"As the saying goes, it is better to be lacking than excessive, and it is better to be unyielding, and the will of the founding patriarch Li Changmeng is to rather break off the inheritance and disappear into the dust, than let the only fortress of orthodox painting spirit be stolen by the little traitor. To a large extent, it is precisely because of this spirit of putting people to death, preferring a strong man to break his wrist rather than compromise that the art of painting spirits created by Patriarch Li Changmeng can be passed on to the generation of teachers by luck. ”

"So boy, since you have already started to learn the secret art of painting spirits, then before you officially become the thirty-sixth generation of spirit painters, you must remember this, and vow to carry out the wishes of Patriarch Li Changmeng, and not to be confused and distracted on such issues related to the spiritual inheritance of the sect. Now I ask you, are you willing to uphold the will of the ancestors of the past generations and become a new generation of painters after the teacher? ”

Although I was already very sure that the little thing I had learned before was completely just a surface, and it could not be called a real spirit painting technique at all, but I didn't expect that before this, I was not qualified to call myself a spirit painter at all, seeing that the old man said very seriously, and after thinking about it seriously for a while, he nodded with the same solemn expression and said, "The disciple is willing." ”

"Very good, then from now on, boy, you are the thirty-sixth generation heir of my Painting Spirit Sect, go and bring the bronze statue of the founder of the mountain." Seeing my statement, the old man also nodded lightly, got up and said.

Since I began to enter the industry, following Luo Wenxin to run around, the bronze statue of the ancestor I have always taken with me, not only a thing to suppress evil, but also a very good "spiritual guide", regardless of the yin god and yang god, as long as the drawing time, put the bronze statue of the ancestor aside, burn the incense, you can increase the success rate of some spiritual guidance on the original basis. In the past, I still had some doubts about why the bronze statue of the ancestor would be a universal spiritual guide for the yin and yang gods, but it was not until now that I began to contact the real painting spirit technique, and I finally figured it out.

There was no serious process, I went back to the outer room where I lived, took the bronze statue of my grandfather, placed it at the end of the old man's bed, and nailed it to the wall facing the door.

Then he sat back down in front of the old man, and continued to listen to him.

"It is not easy to inherit the painting spirit, and each generation needs to pay a lot for this, not only to exhaust the energy to continue the sect's skills, but also to have the courage to give up everything when the accident appears and is off the right track. This kind of courage may not be very difficult to think about, but if it really comes to the point where it needs to be done, I am afraid it will be more difficult than ascending to the sky, such as Wu Yue, who was just told you by the teacher, was once the eleven disciples of the founder of the mountain, the most loved one, talented and intelligent, and he was still honest in his early years, but no one thought that later he would come to the point where the founder of the mountain needed to clean up the portal and end his life with his own hands. ”

"Not only that, but the other ten disciples, except for Eleven Qingyun who died in the rebellion against Taoist suppression, the old seven Fan Chen, and finally only the eldest disciple Chen An, who was generous by nature, was not implicated, and the rest all secretly followed Wu Yue. In the end, only the third child who was not deeply involved spent the rest of his life in prison, and the rest were wiped out by the three clans, and the blood flowed like a river. ”

In addition, of the more than 60 disciples of the third generation, and more than 200 disciples of the outer sect, only one was saved, less than one-third were imprisoned, and the rest were all slaughtered because they were too deeply implicated. So boy, can you imagine what kind of mood the ancestor of the mountain should be in the face of such a tragedy, and how much determination it takes to clean up the portal and personally end the life of the second disciple who was once the most beloved by him? ”

I was slightly shocked, and I couldn't help but turn my head to look at the bronze statue of the ancestor in the shrine, but I didn't speak.

Because it began to be passed down after the death of the patriarch of the mountain, the age is too long, the bronze statue that should have been golden has already turned dark brown in the corrosion of the years, and the surface is covered with trachoma and small pits, and some cyan rust marks that can not be erased, and the eyebrows and eyes have become very blurry and can no longer be seen clearly. If it weren't for the fact that it was an evil spirit object itself, and it was carefully maintained by the ancestors of the past generations, I am afraid that it would have not only been a matter of shrinking a few circles, but also unable to withstand my "hard work".

