spiral

Late at night, ancient temple.

A young man with the appearance of a monk was sitting in front of the case and talking to the little novice opposite.

"Once upon a time, there was a mountain, and there was an older monk and a young novice in the mountain. One day, the little novice wanted to hear a story, so the older monk said to him: "Once upon a time, there was a mountain, and in the mountain there were big and small monks. Two monks. One day the young monk was bored, so he asked the elder monk to tell him a story. So the elder monk began to tell: "Once upon a time, there was a mountain, and in the mountain there was—""

"Stop!" Hearing this, the little novice who couldn't bear it jumped up and pointed at the young man, "It's coming again! Brother, you are too much!"

"Oh——" the young monk groaned, and after poking the somewhat too long wick of the red candle on the table with a needle, he raised his eyes and said, "Where did Xiao Mi say this? You didn't say you wanted to listen to it." Is it about the story?"

"But what I want to hear is not this kind of boring and contentless story." The little novice yelled angrily, then turned around and left sulking alone.

Seeing this, the young man shook his head, straightened up, put the setting needle in his hand in the bookcase behind him and put it away, then rummaged through the books in the bookcase, took out a book after a while, walked back to the place where he sat down, and put the book On his knees, open--

In the silent room, the sound of turning the pages of a book suddenly sounded.

The little novice waited and waited, but couldn't see any movement from the people behind him except for the sound of the pages, so he couldn't help but secretly looked back——

Unexpectedly, he was caught by the young man with just one glance.

Before the young man could speak, the little novice gave the young man a vicious look, snorted and turned around again.

"Wait—" the young man called out.

"Why?" The little novice asked in a bad tone.

"You child," the young man looked at the book in his hand again, closed it with his hands, and smiled helplessly at the little novice: "Although you were not brought up the mountain by me, you have been following me since the master left. It is not an exaggeration to be brought up by me - I also know that this mountain temple is really boring except for the more festive days when there are pilgrims going up the mountain, so it is understandable for you to ask to hear stories. However, it should be noted that this month is sunny and short, and the day is day and night. After all, the stories in the book need to be written by people, and you don’t like to read and read, so I have to read all the stories carefully, and sort out and select the suitable ones. I can only tell you what is funny——I just didn’t know what to say for a while today, so I chose a story that contains the truth of the world to tell you, but you are so impatient, it’s really good It's heart-warming—”

"You're enough!" said the little novice, covering his ears with his hands a little unbearably, begging for mercy: "I know I'm wrong, stop reading!"

Seeing this, the young man put away the merciful expression on his face, and calmly picked up the book on his lap and read it again.

half an hour-

"Hmph!" The little novice whispered angrily, "I really don't know how the master of the old naughty boy could teach you such a naughty apprentice like Tang Monk! Master must be read to death by your naughtiness!"

"Yes, yes," the young man stared at the book intently, and replied coolly, "So for your own longevity, you should learn to read and write quickly, and find stories for yourself."

"You—" the little novice glanced at the bookcase in the corner of the room, and then at the young man who was motionless and unaffected.After talking about "you" for a long time, he had no choice but to say "bad guy" angrily, then put his clothes on the mat and closed his eyes, ready to go to sleep.

Childish and forgetful.

After less than a stick of incense, when the young man raised his head from the book again, he heard the sound of even breathing coming from the other side.

Because it was July, which was the hottest time of the year, the young man did not carry him into the bedroom, but instead opened a folded shirt next to the futon and covered the child .

After doing this, the young man thought for a while, brought the wormwood at the door into the house, smoked the little novice monk, then took it outside the house and extinguished it, finally turned around, closed the door, and made candles again. .

But this time, he couldn't read the book——

After working hard for a while, but still failed, he closed the book resolutely, stared at the burning candle and became dazed:

What I said to Xiao Mi earlier, although it is the truth, is not the whole story.

The reason why he told the story of "there is a temple in the mountain" today is because he really wanted to use it to grind Xiao Mi's temperament, but the more important reason was because of a dream—a dream he had last night .

For countless days and nights in the past, he also dreamed.

Some are about a certain pilgrim in the past, some are about the deceased master, or some weird dreams about flying or peony fairy.

Even some dreams, in his opinion after a long time, have some kind of unspeakable predictive ability - such as inexplicably dreaming of a certain person's name, or the appearance of a certain plant in the mountain that he has never seen before. It was an irrelevant dream, but not long after, after seeing that person by accident or getting that plant by accident, I knew that there were indeed prophetic dreams in the world.

However, the dream last night was different from the above, because in that dream, he clearly knew that he was dreaming——

And like the allusion of Huangliang Yimeng, it has indeed lived in it for a long time.

This also caused that after waking up from the dream, he didn't wake up immediately, but went all over the room to find the person who had the most contact with him in the dream——

It wasn't until Xiao Mi came to find him for dinner that he suddenly woke up and realized that it was just a dream.

Thinking of this, he sighed, stood up, walked to the bookcase, and put the book in his hand back.

After finishing this action, he stopped in place for a long time.

It wasn't until the sound of the candle wick woke him up that he made up his mind to open a hidden compartment in the back of the bookcase and take out an object from it.

After taking it out, he held the thing tightly in his palm, closed the secret compartment, and sat back down again.

This is another meditation.

After a few breaths, he spread his palms and pointed upwards.

——A white pearl strung by a bright red string is lying there quietly.

Night is long.

The candles in the house were quietly extinguished without knowing when.

Looking in from the window, in the hazy moonlight, one could see a figure crouching in front of the desk with one hand, while his other hand was hanging on the side, tightly clenched.