In the early morning of the Beginning of Summer, Li Xiuyuan finally made the decision to leave Luoxia Mountain.
Last night, he took out all his belongings, sorted them carefully, and put them all in the unnamed black ring given to him by the old Taoist priest.
Along with the ring that the woman in white gave him before, the old Taoist tied the ring hanging around his neck with a red rope.
Finally, in order to make himself look more like a wanderer, he deliberately put a few old clothes in a cloth bag and carried them behind his back.
He put away the heaviest iron sword and the wooden bow given to him by the old Taoist priest. Before he could find a better bow and arrow, he planned to look at this one first.
After all, for him, it would be nice to catch a few pheasants and hares to fill his stomach.
He had already packed up the gold coins left by the old Taoist priest, as well as the jar of medicinal wine. When he went down the mountain in spring, he also bought some small wine jars to put them in.
Li Xiuyuan now looks like a young Taoist priest who has just come down from the mountain.
He didn't know where he was going when he went down the mountain, but no matter where he went, he decided to go to Old Man Zhang's house first and tell him about his trip.
The Taoist temple on the mountain cannot be left unattended.
When Li Xiuyuan knocked on Old Man Zhang's thick door, he saw someone he didn't recognize. The person who opened the door looked him up and down and asked, "Who are you looking for?"
"I'm looking for Uncle Zhang. I'm a young Taoist priest from the Taoist temple on the mountain." Li Xiuyuan said as he looked at the young man who opened the door.
"It turns out you're looking for my dad. Come in and sit for a while." The young man said with a smile.
"No, I just said hello to Uncle Zhang and left." Li Xiuyuan said softly, thinking that I had to hurry up while the weather was still bright.
"Who is outside? Why don't you come in?" At this moment, Old Man Zhang's voice came from the room. "It turns out to be Xiao Xiuyuan, come in and sit down."
Li Xiuyuan was stunned for a while, shook his head and said: "Uncle Zhang, I have to leave. I have written many talismans in the Taoist temple. If the villagers have trouble going up the mountain to ask for talismans, you can take them to them. I have placed them under the altar. It’s in the box.”
"Okay, why don't you come in and sit down?" Old man Zhang walked out, looked at Li Xiuyuan and said with a smile.
"Still have to hurry?" Li Xiuyuan looked at him and smiled.
When Old Man Zhang heard this, he couldn't help but sigh heavily and said, "I said this Taoist temple is good, but why did both of you, master and disciple, leave all of a sudden?"
"Because I really want to go outside and have a look." Li Xiuyuan said.
"In that case, when you leave the village entrance, go all the way south!" Old man Zhang has unspeakable feelings for Li Xiuyuan. After all, he has watched this boy grow up.
"Why are you going south?" Li Xiuyuan asked seriously.
"The south is where the human race lives, the west is the Shura clan, the east is the demon realm, and the north is inaccessible." Old man Zhang looked at the explanation again and again, his eyes full of worry.
"Uncle Zhang, isn't this the Shura Heaven Realm? How can it be so complicated?" Li Xiuyuan looked at him and asked in confusion.
"You are a child and you are out here. Be careful. Don't go anywhere except the south. Unless you practice for another ten or twenty years, we will wait until you become more powerful."
Old man Zhang saw through Li Xiuyuan's cultivation state at a glance.
Li Xiuyuan felt a thump in his heart. Old Man Zhang had told him to be careful, so this must be a very dangerous place. No wonder the master told him that only these places were safer. .
"I will be careful." Li Xiuyuan looked at him and said seriously.
"Also, if you hold this simple map, you can understand where you are. You have to find the more complicated ones yourself." Old Man Zhang took out an animal skin with no date and handed it over.
"And a map?" Li Xiuyuan was stunned, looked at the old man in front of him and smiled.
A moment ago, he was worried about not knowing where to go after leaving the village. Now, he didn't have to wander around when he went out.
"Remember to come back and take a look when you have time. I estimate that the talisman you left in the Taoist temple will not be used for a few years." Old man Zhang looked at Li Xiuyuan and said with a smile,
"I remember." Li Xiuyuan nodded seriously.
