Dad suddenly turned his head, his dangerous gaze lighting up Ah Cheng's pale face like two rays of cold electricity.
"Come in!" Dad said without any politeness.
For some reason, Ah Cheng literally rolled into the house and even stumbled on the low threshold.
"Dad, you are back."
My father's face always seemed ashen, like a half-rotted bird in the soil, with its feathers falling off, revealing its green, bulging belly.
Ah Cheng almost never hoped that this rough face would show any kindliness. Just as he imagined, the owner of this face was dead, and died when he was a child.
However, after all, he is a living person to a certain extent, Dad, who can speak, and his words cannot be doubted.
"Pack your belongings and leave immediately."
Ah Cheng didn't ask why, and silently lowered his head and entered the room, not even glancing at Xili in Dad's arms, even though she was staring at him with her head tilted, and blood seeping out of her torso.
The mountain ghost's gaze must still be so clean, and it may stir up ripples of hesitation, but it should still be... Ah Cheng packed up the package, went out, raised his head, and looked across the ground, the grass stalks on the ground, his father's shoes, and his pants.
, the blood on his pants, his waist, Xili, her eyes.
Ah Cheng suddenly lowered his head and shook his head. Dad looked at his son with disgust and said, "Hurry up! Keep up!"
In the brief moment of intertwining, Ah Cheng saw the pain and confusion in Xili's eyes.
The father and son, carrying a strange mountain ghost, took advantage of the stars and the moon and hurried towards the distant horizon.
It took four hours to run out. In summer, the days are long and the sky is already dark.
They came to an uninhabited wilderness, with waist-high thatch. Dad took Ah Cheng and ran into a shack covered by grass. He seemed to be very familiar with this place. He pulled out a medicine box from under a rotten and moldy bed board.
I took some plaster and used scissors to cut open the clothes around Xili's waist.
He took off the clothes, revealing a roughly bandaged wound, which was no longer bleeding. Dad untied the linen bandage, revealing a turned-out wound, which seemed to have been pierced by a sword. He applied medicine to Xili and handed it to Ah Cheng.
He was given a broken iron pot and asked to fetch water from a nearby river.
Ah Cheng was carrying the pot, his hands were covered with dust. He scraped the bottom of the pot and found some dregs. It smelled strange, it seemed to be medicine, it seemed to be blood.
The soil in the wilderness is very wet, and mud always gets on his shoes. Ah Cheng tried hard to rub his shoes on the thatch. For some reason, he now cares about this little bit of dignity.
After walking for a quarter of an hour, he found a trickle of water meandering through the grass. Ah Cheng couldn't wait to scoop up water. However, the mouth of the pot was too big and the water was too shallow, so he couldn't hold much. Later, Ah Cheng used his hands to scoop up water.
Holding handfuls of filled pots.
When we returned to the shack, my father had already lit up the fire. Seeing that it took him so long to come back, he just nodded and unusually did not curse.
Dad cut off the hem of Xili's heavy skirt, stretched it into long strips, and put it into a pot to boil.
Ah Cheng sat next to the boiling pot.
Dad's back was somewhat illuminated by the morning light, but facing the firelight and looking from behind, he still looked like he was covered in shadow. Ah Cheng didn't speak. He had nothing to say.
Xili groaned in pain in the shack, and Ah Cheng rushed in, threw himself to the bedside, and held her hand.
The mountain ghost girl glanced at him.
Familiar eyes, Dad had shown this look to Ah Cheng countless times.
disgust.
Ah Cheng felt as if thorns had grown out of the catkins in his hands, and he withdrew his hands as if he had been electrocuted.
"You killed someone."
Dad's deep laugh came from outside the house, like a jackdaw's cry in the thin morning air.
Ah Cheng sat down and said, "You know?"
Xili whispered: "Like Xiaoluo, Cheng, you have an unclean smell on your body."
Ah Cheng thought, yes, a woman as clean as moonlight like Xili must hate people stained with blood.
Xili was still murmuring, looking at the simple roof, where there were several spider webs with shriveled cocoons and the body of a big spider.
"Xiaoluo, he came to see me. However, this time he brought many... people. Xiaoluo asked me to bring him here. Later, there was one beside him, stabbing me. It hurts."
Ah Cheng listened silently, feeling all kinds of things in his heart.
"Xiaoluo, it's Xiaoluo, he said, I'm in the way, and he said, I'm innocent, I don't understand... Cheng," she finally moved her eyes away from the roof and looked at Ah Cheng, "
Tell me, what does he mean?"
Ah Cheng smiled. He didn't even know whether Xiaoluo was older or younger, but based on what Xili said at the beginning, he could probably tell that Xiaoluo was an ambitious person.
Xili continued to ask questions relentlessly and kept repeating her memories with Xiaoluo, which made Ah Cheng very irritated.
"He doesn't want you anymore, he wants to kill you! Don't you understand?!"
Xili was stunned, "What, killing?"
Ah Cheng was speechless.
Xili doesn't understand the suffering of mortals, she has no emotions or desires.
Ah Cheng tried to explain what killing is and what death is, but Xili still had only a half-understanding.
Finally, she understood. "You can never wake up, can you?"
Ah Cheng felt a little helpless, "There is no sleep after death. There will be no more dreams after death."
Now, Xili was scared.
"No dreams? Then I don't like to die."
Ah Cheng sneered, yes, no one likes death. Death should be an existence that all sentient beings should be afraid of and avoid.
Dad steamed the boiled bandage dry with internal air, then went into the house to bandage Xili.
"Let's go, keep going." Dad said coldly.
The look on Ah Cheng's face calmed down the moment he saw his father, and he silently picked up his luggage and picked up Xili.
Dad looked at him with a mocking look, said nothing, took the medicine box and went out first.
They rushed on their way to the city and asked when the inn could leave. Dad was going to sea. When he learned that the next convoy would be in half a month, he rented a carriage and set out on his own.
There is no need to worry about bandits during the journey because there are no bandits.
What we have to worry about are wild beasts, or in other words, mountain spirits and water monsters.
Dad almost fled his hometown with Ah Cheng and Xili.
The day after leaving the province, news spread throughout the Pure Land.
The Vajra Sect was destroyed.
…
Ah Cheng looked at the gloomy sky.
He doesn't like the climate here, it's humid and muggy.
This is Guangdong.
The residence of Lion Gate.
There are fourteen provinces in the world, each guarded by a sect.
Guangdong’s Lion Gate is the best in the world.
Just because they once had a disciple named Li Dingxun.
The second in Qing history, the first among mortals, and the enemy of ten thousand people.
Upon hearing the news of the demise of the King Kong Sect, Shi Xiangmen was furious and sent his masters to the Western Regions overnight.
Their two families are thousands of miles apart in the east and west, but their relationship is as good as the same family.
Ah Cheng thought to himself that he and Shi Xiangmen should be considered as members of the family.
