"Where's Chen Da?" Po Lu asked.
"I just came back from sending my children off, and I went to the village to deliver firewood again."
Polu expressed his wish to accept Chen Han as his disciple. When his mother heard this, she was surprised and scared at the same time. She was a simple young woman and never thought that someone would want to take away her son! Young Chen Han heard this and was so frightened that he hid.
Polu knew that it would be difficult to convince him at the moment, so he spread out Chen Han's horoscope and explained: "Ahan's four pillars of fire are strong, and the other five elements are not only difficult to subdue, but also prosperous. This is a sign of great evil for oneself, and it also suppresses the father and the mother. The signs, especially Tai Sui this year, are extremely bad and will bring you life-threatening danger!"
"I don't understand this." Mrs. Chen touched her belly uneasily. The fetus inside was also infected with her uneasiness. It twisted its body anxiously in her belly, making her very uncomfortable.
"Let's do this," Polu said, "When his father comes back, let's come over again!"
So in the evening, they came again.
The master and apprentice stepped on the soft weeds on the hillside and moved forward under the quiet sunset.
It's not dark yet, but the insects are already chirping eagerly, which sounds particularly crisp and loud in the dim scenery dyed by the setting sun. The frogs in the stream below the mountain are also singing in harmony, and it feels very peaceful.
But, it was still an ominous night.
After walking a few steps, he suddenly stopped walking, frowned and asked, "What day is today?"
"Today?" Yankong was asked such a sudden question, and he didn't know how to answer it.
Polu shook his head and said angrily: "No, this year is Wuchen, which belongs to fire. This month also belongs to fire, and tomorrow is also a fire day!"
"It's not good!" The more Po Lu thought about it, the more something was wrong, and he started walking quickly.
"Master! What's wrong?" Yankong chased after him.
"I'm worried they won't make it past Yinshi!" Polu shouted without looking back.
"Why, Master?" Yankong was younger after all and quickly caught up with him.
"One person, two breasts!"
So the two of them quickened their pace at the same time.
The night became restless.
The two of them ran to the door and quickly knocked on the door.
The person who opened the door was Chen Da, Chen Han's father.
He opened his eyes wide and stared at the two Taoists. He held an ax with a cold light in his hand and shouted loudly: "You want to take away my son?"
"Brother Chen, please be patient and listen to me..." Po Lu said hurriedly.
"Stop talking! If you don't leave, my ax doesn't have eyes!"
"If I leave, your whole family will be caught in a fire!" Po Lu couldn't help shouting, but he stopped immediately, knowing that he had revealed the secret.
"If the stinking Taoist priest doesn't leave, he's going to curse people with his stinky mouth!" Chen Da was furious and swung the ax in his hand indiscriminately.
Yankong pulled his master away: "Master, I can't explain why, let's go."
Po Lu calmed down and walked a little further, then turned back and spoke to Chen Da: "Brother Chen, this is not because I'm cursing you. It's not just you tonight, but the whole village will suffer the disaster of Hui Lu." At this time. At this moment, he no longer cared about whether the secret should be revealed or not.
"Fart!" Chen Da is a rough man, and he became even more angry when he heard the unlucky words.
Seeing that his master couldn't make sense, Yankong said, "Do you know the strange things that happened in the village a few days ago?"
"Stinky Taoist! If you don't shut up, I won't be polite anymore!"
"Okay, okay, we won't let you be rude," Po Lu said, "To be honest, the stranger in the village today was talking about a crossword puzzle."
Chen Da calmed down this time. He was also very curious about the strange thing that everyone was talking about.
"One person and two breasts are exactly the character for 'fire'." Po Lu said, "This is a bad omen. Whenever something big happens, God may send a warning to the world, so I'm worried about your safety, because Ahan's character is fire. I’m going to kill you and your wife, because tomorrow happens to be the Fire Year, the Fire Moon, the Fire Sun, so I’m worried about your lives.”
General Chen lowered his hand holding the axe: "How can I trust you?"
"You don't have to believe me, but you have to do one thing." Po Lu first made sure that there was no evil intention in Chen Da's eyes, and then continued: "Tonight, as long as you see someone wearing red, he will chop it down with an axe." ."
"You're kidding! Are you asking me to kill someone?"
