【Xue Xiao】Desolate City Crossing

"Xiao Xingchen! Xiao Xingchen! Xiao Xingchen!..."

That voice sounded again in the dream, very urgent, very persistent, and vague, which made him unable to hear clearly and couldn't sleep well.

who is it?Xiao Xingchen woke up a little bit, listened carefully, thought carefully, but before he could figure out why, his voice changed into a familiar boy's voice, and he called him with a bright and friendly smile:

"Master!"

Snapped----!

With a jolt, Xiao Xingchen knocked off a whisk beside the bed, and Xiao Xingchen woke up completely from his dream.

It has been two days since he returned to the world, and he has never left the house, lying on the bed in a daze, either having the same dream over and over again, or recalling the same past over and over again, there are too many problems, and he wants to think clearly.

The most puzzling thing is: Little friend from Yicheng, why Xue Yang?

The residence is a seaside elegant house rented by Song Zichen, which is located on the slope at the foot of the mountain.The window of Xiao Xingchen's room was facing the beautiful courtyard and the blue sea in the distance.

Zichen knew that he needed time to adjust his mood. Apart from simple daily greetings, he didn't bother him much. He went out after saying hello this morning.

At this moment, the whole house is quiet, and the ups and downs of the distant waves can be clearly heard.

Xiao Xingchen took a deep breath to calm himself down, sat up and picked up the whisk that fell on the ground, a little dust stuck to the end of the white whisk, he flicked the dust away with his pale fingertips, but the whisk was too pure white , the dust on the ground finally left a faint gray mark on it, which cannot be erased.

It was just an insignificant matter, but it caused the person holding the whisk to show deep frustration, even grief, his movements became softer and gentler, and finally turned into an extremely attached caress, as if the whisk was connected to someone's heart. Nostalgic, irreversible past.

"Master... this disciple is wrong... this disciple shouldn't have entered the world..."

He looked like he was in his early 20s, and his expression was full of vicissitudes and fatigue.As if recalling the extremely painful past, the person sitting by the bed covered his face with his hands, kept trembling slightly, and murmured in a crying voice:

"Master... I understand..."

Understood, the answer I received when I was seven years old.

That year, when he was young, he knelt in front of his master and made an oath as required:

"Disciple Xiao Xingchen swears that if he comes out of the mountain to enter the world in the future, the time he leaves the mountain will be the time to bid farewell to Master Baoshan Sanren."

After finishing speaking, he asked again with ignorant dissatisfaction: "Master, why?"

The master has a very high level of cultivation. He was hundreds of years old when he was accepted as an apprentice. He lived in seclusion and isolated from the world all the year round. All apprentices must take this oath.

After listening to his question, the master smiled sympathetically, turned his eyes to the distant mountains, and replied indifferently: "There are many divergent paths in the world, you will understand later."

Now, after paying the price with blood and tears, Xiao Xingchen finally understands how wise his master is.

There are many paths in the world.

It's too late.

From the time he came out of the mountains with the idea of ​​saving the world at the age of 17, to the time he committed suicide and broke his soul, in just four years, his hands were stained with blood and he made numerous irreparable mistakes.What remained of those four years were mostly memories of pain and regret, engraved in his body and mind through time and life and death.

If I had known this before, I should have stayed with the master all the time, not to cause dust, and ended the rest of my life in the deep mountains and old forests.

The afterglow of the setting sun shone through the window lattice, dividing the room into golden and dark halves. Xiao Xingchen sat in the dark half, his thoughts were confused and empty.

I don't know how long I sat in a daze, and from the corner of my eyes I felt a figure looking into the room by the window. Xiao Xingchen thought it was Zichen who had returned from a trip, so he didn't turn his head, and continued to sit and wait for the figure to speak, but the figure never made a sound. As if standing there just to look at him quietly, after a moment of stalemate, Xiao Xingchen sensed the strangeness, turned his head to look, and exclaimed:

"Xue Yang?!"

The figure by the window took a step back, as if he didn't expect to be discovered, he was stunned for a moment, turned around and disappeared, Xiao Xingchen stood up in his clothes, and picked up the temporary sword that Zichen found for him. He went out, chased out of the small courtyard, and chased all the way from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain. The fleeing figure disappeared in the uninhabited woods with towering ancient trees. He held the sword and looked around carefully, but he didn't even find a single footprint.

Is it a hallucination?

