Chapter 287 Chen Xiyao
After much deliberation, Ning Daoran finally left four first-class paper figures to Han Bing.
Now that he is in the middle stage of the Golden Core, the strength of his soul has been greatly improved. He can maintain about twenty first-grade paper figures. It is okay to leave four, but no more. If there are more, it will easily affect his combat effectiveness when he travels outside in the future. After all, Ning Daoran's mortal enemies are not weak. They are often post-Golden Core cultivators, and there are even mortal enemies in the Nascent Soul stage.
As for the formation, Ning Daoran left a ready-made White Feather Flowing Sound Formation to Han Bing.
He planned to refine another White Feather Flowing Sound Formation, and use the Seven-Colored Peacock's fourth-order lower-grade true feather to suppress the center of the formation. In this way, the newly refined White Feather Flowing Sound Formation would basically start from the third-order upper-grade, and the defensive effect would be even stronger! "Brother."
Han Bing pursed her red lips: "When will Senior Brother leave again?"
"I'll be leaving in a minute."
Ning Daoran glanced at the sky outside and said, "I plan to take Lao Lu back to Longxiang Village to see how the village has changed over the years. People always have to remember where they came from."
"Um."
Han Bing smiled and nodded.
…
Afternoon, Qiongbi Peak.
Ning Daoran might not be back for a long time, so he said hello to everyone.
Chen Yuzhu's face was full of reluctance, and she wished she could hold his hand tightly and not let go.
"Grandpa is going back to the village?" Zhou Qingshan asked.
"Exactly."
Ning Daoran said, "I haven't been back to the village for many years. I plan to go back. It's the right thing to do to burn some incense and paper money for Xiao Tiezhu and Xiao Hehua. Besides, Lao Lu misses home too."
"How about I accompany grandpa back to the village?" Zhou Qingshan said.
“No need.”
Ning Daoran shook his head: "You have many affairs to attend to at Zhenyang Peak. As an elder, you need to be more dedicated. Lao Lu and I may not return to the sect after we go to the village, so there is no need for you to follow us."
"yes."
Zhou Qingshan nodded slightly, as if thinking about something.
…
In the evening, Ning Daoran and Bai Lu left Chaos Sect on a cloud and headed for Longxiang Village.
The speed of the golden elixir's flight was extremely fast. Before the sun had completely set, the man and the deer had already arrived at the village.
Looking down from the air, Longxiang Village is only the size of a sesame seed, which is really impressive.
"Old Deer, go pay respect to Little Lotus and the others first."
“Ahhh~~”
A man and a deer rushed towards the hillside outside the village.
Not long after, standing in front of Xiao Hehua's grave, the grave seemed to have been cleaned not long ago, and there were not many weeds. The moss, bird droppings, etc. on the tombstone had also been cleaned, and even the words had been wiped off.
Ning Daoran couldn't help but smile slightly.
The descendants of the Chen family are really nice. Even after Xiao Hehua's death for so many years, someone is still taking care of her grave.
So, an incense table was set up and paper money was burned.
"Little Lotus, Old Deer and I are back to see you."
He knelt in front of the tomb, and the voice, appearance and smile of Xiao Hehua in the past could still emerge in his mind. She was a tiny child when she was young, and when she grew up, she became a heroic female warrior in a green shirt. All these scenes had long been imprinted in Ning Daoran's memory.
For a Jindan cultivator, having too good a memory is also a pain!
“Ahhh~~”
On the side, the big stupid deer burned paper for the little lotus with his hooves while chatting.
In fact, if Ning Daoran really wanted to see Xiao Hehua again, he could use the soul-searching technique of the Return to Nature level to gather the remaining soul of Xiao Hehua here, but it seemed that there was no need for this.
If this is the case, the remaining soul of Little Lotus will disappear even faster.
"I am now in the middle stage of the Golden Core, and Lao Lu is in the early stage of the Golden Core."
