For the remaining nearly a month, Qin Bukong continued to recuperate his body, but there was no sign of improvement. Internal injuries are like this, no matter how strong a person is, he can't withstand it, and after the matter of the Witch King's soul, Qin Bukong seems to have no worries and no new goals. Even the beard that grew back turned from black to white.

Matsuko and I thought of a lot of ways to slowly chisel down the entire pillar of the Witch King's soul, which was about half a meter high, from the roots, and then wrapped it in a thick quilt to prevent it from breaking, and then transported it to the outside of the cave. Afraid that something was missing, we didn't backfill this tunnel for the time being, but we no longer worried about being found by others, because even if we did, we couldn't see anything famous.

Autumn is now in season, and the weather is starting to cool down. Qin Bukong's body used to be relatively strong, in this season of previous years, he not only wore single clothes, but even sweated, but after heavy injuries, his body was not as good as before, when I was still wearing single clothes, Qin Bukong still wore thin cotton clothes, and still shrugged his body, as if he was very cold. He still coughs violently every day, and when he gets a little better, he can stop it with some water, but more often he coughs up blood.

This gave me a bad feeling and I started to get very worried. Because I had experienced Master's death, I didn't want this to happen again, but I knew in my heart that this would happen sooner or later. Qin Bukong's mood is quite cheerful, at least more cheerful than when my master was at that time, occasionally joking with us, and talking like an elder, but he is getting thinner and thinner, so that when the clothes he wore last year are worn again this year, he has lost a whole circle.

One day, Songzi took advantage of Qin Bukong's nap to pull me outside the door and said to me, Brother Situ, there are some things, I'm afraid we have to be mentally prepared. Of course I know what he's talking about, Qin Bukong and I are both people who are used to seeing life and death, but when life and death events really happen to them, they often don't know what to do. Songzi said that the condition of Qin's predecessors seems to have deteriorated a lot compared to the previous period, and this autumn is a cold winter, and I am afraid that it is a little unbearable.

I nodded, because when I was discharged from the hospital, I had quietly asked Qin Bukong's attending doctor, and he told me that this was different from person to person, and family members needed to observe more after discharge. If the situation improves again, and you can eat, drink and sleep, maybe it will take a little longer, but if the patient is worried about it all day long, it is difficult to say, it may be ten days and a half months, and it may be six months to a year.

I also asked the doctor to give me an approximate time, and the doctor said that according to his experience, most of the people who have the same internal organs as Qin Bukong will not live for more than three months, and in the end they will have fluid accumulation in the body due to internal bleeding, and at that time, the hands and feet will be swollen, but the body is skinny, and this situation generally occurs, and it will be a month or two at most, and the person will be gone. So I said to Songzi, I also noticed, although Qin Bukong is not to the point of being skinny, but this morning he also asked me to go out to buy him a pair of larger gloves, saying that the previous pair is already small, and I noticed that his hands and feet have been swollen.

Matsuko sniffled and began to burst into tears. I didn't want to be so emotional, but when I saw Matsuko crying, I couldn't help but feel sour. Songzi said, Qin's predecessors have lived a little wronged all his life, until he met you in his later years, he felt a lot happier, although I don't have a deep friendship with him, but I also admire him, otherwise let's inquire about where Qin's predecessor's hometown is, if that day is really not far away, we can let him return to his hometown.

I nodded in my heart, because Qin Bukong's strange temper actually came from the exclusion and disapproval of the people in that village, even if he tried his best to fit in, he was always regarded as an outlier. This feeling of not being accepted is very bad, especially when even one's own relatives abandon oneself in the end, and it is inevitable that one will go in the direction of extreme thinking. But I said to Songzi, you are not related to him, but I am his entry and closed disciple, and this matter should be handled by me. If you're willing to join him in his end, I'm grateful.

Matsuko cried and said, what do you say, of course I am going to follow you.

I didn't continue to speak, but said to Songzi, maybe there is still some time, or you can bring the soul of the witch king back to the master first. Because I calculated the time, even with this heavy object, the time for the pine nuts to go back and forth is only five or six days, and Qin Bukong will definitely be able to hold on to the past in five or six days.

So Songzi agreed to me, and that night he told Qin Bukong that he would bring the things back to Shimen first, and then come back. Maybe it was Songzi's deliberate words that Qin Bukong heard the clues, he smiled and said, Songzi, you better take it back and don't come, you will cry when you see me die.

I don't know why, hearing Qin Bukong say this with a smile, and there was a joke in it, I couldn't bear it at the dinner table, this kind of sadness that suddenly surged into my heart made my tears flow out at once, and it was out of control.

Maybe it's because I've been depressed, but this sadness is already there, but I haven't noticed it. I was going to cover it up, saying that today's dish was so spicy that I was in tears. But I found that I couldn't even understand the words with my whimpering sobs. A good meal was completely disrupted by my sudden crying, Qin Bukong's meaning was very clear, let me spend the rest of the days with my apprentice.

Although Songzi was still expressing that he wanted to accompany him, Qin Bukong was very insistent, and even insisted that Songzi leave the next day, and then told Songzi that if he went in the future, he would definitely ask me to tell him where he was buried, and if he had a heart, he would come back to worship one day.

Qin Bukong was very calm when he said these words, and he also patted me on the shoulder, but he comforted me. Unlike Master Lin Qishan, they all anticipated the consequences at the end of their lives, but Qin Bukong did not have so many things that Master couldn't rest assured about, but chose to come from heaven and earth, and then return to heaven and earth.

