On Guoshan Mountain, the flat land protrudes like the back of a black tortoise, and the secluded sea of mist appears. To the east there is the Immortal Peak. On the Immortal Peak stands the Hall of Eternal Life, which is like a turtle head wearing a crown while visiting the Yaochi. It is auspicious.
Taoist Wu Shi seemed to be very familiar with the geography of the mountain. He led Mei Si'en through the paths and arrived at the main road outside the temple in less than an hour.
There are so many pilgrims entering the temple to pray for blessings and make offerings. It is easy for people to mistakenly think that today is the birthday of some immortal family. Taoist Wushi did not follow the crowd into the temple, but led Mei Si'en to the edge of the dojo. Below is a hundred-foot cliff, and above is the blue sky. Standing here and leaning on the railing, you can overlook the distance and see the endless sky. The unique aroma of the Taoist temple blows gently with the breeze, entering the nose like wine and intoxicating the heart and mind.
Sure enough, in the Taoist holy land, burning incense is like wine.
"I only heard you say that you stayed in Zhenwu Temple, but I don't know how long you stayed here?" Mei Si'en stood next to him, looking into the clouds and mist in a similar way, and asked casually.
When he was in Minzhou, Wu Shi occasionally chatted with Mei Si'en about past events, including some about Zhenwu Temple. It's just that he has talked about too many places, and the Zhenwu Temple section is not outstanding among them.
"The scenery of Guoshan is famous all over the world. It has misty clouds and is not stained by the world. Standing here is like being in a fairyland." On the other side of Mei Si'en stood a tall and thin official. At this time, he was pointing to the east and said to the girl accompanying him, "Look there. , Emperor Zhenwu lives deep in the clouds." The girl nodded frequently after hearing this, as if she was convinced of this.
As if he had never heard the question, Taoist Wushi closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and said with a satisfied smile: "Boy Mei, let's go home with me!"
Home means "宀" on the top and "豕" on the bottom. The word "hog" means a ferocious beast, and the word "weep" means a place of sacrifice. The meaning of "home" is self-evident. Hearing the fat bald man say he was going home, Me Si'en glanced at him, a little suspicious, but still followed him into the palace.
The two have been together for fifteen years, but Me Si'en doesn't know much about Wu Shi's past.
I knew that he was a Taoist priest. Before coming to Minzhou, he had traveled around the world for almost twenty years. He had been to many places, all over the world. He had been to the Snow Country in the north and Wuhai in the south...
I know that he is good at martial arts and has profound attainments in Taoism. He talks about Taoism in detail, although many times I don't agree with his "Tao".
It is also known that he is very good at eating. He can take five pounds of ginseng into his stomach without any diarrhea, and he can take ten bowls of broth without holding back his urine.
Yes, he recently started bragging that he has a very powerful apprentice, saying that he has the best martial arts in the world. "You are not the best in the world, how can you teach a disciple who is the best in the world?" Mei Si'en often retorted in his mind.
No matter how many things Wu Shi didn't tell him, he wouldn't ask. After leaving his sister's family, he was no longer a meddlesome person.
Not long after walking, the two of them arrived at the inner hall. As they walked inside, there were fewer and fewer people, and they finally had some peace and quiet like the mountain gate.
There are several pine trees standing next to the plain wall of the courtyard. The tall ones are upright and straight, while the short ones are crooked. However, they are all over two feet in diameter. It seems that they have been collecting the essence of heaven and earth here for hundreds of years.
There was a square stone table under the tree, and several old Taoist priests gathered around and muttered. When they looked closer, they turned out to be playing chess on a chessboard. The black and white chess pieces on the board are entangled with each other, and they are at war with each other, but neither of them can do anything to the opponent. It is an extremely uncomfortable situation for both sides: if you advance, the way forward will be cut off; if you retreat, there will be no defensive ground.
"Smelly chess!" Taoist Wushi spat softly.
Zhan Gan glared at him and said, "Monks don't understand chess." After saying that, the chess was settled, and the white pieces formed a "clamp" shape and continued to trap the black pieces. The old Taoist priest looked at the overall situation and nodded while stroking his beard. He was obviously quite satisfied with this move.
"Let him surround you." Taoist Wushi interrupted again, "Three sons set up an ambush to block his escape!"
Zhan Li, who was holding Heizi, turned his head and looked sideways. He was about to open his mouth to refute, but suddenly he was stunned. He froze there. After four or five breaths, he slowly stood up and called softly: "Master?"
He said "Master" in an uncertain tone, with a somewhat tentative tone.
