It was December of the year one thousand and three in the Gale Calendar.
The traces left by that heavy snowfall in Lingnan have melted a lot. The occasional remaining unmelted snow looks very mottled in the blue-gray mountains. The mountains are wet and dripping with water, as if they were left by a heavy rain. Everything was washed away into ruins.
There is a huge wooden water tank next to the small building outside Luofeng Canyon.
This rare and industrious Le Chaotian cut it with a sword. He used a big tree in the mountain that had grown for who knows how many years.
After Le Chaotian finished it, he sighed for a long time, how luxurious we are.
There was a tank full of water inside, not stream water, but snow water. In order to please Nan Dao, Lu Xiaosan dug snow balls from the mountains and put them into the tank to melt the water.
There is a peach blossom stuck in the water.
The peach branches are three feet long and have some peach blossoms. They look particularly petite when leaning against the edge of the vat.
This is a peach blossom from Nandao to Tianshang Town.
Although we cannot dig up the entire tree, there is still no problem in bringing a peach blossom to Lingnan.
South Island wants to drink peach blossom wine.
Wu Dalong then had one more thing to do, which was making wine.
The entire canyon is filled with the smell of distiller's grains from the Tianya Sword Sect every day.
It's fragrant, it's fragrant, it's sour, it's sour.
Lu Xiaosan, besides memorizing the names of swords every day, would lie down by the water tank and count the number of peach blossoms on it. Uncle Master drank a few bottles of wine today.
This peach branch is essentially from the peach tree in Nanyi City, which is also magical. Every day, those few flowers fall and bloom again.
Even if it is planted in snow water, there is no sign of withering.
It actually makes this lonely canyon building a little more lively in winter.
Le Chaotian was happy for a while when he first saw Nan Dao bringing back this peach blossom in the dusk.
I sat in the moonlight that night with my guzheng in my arms, played a piece of music and sang a few lines - The young man's heart is still full of passion. Beside the wine, the silver armor plays a long zither. Play the long zither. Under the peach blossoms, I was drunk until midnight.
It's just that this peach blossom is probably too petite, and it doesn't have the artistic conception of being drunk under the green peach blossom until midnight, so Le Chaotian just played for a while, then stopped playing, sat by the vat, held his chin, and looked at this peach blossom .
"Senior brother."
Nan Dao, who was about to walk through the snow to find wine in Jianzong below, turned around and looked at Le Chaotian.
"When will this peach blossom grow into a big peach tree?"
Le Chaotian thought with some anticipation.
This question seems a bit more childish than Lu Xiaosan's.
Nan Dao thought for a while and said, "I don't know, it grows into a peach tree, and then what?"
Le Chaotian said with a smile: "If you can see a peach blossom tree blooming during the heavy snow, it must be a very beautiful scene. If you go to Jiangdong to catch the spring, you will live with the spring. Seeing the peach blossoms, even in the coldest month of winter, can be regarded as a lasting memory. Lived in the spring.”
Nan Dao looked at the peach blossom in the wooden water tank, but he thought of Tianshang Town, where spring is all year round, full of spring scenery, and a lake of flying flowers, which is really good.
"Maybe it will grow back." Nan Dao said.
He didn't care at the moment whether this peach branch would grow into a peach tree. He just wanted to go down and find some wine.
If not, I can only go to Tianshang Town again and get some wine from Cao Weiying.
Le Chaotian kept talking about trees, trees, please grow up quickly.
It looked very much like the way he squatted in the vegetable field and talked to himself with the cabbage.
Trees, trees, cabbages, cabbages, flowers, flowers.
Human world, human world.
In the early morning of December 3rd, Nan Dao was still leaning on the railing in the small building and looking at the world while drinking the half bottle of wine left from yesterday.
Then I heard Le Chaotian's voice coming from downstairs.
"Hey, new branches are actually growing?"
Nan Dao stood up with the wine flask and looked down, only to see Le Chaotian and Lu Xiaosan gathered around the large water tank, looking at the peach blossom.
Lu Xiaoer, who was practicing swordsmanship in the canyon, also came out curiously, holding his sword.
A group of people gathered around and looked at the peach blossom in surprise.
Nan Dao hung the wine bottle on his waist, like a head of black garlic hanging on his waist, and then walked downstairs holding an umbrella.
When they walked next to Le Chaotian and the others, they saw a new green spore sprouting from the side of the peach blossom.
"It won't grow together with this water tank, right?" Lu Xiaosan said curiously.
