Chapter 61 The Scholar of the Thousand Silk Mounds

Mr. Liu's face was very pale; he knew that his weakness had been exposed.

He glanced at Shao Yanzhe with pity and reached out his hand to the two of them.

The next moment, the earth shook violently.

The ground shook violently, and huge cracks appeared in the once-hard ground, revealing countless twisted brown tree roots underneath.

Slender willow branches quickly sprouted from the tree roots and reached out to grab Shao Yanzhe and Zhou Jiming.

Before the two could react, she had wrapped her arms around their lower bodies.

"Brother Shao! Save me!" Zhou Jiming cried out to Shao Yanzhe for help.

Looking over, Shao Yanzhe saw that Zhou Jiming was already mostly entwined with willow branches, which were still climbing upwards.

"Where's the torch?" he asked.

Zhou Jiming said with a grim expression, "The ground shook just now, I lost my footing, and the torch accidentally fell to the ground and went out."

"Give me a tinderbox," he said.

Zhou Jiming hurriedly reached into his pocket for a tinderbox, but Liu Zhi was faster, climbing up his shoulder first and wrapping him up completely.

Seeing this, Shao Yanzhe could only try to save himself first.

He continuously used his spiritual energy to attack the willow branches beneath his feet. After those branches broke off, countless more willow branches climbed up.

Mr. Liu was determined to keep them there completely, and he showed no mercy.

He originally cherished Shao Yanzhe's talent and couldn't bear to let such a person die here.

But now, it's either him or Shao Yanzhe who will die.

He has indeed lived for over a thousand years, but he hasn't lived enough yet.

Mr. Liu sighed, "I'm sorry."

He controlled his own body, and countless willow branches surged out wildly.

As soon as Shao Yanzhe raised his hand, he was completely enveloped by the swarming willow branches, and his vision was plunged into darkness.

Mr. Liu watched indifferently as the two cocoons wrapped in willow branches were pulled into the ground. Then, the tree roots sank into the ground, and the cracked ground became flat again, only the hard ground became soft.

He glanced at the jade hairpin pen, which was half-buried in the soil, when a willow branch appeared, wrapped around the pen, and presented it to him.

He glanced at it; it was just an ordinary calligraphy brush.

He casually tossed it onto the ground, and the jade hairpin pen, which had sunk into the soil, was wrapped by a thin willow branch and then pulled into the soil and disappeared.

"Brother Shao! Wake up!"

Zhou Jiming looked worriedly at Shao Yanzhe, who had fallen into a coma, and glanced around, wondering where they were.

It was pitch black all around, and you could see the dense tree roots rolling by from time to time, as well as the wandering willow branches, which was very eerie.

Just then, Shao Yanzhe finally regained consciousness.

"Brother Shao, are you alright?" Zhou Jiming asked.

"It's nothing."

Shao Yanzhe stood up from the ground, looked around, and frowned. Where had they ended up?

At that moment, his gaze fell on a stone door not far away.

He gestured for Zhou Jiming to look at the stone door. The two exchanged a glance and slowly walked over.

Shao Yanzhe pressed his face against the stone door, trying to hear what was inside, but he couldn't hear anything, whether because the stone door was soundproof or because there was nothing inside.

"Should we go in and take a look?" he asked Zhou Jiming.

“Okay!” Zhou Jiming nodded.

The two of them placed their hands on the stone door and, together, pushed it open slowly.

I had expected it to be as dark inside as it was outside, but it was as bright as day.

Looking inside, Shao Yanzhe saw a long corridor with neatly arranged cells on both sides.

His gaze fell upon the cell, and his pupils suddenly contracted.

Inside, there was a person sitting and writing!

The man had a blank expression and numb eyes, mechanically writing characters on rice paper with a brush.

When Shao Yanzhe walked in, he saw that he was writing a policy essay, which was very outstanding and even better than his own writing.

He waved his hand in front of the man, but the man seemed not to see him and continued writing mechanically.

"Brother Shao, look!" Zhou Jiming's voice was very low, as if he had seen something that shocked him, and his voice was slightly excited.

Shao Yanzhe looked over, his eyes widening slightly. Looking around, he saw that every cell in the passageway was occupied by a person mechanically writing. Their expressions were numb, and they didn't look like living people, but rather like puppets.

Just then, countless willow branches appeared overhead and hung in front of the cells.

The scholars who were writing seemed to have been turned on, putting down their brushes and tying their completed essays to the willow branches.

Shao Yanzhe discovered that each scholar had tied five pieces to a willow branch, which also represented five pieces of writing.

His gaze swept over everyone, and he noticed that a thin scholar had only four pieces of paper tied to his writings. As the willow branches binding the papers disappeared, the scholars returned to their cells to continue writing mechanically.

Soon, a willow branch returned, swiftly entered a cell, dragged the person out, and quickly coiled itself into a cocoon.

Shao Yanzhe frowned. He was about to take out the jade hairpin pen to help when he discovered that it was missing.

