The woman hurriedly said, "Do you remember that when you were a child, we had a foster sister at home, who later got lost."
The groom obviously still remembered. He walked forward a few steps until he was half a foot in front of Zhao Ning and stopped. "But it's called Zhao Ning. I heard my parents often mention the fairy sister."
Zhao Ning nodded slightly, "Congratulations to Brother Wen on your wedding."
"It's a double happiness. Come on, go in and have a couple of glasses of wedding wine and then come back."
Zhao Ning did not answer, but took a jade slip and handed it to Brother Wen, "This is a jade guide for immortals. If one day, if the descendants are destined to be immortal and intend to practice, they can break the jade slip and I will know. Take him to the world of cultivation to seek immortality."
The three members of the family were astonished. The woman hurriedly stepped forward and said, "Zhao Ning, you gave us the elixir, how can we accept such a great gift again?"
"The elixir is a congratulatory gift, so the adoptive mother does not need to worry too much. Zhao Ning once said that one day of raising a child is a gift in return."
The woman wanted to say something else, but Brother Wen stopped her mother. He crossed his hands and bowed solemnly to Zhao Ning. The fisherman and his wife said no more and bowed and thanked her.
Zhao Ning smiled, retreated to Qin Keyuan, and said softly, "Uncle, let's go."
Qin Keyuan nodded.
Zhao Ning took one last look at the childhood home that had been blurred in her memory and said something to the three of them.
"See you later."
Chapter 151
On the Qingmo River, the boat slowly floated up the river.
On the boat, one person was writing mysterious symbols at his desk, while the other person was meditating with his eyes closed.
The boat went all the way up, leaving the boundary of Nanjing Kingdom and entering Wuming Kingdom. Going up further, you can see many villages built along the river.
It was foggy, and people on the riverside could occasionally see small boats passing by in the river, but in the blink of an eye they were no longer visible, as if it was an illusion.
The drizzle fell in drizzle, but it did not soak the people on the boat at all. Instead, it formed a rain curtain around the boat, wrapping it up.
While the drizzle lingered, Zhao Ning concentrated on writing the third thousand ancient cloud patterns. The cloud patterns turned around, as if they were alive. When the last stroke fell, Zhao Ning felt a strange atmosphere floating around him. There seemed to be something pulling me somewhere.
Zhao Ning paused for a moment, then put down her pen and looked into the distance.
Qin Keyuan opened his eyes and asked, "What's wrong?"
Zhao Ning said, "Uncle, there seems to be something in the distance."
Qin Keyuan took a distant look and said, "Jiangyue Village is almost here."
This Jiangyue Village was the village where the Dragon King was worshiped.
Zhao Ning was silent, without much emotion, standing quietly at the bow of the boat, waiting for the boat to sail towards Jiangyue Village.
At the ferry crossing of Jiangyue Village, an altar was built on wooden frames. In the center of the altar were cows and lambs. Priests in strange clothes shook fist-sized bells and danced nondescript sacrificial dances on the altar. .
As soon as the priest finished dancing, he knelt down and shouted, "The Dragon King appears and protects my village. With the sacrifices, we will have a good harvest every year."
Two village men wearing raincoats opened the baffle in the center of the altar, and the cows and lambs fell straight into the water.
Among the villagers below, there was a young man who covered his mouth with saliva and did not know how to hide it. He had not eaten meat for a long time. My mother said that the village put together the remaining money of each household and bought cattle and sheep from the county government. They were almost robbed by bandits and hungry refugees on the way, and the villagers did this to pray that the Dragon King would stop punishing Jiangyue Village and grant them a good harvest in the coming year.
At this moment, a whirlpool suddenly rolled up on the river, swallowing up the cattle and sheep very quickly.
But the whirlpool did not stop. The observing priest standing on the altar knew that cattle and sheep alone were useless, and glanced in the direction of the village chief.
Behind the village chief, a thin man wrapped a newborn baby girl in a white cloth swaddling clothes.
The village chief pointed towards him towards the river, signaling for him to offer a sacrifice.
"Village chief..." the thin man cried out.
The village chief couldn't bear it and raised his eyes to look at the priest again. The priest glared at him.
At this moment, the village chief did not dare to say anything more. He turned his head and closed his eyes and waved to the other two people beside him.
