[Shuili Township under the jurisdiction of the prefectural city].

Qi Wuhuo looked at the address left by the murdered girl and still pretended to go out through the door. However, when he walked out of the door, he turned around and saw the city gate. Above the main gate of the city there was a very majestic tower. At the highest place in the hall, there were majestic bronze statues of mythical beasts lying on the left and right. They were Chaofeng and Jiaotu.

Chaofeng likes to look far away, while Jiaotu hates enemies entering its nest.

There are many statues on the city gates and towers.

But Qi Wuhuo always felt that the Chaofeng on the Zhongzhou city gate seemed a little strange.

I always feel like it's alive, and it seemed to have glanced at me just now.

Then he immediately turned his head away.

Now his eyes are fixed on the clouds over there.

"An illusion?"

The young Taoist was surprised, and then he noticed that Chao Feng was staring at him.

He bowed slightly towards the statue.

Then he saw Chao Feng seemed to tremble a few times, and his eyeballs were obviously slanted. Although it was clearly a stone sculpture, it seemed to be stiff.

"It is indeed a big city in Zhongzhou. It is different from what I dreamed of."

Qi Wuhuo thought about it and kept this matter in his mind.

He immediately activated the method of the earth god and followed the direction recorded in the jade book given by Master Tao. Even if he moved forward with the help of the earth veins, he did not have to worry about getting lost. Zhongzhou Prefecture City was the most prosperous place in the entire Zhongzhou. Even in the empire, it was only inferior to the imperial capital. The people who could live in the city [fangnei] only accounted for a small part, and most of them were in the villages outside.

There are still divisions such as villages, towns, and villages.

Shuili Township is not too far from the provincial capital.

It is a village built near a river near the city. When Qi Wuhuo went there, it was still early and the river flow seemed to be slower in winter. The whole village was considered wealthy and people could be seen coming and going with happy looks on their faces. Many families had already posted spring couplets and were ready for the New Year.

The young Taoist saw an old man sitting on a recliner, lazily basking in the rare warm winter sun.

So he went forward to ask, using what the girl had told him at the time as evidence, saying that he knew the girl and came to the village on her behalf. The old man was holding a scroll in his hand, looking up at him, and said, "You are talking about Zheng Xiu's family. Her daughter has been missing for a long time. Is there any news coming back?"

"Excuse me, old man, where is her home now?"

"Her home? This, ah, is complicated. Little Taoist priest, please follow me. I will lead the way for you."

The old man shook his head, put the book in his hand aside, and then motioned Qi Wuhuo to follow him.

During the chat, Qi Wuhuo learned that the old gentleman had studied and passed the imperial examination, but he had never been successful in his official career. He returned to his hometown in his old age, where he read books and appreciated flowers every day, and also taught the children to read. He seemed happy and free. When he mentioned the missing child, he sighed for a long time, saying that he had taught her to read and write, but he never expected that she would disappear suddenly.

The old man walked to a door, stopped suddenly, looked at Qi Wuhuo, and said, "Little Taoist priest, tell me."

"Has the child already..."

The old man hesitated to speak.

Seeing the young Taoist's expression, he had already guessed something and could only sigh.

He knocked on the door and shouted, "Xiao Lian, Xiao Lian?" After shouting a few times and getting no response, he pushed the door open and motioned Qi Wuhuo to come in. The yard seemed to be that of an ordinary farmhouse. Originally, one side of the land should have been cultivated and planted with some vegetables, but it had become deserted. The yard was covered in dust and weeds. It was clearly the New Year, but there seemed to be no preparations at all.

The old man knocked on the door, and after a while someone's voice came out.

A person groped his way out of the door. The girl's mother was no more than 40 years old, but now she looked haggard and emaciated. Most of her black hair had turned white, and the remaining black hair was all withered, like dry grass after autumn.

The roots have been broken, and without nutrients, the vitality has dissipated like a floating dandelion.

The old man sighed.

His expression was gloomy.

"When she was little, I held her in my arms."

"When she was born, I was your age, studying hard and watching her grow up, I never thought she would become like this."

The old man spoke quietly to Qi Wuhuo.

The woman just said, "Ah, is it Brother Zhou?"

"You came to see me, have you found my girl? Or do you know any news about her?!"

The woman spoke expectantly, but her eyes were dull and she was looking in the wrong direction. Qi Wuhuo did not ask, but just said: "I have news about her..."

"ah!"

The woman became excited when she heard that. She took a step forward, but bumped into the table next to her. Things fell to the ground. She staggered and fell to her knees. She just stretched out her hands to grab Qi Wuhuo's hand, trying to support her. Her voice was choked with sobs and she said:

"Thank God, thank God!"

"Thank you, Bodhisattva, thank you, Buddha, thank you, the Jade Emperor, my daughter, my daughter..."

She burst into tears.

The old man was about to say that this was a Taoist priest, so how could you say you were thanking Buddha or Bodhisattva?

