Kyushu · Endless Nagato

Chapter 7 Misfortune (3)
The long-door monk used penance to train his spirit, and would never watch such entertainment performances, but Zhang Haoge seemed to have grasped An Xingmian's intentions.His face became a little ugly, but mixed with a tinge of joy: "She will be performing here tonight, isn't she? I knew that no matter where you go, you will find a way to find out her whereabouts."

"Of course I really want to see her, but this trip is not for me." An Xingmian smiled a little sadly, "Before you die, you should meet your sister and leave some last words or something? "

Zhang Haoge was a little moved, and sighed softly: "I understand why you followed me to Nanhuai City so happily. It turned out that I knew that the Qiuyan Troupe would perform here these days. Thank you. But I still say the same thing, you should take it easy."

"Changmen monk can't help getting married. It's your fault that you haven't married a wife after 40 years old. Why should I repeat the same mistakes?" An Xingmian patted Zhang Haoge on the shoulder.

"Because although you look stable on the surface, it is still difficult to achieve inner peace. Things like falling in love will greatly hinder your practice." Zhang Haoge said.

"Peace of mind... That's not something that can be affected by things like love or marriage." An Xingmian's smile disappeared, but she didn't say anything more.

While talking, the two had arrived at the entrance of the theater.An Xingmian took out two coins to buy tickets, and walked in together.Tonight's show is Wannan's well-known juggling troupe, Qiuyan Troupe. It has always been known for being good at all kinds of difficult acrobatics and excellent animal taming skills.At this moment, the performance was in the middle of the stage, and a long and thin rope was pulled up in the air on the stage. A girl in red was holding an umbrella in her hand, walking on this thin rope, making some high-profile gestures such as golden rooster independence from time to time. The difficult action caused the audience to exclaim.This girl looked about eighteen or nineteen years old, with a pretty face and picturesque eyebrows, and she didn't have the slightest resemblance to Zhang Haoge's face shape.What's more, Zhang Haoge has worked hard for many years, and his face is already rough and old like 50 years old, which looks like the girl's father.

"It's a good thing she didn't become a monk with you," An Xingmian sighed, "That would be a waste of money."

"Inappropriate words." Zhang Haoge said.Since the two entered the theater, their eyes had never left the girl in red, but their eyes were completely different.Zhang Haoge's eyes were full of love and family affection, but An Xingmian clearly showed a kind of infatuation—and at the same time, a little helpless.

The two waited patiently until the show was over and the crowd dispersed before going backstage.The backstage was a mess, with people coming and going, An Xingmian stopped a handyman: "Excuse me, where is Miss Tang He?"

The handyman looked around and pointed to the corner of the backstage, where there was a cage containing a tiger.The girl in red had changed into a plain white dress, and stood alone outside the cage, as if she was talking to the tiger in the cage.Seeing the two walking towards her, she was taken aback for a moment, then excitedly ran forward and hugged Zhang Haoge: "Brother! Why are you here?"

Zhang Haoge was obviously not used to such a hug, so he hurriedly broke free, while An Xingmian sighed beside him: "I'm here too, why are you pretending you didn't see it?"

Tang He didn't even look at him: "My brother is your teacher, according to etiquette, you should call me Shigu."

An Xingmian smiled and didn't say any more.Anyone can see the situation in front of me very clearly, and it can be described in eight words: falling flowers are intentional, flowing water is ruthless.

The three left the theater and found a secluded street corner to sit on the ground.Zhang Haoge explained his intention of coming to Nanhuai this time. Tang He was very surprised and didn't speak for a long time.

"So it's really a coincidence. I didn't expect that you were also in Nanhuai City, so I could see you again." Zhang Haoge said.

Tang He heard the meaning of farewell in this sentence, her eyes were filled with melancholy for a moment, but in the end she just bit her lips: "Since you must do this, then do it."

"Why didn't you persuade him?" An Xingmian finally couldn't bear it anymore, "Why do you think I must bring him to see you? Now, no one can persuade him except you!"

"That's why I can't always like you." Tang He turned his face sideways and looked at An Xingmian seriously for the first time, "You are a long-door monk and my brother's disciple, but you never I didn’t really understand him. Maybe you are really smart and can explain the Nagato Sutra very clearly, but you don’t know what my brother is after.”

"And you yourself are not a real Nagato monk at all, you just joined because you didn't want to disobey your father's will," she continued, "You joined Nagato just to comfort your dead Father, not because you have a firm belief in your heart."

An Xingmian did not refute.He was silent for a while, and finally said to Zhang Haoge: "You two hurry up and talk, I'm sleepy, so I'll go back to the inn to sleep first."

three

Just like what Zhang Haoge said, An Xingmian, as the name suggests, is a guy who likes to sleep very much.He often claims that he can sleep while walking, and as long as no one disturbs him, he can easily spend more than five time synchronizations in his sleep every day.

