A Tale of Encounters with Immortals: A Peach Blossom Temple in the Martial World

The next day, Zhang Zhengdao got up late.

I got tipsy after drinking it for a while.

Zhang Zhengdao didn't wake up until the sun was high in the sky.

Guo Lanying brought water for washing his face, and Hu Yunying brought over a bowl of noodles. Upon closer inspection, there was a poached egg hidden inside. They were truly treating Zhang Zhengdao like a master.

However, I didn't see Shu Baimei.

The female ghost has been acting strangely these past few days.

After washing his face and eating noodles, he walked to the main hall with his hands behind his back, like a master. There, Sun Zhenjian's servant, Sha Zhu, was already waiting.

"Master... you've finally come out. I've been waiting for the time it takes to eat two meals."

Sha Zhu tugged at Zhang Zhengdao's sleeve.

The child was getting impatient. He set off before dawn, climbed the mountain for an hour, and then waited here for another two hours. He was starving.

"Bring out some food!"

Zhang Zhengdao gave the instructions.

Guo Lanying went back inside, brought out two large meat buns, and handed them to Sha Zhu. Sha Zhu beamed and devoured them one after another. The meat buns were the size of a fist, and he could eat one in a single bite.

“Take a few more, you’re being stingy,” Zhang Zhengdao said.

Sha Zhu kept eating until he had eaten six before he stopped.

He could actually still eat, but Guo Lanying refused to go in and get any more buns, saying she was done eating them. Zhang Zhengdao knew there were still a few buns left, but the girl couldn't bear to part with them.

That's true. When you encounter a simpleton like this, you have to be careful with your money, no matter how much you have.

From now on, the first thing we'll do when accepting apprentices is look at their appetite. The bigger their appetite, the greater their chances of being accepted into Peach Blossom Temple. Because a bigger appetite means more income from food.

"say!"

Zhang Zhengdao sat on the prayer mat and spoke to Sha Zhu, who was also sitting on the prayer mat.

Sha Zhu: "The town magistrate wants you to collect the body... recite a sutra, and you'll get one tael and five mace of silver. The body is in the town square."

"Okay, lead the way!"

Zhang Zhengdao waved his hand: "Bring me my tools of the trade."

A little while later, Hu Yunying and Guo Lanying, these two beauties, came out with their tools.

"You two don't need to go. It's just to collect a wild corpse. Why send three people?"

Zhang Zhengdao took the tools and went down the mountain with Sha Zhu.

Although he had seen the world in a big city like Lingzhou and witnessed the lavish spending of wealthy families like He Zhongzheng, he still needed to earn some money.

Managing a household is like picking up soil with a needle; squandering a household is like waves crashing against sand.

Zhang Zhengdao understood this principle when he was on Earth.

On the west side of the square, facing east and feet west, lay a corpse. It wore a blue robe, and had a dried blood hole in its chest. But apart from the clothes, there were no weapons.

Zhang Zhengdao suspected that the workers who moved the body had already touched it.

Weapons commonly used by江湖人士 (jianghu figures, people from the martial arts world) can be sold for a small amount of money. In addition, they might also carry some cash, so the job of a corpse carrier is quite sought after, depending entirely on who Sun Zhenjian hires.

Mainly, it was because Sun Zhenjian looked down on those paltry sums.

You can tell at a glance whether someone has money or not.

If you carry a little more silver or copper coins, the purse or satchel you hide in your bosom will bulge out and you can't hide it.

A man carrying the body stood guard over it, and when Zhang Zhengdao arrived, he went to greet him.

"It's finally here!"

"You can go now!" Zhang Zhengdao told him to go back.

The man carrying the corpse wasn't in a hurry to leave. He spoke mysteriously, like an undercover agent of the Qingfeng Guard, and asked, "Do you know who this dead man is?"

Zhang Zhengdao shook his head, too lazy to calculate.

"Hehe, you don't know, do you? The Green-Robed Swordsman, Mo Qingyun. Do you know who Mo Qingyun is?"

While speaking, he looked around and leaned in to listen, as if afraid of being discovered with a shocking secret: "I'm only telling you."

"Who is it?"

"That ruthless man who kidnapped the Sword God's wife. I heard... he not only kidnapped her, but also stabbed her to death with a sword." The man carrying the corpse even made a thrusting motion with his sword, his expression vicious, as if he were the one who had stabbed her.

Zhang Zhengdao suddenly realized.

The Sword God Qin Shouzhong stole the sword, and in the name of the Sword God, wielding his signature weapon, killed the lover and gave it to him. This seems to make perfect sense.

However, he still could not forgive this act of taking without permission.

As they were talking, the man carrying the corpse suddenly stopped, glanced behind Zhang Zhengdao, and then turned and walked away quickly.

Zhang Zhengdao turned around and saw that Sun Zhenjian was coming over.

"Greetings, Daoist Master!"

"The town supervisor is very polite and grateful for your care."

These are Zhang Zhengdao's sincere words.

"This is Mo Qingyun, the man in green robes, who was killed by the Sword God..."

“I know. Life is too short, why waste your life like this?” Zhang Zhengdao and Sun Zhenjian exchanged pleasantries.

After chatting for a while, Sun Zhenjian took out a wad of silver and handed it to Zhang Zhengdao.