He could only try to tear the willow branches with his hands.

The scholar, who had been expressionless, watched Shao Yanzhe's actions, and a glimmer of light slowly gathered in his eyes. He reached out to stop him.

"Brother, you don't need to waste your energy, it's useless."

"Where exactly is this place? Why are you writing here?" Zhou Jiming stepped forward and asked.

The scholar glanced at him and said, "This is inside the willow tree demon's body. We have been eaten by him. If we want to survive here, we need to provide him with writings. If we can't write anything, we will lose our value and be devoured by him."

"What!" Zhou Jiming was extremely shocked.

In his eyes, Mr. Liu had always been a kind and gentle person. Even though he made them leave their souls to study at the academy, it was only to help them pass the imperial examinations. He only appeared strict.

But judging from this scholar's words, isn't Mr. Liu some kind of evil demon?

"How much did he eat?" he asked, trembling.

The scholar said, "There must be several hundred, if not a thousand, right?"

"But why does he want you to write articles? He is quite learned himself and can write articles on his own," Zhou Jiming said, puzzled.

The scholar chuckled, a mocking laugh: "Why do you think a willow tree that has never attended school can have considerable knowledge?"

"You mean to say that all his knowledge came from you?" Shao Yanzhe guessed.

The scholar nodded, his face full of bitterness: "That's right. I heard of Mr. Liu's reputation and wanted to come and ask him for guidance on my writing, but I never expected that I would never be able to go back."

Shao Yanzhe remained silent, never expecting such despicable things to be hidden inside.

He silently tore at the willow branches, trying to get the man out; otherwise, the scholar might really lose his life.

But the willow branch was very tough and difficult to pry open.

"Don't waste your energy, there's no way to open these doors," the scholar advised.

"But I can't just stand by and watch you die."

Shao Yanzhe glanced around, ran to the scholar's original spot, picked up paper and pen, and quickly began to write.

As soon as he finished writing the article, a rich literary aura appeared. He was about to control this literary aura when suddenly many willow branches appeared around him, even the willow branches that were binding the scholar came closer.

Once all the willow branches had disappeared, the literary quality of the article was completely gone.

Fortunately, the scholar survived.

The scholar sat on the ground, looking dazed, clearly not expecting to survive.

The scholars around, who were mechanically writing, saw this scene and looked at Shao Yanzhe with pity.

"What just happened?" Zhou Jiming asked.

The scholar sighed and said, "You shouldn't have done that. They will target you until you can no longer write articles with literary flair. At first, my literary flair was only slightly inferior to yours, but after so many years, I can no longer write articles with literary flair."

Shao Yanzhe was not alarmed: "It's good that I can save people."

The scholar glanced around, noticing the gazes around him, and then pulled the two of them back to his cell.

He carefully closed the cell door, leaned close to them and whispered, "If you want to leave here, don't eat the food here, and you need to leave within three days, otherwise you'll never be able to leave."

"Also, don't trust anyone here. The people living here have gone mad. They can't get out, and they don't want anyone else to get out."

"And what about you?" Shao Yanzhe asked.

"What about me?"

Don't you want to go out?

"Of course I want to! But I can't get out!"

"Don't worry! We'll get out eventually!"

Shao Yanzhe walked out of the scholar's cell alone and headed into the passageway.

Along the way, the cells on both sides were full of scholars mechanically writing, with only a few empty cells occasionally seen.

He walked forward until he finally reached the end of the passageway.

At the end of the passageway was a room with its door closed, and judging from the look of it, it hadn't been opened for a long time.

Shao Yanzhe looked around and found that apart from this place, there was nothing special about the other places.

He stood in front of the door, reached out and pushed hard, but the door didn't budge, as if something inside was blocking it.

This piqued his interest; the way they were hiding things meant that what was inside must be very important to Mr. Liu.

More importantly, the contents inside must not be exposed to light.

Otherwise, they would definitely be like the prison cells, too lazy to even close the doors.

Shao Yanzhe placed his body weight on the door and tried several times, but when he found that he could not push it open, he had to think of other ways.

He took a set of paper and pen, quickly wrote an article, and before the willow branches appeared, he directly manipulated the literary energy on them to open the door in front of him.

He threw down his pen and paper, opened the door, and went straight inside.

It was very dark inside, and you could faintly smell the earthy odor. There was no light source at all.

Shao Yanzhe carried the oil lamp and walked forward until he finally reached the innermost part of the space.

Unexpectedly, inside they found a place that resembled a prison, surrounded by railings on all sides, forming a closed space.

What surprised him even more was that there was another person locked inside.

As he approached, the huddled figure inside became clearer.

His approach brought a warm yellow light, which alerted the people inside the prison, and the huddled figures slowly began to move.

By the time Shao Yanzhe reached the prison, the man had changed from a curled-up position to a seated one.

He looked towards the person inside and saw their face.

He couldn't help but show a look of surprise: "Mr. Liu?"