"Hey, they are just some young monks. Lord Mountain God took pity on them and let them settle there. He specifically told them to ring the bell every day to relieve his boredom. Those monks were also obedient and did not dare to stop for a day."
There was a flash of uneasiness on his face, but he soon puffed up his belly and said proudly.
Qiu Ping rushed over and delivered another flattery, making the shrew float even more.
"Lord Mountain God, when are we going to pick fruits?" Qiu Ping didn't like the environment there, and the bells outside the temple always made him feel a little dangerous.
"Don't be in a hurry. It's getting very early now. They'll wait a little longer. The best time to pick Buddha's leg melons is late at night. There's a lot of knowledge involved. I probably won't understand what he said. Listen to what he said.
That's right." The shrew swung his legs, looking like he was very knowledgeable.
Although Qiu Ping felt more and more strange in his heart, he nodded and followed the wrong party up the mountain...
Not long after the two of them left, at the east foot of Huangzhong Mountain, there were four young men carrying a soft-bottomed sedan, walking steadily towards the mountainside. Beside the sedan, there were a few young people dressed as scholars following.
If it is the Chinese New Year, many nearby people and nobles come to Luohan Zen Temple to pray for good luck. It is said that the Buddha enshrined here is quite efficacious, so although Luohan Zen Temple was just built not long ago, it has already been established in Changning County.
Whether it is famous or not.
The journey they took was quite lively.
"Brother Genran, I heard that I have a talent for poetry. Why don't you write a poem when the bright moon passes by Huangzhong Mountain?" Everyone was walking towards the mountain, and one of the scholars was chatting and laughing with the people beside them, but suddenly he suggested.
If Qiu Ping were here, he would have discovered that the "Brother Genran" was actually the Jing Xinghuai who dreamed of him in the ancient well that month.
Jing Xinghuai, the word is generous.
"Poetry and poetry are the only way to govern the country, and classics and articles are the only way to govern the country. Jing has sworn that he will not write poetry until he is admitted to the imperial examination unless he answers in the examination room. He can be happy because of the scenery, but he does not want to lose his fortune because of the scenery.
"
Jing Xinghuai laughed and declined.
Everyone was waiting for encouragement, but they heard a slight cough coming from the soft sedan.
"Xing Huai's words are reasonable. Although peace is still there in the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court has seen long-term abuses. You must eliminate the abuses for the imperial court, instead of wallowing in beautiful words and sentences for a whole month. Hong Hong wasted his youth's good time.
"
A middle-aged man with a thin face lifted the sedan curtain and spoke softly.
As soon as he said those words, everyone immediately fell silent, not daring to say any more irrelevant things.
Because that middle-aged man was not the Imperial Hanlin of the Ming Dynasty, the number one scholar seventeen years ago, the great talent Pei Tao who was famous all over the world.
Or the examiner of that Qingzhou Provincial Examination, the teacher of the scholars in front of me.
"Xinghuai, come close and shut up." Pei Tao waved towards Jing Xinghuai.
Jing Xinghuai rushed in front, and the other candidates around him looked a little envious. If he could be chosen by Master Pei, he would be able to pass the Jinshi examination in the future, and he would definitely be able to soar into the sky.
Because of Pei Tao's status and age, it is almost certain that he will enter the center of power in the future.
"I wrote an article in Qiu Wei and said: 'Heaven establishes a monarch for the people', which made him have some insights. He saw that there were many unfinished meanings in your words. Now it's just me and him.
How many gaps are there in my heart, can I tell him all about them?" Pei Tao spoke softly.
In that rural examination, Jing Xinghuai's literary talent was not outstanding, and was at the level of Pei Tao. But the ideas contained in his articles were very unpalatable to Pei Tao.
Therefore, he specifically named the wrong player as the sixth player.
Jing Xinghuai organized his thoughts, combined some of the revelations he had received from the mysterious god and his own thinking recently, and told Pei Tao everything.
…
Morning came in a blink of an eye. In the late night of winter, the moonlight was almost invisible. Thin mist covered the sky, but it was a sneak peek... Oh no, it was a good time to pick fruits.
The shrew covered the eastern half of his face with a rag strip, and sneakily ran along the corner of the temple.
Behind him, a child about three feet tall followed on tiptoe.
"Mountain God..." Qiu Ping's face was dark, and he didn't look like he was going to do any serious work.
"Shh! Remember not to use your magical powers for a while." The shrew turned around and quickly told Qiu Ping not to shut up. He carefully looked around and made sure no one noticed him, then he breathed a sigh of relief.
He jumped over the wall of Luohan Zen Monastery with a shudder, and Qiu Ping followed suit.
The environment inside and outside Luohan Zen Monastery is very complex, with sutra halls, pagodas, monks' residences... but the shrew seemed to have entered his own home, and no one noticed him along the way.
In less than a quarter of an hour, the two of them arrived at an orchard.
As soon as I got close, I could smell a rich and strange fragrance. In the orchard, there was a faint glow of Buddhist light and Sanskrit. If there was an invasion by foreign enemies, they would immediately be counterattacked by Buddhist restrictions.
"Little loach, hold on to his tail." The shrew raised its butt, and a small tail that looked like bean sprouts was exposed.
Qiu Ping was a little disgusted, but he pinched Wan Fang's tail with his leg fingers.
"Hey, let's go in and pick fruits." After Qiu Ping grabbed his tail, the shrew rushed forward and turned into a shadow together with Qiu Ping.
Qiu Ping felt that his body was slightly stagnant, and then, as if he had passed through a layer of bubbles, he instantly passed through the barrier of the Buddha's light and entered the orchard.
There are dozens of fruit trees growing outside the garden. The fruit trees are all heavy, and a small part of the golden Buddha's leg melons are ripe and exuding a rich fragrance.
It's like a mature woman, exuding a seductive smell.
The shrew was so drooled at the sight, with a lewd smile on its face, that it climbed up to a fruit tree in a few steps, hugged a whole ripe Buddha's leg melon and swallowed it in big mouthfuls.
Qiu Ping also moved his index finger at this moment, climbed up to the nearest fruit tree in a few steps, walked among the branches, hugged the Buddha's legs and started eating the melon.
"Crack, click, click."
"Bah chirp."
In the quiet orchard, two more mice are big rats, and they eat to their heart's content.
The most hateful thing is that one of them is the black rat, which has its own scales. Even when eating and taking it, in a blink of an eye, the originally golden orchard becomes like a dog bite, with branches and leaves everywhere.
Even the trunk of the fruit tree has two clear incisor marks.
"Hiccup... I'm too full." The shrew lay on its back, its belly as full as a hill, and almost burped and vomited out all the food it had just eaten.
Qiu Ping was much more rational than him. He ate three Buddha leg melons and put the rest into the space of his scales. He then ate them slowly and digested them to avoid waste.
So even though the shrews ate a lot, Qiu Ping actually took away most of the food in the orchard.