A group of women and girls are washing clothes by the water. Where the mountains and rivers meet, the orchid buds dip into the stream, and the mountains are lush with pines and cypresses.
The woman whom Chen Ping'an called Aunt Liu, together with her daughter Li Liu, spread their clothes on the bluestone slabs by the stream.
The small town at the foot of Lion Peak has four to five hundred households and a lot of people. It seems to be bordering the Lion Peak, but in fact it is separated by a thin line. It is a world of difference. There is almost no interaction. Over thousands of years, we have become accustomed to it, not to mention the people of Lion Peak.
The mountaineering road is some distance away from the town. No matter how naughty and playful children are, they will at most stop at the mountain gate. Anyone who dares to offend the immortal Qingxiu on the mountain will be taken home by the elders afterwards.
On the long bench, I was spanked until my butt burst into tears and I cried.
In a small town, people who can be familiar to everyone are either those whose families work in the county government office, who have made a lot of money outside, and have returned to their hometown to build a big house.
The pretty widow of right and wrong, and then there is Aunt Liu who opens a shop and welcomes people to do business. People who are rough-mouthed in the city and countryside are often not spared by others. After going back and forth, they all get to know the aunt named Liu.
, the women in this small town always liked to joke about the woman named Liu. She often said that her son was a son who studied in the big academy. No one believed it, even whether the woman gave birth to a baby boy.
My son didn't want to believe that it didn't matter if my daughter was good-looking. It wasn't just the married daughter who threw water on her. Otherwise, she already had such a beautiful daughter. There was smoke coming out of the ancestral grave. It was said that she went to Lion Peak Mountain to give birth to some old god.
As a maid, if she has a son who is expected to gain fame, and all the benefits are taken by her alone, how can they live? How can they feel happy?
Recently, a very kind-looking young man came to the cloth shop. He helped the shop carry water several times. He was polite and considerate. He looked like a scholar and had a lot of strength. He also helped some elderly women to draw water.
Shui also recognizes people. After greeting and chatting once today, he can greet people warmly the next day. When he first arrived in the town, he picked out a lot of gifts for the door. I heard that he was a distant relative of Li Muqida.
, the women looked at it and thought it didn't look like it, it was probably Li Liu's daughter who was in love. Some women from relatively well-off families even went to the shop to see it with their own eyes. Well, not only did they not find any faults with their offspring,
, on the contrary, everyone spent a lot of money there, bought a lot of fabrics and went home, and said a few more words about prodigal women to the men at home.
If the young man is smooth-talking and only cares about helping the shop to make dirty money, then that's it. They can join forces and stab Mrs. Liu in the back. They find such a money-minded son-in-law, and they can't get on the stage.
There are words for insulting the woman and the shop in front of her, but after the women complain a few words to their men, they turn around and touch the fabric by themselves. The price is not cheap, but it is not a scam. They are all used to it.
People who deal with daily necessities, rice, oil and salt, can't tell the difference between good and bad? The young man helped them choose cotton and satin, and never deliberately let them choose expensive ones. If they really have a good eye, the expensive ones are not considered affordable.
, and the younger generation will stop them from spending money. Those younger generations are very discerning. They follow their figures, clothes, and hairpins to sell cloth. These women who have daughters in their families feel good about it when they see it.
, it really makes my mother look several years younger, and the price is fair. After shopping around, the store clearly sold it at a discount.
So the women didn't think that Mrs. Liu had found a son-in-law who was too high up to reach. After all, the clothes were not bright, and she didn't talk like those rich and scholarly people. When chatting with people, she looked at them.
People are always looking at people with a straight eye, and those who are not looking straight are more likely to be evil. This superficial truth is what people in the market care about the most.
Therefore, if the Li family shop chooses such a son-in-law, he will not be so good that the neighbors will be jealous, but they have to admit that such a young man is not a bad person and can live a long life.
Other people's sons-in-law are not very good, but they are not bad either, so the women feel a little different in their hearts.
Li Liu listened to his mother, who was in a happy mood, chatting with others. He thought about these things while making clothes, starting from small things to big ones. Small things happened in shops and small towns, and big things even happened in more than a vast world.
