Lila Sage's mind was still a bit messed up, thinking about the memories she had just remembered, and she said yes in a distracted manner.
Not being able to think of a solution for a while, she could only suppress her doubts for the time being, and first accompany Jin Sorin to find the Ten Thousand Grass Flowers he wanted before saying anything else.
Most of the people of Qingzhou went up the mountain in order to pray and worship at the Xuanmiao Guan halfway up the mountain, and the further they walked towards the top, the fewer people there were.
As she climbed to the top of the mountain, Lila Sage had the feeling that the dark clouds had finally lifted completely.
The top of the mountain was wide.
The old trees were lush and green.
It wasn't easy to find a Wan Cao Hua from the top of the mountain, and she felt that she had a long way to go.
It took them an hour or so to climb up. It was still early in the day, and they couldn't find the Flower of Ten Thousand Grasses until nighttime, so Lila Sage found a place to sit down.
Jin Sorin does not know . Hetiredness as if, breathing evenly, also does not sit down to rest for a moment, stood in front of the cliffs at the top of the mountain intertwined.
There were no trees or flowers along the cliffs, and the wind blew in all directions.
He looked down at the bottom of the cliff, which was so deep that he could not see the bottom.
A large eagle flew over the sky and it soared freely into infinity.
Lila Sage rubs her ankle and hears the sound the great eagle makes and looks over, her eyes falling first to the great eagle in the air and then to Jin Sorin.
He stood in front of the cliff, the wind ruffling the corners of his coat, like he was blending into the mountains, and as if he could leap and disappear into the world in the next instant.
She stood up and walked to the edge of the cliff as well, standing side by side with Jin Sorin.
“You ......”
Lila Sage showed hesitation.
Jin Sorin then turned his face sideways to look at her at the sound of his voice, “What do you wish to ask.”
“It may be presumptuous, but may I ask you.” Lila Sage still couldn't resist the urge to verify if the memories in her head were real, “What was your mother's name?”
The wind whistled in the mountains, piercing through her ears, and Lila Sage held her breath, afraid she wouldn't be able to hear Jin Sorin's answer later.
He didn't answer right away.
She was still waiting.
“I'm not sure.” He answered, “It could be Kishu, because I've only ever heard one person call her Ashu, and I take her last name.”
Sure enough it was just as she remembered. Lila Sage couldn't figure out why she had memories of these people but didn't act rashly Suddenly, she wanted to figure everything out.
The silver jewelry in Jin Sorin's hair refracted in the strong sunlight.
“Why are you asking this all of a sudden?”
He asked her questions, too.
Lila Sage twisted the hem of her coat, not wanting to lie, “I'm trying to figure something out, but I don't really want to talk about it right now, so when I figure it out later, I'll tell you, is that okay?”
The teenager's shoulders were broad and long, standing in front of her at that moment, his figure wrapping around her completely, as if he had taken her into himself.
Jin Sorin bent over, and Lila Sage looked up.
Eyes met in mid-air.
He gently tilted his head sideways and bent his eyes, “Of course.”
Lila Sage's tense body relaxes and takes Jin Sorin's hand, taking a few steps back toward the back of the cliff so he can sit down and rest as well.
Jin Sorin's insects and snakes were as excited to be on the mountain of Deng Yun Mountain as if they had returned to their old home in the Lonely Mountain, jumping up and down as they crawled across the mountainous terrain, and all of them were to poisonous Gu, which made her cringe to see.
But they would not harm her.
Their master was Jin Sorin.
They rarely acted without Jin Sorin's orders, but there were always exceptions.
The black snake was one of those exceptions, and with a twitch of its tail, it crawled over to Lila Sage, who was sitting on the ground, and reached out to lick her hand, which was hanging at her side.
This was not a sign of wanting to eat Lila Sage, much less biting her. The Gu and its owner shared a mutual understanding, and the black snake knew that the owner treated her a little differently and wanted to please this person as well.
