Refuse to trample on the pride of heaven

Chapter 348 Inquire

When Lu Wensheng and others were preparing to leave, the sky was already bright. The morning light shone on the ruins, as if coating this land full of suffering with a layer of golden hope.

Xiaoman stood in the crowd, tightly clutching a piece of broken tile picked up from the ruins, on which the remnants of the three words "Niangniang Temple" could be vaguely seen.

Her eyes followed Lu Wensheng's back. That figure seemed like it would disappear among the distant mountains at any time. Her heart was beating fast, as if something was taking root in her chest, making her want to chase after him, but she didn't know how to start.

"Master!" An old voice suddenly sounded, breaking the tranquility of the early morning.

The old man walked forward tremblingly, holding a tattered booklet in his hand, which was the "Liaoyuan Collection" left by Lu Wensheng.

His voice was a little choked, but with unprecedented determination: "Fellow immortals, could you please tell us your names? Although we are stupid, we also want to remember the names of our benefactors, so that we can erect a monument to worship you in the future and pass it down from generation to generation."

Lu Wensheng stopped and looked back at the old man with a complicated look in his eyes. He did not need any offerings, but seeing the sincere gratitude in the old man's eyes, he did not refuse after all.

"My last name is Lu, and my given name is Wensheng." His voice was clear, like the morning breeze in the mountains. Several other people also gave their names, but none of them said the specific character.

"There is no need to erect a monument to worship. It is just a small effort and it is our duty."

Upon hearing this, the old man nodded quickly, muttering the three words "Lu Wensheng" in his mouth, as if he wanted to engrave this name into his bones.

Xiaoman also silently memorized the name. She noticed the jade pendant on Lu Wensheng's waist, which had exactly three words on it. She thought it might be Lu Wensheng's name. She ran her fingers across the palm of her hand, trying to write out the three words "Lu Wensheng", but she didn't know many words, so she could only imitate them repeatedly.

"Demons are everywhere lately. When dealing with corpse ghosts that look like dead people, you can use fire to attack them. Their weakness is in their heads. As for phantom demons, they are good at disguise, but their strength is not high. You can also deal with them, but you need to stay awake at all times and don't be fooled by their disguised skins."

Xiaoman raised her head and met Lu Wensheng's gaze. She felt that those brown eyes seemed to be able to see through people's hearts. She nodded heavily following the adults' actions and kept his words firmly in her heart.

After explaining all this, Lu Wensheng did not stay and turned to leave. Yu Shuoyang and others followed him. The clear cries of the black cranes drifted away in the wind, as if seeing them off.

It was not until the figures of Lu Wensheng and others completely disappeared in the mountains that the villagers gradually came to their senses. They supported each other and began to clean up the ruins, muttering Lu Wensheng's name, as if this name could bring them endless strength.

A few days later——

Every household put up longevity tablets for Lu Wensheng and others. Fortunately, Lu Wensheng and others wore waist tablets, and many people noticed them and wrote down their names, so they didn't have to go through the trouble of engraving them.

People knew that as monks, they had different wishes, so they did not write blessings for health and longevity, but instead prayed for a smooth path to immortality and an unobstructed road.

Xiaoman squatted on the ground, holding a branch in her hand, and continued to scratch the three words "Lu Wen Sheng" on the ground. Her movements were clumsy, but extremely serious, as if this would allow her to keep the figure of the immortal in her heart forever.

At this moment, a strange voice suddenly sounded behind her: "Little girl, what are you writing?"

Xiaoman was startled and turned around quickly, only to see a man who looked like a scholar standing behind her with a gentle smile on his face. He was wearing a blue-gray gown and holding a book in his hand. He looked ordinary, but gave people an indescribable sense of weirdness.

"I... I'm writing the immortal's name." Xiaoman was a little nervous and subconsciously wiped the words on the ground.

The scholar smiled, squatted down, and looked at the words on the ground that had not been completely erased: "Lu Wensheng... have you seen him?"

Xiaoman nodded, with a trace of admiration in her eyes: "The Immortal saved us and taught us how to deal with demons."

"Oh?" The scholar raised his eyebrows, with a barely perceptible gleam in his eyes. "Then can you tell me what kind of person this Immortal Deer is?"