The Xue Yang who lied to him to humiliate him, let him commit the crime of murder, and forced him to break down and commit suicide has also been dead for two years.

Zichen told him that eight years after he committed suicide, Xue Yang suffered the consequences of his own death and had an unsuccessful end, even having his arm cut off before he died.The figure disappeared too quickly just now, and it was not clear whether the arm was broken.

However, how could it be Xue Yang.If Xue Yang was watching him quietly by the window like just now, no matter if it was a human or a ghost, it would be too weird.

He put his sword back into its sheath, sighed mockingly, and watched the dusk over the sea from the top of the mountain.

The sun withdrew its last rays and sank completely below the sea level.In the world, people seem extremely small, and their joys, anger, sorrows and joys are not worth mentioning.

The autumn wind on the top of the mountain is slightly cool, and the white clothes are blown violently.

The master also took him to see the sea, and pointed to the end of the sea and taught gently:

"Xingchen, look, although this side of the sea is the end of the earth, there is actually another brand new land beyond the sea."

Thinking about it now, the master had something to say, he hesitated to speak, did he predict the end of his fate, that is, the end of the mountain?

I shouldn't have left Master, he thought again regretfully.

While thinking, he slowly paced down the mountain.The mountain road twisted and twisted, and his mind was in a trance.

In the dazed and undisciplined deep thinking, his eyes were not focused, and he stumbled over a stone under his feet before recovering. It turned out that he was close to the foot of the mountain, the sky was dark, and there was a cemetery in front of him.

It is not uncommon to have a cemetery in the mountains, but what is strange is that there are many figures swaying on the cemetery—in fact, there are not many, but as far as the place of the barren mountain and wild cemetery is concerned, there are many such people, and what is even more strange are those who Everyone is expressionless, coming and going in the graveyard like sleepwalking.

Seeing such a strange phenomenon at this place, monk Xiao Xingchen was dominated by the habit of hunting the night before, so he naturally wanted to go forward to find out what happened.

"Excuse me for a moment, what are you doing?"

A person walked in front of him and ignored him, so he asked another person.

"Old man, excuse me, may I ask what's wrong with you?"

The second, and the third, asked several people in a row, but the result was the same. They ignored him, and none of them stopped, even as if they didn't hear him, they swayed away before he finished asking.Xiao Xingchen was sure that something was wrong here, so he simply raised his arm to stop someone.

"please wait a while……"

As usual, the man didn't stop, and didn't change direction. He passed straight through his arm, and he felt a gust of wind blowing through his arm.

"..."

Xiao Xingchen opened his eyes wide and froze in place, the sleeves of his white Taoist robe swayed slightly.At this moment, another person was coming towards him, Xiao Xingchen didn't dodge, that person didn't turn the corner, and sure enough——again——passed through his stiff body without hindrance.

***

After confirming that Xiao Xingchen had gone down the mountain, Xue Yang walked out from behind a tree, feeling annoyed at his inexplicable escape just now.

What is there to run?

He claimed that he had never been afraid of anyone, and he was not afraid of Xiao Xingchen, but when Xiao Xingchen looked at him with black and white eyes, he had a lot of thoughts in his mind, and the first thought was to hide.

It has been more than ten years since the last time I looked into those eyes?Others look at Xue Yang with either fear or hatred, but only Xiao Xingchen, no matter first meeting in the downtown area or hunting in three provinces, in those shining eyes, there is never fear or disgust, only condemnation and regret.

It was that kind of look that made Xue Yang, who was used to being a villain, even more bitter, and stirred up an unknown fire in his heart.

After that, although he had been by Xiao Xingchen's side for three years, Xiao Xingchen was already blind at that time, and his eyes were always covered by a white silk cloth.

Perhaps it was because he couldn't see those clear and pure eyes that he dared to be so unscrupulous for three years in Yicheng, pretending to be another person beside Xiao Xingchen, cheating and possessing.

Now, Xiao Xingchen could see him again?Goodbye again, those eyes must be full of anger towards him, right?

Xue Yang slammed his fist on the tree trunk, cursing, "The stinky old man actually hid such an important matter from me!"

After thinking about it, a playful smile appeared on his face, "Okay, this seems to be more fun."

The "stinky old man" he called was the old man in black who rescued Xiao Xingchen.

At this moment, he still doesn't know that this matter is not the only thing that has been concealed.