The next morning, the cruise ship went downstream from the tributary of the Yangtze River and arrived at Linhai County.

If the Hou family can become famous in the path of cultivation, it must be a prominent family in a county; in order not to disturb the people, the area of ​​more than a hundred miles west of Linhai County was all allocated to the Hou family as a private jurisdiction.

Zuo Lingquan stood at the bow of the boat and looked at the river bank. He could see towering ancient trees on the river bank, green fields everywhere, and many birds and beasts were moving in it. There were monks running back and forth to take care of it. It looked like a safari park.

The Hou family's manor is located by the sea, surrounded by mountains and rivers, and the terrain is excellent. From the weather, it is also a small blessed place suitable for practice. However, from a distance, the entire hill is bare, with countless white stone tablets inserted. There is only a manor on the top of the mountain, which is incompatible with the surrounding green forests.

Shangguan Lingye stood beside Zuo Lingquan and frowned slightly when he saw this scene. Her vision was much better than Zuo Lingquan. She could see clearly that the white stone tablets were full of graves.

The villa is built on the grave mountain, which looks weird, but it is as clear as the sky, the air is clear, and it does not make people feel gloomy. Overall, it is a bit weird.

Xie Qiutao stood not far away from the two of them, and after looking at them for a few glances, she was a little worried about her own safety and wanted to speak a few words, but Hou Guan was nearby, so she finally let it go.

The ship was docked in the river beside the grave mountain, and a winding stone path led to Sixiang Villa. Hou's family was already greeted by the river.

Zuo Lingquan walked among the crowd, looking at the hillside with no tens of thousands of tombs, both big and small, but without exception, they were all steles without words. From the perspective of arrangement, they were not arranged in any formation, but simply arranged in sequence from the old to the new.

The group of people were all monks, and they went up the mountain very quickly. In just half a cup of tea, they arrived at Sixiang Villa on the top of the mountain.

The villa is built quite simple and restrained, no different from the secular homes. The only unusual thing is that a temple is built on the side of the villa. It is not a statue of a god, but a lifelike white tiger, and there is a tribute case of the incense altar below.

The four symbols are divided into the blue dragon and white tiger, the vermilion bird and the black trunk. In theory, the Sixiang Villa should worship the gods and earth, and all four should be offered. It is a bit special to pay the white tiger alone.

Zuo Lingquan asked casually about this, and Hou Guan's answer was "The White Tiger is in the west, and Sixiang Villa is in the west of Yuyaozhou", which makes sense.

Sixiang Villa is a bit large, but most of the tribesmen operate industries in other places, and there are not many people staying at home, so the villa looks a bit empty.

After Hou Guan returned to the villa, he arranged a place for the guests who came to stay.

Shangguan Lingye's purpose was to see what medicine was sold in the Hou family's gourd. He originally planned to remain calm and wait until the "Four Symbols God Hou" saw Xie Qiutao, and then secretly investigated whether to take action.

But what Shangguan Lingye did not expect was that she followed the servants to the arranged living yard, and Hou Guan chased after him from behind and spoke:

"Fellow Taoist Zuo, please stay, my ancestor, please come over and talk."

Zuo Lingquan and Shangguan Lingye paused, looking at each other, and there was an accident in their eyes.

Zuo Lingquan turned around quietly and said:

"Oh? Could it be that the Four Elephant Divine Marquis still recognize me as a little person?"

Hou Guan was actually quite surprised. Before he could alarm the ancestor, the ancestor's words were sent over. He smiled and said:

"I don't know either. The ancestor is very powerful. Maybe I have heard of you two, so I'll take you here."

Shangguan Lingye narrowed his eyes slightly, feeling that he should have come to the right place for this trip.

She had already arrived in someone's house, and it was too late to run away if she had something to do. She secretly greeted Tang Jingyan, asked Jingyan to inform her wife, and turned around and headed to the back mountain with Zuo Lingquan.

Xie Qiutao followed him to another place to stay. When she turned around, she saw the two of them following Hou Guan, with a bit of suspicion on her face, but she couldn't say anything, but she was more careful-

The back mountain is on the back of Sixiang Villa, and further out is the boundless East China Sea. When you cross the mountain, a sea breeze blows, rolling up the hay and dead leaves on the ground.

Zuo Lingquan followed Hou Guan, and was careful along the way. He came to the back mountain next to the coast. The garden caught his eye, which was quite large in scale, but after some years, the buildings were relatively broken.

The people living in the garden are not people, but all kinds of birds and animals. They are old, toothless tigers and leopards, hairless cranes and eagles, some are skinny and missing arms and legs. When they see strangers, they no longer make noises, but they just lie in the old nest in a daze, and they seem to have lost their fighting spirit.

Outside the old garden, there is also a cemetery with no end to see.

A young man in a scholar's robe, holding a shovel in his hand, digging a pit at the end of the cemetery, shoveling a shovel of soil around him.

There was an old dog with a large skeleton but not a few taels of meat beside him. He watched the scholar dig. After digging for a while, the old dog slowly crawled in and lay down. He felt that the size was not appropriate, so he got up again and dived with his claws.

Then the scholar continued to dig and said:

"I used to dig so many pits for others, but I didn't know how to dig one for myself. Now I can't dig it, so I asked me to dig it. How good I dig it, you will feel that it is inappropriate, because no one thinks it is appropriate to bury your own pit, so don't pay attention to so many things."

The old dog lay in front of him, just staring at the pit without any reaction.

In front of him is a lonely grave, and behind him is an old beast in the garden.

When Zuo Lingquan came over, he imagined the possibilities of the "Four Symbols Divine Marquis", but he never expected that he would see a young scholar, like a lunatic, digging a grave for a dog on a barren mountain.

