The immortal is beside me

Chapter 76 A Mortal Named Qing
Seeing Old Zhou coming, the young man immediately stretched out his hand and touched the short knife tied to his waist. While being alert, he did not run away. He just squatted there and stared silently at Old Zhou in front of him.

The old man and the young man faced each other in silence. After a while, it was Old Zhou who spoke and broke the silence.

"Boy, why are you here?" he asked, "Where are your parents?"

The boy looked at him and shook his head slightly.

In this year of great disaster, there are orphans everywhere whose parents have died. It seems that this young man is one of them.

Old Zhou fell silent again. But the young man looked at him for a moment and then spoke.

"I just heard that they all call you Master Divine."

The young man asked tentatively, "Are you really the immortal in the legend?"

When Old Zhou heard this, the corners of his mouth twitched slightly: "Probably. I guess so."

"You are an immortal, so can you make it rain and grow crops?"

"." Old Zhou lowered his eyes, "Only the powerful can achieve this. I am not strong enough."

The young man blinked and continued, "There's no food in the entire pass right now. Won't the immortal starve to death?"

"As long as a cultivator opens his Qi Sea, he can draw Qi into his body and use spiritual energy instead of food to sustain his body. This becomes more and more true as his realm becomes higher."

The young man squatted there and listened. He didn't understand what Old Zhou meant by "Qi Hai" and "Spiritual Qi", but he understood one thing.

It turns out that immortals don’t need to eat. He thought, no wonder so many people starved to death and the immortals didn’t care.

They both fell silent. Old Zhou didn't know what to say, and he was just too hungry to talk.

The silence was broken by a loud noise. The sound came from far away, and one could vaguely hear shouts, screams, and cries. The mixed sounds immediately caught the boy's attention.

It sounded like someone among the hungry people had their food hidden discovered, and when they saw that the "God-master" was not around, they started fighting again.

The young man suddenly stood up, holding the knife at his waist in one hand, lowered his head and hid behind a huge rock, as if he wanted to use the cover of the pile of rocks to get to the source of the sound.

Old Zhou hurriedly called out to him, "What are you going to do?"

"Cut the meat." The young man said without turning his head.

Judging from the noise, someone must have been killed. If we sneak over now, we might be able to cut some flesh from the body in the chaos. If we wait too long, wild dogs and vultures will come and gnaw even the bones.

Everyone was starving these days, and the wild beasts and birds of prey were terrifyingly ferocious. If they encountered one, not only a frail child like him, but even an ordinary strong man would be unable to handle it. After all, beasts that couldn't defeat humans were eaten early.

Old Zhou shuddered. He looked at the boy's back and suddenly seemed to understand something.

There were almost no children in the refugee group we just saw, and the few who were there were tightly guarded by their parents, as if they were afraid that they would be snatched away.

No wonder this young man followed the people to escape the famine, but had to keep a distance from the main group, hide in the pile of rocks, and carry a dagger with him.

There was a great famine that year, people were eating each other, and women, children, the elderly and the young were all starving.

Old Zhou suddenly stretched out his hand and grabbed the young man who was about to leave.

"Boy, don't go." He pursed his lips, thought for a moment, and then said, "Help me do a job. After you do it, I will give you food."

The boy turned around and looked at him in confusion.

"To be honest, I'm from Luoyang. I've been wandering around for a long time. Now that my life is almost over, I just want to return to my hometown and return to my roots." Old Zhou hesitated for a moment, as if thinking about how to explain. "I'm going back to Luoyang. You'll come with me from today. Once we get there, you'll help me dig a grave so I can rest in peace. I'll provide you with food along the way. How about that?"

All cultivators were aware of their own lifespans. Although he had a low level of cultivation, he had sensed his own end was nearing not long ago and simply wanted to prepare for his own death in advance, but he wasn't sure if the young man would understand.

There was another moment of silence before the boy spoke again, and what he said was something he had not expected.

"Buried in the ground? Isn't that such a waste?"

The young man looked him up and down. "If you want to die, why not go to the town and find a vegetable collector's shop and sell yourself? Your flesh can be exchanged for a lot of rice. If you bury yourself in the ground and let it rot, there will be nothing left."

Old Zhou's words faltered, and he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "I still don't want to be eaten. Even if I have to die, I want my body to be burned to ashes and buried under Luoyang City. So, will you do it?"

The young man frowned slightly, his eyes flickering, and he fell into deep thought.

He thought this old man was truly bizarre. He was clearly wearing the Confucian robes worn only by officials, yet he claimed he wasn't an official; he clearly possessed divine powers, yet he claimed he wasn't a deity who could control the world. He really couldn't understand him.

But no matter what, there is one thing he can be sure of: in this year of great disaster, this old man was able to take out Hu Bing to distribute to everyone, so he must not be short of food.

He had seen some people bringing food before. They were either human traffickers exchanging food for human heads, or wealthy families who came to buy maids.

Whenever they encountered such an opportunity to sell themselves, the refugees would rush forward, either to sell themselves or their children. However, even then they might not be able to sell their bodies, after all, food was much more valuable than human life in those days.

The old man took out the precious Hu cake and didn't ask for any reward. In addition, as he just said, "immortals will never starve to death", maybe if I follow him, I can really have something to eat.

I don't know whether it was because he felt that there was no reason for an immortal to lie to people, or because he thought that there would be no other way to survive if he continued to flee like this, but in the end he nodded.

"That's good." Old Zhou heaved a sigh of relief. "Having someone to help me saves me a lot of trouble."

At this point, he remembered that he had not asked the boy's name yet.

"Boy, what's your last name?"

"No surname."

"Then what's your name?"

"clear."

"Which one is Qing?"

"I can't read. I just know it's the Qing in Qingping."

"Qing" means "peaceful." Old Zhou murmured the word, "Okay, then we'll set off for Luoyang now. It's getting late today, so let's find a village to stay in first."

He looked around and found another road to the south where no refugees gathered, so he called Qing to go forward.

The young man named Qing didn't say anything again, simply following him. He kept the short knife at his waist as he walked, not entirely sure whether the "immortal" before him would eat humans.

After passing the stone pestle, we reached the main road. It was already dusk, and the undulating dirt road stretched out in the twilight, as if reaching the horizon.

He stepped on the road, following the somewhat hunched back, and walked slowly forward.

This departure lasted for 1,800 years.

(End of this chapter)