If you don't give up, I'd like to be your adoptive father.

Chapter 772: Telling Stories

Xiaoyu carefully observed Gou Jiao's appearance and mood, and his doubts were still there.

She could clearly figure out his situation using Zi Wei Dou Shu.

It is even clearer and more accurate than reading fortune for others.

In Zhongli County, she used copper coins to predict good or bad fortune for others, but her results were only vague and unclear, with 70% relying on calculations and 30% on guesswork.

In order to avoid being slapped in the face, one has to pretend to be cool, pretend to be mysterious, and use rhetoric to extract some information from the other party.

When facing her boyfriend, his family situation and life experience seemed to be written into a paragraph, directly projected into her heart.

This is both strange and not strange.

It's not surprising because she had a sudden impulse when she saw him, and it is certain that there must be a significant cause and effect between the two of them.

There is a causal relationship between the two people, so it would be easier to calculate.

this is normal phenomenon.

The strange thing is that she could calculate a lot of things about him, but she couldn't figure out the direct cause and effect between them.

It was obvious that she and he had nothing in common.

Completely two different places, two different types of people, no connection at all.

Moreover, she is a time traveler, and he is not young anymore, so it is impossible for them to have any predestined relationship from their previous life.

"You have to go back and check on the matter of your wife and children yourself. It's true that I'm a fortune teller, but a fortune teller is an outsider after all." Xiao Yu said.

“I have a child, I am a father.”

Gou Jiao seemed to be happy and sad at the same time, and suddenly he covered his face and cried, "It's been three years, I left home and searched for immortals and Taoism for three years.

He let Uncle Zhang down and failed to take care of his wife and children.

After three years of traveling through mountains and rivers, I have achieved nothing and have not learned any magic skills.

Why are there no gods willing to save me? Can't they see my sincerity?"

Xiao Yu asked, "Do you think immortals are unfilial, unvirtuous, heartless and ungrateful people?"

Gou Jiao was stunned for a moment, then shook his head and said, “All immortals are saints who never leave the world.

They all have noble character, broad minds, help the world, and regard fame and fortune as nothing. "

Xiao Yu asked, "Then do you think the immortal would choose someone who is unfilial, unvirtuous, heartless and ungrateful as his apprentice?"

Gou Jiao reacted and said excitedly: "Little King, are you saying that I am unvirtuous, unfilial, heartless and unrighteous?
I have been diligent in seeking truth and indifferent to fame and gain. I have never done anything unvirtuous, unfilial, heartless or unrighteous.

Uncle Zhang raised me, and I plan to give all the Gou family's wealth to him.

He helped me marry Zhao, but I didn't want her at all.

Before leaving, I left her a letter of divorce.

She can marry someone else with her dowry and the three thousand gold I gave her.

Giving birth to a child was completely unexpected.

On my wedding night, I was drunk and knew nothing.

After waking up the next day, he left a letter and climbed over the wall and left. He never returned home, nor did he see Zhao again.

Xiao Yu nodded slightly and said, "No wonder you, a weak scholar, have survived three years of wandering in troubled times without losing your life.

You are entangled in karma, have not repaid kindness, and have lacked virtue, but you are not a villain who deserves to go to the eighteen levels of hell."

Gou Jiao shouted, "Little King, don't pretend to understand if you don't. Immortals accepting disciples is not at all like what you said."

"Pa!" Zhong Li Mei patted his shoulder and shouted, "What a bold and ignorant lunatic, have you forgotten the magical methods used by Taoist Luobo before?"

Gou Jiao shrank his neck, but still insisted: "The young king is only good at physiognomy, and probably doesn't know much about the affairs of gods and immortals."

Xiao Yu smiled and said, "I have been searching for immortals for three years, but I haven't even seen the shadow of an immortal. Do you know anything about immortals?"

Gou Jiao said: "I have never seen Dapeng, but I know there is a fish in the North Sea, its name is Kun, it turns into a bird, its name is Peng, the back of Peng is thousands of miles long.

I have never seen an immortal, but I have been familiar with books about gods and immortals since I was a child.

I also traveled thousands of miles, visiting many relics left by ancient gods along the way, and heard countless stories related to gods.

I even know someone who almost became an immortal by accident.

I heard from him that the difficulty of becoming an immortal is to have a firm will and not be shaken by worldly ethics. "

Xiaoyu asked Zhongli Mei to continue to deal with the matter of "disbanding the bandit's den", and he took Gou Jiao to the edge of the cliff, behind a large rock that was blocking the wind.

