Translator: Dj22031
Editor: Dj22031
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The shadows of the trees here were lengthening, and the dusk sunset penetrated the jungle and illuminated a golden-red stream.
Wherever you looked, you could see thick shadows and endless sea of clouds billowing around your feet. If you listened carefully, you could only hear the faint chirping of insects and the occasional roar of wild beasts, coming from the dense forest in the distance that had fallen into darkness.
This place was like an inaccessible mountain peak.
The strange thing was that there was actually a house built in such a deep and secluded location.
Calling it a house was really giving it a lot of face. This building was just a thatched shed at best. He didn’t know how unscrupulous the owner was, but the building was a bit unruly: the thin wooden poles were exhausted supporting a head of messy straw, and the skewed posture seemed like it would be kneeling down and kowtowing in the next second. The low fence was sparsely tied, and pheasants could get in through the gaps without fluttering their wings. An extremely ugly wooden table was placed in the yard at will, with chopping boards and kitchen knives scattered on the table. Judging from the unappetizing stove half a meter away, it should be used as a kitchen and dining room. At this time, the drafty bamboo door of the thatched hut was wide open, and through the dim light, one could see a bed set up inside, with a deer, a weasel and a wild dog squatting beside the bed.
This strange combination gathered together, but they did not fight. Occasionally, other animals appeared outside the courtyard, and they were all concentrating on catching the breathless human voice in the shed.
The next second, the leaves in the distance suddenly rustled.
That faint sound sounded like the roar of a natural enemy to the ears of wild beasts. The shrinking animals outside the fence instantly dispersed with their fur exploding, but in an instant, a thin figure with a strong smell of blood split through the dusk.
The man who came was not too tall, and his half-length messy hair was loosely tied behind his head with a piece of cloth. He wore a patchwork robe, with skeletal arms sticking out from under the rolled-up sleeves, and his skin was extremely pale. He seemed to have no blood in his body, and the figure was very thin, like a beggar who had been hungry for three days and was about to set off from the bridge hole to the street tunnel to beg for food.
However, in his seemingly weak hands, he was carrying a wild boar that was almost as big as a brown bear.
The wild boar’s throat was slit open accurately and harshly, and a long trail of blood trailed all the way behind him. The dead boar’s fangs were spread out, showing its ferocious look. The mountain wind blew in at night, blowing the hunter’s disheveled hair. He raised his hand and pushed them back impatiently, revealing half of his bloodstained but handsome face.
Wei Xi came back with today’s prey, and he could tell what was going on in the house at a glance. He frowned and kicked the fence door. The lecture in the thatched shed suddenly stopped. After a moment, Wei Dedao’s old voice floated out from inside: “Disciple?”
Wei Xi threw the wild boar in front of the stove: “What did you put in again?”
The three animals listening to the sutra in the room immediately retreated obediently. Before leaving, the stag nodded to Wei Xi in an understanding manner. The weasel and the wild dog met Wei Xi’s gaze, clamped their buttocks and ran away.
Wei Xi went into the room to wash his face. Wei Dedao, wearing a robe even more ragged than his own, lay on the bed and sighed: “Your junior brothers and sisters are all scared away by you.”
Wei Xi ignored him. After washing his face, he found a pair of scissors to cut his hair. His hair-cutting skills were so superb that he had a big bump on his head in the blink of an eye.
Wei Dedao chuckled, groped for the table with his hands, and poured himself a cup of cold tea: “Are you tired? Drink tea, drink tea.”
Wei Xi and him looked at each other. Wei Dedao’s eyes were wide open, staring into the void without any focus.
This old man was blind.
He shouldn’t have been blind before. Wei Xi’s ears tingled whenever he heard Wei Dedao bragging about his heroic deeds. Among them, the story where he led his sect disciples to kill the enemy decades ago was endlessly and repeatedly mentioned. Speaking of rising, he still had to drag Wei Xi to look at the string of heads hanging on the shelf in the backyard. The heads could never be fake. How could a blind man go into battle? It could be seen that he must not have been blind before.
But Wei Xi had doubts about the authenticity of most of his stories. For example, he said that his sect was famous in the world of spiritual practice and had hundreds of disciples. He also said that he had profound attainments in cultivation and knew everything about the world. But for so many years, Wei Dedao had been living in this thatched hut that was not even as good as a beast’s cave, eating chaffy vegetables, and Wei Xi had never seen any of the famous sect’s fairy mountain and hundreds of sect’s disciples. This old man said that he had advanced cultivation, so why was he still blind and old now?
