Volume 2: Miaomiao Scholar, indignant as a mountain, smashes the throne room Chapter 049 One Night
A breeze in the forest stirred the mist.
The Taoist who came back dragging the peach wood sword only noticed the scholar, Nie Honglian, and Toad Taoist standing at the temple gate. He was stunned for a moment and hurried forward.
"Hey, what are you guys doing here?"
Lu Liangsheng was very happy to see an old friend, but he was a little puzzled as to why he met him here.
"I should be the one asking you this. Aren't you going to exorcise demons and monsters in heaven and earth? Why are you still here?"
Then he invited him into the temple.
Over there, Sun Yingxian came a few steps forward, his expression suddenly changed, as if he had remembered something important. He waved his hands repeatedly and said, "You go in first. I forgot something very important."
In the sight of Lu Liangsheng and the other two, he turned and ran into the woods opposite. After rustling for a while, he came out and said while tying his belt, "I came here in a hurry and forgot to wipe it..."
Nie Honglian glared at the Taoist priest: "Disgusting!"
Look at his actions and the sentence: "I forgot to wipe it..."
It was not difficult for Lu Liangsheng to guess what it was. He couldn't help laughing, went back to the campfire, and took out the bowl and chopsticks from the small compartment under the bookshelf.
"It's time for dinner, let's sit down and eat together."
The Taoist priest, who had tied his belt, did not hesitate to sit down cross-legged and smell the rice porridge in the pot.
"Why is there no meat at all? Luckily, I passed by a village in the afternoon and caught some in the fields."
As he spoke, he took out a few peeled things from the bag at his waist. They were white and only the size of a palm. He tore them into several pieces and threw them into the pot.
A meaty aroma rose from the pot.
Lu Liangsheng broke off a dry branch and threw it into the fire, then watched Sun Yingxian scoop a spoonful of porridge into the bowl and asked the same question again as he had asked at the temple gate.
"…Why are you here?"
"You may not believe me when I tell you this." The Taoist took a sip and sat closer. "I have been traveling for two years and passed by Hegu County. I remembered Lujia Village and came to visit my old friend. I had a stomachache and went to take a shit. As a result, those four bastards ran over and bumped into me. They also said there were monsters here. So, I, with the heart of exorcising monsters and defending the way of Taoism, came right away."
Nie Honglian spat at him from a distance.
"Exorcist... Do you think we will believe you if you looked so eager just now?"
On the other side, Sun Yingxian could only chuckle twice. No matter whether it came from a female ghost or a woman, it was still difficult to respond to the words.
Lu Liangsheng scooped up a bowl of meat porridge and handed it to Master Toad, asking, "By the way, where have you been these two years?"
"northwest."
The Taoist buried his head, scraping the bottom of the bowl with his chopsticks. He finished his meal quickly, wiped his mouth, and went to get another bowl.
"...I went to other places first, and then went to the northwest a year later. I ate sand for a year, but..."
At this point, Sun Yingxian squatted beside the fire with a bowl in his hand, smiling quite proudly: "...But I have made rapid progress and have already reached the foundation-building stage."
There are two small realms in foundation building, one is called Kanxu and the other is called Cushi. Lu Liangsheng has only reached the Kanxu small realm in the past three years. He is anxious to come out to participate in the autumn examination and also has the idea of coming out to improve his cultivation.
While thinking about it, the Toad Taoist suddenly spoke, chewing the meat he had picked up from the porridge, and asked: "This meat is good, what kind of meat is it? I have never eaten it before..."
"You've never eaten this kind of meat before?" Sun Yingxian picked up a piece from her arms and waved it towards Toad: "Frog."
Hearing this, Lu Liangsheng was stunned for a moment and looked at his master.
"What is a frog?" The toad took out the meat he was chewing in his mouth and took a closer look. He saw that it was still attached to the frog web. His short body suddenly froze in place, with veins bulging on his forehead.
The next moment, he picked up a small branch on the ground, jumped up, and waved it wildly at the Taoist's head!
"You're asking me to eat my own kind. You have bad intentions."
Although it didn't hurt, Sun Yingxian still held his head and dodged, shouting: "I respect the old and love the young, and I never... By the way, you are not a frog, why are you hitting me?!"
The Toad Taoist was stunned for a moment, glanced at his disciple out of the corner of his eye, coughed twice, threw away the twig, and walked back with his flippers on his back.
"I am telling you not to kill indiscriminately."
He shook his head and sighed , then smiled at Lu Liangsheng and said, "Master has been a toad for more than three years, and I almost think of myself as a real person..." As he said that, he threw the remaining meat in the bowl back into the pot.
Lu Liangsheng looked at the frog meat floating on the porridge in the bowl and said, "Then I'll cook another pot for Master later."
"Need not."
The Toad Taoist sat down and clapped his webbed feet: "It's just a little bland, add some more salt."
The Taoist covered his head, sat back by the campfire, and wiped the marks on his face.
"I just got beaten up for nothing..."
This sentence caused the Toad Taoist to glare at him, which made Nie Honglian and Lu Liangsheng laugh secretly. After a while, Lu Liangsheng continued talking to Sun Yingxian.
"By the way, what's going on in the northwest? Why did you come back?"
"It's a bit chaotic over there. In the past two months, not a drop of rain fell. Several cultivators went there and cast spells to pray for rain, but it was useless... Now the spring sowing has not been done over there. If there is no harvest in the next six months, there will probably be a big chaos."
Lu Liangsheng frowned and looked at the flickering flames.
"What about the court?"
“No.”
Sun Yingxian put down the bowl, lay down on the hay on the ground, put her hands behind her head, and spoke in a complex and indescribable tone.
"...Anyway, I haven't seen it on the road since I came back. It's been tough this year in the northwest."
The leaves outside the temple were rustling, but it was relatively quiet inside the temple. Toad Taoist didn't care about these things. He ate, turned over and fell asleep.
Lu Liangsheng stared at the fire in silence, then suddenly smiled and said, "There are many capable people in the court. Why should we two idle people in the mountains worry about it?"
The Taoist on the other side of the campfire also felt that this topic was a bit heavy, and then changed the subject .
"…By the way, why are you in this dilapidated temple?"
"Go and take the exam for the juren this year." The scholar spread his hands and said, "Otherwise, how would we have met?"
When Sun Yingxian heard Lu Liangsheng talking about academic matters, she quickly covered her ears and turned away.
"Stop talking. Your words make my scalp numb when I hear them... You also said that when we get to Lujia Village and eat the food cooked by your mother, we won't have a chance anymore."
Lu Liangsheng smiled, took a book and read it by the firelight.
"Why don't you come with me to Hegu County, and after the provincial examination, we'll go back to Lujia Village together."
"Let's talk about it later..."
Sun Yingxian must have been exhausted after the journey back. After saying a few words, she fell into a deep sleep. Amid her snoring, there was the sound of turning papers.
At one side, Nie Honglian lay on the altar and quietly looked at the scholar's concentrated profile, her lips curled up and a pair of dimples formed in a slight chuckle.
"……So lovely."
Not long after, a golden light appeared in the distant east, piercing through the clouds and spreading out the black edge that covered the sky and the earth inch by inch.
The old donkey neighed excitedly. The people in the temple had already packed their luggage and were crossing the mountains and fields, heading for the county town in the north. They were talking and laughing along the way, and it was very lively.
