Beyond the Divine States Chapter 226: : The three-year period is up

When he was four years old, Ning Changjiu was crowded in a dilapidated yard, surrounded by children in tattered clothes like him.

The yard is surrounded by several soil embryo houses, dim and damp, with numbers engraved on the uneven walls. The dark door does not let in light, like a coffin standing upright.

The light falling in front of me is like winter, only brightness, not the slightest warmth.

A man with his hair combed back and a smiling man stood in front of them, talking to an old woman with a wrinkled orange peel. The man looked very strong and strong. Although his figure was not exaggerated, every muscle under his bare arm looked vigorous and powerful. His hands were empty, but it always made people feel that he had a heavy knife on his back.

Ning Changjiu doesn't remember this memory. This is the scene he saw from the Tribulation of the Heart Demon.

Then he heard someone calling his name "nine" because his house number is nine, and each house has many children. The children's name is the homophony of the number used. He was lucky to have a name that seemed to have a good meaning-Jiu.

He walked past the crowd without knowing it.

The man grabbed his hand, and the old woman seemed to have received a lot of money, and the smiling face was like a crumpled piece of straw paper.

"What's your name?" The man stopped at a fork in the street and asked him.

"Jiu. Zhang Jiu." Ning Changjiu replied in a low voice. All the children here have the surname Zhang.

This fork road has two opposite directions, each leads to the north and south, the same gloomy cold, Ning Changjiu is very afraid of the fork road, because the fork road symbolizes the unknown choice, which will bring him a sense of panic, especially this kind of The road to the end.

He was nervous, so he held his hands tighter.

As we approached the intersection, the man greeted a young man who appeared suddenly, and then ran into an elderly man at the intersection. They didn’t know what they said, but in the end they chose the road to the north. The road was very cold. , He was trembling with the cold, and the old trees on the roadside looked like old people's faces. When he concentrated, he could still hear the crow calling, but he could not find the crow.

This is a scene that Ning Changjiu's fragmented memories can piece together.

……

The deserted town was going away behind him, and the surrounding stones were like dragon teeth. At a certain moment, he suddenly felt like a ghost, and this man was his soul-crosser.

After many days and nights, Ning Changjiu came to the foot of a big mountain.

The man led him up the mountain, and when he went up the mountain he told himself many things.

"Don't go to the deepest hall, that is where the master retreats."

"Don't make the master sister angry."

"Don't watch your three brothers paint before you are nine years old."

"Senior Sister Si is not talkative, but she speaks very well. Senior Sister Five is the best-tempered."

"Your sixth brother...you shouldn't have any contacts."

"..."

"What about my master?" Ning Changjiu suddenly gathered up his courage and asked, raising his head.

Second Brother did not answer.

The wind no longer blows on the face.

A woman in a blue robed robe came slowly, and Ning Changjiu felt at first glance that she was like a quiet lake, reflecting the snow and thousands of mountains in the lake.

Second Senior Brother told her that this is Senior Sister.

When we first met, the elder sister rewarded him with a chestnut, and he covered his head, wondering where he angered the elder sister.

The second brother followed behind the second brother, and they walked past several stele pavilions together, crossed a peaceful village surrounded by a large river, and came to the Taoist temple at the end of the mountain road. The Taoist temple followed The steep mountains are built on cliffs and cliffs, like soaring in the clouds.

There are many clouds and fog in the mountains.

They all flow down from the top of the mountain.

The clouds and fog on the top of the mountain are thick and you can't see the end at a glance, only the sky is clear when the moon rises.

"Master doesn't like your name." The master sister suddenly said: "From now on, this is your new name."

She handed over a wooden sign.

"Ning Changjiu"

He didn't know how to read, but he pronounced these three words.

……

Practicing swords, cultivating Taoism, learning painting, giving up halfway...

He tried to remember everything he could think of. .

Many memories disappeared with the appearance of the master sister, revealing the original appearance.

A night buried deep in memory, a ghost appeared.

"At that time, the elder sister asked the little Taoist priest to go to the Lotus Jingge and told him to tell him a story." After a long silence, Ning Changjiu decided to tell the story.

Lianhua Jingge is the book pavilion of Taoism.

