When Golden Finger Meets Salted Fish

In spring, kites fly and grass grows, and the rising sun slantly sways the earth, falling on people and warming them up.

This is a peaceful town, located beside the South China Sea, and belongs to the land of mortals. Legend has it that there is a fairy mountain above the South China Sea, and the immortals there can move mountains to fill the sea, and can fly to the sky to escape from the earth. The people in the town grew up listening to these fairy tales, but day after day, year after year, the children who listened to these stories grew up, married wives and had children, and then grew old, and never saw them. There is no trace of the fairy.

Under the big locust tree at the entrance of the town, an old man was lying on a rocking chair, lazily basking in the sun. The ancient locust trees are flourishing above his head, and strings of locust trees gradually bloom and hang all over the branches, and occasionally one or two flowers are blown off by the wind.

The old man sniffed the salty humidity in the air, closed his eyes slightly, and said in an unhurried voice: "That happened more than a hundred years ago, when my grandfather was still young. One day a hurricane blew up on the sea, and the wind It was unprecedentedly big, and the blowing made the houses in the town crumble. There was a family of orphans and widows at the end of the street, and the house was already damaged, but it couldn't withstand the hurricane, and it didn't take long for the roof to blow off..."

Surrounding the old man was a circle of children, the older ones were eight or nine years old, and the younger ones were two or three years old. They listened in ignorance or expectancy, and when they heard the roof being blown away by the wind, they all let out an exclamation.

It is very suitable for storytelling if someone cheers, the old man opened his eyes and looked around, and continued under the expectant eyes of the children: "It's a trivial matter that the roof is blown away, and what's worse is that the child is only seven or eight years old and physically He was already light, but when he was blown by the hurricane, he couldn't stand up immediately, and was blown into the sky. His widowed mother rushed over to try to pull him, but she was a step too slow, and the fingertips of the two people were staggered."

Hearing this, a child interrupted: "How do people fly into the sky, like flying a kite?"

The old man paused, as if thinking of the scene, he laughed: "Yes, it's like flying a kite." After speaking, he smiled again and continued to tell the story seriously: "The child was blown off the ground in an instant. Ten zhang. He is still so small, if the wind stops and he falls from the sky, he may fall to his death on the spot."

The children were still looking forward to the sky, but when they heard this, they felt a little afraid.

The other two guys covered their buttocks with their hands. It seems that they fell from a high place, and they thought of the experience when their buttocks were almost broken into four pieces. Even if the others hadn’t fallen, they had all been spanked. The children felt the same for a moment, and couldn’t help asking worriedly: “Then what happened to him after that, but he fell from the sky?”

The old man shook his head and said affirmatively, "No, he was saved by a passing fairy."

When the children heard the word "immortal", they didn't bother to cover their buttocks to empathize with them. Their eyes lit up immediately, and they looked at the old man expectantly: "Immortal? Is it really an immortal?!"

The old man nodded, turned his head to look towards the direction of the sea, and his cloudy eyes showed two points of longing: "Of course it is true. Not only was he saved by the immortal, but the immortal also said that he had a spiritual root after seeing it, and took him away." We went to be immortals together."

The children exclaimed again, their immature eyes full of black and white were filled with longing, and they all asked: "Then can we also be taken away to become immortals?"

The old man withdrew his gaze, shook his head and laughed: "When I was your age, I also asked my elders the same way. It's a pity that I have lived for more than sixty years, and I have never seen those immortals flying into the sky and escaping from the ground." He said Stretching out his hand to touch the head of the little grandson next to him, he sighed again: "I can't wait any longer, but there are real immortals in this world. If you are lucky, you might meet them."

The children were convinced of his words and nodded their heads heavily. Some people vowed: "I will definitely meet a fairy. When I become a fairy, I will bring you back the elixir, and everyone will live forever after eating it together." ..."

The childish words make people laugh, but they are also full of hope.

On the road next to the ancient locust tree, a young man stood with his sword in his arms, and he stopped and listened for an unknown how long.

Until his companion came and patted him on the shoulder, he smiled and said, "Why is senior brother still here? Could it be that he met an old friend?"

After the man finished speaking, he realized that he had said the wrong thing. His senior brother had been away from his hometown for more than a hundred years. How could there be any old friends? I'm afraid that the past has long been turned into a handful of loess, and if we really want to meet each other, we can only go to the grave to pay homage.

Fortunately, the young man didn't mind, just smiled, put down his hands and walked forward: "Let's go, find a place to stay in the town first."

Under the leadership of the young man, the senior brothers entered the small town in front of them. Compared with what they remembered, the town seemed to be the same as before, but the people in the town had changed round after round.

The young man just stopped at the entrance of the town, not because he met a familiar person or heard a familiar story. It’s just that the scene just now seemed familiar to him, and he missed it—more than a hundred years ago, he was also a child listening to stories under the tree. But at that time, he listened to other people's stories, but now he has become the person in the story.

A hundred years is a lifetime for ordinary people, but it is only a blink of an eye for monks.

***************************************************** *****

The town is adjacent to the South China Sea, and the weather by the sea is always changeable.

One moment it was just spring and the sun was shining brightly, but the next moment the situation changed suddenly and it began to rain. But the rain didn't last long, and after a while, it stopped and the sun came down again.

The young man and his classmates stood under the same roof to shelter from the rain. They had long been accustomed to the changeable weather in the South China Sea.

When the rain stopped, they walked out again, stepping on the wet ground, walking on the not too spacious streets of the town. Only one of them complained: "This town is too small, there is only one inn, and there are so few guest rooms."