Several people looked towards the bottom of the peach branch. There were some peach blossoms on the bottom of the water, but they couldn't see clearly what was going on below.
Lu Xiaosan wanted to pick him up and have a look, but as soon as he stretched out his hand, Le Chaotian hit him on the head with a cucurbit silk.
Really humble.
Lu Xiaosan thought like this and retracted his hand aggrievedly.
"Don't move." Le Chaotian said very seriously, "If you move, it will die."
Lu Xiaosan also realized the seriousness of the problem. He nodded like he was pounding garlic, and then his eyes fell on the black garlic-like wine bottle in Nandao.
Nan Dao didn't notice Lu Xiaosan's furtive gaze. He just frowned and looked at the peach blossom in the water. After a long time, without saying anything, he stretched out his hand to pick a peach blossom and walked towards the edge of the cliff.
Sitting on the edge of the cliff, looking at the peach blossoms in my hands, I also looked at the distant mountains and the world - some of the snow in the mountains has melted, some of it has not yet melted, and they are all black and white, like a Dalmatian dog sleeping on its stomach.
On the other side, Le Chaotian and others probably didn't come to any useful conclusions, so they dispersed.
"What are you thinking about, senior brother?"
Le Chaotian walked to Nan Dao, stretched and looked into the distance.
"I'm thinking those mountains in the distance look like a Dalmatian dog." Nan Dao said softly.
"I thought senior brother was thinking about those peach blossoms." Le Chaotian said with a soft smile, and looked at the lying mountains, "Dalmatians, they do look alike."
"Peach blossoms will always grow, there's nothing surprising." Nan Dao was very calm.
"The main reason is that senior brother, your behavior is too strange. First you looked at me with a sad face for a long time, and then you didn't say anything, just picked a peach blossom and left."
"Can I be called sad?" Nan Dao looked at Le Chaotian helplessly. "I just want to pick a peach blossom and make wine."
"Why doesn't it count?"
Junior brother said forget it.
Le Chaotian is not straightforward and strong.
Nan Dao ignored Le Chaotian, picked up the wine bottle at his waist, and put the peach blossom in.
There was a sound like ocean waves swaying in the pot.
"Junior brother, have you ever seen the sea?"
"No." Le Chaotian shook his head sadly.
"Me neither." Nan Dao said softly, "So sometimes when I shake the wine bottle, I think it's the sound of waves."
"Senior brother, do you want to see the sea?"
"Maybe I will see the sea in the future." Nan Dao thought about the high cliff in the East China Sea. Everyone knows that Mojian Cliff is on the edge of the East China Sea. They also know that sitting on the edge of the cliff, you can see the entire vast sea. I heard that It's blue, but I heard it's gray. I heard there's a lot of wet and salty wind blowing over the high cliffs, and then settling in the green mountains by the East China Sea.
But not many people have seen it.
"So I'm a little worried, what if the sound of those waves is different from what I imagined?"
Nan Dao continued.
Le Chaotian was stunned for a moment, thought for a moment, and said, "Could this also be a reason to worry?"
Nan Dao smiled softly and said, "Otherwise, why are you worried? Are you worried that you will starve to death today?"
Because practitioners will not starve to death, they have many other troubles.
The two were chatting there.
Lu Xiaosan ran over again in a hurry.
"Uncle Master, I want to learn that sword."
Naturally, it was the Snow Sword that I couldn’t forget after seeing it once in Tianshang Town.
Nan Dao looked at the young boy and said, "You can't learn that sword."
"I, Lu Xiaosan, am extremely talented. There is nothing I can't learn."
Le Chaotian held back his smile, turned his head, and looked at the world.
"Uncle, why are you laughing?" Lu Xiaosan said, staring at Le Chaotian.
Le Chaotian coughed and said seriously: "No, absolutely not. Someone is farting on the other side of the mountain. I'm looking over there."
"You're farting."
"Ah, yes, yes." Le Chaotian nodded hurriedly, then looked at Lu Xiaosan who was showing his teeth and claws, turned around and ran away.
Nan Dao took advantage of the time the two were arguing and sneaked away with the wine bottle in his arms.
...
That peach branch does indeed grow more and more.
At first there was just one extra branch, and then there were two more branches.
Until it looked like a small tree, leaning on the wooden wall of the water tank.
Lu Xiaosan indeed guessed correctly.
The peach branch grew together with the wooden vat that Le Chaotian had worked so hard to build.
This made several people look confused.
