Hearing this,
Xie Lian's footsteps paused slightly.
In the end, he didn't look back. He waved his hand and continued on his way.
Returning to Xian Le Imperial City, Xie Lian first went to the palace.
He didn't know why he wanted to go. It wasn't to see his parents. It wasn't just because he couldn't show his spirit in front of mortals.
More importantly,
The older he was,
The longer he was away from home, the more he didn't know how to talk to his parents.
On this point,
Was probably the same for all children in the world. Thus, he hid his figure.
He wandered around the Imperial Palace, which he was extremely familiar with.
He didn't see the king anywhere else. Finally, he came to the Phoenix Perching Palace.
Only then did he see his father and mother.
The two of them dismissed the palace servants and were talking. The empress sat by the couch.
In her hand, she was fiddling with a golden mask. It was the one Xie Lian wore during the Heaven Traveling Ceremony three years ago. The face and facial features of this golden mask were carefully carved according to Xie Lian's face.
Thus, when Xie Lian wore it, it was very close to his face.
However, when he saw it in someone else's hands, it was a bit frightening. The king said, "Don't play with that.
Quickly put it down and massage my head. "
Although the King and Empress made the rules in front of others, Xie Lian had seen it most clearly since he was young. His parents were just a normal couple who chattered away when they were alive. As expected, the empress put down the mask and sat down to help the king rub his temples. Suddenly, she brushed his hair and said, "Your hair has turned white again."
Xie Lian looked closely. Sure enough, his father's temples were slightly white. For no reason, he looked a bit older. He thought to himself, "Didn't father just go to Huang Ji Temple to pray a while ago? At that time, his hair was still black. How did it suddenly turn white? "
The empress took a bronze mirror and wanted to show it to the king. However, the king said, "I won't look. If I dye it before going to Mount Taicang next time, it will be black. "
Xie Lian finally reacted. "His hair didn't just turn white recently! It had long turned white. It was just that every time he went to see me, it was dyed black. As for me, I listen to the prayers of my believers all day and am tired of running around. I rarely take the initiative to come back to see them, so I didn't notice. "
Thinking about this, he felt extremely ashamed. At this moment, he was very glad that his parents could not see him. As the Empress massaged the king's head, she scolded, "I tell you to rest early every day, but you don't listen to me. You even say that I miss you all day. Look at how ugly you've become. When the Pope sees you, he'll want to ignore you even more. "
The king snorted, "Ever since your son has grown up, his wings have hardened and he no longer cares about me." Although he said that, he couldn't help but sneak a glance at the bronze mirror beside the bed and mumbled, "It's not that ugly, isn't it the same face?"
Xie Lian was startled. He really didn't expect his father to have such a side to him behind his back. He actually said "bad things" about him in a sour tone. He couldn't help but laugh. The Empress held back her laughter and said, "Good, good, good. Your body is bigger than the sky. You should rest early today. "
The King shook his head. "We can't rest. This time, quite a few Yong An people came to the Imperial City. It's fine if you want to come, but you just have to go around making a ruckus and making everyone anxious. How troublesome. "
So it turned out that his father's hair turned white because of the Yong An drought. Xie Lian felt an indescribable pain in his heart. The Empress nodded. "I heard from Rong 'er that he also met a Yong An person today. It was said that he wanted to rob money in the temple. It was so scary."