Zhan Li is the junior fellow apprentice of the late Zhan Jue Taoist priest in Jinzhou City. Their master, Kong Xuanzi, is Qing Xuan’s senior fellow apprentice. In terms of seniority, he has to call Qing Xuan “Uncle”, but in terms of age, he is older than that senior disciple. My uncle is still several years older and almost octogenarian. Qingxuan was only twelve years old when he entered the academy, three rounds later than Kongxuan. Kong Xuanzi died at the age of seventy, and it had been thirty years since he had received the spiritual tablets. His master, Zhanli's ancestor... How old must he be now?
Mei Sien glanced at Wu Shi beside him, as if he had seen a ghost.
Could he be the great master of the old Taoist priest with silver hair and gray beard?
How is this possible! I wouldn't believe it even if I beat him to death.
"Hey, my dear disciple, finally you haven't forgotten me." Taoist Wushi smiled and patted Zhan Li on the shoulder, acknowledging his identity. In an instant, six old Taoist priests gathered around him and looked closely. After a while, they all started to scream.
"Master, you have been going down the mountain for more than thirty years to seek your destiny..."
"Uncle Taishi, you have already achieved great success in Dafa? You have returned to your old age!"
I don’t remember whether it was thirty-three or thirty-four years ago. It was so long ago that I can’t tell clearly. That year, Taoist Wushi ignored the dissuasion of his disciples and insisted on going down the mountain, saying that he was going to travel around the world to find opportunities. Thinking that he was over ninety years old when he came down from the mountain, and there was no news for so many years, the disciples had long thought that he had returned to the dust, but they didn't know that today the patriarch returned to the sect.
When I left, my crane hair was bowed, my body was bowed, and when I came back...
Return... ...forget it. When I came down from the mountain that year, although Taoist Wu Shi looked quite old, his immortal style and spirit were not as ordinary as those of ordinary people. Now that he has returned, he has a big waist, a round face and a shiny face, and he looks like a butcher in the market. If it weren't for the two red moles facing each other at the corners of his eyes, who would have recognized these six disciples and grandchildren?
Red moles at the corners of the eyes are a type of facial appearance that can only be associated with profound blessings. Wu Shi has moles at the corners of his left and right eyes. This is known to all the older Taoist priests of the Zhan family in Zhenwu Temple. Therefore, his identity was quickly revealed. Confirmed.
After all, it is unlikely to see two such facial features in a lifetime, and there is absolutely no possibility of impersonation.
"Zhanli, remember your hair was not white yet when I came down the mountain." Taoist Wushi teased his old disciple's white hair with a smile.
The old Taoist priest did not dare to run away. He held his hand and smiled bitterly and said: "Master, when you came down the mountain, your disciples didn't know the destiny, so naturally they didn't have many gray hairs. Now at Wangba, I don't dare not let my beard and hair turn gray!"
Zhan Qian, who was holding the white child, had already approached Taoist Wushi and asked slyly: "Uncle Taishi, you have returned to old age and reappeared in your prime. Could it be that you have found the way to immortality and will be promoted to immortality soon?"
The ultimate pursuit of the Taoist sect is immortality. After the immortality technique was completed, Qingxuan, who was more than seventy years old, always looked like a man in Qingyi Xiaodao in his early thirties. All the old and young Taoists in the temple had seen it. Later, when he entered the world, his hair turned gray overnight. His disciples said that he had gone wrong in his practice and his power gradually faded away.
Many Taoist sects have the technique of longevity and beauty. When Qingxuan was less than twenty years old, he started to learn a technique called "Evergreen Technique" from Taoist Wushi. This technique has three chapters: physical training, internal strength, and elixirs. Although it is considered brilliant, it is far from being called a unique skill in the world. However, Qingxuan has painstakingly studied on this basis for more than twenty years, constantly improved and expanded it, and actually created a more comprehensive, more profound, and more profound longevity skill.
Taoist Wu Shi naturally knew that the "Evergreen Technique" could not achieve true immortality, but he was unwilling to follow his apprentice to learn his own immortality technique. Finally, he decided to travel down the mountain and cultivate his body and mind in order to achieve a breakthrough.
After more than thirty years of exploration and exploration, he finally derived the secret of longevity from the half-baked "Evergreen Technique" - the birth of all things.
Different from the Immortality Gong, which combines "killing skills" and "immortality techniques", "Wang Sheng Sheng" is purely about cultivating the body, in order to ensure that the body can always receive nourishment from medicines and food regardless of age. He is very rich. Apart from being lazy and inactive, the main reason is that he eats too much.
The more you eat, the better your health will be, and your body will become younger and younger.
In the fifteen years since they lived together, the most common words Mei Si'en has said to him are nothing more than "Where are the herbs and ginseng I dug up in the mountains a few days ago?", "You ate all the dried meat I bought this morning." ?", "I cooked a big pot of rice, and you just left this for me?"
Mei Si'en has worked hard over the years with little rest, but his face has always been anemic, and he is often hungry. As for Wushi Taoists who pretend to be Pure Land monks and perform rituals for people, most of them are forced to do so because of their unfilled stomachs.