"No! It can't be a human being!" Polu said, "Who comes out and walks around in the middle of the night? Especially those in red. Apart from high-ranking officials, they are women and children! If the official doesn't come out in the middle of the night, what kind of person will be walking around in the middle of the night?" If a woman and a child appear in clothes at that time, they must be very strange."
"What if he didn't show up?" Chen Da thought to himself that the Taoist priest was right, and his tone softened unconsciously.
"Of course it's best not to."
"Do you still want my son?"
Po Lu immediately shook his head and left, and Yan Kong hurriedly chased after him.
※※※
The trees in the mountain forest are not densely packed, and a few stars in the dark sky can be vaguely seen.
He leaned against the tree trunk with his broken shoes, closed his eyes, and enjoyed the gentle cool breeze.
"The ancients said that if Lord Huodexing wants to bring disaster to others, he must first warn other innocent people so that they can avoid it."
"This doesn't seem like what Huodexingjun did," Iwakora said sitting aside, "it feels a bit vulgar..."
"Probably not, a spirit is about to appear."
Yankong was puzzled, so he asked again: "How to tell whether Huode Xingjun or a spirit caused Huilu?"
Po Lu pointed to the village at the foot of the mountain. It was vaguely visible that some houses still had lights on, but Yan Kong had already opened his eyes and could see things that no one could see.
What he saw was a misty thing, a fog-like gray-black gas, blacker than the night, covering the village.
That's evil spirit!
Iwakora didn't know what to say, so they had to wait for time to pass and hope that the expected thing wouldn't happen.
But Polu broke the silence: "I'll tell you a story."
During the Tang Dynasty, there was a prime minister named Jia Dan.
One day when I came home from get off work, for some reason I hurriedly summoned the soldiers guarding the east gate and gave a stern order: "Tomorrow at noon, if anyone wearing strange colors enters the city, you must beat him hard and kill him." No matter what!" The servant was puzzled, but he had no choice but to agree.
At noon the next day, something strange happened.
Two nuns walked up a hundred steps away from the east gate. There was nothing unusual about them at first, but when they got to the city gate, the gatekeeper saw that they were wearing makeup, and they were very glamorous. They were also wearing bright red underwear and hanging hangings on their clothes. red jewelry.
The servant thought to himself: "The Prime Minister is a god, a strange person has indeed appeared... He is dressed like a nun, but has not shaved his hair, wears heavy makeup, and wears red inner clothes. He must be the so-called strange person by Prime Minister Jia." So he immediately did not hesitate. He stepped forward and beat them hard, causing the two monsters to have their heads bruised and bloody. They couldn't stop shouting that they were wronged and ran away.
The guard pursued him and injured the monster's foot with the weapon in his hand. The monster ran to a place with a few trees and overgrown weeds outside the city gate and disappeared without a trace.
The servant reported back to Jia Dan, who asked if he had beaten them to death.
The guard replied: "The heads were broken and the legs were cut, but they were not killed. They disappeared and cannot be found."
Jia Dan sighed and said, "It's still inevitable that there will be a small disaster!"
The next day, a fire broke out in the eastern part of the city, burning hundreds of houses. It took a long time to save the house before it was extinguished.
“In the legends of the past dynasties, most of the spirits that bring fires are women or children in red,” Polu said, “but sometimes they are women in white... In short, they are always in inappropriate places and inappropriate places. It just shows up when the time comes.”
Yankong still had questions: "Then what is this fire spirit made of?"
Polu opened his eyes and said, "Among the five elements, fire is suppressed by water and is produced by wood. What do you think those spirits and monsters are?"
※※※
The village is very quiet. There is an old and thin yellow dog that cannot find its companion and is barking at the scenery.
Most of the villagers had gone to sleep long ago, but there was an old blacksmith sitting at the door, facing the cool breeze, humming an out-of-tune tune and swatting away hungry mosquitoes with one hand. His wife had long since fallen asleep, but he was thinking about the past here, and found that he had lived for most of his life, and besides blacksmithing, he seemed to have nothing to remember.
His ears are not very good. This is because he has been listening to the noisy sound of forging for many years. He cannot hear the sounds that are farther away or smaller.
But the night was so quiet that he heard this clearly.
There is a woman crying.
Crying weirdly.
The cry is not miserable or sad, or even the cry that I think I shouldn’t cry.
The old blacksmith looked up and saw a woman in red, a very charming woman, slowly passing by him. If he was still young, he might really become impulsive at the moment.
