On the hillside reflected by the setting sun, an old ploughing cow was so thin that it could only see the skin and bones, silently eating the yellow autumn grass, perhaps it was full at this time, perhaps it had lost interest in the yellow and water-deficient autumn grass, it slowly raised its head, and looked at the somewhat desolate hillside in front of it with its already muddy bull's eyes, and then it slowly turned its head sideways, looked in one direction, and made a low mooing sound.

If you look in this direction, you will find a sallow-complexion boy dressed in sackcloth sitting on a smooth stone, and the boy's hair may have been a little messy from the autumn wind. The boy sat on the stone and looked at the village at the foot of the mountain in a daze, and the low moo of the old ploughing ox pulled the boy back from his thoughts.

The young man shrank back, felt a chill, got up slowly, took a few more steps, picked up the bullwhip that had been thrown aside, and walked towards the old ploughing ox. The old cow did not wait for the boy to come closer, and walked towards the village below the mountain, while the boy followed. In this way, an old cow and a young man walked to the village in the afterglow of the setting sun.

There are thirty or forty houses in the small village, most of which are earthen walls and thatched roofs, and a few thatched huts built purely of thatch. Most of the thirty or forty families in the village are peasant households, working at sunrise and resting at sunset.

It was now dusk, and the men who had been working in the fields all day had gone home, thinking that the women of the house were ready to eat. People walked towards the village one after another, and the boy drove the old cow and still walked slowly towards the village.

During the period, when I met the returning men, the peasants were simple, and they would greet the boy warmly, and the boy did not seem to be good at talking, but smiled and nodded in response, and people seemed to have become accustomed to the temperament of the boy, and rushed home with a smile.

The young man walked to the entrance of the village, and when he heard someone calling his name behind him, he quickly stepped forward and patted the old cow on the back, and stopped with the old cow. Turning his head, he saw that the man was already approaching, not a returning peasant man, but the only carpenter in the village, and his master Wang Er.

Wang Er, who was forty-five or six years old, went to the carpenter's house in the town as an apprentice when he was young, but offended the master because of his upright personality, and returned to the village in a fit of rage. But he also has some talent for woodwork, and he studied it for a year or two, and opened a carpenter shop in the village, and he made all the wooden tools in the village over the years.

"Da Zhuang, you just came back from herding cattle," Wang Er asked, "Hmm," the young man replied with a smile. The boy's nickname is "Da Zhuang", this name is not consistent with the boy at all, the boy is not strong at all, but a little weak, and the farm work is heavy, so the boy went to Wang Er's house as an apprentice when he was very young.

The boy was always grateful for this, because carpentry was the noblest and easiest occupation in the village, because the rest was farming.

Today, Li Yuanwai in the town wants to make a set of furniture, and among the carpenters invited is his master Wang Er, the town is more than ten miles away from the village, so it is almost dark when Master Wang comes back. After chatting with the young man for a few words, Master Wang explained that he had to go to the town to work in the past few days, so after letting the young man not have to help at home these days, Master Wang asked the young man to come to the house for dinner, and the young man refused, and Master Wang was not reluctant, and then walked towards their respective homes.

When the young man and the old cow walked to a few dozen meters in front of their hut, they saw a seventeen or eighteen-year-old young man standing at the door with a book in his hand.

The old cow saw that the young man's pace quickened a little, and the young man also took a few steps forward and touched the cow's head, and the old cow made a low moo sound again. The young man looked at the young man and said with a smile: "The meal is ready, come into the house and eat" The young man showed a sunny smile that a thirteen-year-old child should have in front of his brother, and said: "Okay" The brothers walked into the small hut together, and the old cow had also entered the cowshed.

The hut was simple but very clean and tidy, and the cooking area was also in this hut, but it was separated by a bamboo mat, and in the middle of the house was a simple wooden table with food on it, and a turtle crawling on the edge of the table. The boy picked up the turtle and knocked on the shell, and the turtle slowly stretched out its head, opened its eyes lazily, and saw that it was a boy, and then retracted its head again. The young man immediately laughed and scolded: "Little turtle, look at what you are too lazy to become, you are so unwilling to take care of me?!" The young man also smiled: "It's not that you wanted to stew it in the first place." The boy threatened again: "If he does this again in the future, I will really stew it." The little turtle remained motionless, and the boy was bored. They cried out to eat, and then the brothers chatted while eating.

By this time, it was already dark, the barking of the old yellow dogs in the village had disappeared, and the sound of children frolicking was gone. There was a faint light in the hut, and the conversation between the brothers was silent, and after a while the oil lamps in the hut that emitted a dim glow were extinguished, and the old cow in the barn seemed to have fallen asleep, only to hum in his dreams. The whole village was immersed in darkness and silence.

It's just that after a long time, there seemed to be an immortal flying over the brothers' thatched hut, and they saw two figures suspended in the air, but the two of them exuded a soft blue light. One person sighed: "I can't imagine that there is such a great opportunity in the small hut and cowshed!" Yes, such an opportunity is really rare," the other chimed in.

In the eyes of the two of them, the old cow in the cowshed exuded a strong golden light, but the soul body was somewhat damaged, in the thatched hut, a small turtle on a simple table was also green light, the most surprising thing for the two was that the older young man on the bed was covered with blue light, surrounded by purple gas, and there was a golden light scattered in the eyebrows, which was a call with extraordinary talent and profound fortune.

Just when the two of them sighed at the talent of the young man, they saw a red light flashing on the body of another teenager, one of them hurriedly took out a pair of tortoise shells, and a few copper coins began to do divination, and in an instant the tortoise shell cracked and the copper coins were shattered, and this person spurted out a mouthful of blood, and his spirit suddenly withered.

The other person hurriedly helped him and asked, "Senior brother, what's the matter? Why is this happening?"

The man said with a look of regret on his face: "Evil omen! This son is a great murderer! The reason why he has been able to live until now is completely dependent on the fortune of the people next to him to offset his murderous life, this method seems to be the technique of our Daomen, but it is very different, strange and strange!"

"Senior brother, what does it mean that the fate of fortune and fate are counteracting, and someone is doing it?"

"It should be so, otherwise the young man would have died a long time ago, and now he still relies on the fortune of the young man to stop the evil and continue his life, but the destiny is difficult to disobey, and it is not easy to do so. ”

"Is there anything that Senior Brother can do?"

"No, this is not something that our two little Taoist priests can interfere with. Let's go, we have important things to do. ”

With that, the two broke through the air.

After the two left, the old cow's eyelids in the cowshed moved slightly, and the whole village was still silent.