Volume Two, The Lake of Winter, Chapter Sixteen: Chance
Volume 2: Winter Lake Chapter 16: Opportunity
After a while, Sangsang looked at the old man and said seriously: "If you only like local women and don't like Yan girls, I also know some brothel girls, but if you want them to bear children for you, it will probably cost a lot of money."
The old man was in a trance again. He was silent for a long time before he woke up with difficulty. He said with a serious expression: "I am not looking for a wife to have children. I am looking for an apprentice to inherit my mantle."
Now it was Sang Sang's turn to be in a trance. She thought, what does finding an apprentice have to do with me? My bones are not strange, and my life experience is not strange. And although the cotton-padded jacket on your body is indeed quite dirty, but these
Tian seems to have never begged, and he doesn't look like the worldly master in the stories Ning Que told him when he was a child.
"Do you want to accept me as your apprentice, or do you want me to help you find an apprentice?" she asked seriously.
The old man replied seriously: "I want to accept you as my apprentice."
Sangsang decided not to pay attention to him, squatted down and started wiping the table legs.
The old man looked at the table legs, which were bright and discernible, and could not find a stain on them, and remained silent.
The old man did not leave Laobi Zhai, but followed Sangsang silently and watched Sangsang. He watched Sangsang wipe the tables and chairs, sweep away the non-existent dust, repair the shop door that had been repaired long ago, and watched Sangsang close the shop door.
Watch Sang Sang fetch water from the well, watch Sang Sang wash rice, choose vegetables, cook rice and chop garlic, watch Sang Sang sit down at the table and start eating alone.
Sang Sang had no intention of inviting him to have dinner with her, and strangely enough, she had no intention of asking him to leave either.
Through the window, the old man looked at her eating silently and said sympathetically: "Are you bored?"
Sang Sang's hand holding the rice bowl froze slightly. She looked at the three green vegetables on the white rice, nodded, and then continued to chew the vegetable roots in her mouth, her dark little face and cheeks bulging slightly.
After dinner, Sangsang washed the dishes, face and feet, and got ready for bed.
Before going to bed, she took out a quilt, handed it to the old man who had been guarding the courtyard, and said: "If there is no place to sleep, you can put a table together in front and make do with it for the night."
The old man felt the weight of the quilt and became more determined. He looked at the little girl and asked seriously: "Do you believe in chance?"
Sang Sang shook her head, and then she thought of the encounter many years ago, and the life she had spent with someone all these years, Liu Ye's eyes brightened a little, and she nodded again.
"I believe in chance." The old man said, "I believe that everyone is destined to meet some people and do some things. These things arranged by Haotian are opportunities."
The old man's cloudy eyes became brighter and brighter. He looked at the night scene of Chang'an outside the small courtyard. After a moment of silence, he said: "Many years ago, I saw the shadow of the night falling on this city. Once I saw it, I met it.
"
"Now that we have met, we can no longer separate. It's just that what I see is not real and what I meet is not specific. I only know that he exists, but I don't know where he actually exists."
"Then I saw a man who was born with knowledge in Chang'an City. I felt that this was something wrong, because there should not be people who were born with knowledge in the world, so the opportunity between me and him began."
"The chance between me and him is to see him and then kill him."
"Nine months after seeing him, I started trying to kill him, but I knew I didn't kill him because he was still alive. I was the only person in the world who could clearly feel that he was still alive."
"It's just that since then, the opportunity has faded. Except for once in a while, I have never been able to see where he is. Until recently, I saw him again, so I came to find him and renew the opportunity."
The old man was talking about the past like a devout fool sitting on a high threshold. Sangsang listened silently for a long time, her willow eyes occasionally brightened and then dimmed, and then she asked: "Find him...
…What would you do?”
The old man said: "Kill him."
Sangsang asked: "If you are such a great person, why didn't you kill him back then?"
"Because the opportunities between us are not absolutely conducive... Not everyone can easily enter this city to kill people, especially me, so back then it could only be done by people in this city. The more critical reason is that,
The whole world is skeptical about what I see with my eyes, basically they don’t believe me.”
The old man continued: "I don't know what will happen after I find him. Haotian's arrangements can never be imagined by mortals like us, but I always firmly believe that he is the person with whom I have a great opportunity. I
I thought I came to Chang'an just to understand this opportunity, until... I met you."
The old man looked at Sangsang's slightly dark cheeks and bright willow-leaf eyes, and was silent for a long time. He thought silently that the sacrifice of so many subordinates who were loyal to him made the whole Taoshan and Tang Dynasty feel uneasy, which secretly attracted him.
Is the real reason for coming to Chang'an City the shadow of the night or you in front of me?
Sangsang lowered her eyelashes slightly and asked in a calm voice: "What can I learn from following you?"
The old man looked at her slightly blinking eyelashes and her ordinary face, and said, "Magic."
Sangsang asked: "Is magic very powerful?"
The old man nodded and said, "It's amazing."