The King focused and said, "Yes, it's scary. It's fine if it's only a few dozen or a few hundred, but if all of them come, and these people are all wandering in the Imperial City, the consequences will be unimaginable. "
The Empress hesitated for a moment and said, "That might not be the case. If they follow the rules, then so be it. "
The King said, "As the ruler of a country, how can I risk something like 'might not be the case'? Moreover, they definitely can't come over. Raising a few more people isn't as simple as placing a few more chopsticks. It's very complicated. You don't understand, so let's not talk about it. "
The Empress said, "Alright, let's not talk about it. I don't understand what you're talking about. If only my son was still here, at least he could share your worries. "
The King snorted again. "Him? What can he do here? It's already good enough that he doesn't add to my worries. "
When Xie Lian was mentioned, he seemed to be energized and said, "I won't talk about your son anymore. He's already a teenager, but he's raised like a princess. It's useless for him to know, it'll only add to his worries. He should just fly in the sky, it's best if he doesn't know anything and do his own things. He's not the Crown Prince anymore, the world has nothing to do with him. If he wants to fly, let him fly all he wants. "
Xie Lian silently listened to his father scolding him. The Empress smiled and pushed the King, "Now you know that he's a princess. Isn't a princess raised by you since young? Are you still trying to blame me? " She sighed and said, "This child is good at everything, but he doesn't miss home. He was like this when he was learning in Huang Ji Monastery, he would not return for months. Now that he has ascended, he's even more powerful. I can't even see him once in three years. I don't know when I can see him again. "
She started to complain, but the King helped Xie Lian, "What do you know? Imperial Preceptor said that the rules of Heaven Realm are like this, how can you treat him as a mortal? Aren't you dragging him down by calling your son back? "
The Empress hurriedly said, "I'm just saying. I won't make such a request in front of him. " She then muttered to herself, "It's not bad to look at the god statues, they're all over the place."
After looking for a long time, Xie Lian's chest ached. His throat felt like it was stuffed with something, it was extremely uncomfortable. He felt like he couldn't stay any longer. But he couldn't appear. It wasn't that he was afraid of breaking the heavenly rules, but if he appeared, he wouldn't know what to say. As for the matter of Yong An, he couldn't give a good solution at the moment. If he suddenly appeared, it would only make his parents flustered.
He quickly left the palace and went outside. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. He calmed himself down and pulled himself together. Instead of sighing, he formed a hand seal and transformed into a plain clothed Daoist. He ran one round around the imperial city, measuring and recording. After running all over the place for a whole day, he finally got a definite answer.
The water levels of all the rivers and lakes in Xian Le Imperial City were lower than before. When he was at Huang Ji Temple, he had slipped down the mountain several times to play and went boating on the largest river that ran through Xian Le Country — — Le River. At that time, the water level was only slightly lower than the embankment, but now it was several feet lower. Moreover, the residents of the city all said that it had been like this for a long time and not recently. Xie Lian didn't pay attention before, but now that he did, he felt that all the signs were shocking. He originally hoped that Mu Qing's information was wrong, so he personally came to verify it. But now, he had to admit that Mu Qing didn't disappoint him.
After confirming this fact, Xie Lian stood at the riverbank in a daze, deep in thought. From time to time, pedestrians would pass by him, smiling and nodding, or curiously looking at him. Most of them were happily minding their own business. After standing there for an unknown amount of time, the clouds gathered in the sky and it started to drizzle.
The pedestrians on the road all covered their heads and said, "How unlucky! It's raining, let's hurry back! "
"Yeah, so annoying!"
Raindrops dripped down, hitting Xie Lian's face and body. Only then did he react, muttering to himself, "It's raining?"
When the people of the Imperial City saw rain, they couldn't do anything to avoid it. Only God knew how many people on the other side of Xian Le Country were thirsting for this kind of heavy rain. Several people ran past with umbrellas. Seeing Xie Lian still drenched in the rain, they pulled him and urged, "This little Daoist priest, why aren't you running? The rain is getting heavier and heavier! "
Confused, Xie Lian also began to run. Together, they ran to the bottom of a long house. Those people closed their umbrellas and laughed at each other. "Fortunately, we brought an umbrella when we went out to see the clouds. Otherwise, we would have become drenched."
"It hasn't rained for a long time. I'm afraid this rain has been held back for too long. It's getting heavier."
"Aiya, look, it's getting heavier again! It's about to become a rainstorm! "
Raindrops fell to the ground and splashed in all directions. These people's accents were all extremely intimate. This made Xie Lian feel even more deeply that this was the place where he was born and grew up. These were the people he was familiar with.
