As for the cause, since those monsters knew that his previous life two thousand years ago was Chi You, they might also be able to tell him the origin of the girl.
Zhu Yan didn't understand how to be the king of demons.
He is still wandering around, and monsters are guarding him on the road.
If there is a war ahead, the monsters will remind him to avoid it. If there is a dispute between monsters, they will ask him to arbitrate.
However, Hongye and Baipu never showed up again.
Even if there is a threat to his life, he would rather use his limited life to exchange for the opportunity to see Hongye again.
※※※
A few years later, in order to seize power, the new emperor Shi Jingtang ceded a large area of land in Yanzhou in the north to the Khitans in exchange for assistance from the Khitans to consolidate his power. With the military support of the Khitans, he ascended the throne and established the "Jin".
This human political event led to a battle between monsters and another public case two hundred years later, spanning Zhu Yan's two lives. To avoid disturbing the story, it will be told in the next chapter.
In short, it is clear from history that Shi Jingtang is another politician who prescribed the wrong prescription for the world situation.
This piece of land ceded to the Khitan was known as the "Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun" in history. Taking it back became the greatest wish of the Song Dynasty. In order to realize its wish, it also caused the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty and caused the Song Dynasty to lose a larger territory in the north. .
Yanzhou, one of the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun, was later built by the Mongols in the Yuan Dynasty and became the "Dadu". After the Ming and Qing dynasties, it became today's Beijing. This is a story later.
Those who pursue power always live in trepidation. Zhu Yan draws lessons from his personal experience. Although he is the king of demons, he is never attached to that "king". Taoists rule by doing nothing, seeming to be there but not doing anything. On the contrary, they win the favor of the demons. Respect.
Only a few years after the establishment of the Jin State, Shi Jingtang died of illness. The Khitan people immediately attacked the Jin State without hesitation. The country perished in only eleven years.
Zhu Yan had already been warned by the monsters, and before the Khitans attacked, he set out south, but on the way he received the long-awaited news.
When Zhu Yan was fleeing to the south to avoid the war, a toad spirit came to him and said: "Your Majesty, I heard that your Majesty is looking for the whereabouts of two people. Our boss has collected some information and asked me to tell you."
Zhu Yan couldn't help but tensed up after hearing this: "Please tell me." When Toad Spirit invited him to be the King of Hundred Demons, he once asked about the identities of Bai Pu and Hong Ye, but it was already fifteen years ago, and he didn't expect that Toad Spirit The essence is still in my mind.
"The boss collected information from all the brothers and found that the two men were traveling all over the country, elusive and elusive, as far north as the corner of the East China Sea. They could not be traced after they went out to sea, and as far south as Panyu, the southern barbarian, and deep into the dense forest. They are no longer our territory."
Not surprising in the north, but why in the remote south? Zhu Yan then asked: "Where is Panyu?"
"It is the southernmost river mouth of the land, and beyond it is the South China Sea." It was a new world that Zhu Yan had never touched. Beyond the borders of Jin, there was a new country called "Han".
Zhu Yan decided to go to Panyu to find out.
He wanted to know why Hongye went there, and he wanted to know everything about Hongye.
Fifty-eight-year-old Zhu Yan set out for the legendary barbaric and miasmatic land. Along the way, monsters guided him, provided him with food, crossed borders, and passed through mountains and forests. Finally arriving in Panyu a year later, he asked the locals and found out that the place had been renamed "Xingwangfu" many years ago and was the capital of the Han Dynasty.
According to the information from the toad spirit, Hongye once appeared in a small mountainside village called Xianren Village near Xingwang Mansion.
When approaching the small village, the monster accompanying him did not dare to go any further.
"Your Majesty, I think you'd better not go there." The monster said worriedly, "I think there are... things that cannot be understood living there."
"What could that be?"
"It's better to say what it isn't than what it is." The monster said, "It's neither human nor ghost, nor god nor demon, nor immortal."
Zhu Yan really couldn't figure out what it could be, and he didn't feel anything was wrong.
"It doesn't matter, just accompany me here."
When Zhu Yan walked into the village, the monsters kept calling from behind: "King, you must come back and be our king."
"Don't worry, it will happen, it will."
Zhu Yan gradually walked away. After a while, he looked back and saw that the monsters were no longer there.
The village is small and the households are scattered. Even though it is midday, there are not many villagers outside, so the population is not large.
