It was getting dark, and suddenly it began to rain, it was some autumn rain with a chill.

At first, it was just a sporadic light rain, fluttering and silky. After a while, the rain became heavier and heavier, and became dripping and continuous.

This barren mountain on the outskirts of Qingzhou suddenly turned into a color of mountains and rivers, and the rain and mist were shrouded and looming.

The scholar with a scarred face sat on the ground, looking at the smoking bonfire on the ground in a daze, as if his mood was as chaotic as this world. The barren mountains and heavy rain dripped into my heart, drowning a bunch of trivial things. But it can't drip anymore, and it's full of confusion that haunts my mind.

"Old man, where are we going after we rest here?"

"The world is begging for rolling red dust..."The bitter gourd-faced scholar seemed to see the confusion of his companion, hesitated slightly, and said with a half-light smile: "But I like to experience life in this miserable wind and rain." ”

"Old man, what do you say?"

"There are wind, rain, snow and frost in the sky, the earth is rugged, and people have good and bad luck. In life, you have experienced a lot, and you don't have to think about things that you can't figure out, and even if you do, it will only increase your troubles. ”

Hearing this, the scholar with scars on his face showed a confused and surprised look, and muttered:

"If you can't figure it out, you don't have to think about it..."

"Exactly. ”

The scholar with scars on his face was silent for a moment, his face happy and happy.

"What the old man said is really reasonable! Some things are in vain, so it is better to go with the flow. ”

The bitter gourd-faced scholar smiled when he heard this, but he didn't answer, but just used the half-thick branch in his hand to stir the bonfire on the ground even more vigorously.

The two took out some dry food from the package, and ate dinner with the water of the big gourd.

After eating, I felt a little tired and was about to lie down and rest for a while.

There was a sudden commotion outside the ruined temple.

In this barren mountain and wild temple, there is a strange team of people and horses!

In the rain curtain, a team seemed to come out of the smoke and rain.

The bitter gourd Facebook student hurriedly stood up, looking back and forth vigilantly.

The team gradually got closer and closer, and the bitter gourd Facebook student saw that most of the people in the team were young men carrying baskets, wearing either wide clothes and sleeves, or short sacks.

In the wind and rain, those men were wet all over their bodies, and most of them were full of gloom and clouds, and they were in a hurry. Some of them are a little worse and a little more unbearable, and they have shaken into quails.

"This mountain rain is so heavy, I'm afraid this cargo is very troublesome. ”

"Hey, there seems to be a ruined temple over there!"

"He's freezing me to death, so let's go in and rest first. ”

At the head of the team was a resolute-faced, dark-skinned man, who was bare-chested and sturdy, wearing a robe, covered with rain, and was staring at the barren mountain and ruined temple in front of him!

The fire in the ruined temple is swaying, and through the broken doors and windows, the scene is still faintly visible. Some places in this ruined temple are already broken and ruined, dilapidated, only a main hall remains, it seems to have been abandoned for many years, covered with cobwebs and dust, I don't know how many winds and rains it has experienced.

Although judging from the architectural style of the broken temple and the degree of dilapidated and obsolete, this barren mountain and dilapidated temple seems to have stood here for more than 100 years. But the strange thing is that the statue of the god enshrined in the main hall is still intact after a long time.

The resolute-faced man looked at the statue of the god enshrined in the middle of the main hall, and meditated for a while, but he still couldn't tell what kind of sculpture the mountain god was.

"What is this offering?"

"I'm afraid it's the mountain god worshiped by the nearby mountain people!"

"It's like... Indeed..."

The statue of the 'mountain god' in front of them looked at it closely, and this statue seemed to be a skilled craftsman, gently chopping with a heavy axe, carefully chiseled with a sharp carving knife, and finely polished with coarse sandpaper.

It's just that the appearance of the 'mountain god' statue is a little weird, he is like a spider, and he has eight hands. Among the eight hands were shields, axes, spears, and clubs, and the heads were not human. Like ants and insects, fierce and hideous, with exposed fangs, fierce and vicious, extremely ugly.

The toiling mountain people who beg for life in the mountains and mountains are precisely the most admired ghosts and gods, and often carve some strange fairy incense offerings according to their beliefs. This resolute-faced man had a lot of meat and vegetables in his head, and no matter how hard he meditated, he couldn't see which great immortal this sculpture with the head and eight claws of the worm was enshrined.

His eyes turned, but he saw that there were already people in the barren mountain and ruined temple, and two scholars had already raised a bonfire next to them and were resting here.

"This!?"

The bonfire shone brightly in the quiet night, and the bitter gourd face scholar seemed to have seen them a long time ago, and was staring at them vigilantly, as if they were regarded as robbers and thieves who killed people and oversold goods, and the sturdy man in the lead bowed slightly, took away the rain from his face, smiled, and clenched his fists and said:

"In Yanxian County, Xiaqingzhou, 'Xiangyuan Commercial Bank' Xie Laosan, the two scholars don't panic, we are not villains, but serious porters who wade through mountains and rivers. ”

"Xue Changyu!" The bitter gourd face scholar bowed and returned the salute, and pointed to the scholar with scars on his face and said, "This is my cousin, Fan Tong!"

