When Zhao Ji came over, he greeted them politely, bowed slightly, and said, "Masters, I am a woodcutter from Longshan Town at the foot of this mountain. My family has been cutting wood here for generations to make a living. But today, I lost my way and entered the mountain. I have been wandering here for about an hour or two, but I still can't find the way back."
"Masters, please be merciful. I don't know where this place is. How can I get back to Longshan Town?"
The Taoist priest with black hair and a calm temperament looked at the chessboard and said in a gentle tone, "My friend, turn around and follow the stream you came from for an hour. Turn left every time you turn. When you turn left for the fifth time, you will see a huge rock with a tree under it. Turn down from there and you will be able to return home."
"Your family has been waiting for a long time, so you should go down the mountain quickly."
When the woodcutter knew the way back, he was not so anxious anymore, thinking that he must have met his destiny.
My old parents at home are in poor health and have panic attacks in their dreams every night. If I could ask for some pills, it would also relieve their palpitations. I hesitated for a moment, then felt that such a thought was really hateful and greedy. I was thin-skinned and felt hot. I stammered for a long time and couldn't utter a word.
Taking a few steps forward, he saw the chess game again. For some reason, when Zhao Ji saw this game, he was slightly stunned, and then he was involuntarily immersed in it, as if this game of chess was the most wonderful and mysterious thing in the world, and his curiosity was aroused.
After thinking about it, I realized that although I had lost my way forward, I had now found the way back.
This road is not short, but if he lets go and runs all the way, just one hour is enough to go home. He is not in a hurry anymore. Since he has this fairy chance, he will take a look first. It would be fine if he doesn't take a look, but once he takes a look, he is uncontrollably immersed in it.
The criss-crossing chessboard seemed to have turned into the stars, as if it had turned into the entire world, constantly attracting Zhao Ji's attention. At this time, it had nothing to do with his character or his realm. It was just a simple, instinctive yearning of living beings for the unknown and the vast starry sky.
But at this moment, the young Taoist picked up a chess piece with his fingers and tapped it lightly on the chessboard.
A crisp sound!
This voice seems to resound in my heart.
Just like when ordinary people are dreaming, there is the sound of a flute nearby, the sound of piercing gold, splitting stone, and shattering jade.
Zhao Ji woke up with a start, his face pale, and he was in a trance for a long time before he noticed the source of the sound. He saw the gentle Taoist drop a piece, and it seemed that everything was changing. He raised his head and looked at him with gentle eyes, saying, "My friend, the way you came is still here, so you should leave quickly."
But Zhao Ji had been so intrigued by the chess game that he felt a little embarrassed. He bowed and said, "Sorry to bother you, Taoist priest. I've loved chess since I was a kid. When I saw this chess game today, I was really itching to play. I think there is no other chess game in the world that is more interesting than this one."
"I really want to finish this game of chess."
"I promise I won't say a word and will just watch quietly from the side. Immortal, please be merciful and allow me to watch the chess game from the side, right?"
He said this sincerely and politely. The Taoist tried to persuade him to leave several times, but after persuading him several times, he suddenly stopped talking. He just looked at Zhao Ji with a blank gaze, and then glanced further, to the back of Zhao Ji, at the foot of the mountain. He paused, and then sighed.
He then stopped persuading Zhao Ji and allowed him to watch the game.
The chess game itself was already extremely exquisite, not to mention the unparalleled charm in the game. Zhao Ji was so engrossed in watching it that the Taoist lifted up a piece and dropped it casually. It was like a thunderclap rising from the ground, rumbling back and forth. The man opposite turned pale in an instant, and blood seemed to flow from the corners of his mouth.
And if an emperor of great rank came here, he would be able to sense the difference. This game of chess in the deep mountains and forests is extremely spiritual, like thousands of rivers flowing into the sea, constantly changing, passing through the bodies of the two players, and seems to be connected with all things in the world.
The chess game is the great way!
The world is everything within the chess game!
With God's will on the chess pieces, playing chess means confrontation. In the eyes of the woodcutter who came down from the mountain, it was just two hermits playing chess in the mountain, but in each other's eyes, it was a fight. When the ancient god's true spirit places a piece, it is like digging a ravine, causing the mountains and rivers to flow, majestic and turbulent.
When the Taoist's son fell, the mountains collapsed and the earth cracked, and a sword was across the sky.
As the pieces fell one after another, Zhao Ji seemed to be in a trance, as if he had seen everything in the world. He saw the magnificent waves and surging sea, as well as lightning and thunder bombarding the volcano, causing thunder and fire to interweave, and he was extremely frightened.
These different things clashed again and again, round after round, seemingly endlessly and infinitely.
I don't know how much time has passed.
