Below me, there are mountains, rivers, pastoral villages, and stars.
The big black buffalo walks slowly in the clouds.
The time in front of me seemed to have fast-forwarded countless times.
In the blink of an eye, day and night have already alternated.
Xu Ji didn't react for a while.
Until he saw the familiar divine sword circling around him twice.
Only then did he finally wake up.
"It turns out that I'm in the human world!" He said softly, probably knowing that it was the old god who asked him to come and see the human world before leaving.
Then he gently reached out and grabbed the divine sword.
The big buffalo riding beneath him mooed, which sounded very friendly.
Um……
There seems to be nothing wrong with Taishang Laojun riding a green ox, and Laojun's junior brother riding a buffalo!
The only problem is...
Xu Ji looked around and fast-forwarded an unknown number of times.
White clouds and gray dogs, wild horses and dust.
Xu Ji thought of a story he had read. A farmer who was cutting firewood saw two Taoists playing chess on the mountain and couldn't help but go over and watch.
At the end of the game, the farmers returned to the foot of the mountain, but it was a hundred years later.
My parents, my wife and my children are all gone.
The ax in his hand has long since decayed.
Even the clothes on his body have turned into dust.
"Is this the difference between immortals and mortals?" Xu Ji thought.
An immortal moment is like a mortal life.
This mythical world actually has such a core?
"How can I slow down time and return it to its normal flow?" he thought.
As soon as this thought came to his mind, he understood it inexplicably.
Just like someone asked him what 1+1 equals.
He knew the answer subconsciously.
He just lightly patted the big buffalo beneath him. The psychic buffalo mooed and swept its tail lightly.
The flow of time around you slowly slows down.
The big buffalo he was riding also slowly descended towards the mountains and rivers below.
When Xu Ji felt that time had returned to normal, he and the big buffalo had landed on a narrow field path.
On both sides of the road, there are pines, cypresses and willows planted.
The gurgling river water irrigates the fields.
Vertical and horizontal streets of the same size spread out one after another on the plain.
The millet is oily and the wheat ears are green.
"The countryside is so beautiful!" Xu Ji couldn't help but praise!
As a young man born in the industrial age, Xu Ji grew up and lived in a modern city built of reinforced concrete.
Rural area?
In his memory, it is a distant place.
I only see him briefly on weekends when I go fishing in the suburbs or go to a farmhouse to experience it.
However, the countryside he saw was no longer the countryside his fathers knew.
Almost all rural roads are cement roads or even asphalt roads.
Farmers are not what they used to be.
There is no need to face the loess and turn your back to the sky.
Various modern technologies have entered thousands of households.
The pastoral songs in textbooks have long gone.
It is said that only in remote areas, traditional farming methods are preserved.
Now, I see the countryside in front of me full of pastoral colors.
My nose smelled the earthy fragrance in the air.
Xu Ji thought of the "Peach Blossom Spring" in middle school and suddenly felt the same.
Isn't he like the fisherman who strayed into the Peach Blossom Spring?
Then he patted the buffalo under him and rode the buffalo slowly forward along the field path.
After a while, the sight of rising smoke appeared on the horizon.
Xu Ji then told the buffalo under him: "Let's go and see that village!"
About ten minutes later, Xu Ji rode a buffalo and arrived at an extremely quaint and simple village.
A wide river flows in front of the village.
Willows hang down on the water, and fish jump out of the water from time to time.
The sun had just risen to midday, and the small village house was quiet and peaceful.
that is……
Xu Ji looked at the houses in the village at the entrance of the village.
The courtyard walls are made of rammed yellow mud, and the roof is covered with thick thatch.
At the entrance of the village, several children with braids were playing under the trees at the end of the village.
They were wearing dirty, tattered old clothes, no pants on their lower bodies, their buttocks were bare, they were dirty, and they were shaking their noses. When Xu Ji rode a buffalo, he passed by them.
.
These children also raised their heads curiously and looked at the stranger.
