The wind and snow were not angry, the road was not blocked, and with the slowly falling snowflakes, an old monk holding a tin staff and wearing a hat slowly walked out of the wasteland, entered the border of the moon ring, and walked towards a not high peak.

The old monk walked very slowly, slower than the snow falling, and even seemed to be slower than the snow melting, and the soles of his feet in straw sandals seemed to be glued to the ground, and when he lifted his feet, it seemed as if he was going to pull the whole ground up, so every step seemed very difficult.

He walked on the snow and the snow was pulled up, and when he walked on the mud ground, the black dirt was pulled up, and when he walked on the bluestone mountain road, the stone face was pulled up. The shallow snow-covered mountain path does not seem to have changed, but in fact, the deep structure of the snow has been tearing and uneasy, making a very slight rattling sound that humans cannot even hear, and even the entire mountain peak is groaning very low as the old monk walks.

The animals hiding in the depths of the mountain can hear this sound, the wolf licking the clumps of dirty fur raises its head in fear, the magpie hiding in the nest looks up in horror and looks into the distance, and the bobcat that is trying to gnaw through the skin of a frozen deer lets out a terrible scream.

The old monk walked to the top of the mountain and looked south.

Dozens of miles south from the mountain peak, the snow stopped, most of the sky in the Moon Wheel Country has no snow clouds, thousands of miles away from the Moon Wheel Kingdom capital Chaoyang City, but it is covered by thick clouds, thousands of miles away, that extremely thick cloud, like a lonely flower in the boundless Buddha country.

The old monk looked at the clouds thousands of miles away silently, and on the old face that the shadow of the hat was not covered, a very complicated expression slowly appeared, and then his hand holding the tin staff tightened slightly, and gently inserted the tin staff into the peak rocks beside him, and said to the distance: "People are under the clouds." ”

The tin staff is in contact with the peak rock, like a hot knife piercing into the snowdrift, silently going deep into the stone, the tip of the tin staff makes a slight crisp sound, accompanied by the old monk's words to float in all directions.

The old monk looked at the distant Chaoyang City. said: "For this catastrophe in the world, for the advent of the era of the end of the Dharma, the Buddha left many magic tools such as chessboard and net bells before Nirvana, pointing out the way for Buddhist disciples, but senior brother, you are unwilling to take the path left by the Buddha, and want to follow your own path, why is this?"

After standing silently on the top of the peak for a long time, the old monk sighed and said, "Senior brother, you called yourself Qishan back then. I never understood what that meant it. Through the recitation of the seven thoughts, I realized that the original meaning was taken from the wrong path, but the wrong path was more difficult to do. I am a Buddha with compassion, how can I bear to see the world take the risk of going astray?"

After saying this, the old monk pulled the tin staff out of the snow rock. Slowly descending towards the peak, looking at the direction, it should be preparing to go to Chaoyang City, but with his slow and difficult way of traveling, it took more than a hundred days to walk from the Tiankeng Hanging Temple to the edge of the wasteland, so how long will it take to walk to the bottom of that cloud?

"If you go astray, then I have to take shortcuts. ”

When the old monk walked out of the range of the peak, he stopped, stretched out his hand and stretched out his tin staff beside the rugged and muddy mountain road, looking at the movement as if he was hailing a car. It's just that in such remote peaks as inaccessible as these, where can there be carriages?

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This winter, Chaoyang City, the capital of Yuelun Country, has been in cloudy weather continuously, and even if two light snows fell, the thick clouds over the city have never dispersed.

In the world, it is common for wind and snow to be cloudy and sunny. Even a hundred days of obscurity is not a difficult thing to like, so at first, this cloud did not attract anyone's attention.

Until the winter deepens, the second snow disperses, and the countryside outside Chaoyang City suddenly clears. It was clear, but there were still snow clouds in Chaoyang City. It made the people in the city have some confusion.

Once they began to make purposeful observations, the court and ordinary residents of the Moon Wheel Kingdom finally noticed the strangeness of the thick clouds in the sky, and some people remembered that since a certain day in late autumn, the clouds above their heads have never dispersed, and more people have noticed that in the clear sky outside the city, there are clouds that continue to drift one after another every day, gathering into the clouds above the city.

The clouds shrouded Chaoyang City and refused to disperse, and it was getting thicker and thicker every day, and the area was getting bigger and bigger, this situation was too weird. Since the autumn, the Buddhist temples of the Moon Wheel Country have preached the arrival of the daughter of the Hades, and the sea fishing text of the imperial court has proved that the daughter of the Hades is in the Moon Wheel Country, and all kinds of things are associated with this thick cloud over Chaoyang City, which suddenly deepened the uneasiness and fear in the hearts of the people.

The people in Chaoyang City naturally had a lot of speculation and uneasiness, and that cloud became the focus of everyone's observation, and even became the main content of the hustle and bustle that the people of the Moon Wheel Country met every day.

"Did you see that cloud yesterday?"

"You can see it every day when you raise your neck, and you still need to go to see it?"

"I mean, the new clouds that floated from outside yesterday, don't you think it's a lot thicker today?"

"Didn't you see, I went to rent a carriage yesterday, and yesterday's new clouds were quite big?"

