Chapter 83: The Lamplighter, Ruan Dazhuangzhu of Xiangnan
Outside Qingcheng Temple.
Ruan Meng was shocked: "Master, you never told me this before?"
Meng Caiyun's face was full of question marks: "Big..."
Wang Fengxu's mouth twitched: "Dear..."
Ying Zhiwei was puzzled and dazed: "...Sister?"
Long Zhu: "Hmm?"
She put away her phone, looked the man in front of her up and down, scratched her hair blankly: "Old man, do you know me?"
That shouldn't be the case. This body has been dead for more than 20 years, so it doesn't have any relatives.
Ruan Mengxiu snorted heavily, then pointed at Ruan Mengnu, his voice distinctly his own: "Take it out."
The other person took out his phone, opened the forum app with the Persimmon Flower logo, and found a video clip from the top of the [Hearsay] list - it was a replay of the martial arts performance at the Xuanjin Mountain Dojo. I don't know what the person who recorded the video was thinking, the other people's shots were all wide-angle, and the players on both sides were as small as shrimps. After Longzhu appeared, it became a long-focus face-to-face lens, with 360-degree rotation and no blind spot, and the clarity could not be clearer.
Ruan Mengxiu said, "As soon as I saw the video, I knew for sure that your face looks 90% like my sister's. There's no doubt about it."
Ruan Meng woke up as if from a dream: "Master, this is impossible? Didn't my aunt die? How could such a big granddaughter appear? Besides, she doesn't look like you at all..."
"Sons look like their mothers, daughters look like their fathers. At worst, there's the possibility of inheritance from the previous generation. What's the problem?" Ruan Mengxiu glared at his grandson and said coldly, "My own sister was hunted down by her enemies and died early. After I avenged her, I learned that she had left behind a newborn baby. I just don't know where those people took it."
All his enemies were dead, their bodies scattered across the ground. He regretted not leaving one alive to ask more questions. All these years had passed, and it was hard to revisit the past. Suddenly, a few days ago, he saw Long Zhu's face on a forum, and all of a sudden, all those old memories came back to him. He'd thought he'd forgotten everything, but it turns out that even the slightest resemblance could suddenly pull him back to a long time ago.
I still haven’t forgotten!
Ruan Mengxiu continued, "I went to Bai Jingze to retrieve your file. In Hecheng Luwei Village, there was indeed a villager named Long who picked up a child from outside and raised him. That child must be your father."
Long Zhu thought: When I first picked up this body, I didn't expect that there would be such a lot of grudges and past events.
She looked at the old man in front of her calmly and pointed at herself: "Then you should also know that he is dead, and his daughter is also dead."
Ruan Mengxiu looked at her steadily: "Of course I know."
A body, but the soul has long been replaced.
After all, the person inside is no longer his sister's granddaughter, but... an extremely powerful existence.
"You know?" Ruan Meng asked in surprise, "Then why did you ask me to come and recognize my relatives?"
Ruan Mengxiu was silent for a while, and finally sighed: "Do you know the Heart Embedding Spell?"
He put his hands behind his back, and his already thin and short body suddenly seemed to hunch a few inches further: "I came here for Sister Qing."
-
The Ruan family is a group of lamplighters who started their careers halfway through their careers.
The story begins a generation before that, when the renowned lamplighters of the Xuan sect belonged to the Hu family of southern Hunan. However, as the dynasty neared its end, the imperial power was on the verge of collapse, and amidst the unrest among the people, the Three Death Sects were stirring up trouble. The head of the Hu family, scheming to escape the world, led his entire clan into retreat in the mountains. However, a young man in the family, driven by a desire to save the world, ventured forth into the world.
His life was full of twists and turns, and God loved to tease ambitious young men. In the eighth year after he came out of retirement, he fell into trouble with a bunch of powerful people with great connections. He was beaten to a point where he was almost breathless, and was thrown into the river.
Unfortunately, his death had not yet come. As the river twisted and turned, he was washed ashore and rescued by a tenant named Ruan.
The young man was grateful. While recuperating at the Ruan family, he saw that the Ruan family was kind and honest, but was always bullied by the landlord. So he taught all the skills of the Hu family to the son of Ruan's tenant without reservation. Perhaps the Ruan family really had that luck and talent, and they learned as well as the disciples of the Hu family. They quickly mastered abilities that they had never dared to imagine. Not only did they deal with the landlord family that oppressed them, but they also gradually accumulated a high reputation in the local area.
At this time, the young man's enemies got wind of the situation and quietly came to his door. The Ruan family boy wanted to repay the favor and wanted to stand in front of the young man, but the young man said: "You have only been studying for three years. You are still far from being able to stand alone in the Xuanmen. In front of them, they can crush you with just one finger. Why rush to fight against the stone with an egg? Go away. With this ability, you can survive anywhere. People are valued when they leave their hometown. I am responsible for your troubles."