Their faces looked like they hadn't been washed for a long time.
His eye sockets are sunken, his skin is yellow, his hair is messy, and he is skinny. You can tell at a glance that this is caused by malnutrition.
Xu Ji couldn't help but frown.
This is different from the pastoral song he imagined.
Where’s the promise of ‘picking chrysanthemums under the eastern fence and leisurely seeing the southern mountains’?
Or……
Is this the price of pastoral pastoral?
In this way, Xu Ji, who was riding on the buffalo, looked at these children, and these children looked at him.
There was curiosity in his eyes, as if he had never seen an outsider before.
After a while, a boy who seemed to be about eight or nine years old came forward weakly and asked: "Taoist priest...are you coming to our village?"
Xu Ji nodded lightly. Previously he was worried that he didn't understand the language of this world.
But now it seems that it is too much to worry about.
It seems that in this mythical world, at least the languages are connected.
The child's eyes lit up and he asked cautiously: "Are you sent from Qufu?"
"Qufu?" Xu Ji blinked, and he remembered that this is a mythical world similar to the Spring and Autumn Period.
He checked and found that during the Spring and Autumn Period, the capital of the Lu State was Qufu.
Later, this place became the hometown of Confucius, and it was famous throughout the ages because of Confucius.
So, Xu Ji followed the child's words, nodded, smiled and said: "I'm from Qufu!"
The child's attitude immediately became respectful: "You are finally here!"
"I'll take you to see the village elder..."
"Okay!" Xu Ji said with a smile.
Under the leadership of this child and other children, they rode buffalo and walked towards the village.
………………………………
Yan Liang walked into the room cautiously.
He looked at the young man surrounded by countless shadows.
That young man named Xu Ji.
At this moment, the other party's face showed doubts, and his eyes seemed to be filled with supreme wisdom, sparkling.
It is like the Buddha who is sitting under the bodhi tree in the legend, and also like the immortal who slays demons and demons in the fairy tale.
The temperature in the room seemed to have suddenly dropped by more than ten degrees.
Yan Liang felt that goosebumps were rising on his skin.
What he saw in front of him shocked him greatly.
"What are these?" He pointed to the shadows.
"Remaining souls!" Leader Tongtian looked at the shadows surrounding him one by one, and said softly: "The dead souls have no place to go, so they remain in the heaven and earth, turning into ghosts and becoming unknown!"
In ancient times, he had seen similar situations.
That was the era before Empress Houtu reincarnated into the six realms of reincarnation.
The souls of the witches, monsters, and newly born human beings have no place to return.
Therefore, his incarnation is unknown, and he wails day and night.
Empress Houtu cared about the common people and sympathized with the three realms, so she resolutely sacrificed her life to reincarnate in the six realms, so that the souls of heaven and earth had a home, and reincarnation was no longer the exclusive domain of the mighty!
Therefore, virtue and mao in the three realms will bring blessings to all generations.
Even the saints no longer refer to each other as fellow Taoists, but instead address them respectfully: Empress!
But these shadows in front of me are different.
They are the fragments of the soul.
Moreover, it’s not just the fragments of the soul!
Leader Tongtian looked at his hand. It was a pool of viscous liquid that smelled of spiritual energy, but the smell was quite foul. There was no fragrance of spiritual energy at all. Instead, it was like food that had been left out for several days and had gone sour.
The spiritual energy in this world is thin.
Unless they are in certain places where spiritual energy is naturally abundant, the souls of ordinary mortals should quickly decline without the nourishment of spiritual energy, and become like ashes within a few days.
Therefore, they do not have the conditions to become ghosts.
So, is this the so-called ghost that is causing trouble?
Lord Tongtian thought.
The remaining soul is earth, and the thing in the hand is water.
Water is stirred into the soil to make it sticky.
Become a monster!?
Leader Tongtian put down what he was holding, turned to look at the official in front of him, and asked softly: "Do you know the origin of the demons and ghosts?"