"It's very big, and when I saw it, it was already very close, and it had to be bigger than the palace. ”

"That's really not small, but I saw a new cloud from the east a few days ago, tsk, that formation, that spirit, it feels like a thousand troops of the Tang people. ”

"Your metaphor is subtle, and the daughter of the Hades is not a Tang man. ”

"Don't mention anything to me about the daughter of Hades, I'm a coward. ”

"You're not cowardly, you're thoughtful, renting a carriage is a pre-departure right?"

"If you don't go, you can't go, this cloud is too weird, if it turns into a stone one day, I can't stand it. ”

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......

Snow clouds ravage the city.

People in the city look up for a long time every day, and there are fewer and fewer people suffering from cervical spondylosis; many people begin to pray, the smell of incense is permeated in the streets and alleys, and more and more incense money is collected from the major temples; some people are already preparing to leave Chaoyang City and go to the countryside to hide with relatives for a few days, and the business of the carriage and horse shops is becoming more and more prosperous.

As the incense burned, the people began to pray for blessings from everything they thought was effective, whether it was stones or trees, and the master of the temple was naturally the best choice, so in just a few days, I don't know how many young ladies in the house were killed.

There are countless Buddhist temples in the country of Yuelun, the most famous of which is the 72 Tai Temple of Yanyu, the White Pagoda Temple of Chaoyang City has an undoubted status in the 72 Temples, in the current panic situation, the incense of the White Pagoda Temple is naturally the most prosperous, the believers who come to worship the Buddha and pray every day are about to burst this Buddhist temple.

The major Buddha halls in the White Pagoda Temple are crowded with believers, even outside the temple are kneeling countless people, there are dozens of believers respectfully kneeling in front of a certain stone step outside the temple gate, keep kowtowing, appear particularly pious.

That stone step attracted so many Buddhist believers to kneel and worship, because when the abbot of Baita Temple was early in the morning, he chose a baby boy with a deep Buddha relationship on that stone step, and the baby boy was the famous Taoist stone master later, so the believers all thought that there was still the Buddha nature of the Taoist stone master on the stone step, which could bring blessings.

Looking at this scene, Ning Que shook his head, took Sangsang's slightly cool little hand, squeezed through the crowded crowd, and walked towards the Baita Temple, thinking that Qu Ni Ma Di and Bao Shu had an illicit affair and gave birth to Dao Shi, an illegitimate child, naturally they were going to be sent to Baita Temple, what could it have to do with such a thing as Buddha's fate?

Sang Sang was wearing a light-colored cotton jacket and a thick scarf, covering half of his face, and at some point, his hair was cut very short, parted diagonally in front of his forehead, looking very refreshing, like a playful little boy, not to mention that he had only seen the portrait, even if he had seen her personally, it was difficult to recognize her.

"Maybe that stone staircase will really bring blessings. ”

Sangsang's voice penetrated the scarf, and it seemed a little buzzing, like a little nasal congestion after a cold.

Ning Que smiled slightly, and said softly: "Even if there is a blessing, it is impossible for it to fall on us, but don't forget that in front of the bun shop in Chang'an City, it was I who cut off Dao Shi's head with a knife." ”

Sangsang said: "I don't know if we did too many bad things, so we will be punished, I knew that we were going to learn Buddhism, and I shouldn't have been so disrespectful to the Buddhist masters in the first place." ”

Ning Que said with a smile: "The day before I met Daoshi, you ran away from home for the first time, I was in a very bad mood, I was angry on the edge of Yanming Lake all night, and he came to provoke me, naturally I was looking for death, or you were not good." ”

Sangsang said softly: "So I was retributed." ”

"If there is really retribution, where does Xiahou need me to kill, he should have been accepted by the Buddha a long time ago. In their opinion, without faith and reverence, it is difficult to enrich life, and it is difficult to get true peace in the heart, but in our view, faith and worship are not the same thing, and the word fear in awe needs to be studied carefully."

Ning Que thought about the believers who kept kowtowing outside the temple before, and thought of the picture of the family next to the small courtyard burning incense and worshiping a tree at home every day, and said: "Like the Moon Wheel Country, it is naturally a country of faith, but there are too many things to believe in, and the fear of the unknown is too deep, what kind of faith is this?"

In a whispered chatter, the two had already walked to the main hall in the depths of the White Pagoda Temple, where the Buddha hall was still crowded, and hundreds of believers knelt on the futon, listening to a senior monk in front of them.

Ning Que took Sangsang into the Buddha hall, and quietly found an empty futon, the believer who was robbed of the futon, was still listening to the scriptures one moment ago, and the next moment he found himself standing behind the pillar, he couldn't help but be shocked and speechless, but he didn't dare to shout loudly, for fear that the monks in the temple would conclude that he was not pious enough, so he would end up like this.

Sangsang knelt on the futon, put his hands together in front of him, closed his eyes, and began to study Buddhism and listen to the scriptures, his expression was quiet and pious, and his hair, which was slightly darkened because of the shortening, slowly swiped on his forehead.

She didn't listen to the lecture of the senior monk of the White Pagoda Temple, but silently read a scripture in her heart, and what she learned was not the solemn golden Buddha in front of the hall, but the Buddha in her heart.

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