On the fifth day of the first lunar month in the year 1004 of the Gale Calendar, it was drizzling in Tianqian Town.
When Nan Dao opened his eyes, Lu Xiaoer had already gotten up and was walking into the room carrying a basin of water. There were also a few steamed buns placed on the table beside him.
"Uncle, wash up and have something to eat."
Lu Xiaoer put the basin of water on the washstand aside, looked at Nan Dao and said.
Although cultivators don't have to go through such trouble, Lu Xiaoer is probably still very adaptable to this kind of worldly life. After all, he has just started Taoism not long ago. What's more, Lingnan sword cultivators live like ordinary people.
Nan Dao nodded, put the two swords behind his back, stood up, finished washing with one hand, and then sat at the table with Lu Xiaoer.
But probably because they had hot pot yesterday, the two of them were not very interested in steamed buns today.
After all, eating requires hunger.
So he sat and stared for a while, and Lu Xiaoer regretfully discovered that the human buns that he missed so much in Lingnan in the past were no longer so fragrant today.
So he looked at Nan Dao who was also doing nothing, thought for a while, rewrapped the buns, stuffed them into his arms, and planned to eat them as snacks in his spare time.
Don’t be afraid if it dries. Just break off a piece and chew it like a peanut.
The rain in the town still didn't stop today.
Lu Xiaoer walked to the open-air corridor of the inn and looked at it for a while. He really couldn't see any hint of snow in the rain, so he sighed, looked at Nandao and said, "Uncle Master, what if it doesn't snow?"
Nan Dao calmly stood on the edge of the rain eaves holding an umbrella and said, "If it doesn't snow, just go ahead."
Lu Xiaoer looked towards the end of the town. Under a line of green eaves, he did not see the old swordsman sitting there today.
On the other hand, there are always some babbling singing in the rain. Through the sound of rain, there is a hazy and distant feeling.
Lu Xiaoer looked at it for a while, but found that the jailer seemed to be missing today.
Maybe it’s just not this side anymore.
After all, the town at the foot of the mountain is quite big.
Nan Dao saw Lu Xiaoer looking there all the time and said, "Want to go down for a walk?"
Lu Xiaoer thought for a while, nodded and said, "Okay, I'll see if there are any interesting gadgets, and I'll buy them for the juniors to take back."
Speaking of this, Lu Xiaoer thought of the sword he had hidden again.
The two walked down from the inn.
"I don't know if my sword will be found by Xiaosi, Xiaowu and the others. I used it to scare Xiaosan. It would be bad if it scares them."
Nan Dao smiled and said, "Xiao Si and Xiao Wu are relatively honest, so they probably won't go looking around."
Lu Xiaoer nodded and said, "That's true."
The two of them from Nandao wandered around the streets and visited most of the town. They did not see the jailer from yesterday again today.
However, Nandao did find a small letter-and-passenger station in the human world.
In the corner of the south of the town, there is a small green house. There are many thin bamboo tubes at the door, probably used to hold envelopes. Inside, there is only a young letterman who is sitting at a counter and is busy. I was sorting out letters from the town, and when I saw the two of them walking in, I greeted them warmly.
"Want to send a letter, little brother?"
When Lu Xiaoer saw his senior uncle being called little brother, he probably thought it was a bit strange. He just raised his head and said nothing more.
Well, little brother indeed.
He is twelve years old and his master uncle is sixteen, so there is no way he can become a big brother.
Nan Dao hesitated.
Brother Xinke looked at Nan Dao who was still holding an umbrella. Although he thought it was strange, he didn't ask. He just smiled and said, "You two are sword cultivators in the mountains. Letters here are indeed not as delivered as Lingluo Pavilion in the mountains." Hurry, after all, we have to walk through the world little by little to deliver it, so it will inevitably be much slower."
Nan Dao shook his head and said, "No, it's just that I haven't finished writing it yet. But are you sending these letters yourself?"
Brother Xinke laughed and said: "How is that possible? I am only responsible for delivering to Shanyue City or Bailu City outside the town. There will be larger Xinke Stations there. They will group them into subdivisions and send them out bit by bit. .”
"If you want to send it, I have paper and pen here, and there is a small room next to it. You can go there and write it, and send it now."
Nan Dao thought for a while and said, "That's okay, but how long does it usually take to deliver it to Donghai?"
