Chapter 197 Birth, Old Age, Sickness and Death

Rice fields, ponds, flying ducks, small bridges, flowing water and houses.

In a place called Yinlongchuan, after crossing a mountain with lush forests, Li Zhi finally saw a village nestled in the mountains and by the water.

Next to the village are endless fields, neatly arranged ditches, water wheels dozens of feet high, and an ancient road covered by roadside trees, which seems to lead to other villages.

From afar, dozens of farmers were working in the fields, a group of children were fishing and catching shrimps by the river, and wisps of smoke were rising from the village, forming a picture of prosperous rural life.

Looking at the neatly planned fields and villages, Li Zhi thought to himself, "This should be it."

Stopping his flying footsteps at the end of the ancient road and hiding his immortal aura, Li Zhi transformed himself into a wandering Taoist priest and walked towards the village in the distance.

“Tick-tick, tick-tick…”

Not long after walking, we heard a festive suona sound at the other end of the ancient road.

Out of curiosity, Li Zhi walked towards the direction where the sound came from.

"Here comes the bride, here comes the bride!"

A wedding procession dressed in bright red, led by a group of suona players, escorted a woman in a wedding dress sitting on the back of a tall sacred deer towards a village at the foot of the mountain.

The divine deer seemed to be psychic. Its entire body was snow-white, but it had a pair of colorful antlers. It walked with a proud step, as if a general returning from victory. It carried the bride and enjoyed the attention of many children, and happily followed the group of suona players.

Among the team, Li Zhi also found that many people had exceptionally strong qi and blood power, but they were not cultivators. They were like successful warriors in the secular world.

The pioneer who was leading the team saw Li Zhi standing in the middle of the road, and immediately trotted to Li Zhi, stuffed a handful of wedding candy into his hand without saying anything, and said in a friendly manner: "Greetings, Taoist priest. Please make way for the bride."

"Immeasurable Heavenly Lord, I am glad to meet you on the road. I would like to congratulate you." Li Zhi looked at the wedding candy in his hand, smiled, then took out a small suona and started playing it on the roadside.

In an instant, above the ancient road, colorful phoenixes were flying, auspicious clouds were covering the ground, hundreds of birds were singing in celebration, flowers were falling from the sky, and all kinds of strange visions surrounded the bride.

"Immortal, the immortal is here to send blessings."

Seeing this scene, everyone exclaimed in amazement. After the spiritual flower entered their bodies, they felt the wind under their feet and seemed to be able to fly in the clouds.

The divine deer cried "yo yo". After absorbing the spiritual flower, a five-colored divine light shone from its body, making the bride on its back look elegant and noble, as if she was a fairy descending to earth.

As Li Zhi played the music, everyone seemed to be walking on an avenue of divine light, as if they were escorted by immortals, and it looked extremely magnificent and gorgeous.

Only after those people were sent into the village by the Divine Light Avenue did the sound of Li Zhi's suona disappear.

Then, bursts of firecrackers were heard in the village.

The moment he heard the sound of firecrackers, a joyful smile appeared on Li Zhi's face. Looking at the happy couple from a distance made him feel happy.

Joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness, the four human emotions are indeed common to both immortals and mortals.

Continuing along the ancient trail, just as Li Zhi passed the fourth village beside the ancient trail, he suddenly heard someone calling him from the grove next to him.

"Master, please stay."

This sudden shout startled Li Zhi, and he almost slapped in the direction where the voice came from.

During this trip to the mortal world, except for long-distance travel, Li Zhi usually saw the world with his naked eyes.

Turning around, I saw a simple and honest man in his twenties, stumbling out of the woods with an anxious and frightened look on his face.

He seemed to have run a long distance. His clothes were already soaked and his face was a little pale. He seemed to be running out of all his strength.

The man ran to a place more than ten meters away from Li Zhi, and knelt on the ground with a thud. Then he kowtowed to Li Zhi repeatedly and said incoherently: "Master, please save my wife, please have mercy on my child. Master, please have mercy on me..."

Seeing the young man with deep sorrow in his eyes, Li Zhi hurried over to help him up and asked, "Brother, what happened to you?"

"My wife is having a difficult delivery, and the midwife said that only an immortal can save her. Taoist priest, you must be an immortal, you must be an immortal, please save my wife and child." The young man seemed to have grasped a life-saving straw, and directly grabbed Li Zhi's clothes, speaking incoherently.

