Notes on Longevity

Chapter 127 When the grass in front of the platform is green, the forsythia blooms, signaling the arrival of spring.

Two thousand seven hundred years ago, in the twenty-seventh year of the Bei Kingdom, on the twenty-fourth day of the first spring.

As the weather warms, all things revive and become lush and green.

Banshan Lake is bordered by the Li River. Banshan Lake is the name of the lake that stretches to the foot of the opposite mountain; and the Li River includes the waters of Banshan Lake, flowing from north to south along the mountains.

The phrase "an immortal swims between two mountains" refers to the names of the two mountains stretching for dozens of miles in front of and behind him. Behind these two mountains, at their foot, lies a small village, each with a varying population. Some villages have hundreds of households, while others have only a few dozen or a dozen, and some even have only one household at the foot of the mountain.

"Between the Two Mountains" is just its general name; the individual names of the mountains are too complicated to explain, so I won't go into detail.

"Why don't you tell me? I'd really like to hear it." Dao Yisheng looked at his reflection in the lake, finding it quite fascinating. He laughed when Dao Yisheng laughed along with him. He reached out to touch Dao Yisheng, and Dao Yisheng reached out his hand in return.

He played in the water while listening to the Taoist priest behind him explain the mountain. Back when he was just a tree, just listening to the priest talk about these things made him incredibly happy.

Now that he is in the mountains and by the lake, listening to him talk about these things makes me feel even happier and more curious.

"You want to hear it, but I'm tired of talking." The Taoist priest was a young Taoist priest, with the Taoist name Taihua. He was about thirty years old. His features were not particularly handsome individually, but together they were quite pleasing to the eye.

He leaned lazily against a large tree behind him, his eyes calm but his words tinged with helplessness. Beside him sat a three-foot-tall gourd, empty yet containing tasteless water that tasted like wine upon tasting, intoxicatingly harsh. Anyone who drank it would be intoxicated for three days, even immortals. Of course, Taihua was an exception.

A three-finger-wide strip of cloth was wrapped around the gourd's slender neck and waist for easy carrying. A three-foot-long Taoist sword hung from the gourd's slender neck. Its scabbard was silver, without any carvings. Under the sunlight, it appeared smooth, bright, and flawless.

"You're just making excuses." Dao Yisheng pouted. He stood up, turned around, put his hands on his hips, and looked at Taihua, teasing him: "You were so enthusiastic when we were on the mountain. You talked for three days and three nights straight, and I couldn't stop you. Now you're tired of talking. You're clearly just making excuses."

Taihua gave a wry smile. "Brother, what kind of logic is that? I'm really tired."

"Then we'll talk about it later, when you're not tired anymore." Dao Yisheng didn't care; he enjoyed listening to these things. He had been a tree in the mountains for a thousand years, finally attaining human form after much effort. Since he didn't understand anything he saw before him, he naturally needed someone to explain things to him.

Taihua looked up, rubbing his forehead, a bitter smile on his face, feeling frustrated: What's wrong with me? Why did I think of bringing him along when I went out to visit the temple?

He regretted it, deeply regretted it. He now wants to send him back.

"Oh, right! Where are we going later? Are we going to the villages behind each mountain?" Dao Yisheng put down his hand, turned around, and looked at the lake and the pleasant mountain scenery. He thought about what Taihua had said earlier about there being houses behind each mountain.

He had heard Taihua recount how he encountered many interesting things when he passed through villages during his travels. He wanted to see for himself.

pain!
Headache!

My head hurts terribly!
Taihua took a deep breath, then exhaled with a trembling face. He gritted his teeth and pounded his chest in frustration. No, he had to leave this place quickly, or he wouldn't starve to death on the road while traveling, but would be driven to death by this guy's curiosity.

"Let's go." After deciding where to go, Taihua stood up, patted his back, picked up his sword, slung his large gourd over his shoulder, and said to Daoyisheng, who was admiring the scenery.

Dao Yisheng grunted in response, then turned to Taihua and asked, "Which village are we going to?"

Taihua looked annoyed. He took a deep breath, then relaxed his expression and gave him a fake smile, saying, "I'll take you to see the town."

"Why?" Dao Yisheng asked, somewhat displeased. "Didn't you say you were going to the village?"

"When did I say that?" Taihua looked at him with a bewildered smile. She was utterly confused; when had she said that?
"Didn't I just ask you if you were going to the village behind the mountain, and then you said you were leaving?" Dao Yisheng blinked his eyes innocently, looking at Taihua with a harmless expression.

Me, this idiot! Ugh! No, he's the idiot!
Taihua sighed, looking at him expressionlessly, "Don't worry, the place I take you to will be even more beautiful and fun than here."

"Really?" Dao Yisheng looked at Taihua sincerely.

I fucking can't take it anymore!

Taihua roared inwardly!

He carried a gourd on his back, held a sword, and angrily walked towards Dao Yisheng.

Seeing this, Dao Yisheng cautiously backed away, looking nervously at Taihua approaching, and asked, "What are you going to do?"

He looked at Taihua, then back again, as if afraid of falling into the lake. "Don't come any closer. If you come any closer, I'm going to fall in... sigh..."

As Dao Yisheng spoke, Taihua ignored him, walked straight up to Dao Yisheng, grabbed him by the ear, and continued walking forward.

He looked at Dao Yisheng, who was being pulled by the ear and was crying out in pain, and was very confused: Is this really a thousand-year-old tree demon? I don't believe it! What's the difference between this and a three-year-old child? Damn it! Even the monks were so angry that they started swearing.

-

Ping An looked at Dao Yisheng's tree-like face with some embarrassment. He really didn't expect that the mountain god in front of him would be so childish when he first cultivated into human form.

