Chapter 83 Prologue
A month ago, Li Jing received an order from Tathagata, sending him and his son to capture the golden-nosed white-haired rat that had stolen and eaten half of the incense, flowers and precious candles.
Although Li Jing was the Great Marshal of Heaven who subdued demons, he was also the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King of Lingshan. He immediately took the order and brought Nezha and a group of heavenly soldiers down to the earth.
After a lot of hard work, the father and son found the whereabouts of the golden-nosed white-haired rat, but they had to postpone their actions because the bottomless cave in Xiankong Mountain was deep and interconnected.
After lying in ambush for several days, they finally found an opportunity.
While the golden-nosed white-haired rat was out eating people, they blocked it outside the bottomless pit and captured it in one fell swoop.
Nezha originally wanted to beat it to death directly, but was stopped by Tathagata who showed his Dharma image. He also said, "Raising fish in stagnant water will never be caught, and feeding deer in deep mountains will lead to immortality," and asked them to release the golden-nosed white-haired rat.
Unexpectedly, the golden-nosed white-haired rat climbed up the pole and, in the name of repaying the favor of sparing his life, worshipped Li Jing as his adoptive father and Nezha as his sworn brother .
Nezha was filled with anger when he mentioned this matter: "Since the white rat demon escaped to the bottomless cave in Xiankong Mountain, it likes to disguise itself as a woman in distress, tricking people into the cave, first sucking their yang energy, and then eating their flesh and blood. I don't know how many lives it has killed."
"It would have been fine if the Buddha was so kind that he didn't want to take her life, but he didn't even punish her at all and let her go! If we had known this earlier, why would we have spent so much effort to catch her?"
"And that Li Jing, I don't know if he was bewitched or what, but he actually agreed to take that rat demon as his goddaughter, and caused me to get involved with that filthy beast. It's really bad luck! Bad luck!"
Nezha said several unlucky words in a row, picked up the jar of wine and gulped down several mouthfuls, but it couldn't quench the anger in his stomach.
Li Anran's heart was moved, and he thought secretly: "Has Li Jing already known about the journey to the West to obtain the scriptures?"
Just looking at the fact that Li Jing took the white rat spirit as his goddaughter, it doesn't make sense either from a moral or logical point of view.
But, if Li Jing already knew about the Journey to the West.
From the perspective of interests, it makes perfect sense!
Although Li Anran was not clear about what secrets were hidden behind the journey to the West.
However, only Taishang Laojun, Taiyi Jiuku Tianzun, Tathagata, Maitreya Buddha, Guanyin, Manjusri and Samantabhadra, the Three Stars of Fortune, Longevity and Prosperity, the Twenty-Four Constellations and so on are involved.
It can be guessed that there must be huge interests hidden behind the journey to the West.
What Li Jing accepted was not a goddaughter at all, but an opportunity to participate in the journey to the West to obtain Buddhist scriptures and get a share of the spoils.
And this cup of soup was obviously fed to Li Jing by Tathagata.
Although Li Jing's strength is average, he has a special identity.
He is not only a disciple of Lingshan Tota-holding Heavenly King and the ancient Buddha Dipankara, but also the Grand Marshal of Heaven who subdues demons and is in charge of a hundred thousand heavenly soldiers and generals. He is also the father of Nezha, the third-generation direct disciple of the Chan sect, and Jinzha and Muzha, the former direct disciples.
It is equivalent to having close relations with the three largest forces in the world.
Only then could Tathagata value them so much that he would leave all the Bodhisattvas and Vajras in Lingshan unused and let the father and son catch the golden-nosed white-haired rat.
However, judging from Nezha's performance, he obviously didn't know this.
"Come on! Let's have another match!"
After three rounds of drinking, Nezha, drunkenly, pulled Li Anran up and started another fight.
Only then did he vent all his depressed emotions, and he sailed away leisurely on the cloud.
Li Anran looked at Nezha's back, and familiar names that he had seen or heard during this period flashed through his mind.
The Bull Demon King, the Golden-winged Peng Eagle, the Green-haired Lion Monster, the Yellow-toothed Old Elephant, the Monkey King, Zhu Bajie, the Sha Monk, the Golden Cicada, the Yellow Wind Monster, the Lady Emerging from the Earth…
He suddenly realized.
At this time, there were still more than 300 years before the journey to the West to obtain the scriptures.
However, the big net called Journey to the West has been quietly spread out, pulling more and more gods and Buddhas into it.
In this way, Yang Jian’s situation will probably become more and more difficult!
