Lantern: Reflection of the Peach Blossoms

Nepal.

Mount Everest, 6 meters above the snow line.

A mountaineering team camped in the lee of the glacier. Several team members sat around the smokeless stove to rest, check the shooting equipment, and heat the dehydrated beef specially used for marching to replenish their strength.

Not far away, the young guide walked out of the tent and walked towards the edge of the glacier cliff.

He wore a traditional hood, revealing only a pair of deep-set eyes, and his entire face from the bridge of the nose down was covered with yellow bandages, leaving only a slit at the mouth.

He is only of medium height, but his body type is extremely rare. He has the vigor and vigor unique to the ethnic minorities living near the plateau snow line. He walks on the ice field with steady and steady steps, like a silent and powerful snow leopard.

He walked to the edge of the cliff, looked at the towering mountaintops in the distance that were surrounded by wind and snow all the year round, and bent down to bow.

"I said he will come out." A mountaineer by the fire adjusted the camera without raising his head and said, "I salute the mountain every 500 meters. I don't know if it is the tradition of their Sherpas. I heard that they manage Mount Everest calls mother..."

"Big Liu!" The captain scolded, "Stop talking!"

Da Liu smiled indifferently.

Not far away, a female team member bit her lip, took a can of beef, got up and walked towards the boy.

"Hey, that...Aga, do you want to eat something? The return trip will take a lot of energy—"

After the guide made his bow, he stood silently for a moment, then turned his head and glanced at her.

His entire face was covered by bandages, but his browbones were deep, his eyes were extremely bright, and he had the look of an eagle on a snowy field.

The female team member was startled, only to see him shaking his head, sitting cross-legged on the ice and snow, taking a bite of dry food from his arms.

"Aga..."

"I don't eat your food." The boy's voice was hoarse, "Thank you."

The female team member was a little embarrassed, but seeing the black dry food in his hand, which looked like dry tough beef products and a bit like rubber, she couldn't help being curious: "What is this? Is it traditional food in Nepal?"

"No," the boy said without raising his head, "it's snake meat."

"—Snake meat?!"

Several team members turned their heads in surprise, but the young man took a bite of the jerky snake meat as if no one was there, and swallowed it whole without seeing how he chewed it.

The female team member was full of shock and curiosity, and wanted to ask more questions, but saw the young man facing the mountain top in the distance, as if everyone around him didn't exist.

After hesitating for a while, she patted Xuexue and sat down beside him, followed his example and made a bow to the mountain peak, and bowed reverently for a while before laughing: "Is this the way you pray?"

The boy stopped swallowing and stared at her with a strange gaze.

"I... I heard that Mount Everest is as sacred to you as your mother, so..."

"No." The boy said, "My mother's bones are buried in the center of that mountain."

His voice was very low, but everyone was shocked.At this moment, Da Liu, who had previously adjusted the camera, suddenly exclaimed: "Look! What is that!"

Everyone raised their heads in doubt, and saw a light and shadow passing over the snow peak not far away, dazzling like a rainbow in the white world, hovering in the sky for a few seconds, and rushing into the sky with a long tail light. To the back of Xuefeng!

At that moment, no one could believe their eyes. Even the mature and prudent captain suddenly stood up and said in astonishment, "What is that? Is it a bird?! Da Liu quickly took a picture—"

"Yes, yes, I took a picture!" Da Liu quickly flipped through the camera just now, then suddenly paused, and made a soft and inconceivable voice: "This—this is impossible..."

He tremblingly handed the camera to the captain: "This is a peacock..."

The captain was dumbfounded, and everyone gathered around to look at the pictures that were taken in a hurry just now, they were shocked and speechless for a moment.

"This is impossible. How could peacocks live on snow-capped mountains... This is definitely not a peacock. This is the greatest discovery in the history of ecological scientific research..." The captain was so excited that he didn't know what to say, when suddenly a person stuck out from the crowd. With one hand, he snatched the camera away lightly and irresistibly.

When everyone turned their heads, the guide looked through the album, and then pressed the delete button.

"You, what are you doing!" Da Liu was the first to jump up as if stung by a bee, and was about to beat him up: "What are you doing! Give it back to me!"

The young guide easily dodged and threw the camera to him, saying, "We must go down the mountain immediately."

The crowd was shocked by the accident, Liu jumped onto the snow with a bang, got up, blushed and wanted to rush over, but was stopped by the captain in a hurry: "Wait! Guide, why are you going down the mountain? We are going to the snow peak now Look, you may not understand, this is an unprecedented ecological discovery in human history, if you have religious taboos—"

"Not faith. Can't go."

The captain said in amazement: "Why?!"