Although it is a book court, no one has ever read a book.

There are countless books in the pavilion. In the most central place, there is a nearly magnificent lotus flower composed of tens of thousands of petals. The master sister told him that every petal is a book.

She took off the three petals clustered at the top.

"The three stories I told you, they happened in different eras, three thousand years ago, five hundred years ago, and now. It's called..." The master sister said quietly the four Words: "The Hunting Country Project."

The Hunting Country Project.

Ning Changjiu didn't know what it meant, only felt that he had touched the magnificent bones that run through the entire world.

"Why tell me such a story." Ning Changjiu asked.

The answer of the master sister is very strange: "Because you are still young, I tell you now that you will not remember when you grow up."

Later, he really didn't remember the specific content of the story. Just remember the words "hunting country plan" and know that this is what is happening right now.

The hunting country? What country are you hunting?

This answer looks incredible nowadays but it goes without saying.

The memory was deep, but it was nothing in the long years of monasticism. Afterwards, the monastery went eastward like gurgling water, first into the creek, then into the river, then into the river, rushing into the sea, everything happened like that natural.

Now I recall, the five brothers who were the most easy-going were the strangest people in the view.

The other elder brothers and sisters often go down to fight monsters. They are not in the mountains. After they have learned something, they also hunted down the mountain several times. When he saw those fierce gods thousands of times bigger than himself, his hands trembled. He had to be unable to hold the sword, but after several times, he found that they were like paper lanterns under the hands of the brothers and sisters. So when he hit the demon, he was usually responsible for clearing the roads, knocking open the cave, and then asking the brothers and sisters to clean up the caves. The most ferocious monster.

But if you think about it carefully, it seems that Brother Five has never been down the mountain.

He has been studying a large volume of books on the mountain, and the books are neatly divided into volumes, and then he writes books that are hardly lost to the original thickness of the file. This is what the fifth brother has been doing. I don't know how many years I have been doing, but I am fascinated by it but I don't feel bored.

Ning Changjiu's life is quite ordinary. He occasionally sneaks into the depths of the Taoist temple and stares at the closed door, imagining that the door suddenly opens and the master comes out of it.

Although Ning Changjiu has never seen Master, she knows that she is a very beautiful woman, because the elder sister and the fourth elder sister are beautiful, but when they talk about the master, they will show a look of fascination more or less.

The most important thing for practitioners is to practice, and most of the time they are also practicing.

But Ning Changjiu doesn't have many memories of his path of cultivation.

Because that road is too smooth.

Until he was sixteen, his life had some waves. The marriage book flew into his palm like a fire bird, he was slightly afraid, and after careful consideration, he chose to refuse.

After that, the time of several seniors staying in the meditation center also became less and less.

Six brothers are also becoming more withdrawn.

At this time, Changjiu Ning already knew that Brother Six was not a human, but a demon. But he has never seen the body of Senior Brother Six.

Time is like water, more than ten years in a blink of an eye.

In the year before the ascension, Senior Brother Five gave him a book and asked him to study it completely in one year.

This is a certain book written by Brother Five.

Except for the elder sister and the second elder brother, everyone else received a book written by the fifth elder brother. These books are not very thick, but the content is very subtle. Every one analyzed is for the practitioners of this world. Familiar things, but the deeper you go, the more it seems that you have opened the door to a new world.

Afterwards, there is ascension.

……

"The little Taoist had a smooth life, but encountered the biggest setback when he ascended...This setback directly pointed to death." Ning Changjiu spoke slowly.

The sun is sinking to the west.

The story has also come to the end.

"Master walked out of the audience, burning fireflies as stars, and moonlight as swords. The little Taoist's chest was pierced by a sword. He looked at Master's face, and then fell into the endless valley." Ning Changjiu said: "He didn't die immediately after falling to the bottom of the valley. Instead, he was in a desolate prison that was unimaginable in the world. The prison was gray and he was alone. He was nailed there with a sword, waiting for death... …"

"At that time, he was extremely lonely, with no one living in sight, his body was pierced by a sword, and he couldn't move, occasionally talking to himself but he couldn't even hear him." Ning Changjiu said, laughing at himself. Laughed.

Lu Jiajia listened carefully.

