Chapter II

When Xu Zi'an finally realized that he and Shen Li were like clouds and rain in the sky, they would always be entangled and couldn't tell who was relying on whom, and he thought of another very serious question again as before

If one day, he wants to leave here, what should Shen Li do?

Just like right now, he is about to go to Beijing with the government's convoy to participate in the Yuexi test, but after he leaves, no one does Shen Li's laundry, cooking, chatting and nonsense to pass the time, how lonely is Shen Li?

After thinking about it for a long time, Xu Zi'an finally recognized another more realistic question, if Shen Li didn't let him go, could he run there?

Touching the test slip in his arms, the young man depressedly thought about the upcoming deadline, looked up at the smoke rising from the sky above the town, got up and walked towards a simple stove in the corner of the old courtyard

Where there is a pile of firewood stacked to a neat level, there is a knife sharpened to shiny next to the firewood, and there is a fish raised in a pot under the knife, the fish is caught by Xu Zi'an in the early morning in the mountain, and has been raised in the water for freshness

Before leaving this morning, Shen Li said that he wanted to eat clear soup and fish flowers

Xu Zi'an wanted to make him the clear soup fish flower that was very troublesome

............

It was getting late, the rain was stopping, and the wind was blowing through the mountains, blowing the dense forests like waves in the mountains, and blowing up the smoke that rose from time to time in the town

The green smoke wandered with the wind, wandering through every clean street in the town, the sound of frogs in the pond, the cicadas in the forest, and the rustle of the wind sweeping the green leaves with the green smoke

In the midst of this lively sound, a footstep gradually sounded in the depths of the bluestone street, gradually becoming clear

The voice was very sluggish, and it seemed very lazy, as if the person walking was too lazy to step out of the front and back feet, and did not want to put in an extra effort to lift the surface of the foot slightly higher than the ground

After a while, the sound stopped outside the door of the small courtyard, and with a squeak, a middle-aged man pushed the door in

At this time, in the middle of April, although it has not reached the height of summer, but the winter has disappeared early, ordinary people can wear long robes, but the man is still wearing a thick cotton robe, it seems to be a little cold, there are holes in the cotton robe, and pieces of oil can be seen in the holes

The flakes of oil reflect the glossy moonlight, and the stubble on the man's face is also shiny

After the middle-aged man pushed the door, he first paused, then sniffed the fragrance in the air vigorously, and said loudly

"Hey, there's fish tonight"

Fish tonight does not mean that there will be rain tonight, and the moonlight after the rain is very quiet

The moonlight easily passed through a few sparse stars, pierced through a few thin clouds, and finally poured over the town like a silver waterfall

However, although the moonlight is good and indeed bright, it is always not bright enough, and some soft fish bones cannot be picked out in the moonlight, so they have to be chewed together with the fish and then slowly picked out

But the fact of picking on the thorns is too troublesome, like a beautiful woman snuggling up to the bed in layers of inexplicable robes, but you can only endure the heat to unbutton one after another cumbersome clothes

This is very troublesome and trivial, and it is seriously inconsistent with Shen Li's always direct and rude habits

So when the whole pot of fish soup was eaten until only one lone fish head floated up and down, Shen Li finally couldn't help but take out a thin thorn from his mouth, looked at Xu Zi'an on the opposite side and said dissatisfied

"How many times have you told you that when you make fish, the most important thing is to pick the spines, the spines can't be clean, what fish do you do?"

Xu Zi'an, who was about to get up and clean up the mess on the table, sat down again when he heard this, thinking to himself, shouldn't this sentence be the most important thing to be happy?

"Who eats fish and doesn't pick the thorns while eating the fish, how can there be someone like you, you have to pick it clean before you get out of the pot? Besides, the fish bones are so dense, can you really pick them clean?"

"Why can't you pick it clean, how can you pick it out clean?" Shen Li raised his eyebrows and continued to say loudly

"The iron rod can still be sharpened into an embroidery needle, and it is difficult to pick thorns."

