Chapter 622 The Past of Years
Zhou Qin looked at the woman with great vigilance in his heart. He saw that she was shaking a wooden stake. The wooden stake creaked and rotated. With the rotation of the stake, a wooden barrel was pulled up bit by bit.
However, what surprised Zhou Qin was that there was no rope on the wooden stake!
But every time the woman turned the wooden stake, the wooden barrel in the ancient well rose a little bit, as if there was an invisible rope hanging it.
After carrying a bucket of water, the woman turned around and walked to the room behind her. But there were five loopholes in the barrel she carried, and almost all the water along the way was leaked out. When she came to a huge water tank on the side of the hut, the water in the barrel was almost completely leaked. She stood on tiptoe, raised the barrel, and poured it into the huge water tank, but only a few drops of water were poured in.
But the woman didn't notice it at all. After pouring the water, she immediately carried the bucket back to the side of the ancient well, and then slowly began to fetch water.
But what surprised Zhou Qin most is that the soil under the water tank is wet. Obviously, the water tank itself is also leaking!
Seeing her repeating this gesture mechanically, Zhou Qin felt strange in his heart. He couldn't help but think in his heart, "This water tank is as big as a person, so thick that only a few adult men can hold it, but this woman can only give me a few drops of water one time at most! Besides, this water tank itself is leaking. Even if a whole bucket of water is poured in, it will be emptied. If I get water like this, I am afraid that outlet even the heavens and the earth won't be able to get enough water!"
Zhou Qin watched her quietly for a long time. The woman kept repeating this action as if she didn't notice her existence.
When Zhou Qin saw the woman repeating this action 50th times, he couldn't help but ask, "Why didn't you fix the water tank and the five-bumped wooden barrel before drawing water?"
When the woman heard Zhou Qin's words, she smiled slightly, turned her face, and looked at Zhou Qin with interest. She asked in extremely standard Chinese, "Why don't you get rid of all your hostility and talk to me again?"
Zhou Qin saw that the woman looked to be only in her thirties, and her skin was smooth and snow-white. She frowned secretly. "How can I have the hostility all over my body?"
The woman smiled slightly and said, "My wooden barrel is also intact." As she spoke, she slowly picked up another bucket of water. The barrel was still leaking water seriously. Along the way, it was left empty.
Zhou Qin pointed at the water stain under her feet and said, "Look, did you leak it?"
The woman also pointed in the direction of Zhou Qin and said with a smile, "Look, are you full of hostility?"
Zhou Qin said unhappily, "I'm kind to remind you that you are guessing me. Do you think I don't understand what you're saying? If the monks at the foot of the mountain didn't offend me first, how could I be full of hostility?"
The woman smiled and said, "You are right. There is cause and effect in everything. But have you ever wondered why I kept drawing water here?"
Zhou Qin frowned and said, "Did you make a mistake and get punished?"
The woman smiled and said, "Yes, I made a big mistake, so I was punished to use this barrel to draw water until the water tank was full."
Zhou Qin said with some sympathy, "Ah, I thought you were Masako Tachibana. I didn't expect you weren't. Have you been punished by Masako Tachibana to draw water here?"
The woman chuckled. "That's right. You're so smart. You guessed it right."
Zhou Qin saw that the other kind and polite. Although she was not very beautiful, her face was gentle, and there was a special kind of tranquility in her every move. The resentment in her heart gradually dissipated a lot. Zhou Qin said, "You are also very smart. At first glance, you can tell that I was caught up with by someone. Why don't you arrest me?"
The woman shook her head slightly with a smile. "I'm not interested in your affairs, but your hostility is obvious. Look, the souls here are all looking at you." With that, she pointed all around.
Zhou Qin looked around and saw that the tombstones, which were as dense as the forest, were standing in silence. There was no ghost shadow at all. But it was just like this. In this silent silence, there was an incomparably huge pressure, which made her be bloodcurdling.
Zhou Qin shivered secretly. She asked, "I was forced to... Forget it. I want to ask you. Do you know where Masako Tachibana is? I want to see her."
The woman stopped drawing water and carefully looked at Zhou Qin with interest. She asked, "What do you want to see her for?"
Zhou Qin said, "She sent a letter to my master a while ago. I'm sending it back now."
The woman laughed and said, "I see. " She pointed to a deep and secret path behind her and said, "If you walk from here to another two hundred meters inside, you will see a wooden house. It's right there. Masako Tachibana is there."
Zhou Qin formed a palm with one hand and expressed his gratitude to her with Taoists etiquette. Then, he walked all the way inside.
Not long after she left, a little girl came out of the room. She was about 13 or 14 years old, with red lips and white teeth. She was quite beautiful. She was the Tachibana Wakako who had participated in the Taoist assembly and cried because of Li Yundong's slap.
Tachibana Wakako stepped on the clogs and ran to the woman in small steps. "Grandma, why didn't you show her the wrong way? Why did you tell her where her mother lives?" she asked curiously.
Tachibana Wakako's grandmother lowered her head and smiled. "Honey, she has already gone the wrong way, but how can we let her go the wrong way again?"
