Walking alone with a sword, slaying ghosts and gods

Chapter 12 Qinggui
These two days, the old man asked me about the results of my investigation again.

Li Qing didn't dare to tell the result of the last investigation. After that night, she developed a fear of the temple.

But there is no way to avoid it now. No matter how scared I am, I have to go and give an explanation to my great-grandfather.

"Qing'er, what's wrong with you?"

The person asking the questions was a young man, probably in his twenties, with big-looking eyes, high cheekbones, and a slanted knife scar on his cheek, which gave him a murderous aura.

However, the young man looked at Li Qing with a gentle gaze and did not dare to speak too loudly.

His name was Zou Hu. There were not many literate people in Ishihara County, so tiger, leopard, jackal, wolf and other similar names were mostly used for men. However, he was different because he learned the art of poison from Grandma Zou, and he actually killed a tiger with his poison.

Then he fed the tiger's corpse to his insects.

Zou Hu likes his junior sister Li Qing, not only because she is young and beautiful, but also because of the Li family behind her. If he can join the Li family, he will never have to worry about a lifetime of luxury. Moreover, he is a cultivator, so no one will dare to look down on him even if he marries into the family.

"My grandfather asked me to go to the dilapidated temple on the hillside to investigate the details of the Taoist priest from the Middle Earth. Brother Hu, I don't dare to go alone. Can you call more people and go together?"

"Yes, why not?"

Looking at Junior Sister Qing'er, her eyes were as gentle as water waves. Zou Hu patted his chest until it thumped. It had been a long time since Junior Sister Qing'er had looked at him with such eyes since she grew up. Zou Hu felt like a centipede in heat. Even if he met a cow at this moment, he would dare to bite it.

He seemed to have forgotten what happened to the centipedes that bit the cows.

early morning.

Led by a man and a woman, more than ten people went to the dilapidated temple on the slope.

There was smoke coming from afar as dozens of people were cooking. If you got closer, you could naturally smell the aroma of the food.

If you get closer, you can hear the sound of reading:
"The Supreme One said: There is no door to fortune or disaster, but only man can bring it upon himself. The rewards of good and evil follow like a shadow."

If Mr. Wang Yue had not promoted Mandarin in the local area, the people who came here might not have understood what the sounds of reading meant, but now they can understand some of it.

Some people subconsciously stopped and looked at their eldest brother Zou Hu.

"What are you looking at? We are not going to do anything bad. Besides, don't you guys do enough bad things in the past? Now you are pretending to be kind in front of me."

Zou Hu slapped someone on the head. After hearing what he said, everyone realized that it was indeed the case and continued to move forward.

When he arrived in front of the temple, Li Qing noticed that the temple in front of him looked the same as it did a month ago, shabby and old, with only some minor repairs and cleaning done.

"He obviously has enough money to buy rice and noodles to open a county school. Even if he didn't need money, with his magic, he could have repaired this place a long time ago, right?"

With such doubts in mind, Li Qing was the first to walk into the temple.

Then, she saw this picture:
In the middle of the spacious courtyard, a very handsome young Taoist priest stood tall, surrounded by a group of children.

The Taoist's hands were originally empty, but he pulled his right hand out from his left sleeve, and the next moment he pulled out a plate of sweet cakes.

This scene made the children around shout with excitement.

The young Taoist priest made a hand gesture and swept his hand across the plate of sweet cakes. The next moment, the plate of sweet cakes turned into a large group of white pigeons, flying all over the yard.

"Ah ah ah ah..."

The children who were originally surrounding the Taoist priest were screaming and running around the yard excitedly to catch the white pigeons. The pigeons did not fly high. Once caught by the children, they would turn back into sweet cakes and be stuffed into their mouths, eating them with great sweetness.

While the group of little fat guys were led away by the sweet cake, Lu Cheng sat back on his rattan recliner and kicked it lightly with his foot. The next moment, the rattan chair turned into a fat pig weighing hundreds of pounds, which carried the Taoist priest on its back and ran to the corner of the yard, panting.

At this time, a fair and chubby little girl fell to the ground because she ran too fast. She felt a little painful and lay on the ground crying.

Seeing this, Lu Cheng, who was about to hide, sighed slightly. Then the big fat pig turned around and trotted to the side of the little fat girl.

Lu Cheng picked up the girl and let her sit on the pig's back and circle around the yard.

Soon, this made the little girl laugh. The other children, who no longer had white pigeons to catch, surrounded the fat pig, and were particularly envious of the little girl who could sit on the pig's back.

"Blessed be the Immortal Heavenly Venerable. I wonder why all of you Taoist friends have come to my small temple?"

Li Qing looked at the little girl sitting on the pig's back and laughing, and thought of his childhood, and was distracted for a moment.

However, at this moment, a voice came from behind.

Li Qing, Zou Hu and others suddenly turned around, only to see that the young Taoist who was in the crowd just now had come behind them without them knowing when.