And the black snake's way of showing favor was to lick the person.
Lila Sage, who had her hand licked by the snake's letter, sprang up violently like a spring.
The black snake, startled by Lila Sage, flicked its tail, turned its head and crawled away, but Jin Sorin grabbed the snake's tail; you can't grab a snake by the tail, but he did, and the black snake didn't dare to put up a fight.
The red snake lazily sunbathing in the sun twisted its flat head to look at them, although it also wanted to get close to Lila Sage, but it would not lick each other.
The red snake was acting a bit condescending.
Well, actually the main reason is that its snake venom is poisonous and will ulcerate the skin if it gets wet.
The black snake was startled by Lila Sage, and Lila Sage was startled by it, sitting on the ground and being licked by the snake, and she's still so afraid of snakes. It's a wonder she didn't react well.
Jin Sorin carries the black snake to the edge of the cliff and lets go of it to throw it off.
Lila Sage has a brain fart and follows her.
What's even more incredible is that she caught the black snake with her hands, which was about to fall down. The black snake curled up into a ball and stayed obediently in her small palm, timidly peeping at Jin Sorin.
The snake's body was cold, and Lila Sage's entire scalp tingled.
Wanting to let go, she feared the black snake would die.
The only thing she could do was hold it rigidly.
Jin Sorin glanced at the black snake staying in Lila Sage's palm, “You are not afraid of the snake anymore?”
Lila Sage spoke her heart out, “Still afraid, but I don't want it to die, it's not hurting me.” In a way, these insects and snakes also made her mentally strengthened.
Hearing that, he chuckled, “You seem to be able to accept them somewhat after all.”
Jin Sorin extended his hand towards the black snake.
The black snake quickly left Lila Sage's palm and crawled back to him, not far from where the red snake crawled over and down his boot to his shoulder.
“Would you like to touch it?” Jin Sorin said, referring to the “much neglected” Red Snake.
Lila Sage tried to refuse.
The red snake seemed to be staring at her.
Lila Sage swallowed her refusal. She moved over to the snake very slowly, and her fingertips landed on the snake's head, lightly stroking it twice as a friendly greeting.
The red snake was stroked comfortably, and also took the initiative to rub its head against Lila Sage's hand, and Jin Sorin took the red snake down and put it back on the ground.
Lila Sage's heart was beating fast.
It was her first time touching a snake like this.
She had never dared to think about it before. Lila Sage felt that she was gradually, step by step, stepping into the world that belonged to Jin Sorin.
A world where the only thing that existed was a world of insects, snakes, and Gu.
The red snake that Lila Sage had stroked crawled away.
It lay back on the rock and continued to bask in the sun, brightly colored and mottled, and to those who know snakes, the Red Snake is undoubtedly an extremely beautiful snake on the outside, but wrapped in poison on the inside.
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Lila Sage looks at the snake from a distance, the coldness of its body still lingering in her palm, reminding her that she had touched Jin Sorin's snake earlier.
Jin Sorin: “How does it feel?”
Lila Sage rubs her fingers, “It doesn't seem as scary as I thought it would.”
“You've had them since you were a child?” Lila Sage was going to have to wait with Jin Sorin all the way to the top of the mountain for darkness, so she simply looked for something to say that wouldn't be so boring, and besides, she really wanted to know.
“The three snakes, Black Snake, Red Snake, and Silver Snake, are the ones I grew up with.”
He bent his knees and sat down, “The other Gu Crafting was made some years ago, dead and alive, I only brought a small portion out with me on this trip down.”
Lila Sage looked at the Gu worms one by one.
Most of the Gu were not pretty.
Some Gu could even be called ugly and hideous. The snake type of compulsion was one that could still be seen by the eyes. She swept her eyes at the purple spider that crawled into the cracks of the stone, and still got goosebumps out of control.
Not goosebumps from disgust though, purely a physical reaction of the body.