"East China Sea?"
The Xinke guy was also startled, stopped what he was doing, thought for a moment and said, "If it's fast, it'll be two months, if it's slow, it'll be half a year."
Lu Xiaoer said in disbelief: "Is it going to take so long?"
Brother Xinke continued to return the letters there, mainly divided into three piles, one pile was from Nanyi City, one pile was from Shanyue City, and one pile was from Bailu City. It was quite simple.
"Think about it, if you were a letter carrier and had only one letter to send to Donghai, would you send it?"
Lu Xiaoer shook his head and said, "No."
The letter-passenger brother smiled and said: "That's it. It's slower, but if His Majesty hadn't set up another letter-passenger station besides the inn, you still wouldn't be able to deliver this letter to the East China Sea."
Nan Dao didn't say anything else. He looked at Brother Xinke and said, "Is there paper and pen in the next room?"
Brother Xinke nodded.
Nan Dao walked in holding an umbrella.
Lu Xiaoer watched the younger brother sorting out letters from outside, and the two started chatting.
"You won't send it?"
"I won't send it."
"Oh, then why don't you go in and take a look to see whose little girl your senior brother is writing to?"
"That's my uncle."
This sentence made the younger brother stunned for a moment. He had always thought that these were two senior brothers, but he didn't expect that they were actually his uncle and nephew.
"He is so young, he is your uncle?"
Lu Xiaoer was very pretentious and said calmly: "Because the master's realm is very high."
The younger brother was silent and didn't ask how high his level was. After all, the person in front of him was a twelve-year-old boy who was a sword cultivator in the mountains. His uncle, who was fifteen or sixteen years old, was probably not that high.
Naturally, Nan Dao didn't care what the two said outside.
Someone had probably written a letter here before, and the ink was already sharpened, which saved him the trouble of not being good at sharpening ink.
He sat down in front of the low couch upright.
——
gentlemen.
It's the fifth day of the Lunar New Year and I've already gone down the mountain.
I wrote you a letter last year, but I don’t know if you received it.
Is it deserted on the cliff?
I don’t know when I will be able to walk to the East China Sea.
Maybe it will be faster than this letter, maybe it will be slower than this letter.
I got into some trouble some time ago and offended the Human Sword Sect. This journey may not be easy.
But I will come as soon as possible.
.......
.......
——
After writing the letter, Nan Dao checked it carefully for a long time to make sure there were no typos, so he dried it carefully before taking it out.
Lu Xiaoer talked with Brother Xinke for a while, and probably understood the process. When he saw Nan Dao coming out, he ran to get a bamboo tube, helped Nan Dao put the letter in, and then brought wax over and sealed the bamboo tube. Then he handed it to the Xinke guy.
The little brother took the bamboo tube over and looked at Nandao again.
"East China Sea?"
Nan Dao nodded.
"Where is the East China Sea?"
"Mojian Cliff."
Brother Xinke's hand that was writing shook and he almost dropped the mailbox into the stove.
He raised his head and looked at Nandao suspiciously for a long time, but he didn't ask any more questions. He just wrote the words "Donghai Mojian Cliff" neatly, and then put them in the pile of letters in Bailu City.
"A total of thirty-three cash, three cash is the pen and ink bamboo tube fee."
Nan Dao nodded, and when he was about to take out his money bag, Lu Xiaoer had already handed over the money he had prepared.
The young boy patted his baggage sincerely, looked at Nandao and said, "Uncle Musician picked several money bag fruits for me when we came out."
South Island is clear.
The boy on the side asked curiously: "Money bag fruit, and a tree that grows money?"
Nan Dao smiled softly and told him what Le Chaotian had done.
Naturally, the younger brother had nothing to say. He could only sigh: "Your junior brother is probably really rich. I don't know where he comes from."
Naturally, the two of them didn't say anything more. They stayed there for a while, and then left there holding an umbrella.
After walking for a while in the town, Lu Xiaoer took out the buns in his arms and started to nibble on them. Because they were in his arms, the buns were still steaming, and when he bit them open, the meat juice inside had not solidified. , looks very tempting.
The young boy saw Nan Dao looking at him, so he took another one and handed it to Nan Dao.