In the hands of my descendants, who should be no different from the son of a ruined family, the bronze statue of the ancestor has knocked over stones, soaked in blood and sludge, smashed the living and dead, and even dried corpses and dry bones, and almost didn't use it when eating walnuts, and I don't know that this ancestor who has experienced passion, blood and glory, and has experienced great sorrow and pain The ancestor who broke his wrist has a spirit in the sky, and what should I feel when I see my disciple of later generations treat him like this, will you want to simply drop a thunderbolt and kill me?

After a moment of silence, the old man looked at me again and said, "So in the future, when looking for a successor, you must be cautious, boy, before you completely see its true nature, you must not be in a hurry, and you must not easily teach all the skills of painting spirits, otherwise if the descendants really make a mistake, when it comes to making a decision, you will be like the founding patriarch, like the former teacher, you will suffer like the former teacher." ”

After looking at the old man in a daze for two seconds, I reacted, and my pupils shrank.

"Master............ Do you mean to say that you have experienced the same situation as the founding father, before me...... You also have a ...... Disciple? ”

The old man nodded slightly.

"Who is that person? What is it called? Now ......" suddenly found that before me, the old man had actually accepted another disciple, and my brain exploded, only to feel that my scalp was a little numb.

"Boy, don't be so surprised, after the teacher told you so much today, you should have thought about it." Before I could finish asking, I was interrupted by the old man lightly, and then looked at me and said, "Master Wei just said that after the death of the previous generation of painters, the person who took over the responsibility of the head of the family will start looking for his successor. When your master passed away, he was just 40 years old, and now he is 70 years old, and 35 years have passed, do you think that in the more than 20 years before you, you may not have taught others? What's more, now you already know that the person who used that Yan puppet to make trouble also came from the people of the Drawing Spirit Gate. ”

"I ...... I thought that Master, you told me so much, and there were things about the founder of the mountain and Wu Yue, because I wanted to say that at that time, the people who betrayed the master and fell into the evil way were not extinct, and they were passed down like us, and now they are beginning to reappear, using the art of painting spirits to harm people and cause chaos. I rubbed my forehead, and my mind was in an indescribable mess.

After watching me silent for a moment, the old man sighed slightly and said: "Whether Wu Yue's line has become extinct, it is still uncertain for the teacher, the last time there is an exact record, it was when the twenty-fourth generation of the ancestor was still in the period of Mingshenzong, and it lasted until the early years of Sizong, and it took more than thirty years for the two generations of the ancestor to be eradicated, and it has never appeared since." ”

"But not reappearing in the world does not mean that it has been completely extinct, after all, those people also know that once they are in the world, they will attract the attention of our lineage, adhering to the will of the ancestor of the mountain to clean up the portal, so they are often hidden very deep and not easy to appear. Once we dare to start making trouble, we either think that our line has been broken, or we have enough confidence to challenge orthodoxy and not be afraid of the majesty of the founding patriarch. ”

"Therefore, the remnants of Wu Yue's lineage, if they do not appear in the world, once they are in the world, they are often eruptions after several generations of dormant accumulation, and it is often difficult to compete with only two generations of orthodoxy, not to mention cleaning up the portal on behalf of the ancestor of the mountain, and sometimes it is difficult to even take care of himself. From the middle and late stages of the Mingshen Sect to the early years of the Ming Si Sect, our vein almost broke off the inheritance, and since then there is no orthodoxy in the world, and the painting spirit has completely fallen into evil arts. Maybe it really no longer exists, maybe it has just been hit hard, and it can't recover anymore and is still dormant, in short, without definite evidence, we can't take it lightly, and we can't forget our mission of unifying the lineage. ”

"But for now, I'm afraid it doesn't matter whether that series is extinct or not."

"Why?" I hurriedly asked.