The young Taoist half-knelt down, gently supported the pair of wrinkled hands with both hands, and replied in a gentle voice:

"Well, the Bodhisattva will bless her... and you too." The woman seemed to have suffered a huge shock. She cried for a while and then fell into a deep sleep. Qi Wuhuo pushed open the door, and even the strong smell gave him a feeling of slowly rotting. He helped the girl's mother back to the bed.

Then take his pulse.

The old man stood nearby.

Qi Wuhuo raised his hand after a long pause and said, "I already have a chronic illness... and grief has hurt my body, and my spirit has been greatly depleted. I also eat very little, and my body's vitality has been greatly depleted... My vitality has been greatly damaged, and I need to rest and recuperate peacefully, otherwise I'm afraid I won't live long."

"Just her eyes."

Qi Wuhuo looked at the old man.

The old man said, "…She was not in good health to begin with, but she endured it in order to raise our daughter. You know, many people in the village are reluctant to see a doctor when they are sick, and they just endure the pain, and then they get sick. We raised our daughter with great difficulty, and she even asked us to help find a good in-law, but later she refused in order to get her daughter treated, saying that it would be too far from home if she went there."

"My husband's family didn't want her to go there either, and they had several big fights."

"Later, the girl disappeared."

"Her mother dragged herself to look for her. She searched and searched for several months but couldn't find her. She became weak and could not walk. She could only cry. As she cried, she became blind."

"But I don't dare to die yet."

"I'm afraid my daughter won't be able to find me when she comes back one day."

"Just hold on. We'll send her some food, and she'll come to eat."

"People are like this. No matter how hard it is, if you don't want to die, you have to endure it."

The old man was talking.

Qi Wuhuo was silent for a long time. He stretched out his hand and pointed, pressing the acupuncture points on the woman on the bed in an instant. In an instant, even the old man could sense that her breathing had become stable, and the young man seemed to have turned a little pale. The old man was surprised and said, "This is..."

Qi Wuhuo said: "The so-called acupuncture is basically just to strengthen the positive energy and drive out the evil."

"In that case, using my energy as a needle to stimulate his own vital energy is a more direct and simple method."

"I will help her recover here and leave after she recuperates."

The old man watched the young man perform acupuncture and couldn't help asking, "Are you related to her?"

The Taoist replied: "It has nothing to do with it."

"Then why did you go to such lengths?"

Qi Wuhuo replied: "Promise."

"Also, the person who harmed her daughter was a Taoist priest, so he is still a Taoist disciple after all."

"It should be so..."

The old man was even more puzzled and asked:

"He is a disciple of the Taoist sect. What does that have to do with you?"

The young Taoist did not answer, and finally just smiled gently:

"My cultivation is low."

"It's just that if I can help, it's just help, it doesn't matter."

There was a roll of white paper in his sleeve, on which were written the experiences of countless people. He once felt that a person's life and death was just a line of words and a trace of ink. But now he came here and realized that that little line of words and that little trace of ink had such great weight.

The young Taoist helped to clean up the messy house, and the old man also helped.

In the end it was much cleaner and looked brand new.

The old man sighed, "It's a rare Chinese New Year, so I'll bring some red paper couplets and write a note for the Kitchen God."

He went to get the red paper, and Qi Wuhuo picked up the pen to write something.

The young man wrote a couplet, and the old man couldn't help but applaud and praise, saying: "Good writing, good writing!"

"You write better than me, an old man. Come on, come on, write the post for the Kitchen God too."

Qi Wuhuo picked up the pen.

The events and emotions experienced in the Huangliang Dream are gradually being forgotten, but the things that were once mastered are truly preserved. The practitioner's control over his body allows him to display the calligraphy of Master Wuhuo, and he writes a text post of prayer and blessing, hoping that the Kitchen God will bless this poor man in the second year.

The old man admired the boy's writing, and suddenly shook his head and laughed, "It's wrong, it's wrong."

"Um?"

Qi Wuhuo looked down, but didn't see any wrong word.

The old man pointed with his finger and said with a smile: "Look, it's been five years since Jingyun, why are you still writing four years since Jingyun?"

"Five years of Jingyun? But..."

The young Taoist was stunned. He clearly remembered that he was leaving to celebrate the New Year of the fourth year of Jingyun.

When I was chatting with Li Puyu's uncle, we also talked about "The Sound of Ascension to the Throne" three years ago.

Seeing that he didn't believe it, the old man couldn't help but laugh and said, "Young man, don't think that I can't remember clearly because I'm old."

"I received the benefit of the Enthronement Proclamation four years ago, so I could return home. How could I not remember it?"

Four years ago?

Qi Wuhuo was stunned. In an instant, countless possibilities flashed through his mind. He clearly had not been away for that long.

Putting aside the experience on the island, the boat trip only took one day and one night. How could it have been a year?

His thoughts suddenly paused.

I thought of the sloppy fortune teller's sneer and half-smile today.

"Yesterday?"

"If it was yesterday, nothing happened, little Taoist."

An absurd idea emerged in the young Taoist's mind.

"I meditated on that river for a whole year?!"

That's when he realized this.

It was as if the obstacles to knowledge and understanding were broken.

The vital energy in the body suddenly began to change.

After several turns,

Skyrocketing!