Chapter 14: The Tenth Chapter of the Immortal's Journey to the West: Eliminate the old abuses, promote women's education, and grant amnesty to the world...
Wen Ruojie pushed open the coffin lid with great effort, and a ray of light shone on her, so strong that it seemed to melt her.
Yin Chuan, who came in with her, was not around at the moment. She slowly stood up and saw a towering gilded palace in the dim light.
She walked over and pushed open the cold vermilion lacquered door with all her strength.
With a creaking sound, the quietly dormant giant slowly opened its mouth towards her.
Octagonal palace lanterns stood on both sides, and the dim candlelight in the glazed covers was like thousands of turbid eyes, staring at the visitors outside the palace.
At the top of the end sat a man in a bright yellow dragon robe. He was old and decadent, like a golden statue that had long been unconsecrated, with spider webs all over his shiny back.
"...The four demons have massacred the city, leaving corpses everywhere. Your Majesty, you must not hesitate any longer!"
"The Imperial Master has never been wrong in his divinations. This time, only by sacrificing Princess Qingning can the entire Shu be saved!"
The ministers made passionate speeches, their bloated figures shrouded in darkness.
The beams on the roof of the hall made a sour sound. It seemed that it had begun to rot and decay, and was about to fall on an innocent girl with a crushing force.
Wen Ruojie suppressed her rapidly racing heartbeat. Amidst the cries of attack, her expression shifted from confusion to composure. It was as if a spirit lurked deep within her consciousness, guiding her as she uttered these words:
"Qingning is willing to ascend the Immortal Wangtai to appease the wrath of the ghosts and gods!"
"But please, Father, grant me a small request."
There are many critics, but behind the princess there is only a lonely but tenacious shadow.
"The palace ladies who followed Qingning are all talented and capable, and are worthy of being pillars of the country! I want to plan a future for them before I leave."
The aging king looked at his young daughter, like the setting sun meeting the rising sun.
As long as I don't fall from this position and make a mess of myself, what's wrong with agreeing to this insignificant request?
…
There were wounded soldiers and broken armor outside the city, and the whole place was filled with wailing.
On the Wangxian Terrace, the princess, wearing a red and blue 翟衣, confronted the ghost in the black fog.
The ghost's face was shadowy, with bandages wrapped around the area below the eyes. It showed no joy or anger, and was completely lifeless.
Wen Ruojie was terrified, but his body was nailed to the spot. He couldn't help but say: "I know you want to get my soul."
The ghost looked at her quietly and raised his hand.
"Before I came here, I asked the Imperial Master for a Soul-Breaking Talisman. If I want, before you can attack me, I can shatter my soul into ashes."
The ghost hand paused.
"So, I want to make a deal with you."
After a long moment, a hoarse, cold voice floated out from the black fog: "What kind of deal?"
The princess looked up and said, "Please spare my people and give me thirty years. After thirty years, I will personally offer you my complete soul."
"A few decades is but a blink of an eye for you, isn't it?"
The eyes in the black fog were fixed on the brave and fearless young man in front of them. Their gaze was confused at first, then compromised.
"See you at Wangxiantai in thirty years."
The dark clouds covering the towers of the Golden Palace gradually disappeared, and the sunlight that had been hidden for many days returned to this land. There were deafening cheers and shouts below the city, but there was another group of people crawling on the ground, crying inconsolably.
A young man knelt in the middle and cried, "Those people never showed any mercy to the princess's life, so why did you risk your own life to save her?"
Wen Ruojie felt a warm tear running down her face. She turned to look at the young man, her chest filled with tenderness and relief.
"Tunan, come to me."
The attendant Tu Nan wiped away his tears and hesitantly came to the princess's side.
Wen Ruojie rested her hands on the tiles of the city wall. Her vision had never been so broad and clear. The voice in her heart said, "I just want to make up for those regrets."
"It's my mother's regret, my aunt's regret, and my cousin's regret."
"The people I want to save are them."
She opened her arms, her voice changing from bewildered to resolute: "It's those women like me who long to stand on a high place and overlook the scenery."
During the Biyong period of ancient Shu, four ghosts massacred the city and harmed all quarters. Princess Qingning subdued the ghost generals at Wangxiantai and was welcomed by all the people.
The following year, the king passed away and Qingning ascended the throne. He changed the reign title to "Zhaozhang", eliminated old abuses, promoted women's education, and pardoned the people.
He reigned for thirty years.
Ten years pass in the blink of an eye.
Qingning left behind a letter of abdication and stood quietly on the Wangxian Terrace.
She looked at the capable woman in red and purple before her and gently took her hand. "I remember forty years ago, you were still in the East Market Opera Troupe, fighting with a few fierce dogs for steamed buns."
Tunan choked up and bowed his head: "I can't bear to leave Your Majesty."
Qingning said gently, "I have lived for an extra thirty years."
Over the past thirty years, there have been shallow grooves at the corners of her eyes, and her hair has turned frosty and white.
Qingning stroked the calluses on Tunan's palms, looked up and murmured, "Do you feel that the clouds here are within reach, and the vast mountains and rivers are within reach?"
“When I stood here as a child, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
“I want to reach higher, see further…I want the old year to pass, everything to be anew, the rivers to be clear, the seas to be calm, and the world to be at peace.”
Tunan had never seen such a radiant aura, as if his heart had turned into a beating flame, making a thumping sound that could be heard across thousands of years.
