has become a demon

Zhao Yuan walked slowly up the half slope of the hill along the winding path.

Xie Taichu tucked his hands in his big sleeves, quietly looking at the moss-covered stone tablet in front of him.He turned his head, looked at Zhao Yuan carefully, and said, "His Royal Highness's legs are healed, but he still needs to take care of his body. This serious illness is all disturbed by the ups and downs of the world, and I will take care of His Highness in the future."

Zhao Yuan walked up to him, bowed his fists to the stele, and looked up, but there was no writing on the moss-covered stone stele.

After a long while, he suddenly said: "I was ill for a while, and I was in a coma. I met many people, and I still remembered you saying the words 'defying the sky and changing my fate', and I remembered many, many past events. At that time, I explained I don’t know, but now I figure it out.”

Xie Taichu was a little strange: "What's the matter?"

"Before Frost's Fall, you went to Beizhen Fusi to rescue Tang Haolan, met Shen Zhu, and mentioned Shen Zhu outside the gate of Beizhen Fusi's "great disaster and great merit". I must have listened to it. Later in Tianshou Mountain, it was Shen Zhu who rescued Feng An again, let us go, and used the bell to send the news of Feng An's survival to Ningxia."

"...Your Highness is overthinking. This is a coincidence." Xie Taichu said.

"Coincidence?" Zhao Yuan smiled faintly, "Okay, then I'll ask you again. When the Yeling Rebellion broke out, you disappeared for more than an hour. What did you do?"

"... I ran into Yan Dalong, the internal officer, and protected him and other servants from being slaughtered in the camp."

"What a coincidence, the letter searched from Jin Wu a few days ago also mentioned the movement in the capital. Yan Dalong has an adopted son named Yan Shuanglin, who works as an internal official supervisor. Tell me... why did Lin Fengan and Yan Shuanglin get married? They all have the word 'Lin' in their names."

Xie Taichu slowly shook his head: "This kind of connection is a bit far-fetched."

"Then after we passed Yanshou Temple, Jin Yiwei and Xuanzhou government soldiers chased us, and we were at the end of our rope. Why did King Fu arrange for help?" Zhao Yuan asked.

"Qingxing Pavilion is far away in Sichuan, but you have only been in Ningxia for fifteen days, and the pills to treat my legs have only been prepared, and they have been sent to Jinbaozhai."

Xie Taichu looked at him and slowly pursed his lips.

"You and King Ning have a good relationship in private, which can be said to be an expedient measure when you are in the capital. But why can you be so trusted by King Fu, and you know what he did when he died?"

"It's not just that. You know the affairs of Ningxia like the back of your hand, and you know the situation of Jinwu, Lou Zhen, Bu Xiangming, and even Xiao Jiang at your fingertips. We ran thousands of miles, from the Yellow River to Wuzhong, and you are almost familiar with the surrounding terrain. Tatars plundered the north bank, Wuzhong Lane battled Mandulu, you all determined the world with one sword."

"The oath you made a few days ago seems to be the determination you made at the time. But I carefully sorted out those seemingly coincidental events that were fueled by someone behind the scenes. My lord, you can't fool me... You have a plan. Yes no?"

Xie Taichu's eyes were too hot, he didn't dare to look at him, and the question he asked with his head down seemed so guilty.

Zhao Yuan didn't know what kind of answer he wanted to get.

But he also felt that if he got such an answer, everything he was worried about could be melted away.

He waited for a long time, and the wild geese in the sky flew over the Yin Mountain.

The surroundings are quiet, only the sound of insects and birds ringing in the distance.

He hasn't got that answer yet.

Zhao Yuan couldn't help but say again: "The real person..."

"A real person is one with the heavens and the Dao, he sticks to the one and raises all kinds of people, he has the heart of heaven, and he is virtuous." 【Note 1】" Xie Taichu shook his head, "I am not worthy of such virtues, and I have done a lot of things that I shouldn't have. Private thoughts. Your Highness don’t call me that anymore.”

"Master Ningshan." Zhao Yuan corrected himself.

Xie Taichu was silent.

"Your Highness must be wondering why I'm from Jiaozhou, but my parents' graves are in Yinshan, and why there are no inscriptions on this stele..." He opened his mouth after a while.

"Yes."

"This is not my parents' grave." Xie Taichu looked back at him, "It's my grave."

Zhao Yuan was stunned.

Xie Taichu looked at his expression and smiled calmly: "When I was 13 years old, I buried my former self with my own hands."

Zhao Yuan asked him, "Why, why?"

why...

Xie Taichu was quiet for a while, before slowly opening his mouth: "Your Highness, do you remember that after the land in my family was mortgaged to the clan, I couldn't make a living, and my brothers and sisters ate the Guanyin soil to death."

"I remember, you said that Lingtang made broth for you to survive. That's why you survived."

