Mortal Bones

"Tick!"

"Tick!"

"Tick!"

After listening to Master Nagasyapa's divine thoughts, Xu Taiping began to fall into a drowsy state. He didn't know how long he had been asleep until he was awakened by the sound of water drops falling to the ground.

"Where...is this?"

Xu Taiping got up with difficulty, and then found that there seemed to be a lake beneath him, and he could easily stand on the lake.

"I'm not still dreaming, am I?"

Xu Taiping glanced at the lake and found that the surroundings were dark, with only a little light on the water in front of him.

If you look carefully, you will see a tree with a light cyan halo. Every leaf of this tree is extremely green. From time to time, water droplets will seep out and fall into the lake along the leaves.

The sound of water dripping that woke Xu Taiping must have come from this tree, as expected.

And this tree, the overall outline, looks like a hand.

The thick trunk is like an arm, and the main branches are like fingers.

"Why do I dream about a tree?"

Xu Taiping became more and more confused.

He rarely dreams, let alone dreaming of such weird scenes.

"call!……"

And just when he tried to get close to the tree to check what was going on, a cold wind suddenly blew on the originally calm lake.

Xu Taiping wanted to get closer, but was blown back by the cold wind.

Immediately afterwards, he saw a black lotus leaf with a colorful halo growing under the tree at a speed visible to the naked eye.

When Xu Taiping came to his senses, a bud grew out from under the lotus leaf, then quickly bloomed, withered, bore fruit, and withered.

Finally, lotus seeds fell from the withered lotus pods and fell into the water with a "dong dong dong" sound.

Because the whole process only took five or six breaths, Xu Taiping didn't suddenly wake up until all the lotus seeds fell into the water:

"Could this... be the magic lotus in my body?!"

Just when he was shocked, a few lotus seeds that had fallen into the lake began to take root, sprout, grow lotus leaves, bloom, and produce lotus seeds. Finally, more lotus seeds fell into the lake.

In just a moment, the entire lake surface was covered by the black lotus emitting colorful fluorescence.

Seeing this scene, Xu Taiping felt an inexplicable fear in his heart, and at the same time a strong thought came into his heart - "We can't let this black lotus grow anymore!"

No matter if this moment is a dream or not.

Thinking of this, he rushed out desperately and tried to pull up the lotus flowers in the lake.

"Crash!..."

But at this moment, the large palm-shaped branches and leaves suddenly shook hard, and then pieces of green leaves flew down from the branches, and finally gathered into a figure under the tree.

The figure clearly looked like a boy of twelve or thirteen years old, but he had a face that was more beautiful than many women, and his skin was as fair as jade.

"Who are you?"

Xu Taiping couldn't help but ask.

But the young man just smiled faintly at him, and then stretched out a hand towards the black lotus covering the entire lake.

"boom!"

The moment the young man stretched out his hand, the lotus leaves that were originally swaying in the wind suddenly turned into angry faces. They roared and rushed towards the young man, seeming to tear him into pieces.

But the faces transformed into lotus leaves suddenly turned into ashes the moment they approached the young man.

For a moment, the remaining lotus flowers all sank into the water.

When the young man saw this, he showed a charming smile, and then stretched out his hand to grab it on the lake.

In an instant, black lotuses flew out from the bottom of the lake and automatically flew in front of the young man.

The young man raised his hand to hold up all the hundreds of black lotuses, and then shook them hard.

With a "boom" sound, hundreds of black lotuses finally turned into a black lotus seed with the color of black amber in the young man's palm.

The young man picked up the black lotus seed, shook it playfully at Xu Taiping, and then threw it directly into his mouth.

"Eh!"

"Gulong..."

Seeing that he was about to eat the black lotus, Xu Taiping wanted to stop him, but was still a step too slow.

After the young man ate the black lotus, his figure turned into leaves and flew back to the palm-shaped tree.

"Wait a minute, could this boy be transformed by that strange hand?"

Reminiscent of the young man's method of annihilating the black lotuses into ashes, combined with the shape of the big tree in front of him, Xu Taiping suddenly had a very bold guess in his mind.

At this time, a strong wind blew again on the lake.

Only this time, the strong wind was extremely gentle, making people feel inexplicably reassured.

At the same time, Xu Taiping saw a black lotus growing at the foot of the big tree.

The slender lotus stems kept growing upward, entwining themselves around the trunk and branches of the big tree. Finally, a black lotus bloomed on the top of the branches and leaves of the big tree, and a lotus platform appeared at the bottom of the big tree.

"The big tree and the magic lotus transformed by the strange hand... merged into one?"

Xu Taiping felt his scalp numb.

"Why hasn't Taiping woke up yet?"

"Yes, many days!"

"Peace!"

Before he could think carefully, shouts suddenly reached his ears.

"Is this Sister Lingyue, Bai Yu and Ping An?"

He immediately recognized who was calling him.

"I'm here!"

Xu Taiping responded instinctively and struggled to find where the three of them were.

But just when he turned around, his vision suddenly lit up, and a strange top of the bed appeared in his sight.

He rolled his eyes and looked around.

I saw that this was a very old house. Both the bedside under him and the furnishings in the house were very old.

In addition, he also saw a familiar figure—Second Senior Brother Qing Xiao.

At this time, the second senior brother was sitting cross-legged on the ground, concentrating on guarding a pill furnace.

"Isn't this also a dream?"

Xu Taiping thought for a while, and finally tried to shout:

"Second senior brother?"

Hearing Xu Taiping's voice, Dugu Qingxiao, who was sitting cross-legged in front of the alchemy furnace, suddenly trembled.

Then he turned to look at Xu Taiping in disbelief.

After a long time, he spoke in a trembling voice:

"Taiping, you...are you awake?!"

Looking at the second senior brother's bloodshot eyes and the excitement and surprise on his face, Xu Taiping was finally sure that he was not in a dream.

"Brother, how long have I been asleep?"

Seeing Dugu Qingxiao so surprised, Xu Taiping guessed that he must have been unconscious for a long time this time.