Zhang Chi and the other two walked into the village with the horses. The girl was worried about what tricks they used, so she followed the last with a bow and arrow, keeping on guard against the three of them, and never relaxed for a moment.

The houses in the village are built in rows and are quite regular. Walking to the middle of the village, there is a single courtyard with fences surrounding the fences, and there are many herbs drying in the yard. The girl then walked to the front of the crowd, pushed open the fence and walked into the yard, shouting: "Grandpa Shennong, I'm back from collecting herbs."

"Bing'er, it seems that there are a lot of people coming outside?"

An old voice asked in the room. The girl named Bing'er took off the bamboo basket on her back and placed it on the ground, and said, "Yes, grandpa, come out and see, we caught three robbers."

It seems that this girl is a robber, and Zhang Chi shook her head helplessly.

After hearing what Bing'er said, the door opened and an old man came out. The old man's hair and beard were white, but his expression was bright and his behavior was unpretentious. Zhang Chi felt that this old man was probably more like a fairy man than the Taibai Jinxing in "Journey to the West".

Bing'er ran forward to support her, but the old man shook his hand and said with a smile: "No, I can still walk."

However, Bing'er still helped the old man to the middle of the yard, then pointed at Zhang Chi and the other three and said, "Grandpa, thousands of robbers came from the valley. These three people entered the village to explore the way and were caught by us. Grandpa, what should we do?"

Zhang Chi had no choice but to walk up, give a bow, and explain patiently: "Old man, we are not robbers, but officers and soldiers. I heard that there are bandits in this area, so we are here to catch robbers."

The old man did not answer, but pondered for a long time, constantly looking up and down at Zhang Chi and his white horse. When Zhang Chi was waiting a little impatiently and was about to ask again, the old man suddenly said, "Young master, I have been waiting for you for many years."

This sentence made Zhang Chi stunned, even the villagers around him and the girl named Bing'er were puzzled after hearing this sentence.

"These three people are not bad people, you all have separated." The old man said to the villagers who followed him.

Although the villagers were puzzled, they respected the old man very much. After hearing what the old man said, although they were curious, they all quickly dispersed. Bing'er asked strangely: "Grandpa, you haven't left the valley for more than 20 years, how could you know these three outsiders?"

The old man just smiled and did not answer. He turned to Zhang Chi and said, "Since the young master has been in this remote place, it is better to go into the house and sit down and serve tea."

After saying that, the old man walked back to the room on his own. Although Bing'er was puzzled, he quickly followed and helped the old man into the room. Santong looked at Daoxuan to the right, then looked at Zhang Chi to the left, and asked, "Brother Zhang, will you enter?"

"Since you come, you can rest assured." Although Zhang Chi also felt something strange, the old man didn't seem to be malicious and said, "Go."

After saying that, he walked into the house with great strides.

As soon as he entered the house, he was filled with the smell of Chinese medicine. Zhang Chi looked around and saw that the house was not big, and it was no different from an ordinary farmhouse. It was just that the surroundings were filled with jars and jars filled with Chinese herbal medicines. The old man had already sat on Hu's bed, putting out a tea set, and said, "Since the guest is coming from afar, why not sit over and drink a cup of tea."

This Hu bed was introduced from the northern Hu people, so it is called Hu bed. It is not a sleeping bed, but a kind of seat, similar to a chair. Zhang Chi was happy to sit on it. Sitting in this way is much more comfortable than sitting on a mat. He asked, "What do you call it? If you like to sit in this Hu bed, is it because you come from the north?"

The old man thought for a long time before saying, "I have forgotten my name, but I remember everyone calls me Shennong."

"When people get old, they have a bad memory." The old man sighed.

"Shennong was a sage from ancient times." Although Santong had not read many books, he had heard of Shennong.

"Isn't my grandfather a sage?" Miss Bing'er retorted unhappily when she heard Santong say this: "Although it is said that the sages of Shennong in ancient times have not done anything for us, but all of our village have been saved by our grandfather. If I say, grandfather is even more sages than Shennong in ancient times."

The old man smiled and said lightly: "There are no saints or ordinary people in the world. It is just a name, just to facilitate others to call it."

Zhang Chi admired the old man's mind a little.

The old man poured a cup of tea for Zhang Chi, with a kind expression. Zhang Chi asked him, "Why do people in the village get angry when they hear the word "soldiers"?"

"Young Master, Mr. Rong will tell you slowly." The old man said slowly: "That was many years ago, when Huan Wen was expeditioning the Northern Expedition, the people in this village originally fled from the northern Hu people."