...
Li Xiuyuan left Old Man Zhang's home and walked all the way to the entrance of the village. The villagers he met on the road who knew him all greeted him: "Xiuyuan, where are you going?"
Li Xiuyuan chuckled and said, "I'll just go out for a walk."
"I heard there are a lot of bad people out there, so be careful!"
"Don't worry, I will protect myself. You should also take care of yourself!"
With a wave of his hand, Li Xiuyuan left the small mountain village where he had lived for nearly five years.
Going all the way south, climbing over two mountains, we finally came to the main road.
The ancient trees on the roadside are in the sky, and there is a tea shop under the tree. During the summer solstice season, pedestrians coming and going are undoubtedly willing to take a rest here and drink a large bowl of tea to cool down and relieve fatigue.
It is undoubtedly a pleasant thing to chat about interesting things that happened recently, eat some dry food, and fill your stomach before going on the road.
"Old man, please have a bowl of herbal tea." Li Xiuyuan, wearing a bamboo hat, walked into the tea shop.
"Come, come."
The tea seller brought a large bowl of herbal tea and placed it in front of Li Xiuyuan. Such a large bowl of tea only costs a copper coin, which is really cheap and affordable.
Li Xiuyuan took off the bamboo hat on his head, took a sip of herbal tea.
"In this weather, it's so comfortable to drink a bowl of herbal tea like this!" Li Xiuyuan looked at the old man and said with a smile.
"Little Taoist priest, it's a pity that there are still some days left for the fruit harvest here. It would be more pleasant to have a few more peaches and eat some fresh fruits." The old man selling tea said with a smile.
"Old man, do you have anything else to sell here?" Li Xiuyuan thought about whether he should take out the dry food that Old Man Zhang gave him to fill his belly.
"There are spring cakes in the shop, do you want some?"
"Then let's have a plate. The weather is really hot. I'll sit down for a while before leaving!" When Li Xiuyuan heard that there were spring cakes, he wanted to try them. This was the first time in so many years that he ate food from outside the mountains.
"Okay, here it comes." The old man said with a smile.
"Let me ask you something, where should I go further?" Li Xiuyuan took out the map given by the old man Zhang and wanted to know where he would go next.
The old man selling tea looked at him carefully, raised his head and said, "Little Taoist priest, not far ahead is Baijin City!"
"Hundred Gold City? What a strange name." Li Xiuyuan lowered his head and looked for it on the map.
...
However, everything did not go according to Li Xiuyuan's expectation. Not long after he left the tea stall, at the last minute, he encountered a group of bandits who were crossing the border to rob.
In front of dozens of bandits at the Golden Core Realm, he at the Foundation Establishment Realm had no ability to resist. Looking at the large group of people waiting behind the bandits, Li Xiuyuan gave up resistance.
He has nothing to offer, so why should he be afraid of bandits?
The bandits who searched to no avail kicked Li Xiuyuan, tied him behind the crowd, and pulled him forward...
Before walking two miles, they met the bandits' accomplices again.
I saw that there were still some bandits here, guarding a dozen prisoners and more than twenty robbed cattle and sheep.
The arms of these people were tied with iron chains and they were connected in a row. Li Xiuyuanwei was also tied up again and connected at the end of the captive team.
Several people drove the captives and animals towards the west, and Li Xiuyuan was dragged behind. The bamboo hat on his head had long since disappeared.
Before the time came, the bandits stopped at an intersection. Li Xiuyuan, who had never left Yuanmen, looked up and looked around, and suddenly lost his sense of direction.
The bandits dragged them through a narrow mountain pass and merged with the main east-west road. At the intersection, a hundred or so people gathered here for unknown reasons.
I saw that most of the people were wearing black clothes, glowing under the sun, and everyone had fierce eyes, like a group of beasts forced to gather in a pile.
There are also factions among the bandits. They are divided into several groups. They are full of vigilance against each other, with swords in hand, and they are ready to fight at any time.
