Kyushu · Endless Nagato

Chapter 22 The King (1)
一
After walking with Xue Huaiqing all the way, the road ahead will be much easier.Although An Xingmian is good at martial arts, he relies on the joint techniques taught by Yuren, most of which are ingenuity and leverage. His own strength is not great, and he is exhausted and out of breath every time he does hard work with his teacher Zhang Haoge The tragic appearance is not a disguise.It is really a big chore for him to walk alone in the virgin jungle full of branches, leaves and thorns with a heavy bag on his back.

It's different now, Xue Huaiqing's corpse servant is carrying the luggage of two people on his back, holding a machete and an ax to open the way, he still walks like flying, and never knows how tired he is.With him leading the way, everything becomes easier.Moreover, Xue Huaiqing also sprayed some kind of medicine on the body of the corpse servant, attracting mosquitoes to bite the corpse servant, and then died of inhaling poisonous blood, not only avoiding the pain of being bitten, but also adding a little more fun of revenge.

Even better, the spiritual connection between the corpse dancer and the corpse servant will not be interrupted by sleep.Even after the two fall asleep, the corpse servant can continue to serve as a guard, allowing them to sleep more securely in the perilous jungle.

"That's why it's more convenient for you corpse dancers," An Xingmian said, "There is such an excellent coolie, no wonder your clothes are so clean, and there is no trace of traveling in the forest."

Xue Huaiqing nodded, indicating that she heard what the other party said, but did not say a word.Different from those so-called iceberg beauties who deliberately make a cold appearance, Xue Huaiqing is a very polite person, and she never hesitates to use words such as "please", "thank you", "sorry", "hello" and so on. She will put a smile on her face, but she is not very interested in everything outside of her by nature, and she doesn't know how to have in-depth conversations with people other than saying hello.And An Xingmian was also a polite person, even with Tang He, he would never bother Tang He brazenly, and after he gradually found out that he couldn't get along with Xue Huaiqing, he seldom bothered her anymore.The two walked for three days and spoke no more than thirty sentences in total.

Before that, An Xingmian briefly explained to Xue Huaiqing the reason why he wanted to find Sumeru, but omitted the specific details related to the Yunzhong Monastery. After all, it was a secret of other sects and it was inconvenient to disclose it to outsiders.After Xue Huaiqing listened, she was silent for a long time, and said after a while: "I don't quite understand the meaning of saving Nagato, but we corpse dancers pay attention to distinguishing between grievances and resentments. You saved my life, I will I want to repay you. I can take you to the meeting place of the seminar, but it’s uncertain whether Xu Mizi will come, and if they find out that an outsider has broken in, I’m afraid I won’t be able to save you.”

"Then what if I pretend to be your apprentice?" An Xingmian thought for a while, and suddenly said, "A corpse dancer brings an apprentice to the meeting, isn't it against the rules?"

"Apprentice? Mine?" Xue Huaiqing was stunned for a moment, as if she felt that this matter was very funny, "Corpse dancers rarely accept apprentices at a young age, because even their own cultivation is not enough."

"Someone suspects that it's time to play it by ear, anyway, I have to go," An Xingmian smiled casually, "at most, it will become a corpse."

Xue Huaiqing nodded: "That's it."

On the morning of the third day, shortly after departure, there was heavy rain in the forest.The heavy rain hit the net woven by the branches and leaves of the towering trees, and then gathered into strands and fell to the ground. The ground was muddy, and it was impossible to move forward.But luckily, they quickly found a giant tree nearby. The bottom of the trunk was not known whether it was hollowed out or manually excavated. It happened to form a tree hole, but the hole was not too big and could only accommodate one person. .An Xingmian naturally planned to let the girl next to him go in to hide, and just drench himself, but before he could speak, the corpse servant had already picked up the axe and started chopping.The wood of this kind of tree is quite hard, but the strength of the corpse servant is far beyond that of ordinary people, and soon he forcibly chiseled the tree hole, just enough for both of them to hide in.But he himself stood outside the cave, using his body to block the rainwater that flew in obliquely.

"It's only now that I realize that being a corpse dancer is really an enviable job," An Xingmian couldn't help but said even though he knew that the other party would probably not respond, "He seems to be able to do anything."

Unexpectedly, Xue Huaiqing immediately answered his words: "Is it worthy of envy? If it was someone else, they wouldn't come here to suffer, would they?"

"That's true," An Xingmian smiled slightly, "It can be seen that both you corpse dancers and our head monks are very good at asking for trouble... What are you looking at?"

He found that Xue Huaiqing was gently touching the "cave wall" of the tree hole, that is, the inside of the trunk, with his brows slightly frowned, as if feeling very unhappy.

"It's nothing, I was just thinking, will this tree die soon after such a big hole was dug out?" Xue Huaiqing said, "What a pity."

