Gucheng

I thought I was going to die, but I didn't.

When I woke up, there was a pile of sand under my body, and there was a hard pillow on the back of my head. I stood up with my elbows propped up, and when I picked it up, it turned out to be a piece of dry wood.Looking around, it is monotonous and dead khaki, the distant sandy slopes stretch to nowhere, and some drought-tolerant weeds grow messily nearby, small and hard, with needle-like leaves that prick your hands.

Taoist Wuzhen sat next to me, holding her precious gourd and drinking one after another. The time was approaching noon, the sun was high, and the desert had become a huge melting pot, which was about to melt in the sun, so she wore I left the broken bamboo hat hanging behind me all the time, and there were several holes in the eaves of the bamboo hat, which actually couldn't cover much of the heat wave.

"My lord is awake." Wuzhen didn't even look at me, and continued to drink her wine.

I touched my heart, there was an opening there, and the pain was clearly real when I touched it with my hand, "I'm not dead?"

"No." Wuzhen put the stopper on her gourd, and handed over a white jade bottle, the jade bottle faintly exuded a warm light, I opened the bottle stopper, and there was nothing inside.

I wondered: "This is...?"

"Tianxin Buling Pill, I have cultivated this one after 40 years of practice. I originally planned to save it for life-saving. It is cheaper for you."

"Where is the ghost?" I looked around, the ghost was gone, and Litai City was gone.

I am not in Litai City, there is no day in Litai City.

I grabbed Wuzhen's shoulder and asked, "Where's the ghost!"

With the back of Wuzhen's hand, he wiped away the wine stains around his mouth, a pair of eyes lifted slightly from under the bamboo hat, and the eyeballs looked up at me sideways.

"Where is ghost!?" I approached her anxiously and asked again, and she put the wine gourd back on her waist without haste, "Young master, all emotions and desires are empty, why don't you just let it go."

"No...no...you lied!" I pushed her away and fell to the ground, impossible, impossible... Wuzhen she said, she said that ghost can be saved, she said that ghost will be reincarnated in the next life find a good home...

"Bai Anxun, it's time for you to go back to Yangzhou. Bai Yuanwai and Mrs. Bai are still waiting for you to go home." Wuzhen said.

"But what about ghost?" I looked blankly at a piece of yellow sand, where can I find such a Litai city without daylight?

There won't be any, and I'm afraid there won't be any more.

"Let's go back." Wuzhen said, "Go back." I thought she was always foolish and serious, but I was not used to it.

I got up, patted the dirt on my body, and gave her a deep bow, "I would like to ask the Taoist priest to bring a message to my parents, saying that An Xun is not filial, and I can no longer serve you in this life."

"Where are you going?"

"Go to Litai City." The wound on my left heart is still burning and hurting, the ghost was clearly still by my side last night, why did he disappear without a trace today?I don't want to believe it, Wuzhen must be lying to me, she only thinks about what my parents told her, and she just wants to get me back as soon as possible, the ghost has not disappeared, she must still be somewhere in the desert, it must be Wuzhen Really lied to me.

"I'm going to look for a ghost, I'm going to look for a ghost..." My legs were weak, I didn't care about the direction, and I walked forward unsteadily. Scared.

She has been in that place for 200 years and has been trapped for 200 years. I can't let her be trapped any longer. I have to save her.

I have to save her.

"Bai Anxun." Wuzhen grabbed my elbow, her hand was stained with sand, and there was a clear mark on her sleeve, "Be sober."

"How do I wake up!" I shook off her shackles with a wave of my sleeves, and shouted brokenly, "How do I wake up?"

The ghost is gone, turned into a wisp of green smoke and drifted into the desert. How can I calm down when there is no more of this wandering spirit in the sky and on the ground.

The sand under my feet was filled with hot air, scorching all the way up from the soles of my feet. Standing on the ground, I was almost parched.

"It's so noisy." Suddenly, a sentence came from somewhere very close to me. The speaker's voice was so shrill and weak that I almost thought it was my own illusion.

"Who's talking?" I asked.

Wuzhen said: "What are you talking about?"

As if answering Wuzhen, the shrill and sharp voice sounded again, "It's so noisy, it's so noisy, and it keeps people from sleeping!"

