A group of five people walked for almost three hours on the mountain road, and came to the foot of Candle Mountain at almost eight o'clock. Fortunately, there are people who can recognize the way, and the foot strength of several people is quite good, otherwise it will take at least four or five hours to walk. At this time, the bright moon is high, insects and frogs are chirping everywhere, and there are strange and scary bird calls from time to time.

After a brief rest, the second uncle and the third uncle went to the stream in the valley on the left, while the fourth uncle took the uncle and Wang He to the stream on the right.

Wang He was the youngest, the fourth uncle asked him to follow the back with a snakeskin bag, the uncle took a flashlight to the side of the stream left and right, walked a few meters and found it, under the signal of the fourth uncle, fixed a place, on a stone slab a black stone frog saw the bright light on it, dumbfounded, remained still, let the fourth uncle catch.

It wasn't until the fourth uncle caught his hand that he couldn't close his legs together, put the stone frog in the snakeskin bag, and said softly:

"It seems that no one here has come to catch it this year, this one is so big, it is almost a pound in weight. ”

Caught the first one, which means that the Tao has a good start, and after listening to the words of the fourth uncle, Wang He and the uncle are in high spirits, staring wide-eyed to find the stone frog.

"Here's one. ”

"There's one over there. ”

"Wow, this is so big!"

"This one is bigger!"

……

In less than an hour, the snakeskin bag in Wang He's hand was nearly one-third full, and the uncle tried to mention it, he is only a junior high school student now, and it feels a little difficult to lift it:

"Wow, that's thirty or forty pounds. It's only been so long since I've been caught, and there are so many. It's a fortune!"

Wang He rejoiced:

"Good thing we brought two snakeskin bags with us. Otherwise, it's not easy to install. ”

There are few people here, the stream is densely packed with trees, and weeds one person high, three people go up the stream, the harvest is full, and soon a snakeskin bag contains more than fifty catties.

The fourth uncle has been in a state of excitement, and only reacted after being reminded by Wang He:

"This bag can't be filled anymore, and if it goes on like this, most of the stone eggs inside will die. ”

In order to keep the air inside the bag sufficient, the bag used to cut a few small holes, and now most of these holes have frog legs sticking out. The fourth uncle took out another snakeskin bag and said:

"Erer, you stay here, and when your uncle and I fill this bag, we'll go home." ”

After saying that, he added:

"Are you afraid alone?"

Wang He smiled:

"Fourth uncle, you don't want to think about who I am, how can I be afraid?"

The fourth uncle thought about it and smiled, rested for a while, smoked a cigarette and continued to move forward with the uncle, Wang He listened to the sound of their cooperation getting smaller and smaller, and after turning a corner, the bright light in the flashlight disappeared.

Wang He put the snakeskin bag in the grass on the shore and found a big stone to sit down.

There are two most important factors in catching stone frogs, one is the choice, it is best to find a stream that has not been taken first this year, so that the harvest will be big, and the other is luck, no one has been to catch the place before, and it is not 100% that there will be a lot of stone frogs waiting for you to catch, just on the way to hear the second uncle said, he had a very bad luck, and another person trekked through mountains and rivers to find a mountain stream, only to catch two in one night, not enough money to buy flashlights and batteries.

Not long after Wang He sat down, a white light flashed in front of him, and the great monk who had not been seen for a long time appeared in lightning again, and he congratulated Wang He as soon as he came up:

"Amitabha, the little donor hasn't seen you for a long time, looking at your complexion, the cultivation of the Red Sun Gong has been a small success, it is really gratifying. ”

"Where, where. Shame shame. ”

The great monk was too tall, Wang He got up and stood on the stone before he looked at him at eye level, first spoke modestly for a few words, and then suddenly discovered:

"Hey, you, you don't seem to be the same as before......"

The great monk appeared twice before, with a brilliant white light all over his body, and his face and skin were as crystal as jade, but this time Wang He found that the white light emitted from his body had dimmed a lot, and the color on his face and skin was not so warm, but became a little rough.

"Master, what's wrong with you? How do you look, that ...... Don't you look as good as you used to?"

The image of the great monk has deteriorated, but the expression on his face is still as calm as water, and he first asked Wang He a question:

"You must have heard of the origin of Candle Mountain before, right?"

Wang He nodded, remembering the legend that Uncle said during the Qingming Dynasty:

It is said that in ancient times, there was an immortal who flew over this place with two stone mountains with thatch stalks, and when the rooster crowed at dawn, he put down his burden, and these two stone mountains remained.

After the great monk heard what Wang He said, he smiled and said:

"Actually, there are no immortals, it's just nonsense. ”

The great monk talked about the past:

In my time, there was a lot of spiritual energy between heaven and earth, and the emperors of the world abandoned their cultivation in order to gain power, and after gaining power, they turned back to the pursuit of immortality, and often asked us monks to refine elixir for them. In fact, the elixir of longevity can still be refined, but immortality is just a legend, if it can be refined, the monks will eat it for themselves first, why bother refining it for them for the so-called glory and wealth?

It's a pity that they only believe the slander of others, but regard our heartfelt words as a prevarication, and even think that we disdain to refine for them, so they issued an order that the monks who do not sacrifice the elixir of immortality are regarded as traitors, and the entire temple is slaughtered.

Although I have achieved cultivation, it is impossible for me to refine the elixir, but in order to resolve this catastrophe of Buddhism, I also had to come forward and deliberately create some "immortal traces" to attract the emperor's attention, and finally got the opportunity to talk to him directly.

During that meeting, I could have taken the opportunity to kill him, but unfortunately I was a monk after all, and I missed the opportunity in hesitation, and was detected and intercepted by a cultivator who worked for the emperor, and I only injured him in my hastily hand, which was not enough to kill him.

Since then I began to flee life, from the north to the south after fleeing for thousands of miles, here was intercepted and blocked by the pursuers, there is a very complicated cave at the bottom of this mountain, I hid in, the pursuers who chased in were killed by me in a row, and finally I was helpless, and the methods of flooding the earth with fire and water did not work, and finally they gathered thousands of people, arranged a formation, and wanted to trap me in the cave.

And they succeeded.

There are water, fish, and frogs in the cave, and after I lasted for a while, because the injury has not improved, and finally I had no choice but to use the secret method of Buddhism, the method of the original god out of the body, and then after thousands of years of penance in the cave, I finally cultivated this spirit body.

I had already turned into white bones, and I thought that I had to find a suitable person to take it away when I recovered my body, but the people who arranged the formation back then took this into account, even if I cultivated into a spirit body, I could still only move within the scope of this big mountain range, and I couldn't reach the foot of the mountain.

And the guards left behind in this mountain are not cultivators, they can make bows, arrows, knives and guns, but they have not practiced anything, which makes me unable to take it away, and if I forcibly take it, it will be useless, and my physical body will not be able to carry the powerful spiritual energy in my spirit body and be damaged.

……