The strange thing is that there is a "Confucius Temple" in this remote place, which Zhu Yan feels very incongruous.
The Confucius Temple was built next to the forest. It was simple in form, with hard brick walls, but no windows on all sides. It was very illogical in the hot and humid south. If it hadn't been for a sign hanging above, I wouldn't have known it was a Confucius Temple.
Zhu Yan had been studying since he was a child and naturally respected the sage Confucius, so he knocked on the door for a long time, but no one responded.
He put his ear to the door and didn't hear anyone inside, but he heard a low buzzing sound, like something vibrating frequently.
He knocked for a while and pushed the door. The door was closed, indicating that it was not an abandoned house.
He felt his heart beat heavily against his chest, because his intuition told him that this place was definitely related to Hongye's disappearance.
Simply thinking that Hongye had been here before made his heart skip a beat.
He wandered around to see if any villagers could tell him whether this Confucius Temple was usually deserted?
Finally, I met an old woman who was drying goods in the courtyard in front of her home, but she was deaf.
Zhu Yan tried his best to communicate with her, and it took him a long time to figure out that the villagers were unwilling to approach that place. Occasionally they would see strange people coming and going, but they would stay away from it.
Zhu Yan was unwilling to give up, so he rested in the forest nearby, watching and waiting to see if there was any movement.
What made him feel strange was that even though it was broad daylight, the forest was very dark. The sunlight seemed not to come in, and the surroundings were silent. It was as if not even the birds and insects were inhabiting, let alone the monsters that usually appeared around him. They were hiding at this moment. Stay far away.
After the sky darkened, the forest was as dark as a cave, and there was still no light coming from the Confucius Temple.
Zhu Yan waited quietly, eyes wide open, ears pricked up, not letting go of the slightest movement around him.
Suddenly, a bright light suddenly shone above the forest, as bright as moonlight, but as bright as the sun.
He looked up in astonishment and saw a dazzling strip of light above his head, made up of sixteen luminous dots, flying in the air like a gorgeous centipede.
Zhu Yan looked in a daze, and when he was wondering what it was, someone suddenly sighed in front of him: "We didn't find you, but you delivered it to the door yourself."
The next moment, his consciousness was hit hard, and his head was like a pool of turbid water tumbling with waves.
Before he completely lost consciousness, the last thing he heard was Hongye's voice: "Brother Bai! No!"
※※※
Death is a big deal.
The last consciousness before death will affect the whereabouts of spiritual consciousness.
For example, if you have resentment in your heart when you die, you will be reborn as a poisonous snake. All kinds of thoughts of greed, anger, and ignorance are often as blazing as fire, and you will be led to evil realms such as animals, hungry ghosts, and hell.
Whatever desires you have in your heart will be pulled in that direction.
And Zhu Yan's last thought was of red leaves.
When he opened his eyes again, there was no memory of Zhu Yan, but two strange thoughts kept rolling in his heart, which were his last obsessions in the past.
He grew up in a scholar's family in the south, and his father taught him Confucian classics since he was a child.
When he was ten years old, his father's Taoist friend visited his home and saw him playing nearby. After observing him for a long time, he said to his father: "Your child has wisdom."
My father said that when he was born, a Taoist priest also visited him, and it was this Taoist priest who gave him his name "Qingxu".
The Taoist lived all over the world. Ten years later, he passed by again and visited the child named after him. He felt that he was very talented in learning Taoism. "Can I borrow his horoscope for calculation?" The Taoist asked his father for his horoscope, borrowed paper and pen, and made a fortune-telling.
When Qingxu's father saw the horoscope arranged by the Taoist, he couldn't help but wonder: "Hey, this is not the arrangement of eight characters."
"It's a new fortune-telling method, called Ziwei Dou Shu." The Taoist was busy arranging the star names into the birth chart one by one according to the birth stems and branches. "Look, the clear and empty Ming Palace is empty. This is called the 'Mate without Master Star'. I am destined to talk about mysteries, and if I am not a monk in the future, I will follow the Tao."
The two talked for a while. Qingxu's father felt that it would be good to have a Taoist scholar in the family, so his father waved him over and asked him to become a disciple: "From today on, you have to call him master and pay homage to Xihuazi." Only then did Qingxu find out that this Taoist priest was called Xihuazi.
