The moon sets and the sun rises, and the night passes again, the sky is high and refreshing, and the spring breeze is approaching.

Early in the morning, the sky was just dawning.

One step further east from the east entrance of the town, at the end of the street at the entrance of the town, a white-clothed girl with a red cloak standing under the old locust tree with her back to the courtyard gate of the Chu family on the south side, with a cold expression and natural beauty.

The girl had now hung the sheathed sword that she had carried behind her back yesterday at her waist.

Looking at it from a distance, the sheathed long sword is simple in casting, the sword head is slightly square, without spikes, and the shape is tough, not like the style that the little girl likes, but it is firmly regarded as the girl's sword.

The girl's attention at this time is all on the big bronze bell hanging on the old locust tree, the bell shape is simple, the texture is mottled, and the bell body is faintly visible on the animal face pattern, cloud pattern, dragon and phoenix pattern and other bell patterns are no less than a dozen kinds, intertwined.

There is also an inscription engraved on the inner wall of the bronze bell, and the girl narrowed her eyes slightly to identify it carefully, but she still couldn't see it clearly, it seemed that there was the word "heavenly punishment", and the rest couldn't be seen clearly.

Probably because she was too focused, the girl didn't seem to hear the sound of the door opening the courtyard behind her.

The climate of the Xiliang land boundary is cold, the season of all things comes relatively late, at this time Yanguan Town has just started spring, the greenery is still thin, it seems slightly desolate, a big red figure in such a scene is particularly eye-catching, like the green dragon opening its eyes, and like the first touch of vitality between the spring of the wilderness.

When the small town boy opened the door, the first thing he saw was such a scene.

Chu Yuanxiao was a little hesitant to talk to her, and felt that this would disturb the girl's serious viewing.

Just as she was hesitating, the girl probably also noticed someone behind her, she turned around and saw the young man's face when she was slightly stunned, and then a little suddenly, in the still not very proficient Hexi dialect: "You live here?" ”

The boy nodded.

The girl also nodded, and then looked back at the old locust tree and the bronze bell, and when she turned back, there was still a faint seriousness in the corner of her eyes, she carefully glanced at the young man who had gone out and stood at the door, and then said with some hesitation: "You ......"

The young man naturally saw the change in the expression of the girl opposite, but he inexplicably felt that this stranger did not look like a bad person, and then he couldn't help but sigh in his heart: No wonder the sloppy man in the thatched house opposite always loves to chatter, saying that good-looking people are naturally annoying......

I didn't think it before, but now looking at the girl in front of him, he felt it again...... It doesn't seem to be a problem.

The girl did not finish her sentence, and after a brief greeting to the boy, she turned and went to the west side of the town.

The young man stood at the door and watched the girl slowly walk away, he shook his head inexplicably, then turned around and locked the courtyard door, tightened the thin old clothes on his body, and lifted the flat shoulder leaning against the door out of the town and into the mountain.

It is useless to say a thousand words, making a living is a serious livelihood, and he discussed with the shopkeeper Fan between the clouds yesterday that he would send a few wild animals to the inn today in exchange for money.

Speaking of livelihood, in the past few years, the boy has traveled almost to all the places within a radius of dozens of miles around Yanguan Town, including the dozens of half-abandoned salt wells, and naturally the surrounding mountains and rivers.

At the east entrance of the town, three miles to the east along the official road, there is a tall and steep sword mountain called the dragon's back blocked at the end of the official road, because the mountain is tall, the official road can only be bypassed from the foot of the mountain to extend to the east.

The two old men who brought the eldest boy to the age of ten are now buried at the foot of the mountain on the back of the dragon, separated from the official road on the other side.

The upper half of the hill is so high that it is hidden in a misty cloud all year round, and no one knows what is there, and no one dares to climb it.

There is a saying in Yanguan Town that has been passed down for generations, you can't just climb the mountain with the word "dragon" in its name, otherwise you will anger the dragon lord and end up with a fateful death!

A few years ago, there was a young man surnamed Xu in the town who did not believe in this evil, and insisted on going up the mountain despite the dissuasion of others, but a large group of people stared at him and entered the clouds halfway up the mountainside, but never saw him come down again.

Not only that, but the family of the missing young man surnamed Xu who stayed at home was all sick and crazy, and there was no one left!

At this point, the villagers were even more certain that this must be the dragon king who was sitting on the top of the dragon's back mountain and was angry and guilty!

Of course, no one dared to take a look in the clouds anymore, and they no longer even had the courage to mention it!

The main street to the north of the Wufang Pavilion in the town goes out of the town, and there is a big lake called Xuannu Lake at the beginning of the town, which is said to be the place where Xuannu planted lotus flowers in the sky in ancient times.

