Before Liu Zilin's head fell to the ground, he seemed to be facing the empty underground palace and said something emotionally.
He said...the sword belonged to the Liu family, and asked why the hard work of three generations of his family could not compare with him, the magistrate of Luobo County who had lived in poverty for ten years.
It was said that the three Liu brothers had sacrificed so much to harvest the Dingjian, but they were easily picked by an unrelated outsider like him. It was so unfair and aggrieved.
He also said that he was the one who harmed the female celebrity. This was more uncomfortable for him than if Ouyang Rong killed him directly.
Liu Zilin felt regret, pain, and fear.
Ouyang Rong turned a deaf ear.
Finally, Liu Zilin raised his head and roared.
But the head with these twisted expressions fell heavily on the floor, rolled twice, and stopped at the foot of a lotus pedestal that looked like a red lotus.
Ouyang Rong lay limply on the ground like a dead man.
All around him, there were headless corpses, quietly accompanying him.
An "arc" was suspended in mid-air above Ouyang Rong's head.
Not moving at all.
Not stained with any blood.
There is still a faint blue halo, falling softly on Ouyang Rong's hair below.
It was as if the one-sided killing just now had nothing to do with it.
Well, it is the same as the smile of a certain newly promoted first sword master in the past, harmless to humans and animals.
This man, a sword, and headless corpses all over the ground formed a strange picture.
The Pure Land Palace fell into deathly silence.
Not far away, there is a moonlight long sword, lying quietly under the rosette next to the four-character stone carving of "Go back and come back".
Its gray moonlight merges with the dazzling moonlight blooming on the stone carvings at this moment.
On the four walls of the underground palace, the moonlight emitted by the lines of writing belonging to "Come Back" is getting brighter and brighter. The moonlight is cold and cold, and the light envelopes every corner of the underground palace.
Just then, a vision appeared.
In the empty underground palace, a strange figure suddenly appeared - the moonlight at the lotus pedestal was condensed a little, slowly and regularly gathered, and finally outlined a shadow of a monk wearing cassocks.
The shadow of this cassocked monk is vivid, even the two long eyebrows like fishing rods are realistic and lifelike.
He was sitting cross-legged on the lotus throne in the same posture as Ouyang Rong just sat on the lotus throne.
It seemed that he didn't see Ouyang Rong next to him and the corpses scattered on the ground.
The monk in cassock raised one palm to his chest, lowered his eyebrows and lowered his head to the floor in front of him, writing something seriously.
He raised his two fingers, and there seemed to be a speck of light wrapped around his fingertips.
The monk in the cassock used this as a pen, and the place where he left his words happened to be where the four dazzling characters "Go back, come back" are located at this moment.
The positions completely coincide.
The cassocked monk outlined by the moonlight has a calm expression on his withered face, mixed with a little sadness.
As if he had finished writing the words "Go back, come back" on the stone slab, he slowly raised his head and looked at the cave entrance above his head.
At this moment, there is "rolling smoke" outlined by the gray moonlight, pouring into the underground palace from outside the cave entrance.
What the monk in cassock saw seemed to be a similar scene.
From an outsider's perspective, the light and shadow picture outlined by the moonlight in the entire underground palace at this time is much darker and gloomier, faithfully reproduced.
Ouyang Rong didn't know when he got up, but he was also watching this scene silently.
He knelt down and held up his hands, spit out a mouthful of blood, turned over and sat on the ground, looking up at the strange light and shadow scene in the underground palace:
On the lotus pedestal, the monk in cassocks was coughing like Ouyang Rong, but he was coughing because of the thick black smoke from the fire outside the lotus pagoda.
The choking black smoke gradually drove away the remaining fresh air in the underground palace.
But the monk in cassock did not move at all. He put his palms together and moved his lips while chanting sutras.
The monk looked up at the mouth of the well.
Outside the wellhead, there was the faint roar of a certain mad emperor beheading the temple, the crackle of Buddhist scriptures and pagodas being burned in the fire, and the wailing of monks begging for mercy... it could be heard across a hundred years of time and space.
Four hundred years of famous temples in the Southern Dynasties were destroyed day and night.
But he can't go out.
The monk who drew the ground as a prison slowly lowered his head.
An engraved light spot continued to fly out from the fingertip, and on the four walls of the underground palace, lines of hasty cursive writing were engraved.
A poem "Come Back and Come Back", and a lonely last word.
The monk in cassock sat on the lotus platform, amidst the billowing smoke, his eyelids slowly drooped, and finally he lowered his head.
In the underground palace, the strange moonlight that was inexplicably inspired was silently reproducing the light and shadow of a hundred years ago.
Outline the cycle over and over again.
The dust of history was briefly swept away, and a new one emerged.
This strange moonlight that fills the underground palace seems to contain spirituality. I still cannot forget this scene I witnessed a hundred years ago, and I will take the trouble to tell it to future generations.
The light and shadow in the underground palace are like a dream.
I don’t know how long this scene lasted.
Until the moonlight sword lying on the ground was picked up by a vague bloody hand.
