Lock and secure

In Qingzhen, Bei Zhenting and his party had been waiting for a long time. Today was the third day since they arrived in Qingzhen.

The town was sparsely populated, and most of the people had left or died, all because of the miasma and poisonous snakes and venom.

The people who were massacred in Qingye Valley had no one to rely on and had no way to survive under Heqing Cliff, which was only a cliff away from Baibing Forest.

Qingzhen is now sparsely populated and has few shops.

Those who survived were the indigenous people among the indigenous people, most of whom were poor aborigines with extremely high tolerance. Those wuxia people who wanted to venture into the Forest of Hundred Diseases were basically nowhere to be seen.

They had been here for three days, and they had pills and powders for detoxification, heart-clearing pills, miasma pills, and deworming and detoxification pills and powders given by Ye Qing. However, after staying here for two days, many of them felt a little dizzy.

As the sun set in the afternoon, Bei Zhenting, drinking his tea in the inn, looked unhappy. He asked Li Qingyun, who was standing beside him, "Hasn't he arrived yet?"

Li Qingyun: "No."

Although Qingzhen is a town, it was originally called Qingcun and was relatively small. Because it was closest to Qingye Valley, it was often visited by adventurous knights and people seeking medical treatment and medicine more than a decade ago, which led to the formation of Qingzhen.

Although the scale has expanded a lot, it is actually still the same village of mountain villagers. In the past ten years, there have been no knights and people seeking medical treatment. Qingye Valley was massacred, and many villagers lost their support and died. Now the population is sparse.

The medicines that Ye Qing and Zhang Huao brought were cheap and in large quantities, enough for the people to use for a while.

As the sky gradually darkened, Zhang Huao and Ye Qing entered the last drug placement point.

This is the poorest place in Qing Town. There are dilapidated straw huts on both sides, and some of them have collapsed.

The two men entered the drugstore one after the other. A ragged beggar who was sleeping beside the earthen wall of the straw hut opposite twitched his nose and suddenly opened his eyes.

After the medicine was mailed and sold, Zhang Huao and Ye Qing went out one after another. When they reached the corner of the medicine shop, a disheveled beggar suddenly rushed out and grabbed Ye Qing.

“Ahhh… Oh my god!”

The beggar had one hand broken and could hardly speak. He stared at the sky and screamed.

Ye Qing felt terrified when he saw his bloodshot eyes.

The beggar looked to be in his fifties, short in stature, and had clearly spent years in Qingzhen, plagued by the miasma and poisonous gases. His lips were purple, his skin was pale, his eye sockets were sunken, and his cheekbones were prominent, making him look like a demon from hell.

“Ahh…Ahhh!”

The beggar tugged at Ye Qing's clothes.

Ye Qing followed his gaze and looked up at the sky. It was getting dark, and it was about to get dark...

What in the sky did the beggar want him to see?

Zhang Hu'ao grabbed the beggar's hand and pulled hard, trying to pull him off Ye Qing.

But he couldn't pull it away, and the beggar grabbed the corner of Ye Qing's clothes tightly.

Ye Qing: "Are you hungry, old man?"

The old beggar nodded and shook his head.

Ye Qing: "Let's go. We haven't eaten yet, so let's treat him to a bowl of noodles."

The three of them were eating noodles at an open-air noodle stall. Ye Qing and Zhang Huao finished their noodles and put down their bowls and chopsticks. The old man had finished three bowls of noodles in a row and was eating the fourth bowl.

Business was bad, so the shopkeepers started to close up as it got dark. Ye Qing looked up at the increasingly dark sky, left the silver behind, and stood up.

"Take your time eating, old man. We have something to do and have to leave first."

The old man raised his head sharply with sharp eyes and let out an ugly and terrifying shout.

Ye Qing had no choice but to sit down and wait for the old man. The old man finished one bowl of noodles after another and finally put down his chopsticks.

The three of them stood up, and the old man immediately grabbed Ye Qing's clothes.

Ye Qing didn't know that this skinny old man was so strong, and he staggered when he was pulled by him.

Zhang Huao really wanted to pull the old man away, but he was an old man and he couldn't, so he hurriedly went to pull Ye Qing.

Ye Qingbei and the other man pulled him aside and turned to look at the old man. He found that the old man was looking back at something. Ye Qing stopped and looked in the direction the old man was looking. A strange feeling came over him...

The three of them went to the only existing inn in Qing Town, and saw several familiar faces of guards in plain clothes at the door, led by Li Qingyun.

Li Qingyun caught a glimpse of Ye Qing out of the corner of his eye and took a step back as he was about to enter the inn.

"Brother Ziqi, you are finally here. The master is going to look for you tonight!" Li Qingyun said this and glanced at the short old man who was pulling at the corner of Ye Qing's clothes.