Moreover, Li Zhi discovered that his mental state had reached the brink of collapse.

Li Zhi put one hand on his shoulder and injected a stream of magic power into his body, alleviating his physical fatigue and soothing the sadness in his heart. He said, "Lead the way."

Hearing this, a glimmer of hope immediately appeared in the young man's eyes. He wiped his tears, got up from the ground, and ran towards home with Li Zhi.

Because of Li Zhi's magical power in his body, the young man seemed to have the ability to move quickly. In just a few breaths, he finished the distance that took him half an hour to run.

The young man stopped only after running to a small farmyard.

At this time, there were a few old people in the yard, looking at the closed door with painful expressions.

There were also some faint groaning sounds coming from the room, as if the woman in labor was about to die.

The young man rushed to the door, banged on it excitedly, and shouted inside: "Yun'er, hold on, I've brought the immortal back to you."

Only then did the elderly people in the yard notice Li Zhi following the young man.

When Li Zhi sensed that the life flame of the woman in labor in the room had begun to flicker and seemed to be about to go out at any time, he did not bother to greet the old people, but simply opened the door and entered the room.

On the bed, there was a woman in labor, her breath was weak and she seemed to be about to smoke. She was bleeding heavily but still hadn't given birth to the baby.

Upon seeing this, Li Zhi immediately infused a stream of magical power into the woman's body and carefully took out the fetus that was about to suffocate in her belly.

Then he took out a drop of water from the fountain of life and injected it into the fetus, bringing the fetus that was about to suffocate back to life.

"Wa wa", as the vitality was replenished, the fetus soon let out a loud cry.

The people waiting outside immediately showed expressions of ecstasy.

In the room, Li Zhi handed the surviving fetus to the midwife next to him, and then fed the woman a drop of magic spring water to ensure that she would not die from heavy bleeding and severe damage to her vitality.

Seeing that the woman's life fire was stable and she had fallen asleep due to overwork, Li Zhi said to the midwife in the room: "The next thing is up to you."

After saying this, without waiting for the midwife to speak, Li Zhi disappeared from the room.

When Li Zhi appeared in the yard again, everyone knelt down and kowtowed to him to express their gratitude.

Li Zhi waved his hand and helped them up, saying, "May the mother and child be safe. You can go in and see them now."

After saying that, Li Zhi planned to leave.

But the old people and young people refused to let Li Zhi leave and insisted that he stay at home for dinner.

Looking at this simple and honest family, Li Zhi had no choice but to agree to their request.

At the banquet, an old man brought a child wrapped in a small mattress to Li Zhi and said, "Master, you saved the lives of my daughter-in-law and grandson. Please give this child a name."

After thinking for a while, Li Zhi said, "Since your family name is Lang, you can name the child Lang Dou."

"Acne scar?" The young man frowned immediately, seeming to dislike the name.

His father slapped him on the back of his head and said, "What do you know? The name the Taoist priest gave me is a good name. From now on, my grandson will be called Lang Pox Scar."

"Sir, you misunderstood. My name is Lang Dou, without the word 'bar'. I hope he can become a man who can fight against heaven and earth in the future." Li Zhi said as he wrote the two words "Lang Dou" on the table.

Everyone suddenly realized what was going on and started laughing happily.

It was not until dark that Li Zhi left the Lang family at the enthusiastic invitation of the Lang family.

Walking on the ancient road at night under the moonlight and facing the breeze, Li Zhi felt that he had had a very fulfilling day.

First he met a wedding procession, then he witnessed the birth of a new life, and was warmly received by the whole family. This feeling was something he had never experienced since he came to Beidou, and he felt an indescribable sense of satisfaction in his heart.

I felt so happy that my steps seemed to have become lighter, and I vaguely wanted to sing a song.

"Waves in the waves, waves in the waves, the breeze is nice, the moon is bright, I am here to report the blessing..."

But before he finished singing, he heard a faint voice coming from afar.

"Mom, where are you?"

"Mom, if you hear me, please tell your son back."

"Mom, I know I was wrong, please don't be angry, it's all my fault, please go home."

Li Zhi followed the voices of those calling their loved ones in the wilderness.

I saw a middle-aged man shouting "Mom" on the country road.

Soon, the middle-aged man found an old woman in a ditch beside a dirt ridge.

