Chapter 68: Mount Xumi (XV)
When Lu Ren woke up, the ox cart was landing.
He opened his eyes confusedly in the bumpy ride, and the first person who appeared in front of him was a burly man with tattoos all over his body. The man seemed to have just finished a busy job and was sweating profusely. When he saw Lu Ren wake up, he let out a long sigh, then stretched out five fingers and shook them in front of him.
"Hey, you okay?"
The electric shock still lingered in Lu Ren's body, and his body was still numb. After a while, Lu Ren gradually regained consciousness. He found that his ribs began to ache again, and his head felt a little dizzy.
Lu Ren felt like he was about to vomit, and everything was not going well, so he lay back down, raised his hands to cover his eyes, and tried to rest for a while. But before he could rest for long, a burst of excited screams from the girls suddenly broke out in the oxcart.
Lu Ren looked in the direction of the voice with a confused look on his face, and saw Maitreya, whom he had not seen for a long time, holding a knife to the neck of the Naga who had been entertaining him before.
"Have they been doing this since escaping from the banquet?" Lu Ren wondered doubtfully.
However, if we look at the two men's actions at this moment and just from their expressions, Maitreya's ugly face makes him look more like a person with a knife at his neck.
The held hostage Naga was still happily expressing his love for Maitreya: "We are truly a match made in heaven."
Longnu, Baihua and Tushan Qiluo on the side were watching the fun and supporting the event without any hesitation.
" Get married ! Get married!"
"Together! Together!"
The atmosphere on the scene was pushed to a climax at one point.
Amidst the noise, Lu Ren keenly noticed that Maitreya's eyes were fixed on Naga's neck, then his eyes narrowed slightly, and then the wrist holding the scimitar moved...
Lu Ren quickly shouted, "Maitreya!"
Maitreya, who was originally planning to wipe Naga's neck directly, was disturbed by Lu Ren's shouting, stopped, and then looked up at Lu Ren. Her face was unfriendly, and it was written all over her face: "Can't you see that I'm busy?"
Lu Ren was shocked by the murderous look on her face. He shrank his neck and swallowed, then laughed dryly and said, "Long time no see."
Maitreya didn't kill Naga in the end. She pierced her finger and left a drop of blood on Naga's forehead. Then she recited a spell in a language that Lu Ren couldn't understand. As Maitreya spoke, the drop of blood began to glow slightly, and finally became like a ruby on Naga's forehead.
Maitreya warned: "You'd better be obedient, otherwise I can kill you with the Prajna Mantra at any time."
This drop of blood was the means that Maitreya intended to use to control Naga. She thought it was an almost impossible task to capture the Dragon King alive, but she didn't expect it to be successful.
Although he didn't know what Naga was trying to do by pretending to be crazy, with the Prajna Mantra, at least he had a layer of protection. Maitreya looked at Naga with a gloomy face and thought: "When he loses his usefulness, I will kill him immediately."
The Naga, whose life was in danger, showed a look of surprise: "Oh my God, dear, have you planted the mark of love in me? I..."
Maitreya didn't let him say the rest of the words. She rolled her eyes, slapped Naga away, and then walked in front of Lu Ren.
She suppressed all the expressions on her face and asked Lu Renfa seriously, "Why are you at the Naga banquet?"
Lu Ren answered truthfully: "Because I was arrested."
Hearing this, Maitreya glanced at Lu Ren and said, "You betrayed me?"
Lu Ren was stumped by the question. He didn't want to lie, but was afraid that Maitreya would be angry. He hesitated for a long time but couldn't give an answer.
Miroku looked at him hesitating and had the answer in her mind. But the strange thing was that Miroku, who was so vicious, didn't care about Lu Ren's hesitation. She just sneered, shrugged her shoulders, and said, "It doesn't matter. I'm used to it."
The oxcart slowly landed. Maitreya put away his scimitar and walked out of the oxcart first, leaving only one sentence: "Originally, I didn't plan to rely on anyone else except myself."
Before Lu Ren could react, he saw the Naga left in the car chasing after him with a roar, shouting, "I'm still here! You can rely on me—"
The Naga's voice gradually faded away, and only a few familiar strangers were left in the ox cart, looking at each other in bewilderment.
Lu Ren looked at his colleagues who had been acting as quiet as chickens after he woke up in order to avoid being exposed due to Maitreya's presence, and greeted them with a slightly hoarse voice: "You..."
Before he could finish his words, he received two hugs.
It was Longnu and Baihua. They cried and held Lu Ren in their arms.
"Wow, Ren, you've lost weight!"
"Son, you've suffered so much. I finally found you."
The arrogant Tushan Qiluo was still unwilling to publicly express her concern for Lu Ren. She just stood aside with her arms crossed, saying, "Weak human, you must be scared."
Lu Ren was indeed frightened, but not because of his experience on Mount Xumi, but because Baihua, Longnu and Tushan Qiluo actually came to find him.
No one had ever gone to such great lengths to look for him.
When he was a child, he lived in his uncle's house and always felt like an outsider. He remembered very clearly that when he had just moved to his uncle's house, he had a quarrel with his cousin for some reason and ran away in anger. He found a bench in the park near his uncle's house and sat there from dawn to dusk. Finally, he succumbed to hunger and walked back alone.