Lila Sage just sat at the top of the hill and waited for darkness, surrounded by writhing Gu worms. She didn't look at them, tilting her head in the sky , which was slowly creating a change.
The sun was setting in a golden glow.
The scattered light reflected their faces red.
Jin Sorin was leaning against a rock, one leg bent up and the other naturally straight, his hand resting casually on his supported knee, the hem of his indigo garment hanging on the ground, beautifully illuminated by the setting sun.
He is not afraid of cold, nor is he afraid of heat.
His body temperature was always on the high side, but because of his body's special characteristics compared to normal people, Jin Sorin preferred warmer weather.
As soon as it was dark, Lila Sage hurriedly pulled the flowers and grasses at the top of the mountain to look for Wan Cao Hua, and then saw that Jin Sorin's Gu had also moved out. She froze. Gu also had the role of helping to find things.
Lila Sage took out a candle from her bag and lit it up with a fire cracker.
The candle flame swayed in the wind.
She moved forward.
Jin Sorin, on the other hand, could do without the candle; he had gotten used to walking in the mountains at night a long time ago, and even though every mountain was different, as long as they were mountains, they still had something in common.
Searching, Lila Sage didn't find the Ten Thousand Grass Flowers, but instead came across a man.
That person was the same man they had met at the bottom of the mountain, a Red Leaf Village villager, who was hugging his knees and crouching extremely uneasily under a large tree.
Lila Sage didn't see the man at first, but the man saw her first. He thought they would listen to the admonition not to go up the mountain at night, but he didn't realize that not only did they go up the mountain, but they also walked around fearlessly.
Lila Sage, holding a candle, was a few steps away from him. Her eyes surprised.
“It is you?”
The man nodded fearfully.
His father was sick today, and the man had gone up the mountain to try to gather medicine, so intent on finding a good herb that he had gotten so caught up in picking it that he had forgotten the time, and when he looked up he realized that it was dark and didn't dare move.
Red Leaf Village villagers believe in what Xuan Miao Guan said, but also believe that the so-called mountain god does exist on Mount Deng Yun. He did not want to die because the night was still in the mountains, so afraid to hide under the big tree on the mountain top.
Seeing Lila Sage and Jin Sorin also on the mountain, the man doesn't know whether to be happy or sad.
Joy, having company.
Sadly, the three of them will die together.
The man trusts his intuition that these two look different from the people of Qingzhou who see them as monsters, and without hiding from the other man, he reveals the reason why he would go up the mountain.
After learning the man's reason for going up the mountain, Lila Sage understands. No wonder he stopped them from going up the mountain last night but stayed alone on the mountain tonight, so he forgot the time when he was looking for herbs.
Jin Sorin doesn't care if the man is here or not, and concentrates on finding the Manjusri flower.
The man looks at them.
He struck up a conversation with them at a loss.
“What are you looking for, I have lived at the bottom of Mount Dengyun for over thirty years, perhaps I can help you find what you are looking for.”
Lila Sage knew Jin Sorin's character well, so she said, “No, thank you.”
The man followed them at the same pace, “Are you really not afraid that the mountain gods will punish those who still go up the mountain at night and those who stay there for the night?”
Jin Sorin didn't make a sound as he ran his hand through the dew-beaten flowers and plants.
Lila Sage bent down to distinguish the flowers and plants.
She understood the man's panic, “When did the rumor of the mountain god spread, and also don't you find it strange? How is a man who stays on the mountain for the night any different from the Taoist priests of Xuanmiao Guan?”
“The Mountain God doesn't allow anyone to stay on Mount Dengyun at night, but the Taoist Masters of Xuanmiao Guan are also human beings, so why would they remain unharmed?” Lila Sage had wondered this for a long time.
The man opened and closed his dry, cracked lips.
He said with conviction, “The Taoist Masters of the Xuanmiao Guan are all cultivators and have the favor of the mountain gods.”
Lila Sage's hand paused as she searched for something, “Is that what you all think?”
The man said, “Yes.”
