Confucian and Taoist scholar

Chapter 166 Old acquaintance

The old man saw the extraordinaryness of this green bamboo painting and did not use up all the vitality and spirit in it.

Soon, he returned the scroll to Lu Zheng.

Lu Zheng put the scroll away and placed it in the Wen Palace.

Immediately afterwards, golden light burst out from the old man's body, and then the light quickly converged.

The old man's figure became more blurred, and a golden apricot kernel condensed in his hand.

He presented the golden apricot kernel to Lu Zheng and whispered, "This kernel is the product of my divine power. It also contains a trace of my divine consciousness. If I commit any evil deeds in the future, Master Lu can use magic to destroy me with this."

In order to prove his determination, the old man put his life in Lu Zheng's hands.

Lu Zheng had never learned such magic, but he didn't mind accepting it.

"Okay, I hope you can take good care of yourself and protect this land in the future."

Lu Zheng took the apricot kernel and gave a serious instruction.

"I will keep this in mind." The old man bowed. "My cultivation has been greatly reduced this time. I need to rest for a few days. I will not bother you two gentlemen any more."

After saying this, the old man merged into the body of the Apricot King Tree.

The once vibrant apricot tree withered at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Fortunately, the old man had absorbed some of the vitality and spirit of the Green Bamboo Picture before. With this increase and decrease, the whole apricot tree did not seem to have any major problems. It was just a little less lively than when he first saw it, but the impact was not significant.

Lu Zheng observed the apricot tree for a moment, then turned to Zhang Bo and said, "Let's go and see what Li Zhao and the others are doing."

The two of them walked slowly out of the apricot forest.

The fox demon underground knew that Lu Zheng had gone far away, but did not dare to show up and hid in the underground cave.

He looked at the tangled roots of the apricot tree next to him, stretched out his claws and gently patted them, and asked with concern: "Are you okay?"

The old man said quietly, "Nothing happened. I just lost some of my cultivation. I can recover after I have cultivated myself."

The fox demon sighed and said, "That will take ages. Fortunately, you have a long life. I told you before that practicing the Shinto path is courting death. It's better to be a demon."

……

"Lu Zheng is willing to do it." Zhang Bo couldn't help but say.

Lu Zheng only reduced the wild god's Shintoism and also lost the Green Bamboo Map as compensation.

If it were someone else, no one would dare to say anything if they cut down the apricot tree.

Lu Zheng smiled upon hearing this and said, "God is merciful to life. Keeping them is more useful than killing them."

"Besides, without that apricot king tree, what if the people worship an apricot god again..."

Zhang Bo couldn't help but laugh and said, "How can becoming a god be that easy?"

Lu Zheng asked curiously, "Speaking of which, how did the gods canonized by the imperial court come to be gods?"

Zhang Bo whispered, "I'm not very clear about this kind of thing. It's probably about sharing a bit of national fortune with enough sentient beings to transform the person into a god... I heard that this was how the previous dynasty worked, but the specific details are unknown."

"If it is a powerful god, what is the best way to deal with it?" Lu Zheng asked.

"This..." Zhang Bo frowned and thought, then said, "Destroy their folk beliefs and slowly weaken their strength."

Lu Zheng couldn't help but say, "That's too slow."

Zhang Bo continued, "If your own strength isn't enough, you can only rely on powerful treasures. Like the wild god just now, the county magistrate's seal was enough to suppress it. For extremely powerful gods, you'll need to use the nation's most precious weapon. Back then, when they killed the one in Hongjiangli, they used the Anguo Emperor's sword."

"It sounds very powerful." Lu Zheng said, touching his chin.

He did not have any national treasures, nor did he know what kind of treasures his two cultural relics were.

Zhang Bo said with a smile, "There are no powerful wild gods in our An country. Brother Lu, don't worry about it. Brother Lu has a righteous spirit, so why should you be afraid of ordinary wild gods?"

Lu Zheng thought to himself that he was not worried about any wild gods, but he was worried about the divine thought that had killed the Wujiang Water God before. He was not sure whether the other party would remember him.

The two came to Xinghua Village and soon met Li Zhao and others.

Li Zhao and the other two were chatting animatedly with some villagers and tasting apricot blossom wine from various households in the village.

Li Zhao noticed Lu Zheng and the other man had returned and quickly greeted them, "Come, come, let me introduce you to these two... Brother Lu is a talented scholar from Kaiyang County. He's quite capable and also a doctor. He's been traveling around lately, providing free medical treatment to the villagers. If you have any minor ailments, you can go see him..."

After a lot of flattery, many people's attention turned to Lu Zheng.

How could a scholar who could be highly praised by the son of a county magistrate be an ordinary scholar?

"Brother Lu, I'll leave this to you. Brother Zhang and I will go get some fresh air."

Li Zhao smiled and patted Lu Zheng, then walked away slowly with a bowl of wine.

Facing a group of people, Lu Zheng responded calmly and soon started chatting with these villagers.

Li Zhao pulled Zhang Bo away and asked about the situation curiously.

After learning what happened in Xinglin, Li Zhaozhi said it was a pity that he did not see it with his own eyes.

