"Boom!" A sound sounded, and it became an earth-shattering noise under the echo of the cave.
Shuzi, who was so frightened that she had fallen asleep, woke up and shouted: "Brother, run, there are monsters here!"
Li Xiuyuan shook his head, lifted the quilt, put on his long gown, walked to the stone table and sat down, lighting the oil lamp in front of him with a flick of his hand.
He said quietly: "It's a human or a ghost. Come and have a cup of tea. Don't scare my sister!"
Shuzi also lifted up the quilt and stared blankly at the exploding stone wall with her consciousness. She looked at the old man sitting inside and murmured, "Who are you?"
"Who are you?" Shuzi's roar echoed in the cave.
"Who am I?" Following Shuzi's voice with a long sigh, the old man who fell into the stone wall murmured softly.
"I have long forgotten who it is...but I seem to know you two."
The old man continued to sigh, opened his chapped lips and shouted in an almost inaudible voice: "Sir..."
Before he finished speaking, Shuzi flew into the stone wall like a bolt of lightning, and helped the old man teleport to sit in front of the stone table.
Then he raised the oil lamp in front of him and shined it on the old man's face, and asked blankly: "Look carefully, who am I?"
"Who are you?"
The old man frowned like a dead tree, and then murmured: "Aren't you Sister Shuzi?"
"Xiaohu? Are you Xiaohu?!"
Shuzi couldn't care less about being reserved anymore, hugged the old man, and exclaimed: "You are not dead yet, you are my stupid brother?!"
Li Xiuyuan looked at the old man's appearance and couldn't help but let out a long sigh. The years were indeed like knives, and the young man back then had turned into a withered leaf in the wind.
If he and Shuzi hadn't been looking for a place to spend the night, Xiaohu would have died in this cave.
Silently, he poured a cup of spiritual tea and handed it over, and said quietly: "Don't worry, take a sip of tea first."
The old man confirmed his husband's identity, and he didn't care about being reserved. He didn't even drink tea and knelt down at Li Xiuyuan's feet, hugged his arm and cried.
"Woo, sir, if you don't come here, Xiaohu will die here."
Xiaohu cried and shouted: "It turns out that the man in front of the grotto that day was Mr. It turns out that Mr. came to Tianshan to find Xiaohu. Wow, senior has turned into a god and flown away..."
Li Xiuyuan sighed, handed the spirit tea to Xiaohu, and helped him sit down next to him.
Watching him quietly finish a cup of spiritual tea, he then added more.
It wasn't until the old man drank two cups of Tianshan Spiritual Tea that he looked a little more energetic under the light of the lamp, that Shuzi sighed.
He took the old man's hand and said, "The first thing Mr. Sir did when he came back was to ask me about you..."
It wasn't until the two of them murmured for a long time that Li Xiuyuan asked: "Did you meet senior here? When did the old man leave?"
Xiaohu thought for a while and replied: "Xiaohu met the master not long after he came to Tianshan. I think about it, I can't remember it. It must have been at least three hundred years..."
Xiaohu said with a sad face: "If it weren't for Xiaohu's practice, Master would have ascended and left Tianshan Mountain long ago."
"No wonder it is like this. It seems that your senior has a very deep fate."
Li Xiuyuan sighed. He expected that Zhang Liang's master would be able to ascend and leave in less than fifteen years, but at most fifty years.
Unexpectedly, the old man acted as stupidly as the fat monk in the grotto for the sake of Xiaohu.
Hundreds of years were wasted on Tianshan Mountain.
Shuzi couldn't understand, looked at him and asked: "You are such a good person, why did you seal yourself into the stone wall? Aren't you afraid of suffocating yourself to death inside?"
Upon hearing this, Xiaohu replied with a bitter face: "There is no way, Xiaohu can't realize the opportunity to ascend... Fortunately, the master taught me the secret of turtle breath back then..."
"Even the method of turtle breathing will eventually come to an end."