The moment he saw the old woman, the middle-aged man looked haggard and worried, and shouted: "My mother, what are you doing? Are you going to scare your son to death?" The old woman in the ditch said in a flat and cold tone: "I am old and useless. While I can still walk, I will not drag you brothers down. You all have wives. Since you don't like me and dislike my illnesses, let me fend for myself here."

"Oh my god, are you going to let me die? If anything happens to you, how can I face my father in the afterlife?" The middle-aged man jumped into the ditch, knelt in front of the old woman, and tried to lift her up from the mud at the bottom of the pit. But for some reason, he couldn't lift the old woman, who was not heavy.

"Mom, please get up and go back with your son. When we get home, you can beat or scold me as you like, but you can't scare the child here." The middle-aged man thought his mother was angry, so he pleaded.

"Tie'er, you go back. Mother has decided to die here. Tomorrow morning, you brothers should take shovels and fill this ditch. This will be your last filial duty to mother." The old woman seemed to have died in her heart. She shouted at the middle-aged man in a very cold tone. Her loose hair made it impossible to see the expression on her face.

"Mom, you can't do this." The middle-aged man's face turned pale, as if he had encountered the most terrifying thing, and he began to dig the mud at the bottom of the ditch with great effort.

"Get out! Get out now." The old woman shouted excitedly when she saw this.

"Mom, I won't leave. I must take you back today." The middle-aged man said with tears and snot.

"My child, I am useless and a burden to you. But if you don't leave, both of us will die here." Finally, the old woman shed tears, reached out to wipe her son's tears, and said with infinite fear in her voice.

"Mom, what happened?" The middle-aged man heard the change in the old woman's tone and asked hurriedly.

The old woman then lifted up her legs that were stuck in the mud and were covered by her clothes.

I saw that her two calves had been swallowed into the mouth of a strange creature, and it seemed to be slowly swallowing the old woman whole.

"Monster, you dare to eat my mother, I will eat you." The middle-aged man's eyes turned bloodshot in an instant. He lay directly in the mud and bit the black and gray mouthparts that wrapped her mother's legs.

"Squeak..." After a piece of flesh was torn off from the monster's mouth by the middle-aged man, the monster in the mud seemed to feel the pain and let out a terrifying cry, as if a ghost was wailing.

Then the old woman was lifted up into the air by the monster, and it seemed that the monster was going to throw her to death.

Seeing this, Li Zhi frowned, exhaled, and directly froze the monster.

However, the old woman's legs had been digested by the monster's gastric juice. Although she would not die, she was left disabled.

When the middle-aged man saw the monster was frozen, he immediately picked up a branch from the side, broke it, and used it as a spear to stab the monster, saving his mother from the monster's mouth.

In fact, the monster was already dead when it was frozen by the breath exhaled by Li Zhi.

The so-called monster is not a monster with intelligence, but an ordinary creature that lives in the mud and feeds on humus. It looks like an enlarged version of an earthworm.

Li Zhi's breath not only froze the monster to death, but also stopped the bleeding in the old woman's legs.

With proper care, it shouldn't be life-threatening.

Li Zhi felt very uncomfortable when he saw the middle-aged man carrying his mother who had lost both legs back home.

After standing there for most of the night, Li Zhi finally came to his senses.

“Why is there always ‘suffering’ to embarrass ordinary people?”

“Perhaps, it is not the ‘suffering’ that troubles ordinary people, but the fact that ordinary people cannot overcome the disaster that makes it seem ‘suffering’.”

"Then why am I not the same? I strive to survive in this world and practice hard, just to prevent the calamities from becoming my own sufferings, right?"

After his mind seemed to have been baptized, Li Zhi continued on his way to the village where Jin Yuming and his master lived.

In this valley plain with a radius of more than 100 miles, there are dozens of villages of various sizes, where tens of thousands of ordinary people live.

Among the mortals here, there are at most some people who practice martial arts, but there are no cultivators who have truly opened up the Sea of ​​Bitterness.

But they did not seem unfamiliar with the monks, and generally lived a comfortable life.

The next morning,

When the sun rose from the eastern sky, Li Zhi, dressed in a simple and clean Taoist robe, appeared at the entrance of Jiajia Village.

This is the place where the master of astronomy Lu Renjia, whom Jin Yuming told him about, lived in seclusion.

Under the big locust tree at the entrance of the village, a few old men were doing morning exercises with a group of children. They seemed to be practicing some kind of health-preserving exercise. Each move was filled with a simple and ancient artistic conception.