Xiaoman hesitated for a moment, but seeing that Shusheng had a gentle attitude, she slowly relaxed her guard. She told him everything about how Lu Wensheng killed the demon and taught the villagers, her tone full of admiration and gratitude.

The scholar listened carefully, nodding his head from time to time. When Xiaoman finished speaking, he slowly spoke: "I see... This Immortal Deer is indeed an extraordinary person. To be honest, I was also favored by him in my early years, and I have always wanted to write a book for him to record his deeds... Unfortunately, I am a mortal, and I can't climb mountains and cross rivers as fast as the immortal master, so I have never had the chance to meet him. What you said today has given me some inspiration."

When Xiaoman heard this, his eyes suddenly lit up: "You want to write a book for the Immortal?" Immortal Lu and others should leave behind their deeds for people to admire.

The scholar nodded and smiled gently: "That's right. But I need more details, I wonder if you can help me?"

Xiaoman nodded without hesitation: "Of course!"

"What did you say to Miss Man?" The lame herbalist came over with a bamboo stick, his shoulder still stained with freshly picked rock moss. "Writing a book for the immortal?" He suddenly clenched his right hand, which was missing three fingers, and the bamboo stick struck sparks on the bluestone slab. "Count me in!"

The shout was like a stone thrown into a pond, and the ripples quickly spread all around.

The carpenter who was repairing the beams leaned out half of his body, and the copper bells on the eaves jingled in surprise at his movements: "I saw that when the immortal used his sword energy to cut open the altar, the blood that oozed out of the wood grain had seven colors!" He stroked the shavings with his rough fingertips, "I have to write it down!"

The crowd gathered from all corners like vines awakened by the spring rain.

"And me!" The woman holding the baby squeezed over, "When the monster cut out my heart, I heard the immortal say, 'What should be offered in the temple is a strong bone, not cowardice!'" Her pale face suddenly flushed, "This must be written in the first chapter!"

Everyone was confused for a moment: Did the Immortal Master say that? Whatever, it sounds reasonable, so it should be!

The scholar's fingers curled slightly in his sleeves... Is that right? He is not really writing a book!

His face became gentler, and he took out a yellowed rice paper from his bag: "Everyone, please speak slowly, I will write it down..."

Xiaoman looked at the suddenly excited crowd and suddenly found that there was a similar golden light dancing in everyone's eyes.

The scholar wrote with great speed, and the wolf hair brush left tear-like marks of ink on the rice paper.

"When the immortal helped me up, the smell from my sleeves was the scent of Perilla frutescens." The hunchbacked old man leaned closer to the rice paper, "I won't be mistaken about this smell."

Xiaoman squatted on the edge of the crowd and continued practicing calligraphy, when he suddenly discovered that the last stroke of the word "deer" always unconsciously rose up, just like the wings of a crane that flew over the ruins that day.

As everyone was talking, the setting sun stretched the figures into the shape of a long sword.

The lame swallow picker took out a piece of charred wood from somewhere, saying it was the remnant of a beam and pillar that was burned by Lu Wensheng's sword energy that day; the carpenter presented a wooden board covered with sword marks, and insisted that the patterns matched the River Map and Luoshu; even a three-year-old child held up a pebble with gold spots, saying it was formed by the blood of an immortal that fell to the ground - it was getting more and more exaggerated, and the Lu Wensheng in their mouths was about to become a god who could scare demons to death with just a glance.

"Besides Lu Wensheng, where are the other immortal masters?" The scholar asked a few more questions out of rigor.

The crowd fell strangely silent. Everyone racked their brains and came up with a conventional answer: to help exorcise the demon.

Scholar: “…”

The next morning, the scholar smiled and put the rice paper into a green cloth bag and left. The words seemed to glow like fireflies - as if they were a copy of the most vivid Lu Wensheng in everyone's mind.

Xiaoman looked at his back and always felt that something was wrong, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

She shook her head, suppressed the doubts in her heart, continued to squat on the ground, and carefully wrote the three words "Lu Wen Sheng".

The morning light shines on her, and behind her, the busy figures of the villagers intertwine together, forming a picture full of hope.