Chapter 128 Interlude Part 3

The sky in Xijing changed color in just one day.

Most of the noble families disappeared within one day, and most of the people in the top twenty-two noble families disappeared with the appearance of the underworld.

Some of those who wanted to rise to the top did not enjoy their happiness for long before they suddenly discovered that even the royal family members in the palace were almost gone.

What on earth did the top figures in the entire Xizhou do to lead to such consequences?

Those who are interested can't help but think of the day when the underworld reappears.

Perhaps the appearance of the underworld is related to the disappearance of those top families?

Compared to the people from the small families who are speculated by the outside world, most of the people from the top families are very secretive.

The aristocratic families not only monopolized power, but also monopolized grammar and history.

The beginning of the Xuanyuan Dynasty in Xizhou is not as rumored outside.

The emperor and the aristocratic families rule the world together because the aristocratic families made great contributions to the dynasty when it was founded. Countless children of the aristocratic families gave their all in the difficult times of conquering the world, and finally suppressed many places in Western Continent and successfully unified Western Continent. Therefore, the emperor used this as an excuse to invite the aristocratic families to rule the world together!

Family members know their own people.

They have mysterious means, and in an era when magic is scarce and immortals are hidden, they can even destroy everything with a crushing force! Why would they need to sacrifice their lives and shed their blood?

The methods of each family check and balance each other, and are interdependent, and are almost equally matched.

If the other noble families were interested, why didn't they take the throne themselves, but instead pushed the Xuanyuan family to the throne?

The sentences in the history books recorded by each family were vague, and even the fragments were full of errors and omissions. However, the remaining people of the top families were extremely anxious because of the disappearance of the families without reason. They finally put aside their past grudges and came together again like tens of millions of years ago. They pieced together the incomplete history books of their respective families, and then finally vaguely guessed the real truth!

The first question is why the Xuanyuan family came to power. Was it because his secret skills were too powerful at that time, overwhelming the twenty-two families?

No, on the contrary, the Xuanyuan family is the weakest among the twenty-three families, so he attracted the attention of all the families.

The Xuanyuan family was the one that was pushed forward by the other families to take the blame!

As for why the throne, which has always been a popular title, would be linked to taking the blame, it was simply because the origins of the twenty-three families were extraordinary.

The history books recorded in the style of the Spring and Autumn Period that they came from a secret place, but they encountered a sudden disaster from an unknown place. For some reason, or to be more precise, they came out of the so-called "Peach Blossom Land" for some mission. However, after they arrived in Xizhou, they saw that Xizhou was full of disasters and the people were living in misery. Therefore, after all kinds of entanglements, they finally decided to act on behalf of heaven, establish a dynasty, and save the world.

Here comes the point worthy of attention. The reason they came out was because of their mission, but they gave up halfway and went to establish a dynasty. This is unacceptable in any way.

So, will someone from "Taoyuan" return to the world one day and bring back those who have failed in their mission?

When they first thought of this, their faces turned pale. This idea was absurd. After all, how could a family with thousands of years of history and a huge monster be captured? But this absurd idea happened in reality, and the family was taken away before they even had the chance to resist.

Such great power only points to one possibility.

Their ancestors came from the underworld. Perhaps they were responsible for guiding souls into the underworld, but they were seduced by the right to do whatever they wanted in the mortal world, so they stayed and established the Xuanyuan Dynasty. In order to reduce their guilt, they forcibly selected the Xuanyuan family to act as the main culprit, just to gain the identity of an accomplice to reduce their guilt.

The remaining people from the aristocratic families who gathered together felt a black screen before their eyes.

The gloomy underworld and the terrifying ghost land echoed in my mind again.

By the way, what were the characteristics of the person who was taken away?

Everyone's heart sank. They had all practiced the secret family skills. The remaining people either had no talent or had always been marginalized in the family. Was this how they escaped the reckoning of the underworld?

But the ancestors are guilty, and this sin may affect their descendants. What will they face in the underworld after they die?

Any ecstasy that might have remained in the heart about the pie in the sky disappeared without a trace at this moment.

***

A woman in a dark cloak came to a stall in Xijing.

She silently asked the boss for a bowl of plain noodles.

The boss brought the noodles with a smile, and felt a deep and strong chill. He shuddered instantly. He couldn't help but recall the scene of the gate of the underworld wide open that day. He was stunned. He subconsciously paid more attention to it. No matter what he did, he couldn't help but look at the woman.

The woman picked up the chopsticks and pulled open her cloak, revealing a Nanzhou face underneath the cloak.

The woman ate her plain noodles bit by bit while observing Xijing. But perhaps plain noodles were not to the taste of this Southern state native. The boss noticed that she stuffed the noodles into her mouth almost painfully. The way she ate gave people the illusion that the noodles tasted like wax.

The boss looked at him and his face wrinkled like the folds of a bun.

Are the plain noodles he cooks so unpalatable?

Is this a bit too much?

finally.

The boss and the woman breathed a sigh of relief at the same time.

Finally finished eating! It was so hard!

"Boss, check out!"

The woman shouted.

"Okay! Six cents."

The boss came closer and smiled.

Seeing the woman looking for money, he couldn't help but ask, "Sir, is this not to your liking?"

The woman paused, handed the money to the boss, and shook her head: "No, the noodles... are delicious, but I..."

Wen Shao exhaled a breath of eerie ghostly air.