Could it be that the old tree that has turned into a wooden vat is actually not dead yet?
Or maybe it was actually about to turn into a demon at that time.
Other people's cabbages turn into monsters after one season. This tree must be thousands of years old. It is indeed possible.
However, the water tank had already been made, so the few of them stopped thinking about it.
It's impossible to throw the water tank back again and say I'm sorry, I didn't know you were going to turn into a human being.
So everyone just let the peach branch stand sideways on the wall.
...
Lingnan is still closed to the mountains.
The news that Wu Dalong and the others heard from outside the Sword Sect might be sealed until the beginning of next spring.
When Nan Dao went down to get a drink, he saw Lu Xiaoxiao and Wu Dalong sitting idle on the courtyard of Tianya Sword Sect, looking at the clear stream at the foot of the mountain where the gurgling sound of water had resumed again, and talking about this.
"I heard that the people from Qingtian Dao came to seek revenge from the people from the Human Sword Sect, but they accidentally killed a lot of them by some demon cultivators in the mountains."
"Where did you hear the strange news?"
Lu Xiaoxiao naturally didn't believe it.
"The mountain has been closed for so long. I heard that it will not be lifted until the response from Qingtian Dao comes." Wu Dalong said plausibly. But then he frowned again.
"But I heard that there is another theory, saying that those demon cultivators were not killed by Qingtian Dao, but by Zhang Xiaoyu."
Although Wu Dalong didn't quite believe that Zhang Xiaoyu would do such a thing, Lingnan's sealing of the mountains did happen after Zhang Xiaoyu left.
Lu Xiaoxiao fell silent. Naturally, she didn't believe that Zhang Xiaoyu did this.
Two kinds of wind sounds were blowing everywhere in the south.
Wu Dalong heard some things, but he didn't know which ones were true and which ones were false.
Maybe it's all fake.
But Wu Dalong is just a small sword cultivator in Lingnan, so he naturally doesn't know many things, and the same goes for everyone in the world.
The two of them talked and talked about the situation of Tianya Sword Sect and Xiaobai Sword Sect.
After all, those things have little to do with them.
The majority of people in the world never care about what a little sword cultivator thinks. They will do whatever they want.
"In the spring of next year, there should be many young people from Lingnan going up the mountain. By then, let's see if we can recruit a few disciples." Wu Dalong sat on the steps of the courtyard, crossing his arms and looking forward to it.
"When the time comes, I will be like the old man, sitting there doing nothing all day long, letting them work for me to forge iron and grow cabbage."
Wu Dalong thought hopelessly.
Lu Xiaoxiao held his forehead and looked at him helplessly. Then he discovered Nan Dao, who was leaning against a tree not far away with a wine bottle.
"Junior brother, why are you here?"
"It's been a while." Nan Dao said with a chuckle.
"Then why don't you say anything?"
"I want to see what senior sister and senior brother will say."
"..."
Lu Xiaoxiao turned around and gave Wu Dalong a look.
"I told you to plant Chinese cabbage. If any disciples come here in the future, I'll see if you still plant Chinese cabbage."
Wu Dalong chuckled, rubbed his head and said, "I'm just kidding."
Nan Dao just drank wine under the tree and looked at the two of them. After coming for a long time, he said slowly: "Zhang Xiaoyu didn't do it."
Lu Xiaoxiao and the two were stunned for a moment, and then they remembered that they were talking about some recent rumors in the world.
After Nan Dao finished speaking, he held an umbrella and went to Jianzong to get a drink.
Wu Dalong could brew a lot of wine at one time, but Lu Xiao wouldn't let Nan Dao drink too much, lest he would become a fool when he drank, so he still kept it in a small building of Tianya Sword Sect. At the beginning, Nan Dao The building where I lived.
Not long after, Nan Dao came out with a drink. He was not in a hurry to leave, but sat on the steps of the courtyard with Lu Xiaoxiao.
He took two sips of wine, then looked into the distance and thought deeply.
He naturally knew that Zhang Xiaoyu didn't do it, but it probably couldn't be someone from Qingtian Dao.
The man named Mei Xiyu only came to Lingnan after the mountains were closed.
Seeking revenge is certainly true.
The letter was originally sent from the South Island to the North, but it was a fake.
The people of Qingtian Dao are not madmen or fools, so it is impossible for them to do such a thing.
It's just that he doesn't know why such strange news is spreading in the world.
So he looked at Lu Xiaoxiao and he hesitated for a long time, but did not say these things out.
