sweet dreams
Xilizhu's shuttle has the privilege of the Eastern Territory. The moment it steps into the Eastern Territory, it will introduce the boundary marker's power mark, and can enter directly. Changxia followed it for a while, which saved him the trouble of going to the boundary marker again.
Speaking of which, although the Human Emperor system has collapsed, the Eastern Territory, where the Ji clan has the deepest roots, is the place with the strictest hierarchy among the four territories. They have adhered to the most ancient etiquette for tens of thousands of years, so how could they be shaken by a mere eight hundred years?
Outside the post station are the mountains and rivers that are as beautiful as the mountains.
The place of Buduku has its own characteristics - the mountains are steep, the lakes are deep, and the roads are rugged and difficult to cross.
It is totally out of place in the gentle and wealthy East Territory.
Legend has it that this place was created many years ago by a human emperor who moved mountains and reshaped water, creating a gateway to the Eastern Territory, making it easy to defend and difficult to attack. However, despite the current situation of hostile forces on all sides, the interior is relatively peaceful, and people entering and leaving the Eastern Territory no longer use this route. Instead, a wider route has been opened, reducing the suffering and making it less populated. It wasn't until some unknown time that someone discovered that the water here had the power to induce beautiful dreams, and then it gradually became bustling with activity.
Changxia didn't know what the immortals in the sky were like. Anyway, no matter whether Cang Xuan was a cultivator or a mortal, before he understood the truth, he always sought pleasure for a moment.
The saying that the water of Buduku is like a dream is actually not quite accurate. To be precise, what really makes people dream is a colorless and invisible thing that is scattered throughout the waters of Buduku, like a swimming fish. People in the East call it "mirage".
The word "蜃" is the same as the "蜃" in mirage, and the word "蜉蝣" means that this thing is born quickly and dies quickly too. It is born at Youshi and dies at Chenshi, and cannot be seen during the day.
It is very consistent with the dreaming routine.
Because the mirage has no physical form, you can't catch it with your hands, you have to use your spiritual sense. The moment your spiritual sense touches the mirage, you will be pulled into a beautiful dream and see the scene you most want to see in your life.
Changxia had come to play before, and what she saw was that she won the dice game against Xie Fengxue and Bie Jingchun, and then she arrogantly ordered them to sweep the floor and cook.
Xie Fengxue came with her at the time, but when she asked him what he dreamed about, Xie Fengxue refused to tell her. Changxia pestered him for a while, but finally gave up.
The current Buduku is much quieter than when she came here hundreds of years ago.
Due to the terrain, Buduku could not build a large city-state. The small wooden buildings here were built along the mountains and rivers, scattered in groups of three or two.
In the past, many local residents turned their wooden houses into hotels for travelers who came to enjoy themselves to rest.
It was already night when Changxia arrived. She identified the direction and started knocking on the door of a house with lights on.
I knocked on five or six houses before someone finally opened the door.
The owner of this house is a cultivator in the Nascent Soul stage. He said that he was tired of the chaos in the outside world and lived in seclusion here. He has already reached a very high level of cultivation in the mortal world, and this must be the reason why he dared to take in outsiders.
While drinking the hot tea prepared by the host, Chang Xia asked, "Didn't they say it was just a problem with the dream? Why are they not even welcoming outsiders?"
Opposite her was a gentle young man. He lifted the sleeve of his other hand with one hand, picked up a few tea leaves and put them into the pot to boil. The mist swirled upwards.
Changxia felt that his smooth and flowing way of making tea was inexplicably similar to Xijiang's.
It's an elegance that can only be cultivated by gold and jade.
The young man said gently, "Most of the people on this mountain are mortals, so entering dreams doesn't really matter to them. After all, few mortals' consciousness can attract mirages. In the past, if they wanted to enter dreams, they had to use the large magical instrument set up here by the aristocratic families, the Nan Ke Yi Meng. Later, when Bu Du Ku got into trouble, the aristocratic families took the Nan Ke Yi Meng back."
Chang Xia stroked the hot tea and looked at him, "Then?"
Ye Shuxing, the young man brewing tea, smiled and said in a very narrow tone, "Later, a rumor came from somewhere saying that people can't wake up after falling asleep because of monsters sucking their essence. They said that these monsters are very weak at first, and when they have absorbed enough essence, they will transform into physical bodies and go door to door to suck it. Many people didn't believe it at first, but after hearing it for a long time, more and more people believe it."
Changxia: ...
People are always good at scaring themselves.
Ye Shuxing washed a cup of tea, took out a clean cup, poured the clear tea into it, and handed it to Changxia.
"Try it?"
Changxia took it readily. She sniffed the tea and found that she couldn't tell whether it was good or bad, so she could only drink it.
After drinking, she said to Ye Shuxing, "It's a waste of your tea to give it to me."
Ye Shuxing said, "Tea is just processed water. It's not a waste if it can quench people's thirst."
Then he continued, "Is your trip also to investigate the Mirage Rebellion?"
also?
Chang Xia turned the cup around and asked, "Are there many people coming to investigate?"
"There are always some unscrupulous monks who come here to try their luck. They are not very friendly to the residents here."
