all. He gritted his teeth and shouted angrily, "Let go!"
The muscles in his arms bulged, the veins on his forehead stood out, and he used almost all his strength to twist the blade that was caught between the other person's fingers, and his dark and rugged face turned red.
“Uhhhh—”
The big man screamed hysterically, his whole body tilted, hanging on the hilt and pulling hard. Lu Liangsheng on the opposite side raised his arm, and the two fingers holding the blade suddenly crossed. A "ding" sound was heard in the temple, and the heavy blade suddenly broke, breaking into two pieces and falling to his feet.
At this moment, the bearded man was also pulled to the ground along with the handle of the knife, as if it was stuck to the ground. Even if the scholar let go of the broken knife, he still couldn't pick it up at all.
He shouted anxiously: "What kind of magic are you using!?" He let go of the hilt of the knife, stood up and looked at the scholar who was approaching. He met his eyes. The next second, the sky outside and the fire in the temple suddenly darkened, and the darkness surged towards him from all directions like a tide, and the surroundings became dead silent.
"Where is this place?"
In the pitch black darkness, the bearded man finally panicked and realized that the person he was fighting was not an ordinary person. Before he could take two steps in the darkness, he clearly heard the sound of iron chains rattling.
In the field of vision, there was a sudden bang on both sides, and faint blue flames rose on the stone pillars on both sides. In the faint blue light, a tall and thin figure seemed to be staggering past on stilts.
"Who's there! Come out!" The man clenched his fists, and there was a slight 'crackling' sound of bones.
There were more and more faint blue lights, as if guiding him forward. Soon, the outline of a city wall gradually emerged in front of him, and countless blurry figures lined up in a long queue and walked into the city gate over there.
Whoosh~~
Gusts of cold wind stirred up a wisp of cloud floating in the darkness. The bearded man slowly approached, raised his head to look at the city gate, his eyes suddenly narrowed, and his face turned pale.
Above the city gate, three large scarlet characters were engraved - Ghost Gate.
In front of the long queue of shadowy figures, two black and white figures wearing tall pointed hats floated out, and noticed the man here. One of them jumped over with his long tongue hanging out, and a gloomy voice came out with his lips still, holding the long tongue.
"It's your turn."
Another figure in a black robe pulled the chain: "Follow us into the underworld!"
Two black and white figures instantly floated over, magnified in the bearded man's field of vision, covering up everything -
…
Wow~~
The drizzle of spring rain hung up a beaded curtain along the eaves and fell in the wind onto the dimpled ground. In the temple, a burly and ferocious man had a dull face and stood there motionless.
Lu Liangsheng didn't even look at him and walked straight to the altar. The man leaning against the wall didn't understand why the big man looked like this. He came back to his senses from the shock and tilted his head to look at the scholar's back.
"Mr..." Before he could even finish his words, he realized that the address was wrong and quickly changed his words: "Sir, what should I call you?"
Over there, Lu Liangsheng looked at the "spiritual stone" that was split in half on the altar and reached out to touch the uneven surface.
"Everything has a spirit. This stone looks strange and is worshipped by villagers. It is said that it will attain enlightenment one day in the future. Unfortunately, before it could have a spirit, it was split in half by someone with a knife. Don't you think it's unfair?"
"It's a bit unfair... but..."
The man wanted to say that it was just a piece of stone, but when he thought about the scholar in front of him, he could not reason with common sense, so he swallowed the words back. Then he covered his aching chest and walked to the side of the woman on the ground, "Chuchen, how is your foot?"
As soon as he stretched out his hand to touch it, the woman gasped in pain, but it was still sprained and would heal after resting for a while.
The man felt relieved and looked at the big man who was motionless over there. He couldn't help but ask, "Why is this fierce man motionless?"
"It's just a little trick."
Lu Liangsheng smiled, and the round stone that his fingertips stroked suddenly moved. The two separated halves swayed towards the middle and slowly stuck together. The gap on it closed visibly, and then disappeared.
This is the earth-controlling technique in the "Five Elements Taoism", but to the man and woman over there, it was simply a divine technique, and they were so shocked that they couldn't utter a word.
In an instant, Lu Liangsheng patted the stone on the altar, turned around, and flicked his wide sleeves. The still big man over there suddenly sat down on the ground. His dark face was instantly covered with dense beads of sweat, which kept sliding down his eyebrows, nose bridge, and cheeks. He was gasping for breath.
"Li Jing!"
Lu Liangsheng suddenly called out the man's name, and with a flick of his wide sleeves, the ring-handled sword that had fallen on the wall pushed the dust and charcoal on the ground and slid to the other man's feet.
"It's revenge. This person wanted to kill you two before, but now it's your turn."
The woman was about to say something but stopped herself. The man named Li Jing stared at the weapon at his feet, grabbed it, and slowly walked to the big man on the ground with it hanging by his side. He gritted his teeth, stared at the other's ferocious face, and remembered that he almost killed himself and Chu Chen just now. His lips opened with an "ah-" sound, and he raised the handle of the knife with both hands and chopped it down!
The bearded man closed his eyes, but did not feel the sharp pain of the blade entering his flesh. When he opened his eyes again, the sharp blade stopped just half a finger away from his eyebrows.
Bang!
Li Jing retracted his hand, threw the ring-handled knife to the ground, clasped his fists and faced Lu Liangsheng over there: "Sir, I... can't bring myself to attack an unarmed person, not to mention... not to mention... Chu Chen and I also made mistakes before. I originally thought that the man was doing evil and bullying an old man, but later I found out that the old man was cheating..."
"What about you?" The scholar looked at the evil man.
The latter came back to his senses, looked at the scholar in front of him, shook his head like a rattle, and then waved his hands repeatedly: "Don't pursue it, old... I have done a lot of wrong things, so I can naturally forgive these two. I will never do anything wrong in the future. Keep your hands and feet under control and know the severity of the consequences."
The bearded man seemed to be stimulated by something and talked a lot, even telling every sin he had committed in detail.
Inside the temple, the man's conversation continued. Lu Liangsheng smiled, looked at Li Jing, and took out an untitled blue book from his sleeve.
"Pharmacist, take this military book."
Li Jing was fond of military tactics and had a talent for it. He flipped through two pages and realized the value of the book when he saw its contents. He quickly closed the book and said, "Sir, this book is really quite valuable. I dare not accept it."
“This thing is not mine.”
After saying this with a smile, Lu Liangsheng shook his sleeves and walked to the temple gate. He stretched out his hands, tightly grasped the reins handed to him by the old donkey, and strolled in the rain. His voice also came into the temple from outside.
"… This thing should be found a suitable owner. Hope he can make good use of the military strategy above and not let the chaos happen, so that the people will suffer from the flames of war like the stones in the temple."
The voice echoed, and when Li Jing reached the temple gate, he could no longer see the scholar. Only the sound of bronze bells could be heard faintly in the distance.
"He is one of the gods."
He looked at the military book in his hand, as if in a dream. Then, he closed the book, bowed in the rain, and bowed towards the empty road.