"What did the man who almost became an immortal say to you?"

Gou Jiao said: "That man's surname is Cui, and he is also a scholar.

One hundred and twenty years ago, he was twenty-two years old. Because his family was poor, he sometimes worked as a servant in my house.

My Xun family is considered a poor noble family. We have a lot of ancient books hidden in our home. Cui Sheng often comes to borrow books, so our two families are quite familiar with each other.

Once, my great-grandfather bought a mountain outside the city, planning to cultivate the eastern slope into terraced fields.

To cultivate land, you must first dig a well.

Cui Sheng took the initiative to take on this task and asked the Feng Shui master to choose a good piece of land, and he dug alone.

After digging day after day, there was still no water flowing out from below.

My great-grandfather had not given up because the Feng Shui master swore that there must be a water vein underneath.

As a result, on the ninth day, Cui Sheng, who had dug more than ten feet deep, disappeared inexplicably.

The next day, the pit collapsed completely.”

When Xiaoyu first pulled him over, there was a look of displeasure on his face.

As he spoke, he became excited.

His cheeks flushed and his eyes sparkled, as if he had become Cui Sheng who had encountered a miracle.

"Little Taoist priest, guess what happened to Cui Sheng?"

Xiao Yu smiled faintly, "Could it be that I fell into another tunnel, walked forward a few hundred steps, and suddenly the front was open, the scenery was beautiful like a fairyland on earth, and there were immortals in the fairyland?"

Gou Jiao was surprised and asked, "How did the Taoist priest know this? Could he even predict Cui Sheng's fate?"

Xiao Yu said: "You can infer without innate arithmetic. Cui Sheng later met you and told you his story.

This means that he must not have died at that time and was not buried in the ground.

He was clearly at the bottom of the well, and he was not buried by the mud, and he survived, so he could only have found a way out." - As for whether the way out was a "human way" or a "ghost way", it was hard to say.

It is not even certain whether the person who comes back is a human or a ghost.

Gou Jiao nodded repeatedly and said, "That's right, I guessed the result, no need to calculate.

When Cui Sheng was digging at the bottom of the well, the soil on the wall of the well fell off, revealing a passage at the back.

After walking more than a few hundred steps, the well behind began to collapse.

He walked in the dark for another forty or fifty miles, exhausted and confused, and finally came across a tall gate archway with a plaque on it that read "Xiao You Dong Tian".

Now it was Xiaoyu's turn to be surprised, "It's not a blessed place in the underworld, but a small cave."

Gou Jiao glared at him and said unhappily, "Young Taoist priest, do you look down on me? I have read thousands of books and traveled thousands of miles, how could I not be able to tell the difference between the blessed land of the dead and the cave of the immortals?"

Xiao Yu waved his hand and said, "I'm not looking down on anyone. I'm just a little Taoist who travels around the world, exorcising evil spirits and ghosts, and I've encountered many old ghosts. They use magic to disguise dilapidated temples and deserted houses into fairyland on earth, confusing handsome scholars who are well-read and come from poor families."

Gou Jiao's cheeks flushed again, and he grumbled, "I have been away from home for three years, walked thousands of miles, and often spent the night in the wild and in dilapidated temples, but why haven't I even met a charming old ghost?

Is it that I lack talent, or am I not handsome and elegant enough? "

Xiao Yu looked him up and down and nodded, "It does look a bit off."

Even though Gou Jiao is only 18 years old, he has been living in the open air for three years and has become a "sharp brother" with messy hair and beard, dark and wrinkled face.

If you change your hairstyle to one with your hair down and your clothes on the left, you can go directly to the north of the Great Wall and become a Hun.

He is an old Hun man in his forties.

Like Ning Caichen, who traveled thousands of miles, traveled day and night, slept in frost and snow, and was exposed to wind and sun, yet was still as handsome as a pretty boy. Either "Ning Caichen" himself is a fraud, or he was filming a movie.

"Three years ago, I was praised by many famous people as 'Julu Zidu'." Gou Jiao said dejectedly.

Everyone in modern times knows "Song Yu", but in fact, "Zidu"'s status in the circle of ancient handsome men is far greater than that of Song Yu.

After all, Zidu's beauty was even recognized by the Book of Songs and Mencius.

Xiaoyu looked at him again. His facial features were indeed regular and he looked very blessed, but his skin was rough, dark and chapped.

Saying "not ugly" is a courtesy to him.

"The immortal does not care about the beauty or ugliness of his disciples. Please continue talking about Cui Sheng," she said.

