Hearing this, Xie Lian paused for a moment, but in the end he didn’t look back. He waved his hand and walked on.

After returning to Xianle Imperial City, Xie Lian went to the Imperial Palace first.

He didn't know why he went, not to see his parents. Not only was it because as a priest he couldn't show his spirit in front of mortals, but more importantly, the older he got and the longer he was away from home, the less he knew how to talk to his parents. This was the same for all children in the world. Therefore, he hid his figure and wandered around the palace he was very familiar with. He didn't see the king anywhere else, and finally came to the Qifeng Palace, where he saw his father and mother.

The two dismissed the palace servants and were talking. The queen was sitting beside the couch, fiddling with a golden mask in her hand. It was the same mask that Xie Lian wore during the Lantern Festival three years ago. The face and facial features of this golden mask were carefully carved according to the face of Xie Lian, so when Xie Lian wore it, it fit his face very well and he didn't feel anything unusual. But when someone else saw it, it was a bit scary. The king said, "Don't play with that. Put it down and press it on my head."

Although the king and queen followed all the rules in public, Xie Lian had seen it clearly since he was a child. His parents were just an ordinary couple who would nag at others. The queen really put down her mask, sat over and rubbed the king's temples twice. Suddenly, she stroked his hair and said, "Your hair has turned white again."

Xie Lian took a closer look and saw that, as expected, his father's temples were slightly gray, making him look older for no reason. He thought to himself, "Didn't my father go to Huangji Temple to pray for blessings a while ago? His hair was still black at that time, how come it suddenly turned white?"

The queen took out a bronze mirror and wanted to show it to the king, but the king said, "No, no, no. Next time before you go to Mount Taicang, dye it and it will be darker."

Xie Lian finally realized, “His hair didn’t just turn white recently! It was white a long time ago, but he dyed it black every time he came to see me. And I was busy listening to the believers’ prayers all day, and I was so tired that I rarely came back to see them, so I didn’t notice.”

After thinking this through, he felt extremely ashamed. He was very glad that his parents could not see him. The Queen massaged the King's head while scolding him, "I told you to go to bed early every day, but you refused to listen to me and said that I was nagging you all the time. You have become so ugly that the Pope would not want to pay attention to you when he saw you."

The king snorted, "Your son has grown up and become independent, so he has ignored me." Although he said so, he could not help but secretly glance at the bronze mirror beside the bed and muttered, "It's not that ugly, isn't it still the same face?"

Xie Lian was stunned. He had never thought that his father would have such a side behind his back, saying "bad things" about him in a sour way. He couldn't help laughing. The Queen also laughed and said, "Good, good, not bad. Your health is more important than anything else. Go to bed early today."

The king shook his head and said, "I can't rest. Recently, many people from Yong'an have come to the imperial city. They came, but they also made a fuss everywhere, making people panic. It's a difficult situation."

It turned out that his father's hair turned white because of the drought in Yong'an. Xie Lian felt an indescribable pain in his heart. The Queen nodded and said, "I heard from Rong'er that he also met a man from Yong'an today. It is said that he wanted to rob money in the temple. It was so scary."

The king concentrated and said, "Yes, it's horrifying. It would be fine if there were dozens or hundreds of them, but if hundreds of thousands of them came, and all of them were wandering around the imperial city, the consequences would be disastrous."

The queen hesitated for a moment and said, "That may not be the case. If it is in accordance with the rules and regulations, then come over."

The King said, "How can a ruler of a country take risks with something like 'maybe'? Besides, they can't come over. Supporting more people is not as simple as adding more pairs of chopsticks. It's very complicated. You don't understand, so I won't explain it."

The Queen said, "Okay, I won't say any more. I don't understand what you're talking about. If only the Emperor were still here, he could at least help you share your worries."

The king snorted again, "Him? What can he do? It's good enough that he doesn't cause me any more worries."

Speaking of Xie Lian, he seemed to perk up, and said, “I won’t talk about your prince. He’s already a teenager, but you’ve been raised like a princess. It’s useless for him to know, it will only cause him more trouble. He should just fly in the sky peacefully. It’s best if he doesn’t know anything and just do his own thing. Now he’s not the crown prince anymore, and the world is none of his business. Let him fly as much as he wants.”

Xie Lian silently listened to his father scolding him vigorously, while the Queen smiled and pushed the King: "Now you know that he is a princess, but you have spoiled her since she was a child? Do you still want to turn the tables and blame me?" Then she sighed and said, "This child is good in everything except that he doesn't miss home. He was like this when he was studying at Huangji Temple. He would not come back for several months. Now that he has ascended to heaven, he is even more powerful. I haven't seen him for three years. I don't know when I will see him again."

She complained, but the king excused Xie Lian: "What do you know as a woman? The national teacher said that this is the rule of the heavens. How can you treat him as a mortal? If you ask your son to come back, won't you be a drag on him?"

The queen said hurriedly, "I was just saying it casually. I won't ask him for anything like that." She then said to herself, "It's not bad to look at the statues. They're almost the same. His statues are everywhere."

After watching this for a long time, Xie Lian felt a pain in his chest, as if something was stuck in his throat, making him feel extremely uncomfortable. He just felt that he couldn't stay any longer. But he couldn't show up. It wasn't because he was afraid of breaking the rules of heaven, but he didn't know what to say if he showed up. As for Yong'an's matter, he couldn't give any good solution for the time being. Showing up suddenly would only make his parents flustered.

He quickly left the palace, came outside, took a few deep breaths, and then calmed down. He calmed down and cheered up, thinking that it was better to take action than to sigh. He casually pinched the seal, transformed into a plain-clothed Taoist, ran around the imperial city, measured and recorded everywhere. After running around and working hard for a day, he finally got a definite answer.