Ning Daoran said with a smile while burning paper: "You may not understand, anyway, he is already quite powerful. Looking at the entire cultivation world, there are not many people who can make us flee in panic."
“Ahhhh~~~”
The big stupid deer echoed, saying that we are now terribly strong! As night fell, the hillside was silent.
"Okay, you will rest here forever. Old Deer and I will go to pay respect to your mother, the old village chief, and Little Tiezhu."
Ning Daoran carried the bamboo basket full of offerings and left with the big stupid deer.
Around the tomb, wisps of gray mist surged and condensed into the figure of a tall and straight female warrior. She looked at Ning Daoran's back, but tears were already streaming down her face: "Brother Ning..."
…
The other side of the hill.
The grave of the White Widow was cleaned up very neatly, but when Ning Daoran brought the big stupid deer to the graves of the old village chief and Xiao Tiezhu, he found that the scene was a little different.
Obviously, the Zhou family has far more prestige and power than the Chen family in Longxiang Village, but the graves of the old village chief and even Xiao Tiezhu are overgrown with weeds, and it seems that no one has cleaned them for a long time. Even the pits in front of the tombstones are filled with ashes from many years ago. Not only has no one cleaned them, but no one has even worshipped them for a long time.
Ning Daoran frowned, took out two magic hoes from the storage bag, and carefully cleaned the graves of the old village chief and Xiao Tiezhu with the big stupid deer.
After the worship was over, several fireworks bloomed in the sky above the village. From a distance, the flames looked clustered together and it was extremely lively, as if there was a performance.
Ning Daoran slapped his head and said, "Oh, today is the Waking of Insects."
According to the rules of Longxiang Village, in order to pray for good weather and good harvests, the village usually has an opera troupe or invites jugglers to perform on the day of Jingzhe.
When he was a child, Ning Daoran would never miss the Waking of Insects every year. He would always come early in the morning and sit in the front row on a small stool.
"Old Deer, do you want to join in the fun?"
Ning Daoran smiled and said, "Not only will there be acrobatic performances, but there might also be candied haws."
"Oh?"
The big stupid deer's eyes lit up. If there were candied haws, he definitely couldn't miss it! So, the man and the deer headed to the village.
Ning Daoran was still wearing a green shirt, while the big stupid deer had concealed the aura of the holy beast and transformed into a gray, inconspicuous deer, which looked no different from the ones that the people in the martial arts world carried with them.
The village was extremely lively. There was a shadow play performance on the stage in the middle of a large courtyard.
A group of children took their small stools and sat in the front row early, while a group of adults gathered in the back row, eating melon seeds and chatting, waiting for the shadow show to begin.
At the gate of the compound, someone was collecting admission fees.
"Watch the shadow play, one ticket for one copper coin!" A thin man shouted, "It's about to start, it will be too late if you don't enter now~~"
There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!
Ning Daoran was not the kind of person who would pay to watch a show, so he and Lao Lu jumped up and lay on the wall to watch the show for free.
Soon after, the shadow play began. It was a play about cultivating immortals called "The Story of a Group of Heroes Cultivating Immortality" that had been circulating in the Xia Kingdom for many years. It told the story of a monk from the Song sect who was forced to become a bandit in the Tiannan Mountains. In addition, there was a warrior named Lin who was at the Baodan realm and was known as the coach of the 800,000 imperial guards in the capital of Zhongzhou, and a great monk nicknamed "Iron Lion" who had made many achievements in border battles. Together, this group of people made up a total of 108 great monks and martial immortals who opposed the imperial court.
The imperial court repeatedly sent great monks to Tiannan Mountain to wipe out the rebellion but suffered miserably failure. Finally, the emperor was forced to issue an edict of remorse, expressing his intention to grant amnesty to everyone. Eventually, more than one hundred great monks from Tiannan Mountain reconciled with the imperial court. After that, they went to the border battle sixty years ago and fought a bloody battle with the Sangyu Kingdom. All of them died in the battle, so the imperial court sent someone to write this script to praise those people.