He chuckled awkwardly. Dao Yisheng also smiled at Ping An, but he wasn't embarrassed. Instead, he reminisced, "Back then, I had just transformed. Although I was already a thousand years old, I had always stayed in the mountains. Everything I learned was from him, so it's understandable that I was a bit naive."

"You're listening to my thoughts again, sir?" Ping An was momentarily stunned by the word "childish," and asked. Dao Yisheng smiled as usual, "No, I just could tell from your expression."

Ping An said "Oh," and continued to ask, "The person you mentioned earlier, the one you could never forget, is that Master Taihua?"

“He was a close friend of mine, just like She Li and Xiao Changgong among your friends. I’ve known him for a long time,” he said, pausing suddenly. “Of course, he couldn’t forget me either. But the person I’m talking about isn’t him. It’s a woman.”

"A woman?" Ping An frowned, puzzled.

"Her original name was Green Robe. She was a woman I met in the suburbs on my way to Yu'an City with Taihua."

On the 30th day of the first month of spring, at noon.

In a grove of trees in the mountains outside the city.

"How much longer do we have to walk?" Dao Yisheng walked along, looking at the scenery around him, but he always felt that it was not as good as the area between the two mountains. So he asked with some complaints.

"Almost there, we're already in the outskirts of town. It'll be another two hours of walking." Taihua, carrying a conspicuous gourd on his back and holding a sword in his arms, strolled leisurely along.

"Why don't we just fly there? Walking will take too much time." Dao Yisheng's expression immediately changed when he heard that there were still two hours left. He smiled broadly and offered the suggestion to Taihua.

"No way, wandering doesn't mean using magic everywhere you go." As soon as he said that, Taihua immediately refused with righteous indignation.

Dao Yisheng frowned. "It's hundreds of miles between the two mountains. You said you traveled to observe your own mind and see your true self, so why did we use magic to fly to this place? These hundreds of miles are enough to see your true self."

Taihua understood the implication in his words and quickly added, "This is different. Since it's about wandering, it means engaging with the world. To engage with the world, you need to go to places where there are people. Where there are people, you can observe all aspects of life and witness the vicissitudes of human relationships. If you just wander around in the mountains and on the water, what do you think you can see?"

Dao Yisheng listened, still frowning, feeling that what he said made sense. But then he felt something was off, and he said, "But haven't I been staying in the mountains all along, and still attained enlightenment and cultivated a human form? You're not just making excuses again, are you?"

"No! I'm telling the truth. It's just that we humans are different from you." This is indeed the truth; there is a huge difference in cultivation between humans and demons.

"How are they different? Aren't they all relying on the laws of nature and the essence of the sun and moon for cultivation?" Dao Yisheng asked in confusion.

Taihua sighed, "How are they the same? You demons have a chance as long as you can endure the passage of time; but what about us humans? We only have a hundred years at most. After setting aside many complicated things, how much time do we really have to cultivate?"

"I'm already overwhelmed and exhausted every day just trying to make a living. Where would I find the time or the opportunity to cultivate myself?"

"The so-called cultivation and enlightenment in one's spare time is not that simple. It's all nonsense. At most, it's just about conditioning one's body."

Dao Yisheng listened to Taihua's words and pondered them. The biggest difference between human and demon cultivation lies in time. A hundred years to grow a tree is merely the beginning for them. But a hundred years to become a human is already the end of the road given to them by time; they truly cannot be generalized.

The two walked on like this, and just as they were about to leave the woods, Dao Yisheng seemed to have discovered something extraordinary.

“Look over there, aren’t there flowers planted there?” he pointed to one side of the woods.

Taihua looked in the direction he pointed, and through the gaps in the tree trunk, there were indeed traces of flowers not far away, and it seemed there were quite a few. But now was not the time to worry about the flowers.

"Where are you going?" Dao Yisheng couldn't move when he saw the flowers. Before Taihua could speak, he ran towards the flowers with joy in his eyes.

Seeing this, Taihua was helpless and complained to himself: "It's tough! It's tough! I must have lost my mind to let him out. What can I do? I can only endure it and follow him! Otherwise, what if I leave him alone with a demon? If he causes trouble, I won't be able to escape either."

He thought to himself, and followed.

After passing through the woods and reaching the edge, a vibrant sea of ​​flowers came into view.

There are irises with blue and purple as the main colors, and broad green leaves that complement the flowers in an interesting way, making them look extremely beautiful.

There are also magnolias that have not yet fully opened, but their fresh and elegant colors and fragrances have already been released.

The flowers bloomed in a dazzling display, a vibrant and colorful sight to behold as Dao Yisheng and Taihua walked along the makeshift dirt path.

"It seems like someone deliberately left this path." Taihua looked at the flowers and then at the muddy path under his feet. It was hard, flat, and slightly slippery, clearly indicating that people often walked on this path.

“Yes, didn’t you see that big wooden house up ahead?” Dao Yisheng said, walking ahead and looking at a wooden house in the distance.

Upon hearing this, Taihua peeked out from behind him, glanced at the wooden house in the distance, and then looked away. He had been so focused on Daoyisheng that he hadn't noticed the wooden house in front of him.

The two approached the wooden house, in front of which was a lush, low-lying green meadow. Like the sea of ​​flowers, there were patches of muddy ground for walking at intervals.

Including their feet, there was an open space around the house, empty except for walking.

Looking at the scene before him, Taihua glanced back at the flowers closest to him and said, "When the grass in front of the platform is green, the forsythia blooms and knows that spring has come. The owner of this house certainly knows how to enjoy life, and it is clear that he is a person who cherishes life."

(End of this chapter)