It seems extremely long, yet it seems only a moment. No, at the level where heaven and earth intersect, if the traces of the mountains and rivers are used as a criss-crossing chessboard, and the movement and flow of the stars in the sky are used as chess pieces, and the bright and brilliant thunder and fire are used as the crisp sounds of chess pieces falling on the chessboard.
This is a chess game that only takes a moment.
Just as the pieces fell one by one and played against each other, the situation on the chessboard gradually became clear.
In the end, even with Zhao Ji's eyesight and attainments in chess, he could see that the Taoist had an absolute upper hand. He moved neither hurriedly nor slowly, and gradually eroded his opponent's strength with each move. In the end, he accumulated a tremendous momentum, and it seemed that any move he made could cause a huge wave.
Finally, the ancient god seemed to be unable to accumulate any more, and he tried his best to get another piece. The momentum was majestic, like a surging river, swallowing clouds and exhaling breath, connecting with the charm of the Great Dao, magnificent and majestic, as if transformed into infinite magical powers. The Taoist was calm, raised his fingers to pick up a chess piece, and put it down calmly.
A crisp sound.
So it seemed as if the big dragon was cut in half in the middle.
There was a continuous crisp sound, and time seemed to freeze. Then the crisp sound seemed to be stretched out, becoming endless. Amid the crisp sound of crackling, the chessboard suddenly shattered in the middle. The ancient god suddenly opened his mouth and coughed out a mouthful of blood. The injury that had been suppressed for a long time seemed to finally be completely suppressed at this time, and his face turned pale.
He suddenly threw away the chess game, and was about to go towards the sky. However, just as he made a move, there was a sound of breaking air, and the Taoist's finger had already touched his brow calmly, without any sharpness. The Taoist looked at him calmly, as if he had crossed over two thousand years and returned to the past, the most majestic period of the final catastrophe.
The look he saw at this moment was exactly the same as the one that the Taoist priest who confronted him with a sword showed at the beginning.
Time seemed to have lost its value and meaning at this moment. The Taoist smiled slightly and said gently:
"You lose."
These three words were written lightly, but they seemed to break the ancient god's state of mind in an instant. He was first seriously injured, then confronted Qi Wuhuo for a thousand years, and then abandoned his true body as a god and demon. What was here at the moment was ultimately a true spirit that had been consumed to the limit.
Unwilling!
Extremely unwilling!
He roared angrily, and once again burst out with boundless momentum and powerful Qi.
However, this time, before his strength could be condensed or his Qi could be gathered, the Taoist took advantage of the situation and moved forward a little, bursting out with the ultimate sword-cutting power. In just a moment, he pierced through the strongest god and demon who had been exhausted to the extreme. After piercing him, the sword energy still continued and flowed towards the back.
However, this force, which was powerful enough to shatter the last true spirit of the final god and demon, fell on the grass and trees in the mountains, but only caused the tender buds of the grass to sway slightly, like a breeze blowing on the face. The ancient god who created the world looked at the sword in a daze, like the wind blowing through the mountains and forests, and knew that the realm of the Taoist in front of him was already transcendent.
It seems only one step away.
After a long time, he finally seemed to be impressed, closed his eyes, and finally uttered only one word.
"Clothes."
Starting from the sword mark between his eyebrows, a ray of light flowed, and cracks slowly spread in all directions. Finally, a gust of wind blew over his face, and it turned into shattered rays of light, falling into the mortal world, without any trace left. Qi Wuhuo slowly retracted his fingers. The enemy who had been confronting him for two thousand years was finally defeated by this body.
His arrogant and willful figure eventually drifted away with the breeze and gradually disappeared.
It was not until this time that Zhao Ji slowly woke up. In his daze, he saw that the chess game on the chessboard had been decided, and there was also a hideous and glaring crack on the chessboard, which broke the chessboard into two pieces. Looking around, he saw that the other player had disappeared. He was surprised and puzzled, and said:
"This... Immortal, where is that senior?"
He saw the Taoist who was sitting there stand up.
He stood still as if he had not moved freely for a long time, and then stretched out his hand. A stone flew over to the position where he was playing chess with the opponent and landed in his palm. This was the last remaining power and true spirit of the god and devil who created the world in the next era, which turned into this spirit stone.
Qi Wuhuo put the item away, looked at the chess game calmly, and said, "He's gone."
Zhao Ji was puzzled and sighed, "It turns out that senior lost the game and left early."
He felt embarrassed at the moment and said, "I don't know what happened to me just now. I acted like a madman and bothered you for two or three hours. I am very sorry." He bowed deeply. The Taoist nodded gently with compassion in his eyes. The woodcutter didn't understand what he meant. He stood up and felt refreshed.
Just as he was about to say goodbye, the Taoist stopped him.