"I think you're going to pick a thorn today," the young man slammed his chopsticks hard, and looked at Shen Li angrily

Why do I have to pick out the thorns in advance in order to save you the trouble of eating? If you can't pick them cleanly, it's a problem? Could it be that this is the usual problem?

"Hey, hey, you dare to drop something, you've got a lot of skills," Shen Li said as he pouted with his eyebrows

Seeing this, Xu Zi'an looked up helplessly, and could only express his truest thoughts in a concise and direct word as before

"Idiot"

............

I have to admit that Shen Li is a middle-aged uncle full of vulgar taste, but this does not mean that Shen Li is really a cheesy middle-aged uncle

As a prodigal middle-aged man, his interest in life has long been divorced from the world's vision

His favorite thing to do in his life is to call others idiots, but that doesn't mean he likes to hear others call him idiots

Especially when a teenager is so serious that he is an idiot at this time, and he is serious enough to make him doubt that he really looks like an idiot?

Annoyed and angry, Shen Li raised his hand holding the fish bone high and was about to slap the table, when he suddenly remembered that this was the last old table in the family, if it was really filmed into a pile of waste materials, the young man might really be anxious with himself, so he had to put down the raised hand again, and in order to hide the embarrassment, he also wiped off a few drops of fish soup that had been spilled on the table

Ignoring the complex and rich changes in Shen Li's mind behind him, Xu Zi'an got up and began to clean the leftovers as before

There are two bowls, two pairs of chopsticks, a few thin soft fish bones, and a pot of clear soup with fish head and green onion condiments

Wiping the beads of sweat between his eyebrows, and looking at Shen Li, who was squinting and napping on a withered vine rocking chair behind him, the young man hesitated for a moment and walked slowly towards Shen Li

The rocking chair looked old, the armrests were white, and the thin skeleton swayed with Shen Li's body, making squeaky sounds one after another, like a tactful song in a Bocheng restaurant

The sound echoed with the night wind, passing through the neatly stacked firewood in the corner of the courtyard, cut into several pieces by the simple knife that was obliquely inserted on the wooden stake, and finally knocked back into the small courtyard by a low earthen wall

"Shen Li, I'll discuss something with you"

Listening to the creak of the rocking chair, the boy paused for a moment and whispered

"What's the matter?"

"Mine is gone"

"Where are you going?"

"It could be far away," Xu Zi'an said cautiously, ......

"Far away?" ............ "How far away?"

"Probably ......" The young man stretched out his hands and gestured in the air, suddenly remembering that the distance of thousands of miles really couldn't be expressed clearly with the distance between his hands, he put down his hand and said again

"It's far away anyway"

"How far is that?"

"About ......," the young man suddenly looked up at the moonlight in the sky, and said quietly

"It's that far from Kyoto."

.........

During the year of Si Litian, with the worldly Dao Sect that had been standing on the top of the Tianyan Continent, after the Thousand Mountains Sect inexplicably issued the closing order, the barren desolate clan living in cruelty and barrenness was finally no longer willing to guard the dangerous Heavenly Forsaken Land for generations, and the fear that the dark night was getting longer and longer, and finally in the middle of a moon, with the provocation of a deliberate massacre, the chaotic battle that swept the entire Tianyan Continent completely set off a prologue

In the face of the desolate warriors who had been fighting for countless years in the cruel environment, the people of the various countries on the Tianyan Continent who had been living under the protection of the Thousand Mountains Sect for countless years were like a group of lambs waiting to be slaughtered

And at the critical moment of life and death in the entire continent, the Thousand Mountains Sect, which has always been worshiped and admired by the world, still confines the sect, allowing countless believers to cry and beg outside the door

At this moment, the Dali Dynasty quietly established a dynasty, under the wise leadership of a generation of kings Qingdi, and hundreds of thousands of Xuanyou heavy riders in the iron hooves, the human race finally drove the desolate tribe back to their hometown, and the Tianyan Continent ushered in the dawn of a long time, and Dali also became the first dynasty in the world