Legend has it that the water of Xuannv Lake flows from the mountains further north, and after stopping at Xuannv Lake, it winds south through a small river called Pengying and winds south through Yanguan Town, and then flows further south to a distant place further south.

When Chu Yuanxiao was a child, he would go to the Xuannu Lake or the Pengying River that flowed out of the lake to fish and take it to the inn in the west of the town to exchange money for money.

However, in the past, the old drunkard and the old Liangtou had specially told him that the Pengying River was shallow, and it didn't matter how he wanted to touch the fish, but the water of the Xuannu Lake was too deep, and he could touch the fish but never allowed to go more than nine zhang offshore, not once!

The boy is not a strong species, so naturally he has always been obedient and obedient, and in fact, there are a lot of fish in the Xuannu Lake, and he doesn't need to go too far from the shore, but sometimes he sits on the shore of the lake and wonders if the rumors of the Xuannu planting lotus are true?

Anyway, when the old drunkard was still alive, he always sneered at others when he heard others say this, scolding a sentence of nonsense and bullshit!

The official road goes out of the town from the gate of the sea of clouds at the west entrance of the town, and then there is a lonely mountain cliff three miles to the west, the stone is called the Golden Pillar Cliff, the length, width and height are thousands of zhang, but the four sides are full of cliffs, people can't go up at all, live like a roadblock.

It is said that when you arrive at Liangzhou City, you can stand at the head of the city and look east, you can also see the golden pillar cliff and the sword mountain farther away, and look like a ladder to the sky from afar.

Although the boy had gone up and down the river before, he had never thought much about it, but since the last time the young man who jumped on the wall of his house with a red oil-paper umbrella came, the boy began to pay attention to something.

He hadn't read a book, and he didn't understand the importance of feng shui and other things, but his mind was still quite lively, and he remembered the sayings that had been circulating in the town for many years, as well as the young man's family surnamed Xu, including the two old men who brought him up with some of the repeated instructions to him before, and the Wufang Pavilion in the center of the town, which was not in accordance with the rules in the storyteller's mouth...... There is a vague feeling of some inexplicability, is there something else to say about these things?

……

The sword girl who said goodbye and left gradually walked away, and after walking out for dozens of steps, she suddenly stopped, and she slowly looked back at the back of the young man who had already left the east of the town.

If she didn't guess wrong, the orphan she heard about in the small town Li should be him, and said that he was the fate of the Heavenly Evil Lone Star, so it was best not to contact him too much.

The girl doesn't believe this, she has always felt that fooling people with nonsense like "life should be like this" is the most useless statement.

Rather than this, she prefers to believe in the three-foot long sword in her hand, whoever disobeys and kills whom! What about God?

She looked at the boy again, who was almost out of sight, and then turned to leave.

Yanguan Town is blessed with a unique nature, and it does not take care of outsiders.

This includes those of them who have only recently arrived, as well as the poor boy who has been here for more than ten years but has a bad fate.

——

For the first time today, Mr. Cui, the teacher of the township school in the small town, was not busy giving lectures to the students, and this middle-aged Confucian who habitually carried a folding fan walked out of the street called "Tao Li" today, and the direction of his steps should be to the Wufang Pavilion in the center of the town.

In the school, an old gentleman hunched over and living on crutches scolded in his heart, and at the same time told the young people in the small town who were sitting in the school: "The old gentleman has a way, and he will be loyal to it......"

The middle-aged Confucian who walked out of Taoli Street was followed by a young man, dressed plainly and with a calm face, who should be one of the students in the school.

The Confucian walked to the very wide intersection and looked sideways at the storyteller in the northeast corner who had always held a small purple clay pot to sell books.

The two scholars, one teaching and the other selling books, had not met much in normal times, but today they glanced at each other, nodded their heads in greeting, and said nothing more.

Then, the middle-aged Confucian continued to lead the students forward, and finally stopped in front of the Wufang Pavilion in the middle of the intersection.

Mr. Cui glanced at the pair of victorious couplets on the entrance of the pavilion, and asked the student named Han Yuanfu who came with him, "Do you have any opinions on this couplet?" ”

Han Yuanfu was a little nervous, he had never come out alone with Mr. before, and most of the people who could usually follow Mr. in and out were the sister-in-law surnamed Chen, a nerd surnamed Chen Mingji.

He has always been very envious of Chen Ji during the years he has been studying in the township school, but he never expected that one day he would follow his husband out and be admitted to the school by his husband...... Because he was afraid that he would not be able to answer this question well, the young man was a little hesitant and hesitated.