Although he has extremely superb martial arts, he almost never shows it to others, let alone makes a living from it. From the perspective of Taoist people, killing people and taking lives will damage their Taoist fate. If you use force frequently, you may have to kill someone one day.
The gap cannot be opened.
"Where is this kid Qingxuan?" After talking about it, Taoist Wushi finally asked about his disciple.
The eldest Zhan Gan replied: "Uncle Qingxuan has been getting up early every day recently to lead the two junior brothers Guan and Zhan on a mountain tour. He usually doesn't return until about 2:00 p.m. At this time, he is probably still in the mountain. "
It is said in the temple that Qingxuan's black hair turned white, his childlike face turned old, and his temperament changed drastically.
"Uncle Master takes Zhan Ming and Zhan Wei on a mountain tour every morning. Naturally, he doesn't just take them to see the scenery in the mountains. It is expected that he will take advantage of the quiet time in the morning to teach the two disciples."
"In the forty-six years since I have been a disciple of Guanmen, my uncle has taught me martial arts in the Taoist temple only seventeen times in total. Eight of the seventeen times have been within the past six months since my uncle returned to Guanyin. He has always been careless, lazy and indifferent. Except for my junior brother Yuanchen, I have never taught anyone well in the past thirty years about worldly matters. What happened now is definitely not a good thing."
The disciples' speculation was not unreasonable.
Taoist Wushi's eyelids twitched slightly, and his face suddenly changed into a smile, and he turned to the old Taoist priest Zhanli: "You and I, our little uncle, are very hungry. Go and prepare some food quickly. What about thousand-year-old Ganoderma lucidum, hundred-year-old ginseng, and ten-year-old Taoist priest?" Cicada, anything from deer antlers, bear paws, and white tiger hearts is fine, um, it’s all fine. Anyway, we have to prepare a full table, and by the way, we’ll also bring two jars of royal wine.”
Generally speaking, Taoism is more austere than Buddhism. It’s not that there are fewer Taoists than Buddhists, nor that Taoists are less generous than Buddhists, but that Taoism values money over teaching, and often goes to the mountains to give alms to the people, roughly maintaining an equal balance between “dispersing wealth” and “collecting offerings.”
The Zhenwu Temple as a national temple is different.
Naturally, the imperial court knew that they had a tradition of giving alms, so in addition to gold, silver and silk, the annual rewards included many precious medicinal materials and rare medicinal stones. After hundreds of years of accumulation, the inventory in the door is very rare.
Taoist Wu Shi understands this section better than anyone else.
After everyone heard this, they all looked at Mei Si'en. Their great master/grand master's uncle said "your little master uncle".
They didn't think much about preparing a table of rare and famous delicacies. It wasn't even a trivial matter. But the old Taoist Wushi accepted a disciple, which was a big event in Guanzhong.
A big deal.
Originally, the only Taoist priest of the "Xuan" generation in the temple was Qingxuan. The gray-haired man who suddenly appeared in front of him was the young disciple of Taoist Wu Shi, so he was naturally the uncle of these old Taoist priests.
"Well, it's okay for Senior Uncle Qingxuan to accept a young apprentice. After all, Junior Brother Yuanchen and I are just the same generation. But this disciple of Grand Master Uncle is our senior uncle. It seems that he is better than me. Some of the older disciples are still quite a bit younger."
Six pairs of eyes looked at it together, and soon discovered a new problem.
A big question.
"Junior brother, have you noticed?"
"Senior brother, do you think so too?"
"It's so similar, at least seven to one! No, I think it's at least seven and a half!"
"You can all see it, they are indeed very similar."
Listening to their chattering and whispering, Taoist Wushi raised his eyes and cursed: "You little cows, why are you so noisy! Master, I will eat some Guanmen Kuzang and I won't be angry anymore?"
He was very angry and felt that he had lost face in front of Mei Xiaozi.
Taoist Zhanli hurriedly bowed and saluted, stepped forward to apologize and said: "Master, you have misunderstood us. I will go to the warehouse and dining room to make arrangements to ensure your satisfaction. Senior brother, you can tell the rest."
After saying this, he hurriedly left with his feet in the wind.
Zhan Qian took over Zhan Li's explanation and reported seriously: "Uncle Grand Master, please allow my disciple Sun to report this. This junior uncle looks very much like the young disciple of my senior uncle Qingxuan."
From the moment Wushi Taoist said that he was his young disciple, Mei Si'en wanted to interrupt and deny it, but everyone kept talking and he never had the chance to say what was in his heart. Hearing the old Taoist priest in front of him say that he looked similar to a certain disciple in the temple, he suddenly became excited and asked anxiously: "What the Taoist said is true? What is his name?"
"Mei Yuanchen. My uncle's young disciple is called Mei Yuanchen."
Mesien trembled all over, his eyes fixed.