That was the first time he understood what it meant to have nowhere to go.
When the young Lu Ren opened the door of his uncle's house again, he saw a family of three eating dinner with laughter and chat under the warm yellow light. When they saw Lu Ren coming back, they did not blame him, but just restrained their smiles and calmly asked where Lu Ren had been. Without waiting for Lu Ren to answer, they asked him to wash his hands and eat. They did not hurt Lu Ren with bad words, they just did not care.
The strange thing is that they didn't say anything, but Lu Ren always felt that a part of him died in that warm family atmosphere.
It was not until that moment that Lu Ren finally realized that he was truly alone.
It was not until this moment, when he was embraced in someone's arms, that Lu Ren suddenly remembered how many years it had been since he had felt a hug.
He thought: "It turns out that a hug can be so warm."
The hug didn't last long, and Lu Wu on the side began to urge everyone: "Ahem, if you don't get off the car, people will get suspicious."
Baihua and Longnv let go of Lu Ren after hearing this. Baihua introduced Lu Wu to Lu Ren, who saw him for the first time, "This is Lu Wu, the shut-in in the archives room on the fifth floor."
Hearing this, Lu Ren greeted him obediently: " Hello."
The three words "staying at home" hurt Lu Wu's fragile heart. He explained angrily: "What do you mean by staying at home? I just don't like going out."
Dragon Girl added: "Then stay at home."
Lu Wu: Ying.
However, before they could get off the car, they heard the sound of drums and string music outside, followed by the cheers of the crowd. They got off the car and saw a procession of ceremonial guards passing by the oxcart, singing and dancing. They held flowers and Buddha statues in their hands, and at the end of the procession, there were several people carrying rich offerings. Singing and dancing, it was so lively.
Lu Ren didn't quite understand the customs of Mount Xumi, so he asked in confusion: "Is this some grand festival?"
As he said this, he looked at Miroku and Naga who had already gotten off the car, only to find that both of them were looking at the crowd leaving with a serious look on their faces. It seemed that something big had happened.
Maitreya said: "The instruments they play are Brahma drums, and the music they play is said to be enjoyed only by the true Buddha. The sacrifices they carry are also the highest standard of sacrificial rites, but..."
Naga continued, "But it is still a long way from Buddha's birthday and the fasting day, and the music they played is not the music that should be dedicated to Sakyamuni in the traditional sense, which is a bit strange."
As he spoke, the Naga stopped a person who was walking slowly at the end of the crowd and asked, "Excuse me, where are all of you going?" Because this was already the Bodhisattva realm, the Naga performed a etiquette that would only be used among the Posahas, and even deliberately added a tongue-twisting sound to his accent to prevent being mistaken for Tinu or Mori and being ostracized by the residents here.
Miroku scoffed at this, but she did not stop. She was not living in a utopia, she always knew what a disgusting world she lived in.
The Posha was very alert. He looked the Naga up and down for a while, returned the greeting doubtfully, and then said, "Where are you from? How come you don't know about such a big thing?"
The Naga then pointed at Maitreya and said, "My wife and I just came back from traveling and haven't had time to enter the city yet." He then pointed at Lu Ren and the others behind him and said, "Look, those are our servants."
Upon hearing this, Maitreya glared at Naga fiercely, but in order to obtain information, she still cooperated and lowered her head, looking as if she was shy from a distance.
The woman seemed to believe it, so she explained to the others, "Recently, a young living Buddha came to Wenduoluo City, and everyone is busy worshipping the living Buddha, so I won't tell you. I may not be able to catch up with the front row in a while."
Having said that, the woman hurriedly said goodbye to a few people and ran away following the crowd.
"Little Living Buddha?" Naga laughed, feeling it was ridiculous. "Sakyamuni is still alive, but where did this little Living Buddha come from?"
Maitreya was disdainful of his words: "Oh, Shakyamuni can also be considered a Buddha?"
Naga did not intend to argue with Maitreya in such a place. He said, "Let's go and see where this little living Buddha came from."
Lu Ren didn't understand what they were talking about, but he could hear the meaning between the lines. This living Buddha must be a fake. He guessed that it was just like the previous Buddha head, a fraudulent cult.
Lu Ren thought: "I don't know who is so bold as to create a fake Buddha in the Buddhist world. They are really risking their lives."
With such emotion, he followed the crowd all the way, and finally saw the protagonist of today's ceremony in front of a white stone temple - from the back, it was just a child of seven or eight years old, wearing a bright red dress and a crown, and was carried in a sedan chair with no cover on all sides. The sedan chair was turning 360 degrees to ensure that everyone could see him, and the crowd around the sedan chair was constantly throwing flowers at him.
When the so-called "little living Buddha" turned his face, Lu Ren completely lost the mood to watch the show.
The "little living Buddha"'s nostrils moved, as if he smelled something, and then he looked around, and then his eyes looked at Lu Ren through the crowd. The moment their eyes met, the "little living Buddha"'s mouth shrank, revealing an expression that looked like he was about to cry, and he shouted at Lu Ren: "Aren!"
How can this be called a “little living Buddha”? It is clearly a genuine little Qilin!