The two men snatched the child from the thin man's arms and walked towards the river with expressionless faces.
The thin man did not chase him, but hid his face and knelt on the ground.
On the riverside, a person holding a baby girl placed the child in a wooden basin, while another person pushed a long bamboo pole against the edge of the wooden basin toward the whirlpool.
"my child!!!"
Suddenly, a sharp cry came from behind the crowd.
A young woman, all in embarrassment, stumbled through the crowd and rushed over.
The village chief grabbed her and said, "Mother Zhan, sacrificing children is a century-old tradition in our Jiangyue Village. We have to sacrifice every ten years. It's because we didn't sacrifice in the last ten years. The Dragon King was angry. Look at the past few years. The floods are pouring in, and there is no harvest. We can’t even catch many fish in the river. If this continues, our village will not be able to survive. Mother Zhan, don’t harm everyone!"
The woman shook off the village chief's hand. She still had a cloth wrapped around her head and only wore a middle coat, which was almost soaked.
She was obviously not yet pregnant, so she rushed out of bed.
"That's my child! The child I worked so hard to give birth to! I won't send her to die!"
She rushed to the river regardless, and the two men who were releasing the child grabbed her.
"Mother Zhan, if the child enters the Qingmo River, it will be a sacrifice to the Dragon King. If you can't take it back, it will die young and spread bad luck."
"Where's that little Meng'er?! Isn't she a good person? Don't even think of stopping me!"
The woman forcefully broke away from the two men, but the two strong men were unable to hold on to the woman at this time. They watched her step into the river and rush towards the child step by step.
When they reached the point where the river reached the waist, the current became more and more turbulent. It was difficult for the woman to stand still in the water, let alone chase the wooden basin that was almost in the center of the whirlpool.
She cried and shouted, "My child! My child!"
The next moment, she fell directly into the water. The two men couldn't bear it and rushed into the river to fish the woman back.
However, the wind and waves were getting bigger and bigger, and the current was getting faster and faster. The woman struggled in the water and tried her best to chase towards the center of the river. However, she tried hard to save her last bit of strength, but she was unable to do anything. As she watched, the wooden basin tilted, and the child was about to fall out of the wooden basin. Turn it out in the basin.
She yelled, "No-"
At this moment, a ray of light suddenly flashed in the center of the vortex. The vortex seemed to have stopped for half a breath, and then the vortex reversed its direction.
The whirlpool rotated in the opposite direction and rushed out of the water. The wooden basin rose and fell on the top of the whirlpool, but the shaking was like a cradle. The child in the wooden bucket kicked his little feet, danced his little hands, and giggled.
When the woman saw such a miracle, she burst into tears. As if she saw hope, she gained a little strength and swam forward half a foot.
The villagers on the shore were shocked. The village chief walked up to the priest and said, "What's going on? Doesn't the Dragon King want our sacrifice?"
The priest didn't know what happened, so he knelt down on the ground and shouted crazily, "The Dragon King has appeared."
The swirling water column that rushed into the air seemed to come alive, dragging the child forward and bending forward, like a big hand made of water, and handed the child to the woman.
The woman cried with joy, took the child out of the tub, and held it tightly in her arms.
At this time, the last bit of strength remaining in the struggle in the river had been exhausted. Her eyelids were so heavy that she seemed to faint, but she still held on and said to herself, "Mom will definitely bring you back to the shore. It’s okay, don’t be afraid, mother is here.”
She held the child high and walked hard to the shore.
The twisting whirlpool water column behind her plunged into the woman's back, into the water, and lifted her up. The next moment the woman panicked and hugged the child tightly, she was placed smoothly on the shore.
The woman was at a loss. In the crowd, the woman's husband finally came to his senses. He ran to the woman's side, picked up the woman and the child, and said, "We won't sacrifice our children anymore. We won't sacrifice them anymore."
But other people in the village were dissatisfied. "If we don't sacrifice our children, what will happen to our village in the future? In the past ten years, we seem to have been cursed. Whatever we sow, we will die. We can never catch big fish in the net. If it weren't for the family, If there is some food left in stock, we will have to go to the town to beg for food.”
The village chief came over, his expression was very complicated.