Everyone stared at the guide, but they saw that his eyes were firm and did not waver in the slightest.

"Because our agreement in advance is not like this. I will take you here, turn around, and go down the mountain, and this matter will be over. Your commission will be paid here. If you go up, it will not be within the scope of the agreement in advance, and I will not accept it."

"We can increase the price!" The captain said excitedly: "I'll double it for you, no, five times! Ten times! We have enough oxygen to go to the back of Xuefeng!"

"It's not an oxygen problem. If you see that peacock again, you—" The boy pointed to the female team member and said, "Except for her, you will all die."

His tone was so calm that even the excited crowd fell silent.After a while, the female team member pointed at herself, and asked with trembling lips, "Why, why, why?"

"Because you prayed to my mother's bones just now." The young man said coldly, "I once made an oath that anyone who sincerely prays to my mother on the snow-capped mountains, I will protect them from dying on the ice field...other I don't care about people."

The teenager walked around them, walked towards the tent, and picked up his equipment bag.

The team members looked at each other, and then looked at the captain with questioning eyes. They seemed to think that all this was very absurd, and some people asked each other with their eyes, should they also bow like the female team members just now?

Without the help of this young man, it would be very difficult for them to go back the same way. Besides, this is not a guide they found casually—Sherpas are born sons of the Himalayas. Only those who have climbed the snow line above 6000 meters will be honored as "Tiger of Snow Mountain".The first person to receive this title was Tensin Norgay, who climbed Mount Everest three times with different British mountaineering teams in the 8000s. To commemorate this man, there is even a mountain named after him on Pluto.

Among the Sherpa people, there is another kind of people called "Shada".

No one knows the criteria for the selection of "Shada", but in this mysterious clan, "Shada" has a huge status and power, and can command all the Sherpas in a mountaineering team. "The Tiger of the Snow Mountain" must also obey Shada's orders.

——This young man named Aga is the "Shada" of the Sherpa generation.

The captain hesitated for a moment, and finally couldn't bear the excitement and excitement of the huge discovery, and caught up with the young guide who had already put on the equipment bag: "Twenty times, how about it? As long as you take us to the back of Xuefeng, I will not only pay you Twenty times the pay, and it's none of your business if anyone on the team dies..."

The boy's bandaged face turned to him, with no expression in his eyes: "No."

The captain still wanted to continue persuading, but at this moment, a loud scream came from above their heads, and the young man's expression changed drastically, and he turned his head to look at Xuefeng!

——I saw a huge peacock flying out of the top of the snow peak. In the eyes of everyone shocked, it spread its colorful and magnificent tail feathers like jewels.

The boy lost his voice: "Shut up—"

However it was too late.

A mocking smile appeared in the peacock's eyes, and it raised its head to the sky and let out a deafening scream!

——The world was silent for a moment, and then there was a tooth-piercing creaking sound from the snow cover above their heads!

"Snow, avalanche..." Someone made a trembling voice, and then retreated in all directions, screaming in horror: "Quickly find cover!—Avalanche is coming!"

I saw snow and fog rising far above the head. It was silent at first, but then the sound of rolling thunder quickly moved from far to near, engulfed by increasingly huge snow waves and ice, and smashed on everyone's heads. come down!

In front of the tent, the young man cursed loudly, arched his whole body, and charged towards the avalanche like an arrow leaving the string.

The captain couldn't believe his eyes—on top of the ice field at an altitude of 500 meters, there are still people who can rush a few feet away in an instant like clouds and fog!

However, the scene that shocked him even more happened in the next second. The young man jumped up in the air, broke off his jacket to reveal a tight bunt, pulled out two scimitars from his back with his backhand, and swooped down towards the peacock!

"Maha—"

The peacock transformed into a human in an instant, holding a single knife, "Dang!" A volley blocked this earth-shattering blow!

"Don't get in my way," said Maha's beautiful face in the snowstorm without any expression, "—otherwise I'll kill you too."

The boy sternly said: "This is obviously what I want to tell you!"

With a sudden force, he forced Maha back a few steps towards the snow peak!

At this moment, the earthquake swept along with the avalanche, setting off a spectacular huge wave between the sky and the earth.

The young man gritted his teeth and turned around, his figure transformed into a giant roc in mid-air, his golden wings spread out to cover the sky, "Boom!" There was a loud noise, and he suddenly caught tens of millions of tons of snow and ice with his back!

The next second, it let out a long howl, and its giant claws grabbed a group of mountaineering team members on the snowy ground, and swooped down the snowy mountain!

·

dark.

groggy.

As if there were invisible jagged teeth pulling back and forth in her mind, the female team member slowly opened her slack eyes, and after a long time, she barely recovered from the severe pain in her internal organs.