"It's a pity?" An Xingmian was very surprised, "You corpse dancers don't care about the dead, but are you sad because of a tree instead?"

"Human life is only a few decades. If a tree is not cut down, it can survive for a hundred or even a thousand years," Xue Huaiqing said, "but short-lived humans always hurt long-lived trees, and trees are powerless to resist. , Just to make people shelter from the rain, they will be hacked with knives and axes. This is how this world is.”

"So you respect the life of trees, but you don't respect people..." An Xingmian shook her head, "But you can rest assured that even if the inside of a tree like this is rotten, it can actually survive for a long time. Just don't peel off the bark."

"That's okay." Xue Huaiqing nodded, seeming to breathe a sigh of relief.Only then did she bother to tidy up her wet clothes.An Xingmian didn't see her make any movements, but found that the moisture on her clothes that had soaked into the fabric began to gather together in large strands, and then dripped from the clothes to the ground. Soon after, all the rainwater Drained, and her clothes were dry.

"We corpse dancers have always been running in damp places all year round in order to find corpses and raw materials for refining medicine, so we have some ways to dry ourselves," Xue Huaiqing saw An Xingmian's curiosity and took the initiative to explain Said, "But I'm sorry, this method can only be used on yourself."

"I don't care," An Xingmian smiled. "In order to exercise our own resilience and improve our cultivation, we always like to throw ourselves in all kinds of messy and bad situations to suffer on purpose. So let it be so slow Let it dry, I don't even have to light a fire to bake."

After saying this, he couldn't help but think that one has to endure hardships in order to survive, and the other survives to endure hardships. Corpse Dancer and Nagato, these are really two weird sects that people have nothing to say about.

He leaned against the tree hole to rest, seeing that Xue Huaiqing had already started the daily routine of meditation, and thinking that he hadn't done the meditation of the Nagato monk for a long time, he felt a little ashamed.Although his mind is very smart, he can grasp the essence of various Nagato teachings at a fast speed, and he can even show off at the Fa conference, but in essence, he still feels that he is not a serious Nagato monk.At least, he never felt that life was used to torture people, but he was full of love for life.In contrast, Xue Huaiqing, a young and beautiful girl, seems to be quite adapted to the life of a corpse dancer, and she is more "qualified" than her status as a long-door monk.

However, it was uncomfortable to have wet clothes sticking to the skin, and he soon thought of something else interesting.

Before joining Nagato, he was a rich man, and he often had some fighting legend novels to read for leisure.This type of novel, in order to attract readers, will always insert a lot of blunt love plots.For example, one of the most common plots in it is like this: handsome men and beautiful women are traveling together, and they will almost certainly encounter heavy rain in the wilderness where there is no village or shop behind; Bring an umbrella or coir raincoat by your side; when the two get soaked, a ruined temple or a cave will definitely appear at the right time; A loud sneeze signaled that she was about to catch a cold.

So at this time, the considerate and gentle male protagonist will take off his clothes, make a simple covering curtain with a rope conjured from nowhere, and then say to the female protagonist: "Miss Xue, if you continue like this, you will get sick." Yes, please hide in, then hand out your clothes, and I will dry them for you."

The heroine will hesitate for a while, hesitate for a while, hesitate for a while, and shy for a while, but in the end she will obediently hide in and strip herself naked.Then the male protagonist will sit by the fire with a dignified face to dry clothes for the beautiful woman, and the female protagonist will hide behind the curtain shyly and timidly thinking about ambiguous matters, and then, at this critical moment, it will be the turn of some important The supporting roles of the heroine are on the stage: snakes, spiders, centipedes, lizards, bats...these little things that can scare girls will always jump out of a dark corner, scaring the heroine out of her wits and running away desperately , happened to crash into the arms of the hero.And then...

Thinking of these vulgar and stupid plots, and thinking of the diametrically opposite real situation that is happening in reality today, An Xingmian couldn't help it, and burst out laughing.Xue Huaiqing ended her meditation just at this time, and looked up at him: "What are you laughing at?"

"It's nothing." An Xingmian waved his hand, "I thought of something indecent, so I can't tell you."

"Did you think of the scene of the hero and heroine encountering heavy rain in the wild in the stories of those storytellers?" Xue Huaiqing asked, "That's nothing indecent, everyone has heard dozens of such stories."

"It's pretty much the same," An Xingmian said, "I didn't expect you to hear the story of Mr. Shu."

"No one is born a corpse dancer," Xue Huaiqing said, "I was once an ordinary person."