Hearing the words, the young man said casually: "There are only about 200 households living in this town. The location is remote, and outsiders rarely come. How many more inns do you want? Just that one, the guest rooms are probably covered in dust all the year round. This time It was just a coincidence."

It's not that they bumped into people by chance, but that many outsiders happened to come to this town recently. The locals don't know the origins of these outsiders, but as a group of foreigners who are also outsiders, they know that all the outsiders this time are monks, that is, the immortals in these mortals' mouths. It's just that some of these "immortals" practice immortality and some cultivate demons. It's okay for ordinary people to meet the former, but the whole town may cease to exist if they meet the latter.

The young people are the disciples of a small sect in the South China Sea. The whole sect is only about two hundred people. Compared with the behemoths of the three righteous sects and the four demon sects, they are nothing worth mentioning, and they can even be destroyed with a wave of their hands.

But the sect has been rooted here for thousands of years, and a large number of monks suddenly flooded around the South China Sea, so they naturally couldn't turn a blind eye.

The youth and his party were released to inquire about the news. However, their own strength is not strong, and the youth with the highest cultivation level is only at the Jindan stage, and the sect behind them is still weak and cannot be relied upon. Now that they came to this small town, they didn't even dare to compete with others for an inn room - they saw that the group of people living in the inn at this time were all Jindan stage!

They can't afford to offend them, they can only choose to stay away, but it is impossible to go back home immediately when they just come here.

Everyone walked to a tea stand by the side of the road and sat down. While greeting the boss to serve tea, they sighed again: "Now there is no place to stay in the inn, so what shall we do next? Could it be that we have to eat and sleep in the open? There has been a lot of rain recently. "

The young man was obviously more experienced than the group of juniors. While thanking the boss who brought the tea, he said: "That's not necessary. There are always people in this town who have vacant houses. Let's pay some money and just go and stay overnight."

When everyone heard this, they felt relieved, and began to gossip again.

The youngest junior took the initiative to pick up the teapot and poured tea for everyone, but he picked up the teacup and took a sip first, but immediately wrinkled his face because of the bitter taste of the tea. Fortunately, he still remembered that this was a roadside tea stand, and the tea was crude, no wonder the boss, so he put down his teacup and complained: "Our South China Sea has always been peaceful, it's so good, why are there so many people here all of a sudden?!"

All the brothers shook their heads when they heard the words, how did they know this? But immediately someone guessed: "Could it be that there is some rare treasure in our South China Sea that is about to be born, so everyone rushed to seize it?"

He said that he was still a little eager to try, after all, who would not yearn for treasures or something.

As a result, the young man shook his head after hearing this, his face looked very serious: "It's best not to, this is not a good thing."

The juniors were puzzled when they heard the words, and questioned: "If there is really a rare treasure born, why is it not a good thing for us to be close to the water?"

With an expression of "you are too young", the young man glanced at everyone, and explained: "This is really not a good thing for us. Don't you know that eighty years ago, it was rumored that a rare treasure was born in the far west?" , Attracting monks from all over the world to go. This attracts not only righteous monks, but also demon cultivators who have been dormant for a long time. In the end, the righteous and demons fought at the foot of the Mingcong Mountain for several years, not to mention the loss of their respective troops. The Mingcong Mountain in the western region is still relatively strong, but it has been destroyed by these two sides!"

Having said that, the young man glanced at everyone again: "How much better do you think our South China Sea is than Mingcong Mountain? If those masters are really attracted to come and fight a battle from a long distance, the foundation of our sect will be destroyed." It might all be destroyed."

Of course, there are more cruel ones, such as the complete annihilation of Mingcongshan Guiyizong and Changyinmen.

These small sects of them are not worth mentioning in front of the big sects. They offend the other party somewhere, or they didn't do anything at all. Rather than worrying so much, it's better to be far away from those big sects, and it's good to cultivate immortals and seek longevity in an ordinary way.

After hearing what he said, the juniors also shrank their necks, and put aside their delusions of falling pie in the sky. After a short silence, he carefully asked: "Senior brother, if it's not a treasure, what are those people doing in South China Sea suddenly?"

The young man knocked on the table helplessly: "How do I know, aren't we here just to inquire about news?"

"Oh oh oh." A few juniors nodded as if they were pecking at rice, looking a little stupid.

There is a wind blowing from the sea, bringing with it a burst of salty and humid air. I don't know if it's an illusion, but there seems to be a slight smile in the wind...

The young man raised his head as if aware of it, only to see an old tree standing beside the tea stall, its lush branches and leaves stretched out in spring. A thick branch just slanted over and stretched over his head. The dense branches and leaves blocked the sunlight and cast a shadow.

When the young man raised his head, a few small white flowers fluttered down and landed on their tea table. They were just a few newly bloomed Sophora japonica flowers.

"Hey, where did the Sophora japonica come from?" A junior student said in amazement, and looked up. But I saw that the ancient tree beside the road was not a pagoda tree at all, and naturally there would be no pagoda tree flowers falling.

At this time, the spring is still early, and there is only one ancient locust tree in the town that blooms so luxuriantly.

…

Someone dropped the not-so-tasty Sophora japonica in his hand halfway, and casually threw an ice lotus seed into his mouth. The familiar sweetness and coldness lingered on the tip of her tongue, and she immediately narrowed her eyes in satisfaction, showing a bit of laziness.

The sun shone down and fell into her eyes, reflecting a warm golden luster.