She was still about to speak.
Instead, Jin Sorin spoke, “Do all the people in your village look like you?”
He shook the dew-stained hem of his shirt, as if he hadn't meant to ask, a question that could easily be offensive, but from Jin Sorin's lips, not so offensive.
There was no excuse for being curious about it as an outsider; after all, they were so ridiculously ugly that the men were afraid to look in the mirror for fear of being ugly themselves.
It was true that the villagers of Red Leaf Village all looked like this, and anyway, they couldn't see much better.
But ten years ago was not so.
Ten years ago, the Red Leaf Village villagers were the same as the people of Qingzhou. Although there was beauty and ugliness in their looks, they were not so ugly as to be miserable, whereas nowadays everyone was ugly, and their bodies were still developing towards deformities.
Mentioning this matter, the man couldn't help but cover his unattractive face with his hand.
Qingzhou outbreak plague year. He is still a young man in his early twenties. The village is still handsome Langjun, and Qingzhou a good family of girls set a marriage contract. The road ahead is bright.
Red Leaf Village is located in a remote area. Qingzhou outbreak of plague at the beginning did not affect the red leaf village. Later very suddenly one day spread throughout the red leaf village.
They felt that they could not survive.
It was San Shan Zhen Zhen who came to their rescue.
After surviving the plague, the villagers of Red Leaf Village rejoiced for a long time, and after a month, they realized that their bodies were developing towards deformities.
The changes produced by their bodies were so obvious that it was hard for them not to notice.
It's not that they didn't suspect that it was an adverse reaction left over from that plague, but everyone in Qingzhou was fine. They were the only ones with this condition. It. They were superstitious and suspected that it was a curse.
When the people of Qingzhou disliked them for being bad luck and wanted to drive them out of Qingzhou, it was the Three Good Masters who blocked the gossip and left them behind.
They were grateful.
The Three Good Truths were their rebirth parents.
So when he heard Lila Sage's speech containing questions about the Three Good Masters and the Xuan Miao Guan, the man's heart was a little unhappy, remembering that they were not the people of Qing Zhou who had received favors, and did not take it personally.
After hearing the ins and outs, Jin Sorin was calmly not surprised, “So that's how it is.”
Lila Sage focused on ten years ago.
It seemed like the turning point of everything was ten years ago. It was too much of a coincidence.
The red snake brought in a flower, crawling to Jin Sorin's feet to take credit. The man was busy backing away. He was worried that it was a poisonous snake from the wild mountains. If he was bitten, he would not have the life to go back to see his father.
“Snake!” The man called out.
Jin Sorin stooped down and removed the Manjusri flower from the red snake's mouth, “I raised it.”
The man was stunned, “Yours?”
Having to find two Manzanita flowers to do so, Lila Sage has been searching for almost an hour and a half, and at this point, she also sees a Manzanita flower and reaches over on tiptoe to pick it, which is near the cliff.
Gravel slid under her feet.
“Lila Sage.” Jin Sorin unconsciously pinched the Manjusri flower in his hand, and the smile at the corners of his lips stagnated slightly, like a mask falling off his face.
Lila Sage managed to pick the Manakusa Flower.
She turned around happily, “Look, I found the Manakusa Flower!”
“Here.” Lila Sage walked over to Jin Sorin and slipped the Manzanita Flower into his palm, “You put it away, I'm afraid I'll lose it.”
The two Ten Thousand Grass Flowers lay in his hand.
Jin Sorin's eyebrows moved slightly as he held the Ten Thousand Grass Flowers, unprecedentedly feeling a hint of being out of control. After all, the Gu he used to raise was under his control as much as possible. If he wanted to live, he would live. If he wanted to die, he would die.
The moment Lila Sage plucked the flower from the cliff, Jin Sorin wondered if her life and death seemed less under his control, uncertain.
He blinked, pondering what to do about this lack of control.
“Should we go down now?”
Lila Sage asked.
