Chapter 283 The Last Expedition
"I'm not crazy!"

The gray-haired old man Lin pointed indignantly at the empty ground:

"There it stands, a monkey! A very big monkey! It's covered in golden hair!"

"Can't you see?"

Everyone looked at each other...

It’s over, the old man is crazy!
The wife closed her eyes in pain. It was obvious that her husband's sudden madness was a big blow to her.

Lin Liu was so angry that his beard began to tremble. To prove that he was not crazy, he looked at his daughter hopefully:

"Xiao Xi, do you still remember? You saw it when you were a kid! It was a big monkey!"

The daughter was stunned for a moment, thought about it carefully, and finally said uncertainly:
"Back then... there seemed to be a big monkey... with golden fur..."

"That's right! I'm not crazy!"

Lin Liu laughed, but his daughter did not laugh. Instead, she looked thoughtful:

She did remember the strange big golden monkey because it could talk!

Although nearly thirty years have passed, she still has many memories of that strange talking monkey.

but……

No matter how hard she stared, she could not find even a single monkey hair where her father pointed.

She thought about it for a while, and finally could only sadly think:
My father is really crazy!

He must want to become an immortal too much. Over the years, he has been practicing some deceptive visualization methods and meditating for a long time. He has become stupid, but he has not developed any magical powers.

As a result, I was exhausted, and my soul was damaged, and I have hallucinations until today...

The daughter wiped away her tears and felt guilty, thinking that it was because she had not been filial to her father for many years that led to the current situation.

The son-in-law also pondered for a while and said seriously:

"Dad, let's go to the city and find a famous doctor..."

"You! You guys!"

Lin Liu was so angry that he was fuming:

I clearly wasn’t lying, nor was I crazy, and the monkey was standing right next to me!

Why can't I see anything?

After being angry for a while, Lin Liu turned around and asked the monkey in confusion:

"Did you use some kind of trick?"

"No."

The monkey shook his head:
"Mortals cannot see me, who has become an immortal..."

After listening to the monkey's explanation, Lin Liu couldn't help but sigh:

It really is an immortal technique! Even if the broken visualization method is successfully practiced, it is just an additional Dharma image and the ability to perform some magic.

It's nothing like the magic this monkey learned from the immortals. Once he mastered it, mortals can't see it at all...

"No matter what, I have decided to beg for this immortal!"

Lin Liuyi clapped his hands and said seriously:
"I've already missed an opportunity, I can't miss it a second time!"

"I am over fifty now, and there is nothing for me to worry about at home. If I don't seize this opportunity, I am afraid I will never have the chance to live forever..."

The daughter opened her mouth to persuade him again, but Lin Liu refused to listen and started packing his luggage angrily. Once he made a decision, he would never give up easily!

[You ignored your family's dissuasion and insisted on grabbing that glimmer of hope in your limited life! ]

[So you bought a new, bigger ship, and prepared a full warehouse of food and water, as well as weapons such as swords and guns... In short, you did your best to make all the preparations.]

[Finally, you boarded the boat and paddled. Amid the sound of New Year's firecrackers, you resolutely bid farewell to your family and set out on the journey of seeking immortals alone! ]

[Anyway, you are an old man, your parents have passed away peacefully, and your only daughter has already married. Apart from your wife, you have no one else to worry about.]

[And my wife is already old, she wants to come with me, not to seek immortality, but just to take care of your life. ]

[But you stubbornly said: I am going to look for immortals this time. What if the Bodhi Patriarch sees that I still have people to take care of me and thinks that I am a useless old man who can't endure hardships and doesn't want to accept me?]

[Don't block my destiny! ]

[You flatly refused your wife's request to accompany you and rowed away, showing the stubbornness of an old man to the fullest...]

Looking at the boat heading out to sea from afar, the daughter thought her father was crazy!
Such a broken ship actually wanted to cross the ocean and go to the distant Xiniu Hezhou...

The daughter became angrier and angrier, and she scolded her husband harshly:

"You don't even know how to stop him! You've grown so big for nothing. If something happens to Dad..."

The son-in-law felt very aggrieved:

I dare not stop him. When the old man was young, he was very successful in the county town. He even helped the government to lure and kill the leader of the bandit army. That aura and physique... Even if I am over 50 years old, I may not be able to beat him!
Besides, even if I could beat him, would I dare to do it? !
The son-in-law dared not speak out, but when he was angry, he got angry...

The old woman just stared blankly at her husband rowing away, and then she sighed bitterly after a long while:
"This old man..."

Her husband didn't take her with him, nominally because he was afraid that the immortal would think he couldn't endure hardship and wouldn't accept him as a disciple, but as an old couple, how could she not know what the man beside her was thinking?

It was obvious that he was unsure about the future of this trip... In order to avoid danger, he did not take her with him. He could die at sea without caring about his life, just to fight for his last dream and opportunity. He could accept life or death.