Li Xiuyuan sighed and said quietly: "Everything is in the past, as long as you are still alive, that's fine."
After chatting for a while, Xiaohu felt something was wrong.
He took Shuzi's hand and asked: "Sister Shuzi should be like a little tiger. Why is it that I have become like a withered tree, but my sister has returned to her former appearance?"
Shuzi glanced at Li Xiuyuan and sighed quietly.
He chuckled: "Didn't you see that the day my eldest brother came back, I was no different from the old woman?"
When Xiaohu heard this, he felt relieved, and then asked: "Sir, where is brother Xiaohei?"
"For some reasons, he stayed in the palace in the imperial city. Where can you go back with me to see him?"
Li Xiuyuan said calmly: "We will rest here for the winter, and then return to the imperial city after spring."
Seeing that his husband had come back, Xiaohu was not in a hurry. He nodded and replied: "There is water in this cave and fish in Tianhu. Tomorrow I will go fishing with Sister Shuzi, and you can bake it and eat it, sir."
After not seeing her husband for hundreds of years, the little tiger turned into a dead tree, and she still wanted to let her husband bake a delicacy from that year.
That night, Li Xiuyuan gave Xiaohu three glasses of the spiritual wine brewed in Huangquan Village, and Shuzi also drank one.
Thinking that it was still dark, Li Xiuyuan was too lazy to pay attention to the nagging of his sister and brother, and went to dream on the stone platform.
The flowers are blooming here and the moon is full, but my father, mother, sister, and husband are still staying at the foot of Mount Xumi. I don’t know when I will be able to get my wish and live quietly with my parents for several years.
…
Not knowing how long he had slept, Li Xiuyuan was awakened by the clanging sound of swords.
Looking at the skylight falling on the cave wall, I saw Shuzi sparring with Xiaohu. The two were correcting each other's sword-drawing postures, and Shuzi was teaching Xiaohu softly.
"Sir, you just taught me a lesson yesterday. The strength and posture of the sword must be consistent. You have been practicing for hundreds of years, but it has been in vain."
Shuzi said angrily: "It's okay now, the two of us have to practice from scratch again."
Xiaohu sighed and shouted: "Then let's practice again from the beginning. Anyway, sir is here, so I'm not afraid."
Li Xiuyuan felt a strange feeling when he looked at Xiaohu, who had returned to his boyish appearance after just one night.
When he came back, Shuzi also returned to her girlhood overnight.
It's not like me. Every time I have to struggle through life and death, and endure countless tribulations, I can return to my previous appearance.
At this moment, it was like going back in time and returning to a certain day in Da Qin.
Bewildered, Li Xiuyuan sighed and asked, "Xiaohu, where is your mother?"
When Xiaohu heard this, his face suddenly darkened and two lines of tears fell.
He murmured to himself: "My mother is too old. Before my husband comes back, she will have already become a fairy in the sky."
This was something that Li Xiuyuan had expected. After all, the Yan family had already missed the time to practice when they met him.
Thinking of his old friend's smile back then, Li Xiuyuan couldn't help but murmured: "Did you leave her in the royal city, or did you bring her to Tianshan?"
When Xiaohu heard this, he immediately replied proudly: "When my mother was still in good health, I stopped being a king and took her to Tianshan to find a master."
"Well, take me to see her later."
Li Xiuyuan did not expect that Yan's last days were spent in Tianshan. It seemed that Xiaohu felt very sorry for his mother.
For this reason, even the king of the Xiongnu said it was inappropriate. His courage was much higher than that of Huiming who practiced in the grotto.
After all, it was at the time of life and death that Huiming let go of the worldly affairs.
Xiaohu wiped the tears on his face and said with a smile: "My mother is not far outside the cave. My mother said that she likes Tianhu Lake. There are also snow lotuses in the mountains here from time to time..."
Shuzi also felt soft. She took Xiaohu's hand and said, "Let's go see her together."
When the three of them came out of the cave, they found that the flying snow in the sky had stopped, and the sky showed a rare smile.