Looking closer, this man was even more handsome, with sharp eyebrows and bright eyes. Looking at that face, and then looking at his senior brother Zou Hu beside him, Li Qing's pretty face gradually flushed. While they were observing Lu Cheng, Lu Cheng was also observing them.

People like Zou Hu are fine, but the southern barbarians are uncivilized and their nature is still wild and untamed.

But the woman, with long black hair mixed with some wine red that fell to her waist, had a round, pretty face that was fair, petite and a little cute with baby fat, bright eyes covered with long eyelashes, thin and small lips, and was wearing a short top and short skirt. Her arms were as white as lotus roots, and her legs were as snowy as lotus flowers. Even Lu Cheng couldn't help but take a few more glances at her.

"You are a demon from the Middle Earth. Why are you using magic to deceive people here?"

Zou Hu has a rough appearance but a delicate mind. He also knows his junior sister well, so he knew something was wrong when he saw the looks on the two of them.

If I don't stop it, my junior sister might not want her own ugly senior brother anymore.

He immediately shouted in a very unfriendly tone.

"Brother, what are you doing? Before we came here, our great grandfather told us to be polite and cautious. How can you yell at the Taoist priest like that?"

Before Lu Cheng could say anything, the young and beautiful Miao woman had already said this and stood between the two of them.

Then, without waiting for her brother, whose face was turning pale, to say anything else, she turned to Lu Cheng and said softly:
"My daughter Li Qing greets Daoguan Lu."

Lu Cheng has lived here for more than a month, so of course he had heard the news clearly before Li Qing came.

"It's okay. I came here on the orders of my master to protect the local magistrate Han Zhihan. I will stay here for a few years and then leave. I have no other thoughts."

Lu Cheng was devoted to practicing Taoism and had no interest in coming into conflict with the local spiritual forces, so his words were gentle and polite.

"Before I came here, I received the old master's request that the four families of Li, Tu, Zou, and You are willing to offer two hundred households of land deeds to support the Taoist priest."

Li Qing didn't expect Lu Cheng to be so gentle, and he felt a little regretful for letting his senior brothers and other ruffians follow him.

If I had come here alone, maybe I could have gotten closer to this handsome Taoist priest.

"That's not necessary. I have quite a few possessions, and the local land is of no use to me."

The more Lu Cheng tried to refuse, the more Li Qing felt that the Taoist in front of him was extremely noble. He was different from all the men he had met before and was not burdened by worldly things at all.

"Perhaps, this is the attitude that a cultivator should have. The orthodox cultivators of the Xuan Sect in the Middle Earth are devoted to the Dao, unlike us, who are just thinking about cultivating magic so that we can enjoy all the wealth and honor in the world."

Under Lu Cheng's refusal, the land deeds of the two hundred households brought by Li Qing could not be delivered after all. His favorable impression of this Lu Daoguan increased greatly, and he returned to report.

In the next few days, the young and beautiful Miao girl Li Qing came to visit several times, but she came alone. At first, Lu Cheng received him a few times, but later he couldn't stand the girl's passionate enthusiasm and willow waist, so he closed the door and refused visitors on the grounds of seclusion.

There is still that lamp placed in the middle, holding up the darkness.

Li Jiuyou, Tu Hong, You Pozi and Zou Shepo, the four actual rulers of Ishihara County, gathered together to discuss what had happened during the day.

"It seems that he really despises our poor and remote place and doesn't even want the land that's given to him for free."

"Then what should we do? Don't send it off?"

"Send them, why not? We'll put these deeds at the door of the dilapidated temple tomorrow. Whether he wants them or not, we'll give them to him. If he doesn't leave, he can take our money and won't be a hindrance to us anymore. If he leaves in two years, the land will be ours whether he has the deeds or not."

Li Jiuyou sneered and made a decision.

"Okay, now that we have finished this matter, let's talk about the sacrifice to the gods. The population of the county is increasing, and the power consumed by my gods to protect this place is increasing, and the offerings required are also increasing. This year, at least four pairs of boys and girls are needed."

The middle-aged woman who was quite beautiful among the four said this.

"...Double it?"

Tu Hong frowned slightly when he heard this.

"That's good. How can we make the villagers obedient without blood as a warning? Four pairs is four pairs. Besides that, the deacon ceremony should be grand."

While the four were discussing, the silver-haired You Pozi holding a staff suddenly spoke:
"Should we avoid the children taken in by the Chixin Temple? It seems that Master Lu likes children very much."

“…No need. Through this incident, it would be good to let that young man know who is in charge of the local area.” Li Jiuyou thought for a moment and said so.

"Won't that piss him off?"

"So what if I anger him? During the Black Festival, there were more than a dozen fellow Taoists present besides the four of us. Even if he is angry, will he fight us to death with his broken sword? Only after this incident will he be considered to be standing with us."

(End of this chapter)