Zheng Xiao Mistake: The Mistake of Rebirth Provoked the Cold Master

There is an old grape vine planted in the bamboo hut, climbing all over the wooden frame. A thick green shade is cast underneath, and the sunlight shines through the gaps between the leaves, casting golden threads on the ground.

Rong Yan brought her a bunch of bamboo-woven cats and dogs from somewhere, and then disappeared again.

Zhu Zheng was coaxed like a child for a while. She sat under the vine and counted grapes for a while. When she was holding the little snow swan and putting wild flowers on its head, a laughing voice of "Xiao Zheng'er" suddenly floated in from the door.

Chong Hongzi, who slept until noon, looked refreshed. "I heard from them that you went to Cheng Yi's morning class?"

Zhu Zheng quickly stood up and said, "Yes, Master."

Chong Hongzi winked and said, "How is it?"

Zhu Zheng said frankly, "It's very interesting."

Chong Hongzi seemed dissatisfied, "What else?"

Zhu Zheng thought for a moment and said, "Also, the shortbread in the vegetarian room is delicious."

Chong Hongzi: "Ah, indeed."

The two were silent for a while. Xue Hu cooed twice. Zhu Zheng twisted a few wild flower petals between her fingers, waiting for Chong Hongzi to finish asking the questions in his mind.

Chong Hongzi hesitated for a while, then changed the subject, "What do you think of Cheng Yi, Xiao Zheng'er?"

Such a big question, the answer is really broad...

Zhu Zheng's mind was blank when asked, and she could only palely say, "He is a very good person."

"Good guy?" Chong Hongzi was stunned. "Are there any more?"

Zhu Zheng saw that the master seemed to be quite disappointed, and understood what he meant. She quickly flattered him, "Master Chonghong is also a very good person. Only he can teach such a good disciple."

"How can this be the same?" Chong Hongzi clutched the whisk and said in one breath, "Is Cheng Yi the same as Ji Ying, Li Shu, Qing Ping, and He Chang?"

With so many questions asked at once, and some of them even names Zhu Zheng had never heard of, she pondered for a long time and could only conservatively comment, "Same, both...excellent people."

Chong Hongzi paused and let out a long sigh.

His face was wrinkled so much that it looked like a dried red date.

Zhu Zheng held her forehead with her hand, not quite understanding why Master Chong Hongzi came to ask her, an "outsider", a series of comments about his disciples.

Master Chong Hongzi was melancholy for a long time, and paced back and forth in front of Zhu Zheng twice, with the gourd bells hanging all over his body jingling.

Among this group of fancy magical instruments, Zhu Zheng suddenly saw a familiar object.

She stretched out her hand, "Master, can I ask a question?"

Chong Hongzi's eyes lit up, "You ask."

Zhu Zheng pointed at his pendant and asked, "Why do so many people carry this flute?"

It turns out that not only fellow disciples, but even Master Chong Hongzi carries a flute. Is it some kind of fashion in Yutian Temple?

Chong Hongzi glanced down, frowned slightly, and then raised his head again, "Didn't Cheng Yi mention it to you?"

"No." Zhu Zheng shook her head.

"This Cheng Yi..." Chong Hongzi first said "tsk tsk" twice, and then showed an expression of "I expected this". He stroked his beard and asked Zhu Zheng, "Will the little kid who speaks late be frugal with words when he grows up?"

Zhu Zheng heard the hidden meaning in the words and smiled helplessly.

"Does he talk late?"

Judging from your intelligence, you don't seem to be a latecomer.

"It was very late. When Chengyi learned to talk," Chonghongzi gestured on his chest, "he was about this tall."

Zhu Zheng was a little puzzled, "How could this happen?"

"Because it was this high when I picked up Cheng Yi." Chong Hongzi said.

Zhu Zheng exclaimed, “Ah?”

"I can't remember how many years ago it was. I'm getting old and my memory isn't very good." Chong Hongzi sat down on a bamboo chair under the grape vines, leaned back, and seemed to be lost in memories.

"I just remember that it snowed heavily for three consecutive days, and then it suddenly cleared up on the first day of the Lunar New Year."

"It happened that a distant visitor came to visit my senior brother Chongmingzi, and a ragged child fell on the threshold, so I picked him up and brought him into the temple."

Zhu Zheng slightly widened her eyes, "This little kid..."

"Yes, it's Chengyi." Chong Hongzi drew a circle in the air with his whisk.

