Yanguan Town, Liangzhou, has completely lost any trace of the immortal family in the countryside in recent days.

The sloppy watchman who used to walk the streets and alleys every night knocking on the bangzi to remind the townsfolk of fire prevention and theft prevention went back to the errand of the town one day to the lord of the town who was still serving as the salt official and the head of the family surnamed Li, and left the town early the next morning to make a trip out of the town to the east, and after bypassing the back of the dragon in the east of the town, his figure disappeared behind the ridge and disappeared without knowing where to go.

About two days later, Chu Yuanxiao guessed that the one from Middle-earth that Mr. Cui said arrived in the town, because the four former salt officials and saints in the Great Array also left the town after a short time, and they seemed to have removed some of the titles hanging on their bodies, such as Mr. Cui is no longer one of the "Confucian Four Beings" who are candidates for the next Confucian sect master, and the old Taoist is no longer the foreign surname of the Heavenly Master Mansion of Longhu Mountain.

However, before leaving, they seemed to have met at the top of the Golden Pillar Cliff in the west of the formation, and had a brief gathering, and then they each dissipated and went to a distant place.

The two groups of people, as they said before, said goodbye to Chu Lantern Xiao early, so when they really wanted to leave, they didn't greet the young man again, and each quietly took their bags and went to other places, although they didn't say where their respective destinations were, but they all left Liguanzhou without exception.

When Chu Yuanxiao really confirmed that they had all disappeared, he suddenly found that it seemed that a series of fantasy fairy events that had happened in the entire town in less than a month, among the thousands of townspeople, he was the only one who knew some causes and consequences.

Walking through the streets and alleys and looking around, there are even occasional dazed people, because this state similar to the book saying "everyone is drunk and I wake up alone" will always make people feel as if those things are actually more like a big dream, just a slightly clear dream of someone who wakes up alone.

A few days later, one evening, the young man who had eaten dinner, as he had done for many years, crossed his legs and sat under the thick and luxuriant old locust tree at the east entrance of the town.

The young man lowered his head, carefully looked at the bamboo cane that seemed to be slightly different from the ordinary bamboo pole, and guessed that this was probably some kind of immortal mark left by the old Taoist for many years, and then raised his head and looked at the golden pillar cliff in the distance on the west side of the town.

After tomorrow, he will also leave the town for the first time, Guanshan Wanli, and go to Shijizhou, which he had not even heard of a month ago.

I will leave my hometown tomorrow, and I don't know when I will return to Qingshan.

……

Since it is a long trip, the preparations that should be made before leaving are naturally necessary.

During the day, the young man had already gone to the sea of clouds in the west of the town, and took more than 100 copper plates from the new shopkeeper of the inn, and stored them in the jade plaque Sumeru that Mr. Cui gave him.

Although in the past few years, he has been using the way of picking game from the mountains and rivers to deal with the Five Organs Temple, and when he goes out to fill his stomach, he can naturally rely on this method, which is handy.

But the current long journey, after all, is not a simple matter, I heard that he is going to the place, not to mention the mountains, but also separated by several vast and endless seas, so it is inevitable to prepare for some entanglement and self-defense, not the best, and it will not be too short-handed when it can be used.

However, the boy didn't dare to take too much money on his body, or more than a hundred yuan was already a lot of money for him, and in the past many years, he had saved money for the copper plates he had saved at home, and at most he couldn't exceed ten, and it was not easy to save money.

So even if he went out this time, he didn't dare to bring too much, even if Su Sanzai had guaranteed that half of the Yunlin Sect's family wealth was not small, enough for him to squander it for many years, even the old shopkeeper in Yunhai had said that when he wanted to use the money, he could withdraw it at will, and there was no need to have any scruples, but he still didn't dare.

In short, for a teenager who is used to living a wrinkled and tight life, suddenly carrying too much wealth will make him sit still, eat badly and sleep well.

What's more, at that time, Su Sanzai went to those few houses to extort bamboo poles, and after coming back, he shared the spoils with the storyteller Mr. Lu in the bookstore, but he gave half of them to Chu Yuanxiao, who actually didn't do anything, and not all of those things were stored in the sea of clouds in the end, and a few pieces were left on him, and now he is also lying quietly in the Sumeru.

So at that time, in the sea of clouds, he told the new innkeeper that he wanted to pay the money, but in the end he only took more than 100 yuan, the new innkeeper who had obviously been greeted by Fan Lao and knew some things was unexpectedly a little unexpected, and his face was stunned for a moment, but he didn't expect this young man to come and pay the money to go far away, but he only took such a small amount.