Li Zhao took a sip of wine and smacked his lips. "Wild God, I've never seen him before. Is he powerful?"

Zhang Bo thought for a moment and said, "I feel like he's better than me."

Just now, the old man used some tricks, and Zhang Bo found that the other party's divine power exceeded the strength of his own literary energy.

Li Zhao was amazed. "So, Brother Lu was able to intimidate him without even making a move... I wonder what Brother Lu's strength is now. I'm afraid he's even more powerful than my father."

During the previous battle at the mountain stronghold, they were busy dealing with other bandits and had never witnessed Lu Zheng's methods. They had no idea how Lu Zheng dealt with those powerful leaders and how strong he really was. ...

"Dahei, you must be full, let's go back!"

The shepherd boy pulled the big buffalo and couldn't wait to go back to the village to watch the fun.

"Hey! Little kid, is this Xinghua Village?"

A rough and deep voice came from behind.

Mu Tou turned his head and saw two burly men in police uniforms striding towards him.

Next to the two officers was an animal that looked like a dog but was not a dog.

The shepherd boy blinked and said respectfully, "Two officials, this is Xinghua Village! What are you doing in our village?"

"Just passing by and taking a look."

An officer spoke lightly.

The shepherd boy scratched his head, full of confusion. Why were so many people passing by their village today?

"Wang..."

The big yellow dog beside the shepherd boy barked at the yellow-skinned beast.

Huang Shu stared at the local dog indifferently and followed the official to Xinghua Village.

When passing by the shepherd boy, Huang Shu sniffed and smelled a familiar scent.

Suddenly, his eyes fixed, he stood up, and said in human language: "Little boy, have you ever seen a scholar?"

When the shepherd boy heard Huang Shu speak human language, his eyes widened.

"A talking monster!"

The shepherd boy stared at Huang Shu with curiosity, not looking afraid at all.

The two officers thought that Huang Shu's words would scare the boy, but they didn't expect the shepherd boy to be so brave.

Huang Shu couldn't help but say, "I'm asking you a question, kid!"

The shepherd boy heard this and said, "Scholar, I've just met several of them! They're all in the village!"

Huang Shu's eyes lit up, and without any further ado, he ran towards the village.

Seeing this, the two officers also followed with big strides.

The shepherd boy was stunned for a moment, then hurriedly said, "Hey, wait for me, Dahei, hurry up!"

Huang Shu approached the village and soon smelled Lu Zheng's scent again.

At the entrance of the village, Li Zhao and some others were drinking and eating apricots, looking very leisurely.

Suddenly, they glanced and saw Huang Shu and two officers.

Seeing the situation, I thought that the police were chasing a little demon.

Li Zhao's eyes lit up, and he rushed forward with his sword, saying excitedly: "Where are you running to, you monster!"

An officer recognized Li Zhao and quickly shouted, "Mr. Li, please show mercy. We are all one of you... We are the demon!"

"Ok?"

Li Zhao tilted his head, looking puzzled.

Huang Shu stopped in front of Li Zhao, bowed, and said, "I am a little demon who was enlightened by Master Lu Zheng. I now work in the Kaiyang County government office. I wonder if this master knows where Master Lu is?"

Li Zhao couldn't help but stare and said, "It really is our own monster! I thought you were hunting monsters... Lu Zheng is in the village, giving free medical treatment!"

Li Zhao put away his sword with a lack of interest and asked again, "What are you guys doing here?"

An official approached and clasped his fists, saying, "Sir, we are here on errands under the orders of the county magistrate. Today, we've apprehended a group of criminals colluding with demons and ghosts in Yao Town. We'll also visit the surrounding villages to investigate for any demons and ghosts."

This matter is also related to Lu Zheng.

After Jiaolong's death, Li Yuan began to close the net. Using the intelligence he had obtained, he sent officials and family guards to various places to look for the remnants of the evildoers who were involved with Jiaolong.

There have been a lot of incidents throughout Kaiyang County, and many evildoers and demons have been apprehended.

Originally, Huang Shu was studying quietly in Li's house. When he learned that many things were happening in the county and there was a shortage of manpower, he volunteered to come out and help.

As a weasel demon, Huang Shu had also followed Lu Zheng to see the Painted Skin Demon and had a lot of experience.

He followed these officials out and found many painted-skin ghosts hiding among the people, and his contribution was not small.

This made many people in the county government recognize Huang Shu.

"Is that so..." Li Zhao nodded. "I heard a great demon appeared in the county. Did father catch it?"

When they were studying abroad before, someone came to tell Li Zhao and his friends that there was a big monster hiding in the county and told them not to kill monsters and exorcise ghosts at will.

The officer replied, "We heard that the mastermind has been executed, so the county magistrate sent us out to eradicate the remaining criminals. We have already apprehended quite a few of them."

"What monster? Who did it?" Li Zhao asked curiously.

"We don't know about this. Your Excellency has never mentioned it." The officer answered honestly.

Li Zhao was puzzled. Given his father's temperament, this kind of thing should have been publicized everywhere. How could even these policemen not know the details? It was really strange.

(End of this chapter)