I probably think it's something meaningless.
After just sitting here and brewing for so long, looking at the confused expressions of Lu Xiaoxiao and Wu Dalong, Nan Dao thought about it and said another thing.
"Forty percent of my flowers have faded."
Wu Dalong and Lu Xiaoxiao were not too surprised.
Of course, everyone expected it.
Even if Nan Dao comes over and tells them that I will break through the Nine Realms tomorrow, these two people will probably just clap their hands and applaud.
If the junior brother is not such a junior brother, then why does Lingnan spend so much effort?
It’s just that maybe there’s still some emotion after all.
For example, Lu Xiaoxiao, a thirty-year-old Lingnan swordsman, sat there with his chin in his hands and looked at Nandao, with joy and envy in his eyes.
After a long time, the woman laughed softly and said, "That's great!"
Wu Dalong didn't say anything, he just laughed.
Nan Dao actually wanted to make a joke and say he was envious. He exchanged it for the freedom outside the umbrella.
But after all, he still wasn't calm enough to face those things calmly, so he just smiled and didn't say anything.
After a long time, Nan Dao looked at the two of them and said softly: "Next spring, I want to go to the East China Sea."
Lu Xiaoxiao was stunned for a moment, looked at Nandao and said, "What are you going to do in the East China Sea?"
Nan Dao lowered his head and took a sip of wine, then raised his head and looked at the mountains with no snow in the world, only distant clouds hanging low, and said slowly: "Climb the cliff."
The simplest and most surprising word in the world is probably climbing a cliff.
That high cliff is not only the highest in the literal sense in the world.
At the same time, it also represents the pinnacle of sword cultivation.
In other words, it is the pinnacle of spiritual practice.
Naturally, many people climb those stone steps up the cliff every year.
There is almost no stone moss on the lowest step, just stone steps that have become smooth and old after being stepped on over and over again.
Of those who climbed the cliff, there were naturally not only sword cultivators.
There are also Taoists.
Many years ago, there were monks.
It’s just that the world hasn’t seen those big shiny bald heads for a long time.
Amiji also disappeared.
If the Wushan Mountain in Yunmeng Ze hadn't reappeared, Mojian Cliff would be the only one of the four major cultivation places in the world.
Perhaps this also means that in the two thousand years since the advent of the avenue, many stories about exploration and pioneering are slowly coming to an end.
The road is naturally made step by step.
When Nan Dao said the word "climb the cliff", Lu Xiaowei was stunned for a moment.
It took a while before he came back to his senses, looked at Nan Dao and said, "Are you able to climb the cliff?"
Nan Dao said softly: "No, but I have to try. Lingnan is too far away from the East China Sea and I can't even see the cliff. Naturally, I don't know how far I have to go to climb that high cliff."
Nan Dao said, laughed again, and said: "But there is no rush. What will happen after next spring, maybe January, maybe December, I haven't decided yet."
Indeed, just like Lu Xiaoxiao, Lingnan will only be a place where young people go to parade and stay in their free time.
The road to spiritual practice in the South Island is going very fast. Maybe after next spring, it won’t be long before flowers start to fall all over the ground and the path breaks through.
Qingjiao, a sword cultivator in red from the East China Sea, is only at the beginning of the path.
But Nan Dao's sword progress was slow.
Maybe not too slow.
It's just that in front of the speed of accumulation and transformation of the vitality of heaven and earth, it seems a little stretched.
So maybe we really need to leave Lingnan and take a walk around the world.
Without seeing the sea, the sword sighting the sea that I saw on the All Souls' Day in Nanyi City was naturally just a trickle, never a cross current.
Nan Dao looked at the two of them and said, "Of course, I am still a swordsman from Lingnan, Xiaobai Sword Sect and Tianya Sword Sect."
This is the first time Nandao has recognized this title.
Wu Dalong smiled and said: "You have never learned our sword."
In fact, Nan Dao has learned the swords of Tianya Sword Sect. When he was first in Xuanxuyuan, he read the first explanation of Tianya Sword Sect's swordsmanship.
It's a pity that I was confused when I saw it, so I didn't study it in depth.
However, the Parrot Island he carries behind his back can actually represent something.
For example, he can also summon the Sword of the End of the World.
As for the Xiaobai Sword Sect, Lu Xiaoer actually practices swordsmanship there every day.
Maybe it’s considered learned.
The three of them didn't say anything else. They sat in the yard, smelling the smell of the wine lees, and looked at the world quietly.