The bitter gourd face scholar said, he sighed, and the sadness on his face became more and more intense.

"My brother and I were suddenly caught in the wind and rain, but we suddenly found this small temple in the mountains and fields, so we came to rest!"

"The same is true for us. Xie Laosan nodded in agreement, and said with a smile: "Two gentlemen, can you borrow some firelight, it's convenient." ”

"When you go out, you should help each other...."The scholar with a sad face called 'Xue Changyu' nodded again and again, "A few brothers, take care of yourself." ”

"What a nuisance for the two gentlemen!"

This peddler pawn originally made a living by selling his feet, and he was vulgar by nature and disrespectful to ghosts and gods, but he was very polite to these two scholars.

It originated from the emperor's indulgence in wine and extravagance and corruption. Cruel and tyrannical, poisonous all over the world. A scholar risked his life to ask for punishment of corrupt officials and corrupt officials, but because of this, he offended a group of villains and was finally killed. was gouged out by the mediocre emperor, cut off his limbs, and cut off his head.

The unyielding scholar who would rather die than die came from Qingzhou Academy, so there were some storytellers in teahouses and restaurants, admiring the scholar's noble character, sacrificing life and forgetting death, and would rather be broken than be a complete tile.

On the day of the restaurant, tea shop, street market, arranging some storytelling stories of punishing evil and promoting good, to praise the unyielding scholar who would rather die, since then the people and mountain people around Qingzhou have admired the iron-clad scholar.

Qingzhou is located in the frontier, and many people in the suburbs are not as afraid of the court soldiers in Qingzhou as the people in the city. Since ancient times, the people of Qingzhou have been fierce, and even some mountain people in barren mountain villages have cultivated the whole village during the day, blocked the road and robbed at night, and used plundering money as a sideline. But these people only have deep respect for literati and scholars.

Several porters put the wet goods in front of the fire, and a swarthy porter in the sun took off his rain-soaked clothes and held them in his big rough hands, as if he wanted to dry them before the fire. His dark face suddenly turned red, and he was a little embarrassed.

"Two gentlemen, I can...."

"Big brother, please. ”

"This gentleman, I don't know if it's okay..."

"It's okay!" The scholar with a new scar on his face followed the voice and looked over, it was a sturdy young man, holding a small bowl full of rain, holding a piece of dry and hard naan in his hand, the scholar was stunned, "Big brother, who are you?"

"This is a kind of sun-dried naan biscuit grain..."The young man with a simple face and dark skin smiled when he heard this, "It's just a little dry and hard, boil the water in the bowl and bubble it with water to eat, sir, can you eat some?"

"Thank you, I had dinner just now. ”

.........

The night is getting deeper and deeper, the night rain on the barren mountains is more urgent, and the dark and dreary night seems to be smeared heavily on the sky, and in the bitter wind and rain, even the glimmer of the stars is hidden.

In the small deserted temple, some people snored like thunder, as if they had fallen into a deep sleep. There are also people who talk nonsense, like a fool's dream, mixed with some grinding sounds.

The bonfire was blazing, and the scholars with scars and scars on their faces tossed and turned and couldn't sleep, only the mountain wind whistling in their ears, the shadows reflected on the porch, and the crackling sound of burning firewood.

The scholar was silent and added more to the bonfire.

"Little friend, can't sleep?"

"Well, I'm not used to it!"

"It's okay, it's a few days before I can get to the house I left behind. ”

After speaking, the middle-aged scholar with the bitter gourd face seemed to be a little sleepy, lying on the straw on the ground, turning over lazily, with his back to the bonfire underground, as if he was very comfortable, and fell asleep after a short time and was silent.

"Whew!"

A gust of mountain wind blew open the door of the house, and the mountain wind mixed with the smell of dead branches and leaves and earth poured in. The scholar, whose face was full of sores and new scars, hurriedly got up and closed the broken door tightly, took a few more pieces of wood, and firmly pressed the door against it.

She was satisfied and lay down, a few days of eating and sleeping in the open, as soon as she lay down, she felt a sore back, bursts of sleepiness hit, and was half-asleep and half-awake, suddenly heard a trace of movement outside the door.

"Knock knock...."

A dull knock suddenly sounded, and outside the wooden door of the broken temple, it seemed that someone was knocking on the door.

"Who is it?"

"Boom!"

Beams of lightning pierced the silent night sky and illuminated the mountains and rivers. Immediately after, a thunderclap resounded through the sky.

Crash~~~

The lightning flashed again, and a strange shadow was instantly reflected on the porch window.

Behind the door, there seemed to be a strange person with a strange head, which made the peach coat emblem shudder.