So the boy from the Ruan family kowtowed three times solemnly in front of the young man, and took his family to southern Hunan. After settling down, he sent people to inquire about the original place, but there was no news of the young man anymore, and his fate was bound to be death.
The Hu family of southern Hunan, having long retreated into seclusion in the mountains, emerged to discover that the world had completely changed. The Ruan family had emerged from nowhere and thrived in the esoteric world, completely eclipsing the Hu family. The head of the Hu family, furious, accused the Ruan family of stealing his skills and mobilizing the entire clan to confront them, constantly making things difficult for them.
This is where the grudge between the two families came from. The head of the Hu family said: We, the lamplighters, are good at sewing and can do anything with the living or the dead, but the Ruan people can only mend corpses and do some business of driving away corpses. It's obvious that we are just imitating others without any real skills.
But in fact, the young man who taught the ancestor of the Ruan family needlework had no secrets at all. It was Ruan, the tenant farmer, who felt that this technique was strange. If it was really used on a living person, there was no guarantee that the practitioner would remain calm and not go astray. So he told his son privately that you can drive the dead, but you can't control the living.
Therefore, the martial arts of this lineage was cut off here and was not passed down.
But the Ruan family was indeed talented, and they had developed some moves that even the Hu family had never heard of. In short, the two families fought back and forth, but there was no result. But perhaps it was because the Hu family had been away from the world for too long, and many things seemed unfamiliar to them, so the Ruan family came from behind and seemed to have the intention of replacing them.
Until, Ruan Mengxiu appeared in Ruanjiazhuang.
From then on, there was no Hu family in southern Hunan, only the great Ruan manor owner in southern Hunan.
The Hu family couldn't defeat Ruan Mengxiu, so they came up with a sinister and despicable method. They chose a young woman named "Aqing" from the clan and deliberately approached Ruan Mengxiu. But who could have imagined that the two of them actually fell in love with each other. Hu Aqing married Ruan Mengxiu, cut ties with the Hu family, and declared that she didn't want to get involved in these affairs of Xuanmen anymore.
The old patriarch was so angry that he fell backwards, but they did not forget to make a backup plan - before sending Ah Qing out, they left needle holes on her body. Once the chess piece got out of control, they could turn Ah Qing into a living dead.
Since then, it has been rumored in the martial arts world that Ruan Mengxiu lit a lamp for his dead wife and always kept it with him. Anyone who took a curious look at it would have their eyes gouged out by him.
But the world doesn’t know that Ah Qing is not dead, but living in such a muddle-headed way is no different from being dead.
Ruan Mengxiu's younger sister felt sorry for her sister-in-law's situation. As a young woman full of vigor and ambition, she left a letter at home and secretly changed her name to sneak into the Hu family, hoping to learn the needlework that could be used on living people. She was very talented, and although she was not as good as her brother, she was smart and learned most of it.
However, there is no such thing as a wall that is impenetrable. When the truth was revealed, the old Hu family head was so angry that he vomited blood and died. The two families had a blood feud that would last until one of them died. When Ruan Mengxiu received the news and rushed over, his sister had already met with disaster.
After that, all the well-known members of the Hu family died at the hands of Ruan Mengxiu. The remaining young members of the clan fled southern Hunan under different names. The Hu family was completely destroyed.
But the dead cannot speak, and the method to help Ah Qing recover is buried forever in the soil.
"But that day, when I saw that A-mei's descendants might still be alive, I felt there was still a glimmer of hope."
Ruan Mengxiu exhaled slowly. His slightly aged eyes still retained some of the sharpness of his youth. He spoke with hope, "When I was sorting out my sister's belongings, I saw a book containing the Heart-Embedding Curse."
Meng Caiyun pondered, "The Embedding Heart Curse, I think I've heard of this term somewhere."
"This curse was created by the old man of the Three Death Gates," Ruan Mengxiu twitched his lips and smiled coldly. "Over the centuries, it has been passed down to various schools and sects, evolving into various different forms, but its essence remains unchanged. It is a tool for inheritance, allowing bloodlines to become the carrier, ensuring that the technique is never lost."
Once the Heart Mantra is planted, one's children, grandchildren, and future generations will all carry the seeds of magic in their bodies. Once awakened by special methods, they will be able to understand the calligraphy learned by their ancestors without a teacher.
Of course, the prerequisite is that you yourself have spiritual power, and if your descendants gradually become ordinary people, the seeds will wither and the generation will be extinct.
In ancient times, some families used this method to protect their unique skills and secrets from being passed on to others during troubled times. They would implant a heart spell in the body of a newborn baby and then ask someone to transport the baby to a safe place, so as not to worry about the family skills being lost in a certain generation.
"So you think there's a Heart-Embedded Curse on Longzhu?" Meng Caiyun realized, "You can't say for sure. Your great-granddaughter has already been reincarnated. Could it be that the Heart-Embedded Curse hasn't lost its effect yet?"
