East China Sea dust

Zhang Qinglan frowned, subconsciously clenched her five fingers into fists.

After a moment of silence, he turned his head sideways and said, "It's not that I don't want to say it, it's just that you may not believe it if I say it."

"Even if you believe it, you may not remember it."

Ao Zhan raised his eyebrows, watching the young man's eyes grow deeper, raised his hand to brush the broken hair on his sideburns, and said in a low voice: "It's okay, you say it."

So under the light of the bonfire, the young man's face quickly showed the expression he had when he was cheating on Ao Zhan's thigh in front of the palace three years ago, blinking his eyes and said seriously: "Actually, I came here You are here to... repay your kindness."

The two sat facing each other, Ao Zhan watched the young man's thin lips open and close when he spoke, and he paused when he heard the words.

After a long while, I just let out a low "hmm".

The young man's eyelashes drooped, and he held the man's palm, stroking the rough calluses on his fingertips restlessly with his fingertips: "500 years ago, there was a mountain village near the East China Sea."

"At that time, there were often tsunamis by the sea, and the waves rushed to the shore. Every time, they easily destroyed houses and fields, displaced people, and caused famine."

"Later, an old Taoist priest came and figured it out. He said that the local sea god didn't make offerings and got angry, which caused the tsunami and punished the villagers for their disrespect."

"In order to survive, the people in the village built a temple by the sea to worship the gods."

The young man's voice is cool and clear, like ice, and the speed of his speech is not too slow, and the story is very pleasant to listen to.

"The ordinary people are dull and don't know what a god should look like, so they pinched a clay figurine and put it in the temple, and painted a layer of gold leaf on the outside, as the incarnation of the god. Then set up two lotus lanterns in front of the clay figurine, day and night. In the Ming Dynasty, people often came to kowtow, so it was regarded as an offering."

Ao Zhan didn't say whether he believed it or not, he just listened to it as a story.

As he listened, he lowered his head, unwrapped the fabric on Zhang Qinglan's wrist, removed the cracked and caked medicinal herbs, and replaced them with new ones:

"Is it possible that you want to say that this king is the 'god' enshrined in that wild temple?"

Zhang Qinglan froze for a moment, then quickly shook her head in denial.

"No" the voice paused, the young man felt the dull pain from the wrist bone, and gasped slightly: "The temple has been built, but tsunamis are still frequent, people think it is because there are not enough offerings, and I don't know who first proposed it , to find boys and girls from the village and throw them into the sea to appease the wrath of the gods."

Ao Zhan paused, and following Zhang Qinglan's words, a picture vaguely appeared in front of his eyes.

The waves were raging, and the sun was covered by black clouds. A group of middle-aged men and women in coarse linen clothes with yellow and thin faces were walking along the path to the cliff near the sea.

Two little dolls were carried on a shoulder pole in the middle of the line, and a red cloth was covered in front of their eyes. They hugged each other, crying softly and trembling in the basket.

Ao Zhan lowered his eyes, his expression was extremely calm, and he kept reapplying the medicine for the young man in his hand: "Then?"

Zhang Qinglan was serious, as if she was telling the truth: "Then...then you appeared."

"It turns out that the one making waves near the village is a dragon monster, but it has only been practiced for a hundred years and just learned how to drive the wind and rain, so it wants to use the method of devouring mortals to fuel the monster's power."

"You are the Dragon King of the East China Sea, so you naturally want to protect the people," the young man said seriously, "you killed that arrogant dragon monster in a short time. Since then, the weather around the village has been smooth and there will be no more natural disasters like tsunamis."

"After the villagers were saved, they realized that it was monsters who had been deceiving them, and there was no God of Laoshizi at all. In a moment of urgency, they wanted to smash that temple down to vent their anger."

Ao Zhan casually re-tied the cloth on Zhang Qinglan's wrist, raised his eyelids halfway, and said lazily, "Oh?"

Zhang Qinglan withdrew her hand, her phoenix eyes seemed to be full of water, she looked up at Ao Zhan and said innocently: "It's just that they were blocked outside the door before the temple was destroyed."

"After that, you turned into a human body and walked into the temple for a few steps, and you even picked up a tung oil lantern in front of the clay figurine."

Ao Zhan listened patiently to his nonsense, but was not in a hurry to expose it.

Picking up the robe that had slipped between the young man's legs, and draping it over the other's shoulders again, Ao Zhan asked casually, "Is the story over?"

Zhang Qinglan nodded, still maintaining that innocent and serious look: "It's over."

Ao Zhan let out a low snort, raised his hand and squeezed the pimple on the young man's cheek:

"Then tell me, are you a descendant of a villager or a reincarnation of a virgin boy... I guess it's not that dragon monster who will be enlightened 500 years later, sincerely repent, and come to the king to bow his head and confess his guilt?"

The young man shook his head and denied one by one, his back straightened, even though he could hear the teasing and sarcasm in the man's tone, his solemn expression did not change a bit.

He held up Ao Zhan's hand, with a righteous expression on his face, and said seriously, "It's not right."

At this point, Zhang Qinglan's voice paused: "Actually, I am the essence of the wick of that bronze lotus lamp that you picked up casually."