Ning Daoran scratched his head, feeling as if he had seen this script somewhere before.
…
Late at night, the shadow play ended and the audience dispersed.
It was not until this moment that Ning Daoran saw a group of actors behind the scenes of the shadow play. Among them was a girl in a green skirt, holding a paper-cut shadow play in her hand. She looked a little tired and said to a middle-aged man, "Boss, since the performance is over, I will go home first."
"good."
The troupe owner smiled and said, "Since it's your turn to perform in Longxiang Village, you can go home and rest. Come early tomorrow at noon to have lunch with everyone. We still have to go to the next village."
"yes."
The girl's face looked even more tired, and she disappeared into the night after walking out of the yard.
In the darkness of the night, two figures followed not too far away. They were Ning Daoran and Bai Lu.
He found it very strange. The appearance of this girl... gave him a sense of déjà vu, and the most bizarre thing was that this girl actually had a third-grade thunder spirit root!
A top-grade spiritual root, this kind of talent would be extremely powerful anywhere in Qingzhou.
But this girl was from Longxiang Village, and they hadn't recommended her to go to Chaos Sect for so many years? Moreover, the direction she was going to looked very familiar, it was actually the old house of Xiao Hehua's family!
Back then, the White Widow lived there with Little Lotus.
There is something fishy...
Ning Daoran followed, and the moment the girl entered the yard, he said calmly: "Little girl, what is your name, and why do you live here?"
"ah?"
The girl turned around and looked at the extraordinary man under the moon. She couldn't help but be slightly stunned. She seemed to have seen this man somewhere before, but she couldn't remember where.
"My name is Chen Xiyao, this is my home. Where are you from and why are you following me?" She plucked up her courage, put one hand behind her back, and took out a skirt-pressing knife from under her skirt.
"Your last name is Chen, and you live here..."
Ning Daoran frowned: "What is your relationship with Chen Hehua?"
"Chen Hehua..."
Chen Xiyao was surprised: "That's...that's a great aunt of my Chen family..."
"That's not right."
Ning Daoran said solemnly, "Since you are the descendant of Little Lotus, and you have spiritual roots, why haven't you been discovered and sent to Chaos Sect to practice?! Your bone age is already sixteen years old, and you have wasted at least ten years of practice time. Didn't the Zhou family and Chen family give you a handwritten copy of the Changqing Jue?"
"Eternal Youth Technique..."
Chen Xiyao shook her head: "I have never obtained the Changqing Jue. I heard that some descendants of the Zhou family and the Chen family are practicing this immortal method, but my parents died early when I was young. Not only did no one give me the Changqing Jue, but my family also sent me to a drama troupe. It has been seven or eight years since then."
At this point, Chen Xiyao's eyes suddenly lit up. She stared at Ning Daoran and finally remembered who this person was.
"You...you are Ning Zu?"
She looked at the dusty big stupid deer beside her, her face full of excitement: "And... there is also Lu Zu?"
“Ahhh~~”
The big stupid deer shook its body, revealing the appearance of a sacred beast.
Ning Daoran had a cold face. In Longxiang Village, he only cared about the Zhou and Chen families because they were the descendants of Xiao Tiezhu and Xiao Hehua. But he never dreamed that the Zhou family would suppress the Chen family.
The fact that Chen Xiyao has spiritual roots can be seen at a glance by ordinary foundation-building cultivators without any measurement. How could Zhou Qingshan, who is in the middle stage of foundation-building, not be able to see it?
He had left behind the Changqing Jue, stating that every descendant of the Zhou and Chen families would have to have their spiritual roots tested, so why had he only bypassed Chen Xiyao?
"Xiyao, let me ask you, have you ever seen Zhou Qingshan who is in the Chaos Sect?" Ning Daoran asked.
“I have seen it!”
Chen Xiyao nodded vigorously: "Not long before I was sent to the opera troupe, the ancestor of the Zhou family came back to the village once. He summoned a group of us children to the ancestral hall, and then I never saw him again."
(End of this chapter)