As they chatted, the rain gradually became lighter. Several people said, "Let's take advantage of the fact that it's getting lighter. Let's hurry and leave!" After saying that, they all opened their umbrellas and left the house. Xie Lian, however, remained standing in the same place. Several people turned their heads to look at him. After discussing a few words, one of them walked over and handed him an old umbrella. Politely, he said, "This little Daoist priest can't go back, right? I see that the rain is still a bit heavy. Why don't you take this umbrella and use it? "
Only then did Xie Lian return to his senses. "Many thanks. What about you? "
In the rain in front of him, several people said, "We still have umbrellas, we can squeeze together. Let's go, let's go!"
Hearing his companion's urging, that person stuffed the umbrella into Xie Lian's hands and ran away. Several people trod the water far away. Xie Lian held onto the umbrella and stood there for a while. Suddenly, he saw an inconspicuous little temple not far in front of him. He opened the umbrella and walked forward in the rain. As he neared the temple, he saw two couplets on the left and right sides of the little temple door. They were written with the words "the body is in the void" and "the heart is in the land of peach blossoms". He finally confirmed that this was a Crown Prince's Palace.
In three years, eight thousand temples were built. Naturally, not all of them could be as extravagant and magnificent as the one on Mount Taicang. Many of them were built by the commoners just to make up the numbers. There was no Merit Box, no temple. There was only a clay statue with a few plates and some snacks and fruits. If someone wanted to come and clean it occasionally, it could be a hall of its own.
Hidden in this inconspicuous corner was such an inconspicuous Crown Prince's Palace. Before he even entered, Xie Lian saw the almost charmingly naive statue of the Crown Prince. Garish clothes, a big and white face, a big silly smile. It was like a big baby. If he wasn't so preoccupied, he would definitely have laughed out loud.
In these three years, Xie Lian had seen at least three thousand Crown Prince statues. However, he had never seen a Crown Prince statue that looked exactly like him. The one that looked the most like him was only about seventy percent. The rest were either too ugly or too beautiful. Most of the other Heavenly Officials' statues were too ugly. His was the exact opposite. Some were so beautiful that they were deformed, so beautiful that he himself felt embarrassed. He originally didn't look at the clay statue carefully. He only glanced at it. Who knew that in this glance, he would catch a glimpse of snow white. Thus, he glanced back.
In the left hand of this crude clay statue of the Crown Prince, there was a bouquet of snow white flowers.
The petals were pure white and had a bit of sparkling dew on them. They were extremely delicate and a faint fragrance floated in the air. It was extremely cute. The Xian Le Crown Prince statue's standard posture was' one hand holding a sword, the other holding a flower '. However, the flowers in the left hand were obviously exquisite gold flowers, gemstone flowers, and jade flowers. This was the first time Xie Lian saw a statue of the Crown Prince holding a real flower in its hand. He couldn't help but move closer.
Upon closer inspection, he discovered that the left hand of this clay statue of the Crown Prince was originally holding a clay flower. However, he didn't know if the craftsmanship of the statue master was bad and the flower branch fell off, or if it was plucked by someone as a prank. Today, there was only a small hole left in the left hand. That bunch of small white flowers happened to be inserted into this small hole. If someone had purposely plucked it to fill the hole in the left hand of this clay statue, then that person was truly thoughtful.
Just as he thought of this, Xie Lian heard the sound of hurried footsteps. He didn't turn his head. First, he hid his body and lightly swept onto the altar with the umbrella. Only then did he turn around and look down. Outside the temple, in the heavy rain, a young man rushed in.
This young man was only twelve or thirteen years old. His entire body was soaked and he wore dirty old clothes. His face was covered in dirty bandages. His right hand was tightly wrapped around his left fist, as if he was protecting something. After rushing into the temple, he slowly opened his hands.