Merchant of the Underworld

I saw that this old man was quite old and should know some hidden history, so my tone suddenly softened a lot: "Old man, has this tree god ever shown his power?"

The old man glanced at me and nodded after a long time: "That was when I was very young. In order to promote production, the village decided to open up the mountain for farming. At that time, the young men all went up the mountain and cut down all the way until they were in front of the tree god. The result They only cut two axes before the color of the sky and the earth changed. They went up the mountain and never came back. Later, I heard the old people in the village say that the tree god is spiritual and has protected the land here for thousands of years. If you respect it, it will protect you. , if you offend it, then it will wash all the surrounding land with blood. Sure enough, accidents happened one after another in the village, and people always disappeared inexplicably, and then they were found hanging from a tree the next day. People were frightened, They spontaneously brought tributes to pay homage to the tree god, and gradually the village returned to its previous peace, and there was a bumper harvest of food every year, without any further incidents."

When the old man said this, he pointed to the mountain and said: "At the beginning, the trees were almost cut down, and what you see now are all grown later. Alas! Human beings only value their own interests, how can they care about the life and death of a group of trees? "

The old man let out a long sigh.

In order to prevent them from causing trouble, I asked Lao Fei and Da Su to keep an eye on them until dawn the next day, when the black-hearted monk took us up the mountain. This time Dasu drove the trenching machine, followed by the people of Xiaolin Village. They were both curious and worried.

After reaching the halfway point of the mountain, the black-hearted monk checked the tree demon and found nothing abnormal. Then he sat down quietly and saved the dead souls buried under the tree demon.

Finally at noon, Dasu started digging with the trencher.

A trench digger is not like a shovel. It will inevitably damage the roots of the tree. The dryad emitted bursts of shrill and unwilling screams, which scared the people of Xiaolin Village and hurriedly knelt down to beg for mercy. They also pointed at Dasu and shouted: "You have offended the tree." Master God wants to die without a burial place, stop it!"

But Da Su turned a deaf ear and said with firm eyes: "I will die, I will put an end to this scourge!"

Lao Fei and I exchanged a look, and we both saw the determination in Da Su's eyes that was like being reborn. The old fat man even jumped on the trench digger: "Brothers, let's die together!"

what to do? I started to doubt their relationship again.

With the help of the trenching machine, we quickly dug a huge deep pit. Then the man in the T-shirt and I jumped into the pit and dug carefully with a shovel. Not only did the stone tablet appear, but also the stone tablet appeared behind it. We also dug out a small temple in the back.

The temple is well maintained because it was buried underground. Although it is not big, it is all made of stone. The style should be very old, as if it came from the Northern Wei Dynasty.

The black-hearted monk also jumped down and observed carefully in front of the stone tablet. After only reading two lines, his expression changed drastically and he knelt on the ground with a thud.

The man in the T-shirt and I looked puzzled. We waited for the black-hearted monk to finish reading, and then we climbed onto the pit with him.

The black-hearted monk said: "I finally know the origin of the tree demon."

He sighed and said: "It is clearly written on the stone tablet that when Patriarch Bodhidharma traveled eastward, he determined to travel all over China, taste the sufferings of the people, first become an ascetic, and then become a Buddha. When he arrived at Xiaolin Village , seeing the scorched earth everywhere and the people dying, he built a small temple one meter long and wide here, and inserted the walking stick that had been with him for decades into the soil, praying to the Buddha to show mercy to the people. The next moment, it rained heavily, The crutch took root on the spot and grew into a big tree. The place also became a forest, protecting Xiaolin Village. In order to commemorate the founder of Bodhidharma, the ancestors of Xiaolin Village erected a stone tablet and wrote down the origin of the small temple."

"Later on, as time passed, the small temple was gradually buried under the soil, and the big tree from back then became bigger and bigger, and over time it became a demon. It was a waste of all the efforts of the ancestor..."

After hearing this, the people in Xiaolin Village looked at each other with astonishment on their faces.

The black-hearted monk continued: "Amitabha! Originally, the dryads and Xiaolin Village coexisted peacefully, but human greed for nature has no limit. For money, mountains must be flattened, and for development, forests must be cut down. This has led to tragedy. .”

The man in the T-shirt asked nervously: "What should we do now?"

"Since the tree has become a monster, it must be removed, otherwise it will always be a scourge." The black-hearted monk summoned the big black bear again, listened to the big black bear's mouth for a while, and then said: "Daddy Bear told me, According to the Five Elements, fire can defeat wood, so just set fire to burn down the entire forest to prevent any more innocent people from being killed."

The people shouted in panic: "No! This is the precious legacy left by Patriarch Bodhidharma to Xiaolin Village. You can't burn it casually!"

The black-hearted monk frowned, like a huge Buddhist Vajra, and said calmly: "Otherwise, what should I do? Let it continue to harm people? Look at how many bones there are under its roots? Do you know how many people it has harmed? ? Do you still want the descendants of Xiaolin Village to live under its threat?"

The people of Xiaolin Village just shut up.

Da Su and Lao Fei brought gasoline, we poured it on the tree demon, and then lit the fire. In the light of the fire, we heard the dryads emitting bursts of shrill wails that resounded throughout the world.

The fire continued to burn until the next day. It rained heavily towards the evening. The rain quickly extinguished the fire, but the greenery on the mountain was gone, leaving only ruins and charcoal.

I stood in the work shed looking at the hill and couldn't help but sigh.

The black-hearted monk who was eating the chicken butt came over and said, "Why, do you sympathize with it?"

"In the final analysis, it is caused by human greed. We humans think of ourselves as the top of the food chain. In fact, we are still too small in front of nature..." I sighed.

The black-hearted monk smiled: "What you said is very enlightening, how about it? Do you want to escape into Buddhism and become my disciple?"

"Huh?" I was startled.

Da Su was sighing with Lao Fei at the side. After experiencing these things, he had decided to give up the idea of ​​developing this place. He was even planning to invest in a restaurant business with Lao Fei and never be an engineering boss again. I was very interested and asked about the methods and methods of running a restaurant.

I got up early the next day and walked slowly towards the hill before leaving here. Only when I reached the middle of the mountain did I find that the dryad had been destroyed. The place was so empty and uncomfortable.

Not long after, the villagers of Xiaolin Village also came to the mountain. Although the tree god in their hearts was no longer there, they still brought a lot of fruits to pay tribute.

I watched for a while and was about to leave when I discovered that Black Heart Monk also rode a black bear to the mountain at some point.

Seeing that I was looking down, he pulled me forward, pointed at the charred ground and said with a smile, "Look at it!"

I was shocked to find a green bud growing under the ruins of the big tree. In the self-salvation of mankind, the tree god was reborn...