Walking on the road and chewing steamed buns naturally does not fit the character of a handsome young man with a sword in his hand.
But it was probably difficult to go down the mountain, and Lu Xiaoer was a little happy in his heart, so he put those things aside for the time being, holding an umbrella while walking in the rain, gnawing on the buns and looking around. He felt very comfortable - as long as he didn't see the sky. The words of the jailer or the sword cultivator in Zhenwei.
But not long after they started walking, they saw some people who looked like police officers walking towards here from the Zhen Yamen, and hurriedly passed by the two of them.
Lu Xiaoer gnawed on the buns and smelled something unusual.
The two of them looked in the direction in which the seven or eight police officers were leaving, and there seemed to be a lot of noise on that side.
Lu Xiaoer looked at Nandao and said, "Want to take a look?"
Nan Dao thought for a while and said, "Let's take a look."
The two of them gnawed on the buns and followed him all the way.
It's in an alley in the east of the town.
A lot of people gathered at the entrance of the alley. The police officers were keeping the crowd away, and at the same time, they drew a cordon and blocked both ends of the alley.
Lu Xiaoer and Nan Dao squeezed for a while before squeezing through the crowd and standing at the entrance of the alley.
But this glance made both of them stunned.
There is a dead man in the alley, he is the jailer whom we saw yesterday. Ji sat by the wall with a sword on his forehead. He looked at the empty scabbard of the Heavenly Warden. It should be his own sword, which passed through his skull and nailed him to the alley wall.
There are only a few traces in the alley, and some moss marks on the corners have been wiped away. It seems that the fighting did not last long.
There was a faint remnant of sword intent on the ground.
When the two Nan Dao people were looking at the situation in the alley, the people around them also noticed the two strangers in the town carrying swords on their backs, and stepped back in tacit understanding, leaving a gap for the two of them. Large open space.
The movement here naturally attracted the attention of the policemen in the alley. A middle-aged man who was probably a head catcher came over with a knife, stopped in front of the two of them, and bowed politely.
"Are you two sword cultivators from the mountains?"
Naturally, there are very few practitioners in the human world, so even though the two of them were just teenagers, the man seemed very polite.
Nan Dao nodded calmly and said nothing.
The catcher rubbed his hands, probably hesitating a little, and said, "You two were in the town last night. Did you see anything weird or hear any weird sounds?"
Nan Dao had no need to hide anything, so he calmly told them what he saw last night.
The head catcher listened with a frown.
After all, they are just the town's yamen.
Although I don't really like people like Tian Yu, but if I don't like them, I won't like them. If they suddenly die suddenly on your territory, there will always be a lot of trouble.
And they naturally have no binding force on practitioners, so even if they have some doubts in their hearts, they will not say it out loud. After listening, they bowed sincerely and said, "Thank you very much."
The two people from Nandao looked at it for a while and then left there. After all, the Heavenly Prisoner died by his sword. Although it was his own sword, it naturally didn't mean that to the world.
What's more, it was very suspicious that something like this happened when the two of them first arrived.
But suspicion was suspicion, and no one was stupid enough to ask questions.
Naturally, such a matter will wait for the town's yamen to report it to the Heavenly Prison, and the people from the Heavenly Prison will come to deal with it on their own.
The two of them walked far away, and Lu Xiaoer looked at Nandao in the drizzle, and said hesitantly: "Uncle did it?"
Nan Dao shook his head calmly.
"no."
Such questions are not surprising, and Nan Dao is not bothered by them either.
Because when he saw the corpse of the heavenly warden, he also asked a question in the sea of gods.
I'm asking about Peach Blossom.
Taohua's answer is also no.
Yes or no, Taohua naturally knows best.
Lu Xiaoer breathed a sigh of relief.
Nan Dao said softly: "But this is not a good thing."
"Why?" Lu Xiaoer just started to ask, and then he understood what Nan Dao meant.
Yes.
If it wasn't Nan Dao's doing.
That means there are people from the twelfth floor in the town.
After all, no one in the world would want to provoke someone from the Hell for no reason.
Lu Xiaoer looked at the street with some suspicion.
Nan Dao looked at the young boy beside him, smiled softly, and said, "You can't tell. Even the people in Heavenly Prison and the people on the Twelfth Floor can't tell who is from the Twelfth Floor. How can you?" I can tell."