The old man seemed to be mentally unstable, looking up at the sky in a strange and deformed posture.

The three of them returned to the inn, and the old man was arranged to stay in a room and given delicious food. After Ye Qing told the old man more than a dozen times that he would take him away, the old man finally let Ye Qing go.

Ye Qing, exhausted, went to see Bei Zhenting.

"I thought you would never come back!" Bei Zhenting said in a cold voice.

"How could this happen? Could something bad happen to me, the Valley Master of Qingye Valley, when I return home?"

The two drank tea, and Ye Qing described the situation in the valley in detail.

"What's wrong with that old man?"

"He insisted on following me..." Ye Qing spread his hands helplessly and frowned, "I always feel that the old man seems to want to tell me something..."

After telling Bei Zhenting everything, Ye Qing returned to his room and fell asleep.

The next morning, the group set off. Zhang Huao officially mixed in with the guards and walked behind Ye Qing, riding a horse with an old man.

Lin'an County, Zhejiang Province, Li Village, Li County.

In the old courtyard at the end of the village, an old man was teaching two or three children to practice sword.

The half-grown child was already able to perform moves on his own and was practicing alone on the side. The old man paid most attention to the other two little boys who were four or five years old.

The taller child was very steady and had time to joke around, while the other thinner child was corrected by the old man several times, and he persisted while biting his lips with cold sweat on his forehead.

"That's not right. Raise your hand higher, like this!" The old man grabbed the child's hand roughly.

The child couldn't stand steadily and was yelled at, with tears in his eyes.

Suddenly, the child who was standing very steadily next to him stopped and walked to the child who was younger than him.

"Linlin, relax, it's very simple, just do it like this..." The child first demonstrated it once, then asked Ye Lin to copy it, and then corrected the wrong movements step by step.

The courtyard door creaked open, and several men from the village came in, accompanied by three people: Luo Yao, Li Er (second brother), and the elderly village chief.

The village chief was in his fifties, with gray hair, but he looked very energetic. You could hear his voice before you saw him.

"Old man Luo, the drainage ditch has been dug. If potatoes are really as you said, they are really a good thing."

After everyone entered the courtyard, everyone except Luo Yao and the village chief bowed respectfully.

"Meet Luo Weng."

Luo Lin waved his hand, and the men said goodbye and left.

After the people left, the white-haired old man cunningly swept the yard and heard the sound of "Hey Ha" coming from the backyard. The old man rushed into the main room and went around to the backyard in a ferocious manner without any image. Then the sound of martial arts practice in the backyard disappeared.

Luo Yao greeted his grandfather and followed him in.

When I went in, I saw this scene.

The white-haired old man grabbed Luo Xinchen and threw him high up. Luo Xinchen shouted in fear, "Brother, help me."

Five-year-old Luo Xinchen was quite heavy. Seeing how the old man threw him, Luo Yao was really afraid that Luo Xinchen would fall to the ground, so he ran over quickly.

"Grandpa Li, dinner is ready. Please stay at my house for dinner today!"

When Village Chief Li heard that he was going to stay for dinner, he immediately thought of the terrifying Chef Ma in the Luo family's kitchen. The food that man cooked was really hard to swallow. Seeing that Luo Yao was about to catch him, the old man immediately put Luo Xinchen on the ground and touched Luo Xinchen's little head.

"Grandpa Li Chenchen will come to see you tomorrow!"

Old man Li ran out with his teeth bared and claws bared as he spoke. Luo Xinchen quickly grabbed Luo Yao and said, "Brother, my brother and I learned another trick today, look!"

When Ye Lin heard that Luo Xinchen wanted to show it to Luo Yao, he stood aside, not knowing what to do.

Luo Xinchen pulled his hand, "Linlin, hurry up!"

Ye Lin walked over slowly, and the two little kids danced with their wooden swords.

Luo Xinchen had no problem at all, as he had memorized all of Ye Lin's postures. The only problem seemed to be that his physique was not suitable for martial arts, and he lacked the strength to keep up. After dancing a few moves, his feet became unstable.

"Great! Linlin has memorized all the moves. He's not strong enough to practice martial arts, so he's just practicing it as a workout. Maybe he can learn something else in the future!"

Ye Lin knew he wasn't cut out for martial arts, but he wasn't upset. On the contrary, he was very happy to receive Luo Yao's praise. "Brother, Lin'er wants to learn medicine."

"Why do you want to learn medicine?"

Luo Yao was a little surprised that such a young child already knew what he wanted to do.

Ye Lin: "Daddy is not in good health, I want to treat him..."

"You'll have a chance to learn it later." Luo Yao touched Ye Lin's head.

According to Bei Zhenqing, Ye Lin's mother is Ye Qinggu's person, so maybe there will be a chance for Ye Qing to teach him in the future.