Zhang Chi, a man from Huan Wen, was Huan Xuan's father, a famous general in the Northern Expedition.

The old man pointed at Bing'er: "Just say Bing'er, her parents were refugees from the north, and they could not bear the oppression of the Hu people, so they fled from the north to Jiangnan. Bing'er was born on the banks of the Luoshui River on the way to escape, so she was named Cheng Luobing. Her mother held her in her cradle and escaped the Yangtze River with the refugees and escaped the hunt by the Hu people. But she never expected that these people finally returned to their hometowns, but were robbed and massacred by thieves, and Bing'er's parents were both killed."

People were born in chaotic times, and their lives were as low as grass. Zhang Chi couldn't help but feel sad after hearing the old man's story. Instead, Cheng Luobing, who was standing behind the old man, was still in her infancy at the time, and because she had been in trouble for many years, she no longer felt sad. When listening to this story, she was still affectionate and calm.

"Why do you hate officers and soldiers?" Zhang Chi asked.

"Do you know who are those thieves who plundered and slaughtered refugees?" the old man asked.

Zhang Chi shook his head. The old man said, "They are the Jin army of the Huan family."

"How could the soldiers of the court rob the people?" Zhang Chi asked in surprise.

"In the chaotic times, soldiers are just bandits." Zhang Chi said nothing, just like the old man. How could a court like the Jin Dynasty last for a long time?

"Since the great chaos in the world at the end of the Han Dynasty, the world has been in constant wars for hundreds of years. First, the heroes rose together, then the Three Kingdoms fought for heroes. Finally, after a long war, they finally returned to Jin in three parts. However, in just 30 or 50 years, the Eight Kings Rebellion broke out again, and then the Five Barbarians invaded China. The war was even worse than before, and they fought hard for years and were like ants." The old man sighed and said, "Although today, there is only this pure land of happiness that can escape the world. I hope the young master will turn around and don't tell others about this."

"Of course." Zhang Chi nodded and agreed, and then asked, "Then I have never known the old man before, why did the old man say he had been waiting for me for decades?"

"Young Master is trusting that anyone in this world can test the secrets of heaven?" The old man smiled.

"Can you test the secrets of heaven?"

This is the third time that Zhang Chi has heard people talk about "Tianji". The first time is that he heard the old Taoist priest who was a charlatan, and the second time is that he heard Miss Wang. Now, he has heard the old man mention these two words for the third time. After hearing people's comments one after another, Zhang Chi can't help but feel curious.

"Of course I can't measure the secrets of heaven, but someone in the Taoist sect can measure it."

"How do you know the Taoist sect?" Zhang Chi asked strangely: "Could it be that the Taoist sect is also a Taoist sect?"

The old man didn't answer, and was in a daze for a moment, as if he had remembered a lot of past, and then said: "Young Master, let me tell you a story, how about it."

Although Zhang Chi didn't know why the old man told him a story, he still nodded.

"If you want to tell this story, it must start from more than 90 years ago." The old man recalled silently before slowly saying: "More than 90 years ago, it was when the Five Barbarians first began to invade China. The Five Barbarians were cruel, and the Jie people were the most important. They never brought any food and supplies when they marched and fought."

"What will they eat without food and grass?" Santong couldn't help asking.

"Pilling people and eating." The old man said in a shocking way: "Where they went, they first plundered Han women to serve as military rations. A war, ranging from thousands to tens of thousands of women in the Central Plains, was buried in the belly of the Jie barbarians."

"Eat people?" These words were enough to shock Zhang Chi, the person who had traveled through time, and his mouth was incredible.

"When the Jie people robbed the Central Plains, the land of the Central Plains was filled with corpses and piles of white bones, just like hell on earth. The Jie people were bloodthirsty and often threw away all the human bones and killed corpses in the wild. Those who were plundered by the Jie people never saw anyone survive - except for one baby."

The old man sighed and said, "This baby was born from the pile of bones, and his mother was dead, but the way of heaven has not disappeared. The bones and blood in the woman's belly were born from the body shortly after the woman died."

The old man's tone was very quiet, but Zhang Chi had already felt excited when he heard it. What a chaotic world it was a hundred years ago!

"It is also the baby's life that should not be lost. A man who was practicing Taoism passed by and couldn't bear to see the baby die when he was born and died. In a blink of an eye, the baby grew up into a young man and worshiped the Taoist disciple, and from then on he practiced the way of heaven."