Ruan Mengxiu said, "I have to give it a try."
"Then you will be disappointed."
After hearing the other party's intention, Long Zhu remembered something and showed a slightly regretful expression: "Her Heart-Embedding Curse was eaten by me."
Everyone was stunned.
"So, that glowing ball back then should be the Heart-Embedded Spell you mentioned, right?" Long Zhu ignored the increasingly confused expressions of the Ruan family members, pinching his chin as he recalled the taste: "Oh, I thought it was just an ordinary ball of spiritual energy. How could ordinary spiritual energy be so delicious?"
There is often a ball of spiritual fire in the body of a person who has just died. Long Zhu was attracted by the spiritual fire and took over the body. She swallowed the "spiritual fire", took a short nap, and woke up twenty years later.
Ruan Meng's eyes twitched, and he turned his head hesitantly: "Master, what should I do now..."
His only chance of survival was cut short. Ruan Mengxiu came back to his senses from his shock, clenched his hands, and turned to leave after a while. Finally, he turned back and said, "I've checked the person who killed you. You handled it very well. I should thank you for helping my granddaughter get revenge. If you need anything in the future, feel free to come to me, although you probably won't need it."
"Let's go."
Ruan Meng hissed, "Just leaving like that, Grandpa?"
"Actually, maybe there's another way?"
Ruan Mengxiu stopped and turned around, only to see Ying Zhiwei, who had been silent until now, stand up and raise his hand cautiously: "Why don't you just find the lost soul?"
The Hu family's needlework, which can be used on living people, works by separating a strand of the three souls and seven spirits from the living, causing the spirit within the body to become confused and easier to control. If the separated spirit were retrieved and then somehow fixed, it would actually be feasible, and it didn't necessarily require seeking out the Hu family for a solution.
Ruan Mengxiu was a man of few words and didn't like to talk about his family's secrets in front of outsiders. However, for Ah Qing's sake, he didn't want to miss any possible clues. Also, considering his relationship with Long Zhu, he was willing to speak up: "Do you think I haven't thought of this? Little girl, the Hu family is very proud of their secret techniques. How could they easily recover the souls they separated?"
Ying Zhiwei tugged at the hem of his clothes, his heart stirring, and finished speaking in one breath: "That's different. The world is so big, it's not impossible that the magic weapon of the East family can restrain the magic weapon of the West family. My Ying family has a 'Lotus Eight Immortals Pagoda'. It's not very offensive, but it can summon souls. It can call back any soul in heaven or on earth."
Ruan Mengxiu hadn't held out hope at first, but after hearing what the other party said, he actually felt a bit of anticipation. He suppressed his emotions and remained calm, "There's no such thing as a free lunch. Tell me, little girl, what do you want us to give you in exchange?"
Ying Zhiwei coughed and chuckled, "It can't really be considered an exchange... The Eight Immortals Building originally belonged to my parents. After they passed away, everything was taken by my second uncle. How can I, a high school student, ask for it back?"
Ruan Mengxiu thought for a moment: "I understand."
At the same time, the second uncle of the Ying family returned to the luxury suite hotel and was humming a song leisurely while putting a banner embroidered with lotus flowers into a black lacquered square box.
Ying Siqian sneered and said nonchalantly, "Dad, you really brought all these things? No way, is it possible that Ying Zhiwei's score is higher than mine? Are you really going to return all these things to her?"
"Don't overthink it," Second Uncle Ying glared back at him before carefully locking the box. "Third Master has spoken, so we must keep our word. Haha, thankfully the score is invalid." At this point, he frowned again. "I don't know how Ying Zhiwei became so powerful. She almost succeeded in her scheme."
Ying Siqian snorted coldly and said unconvincedly, "Is that so powerful? The powerful one is the female ghost! The Third Master said that it was Xiao..."
"Even if it was Xiao," said Uncle Ying, "that would put them on her side, which is not good for us."
Ying Siqian rolled his eyes, his hands in his pockets, not taking it seriously at all: "Then don't take it, Dad. Just give me the key to the box. Sooner or later, all that stuff will be mine. With these magical instruments, I can handle a few Xiaos without any problem."
Uncle Ying placed the key in a long white box. He didn't comment on his son's arrogance and self-righteousness, but patiently comforted him, "I can't give this to you without the Third Master asking for it. Don't worry, when you recruit two more ghost servants and make a name for yourself in the Xuanmen, the Third Master will treat us well. In the future, his position will be yours."
He then looked at his watch and said, "There's a flight back to Hecheng scheduled for tomorrow morning. You and Simeng should go to bed early."
Ying Siqian responded reluctantly and followed his father out of the room.
After a long while, the door lock was gently opened with a click.
Ying Siqian walked in stealthily, grabbed the box containing the key and put it in his arms.
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