It is a pity that since joining Nagato, his daily sleep time has to be greatly reduced.For this rich boy, in fact, he can endure simple clothes and poor diet, but the only thing he can't give up is his hobby of sleeping.However, Zhang Haoge has a sharp eye and can see where his apprentice's greatest weakness is, so he never restricts his food and clothing, except that he is forced to get up early every day and study harder at night, which makes him miserable.For him, the happiest time is probably the day when Zhang Haoge has something to go out. He can put aside everything in his hand, even without eating, and lie in bed all day.

Right now, Zhang Haoge is having a heart-to-heart talk with his younger sister Tang He. This was originally a good time to hurry up and sleep.But he could no longer sleep.

An Xingmian lay on the bed, her eyes opened and closed for a while, half of her mind was thinking about Tang He's resolute words, and half of Zhang Haoge's stupid persistence. Zhang Haoge, Tang He, who was as cold as ice, the three faces were in a mess, making it difficult for him to sleep peacefully.After turning over more than ten times, he finally sat up on the bed, cursed something, put on his coat and walked out.

As the night darkened, the bustling and bustling Nanhuai City gradually became quieter.Although those places of feasting and feasting will continue to be noisy until dawn, but if you take a few more steps and step into the secluded alleys, you can put aside those disturbing voices.

Now An Xingmian was walking on a quiet side street.Surrounded by two rows of ordinary houses, the residents inside must have already fallen asleep.This street is not long, and he quickly walked from one end of the street to the other. There was a faint sound of drinking and drinking from the other street ahead, and he could see the lights of the tavern. An Xingmian hesitated and turned around walked back.With his current state of mind, even the slightest human voice and light would make him feel melancholy.

Finally, he sat down on the side of the street in the middle of the small street, leaning his back against the wall of a house, with a dejected expression on his face.He recalled the scene when he was forced by his father to join Nagato.At that time, he studied under Zhang Haoge's sect. Later, when communicating with other sects, a fellow sect who also joined Nagato at a young age once asked him: "Why do you want to be a Nagato monk?"

"It's not me, it's my father who thinks, so I can't help it." An Xingmian spread his hands.

"Oh? Is your father also a long monk?" asked the same disciple.

"My father... isn't strictly a Nagato monk, because he doesn't have a clear mentor, he's just a lay monk practicing at home. Few people know that he believes in Nagato in daily life. People only know that he is a very successful wealthy businessman." An Xingmian replied.

"How could a wealthy businessman think of sending his son to be an ascetic monk?" The fellow disciple didn't quite understand.

An Xingmian snorted: "My father's life went smoothly, the only shortcoming is that he never had a son. When he was 40 years old, his wife finally became pregnant, but it was difficult to give birth, and the midwife was helpless. Both the mother and the child will die. At this critical moment, a passing Changmen monk heard about this and took the initiative to come to the door to help, and tried every means to save the child, and the child was me."

"So it's like this, you want to repay your kindness, right?" The fellow disciple suddenly realized.

"That's pretty much what it means," An Xingmian said listlessly. "Even though my mother passed away unfortunately, my father was still grateful for the high righteousness of the head priest, and made a vow on the spot that when the child turned 16 years old, he would be a child." Ask him to join Nagato as a teacher and become a real Nagato monk. Now, as you can see, I am now a real Nagato monk.”

The same door sighed: "You are a child born in a wealthy family, you must not want to live such a hard life?"

An Xingmian sighed: "Of course I don't want to live a life of asceticism. Which child would take the long door monk as his future life ideal? I have planned since I was a child to run away from home before the age of 16 and live a free life. But at the age of 15, when I was only three months away from my perfect escape plan, my father fell seriously ill, and he couldn’t afford it anymore. Two months later, he had already reached the end of his life..."

When he was dying, his dying father was lying on the hospital bed, holding An Xingmian's hand, unable to speak, but the ardent hope in his eyes did not diminish in the slightest.Seeing that gaze, An Xingmian felt a pain in his heart, and finally agreed to his father's request seriously, instead of running away. After his 16th birthday, he handed over the family business to a loyal housekeeper, found Zhang Haoge, and became his disciple.

He recalled the scene when he met Tang He for the first time after he made Zhang Haoge his teacher.Tang He is not Zhang Haoge's biological sister, but his adopted sister. She was sold to traffickers by her biological parents when she was only five years old. Zhang Haoge saw her and healed a tumor on the trafficker's face for free. , Adopted this lonely little girl.He was unwilling to be Tang He's adoptive father, because "even if the parents are unkind, the grace of childbearing is still irreplaceable", so the two finally became brothers and sisters.In addition to his ascetic life, Zhang Haoge did his best to raise Tang He, and the two brothers and sisters have a deep relationship.Later, when Tang He was 12 years old, the Qiuyan troupe fell in love with her, so she volunteered to join the juggling troupe, so as not to burden Zhang Haoge who was already penniless.But in the future, whenever she has a chance, she will still visit this respectable brother-in-law, and because of this, she will meet An Xingmian who is following Zhang Haoge's practice.