The warm sunshine shone on the faces of the three people, and Li Xiuyuan realized that this was a sunny hillside.
I couldn't help but sigh in my heart. Xindaolan was indeed a woman with a delicate heart. Even if she died, she had to face the rising sun.
Not far from the cave, there is the tomb Xiaohu built for his mother.
If Xiaohu hadn't wiped off the snow foam on the stone tablet, Li Xiuyuan would never have discovered that his old friend from back then was still lying here.
With the Tianshan Mountains at the back and the Tianhu Lake in the front, only a place like this would make a woman like Yan like it, right?
Shuzi kowtowed three times respectfully. Li Xiuyuan searched for it and took out a pile of incense candles and paper money.
I lamented in my heart, but these were the unused things I bought for Meng Jiang in Prince Village and burned on the Great Wall for Fan Xiliang.
I took him around in the long river of time, but six hundred years have passed in this world.
Xiaohu helped light the incense candle, and Li Xiuyuan burned two pieces of paper money.
He looked at the stone tablet and said calmly: "You may not believe it, but I bought this paper money six hundred years ago in Prince Village at the foot of the Great Wall."
"Is it possible that you were sure long ago that I would come back to find Xiaohu? Didn't you think that I would come to your grave to burn the remaining paper money? Then you are half a god."
Having said this, Li Xiuyuan sighed and said: "Since you have entered reincarnation, I have to take Xiaohu out of here next year."
Xiaohu's eyes turned red, and he kowtowed to the stone tablet three times and said, "Mom, sir, you are here to see you. You are now much more valuable than Touman back then."
"It's okay, sir. I have been here with her for hundreds of years. I have already become a god."
Xiaohu grinned and said, "If you don't believe it, look at it. The snow lotuses on that mountain have bloomed dozens of times."
Shuzi followed his gaze and looked towards the hillside, and sure enough she saw a piece of snow lotus blooming quietly on the stone wall.
She had never seen snow lotus before, so she couldn't help looking at Xiaohu and asked: "Xiaohu, can I pick a few?"
Xiaohu smiled faintly and said, "It's okay. If you pick them now, new snow lotuses will grow next year. If it weren't for these snow lotuses, Xiaohu would have gone to find his mother long ago."
Li Xiuyuan felt a pain in his chest as if being pricked by a needle when he heard this, and was speechless for a long time.
After a long time, he looked at Shuzi and said, "You pick half and leave half. We will take it back to make tea, and the rest will be used to make wine in the spring."
When Xiaohu and Shuzi came back from picking more than a dozen snow lotuses, Li Xiuyuan picked the three most colorful ones and placed them in front of Yan's grave.
After thinking about it, he took out his knife and carved a few runes and a line of Buddhist scriptures on the stone tablet.
After reciting the Buddhist sutra softly in his mouth, he sighed and said: "With this Buddhist sutra accompanying you and guarding you with runes, no one can disturb your tranquility even for thousands of years."
When Shuzi saw her elder brother's appearance, she was immediately reminded of Zhang Liang, and she immediately pulled Li Xiuyuan's sleeve and started crying.
Looking at the stone tablet, she cried: "Sister, you are much better than my husband. At least you can still come to Tianshan Mountain, and my elder brother will engrave scriptures for you and protect you."
Xiaohu was shocked when he heard this and blurted out: "Brother Zhang Liang is also going to become a god with my mother?"
Shuzi said quietly: "Your brother Zhang Liang's life is not as good as yours. He gave his life to that heartless Liu Bang, and now I am left alone... ugh."
Li Xiuyuan put away the knife, waved to the stone tablet and said: "Go and stop thinking. From now on, the world will be far away."
Shuzi took out a silk scarf to wipe away the tears on her face, looked at a ray of sunshine in the sky and said, "Shuzi listen to your elder brother, remember everything in the past, and give up."
Xiaohu kowtowed three more times, pointed at Tianhu and said, "Sister Shuzi, let's go fishing."