"This is……"

She struggled to get up, and saw that the snow field around her was extremely messy, black boulders and ice cubes turned up all over the ground, looking from a distance, it looked like the ferocious mouths of countless giant beasts.

"Captain... Big Liu..." She looked around in panic, trembling and screaming, "Where are you? Where are you guys? Captain, Big Liu—!"

A hand covered her mouth from behind, and the female team member turned her head in horror, only to see the young guide standing up from the snow, the bandages unraveled, revealing a handsome, stiff, blood-stained side face.

He only wore bunts, and his naked body parts were extremely lean. He held a sharp machete in each hand, and stomped the ice slag on his feet.

"You..." The female team member gasped in fear, and after a while she asked in a crying voice, "You... who the hell are you? What happened just now?"

The boy looked up to the front.

A graceful and slender figure is slowly walking down the glacier. His face is as beautiful as a sculpture made of ice and snow. His long hair covered in crushed snow hangs down his side. His feet are bare under his white robe, stepping on the snow without hesitation. on the ground.

"—My name is Garuda..."

The boy narrowed his eyes, and the scimitar in both hands gave off a dazzling cold light:

"The one in front is my elder brother who is only a thousand years old in the second grade."

"Garuda." Maha stood still on the snow, tilted his head slightly and smiled: "I haven't seen you for many years, is this how you welcome me?"

It was obviously a very common action, but when he did it, there was a kind of evil mixed with beauty, innocence and temptation.Garuda stared at him for a moment, then retorted: "I haven't seen you for many years, so you use this method to visit me?"

The two brothers looked at each other in the wind and snow, and there was no excitement of reunion after a long absence on each other's faces.After a long while, Jialuluo crossed his arms and looked at his brother up and down: "I heard that you were beaten by your father in order to escape from the forbidden grotto, and then you injured your mother, and finally ran to the sea of ​​blood in hell You are king and hegemony... Why, you suddenly came to disturb my place of cultivation, could it be because you miss your brother?"

"Don't be so heartless, I'm here to apply for cohabitation with you." Maha's expression was innocent: "Do you mind if I live in this mountain range for a few years, dear brother?"

Garuda looked at him with some surprise, but Maha's expression was completely clueless except for his innocence.

His appearance is so rare, Garuda hesitated for a moment, but still refused: "No, I don't want to find human body stumps every day in the snow-capped mountains where my mother's bones are buried. You can go."

This refusal did not surprise Maha at all.

His arm slowly moved from behind to in front of his body, as expected, he was holding a bright long knife, but the smile on his face deepened: "——So, do you want me to drive you out, brother?"

The cold wind suddenly tightened, and the crushed snow swished like a sharp knife, and at the same time lifted the corners of the two people's clothes.

Garuda squinted his eyes, with a cold light shining in his eyes, his handsome face, which was similar to his father's, was as cold and ruthless as a knife carved in the wind and snow.

"...I see." He said suddenly, staring at Maha carefully: "Brother, you have grown older."

Maha's complexion changed.

"No wonder even your mother wants to lock you up in the forbidden grotto, and your godhead has been struck by the lightning—" Garuda lowered his voice, seeming to find it a bit unbelievable: "Now you have to rely on food People come to absorb energy, otherwise, like all things in the six realms, they will rapidly decay with time, grow old, and eventually enter the cycle of death, right?"

Maha's smile finally completely disappeared from his face.

He stared fiercely at his younger brother, and Garuda got a positive answer from this expression.

Garuda frowned, as if feeling a little ironic.

"If it is said that your father locked you in the Forbidden Grotto, and there is suspicion of waiting for an opportunity to retaliate because of the father-son conflict in the early years, then your mother must have set up a mechanism to protect you. After all, the ancient legend said that the real body of the phoenix is ​​extremely divine, and there is The role of 'replacing the godhead'... Wait, how did you escape? It is said that you seriously injured your mother?"

Maha said angrily, "Shut up!"

But Garuda looked at his ferocious expression as nothing: "So what are you going to do now, do you find a way to eat a large number of people every day, or enter the hinterland of the snow mountain to guard the skeleton of the phoenix, and use the remaining divinity on the bone to delay exhaustion? ?” He raised his eyebrows amusedly: “I still suggest that you go back to find your father, admit your mistake obediently, and go back to the grotto to lock yourself—”

That kind of scene must be very interesting, Garuda raised the corners of his mouth: "At least being locked up underground in the inland city of the human world is better than being in the center of the Himalayas. Don't think about it..."

"Shut up!" Maha interrupted him violently: "I went back! The grotto has been destroyed by Zhou Hui!"

The brothers looked at each other for a moment, and Garuda said regretfully: "Oh, it seems that my father's desire to kill you has not changed."