"When I first brought him back, his little hands and feet were covered in chilblains. He looked at me and my senior brother warily with a pair of wolf cub eyes. His clothes were tattered, and the only thing he had was a purple bamboo flute."

Zhu Zheng lowered her brows, and Xue Hu stopped calling and lay quietly on her legs.

"He can't speak or write, so naturally he doesn't know his name." Chong Hongzi continued, "Fortunately, he can understand what we say, so my senior brother taught him that blowing the flute once means yes, and two means no.

"The first question was whether he was willing to stay. He rolled his timid eyes, thought for a long time, picked up the bamboo flute and blew it."

"Since then, he has become the first disciple of Yutian Temple. As he came on the first day of the new year, my senior brother gave him a Taoist name, Chengyi."

"Cheng Yi." Zhu Zheng repeated it unconsciously, "It's a very nice name."

Chong Hongzi waved the whisk in his hand and pointed to a small piece of sand in front of the bamboo hut. "At that time, Senior Brother Chongming wrote his name on a bamboo plaque. Cheng Yi took it and squatted in the sand, using a tree branch to trace stroke by stroke. The whole ground was filled with Cheng Yi."

Zhu Zheng looked over and saw a young boy lying there under the swaying bamboo shadows, writing his own name obediently. She didn't know what the meaning was.

"Then when did he learn to speak?" Zhu Zheng was curious.

"I learned it very quickly. I just don't talk much. I talked even less when I was a kid. I would never say two words if I could finish one."

Chong Hongzi smiled kindly and said slowly, "But he learns things very quickly, is smart without reason, is arrogant and aggressive because of his talent."

"In the Taoism class, I was talking about 'The Great Dao has fifty elements, and Heaven has forty-nine elements', and he suddenly added 'I accept one of them', showing that he simply didn't take the unpredictable Heaven into consideration."

Fifty avenues, forty-nine Tianyan.

"I accept one of them."

The young man looks up to the sky and seems to be able to pick stars with his hands. How ambitious and high-spirited he is.

Zhu Zheng's heart sank slightly. The "Cheng Yi" in the story who was to be the last one in the world was so unfamiliar, so unfamiliar that she could hardly find any trace of him in the secretive Rong Yan.

How did he change from "Cheng Yi" to "Rong Yan"...

"That's too far."

Chong Hongzi paused, as if coming back to his senses. He took off the bamboo flute from his waist and stroked it carefully in his hand.

"Xiao Zheng'er asked why we all carry this flute. It's because even the duckweed knows that it is duckweed and where it comes from, in the lake, sea or pond. But we, Cheng Yi... don't know anything."

"Mt. Chengxu is bitterly cold. How did he climb up? What did he eat? Where did he come from? Was he lost? Was he abandoned? Did he jump out of a rock? No one knows."

"Although I couldn't get anything out of him, I saw him always holding the small bamboo flute in a daze at night. Seeing this, my senior brother made a similar flute and took it to the foot of the mountain to inquire about the news from house to house."

"But the Northern Frontier is so big that he can't search it all by himself."

"So gradually an unwritten rule was formed in the temple. Every disciple who entered the temple would receive a bamboo flute made by a senior brother. They had to wear it all the time and travel around rivers, lakes and seas. If anyone asked them anything, they had to inform the temple."

It turns out that this is the “rule”.

Zhu Zheng felt a little depressed, "Has anyone asked about it?"

The wind rustled the grape leaves above her head, and she secretly hoped for a good answer that would bring some hope to the child in the story.

Chong Hongzi shook his head.

"No."

Suddenly, a sound like a bell or a clock was heard in the distance, and the clear cry was like that of a crane, reaching the sky.

Chong Hongzi, who was slumped in a bamboo chair, suddenly changed his expression, stood up suddenly, and rushed out of the door as if he was riding the wind.

Zhu Zheng was left out for a while. Before she could even ask "what happened", Master Chonghong disappeared.

The heavy brass lock at the entrance of the Xuanshen Temple broke into two pieces on the ground. A blue flame burned on the bronze Huanshan altar, and a tall figure stood quietly in front of the flame.

"Cheng Yi!" Chong Hongzi ran out of breath, "What are you doing in the Xuanshen Temple?"

Rong Yan didn't turn around, with the flickering light of the fire reflected on his face, and said in a low voice.

"Fortune telling."