After that, he lowered his eyelashes, frowned slightly, with a determined look on his face: "Lord Dragon King's life-saving grace, I will never forget it."

When Ao Zhan heard the words, the veins on his forehead twitched, and he gritted his teeth:

"...Zhang, Qing, Lan!"

*****

The two sat on one side of the bonfire, the atmosphere was terribly silent, the raging flames jumped, and a large swath of darkness was reflected on the man's face.

Ao Zhan laughed back angrily, grabbed the young man's uninjured hand, tightly bound the wrist with five fingers, and with a little force, he pulled the man into his arms from the opposite side: "You are a man or a ghost, you are not The king hasn't seen it clearly enough in the past three years?"

Zhang Qinglan only felt that the scene in front of her was blurred, and when she regained her composure, she was already buried in the opponent's chest, unable to move.

Ao Zhan grabbed Zhang Qinglan's forearm with one hand and pulled it upwards, while with the other hand he held the young man's thin waist, turned his head sideways, and grabbed the man's earlobe with one bite.

The sharp canine teeth quickly bit the young man's skin, and a drop of blood leaked out. Ao Zhan held the piece of meat above Zhang Qinglan's ear in his mouth, and said vaguely, "Why make up such a story to deceive the king?"

Zhang Qinglan groaned in her heart, but she tried not to show it on her face, she just yelled in pain.

Ao Zhan let him go, and said with a sneer, "If you are really a wick, you will be transformed into your original form now, let me take a good look at what it looks like."

Zhang Qinglan half-closed her eyelids and said softly, "I forgot."

"Ok?"

"It's been too long in human form, and I've forgotten how to change back."

Zhang Qinglan's words were too straightforward, and even Ao Zhan was so angry that he was stunned.

Back then, at the gate of the palace, this little magic stick opened a pair of black and white eyes, counting his fingers, saying that he would have a bloody disaster in the near future, and he had the same expression.

Ao Zhan's complexion became more and more gloomy, so even his eyes became gloomy.

"But... I have evidence."

Zhang Qinglan struggled a few times, pulled her arm out of the man's shackles, and then put her hands together, with her fingertips facing each other, and quickly formed a seal.

Before Ao Zhan spoke again, the young man's body actually emitted a faint white halo as the seal was completed.

Seeing this, Ao Zhan paused.

Soon, the light white halo around Zhang Qinglan's body gradually shrank towards the dantian, and after a while, it gathered at the dantian to form a round transparent light ball, covering an invisible shape, and slowly floated out from the center of the dantian.

Ao Zhan frowned slightly, and as the ball of light rose higher and higher, he finally saw clearly what was wrapped in it.

I saw a tiny bud shaking gently in the milky white translucent ball of light.

The roots of the buds are connected with a section of knuckle-thick turquoise branch, which is only half an inch thick, with rounded ends and a columnar shape.There is faint light and light jade quality, crystal clear, brilliance flowing, it is extraordinary at first glance.

What's more, the traces of spiritual power emanating from it were actually from the same source as the spiritual energy contained in the half mouthful of blood that Zhang Qinglan fed him to drink before.

It does not belong to one of the five elements, but it is pure and peaceful, as if it can integrate all things.

The moment the ball of light reached its peak, Zhang Qinglan unsealed the seal with her backhand, and quickly brought the jade branch back to her dantian, her cheeks that were finally a little bloody suddenly turned pale again.

Ao Zhan withdrew his gaze and looked at the young man with a bit of complexity.

"Master," the young man pulled up the corners of his lips and forced a smile, "Qing Lan didn't lie."

"Since you entered that temple, it has been regarded as auspicious by the local villagers, and we will continue to worship it sincerely." Zhang Qinglan fell softly into Ao Zhan's arms, unable to see his expression clearly: "The incense has been burning continuously for a hundred years, and it was enlightened by you personally." The lotus lamp is a candle that lasts forever."

"The solid wood candle wicks used in the tung oil lamps are not often changed. I was fortunate to receive your advice that day to give birth to spiritual wisdom, and with the blessing of hundreds of years of thoughts and visions, I was able to cultivate a human form."

Feeling the soft body in his arms, Ao Zhan was speechless for a while.

Reminiscent of the time in the dungeon, the clam spirit kept saying that she had heard the conversation between the gray-robed man and the Begonia flower demon, saying that Zhang Qinglan was not a mortal.

Reminiscent of the peaceful aura in the opponent's blood that was obviously several times higher than his own cultivation, Ao Zhan frowned, and his arms around the young man's waist tightened even tighter.

…Whether Zhang Qinglan is a man or a demon, and how credible or deceitful his words are, are not things that can be figured out in a short while.

Ao Zhan's expression was sombre, and he glanced at the young man indiscriminately, as if trying to find a flaw in the sincerity of the other party's expression.

If he was really a ghost, but pretended to be a mortal and came to his side proactively, and even stayed silent for three years... the purpose would appear to be even more complicated, and he might even be suspected of rebellion.

Ao Zhan's eyes were deep, and there seemed to be a dark light in his eyes.

Not long after, he grabbed Zhang Qinglan's other hand like lightning, pointed the blade of the dagger at the white skin on the young man's wrist, and made a gesture to make a slash.