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Hangu Pass is located on the plateau in the west, Juejian in the east, Qinling Mountains in the south, and the Yellow River in the north. It is one of the earliest Xiongguan fortresses in Chinese history.According to legend, in the pre-Qin period, there was a scholar named Yin Xi, and Yin Xi served as the official of Hangu Pass, so as to make a small career and practice Taoism quietly.Guan Yinzi was well versed in the calendar, astronomy, and astrology. Suddenly he saw purple air coming from the east on a certain day, and it was as vast as a dragon. He knew that there was a sage going west, so he ordered his subordinates to see someone with a strange description and unusual clothes coming from the east. , report immediately, without error.Sure enough, not long after, a white-haired old man drove a Qingniu thin cart to Hangu Pass. This old man was Lao Tzu. I implore you to leave your lifelong wisdom to benefit future generations.So Laozi taught him five thousand words of morality, and then disappeared.This is the famous "Ziqi travels [-] li to the east, and green cattle go west to [-] words".

Hangu Pass is located in Wangduo Village, 15 kilometers north of Lingbao City, Henan Province. Chang Qin and Xi Ling bid farewell to Lawyer Shen, drove all the way to Zhengzhou, backed up everywhere, and finally found Baoling City. The journey was miserable .After resting in the hotel in the urban area, they found the legendary Hangu Pass in history. After the field visit, they went over mountains and mountains, and finally came to the Shenggu Temple mentioned by Chang Qin.

Shenggu Temple is the temple of Hao Nvjun, a filial daughter of the Zhou Dynasty. It was built in the tenth year of Dade in the Yuan Dynasty. The temple stands on a vast high platform. It is a single-eave nine-ridge roof.

As soon as Chang Qin and Xi Ling entered the hall, a strange smell came into their nostrils.

"What does it smell like?" Chang Qin complained while pinching his nose.

The two of them looked around, and it turned out that there was a pile of straw spread in an inconspicuous corner of the main hall. There were dots of yellow spots on the straw, and a few piles of dung were even faintly visible during the period.

Chang Qin: "..."

Xi Ling: "..."

"How could this be?" Chang Qin frowned.

"It must be the old man who lives here." Xi Ling replied, bypassing the stinking straw pile, passing through the Chaoshou verandah, and came to the side hall.

The side hall is not big, only four or five square meters by visual inspection, more than half is taken up by the Buddha statue in the middle, and the remaining flow space is even smaller. There is a simple wooden bed in the corner of the room, and an old straw mat is spread on the bed. An unthreaded thin blanket was casually thrown on it, and next to it was a dilapidated writing desk. Several bowls and a pair of chopsticks were scattered on the table. There was a metal washbasin stand next to the table, and the basin was half full. Muddy water.In the other corner of the house stood a dark briquette stove with a rusty kettle on it, steaming.

A gray-haired old man in a white vest and blue pants was sitting on the threshold of the side door of the side hall with his back facing them, lowering his head and wheezingly grabbing the food in his hands. Only when they approached did they realize that the old man's body The vest was riddled with holes, which must have been worn for many years, and the so-called "rice" in his bowl was actually only a few sparse grains of rice, and the rest was soup, which was not enough to fill a person's stomach.

The two felt sad for a while, and after looking at each other, Chang Qin squatted down, patted the uncle on the shoulder lightly, and asked, "Grandpa, do you live here alone? What about your family?"

The old man's ears are not very good, and it took him a long time to come back to his senses. There was no emotion in his cloudy eyes, and he said vaguely: "My family, my family is farming. I also have a grandson, who is going to college outside. It's amazing." Speaking of his grandson, the uncle's originally dull eyes suddenly shone brightly, as if he was very proud of having a college student in his family.

"What about your son or daughter? They don't care about you?" Xi Ling also knelt down, looked at the old man and asked.

The uncle pondered for a moment, then suddenly lowered his head, and said in frustration, "You think I'm old and in the way, so kick me out."

"Is you the only old man here? Is there anyone else?" Chang Qin asked.

