The old man naturally had a lot to say to me when he came this time, and after knowing that he finally chose to forgive me, I was mentally prepared accordingly. Of course, what I didn't know at this time was that there was no such thing as unforgiveness, because this was the old man's biggest test for me, and I had already passed it.

Since I was not the only one in the ward, and there were more patients and their families who came and went, I went back to the ward and met a few old men, and then changed the place of conversation to a small pavilion on the rockery behind the inpatient building.

"Is the kid feeling better? If you talk about being discharged from the hospital, how soon do you think it will take to be discharged? "It is between our master and apprentice, and perhaps the most important time to speak, naturally only our master and apprentice, other people like Grandpa Manye, Dad and Mom, all stayed under the rockery to chat and talk, occupying the only small intersection in the pavilion, trying to help us maintain an environment that will not be disturbed.

When I opened my mouth, he asked me how soon I could be discharged from the hospital, and in a gentle tone that was completely different from the fierce and vicious that night, I couldn't help but be slightly stunned, and after thinking about it seriously, I replied, "It depends on what the situation is." If you just want to be able to walk and talk, and do things that don't require physical strength and don't hurt your mind too much, I think two or three more days will be fine, or even today, but if you can run and jump and get back to your old appearance, it will probably take about 10 days. ”

The old man nodded with a smile, and then said, "You don't need to return to the way you were before the injury, as long as the injury doesn't recur and worsen, you can leave the hospital and go home to recuperate slowly." ”

"Master, what's the matter? Is something going on and what needs to be done for me? I couldn't help but be stunned again. This is not at all like the old man I know, although he has often said whatever he says for so many years, and there is no room for me to discuss, but he rarely urges me on something, not to mention that he has just been injured all over his body, and it takes some time to recover from this kind of thing, and he can't wait for me to be discharged from the hospital soon, which is something more urgent that there is no time to wait for me to slowly recover?

"No, nothing happened. Even if something really happens, there are teachers who can deal with it, where will it get to the point where you can't care about your injury, kid, and you need to drag the injury to do it. Gently and kindly looked at me and smiled, the old man said: "Actually, we have been at home for a long time, and now that you have become a complete thirty-six generations of painting spirits, it is time to return to the provincial capital." Being a teacher does not require you to cultivate yourself as a monk, but how to say that you should be a monk in the younger half of the family, even if you can't do it without asking about the mortal world, traveling all over the world, there is no reason to stay at home all the time, so the provincial city is where you should be, after all, the ancestors of the past generations are there, and you are also needed to serve, and fulfill the responsibility of a successor to the future. ”

I see.

I suddenly understood. I dare to feel that I have stayed at home for too long, and it is time to go back to the provincial capital.

But on second thought, it's completely wrong. If I am talking about myself, it is true that I have been at home for almost a year, and it is also true that I should have returned to the provincial capital as soon as possible, but since so much time has passed, is it still the week that I need to recover from my injuries?

Although I myself have long wanted to go back to the provincial capital, I can't wait to go back and have a look, and as the saying goes, go back as soon as possible Zhang Luo plans to give Zhang Xiaowei a stable nest and try to make more money to support his family.

So there must be something that requires us all to go back to the provincial capital as soon as possible, but the old man doesn't want to say it now.

"Boy, don't think nonsense, this is not what you are good at, there is indeed nothing that urgently needs our master and apprentice to return to the provincial capital." For the old man, he knew what shit I was going to pull as soon as I cocked my buttocks, so how could I not see what I was thinking, and smiled at my attitude of ignoring me before: "Now that you have passed that gate and become a real painter, many things naturally don't need to be hidden from you anymore, and it doesn't hurt to tell you." ”

After pausing to look at a fallen leaf on the ground swirling with the breeze and being silent for a few seconds, the old man looked up at me and said with a smile: "That scoundrel has indeed begun to make a comeback, but don't worry, boy, from now on, he will not have too many opportunities to hurt people with hidden arrows and hide his tail, and urge you to return to the provincial capital for the teacher, just to take the lead and force this scoundrel to be forced to deal with it, so that he will not have a chance to escape with breath." ”

I couldn't help but feel shocked and completely stunned.

Does this mean that the old man is starting to change from passive to active, and no longer give Xie Yifan a chance like before?

"In the past, you haven't stepped into this door, boy, and your responsibilities as a teacher have not yet been completed, so you have to worry about it, but now that you have become a new generation of painters, you naturally don't have to look ahead and backward as a teacher, and you can let go of your hands and feet to carry out your mission. Since some things are destined to be done, and the time is approaching maturity, it is natural that we need to hurry up and not delay any longer, after all...... As a teacher, he is already so old, and he has no family in this world, and he wants to be able to hold his apprentice grandson one day earlier. ”

Looking at me with a slight smile, the old man paused and asked, "You have already been in contact with that gangster now, how do you feel about him?" You might as well talk to your teacher. ”

There was no too strong shock, just a small surprise, and he accepted the fact that the old man's last sentence represented, and the answer in his heart, which had already begun to take shape, became clear and smooth at once, as if the thick dust on the surface had been brushed away.

The so-called Li Shanye, who is unknown but seems to be able to understand everything, is my "senior brother" Xie Yifan, who has been hiding in the dark for more than a year and has never met.

As soon as the final identity was confirmed, all the unreasonable doubts suddenly became more reasonable. As long as Li Shanye is Xie Yifan, who has fallen into the evil path of painting spirits, then it is normal for him to do whatever he does.