The wind and snow became more and more dense, and the distant glacier exposed large black rocks after the avalanche.Thousands of miles of snowfields were in a mess, and the wind swept over the overturned chunks of frozen rock, making a sharp whimper like a whistle, roaring towards the sky.

Maha's beautiful face was full of gloom, and he said softly for a while: "There is another way, maybe you can try it."

He clenched his skates tightly and held them horizontally in front of him, showing a dangerous offensive posture: "—Anyway, it's a brother, if I take away your godhead..."

The air suddenly paused, like countless strings suddenly tightened!

The veins on the back of Jialuluo's hands holding the two knives were bulging, he stared at his brother closely, and said coldly after a long time: "You just have to give it a try."

·

·

Chuhe felt as if he was walking in an endless night.

You can't see your fingers around you, and the ground is full of wet mud.He fell down after walking a few steps, then supported his hand full of scars, gritted his teeth, staggered up, and continued to move forward.

Where is the goal, and in what direction is the road?

He didn't know anything, he just felt his knee go numb from the pain as he fell and got up again and again, and finally he even lost consciousness.

In the end, when he was almost unable to hold on, a figure very similar to himself appeared indistinctly in front of the distant darkness, and it turned out to be Maha.

——Maha!My stolen child, come back to me!

Chuhe didn't know where a force rose from, and he gritted his teeth and ran forward, but then fell heavily to the ground again.At this moment, even his internal organs were smashed into countless bloody pieces. He spat out a mouthful of blood in severe pain and struggled to get up with all his strength, but he saw Maha going away in the darkness. Do not look back.

A burning anxiety rose in Chuhe's heart.

Don't go there, come back!Maha!

At this moment, another familiar figure suddenly appeared in the darkness, it was Garuda.

——Garuda!

Chuhe's heart tightened for a moment, and he immediately called his second son's name hoarsely.But Garuda only looked back at him, his eyes were very blank, as if he didn't know him, he turned and chased after the direction Maha left.

Don't go, Garuda!

Don't go into the dark depths, come back!

The figures of Maha and Garuda disappeared in the thick and boundless darkness, Chuhe couldn't stand at all, and the severe pain of his internal organs being torn apart made him cry in despair.

He knelt down tremblingly, but a dim yellow light suddenly lit up in front of him.

He looked up in astonishment, and saw Zhou Hui holding a lamp, standing in front of him silently, as if waiting for him.

——Yes, Zhou Hui, I still have Zhou Hui in the end...

Panting violently, Chu He stood up, desperately, staggered forward, and shouted weakly and helplessly to Zhou Hui.

However, at this moment, another pair of iron-like hands grabbed him from behind.

Those hands were so hard that he couldn't break free, tightly imprisoning him and preventing him from moving forward.Chuhe desperately tried to break free, anxious and desperate, but then the hands seemed to penetrate into his bone marrow and blood vessels, and a little struggle brought heart-piercing pain.

Zhou Hui seemed to be getting impatient at last. Holding the lamp, he turned to the darkness.

——Don't go, Zhou Hui!do not leave me!

However, the call didn't work, Zhou Hui turned a deaf ear to it, and walked into the distance like Mahakalou. The dim and warm light finally slowly disappeared from Chuhe's sight.

Chuhe cried out in pain, tears rolled down his face, and his weeping was hoarse and inhuman.He finally turned his head to see who was holding him back, but the next moment, he saw the face of Sakyamuni behind him.

"Why, why..."

Chu He opened his eyes wide in horror, panted violently subconsciously and shook his head, his face covered with tears was in a panic: "Let go of me, Sakyamuni... let me go—!"

However, Sakyamuni was condescending, with a solemn and majestic face, and a mocking sneer faintly revealed in his eyes that had not changed for thousands of years.

"--what!"

The next moment, Chuhe suddenly woke up from the nightmare.

His pupils constricted violently, and he stared blankly at the ceiling for several seconds, his expression blank.

...It wasn't until he came back to consciousness a little bit that he realized that he was lying on the big bed in the bedroom, the doors and windows were closed and the curtains were drawn, the room was dark, and his whole body was almost drenched in cold sweat.

His shortness of breath slowly subsided, and he barely turned his head to look at his hands.

The left arm has been taken back, the muscles are still very weak and pale, and a hideous bloodstain is formed at the fracture.It won't be long before this bloodstain will disappear, but the traces of the injury will be soaked deep in the blood, and it will be difficult to disappear for thousands of years.

His eyes moved up, and his eyes widened slightly in astonishment——

I saw a black iron chain locked on the left wrist, and the other end was locked to the head of the bed made of fine steel.