Matsuko couldn't resist it, and was sad for it all night. Until the next morning, when I left, I was still crying. And when Songzi left, there were only two people left in the house, Qin Bukong and Qin Bukong were left behind, Qin Bukong has been dragging his sick body, and every day he will ask me to memorize some of the content of Wumen, he said, he will not be there in the future, if I can look at the craft of this door, as long as I practice diligently, and use it with Taoism, I will definitely be famous in the future.

I'm not uncommon to be famous, I just want to be able to spend more time with him. Maybe this is the case when people come to the last moment, when the worries in their hearts are understood, there is no other hope, and the body will collapse faster. I saw that his body was getting worse day by day, so I said to Qin Bukong, it's okay for us to be idle at home every day, why don't we go out and play, look at the mountains and rivers of the motherland, and change our mood.

Qin Bukong said that this is not bad, since he called Wuhan, he has never gone out for a walk and have fun. I am not familiar with the area around Wuhan, and the only hometown I am familiar with is hundreds of kilometers upstream of the waterway. So I asked him if he wanted to go to my hometown to play, because I was thinking that maybe the road would be delayed for a long time, so that he could have a hope and last a little longer. Qin Bukong happily agreed, and then said that after Lin Qishan, this old guy died, I haven't gone to worship him, otherwise I will go and sweep his grave and let him make a place for me on the side.

After speaking, he laughed, although I knew that he was joking, the masters were not together, so Qin Bukong also knew that he would not be buried with Lin Qishan. Go back to the mountain city must take a boat, in order to make the journey more fulfilling, I specially bought a ticket to pass through the Three Gorges during the day, the Three Gorges Qin Bukong has always known, but never came, so when we stood on the edge of the boat to enjoy the scenery, he marveled at the autumn after the red leaves all over the mountains, but also marveled at the magic of nature, but soon he was silent.

When passing through Xiling Gorge, he suddenly pointed to the cliff of the opposite mountain peak and said to me, what do you think of it? I asked him how it was. He said, "Do you think this place will be developed and built in the future?" I said that this is a tourist attraction, and it is deserted, probably not. He looked at it in a daze and said, "Won't it be five hundred years?"

I didn't understand what he meant, so I didn't answer. But I thought in my heart that the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River is the most important place on this river, and its beauty is precisely because of its primitiveness, so if the Chinese are not stupid, this place will not be developed and built for 500 years or 1,000 years.

Qin Bukong said suddenly, when I die, you burn me and find a sturdy jar to put it. Then put my ashes on the cliff. I was amazed, and he smiled and said, when the time comes, you want to go to the top of the mountain, hang a rope and slide down, cut a hole in the stone wall where you can see the river, and then put my ashes in, don't seal it, let me blow the river breeze every day, look at the river scenery, feel the four seasons of the next year, listen to the birds, smell the flowers.

Of course I didn't agree, so I said, "What are you talking nonsense?" How could anyone explain the aftermath like this? Then if I want to worship you in the future, won't I have to climb mountains and mountains every time, do you want to exhaust me?

I also said it to Qin Bukong in a joking tone, because I thought he was joking. However, he said to me very seriously, if you want to worship in the future, you only need to burn a stick of incense for me on the other side of the river, kowtow a few times, and worship across the river. By the way, it should also be played along the way and see the scenery.

After speaking, he stopped talking, but closed his eyes and began to enjoy the blowing of the river breeze.

However, Qin Bukong was not able to insist on going to worship Master Lin Qishan, and after we landed in the mountain city, he repeatedly stayed in the house where Master and I lived in the early years on the grounds that he was not feeling well. He also walked around every day, chatting with people we used to know, and he passed away on the twentieth day after arriving in the mountain city while meditating.

Strangely, although my heart was full of sorrow, I never cried. I used the housekeeping skill taught to me by my master Lin Qishan to summon the soul, and properly sent Qin Bukong's soul to Bliss, but I swore in front of his spirit that the art of Miao Wu would definitely not be lost from me.

Qin Bukong, until he died, I don't know what year he was born, and I don't know how old he lived, he taught me a lot of things, but I never called him Master.

He didn't have a funeral, and I didn't tell anyone. Afterwards, I cremated the body in accordance with Qin Bukong's last wishes, tried my best to go to the other side of the river in Xiling Gorge, found a place where the cliff was cliff but could enjoy the four seasons and the fragrance of birds and flowers, dug a hole in the cliff, and placed Qin Bukong's ashes there. In order to prevent his urn from being disturbed by birds and beasts, I also made a special base for fixing. I carved a simple line of words into the hole:

"The teacher Qin Bukong died in 1972 AD. The inferior disciple Situ Mountain is empty, crying and confessing. ”

In 1974, I went to Yunsheng Palace to visit Songzi and his master. After learning that the soul of the Witch King was properly kept, I also conveyed the news of Qin Bukong's death. Songzi couldn't cry silently, and insisted that I lead the way to worship Qin Bukong, and I told him that only I knew about that place in the world, and that was the secret between me and Qin Bukong. If you really want to worship, please light incense and kowtow at the mountain gate in the direction of Xiling Gorge.

Every year, I will go to the other side of the river in Xiling Gorge, and look at the hole on the cliff that I dug out with my own hands from a distance, because only I know where the hole is, and then I will have a pot of wine and eat some salted peanuts, but the wine must be poured two glasses, one for myself to drink, and one for Qin Bukong. I was sure he could sense it. And I will definitely stick three incense sticks on the other side of the river, and then worship across the river.

Matsuko is my lifelong friend, and although we had some disagreements for nearly ten years, we agreed that no matter who dies first in the future, the one who is alive will cover the coffin for the other person and close his forehead.

This pact lasted for forty years after that day.