"It's safe, it's dangerous." So I put away all the unexpected emotions, and after thinking seriously about the old man's question for a while, I gave a six-word evaluation that seemed to be completely opposite, completely different, and replied: "This person seems to have a kind of magic that can make people believe in him unconditionally and think that he is very secure, but in fact it is not the case at all, so it can only show that his city is very deep, and he is an extremely dangerous person." ”

After looking at me with a smile, the old man nodded, "That's true." A person who is gifted and intelligent, but uses all his talents to deceive the world and make conspiracy and tricks harm others, the destructive power he can show is naturally amazing, and it is indeed easy to be tricked around without understanding and guarding against it. But boy, you don't have to look up to him too much, being able to show such a confusing power and easily play with people's hearts is not necessarily equal to how terrible this person's city is, but more just that this kind of person has broken through the bottom line of being a human being in the world and is no longer bound by morality and ethics. ”

"The reason why he is good at demagoguery is that in addition to the fact that this criminal is indeed very talented in this area, he may be born with this kind of person, but more often than not, it is also due to the help of external forces. Don't forget that this gangster is never alone, and there are always Yan puppets around him who are born to confuse and eat people's minds as a big help, and there are almost formed puppet killing protectors, and it is really normal to be able to hide in the shadows and play with people in the palm of his hand. ”

"Born to deceive and eat people's minds? Can you help him anytime, anywhere? I couldn't help but subconsciously repeat the old man's words.

"Yes. When the demon spirit first appeared, it did not have the ability to directly mutilate and slaughter innocents, but was born to eat away at people's minds and make them become puppets of the walking dead. It's just that it was just like that, and it couldn't meet the needs of those traitors, so it gave this demon soul a little bit more powerful ability. The old man nodded and said, "With the help of such demon spirits, and you don't know this criminal, you don't know anything about him in advance, and it is completely reasonable to fall into his way and be tempted by him to do something that you didn't want." ”

It dawned on me.

I see. It's to say how I believed him so easily, and even believed it to the point that I was a slut, and I felt uncomfortable if I didn't tell him what I thought in my heart, and after listening to his words, I thought I had found a clear way, and I didn't think about it, so I couldn't wait to go back to drawing and prepare to take the last step, but after drawing it, I felt fear and regret. It turned out that from the first time I saw him, I had already fallen into his trap, and no matter what I wanted to do, I was always influenced and even manipulated by him.

Thinking about it this way, the reason why I was able to come to my senses after drawing the picture was probably because he knew that I had completely fallen into the trap he had set up, so I left, and I was able to get rid of the influence of him and Yan Golem in order to return to normal.

If I think about it carefully, the time when I woke up after drawing the picture can roughly match the time when he left, which proves that this is the case.

In this way, his purpose is already very obvious - to deliberately appear through Lao Wu Lao Feng, disguise as an innocent old man, and have an impact on my mind, and instill in him those great truths, not as simple as killing me, but to lay a trap little by little, and lure me into stepping into it.

And it's not hard to guess what's inside this trap. He wants me to open the door of darkness and fall into the path of the Painted Spirit like he did.

It's just that what is the ultimate purpose of him luring me into the Soul Drawing Demon Path? Do I want to capture the last and only castle of the orthodox painting spirit, so that the painting spirit art will be completely reduced to a harmful evil art, and there will be no more light at all, or do I just want to see that the old man and I have turned against each other, either I was beaten to death by the old man, or like him, I can only betray the master to save my life, so as to satisfy his already deformed and distorted psychology?

At this moment, I seemed to have begun to understand what I had been fearing for all this time.

"How's it going, have you figured out anything?" Seeing that my brows were furrowed and gradually loosened, the old man also smiled and asked again, and when he saw that I was about to answer, he said with a smile: "People need to think about a lot of things in this life. The easiest thing is to think, and the hardest thing is to think, it is not difficult to think clearly about a problem, but it is difficult to think through the whole life. Therefore, in a lifetime, to put it bluntly, it is the process of constantly thinking, constantly trying and making mistakes, constantly correcting, and even constantly overturning one's original ideas, so even if you think about something, just keep it in your heart and remember it silently, there is no need to say everything. As a person who is accustomed to external techniques, the first thing is to know how to leave a world for yourself in your heart, and not let people see it too clearly. ”

"Not all concealment is dark and malicious. After all, we are still mortals, and we can't really be bright and open like those sages in history, so it is necessary to leave ourselves a piece of heart that is not known, as long as we can generally be worthy of our hearts. ”

I was slightly stunned, then nodded earnestly in mind.

"Master, since that Yan puppet was born specifically for Gu people's minds, does that mean that it has the ability to make people have an extra memory out of thin air?" After waiting for a while, seeing that the old man had no sign of continuing, he had to pick up the question that he couldn't confirm in his heart and wanted to know.

Since he was born for this, he naturally has the ability to do so. After generations of traitors have been excavated and perfected, the monster of the Yan puppet is now much more comprehensive than it was at the beginning, and it is naturally not too difficult to manipulate consciousness and tamper with people's memories. The old man nodded.

Rao already knew that it would be like this, and what was missing was just an authoritative answer from the old man, but he really heard that through Yan Puppet, Li Shanye, no, the person who should be called Xie Yifan at this time can control a person's memory, and his face still couldn't help but change.

What a strange and terrible way to do this?

The key is that judging from the old man's tone, the ability of the puppet is far more than that.

"That'...... What can be done to prevent it? "If you can really control people's minds as you want, tamper with people's memories and have no way to prevent it, then such a method is really too terrifying, and you have already lost more than half of it before you really touch it, because you don't know when you will start to fall into the way of the puppet, and you are under its influence without knowing it, and the way to get rid of it is even more impossible to talk about.

Therefore, if you want to deal with this monster, you must first have a way not to be affected by it, otherwise you will only be trapped in a prison and unknowingly put yourself in a situation from which you will never recover.