The water levels of all the rivers and lakes in the Xianle Imperial City are really lower than before. When he was in the Imperial Temple, he had sneaked down the mountain a few times to play and go boating on the Le River, the largest river that runs through the Xianle Kingdom. At that time, the water level was only slightly lower than the embankment, but now it is several feet lower. Moreover, the residents in the city said that it has been like this for a long time, not just a recent situation. Xie Lian didn't pay attention to it before, but now he pays attention and finds that all the signs are shocking. He originally hoped that Mu Qing's information was wrong, so he came to verify it in person, but now he has to admit that Mu Qing still did not disappoint him.

After confirming this fact, Xie Lian stood at the river bank in a daze, as if thinking about something. From time to time, pedestrians passed by him, some smiled and nodded, some looked curiously, and most of them were happily doing their own things. I don’t know how long I stood there, but the sky was gathering with clouds, and it was drizzling all around, and it actually started to rain.

Passersby on the road covered their heads and looked up at the sky, saying, "What bad luck! It's raining, let's go back quickly!"

"Yeah, yuck!"

The raindrops dripped onto Xie Lian’s face and body. He finally reacted and said to himself, “It’s raining?”

The people of the Imperial City would try to avoid the rain, but who knows how many people on the other side of Xianle Country were eager for such a heavy rain. A few people ran by with umbrellas, and seeing Xie Lian still getting wet in the rain, they pulled him and urged him, "Little Taoist priest, why don't you run? The rain is getting heavier!"

Xie Lian followed him in a daze, and they ran to a long house. The others put away their umbrellas, laughed at each other, and said, "Luckily I brought an umbrella with me when I went out to see the clouds today, otherwise I would have been soaked to the skin."

"It has been a while since it rained. I'm afraid it has been held back for too long, so it will be quite heavy."

"Oh look, it's really getting heavy again! It's going to turn into a rainstorm!"

The raindrops fell to the ground, shattering and scattering. The accents of these people were extremely familiar, which made Xie Lian realize more deeply that this was the place where he was born and grew up, and these were the people he was familiar with.

As they chatted, the rain gradually subsided. Several people said, "Let's go now while it's light!" After that, they opened their umbrellas and went out of the eaves, but Xie Lian still stood there. Several people turned around to look at him, discussed for a few words, and then one of them came over and handed him an old umbrella, saying politely, "Young Taoist priest, can't you go back? I think the rain is still a little heavy, why don't you use this umbrella?"

Xie Lian finally came back to his senses and said, “Thank you very much. What about you?”

A few people in the rain ahead said in a coquettish voice: "We still have umbrellas, we can squeeze in, let's go!"

Hearing his companions' urging, the man stuffed the umbrella into Xie Lian's hand and ran away. The few of them stepped on the water and walked away, while Xie Lian stood for a while holding the umbrella. Suddenly, he saw an inconspicuous small temple not far ahead, so he opened the umbrella and walked forward in the rain. When he got closer, he saw the couplets on the left and right sides of the small temple door, which read "Body in Wujian" and "Heart in Taoyuan" respectively, and finally confirmed that this was a prince's palace.

Eight thousand temples were built in three years. Of course, it is impossible for every one of them to be as magnificent and lavish as the one on Mount Taicang, which amazes people. Many of them were built by grassroots people to make up the numbers and add to the fun. There is no merit box, no temple priest, only a clay statue, a few plates, some snacks and fruits. If someone with a heart comes to clean it occasionally, it can be a temple on its own.

Hidden in this inconspicuous corner is such an inconspicuous prince's palace. Before entering, Xie Lian saw the statue of the prince, which was almost naive: colorful clothes, a big white face, and a silly smile, just like a big doll. If he hadn't been worried, he would have laughed out loud.

In the past three years, Xie Lian had seen at least 3,000 statues of the prince, if not 5,000. He had never seen a statue that looked exactly like him. The most similar ones were only about 70% similar, and the rest were either too ugly or too beautiful. Most of the statues of other priests were too ugly, but his was just the opposite. Some were so beautiful that they were deformed, and so beautiful that he himself was embarrassed. He didn't look at the clay statue carefully at first, but just glanced at it. Who knew that in this glance, he caught a sudden touch of snow-white, so he glanced back.

This rough clay statue of the prince holds a bunch of snow-white flowers in his left hand.

The petals were pure white, stained with a little crystal dew, extremely delicate, and a faint fragrance floated in the air, very lovely. The standard posture of the statue of Prince Xianle was "one hand holding a sword, the other holding a flower", but the flower in the left hand was of course a golden flower, a gemstone flower, or a jade flower with exquisite craftsmanship. This was the first time Xie Lian saw a statue of him holding a real flower, so he couldn't help but move closer.

After a closer look, he found that the left hand of the clay statue of the prince should have been holding a clay flower. But he didn't know whether the sculpture master's craftsmanship was poor and the flower branch fell off, or someone took it off as a prank. Now, there is only a small hole left in the left fist. The bunch of small white flowers just happened to be inserted in this small hole. If someone picked them specially to fill the gap in the left hand of the clay statue, it would be really thoughtful.

Just as he thought of this, Xie Lian heard a burst of hurried footsteps. Without turning back, he first hid his figure and lightly flew to the altar with the umbrella, then turned around and looked down. He saw a young man rushing in from the gray rain outside the temple.

The boy was only twelve or thirteen years old, soaked to the skin, wearing dirty old clothes and a dirty bandage on his face. His right hand was tightly clasped in his left fist, as if he was protecting something. After running into the temple, he slowly opened his hands.

A bunch of small snow-white flowers bloomed quietly in his hands.