She wiped the sweat from her cheeks with the hem of her sleeve, her skin flushed a healthy pink from exercise.
The men were not far from them, and by the light of the moon and the candle Lila Sage held, they could see what Jin Sorin was looking for, the Manzanita, a very sinister type of flower, and wondered what they were looking for.
Jin Sorin for the time being could not think of how to deal with this uncontrollable, first put away the ten thousand grass flowers, said to Lila Sage, “Now go down the mountain.”
“May not.” The man stopped them.
Lila Sage knew he meant well, “You're worried the mountain gods will find out and punish us?”
The man nodded his head as if he were pounding garlic.
He rambled on, “People who have gone up the mountain at night over the years have died, I'm really not lying to you, you will die. Why don't we just stay at the top of the mountain until dawn, and then go back down when it's light.”
Jin Sorin smiled and rejected him.
The rejected man dried up.
After finding the Ten Thousand Grass Flowers, Lila Sage didn't intend to still linger on the mountain: “You'll be fine if you come down with us. I'm not going to lie, we were on the mountain last night too, and we're fine.”
The man was surprised, “You guys went up the mountain last night?” He thought they turned back last night and didn't go up the mountain, only to go up again today.
Lila Sage said sincerely, “We didn't lie to you either, we went up the mountain last night.”
The expression does not seem to be false.
The man looked at it and couldn't help but believe it.
“Could it be that you are also people favored by the mountain gods?” The man muttered.
Lila Sage cried and laughed. What do you mean ? Are they also the people favored by the mountain god? There is no mountain god in this Deng Yun Mountain, but she didn't argue with the man about whether the mountain god exists or not. There is no need.
The man looked like he had made up his mind, “Alright, I'll go down the mountain with you.”
Jin Sorin lifted his steps and headed down the mountain.
They returned the same way.
Ten years ago, the man had often gone up the mountain at night, and was familiar with the neighborhood, and wasn't afraid of getting lost; he followed them, always keeping an eye on the movements around them, fearing that there might be an accident.
The moonlight dappled and spilled onto the ground, lengthening their shadows, and every now and then an animal's cry or two came from the depths of the forest.
The sound of silver jewelry was the most crispest.
It spread through the silent, eerie night.
The men were tempted to ask Jin Sorin to remove the silver jewelry from his body and go back down the mountain.
On second thought, this young man was covered from head to toe in silver jewelry, and it would be difficult to remove it all at once. What's more, he wouldn't necessarily listen to his own words, and men are still very self-aware.
Since he made the choice to go down the mountain with them, the man also prepared for the worst, no longer entangled in the silver jewelry, and walked down the mountain with a hard head.
It was not known if the man's eyes were blurred, he saw a silhouette flash by in the distance.
Fixed his eyes on it.
The silhouette disappeared again.
Was he too afraid of an accident and hallucinating? The man stared at the direction where the silhouette had flashed for a while, saw that it didn't reappear, and attributed it to the fact that he had just misread it.
The man was too busy to walk fast enough to catch up with Lila Sage and Jin Sorin in front of him. His legs and feet were of different lengths, and he walked laboriously and slowly.
The young girl slowed down as if she was tired of walking.
The men were able to catch up.
Lila Sage, afraid that he would be embarrassed to follow them, whom she did not know, casually asked the men something about the village of Red Leaves, trying to relax the mood, without always being afraid that she would die on the mountain tonight.
One thing led to another, and before they knew it, they were at the bottom of the mountain. The man's face was pleasantly surprised, though the facial contortions made his expression less flexible.
The man was grateful to them.
There were still a few hours before dawn, and he wanted to invite them into the village to rest their feet.
It had taken a lot of time and effort to come down from the mountain of Deng Yun Mountain, and if they continued to walk back to the Qingzhou Inn, they were afraid that their physical strength would not be able to keep up.
Jin Sorin seemed to be used to walking on mountains, and Lila Sage seemed to have rarely climbed mountains, and after a long time, her breathing was disorganized, so walking further would easily cause some bad effects on her body.