Now, after a thousand years, the dynasty has not appeared the so-called prosperity and decline, on the contrary, it has become more prosperous under the diligent and clear governance of the kings of the past dynasties, even the powers of the countries under the care of the Sword Pavilion such as the Seven Domains have to recognize the supremacy of the dynasty

For the people of Dali, the prosperity and strength of the dynasty have also made people's attention have long expanded from the narrowness of regarding food and clothing as the first priority, to the bearing that any rural wild man can wave his finger to the world

In the same way, people in the world naturally look to things outside the world

What is outside the world is the cultivation of the Great Dao

People who are not willing to live an ordinary life call for the common law of the world, no longer hidden in the high pavilion outside the mountain as in the past, the trend is also in the deliberate help of some people, with a shocking question from the Qing Emperor after a court meeting, the world's first academy open to the whole world, Zhireiin was opened in Kyoto

"Why do the people of my Great Departure Dynasty stick to the rituals of those worldly sects?"

Subsequently, the wisdom of the people was completely opened, and all kinds of Taoism flourished like flowers throughout the dynasty, and some cultivation sects hidden outside the world no longer stuck to the rules as they had for thousands of years in the past, and they opened academies and recruited disciples somewhere in the world

Kyoto, the political center of the world, has naturally become the place where all the houses and schools are concentrated

The Yuexi test was born

A grand test to select and evaluate the most talented students in the world

There have been good deeds, jumping over the stream is like a fish crossing a shallow stream, if once jumped, it is really a carp jumping over the dragon gate, and Jackie Chan is just around the corner

For the young students who are expected to participate in this Yuexi test, this test means another world in life, and for the homeless people who have never had the luxury of expecting at all, their hearts that love to be lively and restless pay more attention to other things, such as those talented teenagers who will amaze the whole world this year? And those who went to the test were lucky enough to be selected by the Zhili Academy, and the Qingye Division hidden in the shadow of the palace wall of the imperial city would also set his eyes on here, and the current ruler of the dynasty, His Majesty Emperor Wu, would he also show his dignity in this Yuexi test

But these things can only be known after the start of the Yuexi test, and when the Yuexi test is not opened, people have to focus on the township test

The township examination is an assessment of the initial selection of the Yuexi examination by the imperial court and various colleges, and the imperial court and various colleges jointly send people to the various jurisdictions in Dali to conduct screening and testing, so as to select some outstanding students and teenagers in advance, so as to avoid the absurd thing that those who participated in the Yuexi examination in those years because there were too many students who participated in the Yuexi examination, and the already crowded Kyoto City was completely paralyzed

Although this still can't stop the countless admiring viewers, it saves the examiner a lot of trouble, at least not every year I see a lot of toddlers, and some old men who come to join in the excitement because they know that the big time is coming, so as not to leave any regrets before they die......

The township test is divided into martial arts test and realm test, the environment test is the main test of the candidate's talent and realm, and the martial arts test is the main assessment of combat and technical subjects, and the final result will be a comprehensive evaluation between the two, and it will not be easy to generalize because the test taker's cultivation talent is extremely poor, or there is no cultivation talent at all

Only by passing the assessment of the township examination can you get the poster that was reviewed and issued by countless departments of the imperial court

This year's pilot assessment in the mountainous area of Weishan is in Bocheng, which is the largest and most prosperous city in the mountainous area

Seeing that Shen Li had been silent, Xu Zi'an touched the test-going sticker printed with countless seals in his arms and said again

"I know that you have always been reluctant for me to enter Beijing, but you also know that after this year, I will be crowned, and that academy never accepts students who have passed the age of the crown, so it will be really too late not to go."