Zhao Ji felt that his mind was much clearer now. He was no longer like before, having spent several years in the academy and only practicing a basic miscellaneous technique. He bowed and asked, "Does the Immortal have any other instructions?"
The Taoist looked at him and said gently, "If you feel that the depression in your heart is unbearable someday."
"You can go here and live in seclusion for a while. There are mountains and forests for you to live in leisurely."
The Taoist suddenly had a brocade bag in his hand and handed it to Zhao Ji.
Zhao Ji took it with both hands, and he really felt like he had obtained a chance to become an immortal!
When I got home, I told my parents, and I think they would be happy.
It would be best to use this topic to break the deadlock when we went out this morning.
So the woodcutter thanked him profusely.
I turned around and went home, but I always felt something was wrong on the way home.
He didn't know why, but he felt that the road he saw when he came back was different from the one he saw back then. He walked to the stone that the Taoist mentioned earlier, but when he turned around, he was puzzled and said, "Strange, strange, I clearly remember that there was a small tree here, how come it has grown so big?"
A sense of disharmony emerged in his heart.
He already knew something was wrong at this point.
But at this time, he was eager to go home, thinking about his parents and the apology he had never said. When he hurried back to his hometown, he found that the town had become much bigger in the blink of an eye. The style of clothes people wore was also different from what he wore.
There are many unfamiliar faces on the road...
No, or rather, I don’t know any of them.
A trace of fear gripped his heart. He ran almost frantically to his home, but found that the house had been renovated. Only the old tree in front of the door was still there, and it was even more majestic. Zhao Ji stretched out his hand and slammed the door, shouting, "Dad! Mom! Open the door!"
"I'm Zhao Ji! I'm back!"
He knocked on the door with a loud bang, and the door opened. Zhao Ji felt relieved, but he immediately found that the person who opened the door was a young man who looked familiar but definitely not familiar to him. He asked with a vigilant look on his face: "Who are you?!"
Zhao Ji's face turned pale and he said, "I, I am Zhao Ji!"
"Who are you? Why are you in my house?"
The young man asked in confusion: "What do you mean your house? This is the old house of my Zhao family!"
"Are you here to cause trouble?"
"Your home?"
Zhao Ji murmured a few words, but suddenly became excited, pushed the door vigorously, and shouted: "No, this is my home, my father Zhao Ancheng, my mother Liu Yinghong, where are they? What did you do to them? Let me in, let me in!"
He didn't know where he got the strength from, but he pushed the door down. The young man stumbled and fell to the ground. Zhao Ji stumbled but ran forward quickly, pushing aside several young men and women who had rushed over after hearing the news. He rushed in, but was shocked to see the ancestral hall and the ranking seats in front of him.
He saw the rankings of his father and mother, and the rankings of his brother and sister-in-law.
He even saw the ranking of his nephew who was only a few months old.
Zhao Jiru stood there like a puppet, his lips trembling.
His Adam's apple rose and fell, but he couldn't say a word. The young man outside rushed in, holding his shoulder and said, "Who are you?! Are you kidding?! My ancestor has been dead for more than 200 years. What do you mean by suddenly coming in?"
Zhao Ji said in a dreamy voice: "More than two hundred years..."
The young man was suspicious, and then he suddenly remembered a family legend that an ancestor went up the mountain when he was young and never came back. He was stunned and said, "You are, you are our ancestor Zhao Ji?!"
"Ancestor, Zhao Ji?"
"Yes, it is said that our ancestor's younger brother, Zhao Ji, had an argument with his father one day, went up the mountain, and never came back. Zhao Ancheng regretted it all his life and never drank again. But how is this possible?"
"That was three hundred years ago!"
"Three hundred years ago..."
Zhao Ji's lips trembled, and he suddenly remembered that Taoist priest had repeatedly urged him to leave quickly, but he was unwilling to leave. He understood in his heart, but still unwillingly said: "No, it's impossible, I'm just going to chop wood, I'm just!" He stretched out his hand and pulled out the axe from his waist, but at this time, the axe that was polished to a shine when he set out was already rusted, and the axe handle was as soft as mud and fell to the ground.
Zhao Ji's face was pale and he was dazed.
All that was left was crying loudly: "Dad, Mom!"
…
Zhao Ji seemed to have suffered a great shock and tossed and turned several times before waking up.
When he woke up, he finally understood what had happened. He had been watching that game of chess for three hundred years. Three hundred years had passed. If he did not have a heart of Taoism and could not break through the innate Qi, the ordinary person would only have a lifespan of one hundred and twenty years. Now, everything he was familiar with had left him.
The parents who raised him never waited for his gratitude or filial piety.