Zhang Zhengdao looked at it and found that there were actually ten taels of silver.

Looking up at Sun Zhenjian with surprise and delight, she quickly calculated in her sleeves and immediately understood: Sun Zhenjian's family was celebrating the arrival of a new member. She exchanged a knowing glance with Sun Zhenjian, a knowing look between men, and nodded and smiled.

"I'll have to trouble you again, Daoist Master, I also have a concubine..."

Zhang Zhengdao nodded: "It's alright, I'll refine some more pills, and you can send someone up the mountain to collect them in a few days."

"That's very good, that's very good."

Sun Zhenjian and Zhang Zhengdao bowed and went back with smiles to share the good news with their concubines.

Looking at the resolute figure of Elder Sun, Zhang Zhengdao couldn't help but feel a pang of envy. Once the Taoist temple was built, he too would…

Should the Butterfly Fairy go first, or should the apprentice go first?

How about we play a drinking game or a drinking contest?

Or perhaps it's like that nouveau riche Ximen Jian in a movie I once saw, who gathered his wives and concubines in the courtyard, placing a gong in front of each of them. Whoever's gong was struck would be chosen to sleep with him?

"May the Heavenly Venerable grant you boundless blessings and longevity!"

Zhang Zhengdao chanted a prayer, suppressing his somewhat elusive emotions, and began to perform the ritual to guide the blue-robed man, Mo Qingyun, to the afterlife.

All the love, hate, and grudges in the martial arts world ultimately amount to nothing more than this lump of dead flesh.

People in the martial arts world are destined for many misfortunes, and to die at such an age lowers their average lifespan!

The rituals for the deceased corpses in these cases are usually not very long, with one procedure following another. No one comes to observe mourning or kowtow, so Zhang Zhengdao's rituals were completed by the afternoon.

Then Sun Zhenjian sent people to carry a thin coffin and put the person inside.

Ignoring the custom of not burying people in the afternoon, they simply carried the body away. They didn't even need Zhang Zhengdao to lead the way. In their eyes, dying outside and having someone collect the body and chant sutras for the deceased was already much better than most people in the martial arts world.

If someone dies in the wild and no one discovers it and reports it to the authorities, they are either eaten by wild animals or buried by a kind-hearted person who simply digs a hole for them.

Sun Zhenjian had no choice; he died on his own turf, right in the town. He couldn't just ignore it.

With Zhang Zhengdao's business finished, the martial arts world has lost another person.

I went to Sister Gui's wine shop as usual, intending to have a couple of bowls of wine, but after walking a few steps, I turned back.

The main problem is that last time, Sister-in-law Gui actually said that she had practiced evil arts and wanted to harass young women like Fairy Ling.

I won't patronize her business this time; we'll see next time.

However, as I walked through the town, I suddenly felt that something was wrong.

When I returned last time, I found that there were far fewer people in the martial arts world. This was probably because the Moon in the Mirror had been stolen. The martial arts community felt they had been deceived.

But why does it feel like there are more people from the underworld today?

We need to urge Qin Shouzhong to return the sword as soon as possible.

It's estimated that these people from the martial arts world are here because of Qin Shouzhong's reality show.

When they returned, Hu Yunying and Guo Lanying had already prepared dinner. The three ate before it got dark. During dinner, Hu Yunying also reported on the day's income.

"The four people offering incense included one local, three from out of town, and some who were江湖人士 (jianghu figures, people from the martial arts world). One of them was a fortune teller."

Zhang Zhengdao was taken aback: "You can interpret the divination even when I'm not here?"

Hu Yunying: "I interpreted the fortune slip."

Zhang Zhengdao: "Our Taoist temple values ​​honesty and trustworthiness, so we should do less of this kind of deceitful thing in the future."

"Yes, sir!" Hu Yunying behaved very obediently.

Zhang Zhengdao asked again, "Where's the ghost?"

Hu Yunying: "She's in the peach grove, I haven't seen her show her face for the past two days, it's very strange."

Finally, the moon came out at night.

The moonlight, accompanied by the wind, grew increasingly cool.

Zhang Zhengdao watched as the two women who went to the side room under the moonlight changed out of their light gauze shirts and put on thick cotton robes, and he knew that winter had arrived.

The peach grove was bathed in a play of light and shadow under the moonlight.

The dappled shadows of the trees outside the window swayed violently in the early winter wind.

A slight whistling sound carried on the wind, giving me goosebumps again.

Zhang Zhengdao was reading a book by the light of an oil lamp.

Suddenly, an idea struck him. He put down the scriptures in his hand, put on his robe, got up, and walked towards the courtyard.

The courtyard was like a clear, still pool, with algae and water plants crisscrossing in it.

I walked along the dappled shadows of the trees on the bluestone slabs toward the peach grove.

Deep in the peach orchard.

A woman in a red dress, with disheveled hair, squatted with her back to Zhang Zhengdao.

Zhang Zhengdao flicked his finger, and a wisp of breeze lifted the woman's hair, causing her to turn around.

"Master Daoist—"

Shu Baimei stood up.

As Shu Baimei turned around, the shadow of a woman in a red dress slowly revealed her corpse.

"I...I have no heart..."

Two lines of tears streamed down Shu Baimei's face as she said these words.