This sentence seemed to arouse her emotion, she looked up halfway, looking at the dense rain curtain outside the tree hole, her eyes were misty and far away.A fat centipede fell from a high place in the tree hole and landed on her skirt. An Xingmian was about to clean it up for her, but she saw that she had picked up the centipede casually and put it in front of her eyes for a look. , seems to confirm that this centipede is not very valuable for refining medicine, and throws it away.The frightened centipede squirmed into a gap and fled in desperation.It seems that even if there is a scene of baking clothes, this Miss Xue will definitely not be scared by something and rush to embrace the male protagonist.

She was able to guess what she was thinking just based on her own words and thinking about the surrounding environment. Why would such a beautiful and intelligent girl, with half the blood of the Yu clan, become a corpse dancer?An Xingmian couldn't help thinking, could it be that she was persecuted by her parents just like me?It's just that my father wants to become a monk in order to repay his kindness. Does a character like a corpse dancer, who is afraid of anyone who sees it, also show kindness to others?

"Actually, although the stories of men and women meeting are blunt and vulgar, it would be nice if they could have a love like that. At least they won't hide their feelings in their hearts forever, and they won't hide themselves in a shell to torture each other " Xue Huaiqing said suddenly.

"Did you think of something from the past?" An Xingmian asked.

"I thought of my master and the Xu Mizi you are looking for," Xue Huaiqing said, "They are too proud and too concerned about gains and losses, and no one is willing to express their feelings first. Now Xu Mizi doesn't know what to do, I Master is dead, and they will never be together."

An Xingmian didn't know what to say. In such a perilous primeval forest, in such a disturbing rainstorm, she would actually discuss love with a fearsome corpse dancer. The topic is really a weird scene that can't be dreamed of.After a long time, he asked, "Is it because of your master that you are looking for Sumeru?"

"That's not true," Xue Huaiqing shook his head, "I went to him for other things. Of course, it's not as important as your Nagato's life or death, but to me...it's a big deal."

"You're right, everyone is a complete world," An Xingmian said, "It's fine if you think it's important."

The heavy rain gradually subsided at noon, and the two continued on their way. They didn't talk much for the rest of the day, but An Xingmian felt that the distance between himself and Xue Huaiqing was a little closer.The corpse dancer is not as scary as in the legend, he thought, at least he can still talk to it like a normal person.

These thoughts continued into the night.That night, they came to the side of a swamp. Looking ahead, they could only see endless dirty muddy water, and they couldn't see the road at all.Because they dared not cross this unknown swamp after dark, the two had to camp early.The corpse servant quickly cleared an open space, set up two tents, and started boiling water to soak the hard dry noodles.At the beginning, An Xingmian was unavoidably a little awkward about eating this kind of "food made by the dead", but he is open-minded by nature, and he got used to it after a day, and felt more and more that there was such a person who would never complain. It is really a very pleasant thing to have a tired, lazy and slippery corpse servant come to serve him.

So when the corpse servant boiled the water, he came to the edge of the swamp with peace of mind. Looking at the endless death zone in front of him, he was secretly worried.The hunter who showed him the way before mentioned this swamp, and said that this place is very dangerous. You must look for the signposts of the predecessors, follow the signposts, and make no mistakes in half a step, otherwise you will encounter The catastrophe.As for how big the swamp was, the hunter himself couldn't tell.

"In fact, the swamp itself may not be very big, but the roads that can be walked in it are winding and winding, and there is no count how long it takes to get out," the hunter said. "Anyway, ordinary people can't get there at all, but I heard that some practitioners used to I went deep into the swamp in order to find some kind of difficult experience. Therefore, it is said that those road signs were left by them, and I have never seen it with my own eyes. "

He said to An Xingmian again seriously: "Brother, if you can't see the road sign, don't force your way in, or you will die."

Now recalling what the hunter said, An Xingmian couldn't help but think, the road sign left by the "practice"?Is it a long door monk who specializes in drilling in difficult and difficult places?Considering the consistent style of Nagato monk, this is still very possible.If those seniors knew about it underground, and knew that there is a young junior who is now following the road they once walked to explore this land of death, the purpose is precisely to save Nagato, would they feel that it is a coincidence in the world?
Seeing this swamp also means good news: they are not far from Ten Thousand Snake Lake.Wansnake Lake itself is also part of this great swamp. It is said that there is a large area of ​​dry land where people can rest their feet, and there is also a clear spring, forming a clean pool.It's a pity that because of the snake-shaped monster hidden underground in the legend, ordinary people simply don't have the courage to approach the Ten Thousand Snake Pool.This should also be the reason why the corpse dancers chose Ten Thousand Snake Lake.

We're going to see a horde of corpse dancers soon, so what's that going to be like?An Xingmian imagined, would every corpse dancer bring several or even dozens of corpse servants, looking like a bully landlord traveling with his servants?And the so-called "seminar" among these bully landlords, is it just to manipulate the walking corpses to beat them to pieces until all the corpses are torn to pieces?
(End of this chapter)