The old man shook his head and replied: "They're all dead. It's cold in this temple, and the wind keeps blowing in winter. Many people were frozen to death at the beginning of the year, and some of them starved to death because they had nothing to eat. Now they are only I'm left, and soon, I'm going to die too." The old man's tone was flat, as if he was talking about unimportant things, and after he finished speaking, he buried his head in drinking the "porridge" in his hand.

Xi Ling glanced at Chang Qin, and they both stood up at the same time. "Presumably this is the grandfather of the college student you met." Xi Ling said.

Chang Qin nodded, and said distressedly, "What should we do? We came all the way here, so we shouldn't let it go."

Xi Ling thought for a while and said: "I can't think of any good way now, it's getting dark, why don't we set up a tent in this temple for the time being, and spend the night here tonight, just in time to get to know the old man better Details."

"Alright." Chang Qin agreed.

Xi Ling took out the tent from the mountaineering bag, and together with Chang Qin, they set it up next to the old man's bed. Xi Ling pointed out to him patiently one by one the gadgets he had never seen before.After setting up a temporary sleeping place, the two of them found a bamboo broom and a dustpan at the back of the temple, cleaned the old man's temporary residence inside and out, and carried all the smelly and dirty straw to the village head. Throw away the trash can, and after finishing all this work, the two of them were extremely tired and hungry.

Chang Qin took out the few remaining boxes of canned food and put them on the old man's dilapidated writing desk, then opened one of the boxes and taught him how to heat it. In the old man's bowl, he must have never tasted such a delicacy in his life, and the old man swallowed it in two or three mouthfuls.

Night fell quickly, the shadows of the trees outside the hall were mottled, cicadas chirped one after another, the dark sky was dotted with stars, it was a fine night, with a cool breeze and moderate temperature, Xi Ling lit a bonfire in front of the steps outside the hall, The flickering light of the fire entered the hall, making everyone's silhouette extremely long. The two of them brought some piles of clean straw and spread them beside the old man's bed. They sat on the ground and listened to the old man's story about why they were driven here.

The old man’s surname is Zhu, his wife died early, and there is only one son in the family. The son married a wife and gave birth to a sensible and well-behaved grandson. A few years ago, the village’s economy was still booming, and his son and wife treated him well. Taking care of daily life and food, doing everything well, and my grandson is very clingy to himself, the family lived in harmony until last summer, when my grandson was admitted to university and left home. It happened that there was a drought that year, and the family lacked water. The son and daughter-in-law began to dislike him The old man, in order not to embarrass his son, the old man had to drink less water and bathe less, but the summer is hot, and he needs to work in the fields every day, and he does not take a bath when he comes home at night, and he will soon be covered in foul smell. , He was not allowed to eat together, and a small bench was thrown to him every day, and he was asked to sit at the door of the house with a bowl to eat.The house leak happened to rain all night, and because of the dry air, the fields often caught fire. The most severe one, two-thirds of the rice fields in the village were burned down to a pile of ashes, and every family was too poor to open their pots. It's not pleasing to the eye, and I can't even fill my stomach, let alone take care of him.

At this time, I didn’t know who it was, so I went to the town to invite a fortune teller. The master went from house to house, then stood in the middle of the burned rice field and pretended to read a spell, and finally said slowly: “I heard that there are people in the village The holy aunt lived alone in the temple for many years, and urgently needed the company of the sixty-year-old elderly. Every family can send their own elderly over [-] to the temple, so as to avoid disasters from happening again." Thanks to the education level of the villagers It is comparable to Yuci County. When the villagers heard about it, they turned their heads one after another. They went home and packed the old man’s luggage, and carried them to the temple. Some of them were soft-hearted, and they would send some rice along with them. Those who were hard-hearted Just leave a bed and a few quilts and it’s over. The briquette stove that the old man used to cook just now was moved from home by the daughter of a mother-in-law because she couldn’t bear it. She couldn't stand the severe cold and froze to death. After she died, only old man Zhu was left in the temple.

"The fortune teller they invited at that time, do you know who it is?" Xi Ling asked.

The old man Zhu shook his head and said: "I only heard that this man has great supernatural powers and can summon the gods in the sky. At that time, some people didn't believe him, so he said, 'The holy lady is watching us from the sky at this time. If you don't believe it, you can watch it." How can I summon her?" Then he pretended to read a spell, then looked up at the blue sky, and shouted loudly, "Holy aunt, if you are by our side at this time, please shine a few lights for us to see." '."

