Sangsang's condition was temporarily stabilized, and Ning Que was most grateful to Ye Hongyu. He knew that the young Divine Priest of Judgment should be on the way to kill Long Qing. Logically speaking, even if they were not friends, he should have expressed a certain degree of worry out of gratitude. But he did not.
Ning Que had absolute confidence in Ye Hongyu. The current Prince Long Qing was indeed very terrifying. In the Battle of Autumn Rain, if he had not been lucky, he would have died long ago. However, he still believed that Ye Hongyu was the most terrifying person among the younger generation of cultivators. Since she had said that she would kill Long Qing herself, then Long Qing would not be able to escape death.
Looking at the autumn scenery outside the window, he recalled the bloody battle in the autumn rain, the ghostly figure of the fallen knight in front of the ruined temple, and Long Qing, who was wearing a black Taoist robe, suddenly overlapped with some scenes in his memory. After a while, he remembered that in his dreams, he had seen three black whirlwinds in the Wilderness.
The three black whirlwinds were cold and dark, as if they were a part of the night. Now that he thought about it carefully, it was really similar to the feeling that Long Qing and the fallen knight revealed.
Ning Que increasingly felt that what Long Qing had said that day might be true. The guy who learned to eat and loved to eat people was the Son of Yama.
Thinking of this, he suddenly felt that his state of mind was calmer. The faint fear of rumors about his origin and the Buddhism Sect had naturally lessened. He was a little anxious about reaching the Lanke Temple.
No matter how anxious he was, the journey still needed to move a mile at a time. Especially since Sangsang's body was weak, she could not bear to travel for a long time without rest, so the horse carriage did not speed up.
The weather in the south was relatively warm and humid. It was late autumn, but the feeling of autumn was thick but not severe. There were many green trees on both sides of the road, which was much more pleasing to the eye compared to the desolate scenery in the north.
Occasionally there would be an autumn rain, but it was getting colder day by day. Sangsang's body became colder, especially her hands and feet, which felt as if they were made of ice.
The warming effect of the liquor was getting shorter and shorter. Therefore, Ning Que pasted the remaining failed Fu paper with the warming effect on Sangsang. He also made a brazier in the carriage. The Fire Fu, which was extremely precious in the eyes of cultivators, kept burning in the brazier day and night. No one knew how many Fu papers were burned during the short journey.
Ning Que's Psyche Power could not withstand such extravagance and exaggeration no matter how powerful it was. His face became more and more haggard.
Sangsang did not dissuade him, because she knew it was meaningless and ineffective. If Ning Que was sick, she would do the same thing, and Ning Que would not dissuade her.
She looked at the autumn scenery outside the window every day, or at Ning Que's face by the window, with a calm smile on her face. For her, as long as the scenery was beautiful, even if the autumn wind and rain fell and the yellow leaves withered, as long as it was Ning Que's face, even if it was haggard as if he had not slept for many days.
Sangsang looked at the scenery longer and longer, and the smile on her face became sweeter and sweeter. However, she spoke less and less. In the past few years, she did not speak much, but now she became more and more silent.
She did not know if the Elder of Lanke Temple could cure her strange illness. She did not know if there was a future for her, and if there was, what kind of future it would be. The fear of not knowing was the reason for her silence.
Ning Que understood her feelings, but he did not say anything because he knew Sangsang's temperament.
Sangsang, who seemed gentle but was actually stubborn, never liked to be comforted. That was because she and Ning Que had risked their lives to survive all these years, so she knew that no matter what happened, she could not be weak. The weaker she was, the easier it would be for her to die. If she was moved by being comforted, that would be the beginning of her weakness.
Ning Que did not comfort her, but hugged her more tightly in his arms. He looked at the autumn scenery outside the window and stared blankly for a long time. In fact, this was good. They both felt as if they had returned to ten years ago.
Other than holding Sangsang in his arms and staring blankly at the scenery, Ning Que had been doing something else the rest of the time, especially when Sangsang was asleep. That was to repair the Primordial Thirteen Arrows.
There were special tools for repairing arrows in the arrow box. His hands were very steady, and the talisman carved on the iron arrow shaft was originally his, so the repair of the iron arrows went smoothly.
Just as he was repairing the last iron arrow, there was a hubbub of voices coming from outside the carriage.
Sangsang lifted the curtains and looked forward. She saw several strangely shaped mountains among the hills in the south. The tops of the mountains were flat and looked like the black tiles on the eaves.
They had arrived at Wa Mountain.
…
…
In the world of Haotian, the Buddhism Sect had been silent for thousands of years. They cultivated behind closed doors. Occasionally, they entered the human realm, but they were willing to be vassals of Haotian Taoism. Most of them were famous for their thinking and meditation. In the relationship between worshiping Buddha and worshiping Heaven, many eminent monks directly believed that the fate wheel was just another way of expressing the will of Haotian.
This statement made the Buddhism Sect live in a low-key manner under the system of Haotian Taoism. It was so low-key that many predecessors wrote in their notes that the Buddhism Sect was more of a way of thinking than anything else.
Perhaps it was because of these various reasons that the Buddhism Sect was not very prosperous in the world. Other than the sadhus in the countryside, it was extremely difficult to find a Buddhist temple in countries like the South Jin Kingdom.