This was also one of the reasons why Changxia couldn’t knock on the door before.
"But..." Ye Shuxing's smile suddenly deepened, "Now they are all dead."
Chang Xia looked up at him and said, "Your tone makes it sound like you killed him."
Ye Shuxing waved his hands, looking extremely terrified.
"I don't have that ability."
That night Changxia rested in Ye Shuxing's small wooden building.
Ye Shuxing sent her to the attic on the top floor and left a lamp on for her.
Before he left, he joked, "Fellow Daoist, please be careful when you sleep, and don't let the mirages lure you into your sweet dreams."
Chang Xia said, half-seriously, "Actually, living a life of drunkenness and dreams is not a bad place to be."
Ye Shuxing didn't say anything, but instead looked at her deeply and gave her an ambiguous smile.
Changxia washed up and prepared to go to bed.
She lay flat on the bed, her hands clasped together, resting flat on her abdomen. In her hand was a mermaid pearl given to her by Xilizhu. Although Ye Shuxing was known for her concealment, she could tell at a glance that there was a mirage in the tea.
Logically, after drinking the drink, the mirage cannot be exposed to the spiritual consciousness, just like not drinking it, and one cannot enter a dream. I guess Ye Shuxing has some way to make the mirage actively pull people into a dream.
According to her personality, she should have captured the man and tortured him severely, and if she couldn't get any information out of him, she should have killed him. But just as she was about to take action, the white chess piece in the storage bag moved.
She didn't know what secret technique the old man used, but she actually understood what Bai Qi meant - he let her fall into a dream through the mirage in the tea.
Changxia didn't believe the old man, but she believed that the old man would not let her die while she was still useful.
She looked quietly at the pointed roof of the wooden house, wondering what kind of sweet dream she would have tonight.
————
As everyone knows, sword cultivators are a poor profession, with few avenues for income. When they're not exploring secret realms, they often pick up side jobs. Becoming a Canglang Tower assassin is the best option, but those with less powerful abilities, or those who prefer peace over violence, will choose another path: blacksmithing.
Sword cultivators have to forge a sword of their own from scratch. They will also be exposed to a lot of knowledge about weapon cultivation, so it is relatively easy for them to switch to blacksmithing.
So there are many blacksmith shops in the West.
Tianlailou is one of the restaurants that is neither good nor bad. The owner is a white-haired old man who likes to drink and brag. After drinking, he likes to pick up a hammer and hammer around.
He has superb blacksmithing skills, but because he has no spiritual power, the magic weapons he makes are all low-level. The great monks look down on them, but the young monks who are practicing Qi and building their foundation like to pick and choose from him.
This is also a job with a stable income.
The old man looks like a mortal no matter how you look at him, but his shop has been open for thousands of years.
So people around him think he is a mortal with a secret.
Now this mortal with a secret is drinking with a young fortune teller.
Mountain Master Zuo had always been aloof and spotless on Morning Star Mountain. But now, sitting at a low table blackened by the flames of the forge, he was surprisingly composed.
The appetizers were not very generous, just a plate of peanuts and a plate of smashed cucumbers. But the wine was a rare and fine one, Tianshan snow that had been cellared for 130 years, a fine wine unique to Yunting, which he had taken from the headmaster before leaving.
The old man poured him a glass of wine and poured himself another, and without waiting to clink glasses with Zuo Qin, he began to drink.
The wine made him close his eyes unconsciously.
"The wine you gave me is really strong. The old yellow wine I usually drink is too bland."
Zuo Qin accompanied him for a drink.
The old man's cloudy eyes suddenly turned, and he laughed:
"When you drink like this, I always feel like I'm leading the kids astray."
Zuo Qin did not comment, but asked: "You are not leading the children astray now?"
The old man said, "Xia Xia is not a child anymore."
He took out a new empty glass and poured wine into it, but this time he didn't drink it. Instead, he poured it onto the table.
With the dim light of the fire reflected by the wine, I could see clearly that there were thirty-eight lines drawn on the dark low table, nineteen horizontal and nineteen vertical.
This is a chessboard.
The wine flowed along the vertical and horizontal lines of the chessboard and finally disappeared at the Tianyuan position.
"Xie Fengxue and Song Libai have been together the longest, but she is still closer to and trusts Xia Xia more. That little girl has an intuition more accurate than that of a wild animal. People like us can't get close to her."
He opened his eyes, picked up a white chess piece out of thin air, and placed it on Tianyuan.
"Xia Xia always makes everyone like her. It's the same with you and me, Song Libai, and her fellow junior brothers and sisters."
Zuo Qin's eyes dimmed slightly, and he waved his hand to scatter the white piece. Even if the boy made an unhappy expression on his pleasing face, it was hard to get angry.
The old man coaxed him in a good-tempered manner: "Xia Xia isn't worried about me harming her, so why are you worried?"
Zuo Qin's eyes were like a calm ancient well.
The old man added: "None of us wants Xia Xia to get hurt, right?"
After a long time, he finally heard Zuo Qin's cold voice: "But we are doing something that makes her sad."
The old man did not answer him, his cloudy eyes looked towards the east.
"I hope she has a good dream tonight."
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