The speaker was right next to my ear, and I turned around several times in shock, not to mention people, not even a fly.

Wuzhen's expressionless face suddenly broke into a smile, and he nuzzled at my right hand, "Don't look for it, it's over there."

I raised my hand and saw that it turned out to be the small gold-painted white jade bottle that Wuzhen gave me. The body of the bottle was flickering and shining. A villain clearly appeared in the empty bottle, small, only half a finger long, unable to see his face clearly, squatting on the inner wall of the bottle and screaming: "It's so noisy!"

"Master, this..."

"This is a ghost."

"But didn't you say..."

"What did I say?" Wuzhen said with a smile, "When did I say she was gone?"

Wuzhen stretched out the handle of her dust whisk with few hairs left to scratch her back, then said with a smile, "I stole this pill bottle from my master when I went down the mountain. There is also the wonderful effect of gathering souls and nourishing souls, this female ghost has her soul scattered by the underworld fire, she has to be raised in a bottle for a few years, at that time she will cultivate her primordial spirit, and it will be all right to pay off her previous debts."

Wuzhen said it lightly, presumably this is the treasure of her practice, "Daoist, you gave me the treasure of Master, then you..."

"Stop talking nonsense." Wuzhen flicked the whisk, looking annoyed, "I will repay your parents' kindness back then, and go back to Yangzhou. From then on, Pindao and your Bai family will have nothing to do with each other. .”

"I am afraid that An Xun will not be able to repay the kindness of Taoist priest in this life."

Holding the jade bottle, I pointed at the petite ghost inside, "Gui, I'll take you home."

You have never seen the scenery of the south of the Yangtze River in your previous life. In this life, I will accompany you to see it. You can see the willows and the green lotus, the snow-white plums, the red moon and the green pines, and countless snacks and songs that you can’t listen to. You appreciate them all.

……

It was midsummer, except for sporadic tea customers and buskers playing pipa and storytelling in various restaurants and teahouses in Yangzhou City, the streets were empty. It was wide open, and no one passed by for half a day. Suddenly, a tall, thin beggar in ragged clothes came in from outside the city.

The color of the clothes on the beggar's body can no longer be seen clearly, only different shades of black and gray can be distinguished. There are several holes in the shoulders and trousers, and the chest is covered with patches. I don’t know which Taoist temple he stole the Taoist robe from, but it seemed to fit him well. He wore a pair of straw sandals, the big toes of both feet protruded from the toe of the toe, and he stepped on the heel of the shoe. Sloppy.

After the beggar entered the city, he was followed by a frail scholar. His black long gown was not as tattered as the beggar's, but it was also wrinkled. It looked weather-beaten, but his face was fair and handsome. A finely crafted white jade bottle painted with gold.

"Let's go here." The beggar stopped at the gate of the city, leaned lazily on the base of the city wall, and said to the scholar, "There is no banquet in the world that never ends, Mr. Bai, you and I have this fate, and now the fate is over, so here it is." Don't live, there will be no time later."

The scholar said: "Won't the Taoist priest follow me back to the Baifu? You have done me a favor of rebuilding, and the Bai family should thank you very much."

"Forget it, I can't stand your pedantic ways." The beggar scratched his butt and pointed to the jade bottle on the scholar's chest, "By the way, your blood dripped on this brat at that time, she Now that she is connected with you by flesh and blood, if something happens to you, she will not escape disaster. In addition, if her soul is scattered, she must be fed a drop of your blood every seven days, remember."

"Don't worry, Taoist priest, An Xun will definitely keep it in mind." The scholar bent down with his fists folded, bowed deeply, and when he looked up again, the beggar had disappeared without a trace.

The scholar held the jade bottle tied with a red thread, with a gentle face, lowered his eyes and smiled, "Gui, we're home." The voice was like a breeze, and one almost drowned in it.

……

one year later.

In the bustling market, there is a small tea shed made of bamboo next to the banyan tree by the river. Because it is built next to the tree, it attracts wind and heat, and it is very cool in the hot evening in midsummer. Many people come here to drink tea. On the tea table by the river, two locals were eating melon seeds and chatting.

