Lao Xu is gone. That morning, Lao Xu went into the back room alone. When Xu Ming went to look for him, his face was already purple from the cold, and he couldn't even feel his breathing. A little bit of bright light shone in through the small holes in the room, and Lao Xu looked very haggard in the faint light. When Xu Ming carried Lao Xu out of the house, he found that in a few days, this middle-aged man had become skinny, with a wrinkled face and gray hair, like a dying old man.

Xu Ming carried him to the bed, covered him with a quilt, and cooked hot porridge to feed him. But to no avail. He woke up without warning before leaving, Xu Ming was beside him, looking at his face was red, his eyes were shining, but his body was still trembling, Xu Ming knew that this was a return to the light. Lao Xu couldn't speak, just laughed, laughing like a crumpled red date cracking a hole. He pointed to the inner room where Xu Ming had never entered, and nodded. Then he looked at Xu Ming and closed his eyes a little bit.

The snow stopped. Xu Ming buried Lao Xu next to his mother. He didn't feel too much sadness, after all, he was not Lao Xu's real son, he sighed more. "From now on, I'm truly a human being in this world. Xu Ming stood in front of Lao Xu's tomb and looked up at the sky.

The snow had passed, and the winter night sky was a little deep, and the stars were as bleak as white ash on a black curtain. He remembered one day when he slept in a coma and woke up in the dark, without a sound at all. I opened the curtains, looked at the rain outside, and looked down at my phone again, it was clean and there was not a single message. Loneliness is something more terrible than ghosts. Xu Ming found a stone and sat down, looking at the ground with his head down. Lao Tie sat down on the ground in front of him and looked at him quietly.

Xu Ming looked at it, suddenly laughed, and reached out to hold Lao Tie into his arms: "There will be only two of us left in the future!" Lao Tie "meowed" twice in his arms, raised his head and licked Xu Ming's face. The beautiful blue pupils met Xu Ming's eyes. Unexpectedly, Xu Ming felt comfort and encouragement from these pupils, and the cute cat seemed to understand him, it couldn't speak, but told him with beautiful eyes: "I will accompany you." ”

There was a sound of rustling behind him, which was particularly clear in the silent night of the mass grave, and Xu Ming's hearing was very good, and he heard the sound of stepping on the grass very lightly from afar.

"Who is it?" Xu Ming hugged Lao Tie and turned to look at the place where the sound came from, where it was dark and not abnormal. Lao Tie looked up at Xu Ming curiously, and then looked at the place where he was looking.

The cat's eyesight is excellent, especially at night. There's indeed a figure there!"Meow!" Lao Tie also called out threateningly.

"Ahem. The coughing voice was low and old, accompanied by the sound of crutches hitting the ground, and an old man with white hair came into their sight. "Village chief?" Xu Ming recognized him.

"It's me, Amin. The village chief slowly walked in front of Xu Ming. The village chief was a head shorter than him, and Xu Ming looked down at the village chief. The village chief also looked at him, with guilt hidden in his cloudy eyes. The village chief still avoided Xu Ming's gaze, saw Lao Tie in his arms, and saw those beautiful blue eyes. "What a beautiful cat. ”

"Village Chief, is there something wrong?" Xu Ming was still very vigilant, he and the village chief had never known each other, but he had only seen a few glances when he looked at the stars outside the door at night. His legs exerted a slight force, ready to escape, and the arms holding Lao Tie tightened.

Without warning, the village chief knelt down in front of him. "Village chief, you ......" Xu Ming was stunned for a moment, and looked at the village chief kneeling in front of him, and suddenly felt a little at a loss. After being stunned for a long time, he reacted, put down the old iron in his arms, and stretched out his hand to support the village chief. "Hurry up, if there is anything difficult to say, where it is useful to me, the boy will definitely help. ”

"Alas, Amin, I'm sorry for you. The village chief insisted on kneeling and did not get up, "Your father's death has something to do with me!"

"What?" Xu Ming was also taken aback, "You haven't been to our house in the past few days, so why is it related to you." And you get up first, it's cool underground. ”

"Well, it's all my fault for being an old fool. The village chief couldn't resist him, so he helped him to sit on the stone, "You suffered a disaster in the old granary that day, and you have been unconscious since you were rescued, and seeing that you only have breath in and no breath out, your father came to beg me." ”

The village chief looked at Lao Tie in Xu Ming's arms and continued: "When I was young, I went into the mountains to hunt with your father, and your father was still young at that time, a few years younger than you. The two of us were only chasing a wild deer and got separated from the group. I got lost in the mountains and forests again. Luckily, we found a cave and spent two nights in it waiting for someone to come looking for us. During the two nights, in order to keep your father from fear, I told him some legends about our family and our village. I told him that there was a magic technique in our cellar that could bring people back to life. Your father came to ask for this kind of immortal art. ”

The village chief sighed when he said this: "At that time, I relented, so I gave this immortal art that did not belong to our village to your father. The village chief handed over a yellowed booklet, which looked cold and terrifying in the cold moonlight.