At that moment, she also caught the clouds in the sky.
The dark clouds silently covered the entire platform again.
With a satisfied smile on his face, Qingning leaped into the black fog, his clothes trailing in the dazzling shadow of the red clouds.
…
When Wen Ruojie woke up again, he was still in the dark and cramped coffin.
The feeling of jumping off the platform was so real that she almost thought she would be reduced to ashes along with Qingning - but apart from the sweat dripping all over her body, everything that had just happened seemed like just a distant dream.
"Yin Chuan? Yin Chuan?"
She pushed the male actor next to her, but saw that his teeth were chattering and his whole body was trembling, probably because he had witnessed the four ghosts slaughtering the city.
The coffin lid above their heads was pushed open with a loud bang, and a familiar face appeared above the two of them.
Meng Caiyun rolled up his sleeves and held out his hand: "How was your sleep? Any clue?"
Wen Ruojie quickly used the force to flip over and jump out. When he landed, his thighs felt sore and weak that he almost fell down.
She shivered, tugging at Meng Caiyun's sleeve as she stood up straight. She briefly recounted the dream and pointed at the black coffin in front of her: "It was Tunan. After Qingning died, she prepared a coffin for herself in Wangxiantai."
"She wants to continue to be with the princess even after she passes away."
"I guess... she was dissatisfied with the later generations' tampering with Qingning's story, so..."
Meng Caiyun pondered for a moment, first used the Yuling Scissors to cut off the resentment wrapped around Yin Chuan, then pressed her hands on the coffin lid, and a wind blew up out of nowhere, and her sleeves fluttered. After several attempts, she stopped and let out a "Huh".
"That's strange. Now that we know the origin, the core of the formation should also be revealed."
She pinched her chin and suddenly thought of something. She reached out and grabbed the edge of the coffin lid, exerting force suddenly. The muscle lines on her exposed forearm emerged clearly with the movement.
"Get up!" she shouted, and with her bare hands she flipped the heavy lid to the ground.
On the back of the pitch-black coffin lid, a twisted talisman was drawn in bright red blood.
Wen Ruojie's face turned pale and he covered his mouth in fear.
The talisman was extremely strange, with eerie cloud-shaped calligraphy and only the beginning and the end.
It’s the Zhao family’s “no characters”!
——It can stir up resentment and devour spiritual energy. It is an evil forbidden item that is deeply hated and despised by the people of the Zhu Alliance.
Even though the Princess's Mausoleum is now a tourist attraction, it is still a mausoleum in essence. Ghosts also like to hide in such places. Once this characterless card appears, strange things can break through the barrier between yin and yang and haunt the living.
"It really has something to do with the Three Death Gates..." she muttered.
The Zhao family's loyalty to the Three Deaths Gate can be traced back to more than a hundred years ago, and the family has a very deep connection. However, after the death of "Impermanence Ghost" Zhao Fu, her descendants gradually became insignificant and did not cause any major trouble.
Is this talisman a remnant from the past, or a recent occurrence?
"ah!!"
In the distance, a loud shout came from where Zhang Huai and others were gathered.
Meng Caiyun's eyes narrowed, and in a flash, he realized something: "Oh no!"
She should have realized earlier that the core of the formation wasn't limited to inanimate objects! That long-necked ghost kept lingering near the Wangxian Terrace. Could it be...?!
Li Lan, Zhang Huai and others gathered beside the car and waited. There was nothing unusual at first, but after being startled by the sound of something heavy falling to the ground in the distance, something suddenly rushed out from the bushes.
It’s the long-necked ghost that lost its head!
Li Lan's face turned pale. She clutched the "incense burner" in her hand and muttered "Amitabha" and "God bless" incoherently.
Zhang Huai bravely tried to comfort everyone, "His head was chopped off by Taoist Meng, so he shouldn't be able to see us..."
As he said this, as if to contradict his words, the long-necked ghost suddenly sprouted silk-like tentacles from the broken neck, and quickly weaved a soft and sagging face again.
Some people couldn't stand this visual stimulation and fainted with their eyes rolled back.
The long-necked ghost rummaged through the bushes and found his previous head. He took out the disgusting things inside and stuffed them all into his new skull.
Zhang Huai couldn't hold it in any longer, and he and several others held onto the car door and began to retch.
Perhaps compared to a few ordinary people who have no fighting ability, the long-necked ghost wants to get the last meal that he didn't get to eat before.
He leaned down towards Li Lan, and a scarlet, twisted tongue covered with barbs protruded from between his sharp teeth.
Zhang Huai choked and yelled, "Xiao Li, throw the incense out!"
Li Lan choked up: "I, my hands can't move anymore..."
At the critical moment, a silver mop hit the ghost's tongue with lightning speed, smashing it three-quarters into the ground.
Long Zhu was afraid that the ghost would come to steal his food again, so he hit him several times in a row with an expressionless face.
The others were stunned, watching numbly as the often out-of-touch studio logistics staff pounded the entire ghost roughly into the center of the earth like a moon rabbit pounding medicine.
However, after getting rid of the long-necked ghost, Long Zhu came to Li Lan with a resentful look on his face, staring at the incense that was only burning a little bit.
Everyone didn't understand what he meant and thought there was something wrong with the incense, and their expressions became increasingly solemn.
Long Zhu scratched his cheek: "Didn't you say there was only one tube?"
Li Lan: “…Huh?”
So that’s what you’re thinking about!!
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