Seeing this, the middle-aged Confucian smiled gently, "It's okay, just say whatever comes to mind." This question is not considered an exam, so you don't have to worry about answering it badly, and your husband won't get angry. ”

The young man breathed a sigh of relief, but he still carefully and cautiously, after all, there are not many opportunities like this, and he still secretly hopes to make Mr. remember it from the bottom of his heart, "Sir, the student feels that the meaning of this couplet is to strive for a wide range of words, and the purpose is naturally to create a climate, but this couplet is between horizontal and vertical...... It's not very good, so it's placed in this small Wufang Pavilion...... Seem...... Not too lined either. ”

He tried to be as tactful as he could, so he looked a little stumbling in the back.

The middle-aged Confucian scholar slowly walked into the pavilion while listening to the young man's words, sat on the round stone bench by the stone table in the pavilion, just smiled at the young man's answer and did not comment, and after he finished speaking, he changed the topic and asked: "Do you know why those outsiders came to Yanguan Town to accept apprentices?" ”

The young man nodded thoughtfully, "Some guesses......"

"Tell me about it." The Confucian nodded with a smile, pointed to the other side of the stone table with the folding fan in his hand, and motioned for the young man to sit down and answer, "It's still the old rule to say whatever comes to mind, and you can also tell me what you think about this matter." ”

The young man respectfully saluted Mr., and then sat down lightly opposite Mr., with only half of the stone bench on his buttocks, and replied seriously: "The layout of Yanguan Town does not seem to be arbitrarily arranged, or built at will by the residents, but more like it was arranged in advance. ”

The Confucian nodded slightly, but did not say anything.

The young man glanced at Mr. 's expression, and continued to weigh the words: "The location of the town is very positive, and the four directions are like the dragon's back, the Xuannu Lake, the Golden Pillar Cliff and the Red Maple Forest, etc., although the names are different, but the four elephants are alluded to, and this five-square pavilion seems to be taken from the Nine Palaces' 'Middle Five Poles', as well as the Pengying River......"

The middle-aged Confucian smiled and stopped: "Well, it's okay, you can't say everything, it's useless to say more, you can say the conclusion directly." ”

As he spoke, he gently pushed a piece of chess in the game of chess placed on the stone table to change its position.

Eight draws and five, the most conventional opening.

There is a chessboard carved on the table top of the stone table in the five-sided pavilion, and a pair of wooden chess pieces are placed on the chessboard for the people who rest in the pavilion to pass the time for the game, and no one will collect money, as long as it is placed back in place when leaving, the Chu River and the Han realm are clearly distinguished.

The young man sitting opposite subconsciously stretched out his hand, and Ma Ba into seven, but he didn't forget what he was still saying: "The student guesses what kind of formation Yanguan Town should be, which is good for the townspeople of a certain age in the town, and it is about the cultivation of the Immortal Family, and the main purpose of the Immortal Sect to accept disciples may also be because of this." ”

The Confucian did not speak, but kept speeding up the folding fan in his hand to pluck the chess pieces.

The teenager sitting opposite had no choice but to sort out his words and thoughts, and at the same time had to be distracted to take care of the chess game and keep up with the accelerating speed of the game under his master.

The young man soon saw sweat on his forehead, his breath was heavy, and he was embarrassed, but he still gritted his teeth and insisted, striving not to fall behind in the chess game, and the previous answer to Mr.'s question had already gone down the river to talk about his impressions and guesses about the several foreign immortal sects he had seen before.

“…… There is a group of immortal families from a sect called Shuixiu Lake settled in the Zhu family in the south of the town, Zhu Zhen did not come to the village school yesterday on leave, it should be left by his father to welcome the Xianmen guests......"

"And Zhao Jicheng from Zhennan There seems to be someone in their house, the student had speculated before, Zhao Jicheng and his father may have entered the Xianmen after leaving Liangzhou alone, but why did he come back with a limp, and why did Zhao Jicheng and his mother have some ...... Stupid, it should all be related to that immortal gate, but whether the immortal family that his family came to yesterday came from the immortal gate where his father went back then, I can't tell ......"

When the young man said this, he finally couldn't hold on, and his chess action was slightly paused, his face flushed, and his breath was not smooth.

The middle-aged Confucian was expressionless, but the folding fan in his hand moved slightly on the chessboard, the cannon was six and five, and the aftermath was the cannon, and the general!

The young man's face was a little ugly, and his lips moved slightly, but he couldn't say anything.

……

At the same time, outside the entrance of the Wufang Pavilion, there was a girl in a red cloak on the east street of the town slowly coming west from the east side of the town, and when she passed by the bookstall of the storyteller surnamed Lu, she also deliberately walked from the south side of the main street to the bookstall on the north side and stopped.

The storyteller's face was covered with a book with the words "Heavenly Craftsmanship" to shade the sun, and he lay on a rickety bamboo rocking chair.