Ning Changjiu looked at her, his smile faded in the wind.

"This is the whole story, isn't it boring?" Ning Changjiu asked.

Lu Jiajia looked at her, pondered for a long time, and asked: "Is this your story?"

Ning Changjiu has a long look.

"Yes." He said softly.

Lu Jiajia asked: "When is the story?"

Ning Changjiu replied: "It should have happened...now."

"Now?" Lu Jiajia hadn't fully recovered from the shock, and there was another layer of doubt in his heart.

Ning Changjiu nodded gently: "In the imperial city, I am back to my sixteen years old."

The sun sinks into the valley, and the world has no light.

……

The story of the imperial city, Lu Jiajia, knows it.

But she never thought about these twists and turns.

"Zhao Xianger... is your fiancée?" Lu Jiajia asked.

Ning Changjiu nodded and said: "Yes."

Lu Jiajia laughed and said, "You are really a match made in heaven."

"A match made in heaven..." Ning Changjiu looked at the deep blue sky, chewing on these four words. "The previous life may be a match made in heaven, but this life is not."

Lu Jia married: "Your master is so powerful, everything in the imperial city may be her arrangement."

Ning Changjiu recalled the words of the master sister: "The fate is too coincidental, it looks like fate."

"Huh?" Lu Jiajia was puzzled.

Ning Changjiu closed his eyes and said, "I don't know. This is the first time I really told people these stories. I thought it would be a lot easier after I told them, but it didn't happen at all."

Lu Jia married her hands to support the rock by the edge of the cliff, put her embroidered shoes aside, her legs retracted and curled up.

She seemed calm, but in fact, she was filled with unspeakable emotions. Even if she was mentally prepared before listening to this story, she never thought that there would be such an unthinkable thing in the world.

"I would rather you continue to tell me those fables." Lu Jiajia smiled sadly.

Ning Changjiu sighed: "I also hope these are fake."

Lu Jia married: "That is to say, in the original long time, we were just strangers who had never known each other, maybe... I was already dead in the first battle of Jiuying, let alone the current one. It’s a story."

Ning Changjiu didn't know how to answer.

Lu Jiajia looked at him and said seriously: "Time can be controlled with authority, but how can it go back twelve years? Even if it goes back twelve years, it should be back to your sixteen years old... you At the age of sixteen, this shouldn’t be the case."

Ning Changjiu hummed, and he thought about this question for a long time.

"This may be one of the possibilities of time. It is not only time that changes, but also destiny." Ning Chang long thought of the headless **** who was killed. At this moment, he was almost certain that the headless **** had great authority. Part of it was taken away by the master, but the death of the headless **** was 700 years ago. Did she think about looking back at that time? But Sister Sister clearly said that Master only made a plan to retreat in time three months ago as a remedy.

All kinds of doubts came into my mind.

"Maybe you and Zhao Xianger are too close to each other, so you have a chance to come again, and I shouldn't have come." Lu Jiajia half-joked.

Ning Changjiu pretended to be stern: "I'm not welcome any more thinking about it."

"When have you been polite with me?" Lu Jiajia smiled faintly, looked at him, and said: "You are actually thirty years old this year."

Ning Changjiu nodded.

Lu Jia married: "It turns out that you are four years older than me... The Taoism and swordsmanship you taught me should be the memory of the previous life, right?"

Ning Changjiu said: "Yes, those are all taught me by senior brothers and sisters."

Lu Jiajia lowered his head and said: "Then you still don't want to grow up. Such a young boy looks very beautiful."

Ning Changjiu laughed and said, "So you like this?"

Lu Jiajia blinked: "Because Master is such a master."

Ning Changjiu gently hugged her.

The cold autumn wind blew, Ning Changjiu's hand reached between her hair and plucked a yellow leaf for her.

"After ten years, I will definitely die." Ning Changjiu said this thing calmly: "Life may be possible again, but only this time."

Lu Jiajia looked slightly dazed: "How can there be any death in the world? Unless the world has ten years to come to an end."

He knows that ten years will never come to an end, because he has seen the future in the cross section of time.

Ning Changjiu said: "Maybe only Master knows the answer."

Lu Jia married: "Then you are going to find her?"