"Borrowing the Corpse to Return the Soul", Xu Ming looked at the small book in his hand and looked at the village chief suspiciously.

"Actually, the mission of our village is to guard the spirit of an immortal Taoist couple. The village chief sighed and told the secret that had been passed down from generation to generation in his family. "The ancestor of our family was a scholar of an immortal in ancient times, that immortal chief mana was strong, and he could have risen early, but his Taoist companion who was his childhood sweetheart was mediocre, if it wasn't for this immortal to extend her longevity, that mortal woman should have died early. ”

"But the increase of foreign objects to Shouyuan is limited after all, and the woman is still dead. After his death, he was buried in the endless mountains of the immortals. This was their hometown. After the Immortal Chief's ascension, my ancestors obeyed the Immortal Chief's order to guard the woman's spirit here for generations. Because of the blessing of the immortal elder, my ancestors also learned some spells, and this "Borrowing the Corpse to Return the Soul" was left by the ancestors. The rest was lost. The village chief looked at Xu Ming curiously flipping through the booklet and reminded, "How can there be any good thing in the world that can allow you to save a human life in vain? ”

"What kind of spiritual power is it talking about here? Xu Ming pointed to a place in the book and asked the village chief, "It is necessary to use a huge amount of spiritual power and willing power to complete the traction of the soul." "The air around us contains spiritual energy, and people with spiritual roots can incorporate these spiritual energy into their bodies and transform them into their own spiritual power through cultivation. And spiritual power is the source of unleashing all kinds of immortal arts. ”

"It turns out that this world can still cultivate immortals. Xu Ming looked at "Borrowing the Corpse to Return the Soul", and suddenly said to himself: "It's a little handsome." ”

"Does that mean that Lao Xu is actually an immortal cultivator?" Xu Ming raised his head and looked at the village chief and asked curiously.

"It's not. The village chief shook his head, "There are no monks in our village, and they don't even know that they have aura and spiritual power, just like you did before. ”

Xu Ming was even more curious: "How did Lao Xu use the corpse to resurrect the soul." ”

"He's using his longevity. The village chief shook his head, "There is no free lunch in the world, and if you want to save one life, of course, you have to exchange another life." ”

The mass grave at night was quiet, the moon hung alone in the sky, and the white moonlight made the whole night sky white. A few wolf howls were heard in the depths of the mountains and forests in the distance, dragging a long sound to the sky.

Xu Ming found a burden in that dimly lit room. Inside was a letter written by Lao Xu to him and a small porcelain vase. Underneath the letter are two books that are the same as "Borrowing the Dead to Return the Soul". One is called "Nourishing Qi" and the other is called "Pure Heart".

Xu Ming first opened the letter that Lao Xu wrote to him:

Amin, let's call you that. I must have been gone by the time you read this letter.

In fact, I have long found out that you are not my son Xu Ming, and when the resurrection of the corpse ended, I felt that something was not right. If this technique is successful, I will immediately age to death, and I will never just have more gray hair. But at that time you already had a heartbeat and breathing, and I was overjoyed and didn't think much of it. Later, when you were in your sleep, you would always call out "Tang Jinling", a name I had never heard of, and I knew then that it was not my son's soul in this body.

There was an unexpected problem with the resurrection of the corpse. But it's not surprising, I'm not an immortal with strong mana, I just secretly cultivated some qi cultivation techniques and mental methods, which are the two books in front of you. They are relics of your mother. Your mother came to our village by accident while fleeing and married me. I thought that I could save you by exhausting my longevity, but I didn't expect that only this body was saved, but the soul was no longer the original soul.

Speaking of which, I don't know where you came from, but I'm sorry to have caused you to suffer this unwarranted disaster. I was going to tell you about this at a certain time, but I found that my body was aging at a rate that was visible to the naked eye. Maybe this is the sequelae of borrowing the corpse to resurrect the soul. I calculated that I shouldn't live long, so I condensed all my spiritual power and the remaining longevity into an elixir, which can be regarded as compensation for you and the last gift to Amin. If it were Amin, I wouldn't tell him this, because I want him to live a peaceful life in this small village. You're not the same, and although I don't know where you're from, you deserve to have your own life, at least, this place doesn't belong to you. If you want to stay and live a peaceful life in this mountain village, the village chief should take care of you; If you want to go out, then go out, the world should be very exciting.

......

Lao Tie squatted aside, watching Xu Ming sit in front of the broken table and stare at Lao Xu's letter in a daze, motionless. After a long time, Xu Ming suddenly let out a long sigh, then shook his head and smiled: "Old Xu, old Xu, why did you write your daughter-in-law's name wrong." ”