Sangsang lowered his head lower, making his eyelashes appear longer, and whispered: "My young master is very powerful. After I learn magic, can I help him beat people?"
The old man smiled slightly and said, "Of course."
Sangsang raised her head, looked at the old man intently with her little dark face, and asked bravely: "Can... beat you?"
The old man looked at the little girl's little face and the two clear spring-like eyes between the rocks, as if he wanted to see into the deepest part of the clear spring water. He still didn't see a trace of impurities, but was absolutely transparent.
He was so transparent that he couldn't help but sigh deep in his heart, and said in a solemn and prophetic tone: "It will definitely work."
Sangsang asked: "What kind of magic is it?"
The old man responded: "The emphasis of cultivation is to perceive and then control the breath between heaven and earth. Divine art is to perceive, understand and control the divine brilliance of Haotian. The so-called divine brilliance, you have seen it since you were born, you have seen it when you wake up in the morning, and you have seen it at dusk.
You have seen it when the door is closed, you have seen it in summer, you have seen it in winter when the snow is falling, and you have not seen it all the time."
Sangsang frowned slightly and asked, "What is that?"
Chang'an City was quiet late at night, and the sky was filled with stars, but it was not as clear as the day. The old man stood in the cramped courtyard, slowly spreading his arms, as if he wanted to absorb all the light in the world.
"The divine brilliance of Haotian is the sunshine."
As soon as he finished speaking, the old man's right hand, which was the tip of his middle finger when he poked out the cuff of his dirty cotton-padded jacket, suddenly became bright. The radiant light that came from nowhere gathered here and slowly released and bloomed from the inside out.
Like a bright flower, it covers up all the lines on the fingertips, making it pure and milky white, making people feel respected.
The old man looked at the little girl in front of him and said calmly: "To feel the divine brilliance of Haotian, even ten years is not too long, so what is needed at the beginning is extreme forbearance and patience."
Listening to these words, Sangsang was thoughtful. She raised her right hand and raised her index finger, and stretched her slender fingers into the dark winter night. The dim fingers swayed gently in the wind, and then gave birth to a faint and faint sound.
The light is like a candle in the wind, which may be extinguished at any time, but it is still bright and has never been extinguished.
The old man stared blankly at the light at the tip of her slender index finger, as if he was intoxicated and unwilling to wake up.
In the winter of the fourteenth year of the Apocalypse, the Great Priest of Light escaped from the Xiling Temple and came to Chang'an City due to a mysterious induction. He did not find the shadow of the night, but found his descendant. This was probably some kind of apocalypse.
…
…
On the northwest border of the Tang Empire, somewhere on the grassland not far from Weicheng.
Under a dying winter tree, a scholar in a cotton-padded jacket was cooking.
He looked calmly and intently at the book he was holding in his left hand. Suddenly he remembered something. He took a ladle of water from his waist and poured it into the milky white soup pot to suppress the boiling heat in the pot.
. Taking advantage of the time he bought, he began to cut the meat slowly. The perfectly frozen mutton pieces were flying under the sharp knife, as if snowflakes were falling. However, his movements were too slow, and the meat was not finished cutting, and the soup pot
Boiling again.
Another ladle of water was poured into the soup pot, and the scholar continued to cut the meat. The tall master, holding the bowls and chopsticks that had been mixed with ingredients, stood eagerly by the soup pot and waited, letting out an annoyed and anxious sigh from time to time.
"When it comes to things like fate and chance... no one knows what they will see or encounter, and no one knows what what they see and encounter means to themselves. Thoughts and reality are often two opposite worlds.
, For example, the general and the aunt we saw in Weicheng a few days ago, maybe they will live forever, maybe they will return to the Central Plains next year, but no matter how they develop, they may not be as happy as they appear."
The master tapped the empty bowl with his chopsticks, shook his head and sighed: "Being unhappy does not mean that it will be bleak. I don't think it is a kind of sadness, but it feels full of a sense of dramatic joy, just like Mingmingtang here,
The mutton is also here, but half an hour has passed and I haven't been able to eat it yet. This does not mean that I will always be so lost and sad. Maybe the first bite of mutton later will be the best thing I have ever eaten in my life.
Something to eat.”
Anyone who is a student must learn to hear the truest wishes from the teacher’s high-sounding words. As the senior disciple of the academy, the scholar is of course the one who can best understand the master’s likes and dislikes, so he wrote that volume
I inserted the book back into my waist and began to cut the meat faster to prevent the teacher from getting really angry later.
But as Chen Pipi once told Ning Que, the senior brother was very serious about his work, so he worked very slowly, very slowly. So although the master was waiting by the soup pot with bowls and chopsticks like a beggar, he gave him unprecedented benefits.
Despite the pressure, the speed of cutting meat still failed to increase much.
In order to distract the teacher and relieve the current mental pressure, the senior brother asked while cutting the meat: "Teacher, can't you see the future too?"
After hearing this question, the Master became furious, pointed at the gray winter sky above his head and shouted: "I can't even understand the sky, how can I see the future!"