"How did things escalate like this?" With no one else around, the expert asked Chen Jing in a deep voice, "You only needed to take your sister out, so why did you let those assassins who were trying to kill the mastermind go free?"
Chen Jing glanced at the teacher and roughly guessed what he wanted to ask but hadn't said.
Do you know that's dangerous and will only increase the chances of things going wrong?
“Two reasons.” Chen Jing thought for a moment and said, “Teacher, at first I thought my invisibility ability wouldn’t be enough to bring Wan Tong out, and I could only barely sneak in, so I chose to let the imprisoned assassins go and let them break out with their men, and then I would look for another opportunity.”
Indeed, Chen Jing hadn't expected that even after exhausting his spiritual power, he would still be able to lead his people out of the encirclement.
The expert remained silent, waiting for Chen Jing's second reason. Chen Jing gathered his thoughts and said:
“I discovered that a blood sacrifice was taking place on the Black Hand’s ship. Those imprisoned on the ship, including my sister and the assassins, were all near the altar.”
Chen Jing suddenly felt that the teacher's gaze had become sharp, cold, and full of edge.
“Tell me in detail,” he said.
"Hmm." Chen Jing nodded and began to recall the scene he saw when he first entered the cell.
“I saw that altar. It was made of wood, black wood, and a person was tied to it with leather straps…” Chen Jing recalled as he spoke: “His face and body were covered with dirty white cloth, and his arms were cut open, bleeding. When I went in, the person had almost bled to death.”
"Oh, right, I also saw some strange yellow paper on the altar. It should be talisman paper, with some kind of red symbols drawn on it, but I can't understand them..."
Chen Jing thought for a moment. He was so focused on saving people and killing guards that he didn't seem to pay much attention to the altar. Under his teacher's gaze, he lowered his head with some guilt: "The rest... I can't remember."
The expert nodded and then asked, "Did you see where all that blood went?"
Chen Jing was stunned for a moment. He hadn't really noticed that, and could only try his best to recall.
"It was probably..." Chen Jing racked his brains to recall the scene at the time: "It seems to have been connected to a bucket under the altar? Hmm... there seem to be some markings, guiding the flow downwards..."
However, the lighting was dim at the time, and he was also worried about Wan Tong, and he also felt that the scene of the altar was very scary and creepy, so he did not really examine the altar carefully.
"What about the corpses? If they were to perform blood sacrifices one by one, how would the corpses be disposed of?" the expert asked again.
Chen Jing thought for a moment: "I didn't see the body in the cell. Maybe it was taken away, maybe it was disposed of. Maybe Wan Tong knows, but we have to wait until she has rested and calmed down before asking her."
Wan Tong was imprisoned there for a day, so she may have seen what was happening there.
The expert's expression remained unchanged: "Do you remember the symbols on the talisman? Draw them."
Chen Jing thought that he had no mood to remember those words that sounded like a doctor's prescription at that time, and shook his head.
His hand instinctively went to his temple; his empty mind still ached.
Then Chen Jing remembered something and said, "Oh right, I heard a sailor call a knight in black armor 'Priest.'"
Just as the expert frowned slightly, about to ask a question, Chen Jing added, "During the breakout, I heard the assassins call him... the corpse driver. He seemed to be able to summon corpses to attack others, and his body was very tough."
The expert paused for a moment, then muttered to himself, "Corpse drivers from the Xia Dynasty?"
Aside from the Song Dynasty, which was destroyed in the war of ruins, there were six other kingdoms that called themselves dynasties: the Lan Dynasty, the Xia Dynasty, the Tian Dynasty, the An Dynasty, the Shi Dynasty, and the Jin Dynasty.
Among them, the Shi Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty were both barbarian states. They only took the opportunity to become independent and establish dynasties after the Central Plains states suffered heavy losses in the war of ruins!
As for the four dynasties that originally belonged to the Central Plains, they temporarily abandoned their plans to claim that they were the only legitimate successors and the legitimate descendants of the Qin dynasty, the unifier of the previous continent. They temporarily suppressed their hatred and power struggles and licked the wounds caused by the war in ruins.
Besides these, there were many other political forces, such as the great alliances on the grasslands and the nomadic peoples at sea, but none of them established a state or a dynasty!
"The Xia Dynasty?" Chen Jing asked with considerable curiosity. He grew up in Ash City, the former capital of the Song Dynasty, and his knowledge of the outside world was limited to the storytellers in the taverns.
The expert gave a disdainful "heh": "A weak, usurping state. Our Song Dynasty was originally the legitimate successor of Qin. The Xia Dynasty, Tian Dynasty, and Lan Dynasty were unwilling to acknowledge it and wanted to seize power. At that time, our Song Dynasty fought against them together with the An Dynasty, which belonged to us and recognized our suzerain status. In the war, we fought on multiple fronts and made rapid progress."
As he spoke, his undisguised high spirits seemed to return to his expert persona, making him appear as one of those unstoppable warriors who, despite being outnumbered, managed to gain the upper hand!
"Seeing that they could not win the war, the Xia Dynasty royal family abandoned orthodoxy and justice, and sought help from evil sects and heretics. They made Lingguang Sect the state religion and received help from a large number of cultivators."
"They turned their own soldiers, our Song Dynasty soldiers, into zombies, ghost soldiers! To maintain their power and status!"
Chen Jing was stunned for a moment. It was the first time he had heard an expert say so much, and the tone of his voice revealed undisguised pride and self-satisfaction with the Xia Dynasty.
He rubbed his temples and asked, "So, the priest of the blood sacrifice was that corpse driver, and the object of the sacrifice was some evil god?"
"Perhaps." The expert did not confirm: "After all, the war in the ruins has lasted for so long. The cultivation methods and magic pill formulas of evil sects such as the Lingguang Sect have also been circulated outside. It cannot be ruled out that it was a blood sacrifice by other forces, but the sects of the Xia Dynasty are the most likely suspects."
Chen Jing listened, then rubbed his temples again: "Then what should we do?"
"Since the mastermind was secretly carrying out the blood sacrifice ritual, once it was discovered, guardians would naturally step in to resolve the situation," the expert said.
"Guardians?" Chen Jing asked, then squinted, his head throbbing terribly.
"The guardians are naturally the powerful warriors who protect the former Song Dynasty. You don't need to worry about that. Feeling your spiritual energy is depleted?" Upon seeing this, the expert said, "I'll teach you a meditation technique that's particularly effective at restoring spiritual energy."
Chen Jing was delighted and was about to listen attentively.
"Go to the side and sleep. Your spiritual energy will be almost fully restored after you wake up," the expert said, pointing to the sofa next to him.
Chen Jing was stunned for a moment. He never expected that the expert, who was usually serious and stern, would actually make a joke.
He moved his legs to the sofa, lay down, and fell asleep immediately.
"Well done," the expert said, looking at him.
Then, the man turned to look out the foggy window, his brows furrowed as if they had never relaxed.
He glanced at the knife in his hand, fully aware of what the so-called guardians of the former Song Dynasty were.
He is the guardian.
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