Under the rosette is the four-character stone carving of "Go back and come back", and the blooming moonlight slowly dims.
On the four walls, a dazzling "Chapter of Return" was extinguished word by word and returned to darkness.
Ouyang Rong picked up the sword, stood up, and staggered towards the mural wall on the east side.
In the beam of sunlight above his head, there was a lonely "arc" hanging, but he did not even glance at it.
In front of the mural, Ouyang Rong staggered and supported the wall with both hands before he could barely stand.
His fingers touched the cracks in the mural and touched the old black and gray wall beneath the cracks.
He lowered his head and glanced at his fingertips stained with black ash.
If you guessed correctly, the old wall inside should be the original wall of the Lotus Pagoda Underground Palace.
The current mural walls were newly built by the monks of Donglin Temple later.
From the last words at the end of the sword formula, we can know that Master Zhongma was actually the last Qigong Master in Donglin Temple, or... he was the last sword holder to master the "Hanshi" sword technique.
At the beginning, when the Northern and Southern Dynasties were fighting for the tripod, facing the northern troops marching southward, the royal family of the southern kingdom placed their last hope on the tripod sword.
The royal family of the Southern Kingdom made a bridge, and made the Donglin Temple of the Lotus Sect, Meijia of Longcheng, and Yunmeng Jianze swear an oath to the great road in the lotus pagoda of this temple, and signed a lotus pagoda alliance to cooperate sincerely.
As a result, fate played a trick on people, and the royal family of the Southern Kingdom was as brittle as paper and perished early, which also harmed the female beauty. The half-forged embryo of the tripod sword fell into the hands of Sui Mad Emperor, who ordered the Mei family of Longcheng to continue forging swords.
The monks of Donglin Temple and the Meijia swordsmiths were worried that all the tripod swords would fall into the hands of a single man, and in order to abide by the alliance of the Lotus Pagoda, they returned the Yunmeng Jianze, a new tripod sword, that was originally given as a "ding".
So the two sides cooperated internally and externally, and tacitly took the risk to steal the tripod sword newly forged by the Mad Emperor at the Butterfly Creek.
The reason why Ouyang Rong suddenly realized not long ago is that the virtual object of the tripod sword is not a fixed object like the sword box, but the entire Longcheng County.
It was because Master Zhongma’s method of stealing the sword gave him a heads-up:
Back then, when the Mad Emperor succeeded in forging swords, the swordsmiths of the Mei family, like the elders today, deliberately concealed the truth about the "pretend to be fake" - in fact, the entire Longcheng County was a sword furnace.
, not only cleans the newly born Ding Sword for the first time, but also serves as its pretense.
So Master Zhongma sat far away in the secret underground palace under the Lotus Pagoda of Donglin Temple. He only used the three conditions of the ninth rank, the sword technique, and his true name to directly reveal the newly-baked tripod sword and hid it in the underground palace.
The reason why Master Zhongma, as an eminent monk with exquisite cultivation, can also meet the harsh conditions of the ninth level of cultivation is because the Lian Sect Qi Refining Technique possessed by Donglin Temple is very special. It can naturally dissipate the spiritual energy and smoothly fall to the level of
Any rank.
This is also the reason why Donglin Temple and the Lotus Pagoda Alliance are eligible to participate.
That is to say, Donglin Temple possesses the Hanshi Sword Technique and has its own special Buddhist Qi training skills. Compared with other sects, Donglin Temple can more easily maintain an orderly inheritance of the myth of the sword holder...
After the newly minted tripod sword was stolen, the Mad Emperor naturally became furious. A large number of swordsmiths involved in the incident were killed by the Butterfly Creek. The nearby Donglin Temple also became a target of suspicion. Most of them were slaughtered by the Mad Emperor and the temple was set on fire.
Outside the underground palace, the eminent monks of Donglin Temple who had concealed and protected Master Zhongma almost died, and the ancient buildings of Donglin Temple, including the Lotus Pagoda, were reduced to scorched earth.
Master Zhongma also drew the earth as a prison to trap the hypoxic underground palace.
Just to hide this tripod sword.
Several orthodox Qi practitioners in Donglin Temple were completely dead, and the Lotus Pagoda Collection Room where sword techniques and sect Qi training techniques were kept were also reduced to ashes.
Only then did Ouyang Rong see in the strange light and shadow, Master Zhongma carving words on the wall in front of the rosette, leaving behind his sword formula and last words.
only……
In front of the mural on the east side of the underground palace, Ouyang Rong looked at the dirty black old wall behind the cracks in the mural and shook his head.
If it weren't for the strange moonlight that appeared, he wouldn't be able to see the remaining stone carvings under the dark soot today.
Master Zhongma, who left a legacy behind, did not know that the fire in the lotus pagoda outside the underground palace had been burning for a long time, billowing black smoke continuously filled the underground palace, and the inscriptions and stone carvings on the walls were covered by thick black ash.
Decades later, the new generation of monks who reopened the underground palace buried under the ruins must not have discovered these inscriptions behind the black ashes. They even misunderstood the suffocation and death of Master Zhongma, thinking that he became a Buddha in the physical body.