However, in the end, the trader who was used to doing business, although he was stunned for a moment, he did not make too much fuss and kept it on his face, and quickly counted a bunch of copper plates for the young man from the cash box behind the counter, and he didn't even use the preparation for using the treasury key.

The young man who left the inn carried a package on his back and walked all the way to his own yard at the east entrance of the town.

There are less than 400 courtyards in the town, and there are few free in the past, because it is necessary to make up the 386 numbers, so as long as someone leaves, there will be new families moving in soon, but the boy still knows that as long as a courtyard is left uninhabited for a long time, it will quickly wither and fall into ruins, and the walls will fall down and the houses will collapse, which is the experience he has gained from those salt well shantytowns scattered around the town.

When I passed by the Wufang Pavilion all the way east, I happened to meet the little Taoist priest who officially took over the position of the master of the Lingguan in the north and south of the town, the Taoist name Baisheng, dressed in a cyan Taoist robe, wearing a fishtail crown, smiling and smiling from the south of the town through the intersection of the Wufang Pavilion, as if he was going to the north of the town.

The two met unexpectedly, looking at Chu Yuanxiao, a young man with a package on his back, Bai Sheng raised his eyebrows and smiled, and said, "Xiaodao looks at the donor's dress, is he preparing to leave the town?" ”

Chu Yuanxiao naturally had no need to hide it, so he nodded and did not speak.

Seeing this, the little Taoist priest didn't see it, walked a few steps forward and approached the young man, and then squeezed his eyebrows and smiled, "Do you want Xiaodao to give the donor a hexagram, and calculate whether the trip is smooth or not?" ”

After finishing speaking, he saw that the young man first looked himself up and down, and then with a look of suspicion, the little Taoist priest felt that his ability to learn the divination of the heavenly people was looked down upon, so he hurriedly raised his head and raised his chest, looked at people with his nostrils, and his chest was beating, "The donor should not look down on the ability of Xiaodao to tell the hexagram, the master inherited from my Taoist sect of the great palm of the teaching, Dafan divination and unsealing, looking at the words of the phase, all of them are fine, none of them are accurate, after a hexagram, ensure that the donor can leave his hometown clearly, and hurry away clearly." ”

After that, seeing that the young man was still unmoved, the little Taoist Bai Sheng rolled his eyes again, and suddenly sighed, smashed the back of one hand on the palm of the other, and then said to the young man with a painful face: "If the donor still doesn't believe in the ability of Xiaodao to tell fortunes, then why don't you and I make a deal?" ”

The young man who had made up his mind not to pay for this little Taoist priest was a little curious when he heard this, "What kind of business?" ”

"Presumably the donor hasn't found anyone to entrust the janitor of your courtyard, right?"

Bai Sheng smiled and said: "If the donor is willing to spend three pennies to let Xiaodao show his fortune-telling skills once, and the donor will travel far away from his hometown in the future, your yard will be taken care of by Xiaodao, and you will be taken care of properly, others can't snatch it away, and it won't let it leak wind and rain when the sky changes, and you won't accept the donor's gatekeeper money, how about it?" ”

This deal sounds like a good deal, the young man is worried about who to entrust the yard to, after all, the acquaintances who used to have a good relationship with him in the town have basically left this place, and now the remaining townspeople can only be regarded as nodding friends with him, and it is really difficult to ask for help.

Seeing that there was a door for business and the Taoist temple could enter the incense money of three copper plates, Xiaodao Baisheng hurriedly pinched his sleeves and strengthened his strength, but it looked like he had made a lot of determination, gritted his teeth and said: "If the donor is not at ease, you and I can also set up a note to ensure that when you return to your hometown next time, your yard will still be the same, if there is anything wrong, Xiaodao will compensate you for the money you spent repairing the house!" ”

The young man was a little suspicious, "Why is Dao Ye so persistent?" Sanwen money is a hexagram, and it is worth taking such a troublesome matter? ”

Bai Sheng had a bitter face, "Donor, you don't know, as the saying goes, 'a penny is hard to beat a hero', although the old master of my family is profound, but the ability to make money is really poor, but now he is gone, but he is left with a small path that is almost too poor to untie the pot, and he is about to be forced to dig wild vegetables to fill his stomach like you, so it's okay to say, but you can't be poor The gods in the temple, right?" ”

Chu Yuanxiao nodded, "Then it's a hexagram?" ”

When the little Taoist priest heard this, he was overjoyed and hurriedly agreed, but he raised his hand and touched the sleeve of the Taoist robe on his body, but he really couldn't even touch a copper plate.