The men were sincerely grateful to them and invited them into the village.
Since the Red Leaf Village became that way, the villagers also changed their temperament greatly, very xenophobic.
Because the people outside didn't treat them well, the Red Leaf Village villagers didn't treat the people outside either, and only had good looks for the Taoist priests of the Xuanmiao Temple.
So they probably wouldn't treat the duo of Lila Sage and Jin Sorin either.
What he wanted was to sneak them into the village.
The man waited nervously for their reply, unlike the Red Leaf villagers, he still wanted to reach out to the outsiders and interact with them deep in his heart.
Lila Sage was a little tempted by the talk, and Jin Sorin gazed at the man for a moment, smiling and saying yes.
The village was just down the hill in the forest.
The villagers didn't live in normal houses, they lived above the trees.
The forest was full of large trees that took several people to encircle, and they dug out a hole in the tree and laid their living things inside.
Hanging ladders hung down from the trees, and when they went up to rest they put them away and put them down again when they wanted to come down. The man takes Lila Sage and Jin Sorin to the “tree house” he has made, new and unused.
The man tells them to rest here and he will take them away in the morning.
The tree house is also close to the Red Leaf Village's hot springs river, where they can go to cleanse themselves, and where the villagers will not be moving around in the late hours of the night.
Lila Sage naturally would not go to bathe in an unfamiliar river alone. She went with Jin Sorin, and successively used the warm river water to briefly scrub her body before returning to the tree house.
They climbed up the ladder of the tree house.
Lila Sage, who had never seen a tree house before, felt new.
After climbing up, she sits on the thick branch of the tree house, her bare feet cleaned, her legs hanging downward, swaying a little, seeing the forest from this angle is an unprecedented experience.
Jin Sorin took hold of Lila Sage's ankle.
She turns her head to look at him.
He looks down at Lila Sage's reddened ankle, rubbing his fingertips over it; it's red from the embroidered shoes rubbing and squeezing her heels and ankles as she's not used to climbing for too long.
Lila Sage's ankle bone was thin, narrow enough for Jin Sorin to hold in one hand, with room to spare, and he gently stroked over her ankle.
“Lila Sage, I realized today that one thing seems to be out of my control.”
The teenager said softly.
Lila Sage was tickled a little by his fingertips.
But the sore ankle was a little more comfortable because Jin Sorin had squeezed it, and she went with his grip, “What's out of your control, and how do you want to deal with it, do you need my help?”
Jin Sorin closed his eyes slightly, thinking.
He always chose to destroy things that were out of his control. After all, it was better to be destroyed in his hands than in the hands of others.
Lila Sage's death was not under his control, then death in his hands was under his control.
Just as Jin Sorin tried to open his eyes, the corner of his lips pressed against a softness with the coolness of the night; Lila Sage had kissed him, and the light scent followed, his eyelids fluttering slightly as he lifted his eyes.
Lila Sage mistook his quiet closing of his eyes as a request for a kiss, as there had been a few times before, when he had done the same, and that was why she had taken the initiative to kiss him.
Seeing the surprise in Jin Sorin's open eyes, she knew instantly that she had gotten the wrong idea.
Lila Sage tried to climb back into the cabin.
Instead, Jin Sorin held the back of her neck.
He lowered his head and met her lips and tongue, grinding over them extremely slowly, licking them repeatedly, the thoughts of a moment ago dissipating, wanting to be closer to her even more, the pleasure seeping into the cracks of his bones.
The wind rustled the leaves next to the tree house, and the silver jewelry clashed.
Up in the tree, the teenager's breath burned and rolled, and his long, slender eyelashes flicked as if they were tidal.
Jin Sorin held five fingers at the back of Lila Sage's fragile, vulnerable neck, but the kiss was deep and deep, and his neck, lowered by the need to kiss someone, was even more fragile, as if he was the one who was really being held in a chokehold.
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