Shangguan Lingye also frowned and his pace slowed down a little.

After Hou Guan brought the two to the old garden, he did not move forward any further and said with a smile:

"The ancestor is right in front of him, and he looks very young, but he must be older than the three of us combined. The ancestor is friendly, so you can just go there."

After Zuo Lingquan nodded and walked towards the scholar, he stopped when he was more than thirty feet away.

Rub rub rub

Between the cemetery, the scholar did not greet the two people behind him, and kept digging the pit with a shovel. Gradually, he could only see one head and stood in the pit.

The old dog crawled in and tried several times, but the last time he didn't come up again; he didn't come up again because he didn't feel satisfied with the hole he dug, but instead lay down and closed his eyes, and never opened it again.

The scholar jumped out of the grave, filled the digging soil again, built a grave bag, and then took out a wordless monument from Linglong Pavilion and inserted it in front of the grave bag.

Shangguan Lingye and Zuo Lingquan were blowing the sea breeze, watching all this, understanding what the scholar was doing, but not understanding what the scholar asked them to do.

After the scholar erected the stone tablet, he clapped his hands and looked back at Zuo Lingquan:

"Zuo Jianxia, ​​let you wait for a long time."

Zuo Lingquan was not sure about the other party's intentions, so he spoke first:

"You know me?"

The scholar was frank: "The first person in the younger generation of the Nine Sects will naturally know him."

“…”

Shangguan Lingye saw that the other party knew the truth and confirmed that the other party was coming to Zuo Lingquan. She frowned and asked:

"Are you from the Youying alien race?"

The scholar inserted the shovel on the ground and turned around and walked towards the beach:

"Don't panic, you two, there are no ambush around you, I am the only one. The visitor is a guest, no matter whether it is an enemy or a friend, you have to take care of a cup of tea."

Zuo Lingquan looked at Shangguan Lingye. Shangguan Lingye hesitated for a while and followed him. Naturally, he walked in front of him.

The hillsides by the sea are full of graves. Tens of thousands of stone tablets look like a white stone forest, and you can't see the end at first sight.

The scholar walked in front, and his steps seemed to be slow, but in a moment he had walked out for several miles and finally came above a natural reef by the sea.

The reef looks like a large platform with a thatched hut on it and a tea case outside.

The scholar picked up the teapot, poured two bowls of tea, then walked to the edge of the reef and sat down, looked at the endless East China Sea, and spoke:

"Does Zuo Jianxia know what is buried in the cemetery behind?"

The two came to the reef and sat down near the tea case, but did not touch the tea.

Zuo Lingquan glanced at the grave: "All the dead birds and beasts buried?"

The scholar nodded gently: "Do you think I am so alternative?"

Shangguan Lingye couldn't see through the scholar's thoughts, but felt that this move was not an alternative, so she spoke:

"Spiritual beasts are like close friends, and burial is the duty, so how can there be another way to say it?"

"Not all birds and beasts are spiritual beasts. What you see outside are valuable spirit beasts. In fact, cultivating spiritual beasts will lead to many ordinary birds and beasts that are old, weak, sick, disabled, or completely unspiritual. No one wants these birds and beasts. Under normal circumstances, they will either be thrown out and fend for themselves or used to feed other beasts. Only I will save them from birth to death."

There is nothing wrong with this sentence at first, great goodness, but Zuo Lingquan thought about it and was a little puzzled:

"Do you still have to feed them chickens, ducks, cows, and sheep? The lives of chickens, ducks, cows, and sheep are not life?"

Shangguan Lingye wanted to speak, but when he heard this, he stopped and looked at the scholar.

The scholar smiled and said, "Yes. I thought I was a great act of goodness, but I gradually realized that my life is indeed noble and humble. Unless they all starve to death, they will always be a situation where the strong prey on the weak. And the so-called most benevolent and kind is just a strong person who is protecting his own race. For foreign races, it is just a butcher knife pressed on the heads. There is no right way in the world, and there is only a different position."

These words are considered classic remarks of evil ways. Shangguan Lingye said in a deep voice:

"The right path will prey on the weak, but the right path has its bottom line. It will teach everyone not to hunt young animals, catch winter fish, kill chickens and get eggs, and do not seek excessive demands. While maintaining their own survival, they must also maintain the resurrection of all things..."

The scholar didn't want to talk about these big principles, so he shook his head and said:

"What I want to say is that this world is dominated by people, and good and evil are determined by people. I am also a human being, and I think it's okay to do so, but after encountering some things, I felt it empathy and found that people are really too domineering."

"What's up?"

The scholar did not tell the past, but said:

"Do you know why the 'Youying alien race' is called the 'alien race' by the righteous monks?"

Zuo Lingquan really didn't know this, he looked at Shangguan Lingye.

But Shangguan Lingye never came out of Yuyaozhou. He only knew that the Youying aliens were all people who used all means to practice, and they didn't know much about the others. She asked:

"You know?"

The scholar looked to the East China Sea and explained:

"There are no gods in this world, there are only people with different positions. The Eight Lords are just people who practice Taoism and can live in heaven, and they are different from gods who live in the same life. If birds and beasts have achieved the right result, they will no longer be birds and beasts; and if a man becomes a god, they will no longer be humans.

"What can man treat birds and beasts, and the so-called "gods and immortals" can treat people. They may be sympathetic to the sufferings of the people and may maintain the survival of the human race, but they will not regard you as a kind of person, just as you will not regard birds, beasts, or even ordinary people as a kind of person."

“…”

This is the first time Zuo Lingquan has heard this statement:

"Can this be the same?"
To be continued...