Wei Xi was full of sarcasm but was too lazy to admit that he was not a talkative person and was actually not interested in other things. When Wei Dedao didn’t let him work, he usually sat quietly in the yard in a daze. When he was hungry, he went out to grab something to satisfy his hunger.
The fate between him and the old Taoist priest was also a long story. Wei Dedao said that Wei Xi was a wild ghost he picked up in the past. He had always taken good care of him and treated him as his own. After he opened his spiritual veins, he took him into his care as his close disciple, this kind of kindness could be said to be as high as the mountains and as deep as the sea, and there was no way to repay it. Wei Xi had no way to refute the former. He had lived with the old Taoist priest for who knows how many years. He had been what he was now since he was conscious. His memory of the past was also fragmented and difficult to sort out. However, the words “careful and caring” and treating him as one’s own were obviously bullshit. Wei Dedao only lectured and ate and slept all day long. If he hadn’t been working as a cow and a horse every day, this old man would still be digging grass roots to eat.
Wei Dedao started repeating his old tune again.
“My Taicang Sect has been established for thousands of years and is highly respected in the spiritual world. We have countless disciples… You are my personal disciple. In the future, you will inherit the mantle and become the 62nd generation leader. You must take the mantle of the sect as your responsibility…” The old man said as he dug around under the bed again and took out a dusty cloth bag filled with pieces of silver nuggets. The surface of the silver nuggets had turned black, and the carvings that should be portraits on the round silver nuggets were completely rusted. Wei Dedao took out the ingot-shaped silver nugget and put it aside, then blew into the flake-like silver nugget, raised it to his ear and listened, “…I don’t know who became the emperor after the war got over. Never mind him, the world is peaceful anyway, and the money will definitely be put to use. The money must be collected well, this is the key to our faction’s comeback after its birth…”
Wei Xi put down the cup, stood up and left.
“Wait a minute.” Wei Dedao turned away from Dayang and called him, “What are you going to eat tonight?”
Wei Xi: “Roast wild boar leg.”
Wei Dedao always had a lot of opinions about food: “Isn’t it okay to cook braised pork?”
Wei Xi replied: “No.”
Wei Dedao caught him and stuffed the red envelope to him in a flattering manner: “Let’s cook braised pork. Roasted pig legs are difficult to digest. Of course, the wild boar must be braised into braised pork.”
Wei Xi picked it up and took a look, only to find that what Wei Dedao handed him was the jade pendant he never removed from his body. This jade pendant was all crystal white and as plump as solidified grease. Wei Xi seemed to know instinctively that this was a good treasure. This was the only evidence in so many years that made him think that the old Taoist priest’s past might not be completely unreliable, but now he was given it casually by this stingy old man just for a bite of braised pork.
He frowned and stared at the jade pendant: “Isn’t this your leader’s seal?”
Wei Dedao’s expression remained unchanged: “Do you really believe it? I’m just bragging.”
Wei Xi’s eyes were fixed on his face, and he suddenly realized something: “You are going to die.”
Wei Dedao blew his beard: “You are really good at chatting. I have lived for more than five hundred years, but I am a mortal after all. How can a mortal be immortal?”
Wei Xi didn’t want to argue with him, so he handed the jade pendant back expressionlessly: “I don’t have a body and can’t leave this mountain. You’d better hire someone wiser.”
Wei Dedao didn’t answer, he just laughed and crawled back onto the bed, lying comfortably on the straw mat. He tilted his head and looked in the direction of Wei Xi, and his blind eyes seemed to have focus at this moment, and he looked full of energy: “Since the fall of heaven one hundred and twenty years ago, the spiritual energy collapsed, and the realm of practitioners has fallen one after another, I knew that this day would come for my generation sooner or later. But decades ago, I accompanied your senior brothers and sisters to leave the sect, return to the world, and go on a killing spree. Practitioners are not supposed to interfere in mortal affairs, so I was blinded, your senior brothers and sisters, I don’t know where they have gone…but I still don’t regret it. Disciple, do you know what cultivation is?”
“That’s bullshit.” Wei Xi asked, “Do you still want to eat?”
“That’s all, you will know sooner or later anyway.” Wei Dedao did not force it. He looked back at the top of his head in the void, and his condensed pupils lost focus again, leaving only a confident murmur to himself, “I want to eat braised pork… “
After the trick, he finally gave up and closed his eyes, lying on his back, as peacefully as if he was asleep.
Wei Xi stood there for a while, then turned and walked out of the room.
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