The strange thing is that the ferocious-looking bandits are all crowded on the west side of the intersection. The open space opposite is very wide, but no one is passing by, as if there are hidden ghosts.
The bandits looked at the mountain pass to the west, all looking anxious, as if they were waiting for someone.
Two hours ago, Li Xiuyuan was sitting under a tree drinking tea and eating spring cakes. Unexpectedly, he was now a prisoner of bandits, mixed with a group of panicked men and women.
The people who were waiting didn't come, and the bandits became more and more restless. Two groups had already had a fight over this, but luckily no one was killed.
Li Xiuyuan was still a little baffled by the fact that he was caught, thinking that I was just a little Taoist priest. He raised his head and glanced at the robber who caught him, trying to get some information from him.
The bandit felt the gaze coming from below, glanced down at the prisoner, and said jokingly: "You can run away."
"I have no money, why can't you get along with me, a Taoist priest?"
The bandit spat on the ground, not bothering to answer the ignorant boy's question.
An old bandit glanced at him again, but said nothing.
"The tiger you are following is not a small one." The old bandit said to the bandit in front of him called Nigga.
The bandit nigger didn't seem to hear these words at all. After a while, he said coldly: "Nonsense, is there a bigger tiger than the Northwest King?"
The King of the Northwest, no one around here doesn’t know the King of the Northwest.
Suddenly there was a sound of hoofbeats, and a horse galloped from the mountain pass to the west. Sitting on it was a practitioner wearing a black cloak.
The bandits were first happy and then disappointed to see him. This was not the man they were waiting for.
The practitioner in the black cloak suddenly saw this group of ferocious-looking people gathering on the roadside, shook his head, and rode forward.
The black monk's cloak lifted up during the galloping, revealing a long sword hanging beside the horse.
"Peach Garden Swordsman!"
Someone in the crowd shouted, and nearly a hundred bandits almost simultaneously urged their horses to take two steps back.
Li Xiuyuan stood on tiptoe and looked over. He had never heard of the "Taoyuan Swordsman" and didn't know what these bandits were afraid of.
The practitioner in the black cloak showed a faint smile, squinting his eyes as if he was always looking for something: "People from the Flying Tiger Gang, come forward."
The sound was not loud, but it had an irresistible power. Li Xiuyuan saw that the face of the bandit named Feihu turned blue.
"Feihu is here. This is the territory of the Shura Domain. What dare you, a human, do?"
The practitioner in black cloak looked back at the empty wilderness and said, "It's still a little worse. When did you ever hear that Taoyuan swordsmen are afraid of people from the Shura realm?"
Feihu's face turned even greener, and several brothers in his gang also held the hilts of their swords in panic. Luxi was the territory of the Shura Domain. As bandits, none of them could cross the border, let alone receive protection.
Feihu gritted his teeth and said loudly: "Brothers, are we bandits in Sanshan just allowed to be manipulated by others? Are they bullied to the point of being bullied without saying a word?"
The other bandits looked at each other. They were all small gangs, and they robbed merchants on their own. They had no sympathy for each other, and they didn't feel the need to draw swords to help each other.
Feihu roared and jumped off the horse!
He dismounted and drew his sword, and the other brothers followed suit. The seven of them lined up in a row, the seven long swords shining brightly. The snow-white long swords were in sharp contrast with Hei Zheng's clothes.
The practitioner in black cloak took off his cloak and placed it on the saddle. Then he dismounted and drew his long sword.
"My name is Long Yun."
"What the hell are you talking about? Anyway, we have to fight to the death." Feihu and his six brothers slowly distanced themselves, forming an arc and surrounding the knight Long Yun.
"I'm going to let you know who killed you."
There was a loud shout. I don't know who made it. For a moment, the swords clashed and made an unpleasant sound. The robbers and prisoners who were watching screamed in unison.
Li Xiuyuan glanced at it. In just a moment, six people had fallen on the ground. Only the bandit leader named Fei Hu was left looking at Long Yun in front of him stupidly.
Although it was just a glimpse, Xiu Yuanwei remembered this glance firmly.