Gou Jiao said seriously: "The immortals still care about it. After all, there are female immortals who want to choose a good husband, and old immortals who want to choose a virtuous official, and they both require good character and good looks.

Take Cui Sheng for example, he is as independent as a solitary pine tree and as majestic as a jade mountain about to collapse.

A female fairy who lived in a small cave asked him if he was willing to stay with her and enjoy eternal happiness.

Cui Sheng agreed and married the immortal.

The immortal took out a green box, which contained two elixirs, and the two men took one each.

The immortals are even more ethereal.

Cui Sheng's internal organs were clear and his skin was like the skin shed by a snake. The skin fell off his body and became as delicate as a baby's.

Alas, it was a pity that Cui Sheng had no heart for Taoism and was unwilling to recite the immortal scriptures given to him by the immortal. After living there for a while, he became quite impatient and wanted to go back to his hometown to visit his parents.

The immortal advised him that immortals and mortals have different paths, and since he has entered the immortal palace, he should not be attached to the mortal world.

Cui Sheng refused to listen and insisted on going home.

The immortal wept in grief and quietly told Cui Sheng a secret - she would hide an elixir in a broken wine jar under the big mulberry tree behind their old house of the Cui family.

If Cui Sheng still wants to return to Xiaoyoudongtian, he must quietly take out the broken jar and eat whatever is in it immediately without any delay, otherwise there will be a disaster. "

At this point, Gou Jiao's face showed a variety of emotions, including regret, disappointment, and the wish to replace him.

"Little Taoist priest, you are good at fortune-telling. So tell me, what happened to Cui Sheng in the end?"

Xiao Yu said, "It is said that one year on earth is equal to one day in heaven. Could it be that after Cui Sheng returned to his hometown, he found that a hundred years had passed, his parents had long since passed away, everything in his hometown had changed, and none of the people he missed were still alive?"

Gou Jiao nodded slightly and said, "It's not difficult for you to guess this result, young Taoist priest. Tell me, what happened to Cui Sheng later?"

"He didn't take the elixir." Xiaoyu said.

Gou Jiao sighed and said, "Cui Sheng took out the jar and saw a rotten toad inside. He was almost vomiting from the smell and threw the jar away.

As soon as the clay pot smashed with a "bang", a dirty beggar jumped out from the side, shouting "Fate, fate, I've finally waited for this". He pounced over, picked up the dead toad and stuffed it into his mouth.

After swallowing the dead toad, fairy light gushed out of the beggar's seven orifices and he turned into a handsome and tall fairy. He flew up to the sky in broad daylight, stepping on auspicious clouds.

Cui Sheng finally realized that the dead toad was the elixir in disguise.

But by then the matter was done, and no matter how much he regretted it, it was useless.

Cui Sheng lived in the old house of the Cui family, but soon he ran out of money again and came to work as a maid in my house again.

I was twelve years old at that time, and he took me to see the well.

After the well collapsed, it was not completely filled up. Later, when it rained, water accumulated in it and formed a pool about ten feet deep.

After telling me his story, he asked me to give him the land and promised to reward him with a huge sum of money after returning to the fairyland.

I said I didn’t want a ton of money, I just asked him to save me after he got what he wanted.

He happily agreed and promised that when he returned to the fairy palace and saw his fairy wife, he would get a pill to reward me.

I was also very happy to hear that, and was eager to dig holes with him.

He declined my help and insisted on doing the same thing as he did in the past, emptying the pond of mud and water by himself and digging the well by himself.

At that time I would run over to watch him every day, squatting by the well to watch him dig, and I would also give him wine, meat, melons and fruits.

After nine days of digging, the well reached a depth of more than ten feet, but then it collapsed again.

I heard him screaming, and then he died down.

Later, Zhang Bo invited seven or eight servants to dig up the soil, and they found Cui Sheng's body.

Alas, he was ultimately unable to fulfill his wish and return to the Immortal Palace."

Even Xiaoyu was still thinking about Cui Sheng's story for a long time.

"Did you see Cui Sheng later?" she asked.

Gou Jiao asked in surprise, "Didn't you hear clearly? Cui Sheng is dead, and I paid for the burial of his body, which was buried on the hillside next to the well."

"Alas, you are also an old hand in seeking immortals and visiting the way, don't you know that after death, the souls of the dead still exist?
You helped him build his tomb and burned paper money, right? Didn't he come to you in your dream to say goodbye to you?" Xiao Yu asked.

Gou Jiao said: "I really burned a lot of paper money for him, but I didn't have a dream."

(End of this chapter)