The woman's husband knelt down and grabbed the hem of the village chief's clothes and begged, "Village Chief, don't sacrifice anymore, at least don't sacrifice my children. You see, the Dragon King has sent his children back, and he doesn't want my children." Village chief, our baby has just been born, please."
"It's precisely because she was just born and didn't develop much affection that she gave it away. One of the girls sacrificed last time was given away just after she was born. Didn't that aunt still give birth to several big fat boys? Although I have been suffering from illness for the past two years and have not been able to get through it, but it was caused by the lack of sacrifices in the last ten years." Someone in the village advised, "You are still young and can have many babies, so why bother about a little girl."
The woman's eyes seemed to turn red when she heard this. She put the child into her husband's arms, rushed directly to the villager who was trying to persuade him, and tore at him like crazy, "Why don't you give away your child? Why don't you ask the foster daughter in your town to come back and offer sacrifices? You, the murderer of a thousand cuts, I'm going to kill you!"
For a moment, the entire shore was in chaos. Children were sacrificed, and people who believed in offering sacrifices to pray for a good harvest started fighting with each other. There were also people on both sides who were swaying and trying to start a fight, but were forcibly involved.
The village chief yelled, "Okay!"
But no one listened to him, and years of resentment seemed to explode at this moment.
The village chief was at a loss. He went to pull the priest who was kneeling on the ground and kowtowing frantically, but he couldn't move at all.
At this moment, the sound of fighting suddenly stopped, and the sound of rain seemed to be heard all around. The village chief raised his head in fear, only to see that the people fighting in the village were frozen in place, "This... this... this what happened."
The village chief backed away in fear, bumped into the priest, and fell to the ground.
Suddenly he heard a faint question.
"Can you take me to see my aunt who died of illness a few years ago?"
The village chief was startled. He half-stretched his body and raised his head. He saw a man and a woman standing on the shore. They were immortal and otherworldly. The rain curtain formed a circle of mist on them, without getting them wet at all.
The village chief murmured dully, "Immortal... Immortal."
Probably no one answered her words. Zhao Ning cast her gaze on the frozen villagers. A flash of spiritual light flashed across her fingertips. The frozen villagers were instantly released from their restraints. They all fell to the ground due to the sudden release of stiffness. He was not in the mood to continue the fight just now.
After these people fell to the ground, some knelt on the ground, and some looked at them furtively.
Zhao Ning asked again, "Where is that aunt's tomb?"
The woman who had saved the child just now looked up at Zhao Ning and caught the clue from her two inquiries. She asked in a low voice, "Are you the child who was sacrificed back then?"
Zhao Ning smiled lightly at her, "It's me."
Everyone was stunned. They stared at Zhao Ning blankly. No one dared to speak for a while.
The woman wiped away her tears and stood up, stronger than any other villager, and said, "I will take you there. I know where they are buried."
After saying that, she ran back, kicked her husband up, hugged the child tightly, and said to Zhao Ning, "Come on, let's go this way."
It seemed that the only sounds left at this ferry were their footsteps and the sound of rain, and everyone's eyes were following them.
The village chief finally reacted, got up and wanted to chase after him. As soon as he stood up and took two staggering steps, the hem of a robe fell in front of him.
The village chief looked up stiffly at the tall immortal, and met a pair of eyes that seemed like eternal ice.
Immediately afterwards, he flew out upside down, and the priest and the priest fell into the Qingmo River with a pop.
Qin Keyuan looked at the villagers again. The villagers all lowered their heads in fear, no longer daring to raise their heads or say anything nonsense.
Zhao Ning followed the woman towards the hillside behind the village.
The woman whispered, "Twenty years ago when we were offering sacrifices, I was just sensible. I just remember that there was a big quarrel at the aunt's house next door that night. From dusk to dawn, when it was time to offer sacrifices, the uncle next door walked away with the baby in his arms. came out, but my aunt never showed up."
"It seems that the sacrifice that day was not successful. When the cattle and sheep were sacrificed, there was no response from the Qingmo River until I put you and Xiao Meng'er in the wooden basin and sent it to the center of the river. Suddenly, I saw a huge black shadow emerging from the river. It was the first time we saw the Dragon King appear." She paused and said painfully, "We thought it was the Dragon King."