After a while, he could only look at the young man with some embarrassment and said, "Can the donor borrow any more money from Xiaodao, and I will pay it back after I finish calculating the hexagram for you." ”

Chu Yuanxiao finally took another piece of paper before returning to the courtyard at the east entrance of the town, and the little Taoist priest did collect three pennies to calculate a hexagram as his business proposal, and also signed a note for him to be responsible for looking at the courtyard.

However, the way to collect the money is still the same as the saying in the Taoist temple, confiscating the money in his hand, explaining that this is a preparatory entanglement, and if you take away a penny, you will lose a penny, and it will not be good if you don't have enough money when you go out, so he still uses the old way to go to the sea of clouds to transfer accounts.

As for the result of the fortune telling, the little Taoist priest said a lot of words, first saying what "the world is thundering, things and nothing is in vain", and then saying "the gains of pedestrians, the disaster of people in Yi", Chu Yuanxiao naturally didn't understand these, but he understood the final explanation, in short, it was a good omen, everything was fine, and it couldn't be better!

Chu Yuanxiao didn't take it to heart when he heard the little Taoist priest say this, he always felt that the guy with the Taoist name Baisheng was actually running for his three copper coins, saying that everything was fine, probably just to say a few good words, so that he could happily pay for it.

……

On the day he left Yanguan Town, the boy who got up early in the morning opened the door, and the weather was not bad.

After leaving the courtyard and locking it again, the town boy with a simple bag stood under the old locust tree for a long time, and then walked out of the town and went to the small mountain bag at the foot of the dragon's back mountain.

Spring has been a long time, although the weather in Liangzhou warms up late every year, but in the past few days, a lot of grass has grown around the two graves on both sides of the hill.

When Chu Yuanxiao arrived at the grave, he first cleaned up some weeds that were scattered on the grave, picked up some loess blocks to block some rat holes and the like, and then lit the incense burning paper bought from the gold paper shop in the town yesterday in front of the two graves.

If nothing else, he may not have the opportunity to burn paper for these two old men in front of the grave in the next year or two.

Chu Yuanxiao doesn't have any friends or acquaintances in Yanguan Town, because he was sealed by Yasheng's memory, so most of these fellow villagers' impressions of him are still stuck in the name of "hard life", so no one should think that there will be a lack of a hard-headed boy with no relatives and no reason in the town, maybe he will feel relieved, because there is a lack of evil star, naturally no one will be willing to come here for him to send some paper money to these two old men.

Chu Yuanxiao brought a lot of incense and candle paper money, the incense candle was inserted in front of the simple offering table in front of the grave, the paper money was lit and burned to the two old men, he knelt in front of the grave to burn the paper, and at the same time told the two old men a lot of things that had happened in recent days.

In fact, there is nothing to hide, the old men are in the sky, and after death, they are all immortals, and they know everything they should know, and they say that this is just to explain to them, why do they have to leave Liangzhou and go far away.

If it was placed in the past, it would not be a big problem to stay in Yanguan Town for a lifetime, and it might be a little difficult to live a lifetime without worrying about food and clothing, but if you just want to live, it may not be difficult.

But not now.

After the young man burned the paper money, he respectfully kowtowed to the two old men, stood up and swept the soil on his knees, walked to the hill in the middle of the two graves and sat down, looked at the graves on both sides, and then raised his head to look at the town three miles away to the west, and then whispered after a moment of silence: "Old men, the old Taoist of the Northern Spirit Temple said that I may be able to live, but it may be difficult, if the Qingdi senior of Shijizhou is willing to help, there is still hope, if he is unwilling, I may not live for ten years..."

"So I don't really know where I'm going to go on this trip... If the fortune is great, I will definitely come back to burn paper for the two of you, if the life is not big enough, the three of us grandfather and grandson will be able to meet over there, so you don't have to worry about me, we will definitely see you again. ”

"You two over there, don't be the evil neighbors who don't deal with each other when you meet, be good companions to each other, and wait for me to come back."

The breeze came, but no one answered.

The boy sat on the mountain bag for a long time, until the sky was bright and the sun was three poles, and many families in the town slowly rose the smoke of cooking for breakfast, and then he got up and left slowly.

At this hour, almost the end of the hour, the sun was just right, the wind was warm and the sky was clear.

Just in time for a hurry.

……