"Hahaha..." The old man laughed loudly, "How does it taste?"
"You lied to me, this taste is as bad as poison." Xiao Chen spit on the ground vigorously, and he wanted to throw the wine bottle in his hand to the ground.
"Let me tell you, this is called shochu, a delicious thing that makes your whole body warm and your blood boiling after just one sip." The old man said with a smile.
"It tastes really good. In addition to my throat feeling like it's on fire, my tongue is also extremely spicy." Xiao Chen had a pained expression on his face and almost burst into tears.
The old man made a serious face: "Here, let's try another sip."
Xiao Chen shook his head like a rattle, "No, no, no, I won't drink anymore. If you want to drink, you can drink." After saying that, he put the wine bottle in his hand into the old man's hand.
"This shochu is the standard for a real man in the Ming Dynasty. If you want to be a real man who won't be bullied, start by getting used to drinking shochu and practice it with me. When you finish drinking this pot of shochu, I will drink it again."
Teach you sword skills and body skills."
After saying that, he stood up and walked into the ruined temple.
Xiao Chen, who has been living on the streets since he was a child, can be said to have suffered all the hardships in the world, and he has been bullied countless times.
Especially when he was surrounded by a group of older children who threw stones at him and called him a wild child, he felt an indescribable sadness in his heart.
If he dared to resist, he would not only be beaten severely by the older children, but even their parents who came over would sometimes slap him a few times.
Just like yesterday, if the old man hadn't come to the rescue and the man's wooden pole went down, I might never even have the chance to pick up the leaves of vegetables on the roadside.
Thinking of this, Xiao Chen gritted his teeth, raised his head, and drank the half bottle of shochu in one go.
"Old man, I've finished drinking." Xiao Chen, blushing, staggered into the ruined temple and fell to the ground with a "thud".
The wine bottle in his hand even fell at the feet of the clay statue of the headless Bodhisattva.
When I woke up, it was already the next morning.
Looking at the old man's clothes, Xiao Chen sat up.
"Here, have a drink of cold water." The old man brought over the small earthen jar in the corner.
After taking the earthen jar, Xiao Chen drank most of the jar in one breath. He wiped the remaining water stains at the corner of his mouth with his sleeve and struggled to stand up.
"Don't move, lie down and rest for a while. You kid is dying. I told you to finish the pot of wine, but you really drank it in one go? Even if I wanted to finish the pot of wine, it would take me three seconds.
God, you are really lucky."
"However, you kid is also surprised. After drinking so much high-purity soju, you didn't vomit at all. Did you absorb it all? Do you know that there are so many treasures of mine in that wine? What a waste. What a waste.
If you drink like you do, even if you go to the wilderness, you will poop cleanly."
With a distressed expression on his face, the old man picked up the earthen jar on the ground and placed it in the corner.
In the days that followed, Xiao Chen began to follow the old man, wandering around during the day and practicing his body skills.
At night, the old man lay in the pile of straw and taught Xiao Chen his sword skills.
Seeing that the tree branch that replaced the knife in Xiao Chen's hand was getting faster and faster, the old man let out a deep sleep sound.
In a blink of an eye, more than a month has passed.
As we enter late autumn, the chill gradually sets in.
Xiao Chen carried the earthen jar, filled it with water from a spring not far away, and walked into the ruined temple excitedly.
"Old guy, I brought you some face wash."
After he sobered up that day, the old man gave himself a new name and asked Xiao Chen to call him old guy. And he called Xiao Chen, little guy.
However, the old guy did not move, still looking at the headless clay Buddha statue with his hands behind his back.
Xiao Chen was a little strange. For several days in a row, this old guy had always liked to look at the Clay Bodhisattva. It even had no head. What was there to see about the Clay Bodhisattva?
"Xiao Chen, you must memorize those body movements and sword skills by heart. You must practice more frequently in the future." The old man turned around slowly, and the image of the old naughty boy in the past was gone.
Xiao Chen was puzzled for a while. What happened to this old guy today? Why did he go out of his way and call himself Xiao Chen instead of little guy?
He also said that he should memorize body movements and sword skills by heart and practice them frequently.
Doesn’t he take me to practice together every day? Is he leaving?
Thinking of this, Xiao Chen suddenly felt as if he had lost everything.
He has regarded this ruined temple as his home and the old man as his relative, but now, all of this will disappear.
"Old guy, are you leaving?" Xiao Chen asked cautiously.
The old man nodded: "Well, I'm leaving."
"Then, are you coming back? When can we meet again?" Xiao Chen's voice was so low that he could hardly hear it.
The old man took a few steps forward, lowered his head, looked at Xiao Chen's thin face, and remained silent.
Seeing the old man's silence, Xiao Chen already had the answer in his heart. But he still didn't want to believe that the old man would never come back or see him again.
"Old guy, are you really not coming back?" There were already faint tears in Xiao Chen's eyes.
But he knew that the old man didn't like men to shed tears, so he held back his tears all his life.
"I won't come back, and I'm afraid I won't see him again in this lifetime."
After a long silence, the old man finally said softly.
"So it has been a dream for such a long time? And now, you have woken up from the dream?" Xiao Chen lowered his head and pinched his thigh hard to prove whether this was a dream or not.
"Just think of this as a dream." The old man turned around slowly and looked at the pile of straw in the corner, "Actually, when I met you, it was already time for me to leave, and I stayed here to make such a dream with you.
Dream."
"I don't know if this is right or wrong. Just like my first test on you, there is never a correct answer."
"Then what you said, your master tested you like this, did you also lie to me? You don't have a master." Xiao Chen's eyes were full of sadness.
The old man shook his head: "I didn't lie to you. I have a master, and he tested me in this way. However, the result of the test is different from yours. I 'bought' a lot of meat. I lied to you about this."
"It doesn't matter that you bought back a lot of meat, you are still kind at heart." Xiao Chen roared loudly.
He didn't want to believe that the old guy he had been with day and night for more than a month was an unscrupulous person and a person without kindness.
The old man smiled softly and took out the wine bottle from his waist: "I will give this wine bottle to you. When you think of me in the future, take a sip of wine."
A gust of autumn wind blew by, and the dead leaves on the trees danced in the wind one by one.
Xiao Chen leaned on the gate of the ruined temple, looking at the old man's back on the official road, gradually blurring...
