The autumn wind blows the fallen leaves, rustling all over the bluestone courtyard.
After watching Da Hu go away, the mountains and fields were completely silent. There was no one around, the wind was bleak, the deserted village and orphanage, and the setting sun all fell on the rickety and thin figure of Luo Chuan.
Luo Chuan stood quietly in the center of the courtyard, not moving for a long time, looking at the ancient road leading to the distant mountains with a pair of old eyes.
After ten years of waiting, no news.
No one knows that this old man, who seems to be in his twilight years and will wither away with the mortal years at any time, has hidden in the eyes of this old man the ups and downs of the ages and the vicissitudes of the world.
He sealed up his body to reach the sky, suppressed the immortal power, and was willing to be trapped in the mortal world for seventy years, growing old slowly with this mountain and wilderness, and with the world Kurong every year, just to watch the return date of a wanderer.
Luo Chuan knows in his heart that the road to immortality is full of troubles, and he also knows that the road to revenge is a step into hell.
Luo Nian'an Back then, he was charged with annihilating his clan and killing his master. He was so filled with hatred that he was young and energetic. He would rather break than bend. The path he embarked on was a road that was almost impossible to survive.
But he still let him go.
It's not that there's no pain or worry, it's that the road needs to be crossed by oneself, and the cause and effect needs to be tasted by oneself.
Even if the cause and effect is extremely tragic, even if the road is full of bones, as a father, all he can do is to keep it secret and wait.
The years are silent, day and night rotate.
Another ten years of spring and autumn passed quietly.
Twenty years of mortal time is just a blink of an eye for the Immortal Immortal, but for the mortal world, things have changed and everything has changed.
The mountain roads that once occasionally had woodcutters and hunters passing by are completely overgrown with grass. The surrounding mountain villages have been completely destroyed, the fertile fields are barren, the ancient trees are towering, birds and animals are infested, and there is no trace of human fireworks anymore.
This small courtyard halfway up the mountain has become the only remaining trace of the human world in the entire barren mountain wilderness.
Luo Chuan is eighty years old.
His back became more and more stooped, his hair was as white as frost, his skin was loose and wrinkled, and every inch of his skin was engraved with the wind and frost of time.
His steps were unsteady, his ears were dull, his brows and eyes were tired, and he looked like an old man about to die.
He still cleaned the courtyard every day and dried the clean and soft bed every day.
Twenty years.
That bed was clean, neat and tidy, looking like new every day, but it could no longer wait for the return of the scarred and tearful repentant boy.
He often sat alone under the eaves, sitting in silence for a whole day from the dawn to the sunset, without saying a word or asking about his way home.
It seems as if this whole life has been spent in a long and lonely waiting.
This day.
Autumn is coming to an end and there is a slight frost falling from the sky.
Under the gray sky, the cold wind howled, carrying withered grass and leaves flying all over the mountain.
At the end of the ancient road that had been deserted for thousands of years, there was suddenly a very slight, difficult and dragging sound of footsteps.
The steps were heavy and shaky, and every step he took was accompanied by the sound of a wooden stick hitting the bluestone. He was slow, tired, and shaky.
In these barren mountains and ridges, no one has been seen for decades.
At this moment, the sudden sound of footsteps, in the dead silence of heaven and earth, was so clear that it made one's heart tremble.
Luo Chuan, who was sitting quietly under the eaves, slowly raised his old eyes, looked through the bleak autumn wind in the sky, and looked at the end of the ancient road in the distance.
The next moment, an extremely embarrassed and broken figure appeared at the end of the mountain road.
That's an old man.
He is obviously no more than a hundred years old, but his head is gray, his temples are frosty white, his face is withered, his skin is sagging, and his face is full of wrinkles, making him look like he is eighty years old.
His posture was crooked, his body was mutilated, his left half was empty, his sleeves were fluttering in the wind, and his left hand was missing.
His right leg was completely missing from the knee down, and he could only rely on a rough and thick black wooden stick to support his crumbling body. He swayed step by step, panted step by step, and struggled to move towards the small courtyard halfway up the mountain.
The clothes are in tatters, stained with dust and blood, the spiritual power is gone, the breath is decayed, and the vitality is as weak as a candle in the wind.
But that face, even though it was old and broken and had gone through all kinds of damage, Luo Chuan recognized it at a glance.
It's Luo Nian'an.
This is the child he has been waiting for for twenty years.
After twenty years of ups and downs in the Blood Sea, the once high-spirited and arrogant young man who vowed to defeat his enemies and reach the peak of immortality is back.
It's just that the people who returned are no longer the same as before.
Broken arms, broken legs, broken meridians, and spiritual roots collapsed.
All the cultivation that reaches the heavens has been reduced to nothing, and all the half-life journey to immortality has been in vain.
Luo Chuan looked at him quietly, with calm eyes, no shock, no anger, no surprise.
He already knew everything.
As early as twenty years ago, when Luo Nian'an embarked on a journey of revenge, he had already glimpsed his ending.
He knew that Luo Nian'an, in order to avenge his master and the hatred of the Snow Sect, entered the enemy sect alone, was trapped in a tight siege, and was defeated by the heroes.
In a desperate situation, in order to get a chance to kill the enemy, he brazenly detonated the meridians in his body, burned his lifelong foundation, overdrawed his life span for a hundred years, and mutilated himself.
The tragic price of being crippled forever, forcing him to break through the realm in an instant, his combat power soaring a thousand times, killing all his enemies, beheading the sect leader, bloodbathing the sect, and settling the huge hatred.
The great revenge was avenged, but he himself also completely ruined his path to immortality and the rest of his life.
The meridians were broken every inch, the spiritual roots were completely shattered, most of the immortal bones were shattered, the cultivation base was gone, and he became a useless person.
In the brutal fighting, one arm and one leg were cut off, and he suffered irreversible fundamental damage.
Win the Blood Sea deep hatred, lose the road of life.
After twenty years of killing and fighting alone for half of his life, he finally ended up with a broken body and full of vicissitudes of life.
Looking from a distance, the old and mutilated figure on the mountain road finally moved to the courtyard gate.
Luo Nian'an raised his turbid old eyes, looking through the bleak autumn wind at the white-haired old man standing quietly in the courtyard.
Haven't seen him for twenty years.
My father is older.
He was so old that his heart suddenly burst, and he was in pain, and he himself was covered in broken pieces and was in the shape of a waste. He came back in embarrassment and was worthless.
The promise I made before leaving is still in my ears.
When his great revenge was avenged, he came back to accompany his father until his old age, to provide for him until the end of his life, and never leave him for the rest of his life.
But now, revenge has been avenged, Daoism has been ruined, and people have become crippled.
He could no longer accompany his father in peace, could no longer protect him from wind and rain, and could not even stand up properly and fulfill his filial piety.
Endless regret, endless sadness, and endless despair instantly swallowed up Luo Nian'an's broken body and mind.
Plop.
There was a heavy muffled sound.
With one leg unable to support his body, Luo Nian'an's wooden stick fell out of his hand and his broken body fell straight to the ground.
He knelt on one knee, his body swaying, almost collapsing.
Luo Nian'an His head was lowered heavily, his back was hunched, his cloudy eyes instantly turned red, and hot tears rolled down without dignity, hitting the dusty bluestone ground.
Hoarse, old, broken, with endless choking and weeping guilt, the voice trembled in the autumn wind:
"Dad... Nian'an is unfilial..."
"The child is back... but the child... has become a cripple..."