Lu Xiaoer then withdrew his gaze, thought for a moment, put the still unfinished bun in his mouth, then took off the Xiwu Sword from behind, held it in his hand, and then walked peacefully in the rain. .
The two walked for a while, but they heard the babbling sound again.
Nan Dao was silent for a while, raised his head under the edge of the umbrella, and looked towards the end of the street in the small town.
Under the rain curtain, the old swordsman appeared under the eaves of the small courtyard again, sitting there, probably listening to the sound of rain.
Lu Xiaoer looked up at Nandao, hesitated a little, and said softly: "What is Uncle Master thinking about?"
Nan Dao withdrew his gaze and looked down at the smooth stone slabs under his feet. There were shadows of the eaves and mountains in the rain, like cliffs.
"Do you think there is a possibility that the Sword Sect senior brother did it?"
Lu Xiaoer naturally had this conjecture, so when Nan Dao said it, he was not surprised at all. He just stood under the umbrella and was also thinking deeply.
"I have no idea."
Nan Dao thought for a while. Naturally, there was nothing to think about such a groundless conjecture. However, if there were any suspects, Nan Dao and the old sword cultivator were naturally the most suspicious.
After all, that Heavenly Prisoner was a practitioner in the realm of enlightenment and wind.
Being able to kill such a Heavenly Prisoner simply means that one cannot be of a very low level.
At least it shouldn't be lower than the South Island.
The two stood on the street for a while, then looked up at the sky.
It was drizzling and there was still no sign of snow.
Of course there is spring snow.
But not all the time.
It is the same as the wind blowing the wine flag.
It is impossible to predict when the wind will blow the wine flag.
Unfortunately, Nandao still has its own concerns.
Otherwise, he could wait a little longer.
After wandering for a long time, the two returned to the inn.
The waiter also had some sense of urgency in his heart, and the joy of going down the mountain was diluted a lot. After returning to the room, he sat down by the window facing the drizzle in the quiet town, pressed his sword on his knees, and started practicing .
Nan Dao bought a pot of wine downstairs and asked the waiter for a stove. Instead of staying in the room, he sat in the corridor of the inn, facing the drizzle on the eaves, and started cooking wine there. Come.
I drank a bottle of wine until the afternoon.
The rain gradually stopped.
The small town has a twilight scene of green mountains, with water dripping wetly under the eaves and pooling on the stone slabs. It is a bit more gorgeous despite the coldness.
The people from Heavenly Prison came very quickly.
The rain just started to stop, and on the other side of the town, four heavenly wardens in black came, carrying swords and swords, and there should be people from the Taoist sect.
When they entered the town, they went back and forth separately. One of the two men with the sword knocked on the door of the courtyard at the end of the town, while the other walked towards the inn.
Nan Dao sat there calmly and drank wine, watching the man who walked into the inn and walked up the stairs.
"Shanyue City Heavenly Prison, patrol official Zhou Shan, met senior brother."
That man was quite polite.
However, this courtesy was probably due to the fact that Nan Dao's sword power was unusual.
Nan Dao looked up at him for a moment, then nodded.
Zhou Shan held his sword and saluted, then sat down next to Nan Dao.
"Is my senior fellow a Lingnan sword cultivator or a senior fellow from the Human Sword Sect?"
"Lingnan Sword Cultivator."
After Zhou Shan sat down, his eyes fell on the umbrella, which was carrying some rainwater dripping from the eaves, and then his eyes fell on the two swords behind Nan Dao.
One sword has Peach Blossom scrawled on it, and the other has Parrot Island written imposingly.
Zhou Shan considers himself to be a sword cultivator in the Guanyu Realm. Although he is not from a famous sect, he can be regarded as a middle-level practitioner in the human world. However, when he looks at the two swords, he always feels a little uncomfortable.
In my heart, I secretly sighed that I was lucky to see him with such cultivation at such a young age, so I called him senior brother.
Since he has already called his senior brother, it is natural and reasonable to avoid the sharp edge of the sword.
Zhou Shan naturally moved his eyes away and looked at the wine bottle in Nan Dao's hand.
"When did senior brother come to town?"
Such a sentence naturally began to contain many of the unique questioning meanings of Heavenly Prison.
Nan Dao calmly took a sip of wine.
"Yesterday."