Tang He is a cute and stubborn girl, very different from the delicate daughter of a rich family that An Xingmian has seen in the social circle of rich people. He gradually developed a good impression of her.Speaking of which, An Xingmian is very good-looking, with a very smart mind, and a kind and stable temperament-except for a few harsh opinions sometimes, he is by no means the domineering appearance of ordinary rich children, but for some reason, Tang He has always disliked him, and can't help but tease him whenever he meets him.Naturally, An Xingmian would never fight back, but listened to the other party's rebuke, and sighed silently in her heart.

Just as he was thinking about this unpleasant matter, he suddenly heard a burst of shouting and cursing coming from the front.Curious, An Xingmian walked to the next street following the sound, looked ahead, and couldn't help but feel his blood rushing up, angry from his heart.

He saw his fellow monks, five long monks wearing thick linen belts.They were being herded from a cheap inn by a few soldiers.It seemed that they also heard the news that the emperor had arrested the Nagato monk, and wanted to hide for a while, so they got rid of the habit of sleeping in the open and stayed in a hotel.But they obviously didn't think as far as An Xingmian thought. Such a cheap hotel is not safe, so they were finally caught.

These long-door monks didn't know martial arts at first sight, but the soldiers beat and kicked them unceremoniously, and tied them together with iron chains.The noise startled many nearby residents, but they quickly closed the doors and turned off the lights again after seeing that the officials were arresting people, and no one dared to intervene to stop them.

I can follow them from a distance, and rescue those monks in a secluded place, An Xingmian thought.But at this moment, he heard a very slight sound of tiles loosening from above his head - someone was stepping across the roof using light kung fu.

He began to think that it was a snitch who came out in the middle of the night to make a fortune. Whether it was in the usual situation or the current special situation, he usually had no interest in meddling in such nosy matters.But he gradually realized that something was wrong. The "snitch" on the roof didn't seem to come out to burglarize, he had been following the group of officers and soldiers closely.

An Xingmian suddenly realized that besides the emperor, there might be a second group of people interested in the monk.After weighing it, he made a decisive decision not to worry about those poor fellow students, but to have a yellow bird behind him and try his best to follow this mysterious night traveler, because this person may know some inside information about the arrest.Only by being able to figure out the reason can we prescribe the right medicine and solve the problem fundamentally, which is much more important than rescuing a few long monks.

As he thought about it, he regained his energy and walked quietly close to the side of the street, closely following the slight sound of footsteps that he heard in his ears.The night walker didn't notice it, and kept following the officers and soldiers until they escorted the head monk into the yamen, then turned and walked in another direction.Not long after, he came to another block, stepped through the window and stepped into the second floor of a residential house.

What is this for?Could it be that there is something to be connected to in that house?So An Xingmian climbed up without making a sound, her body stuck tightly outside the window, and her feet stepped on a protruding wall brick, peeping at the movement in the house from the window.He suddenly discovered that things were not as simple as he imagined.

At this time, An Xingmian could clearly see the figure and clothes of the other party. It was a masked man in black night clothes.He neither rummaged through the box nor lit the incense, but went straight to the owner who was sleeping on the bed and shook him awake.The homeowner woke up in a daze, and just asked "Who is it", when a cold dagger was pressed against his throat.

"Don't shout, or your throat will be cut." The masked man threatened in a low voice.Only then did the owner wake up, realized what had happened, and tried his best to lower his voice in horror: "Yes... I won't shout, don't kill me! What are you going to do?"

Although the face could not be seen clearly in the dark, but from the voice, the owner of the house was an elderly man.

"Your name is Wang Jinfu. You were originally a resident of Taogan Village, Songyuanling, at the northern foot of Suohe Mountain, right?" the masked man asked.

The owner of the house, Wang Jinfu, obviously did not expect that the other party would find out his details so clearly, and he hesitated for a while before answering: "Yes, but that happened more than 20 years ago. Later, I followed my uncle to Nanhuai City Do business, and..."

"What do I ask, what do you answer, I don't allow nonsense without asking." The masked man interrupted him coldly, as if he had put a little more force on his hand, and Wang Jinfu groaned in pain.

"Forgive me, I promise not to talk nonsense!" he begged.

The masked man snorted and continued to ask: "Then let me ask you, in the summer of Shengde's 11th year, did you encounter any strange or new things worth mentioning in Suohe Mountain?"

This question was very abrupt again. Wang Jinfu was tongue-tied and thought for a long time: "The 11th year of Shengde? That was more than 30 years ago. I have to think about it...the 11th year of Shengde...There should be nothing new in that year Right? I really can't remember."

(End of this chapter)