Cheng Qiao asked me if I could tell how long he lived.
Although the aura on his body was a bit strange, it didn't look like someone who had seized the body. After much deliberation, I couldn't figure it out. I raised my eyebrows and asked him, "Are you not Cheng Qiao?"
"well……"
Cheng Qiao did not answer my words, but sighed leisurely and said: "I have lived for more than two hundred years!"
I was stunned and took a closer look at the aura on Cheng Qiao's body again.
I still saw only a faint air of death and yin, and the air of living people was obviously heavier, not like a body-snatching, and there was no atmosphere of cultivation.
People who practice are different from animals who follow the path. Because people are uniquely endowed, it is easier to practice, so they can never escape the fixed number of lifespan.
The so-called King of Hell wants you to die at the third watch, so how can he keep you until the fifth watch? No matter how high a person practices, he cannot escape the law of "there is a place for life, and a way for death."
Doing more good deeds to avert disasters and cultivating your character can indeed prolong your life, but if you say you can live for more than two hundred years, it is absolutely impossible.
Unless that person is removed from the Book of Life and Death of the King of Hell.
What's more, Cheng Qiao was born under the watch of Zhang Wenhong, unlike Suo She, but he also said that he lived for more than two hundred years, which makes no sense whatsoever.
Cheng Qiao saw me looking at him up and down, and said with a smile: "Let me tell you a story. You will know what's going on after listening to it."
Two hundred years ago, Cheng Qiao's original name was Cheng Siqing, and he was a farmer.
Due to the White Lotus Rebellion, the Qing Dynasty began to decline. Corruption in the officialdom, the imperial court's large-scale garden construction wasted money on the people, and the population boom and rural land annexation were serious. As a result, many farmers lost their land and the people were in dire straits.
Cheng Siqing had just turned thirty-six at the time, and his wife had given birth to thirteen children.
A family of fifteen people originally lived on two acres of thin farmland. Unexpectedly, all the land was expropriated by the court, and the family's survival became a problem.
Looking at the children who were so hungry that they were skin and bones, Cheng Siqing had no choice but to go into the mountains with two other friends to learn hunting, and in exchange for some money, which was barely enough to feed the family.
But as exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes increase day by day, more and more people go into the mountains to hunt, and even this business becomes more and more difficult.
That day, Cheng Siqing followed two friends into the mountains as usual.
In order to avoid competing for prey, the three of them split up after entering the mountain.
Cheng Siqing was lucky. Before it got dark, he shot a hare and a pig badger.
Seeing that it was getting later and later, the time he had arranged with the other two people to go down the mountain was coming soon. Cheng Siqing packed up and prepared to go down the mountain to meet the other two people.
Today's harvest is quite fruitful, and the children can have a good meal again.
After cleaning up, Cheng Siqing walked down the mountain with the prey on his back. Not long after walking, he unexpectedly found a pair of round black eyes looking at him from the bushes not far away. Some snow-white eyes were exposed in the gaps in the bushes.
Hair.
The eyes looked like those of a deer, but looking at the snow-white coat, Cheng Siqing was a little confused. Where could such a snow-white deer exist?
Cheng Siqing placed the prey at his feet and raised his bow and arrow toward the bushes.
The animal in the bush seemed to be aware of the coming danger and blinked at Cheng Siqing's round eyes.
It was a pair of pitch-black eyes with human-like expressions, paired with long, thick white eyelashes. Cheng Siqing was so stunned for a moment that he even forgot to shoot out the fully drawn bow and arrow.
By the time Cheng Siqing came to his senses, the animal had already stood up from the bushes and ran towards the depths of the mountain forest.
It turned out to be a deer, a deer with snow-white fur all over its body.
The best thing was that the moment the snow deer stood up, Cheng Siqing clearly saw that there was a lifelike black plum blossom pattern in the middle of the snow deer's forehead.
This is a sacred deer!
Cheng Siqing thought that he was reluctant to shoot this snow deer with his bow and arrow. He dropped his bow and arrow, quickly took out the noose from his body, and ran after it, hoping to catch the sacred deer alive.
After catching up, Cheng Siqing discovered that the blood deer couldn't run fast. One of its hind legs was injured, as if it had been bitten by an animal, and it was limping along.
Cheng Siqing was overjoyed, knowing that he was lucky. According to the deer's speed, he would definitely be able to lasso it.
But the noose was thrown out several times, but the snow deer skillfully avoided it.
One person and one deer ran quickly in the forest, and gradually ran into a valley that Cheng Siqing had never entered before.
Seeing that it was getting dark, Cheng Siqing became more and more impatient, and gradually became unable to do what he wanted.
It was a deer after all. Even if one leg was injured, it could still run much faster than Cheng Siqing.
The distance between Cheng Siqing and the snow deer was getting wider and wider.
Fortunately, the snow deer's fur was as white as snow, and it still stood out in the darkening sky.
The snow deer also seemed to be tired from running, and its speed became slower and slower. It even stopped and looked around in the direction of Cheng Siqing to see if he could catch up.
Maybe the snow deer was really tired, maybe it was because Cheng Siqing was wearing gray clothes and his figure was hidden by the shadow of the trees, but the snow deer actually stopped and ate the grass on the ground leisurely.
Cheng Siqing was about to give up, but when he saw the snow deer stopped, he rushed forward with all his strength and threw out the noose in his hand.
It's a pity that I still missed the snow deer by a small margin.
Not only was it not lassoed, the lasso was also hung on a branch of a big tree, and Cheng Siqing pulled it for a long time without pulling it off.
Cheng Siqing's movement startled it again, and the snow deer was stunned and spread its hooves again and started running.
This time the snow deer ran very slowly.
It was so slow that Cheng Siqing was completely confident of catching up with it.
Cheng Siqing simply threw away the rope that was hanging on the branch and couldn't pull it off, and ran over empty-handed.
This snow deer is a female deer. It has no horns on its head and is not aggressive. There is no danger even if it is caught with bare hands.
The distance between one person and one deer is getting closer and closer.
Ahead was a tall cliff, and the snow deer had nowhere to escape.
Seeing that he could catch the snow deer with his hand, Cheng Siqing felt ecstatic in his heart. Unexpectedly, the snow deer disappeared in front of the cliff in a flash.
Cheng Siqing rushed up to take a look. The cliff was covered with lush vines and weeds, and there was no trace of the snow deer anywhere.
Unwilling to give up, he reached out and pulled the vines, and unexpectedly found a gap as wide as one person in the cliff. Looking from the gap, the space inside was not small, and it actually looked like a hidden cave.
Maybe the cave inside is the nest of this snow deer, and maybe there are still deer inside!
Cheng Siqing didn't think much, he raised his feet and slipped in through the gap that was only one person wide.