When the girl arrived at the bookshelf, the storyteller probably felt that someone was patronizing his business in his sleep, so he sat up from the rocking chair, and at the same time hurriedly took down the books that were buckled on his face to shade the sun, spread them on the desk in front of him, sat up straight, leaned forward slightly to look at this little girl from a foreign country who was carved in pink and jade, and smiled to attract business: "Does this guest fancy any books?" Don't look at me, this business is not big, but I guarantee that all the books are officially engraved originals, the price is fair, and the children are not deceived! ”

The girl smiled and didn't speak, her eyes swept over the middle of the books stacked on the table one by one, paused slightly on the "Tiangong System" on the spread, and turned the page and said: "Song Zi said, the harvest of the first mountain, from the beginning of the emperor, the origin is far away......"

The girl's gaze did not linger too long, and then moved to the small purple clay pot that the storyteller had placed on the table, this time as if she was a little interested, and looked at it a few more times.

The storyteller has been trading for a long time, and naturally he is also proficient in the ability to observe words and feelings, and knows that the girl has little interest in the books he carefully placed on the bookstall outside the bookstore, so he hurriedly got up, courteously and politely, and invited the girl into the bookstore to have a look.

The girl followed the storyteller's instructions and glanced at the open but empty bookshop, then smiled at him and shook her head, and had no intention of entering, but took out a thin book from the books stacked on the table in front of her with her backhand, and after paying the money, she held it in her hand so casually, and slowly turned to leave.

The storyteller probably finally made the first opening business in the last few days, a little happy, maybe a little bitter, and a little strange, and smiled at the girl who had turned around to thank him, and asked people to come back next time if they were satisfied with the reading.

The girl did not look back, her right hand naturally grasped the scabbard of the sword hanging from her waist on the same side, her thumb lightly rested against the sword boring, and in her left hand she held the book she had bought at random, and walked slowly to the front of the Wufang Pavilion in the middle of the intersection.

In the pavilion, the middle-aged Confucian glanced sideways at the somewhat sluggish student on the other side of the stone table, and rubbed his eyebrows with a slight headache.

The girl walked to the pavilion, carefully read the couplet hanging on both sides of the pavilion door, and then looked up carefully and carefully studied the four words of "Wufang Jiedi" hanging above the pavilion mouth, and turned it over with her left hand, the book disappeared inexplicably, and the thumb of the right hand against the sword boring increased the force slightly, and the long sword had not yet been unsheathed, and there were wisps of sword qi slowly overflowing from the slightly loose scabbard.

The middle-aged Confucian scholar sitting at the stone table in the pavilion got up slightly, took two steps sideways in front of the stunned young man, and then bowed slightly to the girl.

The girl frowned slightly, hesitated for a moment before letting go of her right hand, and then clasped her fists with both hands, and replied with a martial arts salute, which could be regarded as a greeting between the two sides.

The Confucian saw the girl turn around and walk away slowly, and the young man's voice was a little worried behind him: "Sir? ”

The middle-aged tutor turned around, looked at the student who had already gotten up, and said with a smile: "It's better to look at the girl's face next time when you want to be beaten." ”

The boy didn't understand.

The master touched his nose and looked strange: "The rules of the rivers and lakes, staring at the weapons of the immortal monks, especially those of the sword cultivators, are the same as asking the sword." ”

The young man's face was slightly unnatural when he heard this, and then he couldn't stop some curiosity, and asked again: "Sir, where is she?" ”

The middle-aged tutor turned his head and took a deep look at this small-town student who had always had a more active brain and excellent homework, and then turned to face the door of the pavilion, looked through the long east street of the town, looked at the lonely sword outside the town, and opened his mouth and gently spit out four words.

"West River Sword Sect."

……

South of the town, nameless lane, in front of the North Lingguan Gate.

The red-cloaked girl who wandered over from the Wufang Pavilion slowly passed by the door of the Taoist Temple from east to west, and in front of the stone monument engraved with "Taoism and Nature", she passed by a rich man in rich clothes who was followed by an old woman who was hunched over and had low eyebrows and drooping eyes, and the young man's lips moved slightly.

The girl stopped abruptly and turned around suddenly!

The right hand that was released on the side of the Wufang Pavilion directly held the hilt of the long sword hanging from his waist this time, and without hesitation, he drew the sword out of the sheath, and the hilt of the sword turned half a circle in his hand, and the cold sword body drew a half round of full moon directly in front of the girl, and finally the tip of the sword pointed directly at the young man in gorgeous clothes!

The old woman, who had been following the rich young man, grabbed the young man's shoulder one step before the girl drew her sword, and then suddenly exerted force under her feet, and the two people, one old and one young, rushed forward a few steps in an instant, and then turned to look at the girl who resolutely drew her sword without hesitation.

The girl looked at the rich and noble young man on the opposite side who had a playful face after turning the corner, and her eyes were cold: "You say, if I hack you to death here, will it be considered a violation of the rules of the saint?" ”

In just a moment, in the nameless alley, the sword aura is overflowing, like a dragon's roar!

……