The old man was silent for a while, then said, "Because ...... A new Wu Yue has appeared. ”

It turned out that my "senior brother" who had defected from the teacher and had never heard the old man talk about it before was still alive in the world, and his surname was Xie Yifan. Like Wu Yue under the seat of the ancestor of the mountain, this Xie Yifan has also been a talented, diligent and studious person since he was a child, I don't know whether to say that his nature is well hidden, or it is not bad in the first place, for a long time, and the early Wu Yue was also kind-hearted, enthusiastic, belonging to the kind of person who only has one bun, and when he sees a hungry wild dog on the side of the road, he will divide most of it out, if it is not enough, or even the whole is kind to the wild dog to eat, the neighbors need help, they will never shirk, let go of their enthusiasm to help.

All in all, the original Xie Yifan is an out-and-out good person. Even if he was actually an orphan since he was a child, because of the composition of the ancestral landlord, during the Great Revolution, the whole family was also dragged to criticize and fight, when the grandfather was in the prime of life was beaten to death, and his grandmother was also left with a lifelong disability, when he was only nine years old, his parents were also killed in a fire, it can be said that many people in the village can be regarded as enemies of his family, and they still do not hate everyone because of this, but because after the death of their parents, they have eaten many people's meals, and they are grateful to the whole village when they grow up.

Adhering to the teachings of the patriarchs of the past that it is better to look for the dull than to be cautious with the wise, the old man did not intend to accept Yifan as an apprentice at first after the death of his master, my master. Although this person is actually from the same village as the old man, and has some relatives, he has watched him grow up since childhood, and he can be regarded as a complete knower, and every time he comes home, he will come to listen to those anecdotes to him.

prompted the old man to change his mind and finally take Xie Yifan under his door because of an incident.

Xie Yifan was twenty-one years old that year, and on the day of the accident, he had discussed with a few peers in the village, and went to work in the city while the farm was free, but as soon as he walked out of the village, he saw the old lady sitting on the side of the road, moaning, cursing something in a low voice, and there was a five-step snake that was smashed and still writhing. The old lady knew the poison of this snake, and there was no one in the four fields at that time, and she knew that the old man was probably going to explain it here, so she was ruthless, and the fierce temperament of the rural woman was stimulated, and she grabbed the five-step snake that bit her and stepped on the ground, scooped up the stone and smashed the snake's head into meat sauce for revenge.

After smashing the poisonous snake to death, the old lady began to curse, and at the same time waited for death in the curse, scolded the sky for not opening her eyes, and scolded the damned snake for seeking death by itself and pulling her back.

Knowing that the old lady was bitten, that is, less than five minutes ago, the snake venom had not completely spread, Xie Yifan didn't think much about it, so he took off the belt and tied the old lady's feet and stomach, and helped him suck up the snake venom. After sucking out the poisonous blood, he beckoned a few more peers, carried the old lady to the road, stopped a passing tractor and sent her to the hospital.

In the end, because she was sent to the hospital in time, and after emergency treatment in advance, the old lady saved her life, and there was not much danger on the whole, compared to Xie Yifan, who disregarded her own safety and helped her absorb poisonous blood, so she lost half of her life, her mouth was ulcerated, her lips were swollen, and it took more than half a month to go down, and she couldn't eat at all.

After this incident, the old lady and her family wanted to marry their granddaughter who was the same age as Xie Yifan to her, and this young and beautiful girl did not show resistance, but was very willing to tie the knot with the kind-hearted Xie Yifan, but in the end he refused with a smile. Because he knew that this girl actually already had a sweetheart, and it was more just out of gratitude that she was willing to marry him.

When this happened, the old man was not at home, when he came back, Xie Yifan had been cured and discharged from the hospital for more than half a month, listened to his family and villagers talk about it, thought about it for a whole day and night, and after asking Xie Yifan's wishes, he changed his mind and took him in.

In the old man's opinion, a person who dares to take such a risk for the sake of an irrelevant old lady will not become conscienceless, even if he will change in the future.

However, what he didn't expect at all was that Xie Yifan, who was so kind and enthusiastic, eventually turned into an unscrupulous evil person who did whatever it took to achieve his goals, regarded human life like a mustard, and was outright evil and evil......