Ning Changjiu said: "I haven't thought about it yet."

"Have you thought about it for so long?"

"Wake up for ten years and dream for ten years. If these three months can be extended into ten years, I am willing."

Lu Jiajia was silent for a long time, and suddenly said: "When you entered the peak, Master Yazhu once asked you a question, and then she told me your answer."

"What's the problem?" Ning Changjiu asked.

"She asked you why you practiced. You said it was to explain the world." Lu Jiajia asked: "Do you still think so now?"

Ning Changjiu said: "Yes."

Lu Jiajia said earnestly: "After that, I will accompany you to see the world, from Nanzhou to Northland, leaving some of our marks in this world, as the book says, ten years and ten years. Heart."

Ning Changjiu pursed his lips and said nothing.

Lu Jia married: "Are you afraid?"

"Well, ten years is too short." Ning Changjiu sighed: "How can I not be afraid of seeing an ending once?"

Lu Jiajia shook his head, his eyes gradually brightened: "That is the ending of the little Taoist in the story, not your ending. Now you are a swordsman, my master and husband, Xiaoling’s brother, and Ms. Zhao’s fiance. , It’s not just the Taoist priest in the view."

Ning Changjiu looked at the dead red leaf in his hand and the dead lines on it, holding him in his palm and gently crushing it.

"You are right, that is not my story." Ning Changjiu put his hands on her shoulders and looked at her eyes seriously: "Now is my life."

……

……

In the following days, Lu Jiajia and Ning Changjiu went down the mountain and visited many small countries in Nanzhou.

They didn't use their spiritual power, but like ordinary knights in white clothes, they wrestled with swords, drank on horses, and watched the surrounding scenery. On the crowded streets, the two people often win big acclaim.

They have stayed in many inns and have seen many customs in Nanzhou. From the tumult of human voices to the dead of night.

Sunrise and sunset.

This is their ten days.

"Sometimes I always feel that ten days and ten years are no different." In an inn in Baicheng, Lu Jiajia put his hands on the window, looking at the scenery outside the city, his body slightly bent. "Time is always fast when I think back, just like when we jumped off the cliff and down the mountain ten days ago, as if it was still yesterday."

Ning Changjiu said helplessly: "This is an unsolvable problem, don't think too much about it."

Lu Jiajia smiled and said: "Tomorrow I will personally give my husband to other sisters, how can I not think about it?"

Ning Changjiu asked: "Will you come to see then?"

Lu Jiajia asked rhetorically: "Watching you fight together, will you feel more uncomfortable afterwards?"

"It's uncomfortable..." Ning Changjiu praised: "Tui'er's vocabulary is really getting more refined."

This is the eve of the three-year agreement. Ning Changjiu is surprisingly calm. The past is like the wind outside the window. It arrives accurately in the late autumn, and then blows away the last aftertaste of autumn. Those flowers that are not withering are still constructing a false prosperity, and Winter is like a lightning falling vertically, slicing ice and snow and killing in front of them.

He stood beside Lu Jiajia, looking towards the northwest. That is where the capital of Zhao State is located.

Tomorrow, the State of Zhao will hold a memorial ceremony, when all the people in the city will be clothed in plain clothes.

At this moment, in the depths of Zhao's palace, two maids brought a stone box with water in it and an ancient sword in the water.

Zhao Xianger hasn't faded away from her black dragon robe. At this moment, she is sitting in a wooden chair, and the nobleness and majesty between her brows has not been washed away by the cool night.

The body of the sword is pure black, the blade is silvery white, and the dividing line between black and white is neat and clear, just like the pupil of a girl.

This is the fairy sword that the fairy used to kill the old fox.

She picked up the sword from the water.

The unruly fairy sword in her hands is meekly like a child.

Three years have passed.

In the faint candlelight, she looked at the fairy sword carefully, and then sank it back into the water. In the original plan, in the three-year agreement with Ning Changjiu, no matter whether she wins or loses, she will give him this sword as compensation.

Because no matter whether she wins or loses, she can't stay.

A few days ago, Jiuyu received a letter from the sky, and the letter was written by her mother. She had no doubt about the fact that the mother was alive, but was a little confused about the content of the letter.