The only exception was the Yuelun Kingdom. That was because it was very close to the Xuankong Temple in the Unknown Place of the Buddhism Sect in the depths of the Wilderness. The Yuelun Kingdom was deeply influenced by the Buddhism Sect, and cultivating Buddhism was extremely popular there. There were even descriptions of the 72 temples in the misty rain.
However, the 72 temples in the misty rain could never surpass an ancient temple in the famous southeast. Whether it was the importance to the Buddhism Sect or the position in the hearts of the believers, this ancient temple far surpassed the temples in the Yuelun Kingdom.
This ancient temple was the Lanke Temple.
The Lanke Temple was in the Tile Mountain.
…
…
The Lanke Temple had a very long history. According to the ancient records, not long after the West-Hill Divine Palace was built, there were trees falling in the depths of the Tile Mountain. Pavilions were built, and pagodas and halls were gradually built.
In the rumors of the cultivation world, the Lanke Temple was the Mountain Gate left by the Unknown Place Xuankong Temple. It was similar to the relationship between the West-Hill Divine Palace and the Zhishou Abbey. Therefore, it was extremely respected and no one dared to violate the Mountain Gate.
History and legends created the unique status of the Lanke Temple. For countless years, no one knew how many tragic, solemn, or legendary stories were staged in this ancient temple. It was also because of this ancient temple that the Yue Laan Hungry Ghost Festival gradually became the most important festival in the world. The most popular debate in decades also began here.
It was not yet the day of the Yue Laan Hungry Ghost Festival and the Tang Empire's diplomatic corps had not arrived yet. However, the Tile Mountain was already very lively. On the second floor of the houses on both sides of the bluestone street, all kinds of flags and banners were hung. The colors of the banners were very simple, mostly black and white. No one knew if they were a metaphor for the most popular game of chess around the Tile Mountain, or the real reason for the Yue Laan Hungry Ghost Festival, which was to expiate the souls of the Underworld.
It was believed that the ordinary monks in the Lanke Temple and the residents who had lived in the town for dozens of generations did not know the origin of this custom. For the people living in the present world, the Yue Laan Hungry Ghost Festival was just a simple and pure grand festival. All they needed to do was enjoy the festive atmosphere.
There were already many tourists in the town at the foot of the Tile Mountain. No one knew where these tourists came from, but they all had the same happy smile on their faces. The adults greeted each other with a smile and enjoyed the scenery in the legendary thousand-year-old houses. The children ran and chased each other on the street. A girl panted as she chased after her brother, her little face full of grievance. Suddenly, she saw hundreds of red fish in the stone pond by the side of the road. She immediately squatted down and stared at the calm swimming fish with her eyes wide open. She had long forgotten that she wanted to find her brother and cry.
The middle-aged man standing by the stone pond looked at the girl and smiled. He handed her a thin wooden stick with a thin net the size of a teacup tied to the end of the stick. The girl looked at the people behind her who were fishing for money and shook her head shyly. She knew that fishing for fish required money, but her mother had said that she was too young to bring money with her. She could only leave it with her brother, but her brother had taken the money to buy sugar figurines. She did not know where he was now.
The girl suddenly remembered that she was chasing after her brother. She screamed and stood up. Just as she was a little afraid, her brother, who was about seven or eight years old, squeezed out of the crowd and looked at her with a proud smile. Then, he took out two copper coins from his waist and stuffed them into her little hands.
The red fish in the stone pond were no longer as peaceful. The water splashed and the moss on the side of the pond began to peel off. From time to time, the sigh of disappointment and the shouts of surprise from the brother and sister could be heard on the street.
The black horse carriage stopped outside the town and did not enter.
The cavalry of the Kingdom of Qi's National Palace had been driven away by Ning Que.
Through the curtain, he and Sangsang looked at the peaceful and happy town and the brother and sister who were squatting by the pond fishing for fish. They probably remembered the scene when they went to the market in the walled city when they were young and laughed.
…
…
The Tile Mountain was not a single mountain, but several mountains connected.
These mountains were still emitting a faint green color in the late autumn. They were very similar in shape, and their peaks were flat as if they were cut by a knife. From afar, they looked like several black tiles that had been casually put together by a naughty child.
While the town was very lively, the depths of the Tile Mountain were still so quiet. The corner of the ancient temple loomed in the forest, as if it was influenced by Buddhism. The last chirping of the southern autumn cicadas did not sound sad and desperate, but indifferent.
This was the back of the mountain. If they wanted to go to the Lanke Temple, they would never be able to reach the main hall from this mountain path.
But the black horse carriage was slowly moving up the mountain path.
Ning Que did not bring Sangsang to the Tile Mountain to go to the Lanke Temple. He wanted to go to the back of the mountain to find someone.
In the secluded mountain behind the Lanke Temple, there lived several generations of Buddhist Bhadanta who had lived in seclusion.
Ning Que was looking for one of them.
It was the elder of the Lanke Temple whom he had heard of countless times.
…
…
(Try to finish the next chapter before 10: 30.) (To be continued. If you like this work, please come to Qidian.Com to vote for me. Your support is my greatest motivation.)
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