She landed in Lizhu Cave in this life. It was a careful arrangement by the Yang Family Shop. She knew that this time, it would be different, otherwise she would not be so close to the Yang Family Shop. In fact, it was the same. She followed her back then.
Her father, Li Er, went to the shop. Li Er was working as a handyman in the front. She went to the backyard. For the first time, Old Man Yang said some serious words to her, saying that if she continued to practice according to the previous method, she would change her mind again and again.
If you lose your skin identity, quickly climb the mountain, and only wander around on the top of the mountain, if you accumulate ten more lifetimes and then a thousand years, you will still be a dabbler who can't even be regarded as a human being, and you will still be stuck on the bottleneck of the Immortal Realm. To say the least, this is it.
So what if you have cultivated the Ascension Realm in your lifetime? How big can your fist be? To take a step back, there are so many saints in the Confucian Academy. Do you really give Li Liu a chance to show his skills? After he died once, he died again. Like this
The cycle of death and rebirth is of little significance. It can only mean that every time you die, you will accumulate a lot of merit, or if you break the rules, you will be recorded by the Confucian Temple.
Li Liu didn't show much publicity during those years in Lizhu Cave. The impression she gave to the neighbors on the west side of the town was that she was more beautiful, her appearance was like her mother's, but her temperament was like Li Er's, she was diligent with her hands and feet, and she didn't talk much. She seemed to have no worth.
The things I mentioned were neither particularly good friends of the same age nor anything that my elders could criticize.
Li Liu often went to pick up Li Huai from school, but he never spoke to Mr. Qi.
When Mr. Qi was lecturing, he would glance at the girl outside the school, or at most he would smile and nod lightly.
It seems like they are just treating them with courtesy, or are they treating them as human beings?
Li Liu had seen many strange things in the world, and because of her low status, she had long been accustomed to ignoring the world. She didn't think much about it at first, and just regarded the Academy Mountain Master as an ordinary Confucian saint who sat in the small world.
Li Liu once asked Yang's shop, the teacher who could only talk to rural children about the truth of books all year round, if he knew his origins, but Old Yang did not give an answer.
The only time Mr. Qi spoke to her was when he came to visit her and had a drink with his father, Li Er.
When she brought a few plates of poor wine and food to the table, Mr. Qi smiled and said something to her, "Li Liu, we were born between heaven and earth. In fact, there is not much difference. It's just that it seems like there will be no chance to return to our hometown again."
Traveling to study, what ultimately determines who we are is not the decaying skin, but what we think, not even what we want or how far we want to go, it is just the knowledge of "how"
Kungfu, life is short, and eventually I will stop where my strength can no longer help me move forward. When the time comes, I will look back and see that the route I came from is exactly what I walked out of step by step."
Then Mr. Qi gently picked up the big white bowl filled with home-brewed wine and said, "I have to respect you because we are here. With this big world, I, Qi Jingchun, can drink here."
Mr. Qi drank it all in one gulp.
Li Liu didn't say anything, but just drank a bowl too.
In the room at that time, the woman was snoring loudly as usual, and the child named Li Huai was whispering softly in his sleep. Maybe he was dreaming and still worried. He was just playing around today and missed his homework. What excuse should he make when he arrives at the school tomorrow morning?
, fortunately Mr. Strict managed to get through.
Accompanying her mother, Li Liu walked back to the shop, holding a bamboo basket. A man from the market was whistling on the road.
The woman was thinking about why Li Huai, a heartless person, didn't send a letter back for so long. Did he forget about his mother when he went out to run wild? She was just worried that Li Huai was alone outside and didn't have enough to eat or wear.
Being bullied by others doesn't just end with a quarrel. What should Li Huai do if he suffers a loss and there is no one around him to support him?
Li Liu comforted his mother with words, and the woman turned around and said that she was the most heartless. Li Huai was far away from home, so he couldn't respect his parents. It would be better for you, the elder sister, to be alone.
Enjoy the blessings on the mountain, and let your parents work as cows and horses at the foot of the mountain.
Li Liu was a little helpless. It seemed that Chen Pingan was better at this kind of thing. A few words could make people feel at ease.