"Of course, you can not agree, anyway, I have already got the post for the test, and this time I came back not to discuss with you, but to say goodbye to you"

Shen Li continued to be silent, and Xu Zi'an hesitated and said again

"I have cut the firewood in the firewood room, cut a lot of it, enough for you to burn for a while, new rice has been added to the rice tank, it is your favorite Ning Wei rice, because I am afraid of insects, so I didn't dare to put too much, but you also eat for a while, the wooden cabinet is a washed mattress quilt, Xu Fuji also has a set of bound cotton robes, I will go back to get it back for you, you see if it fits, as for other things, I didn't go out today because of the rain, but I will buy it for you before leaving, you should have no problem in the short term"

"Of course, if I didn't get into that college, it would have been fine, but in case, I mean in case, I did...... I'll ask someone to carry a letter to tell you, and when the time comes, you can come to Kyoto to find me."

Speaking of this, Xu Zi'an suddenly remembered some other things and immediately changed his words

"Forget it, I'll take the time to come here every year to see you."

"No, you should get up and make a statement, I'm still young, I can't let me do this to wash and cook for you for the rest of your life."

............

Freshly chopped firewood, newly added rice, freshly washed bedding, newly bought clothes, and the young man who can think about it seems to have thought it through, so the rest of the time should not be too difficult to think about

But Shen Li never thought so, no one did the laundry, anyway, the greasy wash on the torn jacket couldn't be cleaned, but no one could cook, and no one could relieve the boredom and pass the loneliness

Shen Li hates loneliness the most, but loneliness often walks with him

Touching the rough stubble on his lips, Shen Li opened his eyes and said

"What's wrong with washing clothes for Lao Tzu? How many people want to wash and cook for Lao Tzu, and Lao Tzu still won't let me?"

Xu Zi'an walked to the side angrily, looked up at the few sparse stars in the sky, and said nothing

The moonlight began to slowly fall from the branches to the branches, and the mountain breeze began to change from comfortable to a little cold, Xu Zi'an glanced at Shen Li's body that was a little curled up because of the cold in the mountains, and his heart softened for a while, he got up and went into the house to get a quilt and gently cover Shen Li's body, thought about it and continued

"Although I don't know why you have always disagreed with me entering Beijing, I think there must be a reason for you, I know that you are not an ordinary middle-aged uncle, so some things I can only guess through some fragments"

"Maybe there is something in that city that you don't want to face, or maybe it's somewhere you have offended some very powerful people and have to take refuge here, but I promise you that I will never use the things you taught me when I go to Kyoto, and of course, if someone really finds out one day, I will never say that you taught me."

Shen Li, who had been leisurely on the recliner, suddenly glanced at the corner of his mouth, looking disdainful

Even if you are discovered by the world, what can the world do with me?

But he didn't say these words, because they were a bit too pretentious and would be taken as an idiot

"Are you sure you want to go?"

"Hmm"

"You're sick, you're going to die"

"I know, that's why I have to go to Kyoto," Xu Zi'an said calmly

"Your disease is not easy to treat, and even if you do enter Kyoto, it may not be cured."

"But I still want to try"

Xu Zi'an looked up at Shen Li, his eyes clear and firm

Shen Li suddenly fell silent when he heard this, his fingers tapped on the armrest of the recliner, and the sound of da-da seemed to be very regular, as if he was thinking about something, but it was more like he had already calculated everything in advance

After a long time, Shen Li opened his eyes again, his eyes were full of all kinds of bright light, and he seemed very interested

Because he saw a picture that was interesting, and it was so interesting that it would shock the whole world

"Why don't you take me with you?"

Shen Li got up slightly, looked at the young man and asked with a smile

"Really?" Xu Zi'an exclaimed in surprise and joy, and then said firmly, "No, you will die"

Shen Li laughed debaucherily when he heard this, got up and stood up after laughing, looked at the direction of Kyoto in the dark night with his hands, and looked at Xu Zi'an very coquettishly and said

"Xiao Anzi, you have to know, if Lao Tzu doesn't want to die, there is really no one in this world who can let Lao Tzu die"