But if his family is around, he will be restrained. If something unexpected happens, it will be too late for him to regret...

Now that things have come to this, we can only let him go crazy.

……

[You rowed the boat alone, heading towards Xiniuhezhou...or maybe you can't say you were alone, because the monkey was also on the boat.]

[“Can’t you really take me over?”]

[While paddling, you silently asked the monkey again, you thought, this guy has become an immortal, can't he just take people to fly directly to Bodhi Patriarch? ]

【However, it is really impossible. 】

[The monkey shook his head: Although I have become an immortal, I cannot interfere with the natural operation of the heaven and earth. You have to walk the path of becoming my disciple by yourself. The most I can do is to show you the way...]

[As it said this, it couldn't help but laugh: "Back then, I said I would protect you to seek immortality, but you refused to go... Now if you want to go, you have to go by yourself."]

[You remained silent, rowing the boat with all your concentration, following the wind towards the unreachable Xiniu Hezhou...]

[The monkey suddenly asked: "Don't you believe me?"]

【"……no."】

[You hesitated for a moment, then shook your head and said, "I just don't believe in myself..."]

[Yes, you just don't believe in yourself. ]

[Although you are very happy to see the monkey again, you are not stupid. It is obvious that only you can see it, and your family members cannot observe its existence at all... There are only two possibilities. ]

[One is that it is just as the monkey said, it has become a fairy, so mortals cannot see it, and it cannot interfere with anything in the natural world! ]

[The other is that you are really crazy...]

[You cannot verify whether your conjecture is correct, nor can you be sure that you are mentally healthy.]

[Because family members know their own business, as the person involved, you naturally know how crazy you are in your pursuit of immortality. Your practice of visualization has failed, and your dream of immortality can only be placed on the big monkey of the past. ]

[For many years, you have been fantasizing every moment that the monkey can make the impossible possible, until he returns from the immortal world and takes you with him to become an immortal! ]

[The monkey and the fantasy you placed on it have long become your obsession. The older you get, the deeper your obsession becomes...]

[To this day, you don’t dare to be sure that you are mentally healthy, because under the influence of this level of obsession, it is not difficult to understand that you have some delusions and hallucinations.]

[It is precisely because you are not sure that you refuse your wife's care: if you have a mental problem, you will die this time! Whether the boat capsizes, you get lost, or there is any other accident, it would be better if you are the only one who dies.]

[And if the monkey you know is real, it can really take you to worship Patriarch Bodhi as your teacher and learn the art of immortality...]

[Of course everyone will be happy! When you have mastered the magic, you can come back and watch your family grow old, get sick and die.]

[In short, you made the best choice you could with the existing information! ]

[You, who have no worries, want to use your worthless life to conduct a major experiment. Whether it succeeds or fails, whether it lives or dies, you can accept it...]

[After nearly thirty years, you have finally become a pure seeker, exactly the same as the confident monkey back then.]

【…】

【The boat drifts with the current, and time passes slowly. 】

[From sunrise to sunset, you paddled for a while, and followed the wind for a while... Fortunately, there were no disasters such as storms on the road. I don’t know if it was just your good luck, or the monkey pointed out a safe route for you, anyway, you really went further and further to the west. ]

[One day, ten days...]

【January, October...】

[On the boundless sea, you are sailing a small boat that seems to be about to capsize at any time, going further and further away... Gradually, you lose your direction, because you can't see the land or islands at all, and there is only endless blue waves in all directions. ]

[But you've never been afraid, because the monkeys are always showing you the way. Even if you don't know where you are, you don't have to worry about getting lost! ]

[Of course, if you believe in the monkey, you are essentially believing in yourself. You don’t know whether the monkey is real or fake, so you can only force yourself to believe in yourself...]

[The dry food and fresh water you brought with you were all gone in less than a month, so in order to survive, you could only find an island or land under the guidance of the monkey, and then replenish and repair on the spot.]

[And because you can really find the island and the land every time, your trust in the monkey becomes higher and higher. You begin to believe in its authenticity, and believe in the "Lingtai Fangcun Mountain", "Xieyue Sanxing Cave" and the immortal "Bodhi Patriarch" in the cave described by it...]

[This lasted for five years.]

[Five years later, you finally found a vast expanse of strange land in the vast ocean! ]

[“This is Xiniu Hezhou!”]

[The monkey said proudly: "How is it? I didn't lie to you!"]

[You were silent for a long time and said nothing because there was no need.]

[The guidance along the way was 100% accurate, so the initial doubts had naturally dissipated into thin air...]

【You only care about one thing now. 】

[Expectation, anxiety...all kinds of complicated emotions began to gradually gather together. The closer they got to Xiniu Hezhou, the stronger these emotions became.]

[“Will Patriarch Bodhi really accept me as his disciple?”]

……

(End of this chapter)