"In the days when I was hungry, I didn't have anything to eat. At the beginning, there were some chaff and grass roots, and I only had a bowl for a few days. Later, I didn't even have anything to eat... Every morning, my mother would always open the kitchen door and give me A bowl of broth came out. There was no condiment, almost no salt, just such a bowl of bland soup. Over the past 20 years, I still clearly remember how delicious that bowl of soup was.

"I never thought that so many people starved to death during the famine and catastrophe, and even my brothers and sisters were doomed to die... Why was there broth to continue my life later?"

When he was in the capital, Zhao Yuan didn't think too much about what Xie Taichu said, but now that Xie Taichu hadn't spoken yet, he had already guessed a bit.

Then Zhao Yuan heard Xie Taichu laugh, which sounded like weeping.

"Father and mother were both dying within half a month. When they died, they couldn't stand upright, their legs were boneless... I was left alone... When I buried them, I realized that the broth was my parents who cut their own legs for me. And cooking." Zhao Yuan already felt the coldness behind him, trembling with fear, but wanted to say something but felt stuck in his throat.

"People in the village died in pieces on the ridges of the fields, beside the dug-up Avalokitesvara soil. There were also those who starved themselves to death, those who went to the mountains to be torn to pieces by hungry wolves, and those who were hanged...the corpses piled up into mountains. Finally, one day, the remaining The people below were so hungry that they began to eat the corpses of their own kind. They dug up the graves of my parents, brothers and sisters, and I couldn’t stop them. They didn’t even leave me a bone or a hair of their relatives.” Xie Taichu road.

"I cannibalize my father and mother, and I am no longer worthy of being a human being. They are not worthy of being human if they eat their own kind. But I have to avenge this kind of grave-digging and humiliating relatives. I will wait until they are really crazy, and they will eat their children and kill hunters. When killing each other, I picked a dark night when they were full of wine and food, and found the Taoist temple where they had a carnival. They dug a deep pit, buried sharp knives, piled up firewood, and burned the Taoist temple where they lived."

Xie Taichu's eyes were dark, as if he had returned to that night.

"Those who were not burnt to death ran out of the pit and fell into the pit to die. There were many people who fell and died, and some survived and climbed out. I waited by the pit with a machete, and chopped off the first one One, the tiger's mouth collapsed, and the nails curled up... until the sky was bright, until the fire was extinguished... hell on earth is not enough to describe the tragedy at that time..."

He sighed softly and looked up at the mountains in the distance.

"I thought I was going to die, so I threw away the machete and went to the river to wash off the blood. I lay down again in the dug-up grave of my parents...but Master passed by and rescued me."

Xie Taichu's words were calm, without avoiding anything.

He talked about these tragic pasts, as if describing a faded, mottled and grotesque picture scroll.But even if he had expected it, Zhao Yuan couldn't break free from the grief behind his calm words.

He looked at Xie Taichu, his eyes were already wet and blurred.

"What about later?" Zhao Yuan choked up and asked.

"Later... for a long time, I didn't want to live, but followed him like a walking dead, all the way to Yinshan Mountain. I have seen all kinds of human beings, and there are countless more tragic things than I have experienced... I asked the teacher My lord, there is no luck in the way of heaven, why is there any need to struggle in this world? Heaven and earth are not benevolent, why do people not accept their fate? Master replied to me: Heaven and earth have no heart, and the heart of life is human... If the people have a conscience, then there will be mercy in the world, The world can still be saved.”

"I went to the Qingxing Pavilion under the Yin Mountain as a teacher, and I erected this wordless monument to bury myself who was eroded by the evil heart in the past. Everything in the past is like dying yesterday, and everything in the future is like being born today. I swear in front of my tombstone. Establish a heart for the heaven and earth, and a life for the living. Then cultivate the ruthless way."

20 years have passed since then.

White clouds are long, and the situation is changing.

The stele is covered with moss.

No one remembers that there was a young man who buried himself, sacrificed himself, and rekindled himself here.

Xie Taichu looked at him and answered his question: "Your Highness asked me if I had prepared for a rainy day, and if I had prepared for it. Your Highness has always been keen, and since he has seen all the arrangements I made before, he knows that what I said is true. I came to Beijing with the purpose of finding a suitable candidate to replace King Ning. I was powerless to turn the tide of King Ning’s rebellion, so I tried my best to make preparations for His Highness to change his fate against the sky in the future.”

"What I don't understand is... What, when... Are you sure, sure that person is me... Are you sure I can..." Zhao Yuan asked him.

"First look."

When I saw him for the first time, my heart was like a stone thrown into a thousand-year-old ancient pool, and the waves were rippling, so far I can't calm down.

"What?" Zhao Yuan stared at him blankly.

"The first time I saw you, I knew..." Xie Taichu answered him with a calm but firm tone, "It's you."

only you.