I have forgotten that I am a ghost and can no longer taste anything.

"It's just that I prefer spicier food."

Wen Shao smiled.

"Oh, oh, so that's how it is." the boss said repeatedly.

"How have you been lately? Is there anything inconvenient?" Wen Shao asked.

The boss was stunned. This question was somewhat familiar. It reminded him of a person who often walked the streets of Xijing and could talk to anyone. He was also appointed as an official in the Dali Temple. The boss's eyes lit up and he looked at Wen Shao with an unusual look.

He immediately said happily and full of energy: "Good! It's good in any case. I don't know what worries the senior officials have had recently. It's been peaceful recently, and there are fewer officials coming here to eat..."

The boss paused after he finished speaking and said, "We are doing well recently, everything is fine recently, let him rest assured."

The boss is not blind, so how could he not recognize who was the person when the underworld reopened that day? But the young master has been so good to them for so many years, and when he leaves, he should also take away those who have been bad to them. Who wouldn't be grateful?

Even after they left, they were worried about them and sent someone to inquire about them...

The boss smiled and repeated: "Everyone is fine, everything is fine!"

Wen Shao looked at the boss strangely, but she didn't say much. Everything that happened yesterday seemed like a dream.

She slowly raised the corners of her mouth, somewhat happy: "It's good to live well."

Wen Shao put on her cloak again. Just a moment ago, the sun almost made her skin hot and swollen. She stood up, picked up the package aside, turned and left.

The boss couldn't help but chase him out and shouted, "Sir, please take good care of yourself! Everyone is well! You and the little adults should be well too!"

Wen Shao stopped, turned his head slightly and nodded.

***

Zhongzhou.

The emperor has just closed his court.

Yan You frowned and stretched out his hand to pinch his brows: "Has my condition improved recently?"

The scholar shook his head silently. After a while, he suggested, "Why don't you take a break recently and find an excuse or something. Your sleepwalking condition is really too serious!"

Yan You did not comment: "Then take all the memorials away before I go to bed, and tell no one to disturb me."

The scholar was speechless for a long while: "You will never get better from sleepwalking if you just fool around like this. But then again, I think your stress comes from government affairs. It's summer now, so use this excuse to go out and escape the heat and relax your body and mind. You have been sorting out government affairs for so long, you have changed people, and you have established a work framework. It's okay to let go for a while."

Yan You supported his chin and exhaled. As summer approached, he changed into light clothes. Occasionally, he could hear the sound of cicadas outside the window. As the heat rose, his skin gradually turned a hot pink. As he exhaled, the thin clothes stuck to his flesh bit by bit, fluttering with his breathing.

"It's not that hot," Yan You said with a grin, "Or are you tired of teaching me and want to take a summer vacation?"

Scholar: "…….Don't you want to rest? Or do you not feel hot at all? I'm almost melting!"

"Me?" Yan You paused, holding his chin with both hands, his eyes empty, staring fixedly at the outside of the palace. The greenery was lush, and the scorching sun was spreading across the earth. He chuckled, the sound half-hidden in his throat, bringing out a little sweetness, but quite sticky in this summer: "I don't feel very hot yet..."

The scholar sighed at this guy's stubbornness: "To be honest, I think I can't hide it from Congxin anymore. Although Congxin is away, he has good relationships with people when he comes back, so it's not surprising that he heard some rumors."

Yan You raised his eyebrows: "Then it's time for you to take action! Your little disciple is really honest and superstitious. I'm really afraid that he will tie me up and beat me violently because he thinks something is possessed by my body!"

"That's your biological master! He's so impolite even when he gives orders to his master." The scholar shook his head. He didn't know why, but he always felt that he and the little emperor got along very well. When the little emperor spoke to him in private, he didn't even call himself "I".

"What's the point of distinguishing between yours and mine?" Yan You teased with evil intentions as he looked at the big brother in front of him who knew nothing.

"Then can you give me half of the throne?" The scholar sneered.

Yan You shrugged: "It's not impossible."

The two laughed and talked for a while.

The scholar tried to hold it in, but couldn't hold it in any longer, so he asked curiously, "You don't look like you're not hot at all. You're sleepwalking like this. Why are you still clinging to the throne? You don't look like a control freak!"

Yan You paused: "It's okay to tell you, after all, there's no difference between you and me."

The scholar listened attentively.

The little emperor, sitting on the dragon throne with his chin in his hands, looked forward. At first, there were only one or two simple figures in the hall, which were the shadows of the emperor chosen by the previous Qilin of the Zhongzhou Dynasty after his death. But the shadows could not be stopped, more and more, and the whole hall quickly became crowded as time expanded.

Until now.

The first emperor of Zhongzhou was watching the process in a serious manner, commenting once in a while and occasionally asking him out of the blue what his opinion was.

What could Yan You have any objection to? The entire hall was packed with people and he was alone with just two people. What could he have any objection to?

Of course I pretended I heard nothing!

The scholar discovered through his blurred vision that Yan You was in a daze again.

He sighed secretly: "Sure enough, he is in a trance and prone to auditory and visual hallucinations. He is really seriously ill. I don't know what he is stubborn about."

"I," Yan You said softly, his eyes seemed to be looking into an increasingly distant place. He touched his sleeves, curled his lips into a smile, and his whole face blossomed: "I'm waiting for someone. Although I don't know when and where he will appear, I know that he will definitely come to find me."

"And I just need to stay here... and wait in peace."