"Hey, did you hear that?" said the man in gray.

"What did you hear?" the man in brown asked.

"The eldest son of the Bai family, the one who was lost a year ago, is back!"

"The eldest son of the Bai family? The one who got engaged to Miss Li's family a year ago and then ran away?"

"It's him," the gray-clothed man spat out his melon seeds, and said disdainfully, "Miss Li's appearance is like a fish and a wild goose, and she has a lot of money, so she is worthy of the Bai family, but that idiot is so stupid in reading, she even got into a fuss about running away from marriage." joke."

"What a kid." An older woman at the table next to them was also gossiping, "She's not a kid, she was a girl, and the white staff were foolish and made her into a tomboy, pretending for so many years I'm afraid that Bai Yuanwai himself can't tell whether he is raising a girl or a boy, and let him have the nerve to harm a good girl from other people's family."

The other two listened enthusiastically, and asked with wide-eyed eyes, "Really?" The gray-clothed man sighed again, "Let me tell you, that eldest son is so handsome and beautiful, how many girls in Yangzhou city are attracted to him Mengzhuan? Not to mention women, even men, there are quite a few who don't hesitate to bear the name of a broken sleeve to have an affair with him, but it turns out to be a woman, no wonder they are so good-looking."

"A man?" The brown-clothed man teased, "The man who wants to break his sleeves is you, right? Brother Mo, it turns out that you are lucky, hahaha..."

Before the man in brown could speak, he was attacked by some strange force, and suddenly he was hit hard on the abdomen and fell into the river outside the fence. Get up, there is no fear of life.

"Hahaha Brother Zhao, you will be punished for making you laugh at me..." As the gray-clothed man gloated, he felt kicked on his back and was also carried into the river.

"It deserves it!" the brown-clothed man hummed in the river.

"Who do you say deserves it!"

"I am talking about you!"

"!"

The two wrestled into a ball in the cool river water, and soon a lot of theatergoers gathered on the bank. In an inconspicuous corner of the tea shed, a veiled plain-clothed woman settled the bill and tied up a white The oil-paper umbrella left quietly.

"Girl, today's weather is fine and there is no rain." Xiaoer reminded.

The plain-clothed woman just smiled and left without saying a word, lifting the hem of her skirt lightly.A faint fragrance wafted from the tip of her hair along with the breeze. Xiao Er took a deep breath and vaguely heard the woman chatting and laughing with others, but when she looked closely, there was only the woman under the white paper umbrella, how could there be anyone else?

Probably heard it wrong, Xiao Er wiped the table with a rag and went to work.

"Gui, don't tease others next time." The woman in plain clothes reprimanded softly.

The one called Ah Gui was a young girl, with a light figure, she was lying on the shoulder of the woman in plain clothes, wrinkling her small nose and said coquettishly: "You deserve it, who made those two stinky men covet you?"

A Gui bit the woman's ear, "An Xun, you are mine, no one can miss you, even Xiao Xiao!"

"Okay, ghost, where are we going to play tomorrow?"

"Go..." Ghost thought for a while, and said, "Why don't you go swimming in the lake? I want to eat lotus seeds!"

"It's up to you to swim in the lake."

The plain-clothed woman walked away from a distance, and passers-by looked at her, and the woman was talking to herself, talking and laughing, crazy, holding an umbrella on a sunny day, and there was no one in the umbrella except herself.

In the wine shop a little far away from the tea shed, another group of people chatted and sighed.

"I heard that the eldest son of the Bai family is crazy! Talking to himself all day long, it's really scary."

"The eldest son of the Bai family? Is that the talented Bai Anxun?"

"What talent, she is a fake man, it has been spread all over the city of Yangzhou..."

"Pity……"

"..."

In the distance, a woman in plain clothes walked slowly through the alley with a white oil-paper umbrella, pushed open the door of an inconspicuous courtyard, entered the courtyard, closed the door tightly, and shut out all the gossips along the way.

The sun is setting and the years are just right.

(End of the article)

The author has something to say: This article has probably become another dark history for me. I just wanted to practice the skills of writing ancient novels. After I finished writing, I looked back... What the hell is this? ?

But it’s finally finished, ah, ancient novels are so hard to write...