When the blind daters heard about it, they all raised their necks and stared at the sky eagerly. Sure enough, as soon as the great fairy finished shouting, a circle of light around the sun flashed a few times. Everyone was so frightened that they couldn't close their mouths. In the temple, three sticks of incense were worshipped every day, so no one dared to question the fortune teller's words, and everyone rushed home without saying a word, and drove their old people to the temple.

Chang Qin couldn't help laughing when he heard that, he looked at Xi Ling who was also speechless and shook his head, and said disdainfully: "The kid is playing tricks, the great fairy was hiding a mirror in his hand at that time, and the mirror refracts the light, and it will naturally shine brightly, sir, Your stupid blind dates have all been fooled by this 'Liar Immortal'."

But old man Zhu shook his head and said: "I know he's fooling around, but I also know better that they can't stand old and troublesome old men like us. That immortal, they just came here to drive him away. It’s just our excuses. Alas, it’s really useless when you’re old. If you can’t work and eat too much, you will naturally be disgusted by your son and daughter-in-law. Let me wait here to die. I’ll just wait for death. , I can’t bear to lose my well-behaved grandson.” The old man couldn’t help crying as he said.

"Master, the reason why the two of us came here is because we ran into your grandson in Taiyuan. He told us about family affairs. He was too busy with his studies and couldn't come back to help you, so he entrusted us to come and see you." " Chang Qin comforted softly.

Hearing this, the old man opened his eyes wide in surprise, but tears flowed more and more: "I really didn't expect that my grandson is out of town, and he is still worried about me, an old man."

"Master, my name is Xi Ling, and this is Chang Qin. If you wish, you can treat us both as your grandsons." Xi Ling also echoed.

Old man Zhu lowered his head, wiped away the endless tears, and sobbed: "Okay, okay, I can't ask for anything."

The two hurriedly comforted the old man with a few words, and finally stabilized his mood. Seeing that it was getting late, they stopped talking with the old man about sad things, hurriedly put him to sleep, and got into the bed by themselves. in the tent.

"Tell me, how should we help him?" Chang Qin said, resting his head on his arms, looking at the dark green tent above his head.

"Of course it's an eye for an eye." Xi Ling replied calmly.

"Have you thought of a good solution?" Chang Qin turned sideways and asked curiously.

"Since they can find a magician to drive the old man here, we can naturally get a great fairy to rescue the old man."

"It's a good idea, but where can we find Daxian?"

"Do you think I look like an immortal?" Xi Ling said, deliberately winking at Chang Qin.

Chang Qin blushed inexplicably, looked him over carefully, smacked his lips and said, "Like, like a yellow-skinned person who is born to fascinate people."

Xi Ling was speechless, and gave him a violent shudder: "Go to bed early, we will enter the city early tomorrow morning, and we have to make a lot of preparations to pretend to be a great immortal." In this way, the two of them lay face to face.

Chang Qin: "..."

After closing his eyes, Xi Ling suddenly opened them and found a pair of shining eyes in the darkness, still staring at him without blinking: "What are you doing? Wait for me to teach you how to sleep?" He asked angrily.

"No, no." Chang Qin, who was caught peeping at the bag, hurriedly turned his face away in embarrassment, "I just think this tent...is a bit crowded."

Xi Ling half straightened up, looked at him inexplicably and said, "Why is your hypocrisy again, why do I remember that the bed in the hotel is more crowded, and I don't know who squeezed into my bed last night." Lie down and turn your back to Chang Qin.

Chang Qin still didn't sleep with his eyes closed, but stared intently at the straight back in front of him even when he was asleep. Under the thin pajamas, Xi Ling's waist was slender and long, with two beautiful butterfly bones protruding high .The tent is actually not small. During these days of traveling, the two of them have never squeezed in a space smaller than this. Why do they have a strange feeling tonight?

Chang Qin couldn't figure it out, so he had to force himself to close his eyes and start counting sheep.

The author has something to say:

In fact, the holy aunt's temple is full of incense in reality, and it's not like in the article that no one cares about it... The holy aunt's redemption...