As the old man spoke, he suddenly asked Zhang Chi, "But what is the way of heaven? Millions of people were buried in the mouths of Hu people. Is this the way of heaven?"

Zhang Chi didn't expect that the old man suddenly asked this question, and didn't know how to answer, so he just shook his head.

The old man sighed, but never thought about letting Zhang Chi answer, and continued: "There are three treasures in the Taoist sect, one treasure is martial, one treasure is divination, and one treasure is a doctor. The warrior enters the Tao with martial arts. The divination is able to measure the secrets of heaven, and the doctor is to save the world with hanging pots. And this young master is the medical saint in the Taoist sect."

"If there were no later events, this young man would probably have accompanied his master for life, save the world and help the people in troubled times." The old man said lightly: "But later something happened, which changed the life of this young man."

"The ancestors of the Taoist sect have measured the secrets of heaven. The will of heaven said that in this chaotic world, there will be one person who will be slightly cold in a hundred years. However, he can use a poor family to unify the mountains and rivers, drive away the Five Barbarians, sweep the world, and finally clarify the world. This is a motivating proverb, but not long after, the Taoist sect was divided because of this proverb."

"Why is this?" Santong really couldn't figure it out and found that there was any inevitable connection between Tianji and the Daomen split.

"The secrets of heaven are measurable, but the hearts of man are unpredictable," the old man shook his head and said, "Who doesn't want this 'stic secret' to be himself? Those who don't know think they are 'stic secret'. Even if they know that they are not 'stic secret', they may inevitably use the name of 'stic secret' to do things. People's hearts are not enough, so it is all like this. Even that young man is no exception."

This is easy to understand. The most difficult thing to grasp in this world is not the will of heaven, but the heart of the human being. This has been the case since ancient times.

"The Taoist branches all use the words of the secret of heaven to prepare for the momentum to rebel. The young man practiced medicine for many years and had received support from many people. He thought that he must be the "discipline" mentioned in the proverbs, so he secretly organized refugees, hoping to occupy the world in Jiangnan first, and then attack the Five Barbarians in the north to save the people of the world from water and fire."

The old man shook his head and said, "It's just a pity that he has made mistakes again and again since then."

"That young man was also out of good intentions, why did he calculate wrong?" Zhang Chi asked.

"If the way of heaven is determined, how can human power be violated?" The old man reached a conclusion, then ignored Zhang Chi and continued to say: "This young man was determined to approach the major clans and gentry, provoking constant struggles among various forces in order to benefit from it. In just ten years, he gathered enough forces to influence the world. Just when the time came, he would change the sky in one fell swoop."

The old man talked about this, but suddenly stopped. "What about it later?" Zhang Chi asked.

"A mistake is wrong, every step is wrong. It's better not to mention something embarrassing," the old man said with a vague statement and said with a wry smile: "There was always the young man who was defeated, and even the woman he loved deeply eventually abandoned him. The young man was disheartened and lived in seclusion in the deep valley, avoiding the world, and finally died of his life."

When Zhang Chi heard this, he had guessed that the young man in this story must be the old man in front of him. Since the old man was unwilling to tell this story, he was not inconvenient to ask in detail. He said: "The old man said he had been waiting for me for many years, so what is related to this story?"

"Of course there is something to do with it, because that young man may not know it yet, but I already know it now. In fact, that young man is not Tianji. So many people in the world who initiated the cause of "Tianji" are not Tianji. And you, the real Tianji."

Zhang Chi smiled bitterly and said, "How did the old man know that I am the real 'secret'?"

"I am hiding in the mountains and immortality, and I am still alive. I have experienced it for decades to realize the truth. My master once told me at the death that I will see the secret of heaven in my life. Among the people I have seen, there are probably only young masters, and it will be this 'disclosure'."

In fact, Zhang Chi didn't believe in these false things, but it was not easy to refute the old man in person. He just smiled, just pretending that it was good to listen to a story.

When the old man saw Zhang Chi's expression, he did not believe it, so he said, "The proverb says that the secret of heaven is born from heaven, born from without a mother, born to be able to act and speak, only in the future, but not in the past. In fact, only the young master himself knows whether the secret of heaven is "discipline".

"There is no such person in this world. He can come to this world without having to live, and he can walk and speak as soon as he is born. He is really a magical one." Santong seemed to be listening to mythological stories. After hearing these words, she joked with Daoxuan with relish.

Zhang Chi was different. The old man's words were like five thunders thunder, blowing on his forehead.

As the proverb says, isn’t this secret of heaven just a time traveler?
Chapter completed!