"After seven days, Zhao Rang will be restored, return to the country, and the big exam will be coming soon."

Zhao Xianger burned this letter.

She could have regained Zhao Guoguo long ago, but she was always waiting for someone. Although he would not come, she just wanted to complete the agreement so that she would not leave the world with regrets when she left the world.

Zhao Xianger closed the stone box.

She looked at the wall subconsciously. Mounted on the wall is a letter that begins with "Hello, Miss Zhao, after thinking about it, I have been awake for a long time, and I feel deeply guilty about the girl, so I write this letter, and I hope that your greed may forgive your Highness." It begins with "I hope. People are long, and I hope your Highness will be long." End.

That was the letter he wrote to himself in the last days of Linhe City.

The content of the letter is very hateful, and every time she reads it, it makes her a little annoyed.

Zhao Xianger still didn't know what her feelings for him really were. It was only the night of the three-year appointment that she could not sleep.

So in Zhao Xianger's bedroom, the lonely sound of the piano came out.

Winter has not yet arrived, but the sound of the piano is like blizzards.

After the long night, the State of Zhao will usher in a state sacrifice. The origin of the state sacrifice is to celebrate the restoration of the State of Zhao and pay homage to the soldiers who died, but everyone who participated in the birthday banquet three years ago knows that this day It was the day agreed upon by His Highness and Ning Changjiu.

Zhao Xianger sat by the window, watching the sky turn white a little, watching the sun rise.

She walked into the darkness where the curtain of beads fell, and the black dragon robe fell to the ground like a waterfall. The darkness in the temple seemed to be wrapped in the most beautiful jade in the world. Soon, the jade was covered in a thin white garment. .

When she walked into the little general's mansion under an umbrella, she wore such a plain white dress. At that time, there was a small yellow flower on her right arm.

Zhao Xiang'er rolled out, without a ponytail, with a long white silk on her forehead.

She lifted the red umbrella and walked out of the window where the fallen leaves were piled up.

In the White City, there was also someone who stayed up all night. He was also holding a new forged sword when the fish belly appeared in the sky, tucked the quilt for the beautiful woman still in his dream, and left the door. After closing the door, Lu Jiajia opened his eyes and slowly got up, touching the remaining warmth by the pillow, with a calm expression.

This is the day of the national sacrifice.

If no one reminded me, I thought it was winter coming early.

The mourning clothes of thousands of families are like snow.

Zhao Xianger opened the door of the deep palace compound and walked out holding the old red umbrella.

The palace is very quiet, no one dared to disturb your Highness today.

She was a little taller. When she walked, the ink hair that had fallen over her hips swayed slightly. Today's weather is a bit gloomy, but in the dim light, her long hair is even more shiny.

She walked towards Jiulingtai.

The Nine Spirits on the Nine Spirits Platform have disappeared.

She looked at the whole country of Zhao.

This is the nineteen years she has experienced.

"It's really unbelievable." Zhao Xianger smiled, and the wind blew the white silk into the thin white skirt, taking away the last temperature on her skin.

She raised her hand suddenly.

A sword qi rushed away. On the side of the sword qi, there were countless fires spreading out in an arc shape, with fireworks rolling on the arc edge.

Nine Spirit Tower is like a beacon tower.

Soon, this fire will be seen by Baicheng, and Baicheng will pull down all the flags of the Kingdom of Xuan and replace it with the flag of the State of Zhao.

At that time, all the soil in the country of Zhao was recovered. She will make up for the last lack of fate, and then take the fire bird to leave the country of Zhao and go to the Western country where the mother is located.

This is something she could have done a long time ago, just to wait for this three-year agreement, she never took back Baicheng, leaving it as the last blank.

The sword fire broke through the sky, like a firework exploding.

But for some reason, after a long time, the fireworks were gone, but there was still no movement in Baicheng.

She sensed something and turned around silently.

Under the Nine Spirits stage, a young man in white climbed up the steps step by step and walked towards him.

"Ms. Xianger, the three-year period has come. Ning Changjiu has come to attend the appointment."

The young man in white bowed earnestly and looked at her quietly.

In the autumn wind, the two silently looked at each other.

Three years apart.

She seems to have changed a lot, and it seems that nothing has changed.