"Yang Jian is already the God of Justice, but in the original time and space, he didn't start to make big moves until the Precious Lotus Lantern period. Is it because of this reason?"
Li Anran didn’t know the answer, but he didn’t dwell on it. Instead, he continued to practice.
No matter when and where, strength is the most important and reliable thing, no doubt about it!
More than a month later, Li Anran's life returned to normal again.
In addition to practicing every day, he would drink, discuss Taoism, and compete in martial arts with the Meishan brothers or Nezha.
As time went by, his friendship with Nezha gradually deepened.
Sometimes Nezha would talk about some past events in the Investiture of the Gods, allowing Li Anran to verify them one by one with the Investiture of the Gods in his memory.
Sometimes they would just drink and compete, and after the competition, they would leave drunk again.
Li Anran could feel that Nezha was very lonely deep down in his heart, and he tried hard and seriously to make friends.
After learning that Li Anran had successfully practiced the Thirty-Six Transformations of the Heavenly Constellation, Yang Jian was surprised and began to make efforts to take time out to guide Li Anran in his practice.
Yang Jian practiced the Eight-Nine Mysterious Art, which has the same origin as the Nine-Transformation Original Art.
His original intention was to teach Li Anran how to practice the Nine Revolutions Yuan Gong.
It turned out that Li Anran's attainments in the Nine Revolutions Yuan Gong were not worse than his attainments in the Eight-Nine Profound Art!
What is lacking is just a long period of hard work.
So, guidance turned into communication, and then, it turned into learning from each other.
Yang Jian's three-pointed, double-edged sword, although called a sword, is also a kind of gun.
Unlike them, Nezha and Li Anran both have strong personal styles in their martial arts.
Yang Jian has completely suppressed his ego, and his style is changeable and unpredictable.
With the same level of cultivation, Li Anran sometimes couldn't even withstand Yang Jian's hundred moves.
However, Yang Jian did not think that his martial arts level was higher than Li Anran and Nezha.
I'm just saying that this is another direction and another option, which may not be suitable for everyone, nor may it be correct.
But no matter what, Li Anran gained a lot from being able to compete with a master like Yang Jian.
It’s a pity that Yang Jian’s official duties are too busy.
It is already very rare to find time to practice with him two or three times a month .
Moreover, the time is not fixed.
It may be as long as one or two hours, or as short as half an hour.
During this period, a big piece of news shocked the entire three realms.
A water god from the lower world reported to the Jade Emperor that the Great Sage Jiao Mo Wang, one of the Seven Great Sages who formerly dominated the three realms and who had colluded with the Dragon King of the Changhe River to cause chaos, was the illegitimate son of Ao Shun, the Dragon King of the North Sea.
When the four dragon kings heard the news, they were terrified and almost immediately set off for the Heavenly Palace to apologize to the Jade Emperor.
They knew that the Demon King Jiao had been wandering outside since he was a child, and they themselves did not know about this, let alone go along with the Demon King Jiao.
The Dragon King of the North Sea swore on the spot that he would sever his father-son relationship with the Jiao Demon King and would use the entire power of the North Sea Dragon Palace to hunt down the Jiao Demon King.
The other three sea dragon kings also expressed that they were loyal to the Jade Emperor of Heaven and would never tolerate such evil villains going unpunished. They would fully support the North Sea Dragon King until the Jiao Demon King was killed.
At the same time, give reassurances.
In the future, all dragons in the world will be well restrained. Once any of them are found to have violated the laws of heaven, they will be escorted to heaven as soon as possible and dealt with by the Jade Emperor.
But, almost at the same time, the Jiao Demon King, who had disappeared for a while, suddenly appeared and led thousands of demon soldiers to attack the Dragon Palace of the North Sea. He threatened to kill all the dragon sons and grandsons of the Dragon King of the North Sea to relieve his hatred.
Fortunately, the Great Emperor Zhenwu who was guarding the North Gate of Heaven noticed the abnormality in the North Sea and sent his two generals, the Turtle and the Snake, to provide support, which forced the Dragon Demon King to retreat and resolved the crisis in the Dragon Palace of the North Sea.
However, many dragon sons still died at the hands of the Dragon Demon King.
Such a scene of loving father and filial son made the already not-so-good reputation of the Four Seas Dragon Clan fall into the mud!
On this day, Li Anran was practicing martial arts in the Tianlao Palace.
The Third Holy Mother suddenly came to him and asked to borrow the Heart-Searching Pearl.