On the mirror of Lion Peak Cave.
Li Er did not rush to let Chen Pingan punch today, but instead talked about boxing theory for the first time.
Li Er got straight to the point: "Us martial arts practitioners, in the final analysis, cultivate the strength to defeat the enemy and fight. Children in the market probably hope that they can punch down walls, crack bricks, and kill people.
It’s nature. So I, Li Er, have never believed in the goodness of human nature. It’s just that Confucian discipline is good and people believe it. I always feel that it is a good thing to be a good person who can’t tell how good it is. As for whether to do it or not.
If we don't talk about it, then evil people commit crimes, and many warriors take advantage of their power to bully others. Most of them know that they are doing something bad. This is the merit of a scholar."
Li Er grinned at Chen Ping'an, "Don't think I don't study. I am just a vulgar wild man who competes with the crops all day long. I still have a few principles. It's just that people who practice martial arts are often taciturn. People in the village are good at calling cats, and they often
Not good at catching mice. My junior brother Zheng Dafeng is not good at this matter. He acts like a girl all day long, gibbering. There is nothing you can do. As long as a person is smart, he can't help but think and talk too much. Don't look at it.
Zheng Dafeng is not a serious practitioner, but he is actually very knowledgeable. Unfortunately, it is too complicated and not pure enough. His fists are stained with mud and water, and he cannot get up quickly."
"It's rare to teach boxing, so I will talk to you Chen Ping'an more today, just this once."
Li Er looked at Chen Ping'an who was standing not far away. Li Er raised his toes and gently rubbed the ground, "You and I are standing in two places. You face me, Li Er, even if you are facing a person with six realms and a tenth realm."
A martial artist still needs to be invincible. There is a huge difference in realm. It does not mean that I cannot lose, but it means confronting a strong opponent. If the body and fists are not moved, the mind will be confused, and if you lose before fighting, you are seeking death."
Li Er didn't seem to have made any move yet.
Chen Ping'an immediately slid away several feet away.
The water flowing around the huge mirror appeared to be stagnant for a fleeting moment, and there were even some signs of flowing backwards.
This is what Li Erquan meant.
"Having that desire to win and survive does not mean that you should be a reckless man who doesn't know what's important. If you withdraw your body and your fists, but your will is high, it doesn't mean you give in even half a step."
Li Er nodded and continued: "For ordinary people in the market, if they are often close to the sword, they are naturally not afraid of sticks, so they are pure martial arts.
To cultivate the road, he often visits his peers to compare martial arts, or goes to the battlefield, where he can defeat ten enemies with one enemy among swords, guns, swords and halberds. In addition to people, there are many weapons added to his body. What he practices is to see the surroundings with one eye.
Follow the road, listen to all directions, and find the courage to fight. No matter who you are, you can still punch."
Li Er said with a smile: "Before you learn true kung fu, you have to endure hardships and beatings first. It not only requires a martial artist to strengthen his body and strengthen his muscles and bones, but also hopes that when there is a gap in strength, he will not be afraid. But if you learn a martial arts killing technique
, so I indulge in it, and one day I will be burdened by it."
Chen Ping'an nodded and said: "The punch cannot be high enough."
Chen Ping'an quickly added, "Don't do it easily."
Li Er then stopped his hand, otherwise Chen Ping'an would only be able to say "You can't punch high enough", but to receive a strong punch, you should at least be at the beginning of the tenth level of Qi.
Practicing boxing and martial arts is a hard work, and it would be foolish to just think about not punching without punching.
Li Er stood there, breathing as usual, stretched out his left arm, patted his left wrist, forearm, joints and muscles with his right hand, and said slowly: "Human muscles and bones are like dragon veins and roots, and muscles everywhere are like mountain peaks.
, beating the muscles and bones, tempering the body, what is going on is every detail, polishing one of the countless details to the extreme, and then adding them up without conflict. With one punch, the city gate must be opened, and the mountain cannot be opened.
It must be broken even if it is broken!”
Li Er retracted his right hand and suddenly raised his arm with his left hand.
There was a strong wind, which made Chen Ping'an's green shirt rustle.
To be continued...