Those people did not stop practicing despite the arrival of strangers, and Li Zhi did not disturb them.

Only after they finished their practice did Li Zhi step forward and ask, "Old man, may I ask, does Master Lu Renjialu live in your village?"

"Little Taoist, where are you from and why are you looking for Mr. Lu?" One of the old men with white hair and beard but vigorous spirit looked Li Zhi up and down before asking.

Since Lu Renjia came to Jiajia Village, he has not been an idler, but has served as a teacher in the village middle school for more than 20 years.

Moreover, everyone in the village knew that he was an immortal who was tired of the gossip of the outside world, but they didn't know how powerful he was. Master Tiansuan had never revealed his true magical powers in front of them.

Li Zhi said, "I am from Qishi Mansion, and I am a good friend of Master Lu's disciple Jin Yuming. He invited me to his home as a guest."

"Qishi Mansion? What is that place? I've never heard of it." Someone muttered.

"Little Taoist, you came at a very unfortunate time. Just last month, Mr. Jia and that kid Jin Yuming left the village and went into the mountains to collect herbs. It will probably take several months for them to come back." said another old man.

"He's not at home," Li Zhi felt a little regretful, and then asked, "Excuse me, sir, which fairy mountain did Master Lu and Jin Yuming go to collect herbs?"

The old man pointed to the mountain behind the village and said, "Collect herbs in that fairy mountain. Little Taoist priest, the mountain is very dangerous. There are wild beasts everywhere. The most powerful hunters in the village dare not go into the deep mountains. That is where only fairies can enter and exit."

After learning about Master Tiansuan and Jin Yuming from the elders, Li Zhi said, "Since Master Lu and Jin Yuming are not at home, I will take my leave."

After watching Li Zhi disappear at the intersection, the old men started chatting with each other.

"Did Jin Yuming get into trouble outside?"

"It doesn't look like it?"

"Master Lu is really something. He obviously has a powerful ability but he only taught us some simple methods of guiding breathing."

"It's not Master Lu's fault. The children in the village are just not talented enough. It's been twenty years, and not a single one has mastered the Guided Breathing Method to perfection. We can't see the mysterious sea of ​​suffering."

"..."

After hearing their conversation, Li Zhi just shook his head helplessly. It is not so easy to become a cultivator.

Compared with the huge population base, the number of people who can truly open up the sea of ​​suffering and become monks is not that large.

It is normal for an ordinary village not to produce a monk in twenty years.

Even if no monks were born for two hundred years, it would not be a strange thing.

Following the old man's instructions, Li Zhi entered the mountain range, intending to take the initiative to find Jin Yuming and Master Tiansuan. He also had to meet up with Duan De in Qinling Mountains, so he couldn't waste too much time on the road and had no time to wait for Jin Yuming and Master Tiansuan to return.

After crossing dozens of mountains, they finally saw traces of human activities in a place 20,000 miles away from the village.

There is a newly built small bluestone temple there, which looks like it has just been built.

The small temple had no name, and Li Zhi did not sense any signs of human habitation in the temple.

The clouds descended in front of the small temple. Seeing that there were no restrictions in the temple, Li Zhi pushed the door and walked in.

Passing through the doorway, what comes into view is not a hall dedicated to the gods, but a lonely new tomb. It seems that this small temple was built to prevent the new tomb from being destroyed by wild beasts.

Then, Li Zhi saw a tombstone carved from ordinary wood in front of the grave.

But the contents on the tombstone surprised Li Zhi greatly.

"The tomb of Lu Renjia, the master of astronomy."

"Disciple Jin Yumingli."

After seeing these two columns of text, Li Zhi was dumbfounded.

"Master Tiansuan actually passed away in meditation! How could he pass away in meditation?"

Li Zhi was so shocked that he couldn't even express it in words.

Then he opened his third eye and looked into the tomb. Sure enough, he saw the body of a king in the tomb, and that body was in the slow process of transformation.

It seems that the old king in the tomb did not want to leave any remains after his death.

Li Zhi felt deeply confused when he saw this scene.

Didn’t Jin Yuming bring back a lot of immortal juices and jade liquids? Even if Master Tiansuan’s life span is coming to an end, those immortal juices and jade liquids can at least extend his life by a hundred years.

How come he suddenly passed away?
And where is Jin Yuming?
Did he build this small temple?
(End of this chapter)