So they happily renovated the underground palace, covered up the old walls with new walls and new paintings, and preached the miracle of pure land ascension, ignoring the truly precious legacy left by Master Zhongma.
According to the last words of Master Zhongma, this "Hanshi" sword technique was given to the friend who was the abbot of Donglin Temple at that time before Tao Yuanming resigned from office in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and was passed down throughout the Southern Dynasties.
Directly passed down.
As for why Tao Yuanming was the sword master of "Han Shi" four hundred years ago, and what the fate was, it is still unknown.
Ouyang Rong supported the wall, turned his head indifferently, and looked around the Pure Land Palace.
This is not the pure land of Master Zhongma, but the place of his death.
This is also the place where Ouyang Lianghan died.
But the death of the predecessors changed the life of the descendants.
He also became...the sword bearer of a new tripod sword.
"How can there be any pure land of rebirth..."
The young man's blood-stained face showed a sad smile, he raised his head and stretched out his hand, pointing to the blue sky and white clouds outside the well mouth:
"All conditioned phenomena are like bubbles in a dream, like dew or lightning, and should be viewed as such."
Ouyang Rong murmured, his rickety body holding his belly shaky. He suddenly saw several wellheads shaking in front of his eyes, feeling dizzy due to excessive blood loss.
In mid-air, the "arc" that had been static for a long time moved.
Seems to be getting closer.
"roll."
Ouyang Rong sat down against the wall, lowered his head and wiped his mouth.
The little guy named "Tianzuo" had a meal.
The next second, the rope ladder that was hanging down at the wellhead suddenly broke, and the innocent person fell down.
The remaining spiritual energy in Ouyang Rong's body was immediately completely drained.
There was a "bang"! The young county magistrate fell hard.
He frowned and turned his head sharply, and the "arc" in the sky disappeared without a trace.
It seems that he left for fun and didn't want to pay attention to someone.
Ouyang Rong got up silently.
The blood-water bond in my heart still exists firmly and cannot be shaken off.
It's just that the wave of silent killings just now temporarily depleted the spiritual energy in his body, making him unable to force it to appear.
At present, the entire Longcheng County is still a "sword furnace" made by craftsmen, which can transform into reality and hide at will.
Suddenly I discovered that this tripod sword actually had a little temper.
Ouyang Rong lowered his head and remained silent...
After a stick of incense.
The backyard of Beitian Nursing Home.
At a wellhead that was being protected by a stone fence, a scabbard with a rope tied to it suddenly flew out and fell to the outside of the wellhead. With a "clunking" sound, the scabbard got stuck between the gaps in the stone fence.
Shaoqing, at the mouth of the well, suddenly a bloody hand stretched out towards the sky and grabbed the edge.
A young man with short hair covered in blood climbed out of the well with difficulty.
This scene has some similarities.
Ouyang Rong climbed out of the underground palace alone again.
This time, a group of people went down and one person climbed out.
Ouyang Rong turned over and fell, leaning against the mouth of the well, gasping for breath, lowering his head to tear off the cloth and treating the wound. The sunlight above his head made him dazzle and squint his eyes, and he opened his hands to shield himself from the sun.
Outside the well, there is still Donglin Temple in Longcheng County, under the jurisdiction of Jiangzhou, Jiangnan Province, Great Zhou Dynasty.
It's not the missing manhole cover where he stumbled when he was taking the postgraduate entrance examination and worshiping Buddha in his previous life.
Ouyang Rong lowered his head, his expression unclear whether he was sad or happy. On the ground beside him, there fell a moonlight sword and a new bronze beast face.
He was still holding a bloody head in his hand.
Ouyang Rong's palms trembled as he picked up the bronze animal mask.
This was a relic he found on Liu Zilin's body and belonged to Liu Zi'an.
As soon as his fingers touched the mask, Ouyang Rong's eyes filled with purple energy.
He licked his dry lips, closed his eyes, and then opened them again. His purple breath suddenly disappeared, and bells rang in his ears.
Another fifteen hundred merit equal to the previous time was consumed.
In the Merit Tower, there are more than 4,500 merit points left.
Purple mist surged from his palm, wrapping around the mask.
At a certain moment, the mask suddenly stopped vibrating and was completely refined.
Ouyang Rong lowered his head and slowly put on the mask.
Then……
He saw the very familiar silhouette of a dull man in the mask.
"Hahaha……"
The young county magistrate smiled, his face blurred and bloody with tears. He lifted Liu Zilin's head in his hand and said:
"Ah Shan, you have seen it all... Liu Zian is dead, Liu Zilin is also dead, and now the only remaining accomplices are Wei Shaoxuan, Qiu Shenji, and Liu Fu. Don't worry, come one by one..."
He slowly took off his bronze mask, revealing a pair of absent-minded eyes:
"Master, I'm useless. I'm greedy for life and afraid of death, so I can't go down to accompany you."
The most painful thing in the world is that people who want to die fail to do so, and want to die again, but... lack the courage.