He dragged himself to visit his parents' graves. Thinking of the apology he never expressed that day, he burst into tears and fainted several times. He then hesitantly went to the place where his childhood sweetheart lived and asked the people around him if there was a Butcher Zhang in the family. The answer he got was, "Butcher Zhang?"
"The century-old shops here are all owned by Li the Butcher. Where is the Zhang the Butcher?"
"Zhang? Maybe there was one, but it was many years ago. Sir, would you like to buy some pork? Good pork, front leg meat, fat and tender, best eaten with wine!"
Zhao Ji walked out from here and saw people coming and going. It seemed that his eldest brother's descendants used him as a capital to show off, and often invited guests to come and boast. Suddenly one night, Zhao Ji was lying on the bed, listening to the guests chatting and laughing outside, and he felt annoyed and noisy. He tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep.
Suddenly I remembered the treasure bag given by the immortal. I took it out and opened it. There were three words written inside and a terrain map.
Zhao Ji murmured: "Fangcun Mountain..."
Be a woodcutter again.
He murmured several times, and suddenly laughed out loud, with tears in his eyes.
Finally it is enlightenment.
He picked up another axe for chopping wood.
Wearing it on his waist, he pushed the door open and walked out. No one could stop him. He went straight to the Fangcun Mountain. Others chased him, but they could not catch him. He disappeared in the distance. All they could hear was his long and sad cry, and he chanted:
"I watch chess pieces break, the sound of woodcutters chopping wood, and walk slowly at the edge of the valley. I sell firewood and wine, laugh wildly and indulge myself. The path is dark and high in autumn, I sleep under the roots of pine trees facing the moon until dawn."
"Recognize the old forest, climb the cliff and cross the ridge, and cut the dead vines with an axe."
"Hold the axe and [cut] the dead vines!"
…
There are many strange people, strange things, and strange sights in this world.
But it is difficult to spread too widely.
The grandeur of the matter is only known to the people here, and it is difficult to explain to outsiders.
On the top of Mount Tai, the sound of the piano is quiet and peaceful.
The white-haired woman plays the piano with an unparalleled charm. The clouds and fog disperse, but only the bright moon remains as her companion.
Yunqin let her daughter go to sleep.
This child always gives her a headache because the child is too much like her and always likes to be lazy.
When I play on weekdays, I have so much energy that it seems like I will never run out of it.
But when it came to her turn to practice and study, she immediately began to doze off, she was extremely sleepy. If anyone wanted to blame her, she would just sit there obediently, with an innocent and pitiful look on her face. Queen Nuwa and Queen Earth Goddess had no temper, and Fuxi doted on her extremely. Only Beidi allowed her to practice sword, but she would be quickly stopped by Fuxi.
After going on like this for a while, even Yunqin felt helpless. Today was supposed to be a day for her to practice, but the child was sleepy again. Yunqin had no choice but to let her go back to sleep.
She herself couldn't sleep as she had too many things on her mind. With her current state of cultivation, she really didn't need to sleep. She just wanted to stay here, looking at the world under the moon and playing the piano quietly. When she was alone, she would always unconsciously recall the past. At this moment, she recalled the things from her youth and felt sad.
Seeing birds flying in pairs under the moonlight, the sound of the piano stopped and could not be played any further.
Yun Qin was silent for a long time, and then she whispered softly, "A thousand years, and another thousand years."
"How many thousand years do you want me to wait? Wuhuo..."
She whispered to herself, her voice pleasant and gentle, yet seemingly heartbreaking.
But he took a deep breath, still like a teenager, stretched out his hand and gently patted his cheek, then clenched his fist, as if to encourage himself, and said: "But no matter how many thousand years it takes, I will wait for you."
"Then, I'll bite you viciously!"
"Bite you!"
Yunqin was alone, gritting her teeth, just like she did back then.
But suddenly there was a chuckle.
Time seemed to have stood still.
Yunqin's eyes suddenly widened.
The clouds, the moonlight, the river at the foot of the mountain, and the breeze blowing by have all become footnotes of this moment.
The white-haired woman was slightly stunned, as if she couldn't believe it. She turned around little by little and saw a Taoist standing calmly under the moonlight, with high mountains and distant clouds, and a smile on his lips, just like before. For a moment, it seemed as if all external objects had left, and the world and everything had lost their meaning.
Only the white-haired woman and the Taoist priest looked at each other.
Speechless at this moment.
It was the time when the swallows were about to return, and the west wind blew in the tall building last night.
I hope to have a small gathering in this world, and place the golden cup beside the chrysanthemum bushes.
The singer has a red face.
The setting sun penetrates through the curtains, and the coolness gradually penetrates into the parasol trees.
I have so much feeling that I cannot express in words, so I write it down on the tune of a piece of barbarian paper.
This feeling is so deep.
Qi Wuhuo said softly:
"I'm back."
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