Tachibana Wakako blinked her eyes as if she didn't understand. "But she's our enemy!"
The grandmother of Tachibana Wakako chuckled. "There are no eternal enemies, no eternal friends. You have to remember this sentence!"
The young girl Tachibana Wakako pouted unhappily and said, "Don't make friends with them! They made my mother scolded badly by many people, and I was scolded badly by my mother. I hate them so much!"
The grandmother shook her head helplessly and said, "More than ten years ago, I was very good friends with the masters of these people. Alas, I didn't expect that it would become like this now. I really didn't expect that!"
Tachibana Wakako opened her eyes wide and said in surprise, "Is that so, grandma? I've never heard you say that! Who are these people you're talking about? Do you mean that hateful Li Yundong?"
The grandmother of Tachibana Wakako stopped and looked up, as if she was recalling something. She said slowly, "I'm talking about Li Yundong's friend... The little girl named Zi Yuan has a very amazing master named Wang Yuanshan..."
Hearing this, Tachibana Wakako was interested. She put her hands on the edge of the well and sat down. Her legs, which were white with horizontal cotton stockings, were kicking. She asked with a smile, "Grandma, is this Wang Yuanshan your lover?"
The grandmother of Tachibana Wakako couldn't help laughing. She looked at Tachibana Wakako with blame and said, "You are not allowed to be disrespectful to him!" She didn't continue to the topic of Tachibana Wakako. Instead, she let out a long sigh and said, "When I went to Hanshan Temple in Dong Wu City to worship the statue of Kobo Daishi, I met him by accident. At that time..."
As she spoke, as if she recalled the scene back then, she could not help but reveal a gentle expression on her face. She said softly, "...At that time, he followed me all the way out of the Xiyuan Temple and followed me very far. At that time, I thought that he was a pervert and wanted to drive him away. Unexpectedly, he suddenly told me that although the magic power of my whole body looked powerful, it was actually vulnerable. At that time, I was proud and arrogant, so I was unwilling to believe him. So I asked him to fight in a private place. Let's have a fight."
"Ah!" Tachibana Wakako covered her mouth and exclaimed, "Grandma, did you lose?"
Tachibana Wakako's grandmother laughed and said, "Yes, I lost miserably! I really can't recall a memory of it!"
Tachibana Wakako remembered that before she fought with Li Yundong, she was really powerful and invincible. But when she fought with Li Yundong, she was shocked by his palm and lost her reaction. She burst into tears.
Tachibana Wakako suddenly became unhappy. "Yes, I also lost badly when I fought with that Li Yundong last time. I even cried! It's a shame to think about it!"
Tachibana Wakako's grandmother giggled. She stroked her black hair and said with a smile, "In fact, when the time is slowly passing, when everything is settled down, you will find that these things are actually nothing. They will all become your precious wealth."
But Tachibana Wakako didn't take it seriously. "But I feel that I can't wait that all this has never happened! I don't even dare to see my mother now. I'm hiding from her everywhere!"
Tachibana Wakako's grandmother smiled and said, "So that's how it is. I was wondering why you hide here all day long to accompany me!"
Tachibana Wakako giggled. She rolled her eyes, took her grandma's hand, and quickly changed the topic. "Nonsense, my grandma is not an old woman. She is young and beautiful. By the way, Grandma, what happened after you lost to Wang Yuanshan? Did you fall in love with him at first sight?"
The look in the eyes of Tachibana Wakako's grandmother suddenly became extremely soft. She didn't comment and said softly, "After I lost, I sincerely wanted to worship him as my master, but he insisted on refusing. When I asked him why I lost and he refused to tell me. So I kept pestering him and followed him for more than two months..."
As she spoke, she sank into that memory period. The smile on her face became gentler and sweeter. After a while, she said, "Unfortunately... he refused to accept me, maybe because I was Rigoino's goddess. But when I left, he handed me a wooden barrel and said to me, "When you fill up a huge and sunken water tank with this wooden barrel, you will understand why you lost to me."
"Ah!" Tachibana Wakako suddenly understood and said, "So that's how it is! I'm wondering why you have been drawing water here for more than ten years! But this bucket and the vat are both leaked, so it can't be full!"
Tachibana Wakako's grandmother sighed and said, "Yes, for more than a decade, I have been using this bucket to fetch water, but I can't fill the water tank. Not to mention fill it, I can't even fill half of it... Alas!"
She pouted and said, "Grandma, I think it's Wang Yuanshan who is teasing you! It's impossible!" As she said this, she jumped down from the edge of the well, picked up the barrel in her hand, raised it in front of her, and said, "Grandma, look, it's not the older sister who talked about it. I haven't noticed that there are so many holes in this barrel, one, two, three, and a half. Wow, there are five holes in total! There are other holes on the side, and the most important thing is that there are two holes in the bottom! Of course, you can't get water from this barrel!"
Tachibana Wakako said with a serious face, "Although I don't like the sister just now, she is right. Why don't you fix the five missing buckets and the water tanks? This sentence makes sense!"
Tachibana Wakako's grandmother smiled and asked, "What's the reason?"