Chapter 473: The Treasure of the Bewitching Immortal (Double Monthly Ticket Request)
Houses were scattered in the middle of the sea of flowers, giving the fleeing king and his minister the illusion that they had entered a paradise.
Soon, some farmers working in the flower fields or villagers busy in the courtyards came over with curiosity.
Zhao Duan drove and stopped outside a courtyard at the entrance of the village. He got out of the car and heard dogs barking and children calling for their mother from inside the courtyard.
After a while, the gate opened and a woman about thirty years old looked outside curiously.
Behind her, there was a little girl of about six or seven years old, with a child's bun. She hid her body behind the woman's legs, tilted her head and looked at her curiously with her big eyes.
"Who are you looking for?" the woman asked in confusion.
Zhao Duan said politely:
"Excuse me, my wife and I are from Linfeng. We went south for some reason and are now returning.
Because things have been quite unsettled lately, I didn't dare take the official road, so I took the detour through this village. I'd like to spend the night in the village, but I wonder if it's convenient."
As he spoke, he took out a string of copper coins from his sleeve, indicating that he would not get it for free.
The woman was stunned for a moment, and saw that a young woman really got out of the carriage. In addition, the way the king and his minister spoke and behaved showed that they were not from humble backgrounds, but were well-educated and definitely not bad people.
The vigilance in her eyes faded, and she eagerly opened the door to welcome the guest:
"Since you're staying here, please come in if you don't mind."
Tsk... People of this era are still simple and honest... Unlike in my previous life, things like staying overnight were almost extinct... Zhao Duan smiled.
Xu Zhenguan also smiled and thanked him. When he came over, he glared at him secretly and said resentfully:
"You're becoming more and more proficient at this kind of rhetoric."
Zhao Duan smiled. It was not that he wanted to take advantage of others. The main reason was that the two of them, when traveling together, would most suit the couple to pretend to be a couple.
Linfengdao is close to the capital and has a similar accent, so it is not easy to be suspected.
The emperor and his ministers entered the extremely clean farmyard and sat down in the courtyard. A woman who called herself "Liu Wangshi" poured flower tea to welcome the guests.
During the conversation, Zhao Duan learned that the head of the family was surnamed Liu, and the little girl had a nice name called "Lily".
"You two have chosen the right path. The Huai River region is plagued by bandits. I heard that Prince Jing in the southeast and Prince Mu in the southwest have both led their troops into the Huai River... The imperial court has to deal with both sides, and I heard that they may not be able to hold out for long... There are reports of conscription of men on the official road."
Liu Wangshi felt a little reserved in front of the king and his minister, who were dressed in ordinary clothes but had extraordinary temperaments. However, she felt a good impression of them for no reason and shared the local situation with them.
Did the troops of Prince Mu’s Palace also march into the Huai River?
Zhao Duan and the empress looked at each other, and their hearts sank.
This was an extremely bad signal, meaning that King Mu had also swallowed up Yunfu Road in a very short time.
But what is different from Jiancheng is that in Yunfu, there is the entire southwestern border army of the imperial court, led by Zhao Shixiong!
In other words, Prince Mu's march northwards indicated that Zhao Shixiong's troops had done nothing to contain him... Combined with the fact that Zhao Shixiong had not returned to Beijing on New Year's Eve last year, it was almost certain that:
"The Southwestern Border Army has rebelled!"
Zhao Duan looked at the empress who seemed a little dazed, and suddenly reached out, covered her hand and squeezed it.
Xu Zhenguan forced a smile and obediently did not struggle.
Taking advantage of the time when the Liu family mother and daughter left, Zhao Duan whispered:
"Look at it this way. Two tigers fighting each other is far better than one tiger devouring everything. Prince Jing and Prince Mu both want to fight for the throne. Both sides' troops must pass through the Huai River and enter Linfeng before they can reach the capital.
This means that both sides will check and balance each other, slowing down each other's progress, which may buy the court more time to react."
Xu Zhenguan nodded worriedly:
"I know."
The two of them addressed each other as king and minister in private, but once they were in front of outsiders, they would avoid using certain words of address.
At this moment, the mother and son of the Liu family who had gone out came back, and brought in a man dressed like a simple farmer, who was the head of the household, Liu Qi.
When Liu Qi learned that there were guests staying overnight, he enthusiastically asked his wife to kill chickens and geese and prepare a farm banquet to entertain them. He tried his best to think of topics to talk to the two of them.
The gentle Liu Wangshi and the innocent "Sayuri" interrupted whenever they had the chance.
This idyllic village and its simple and friendly people dispelled the gloom in the hearts of the emperor and his ministers.
"Ah, I can tell at a glance that the young master and the young lady must be from a wealthy family. Now they have suffered a war. It would be dangerous to travel outside at this time." During the meal, Liu Qi drank the yellow wine and couldn't help but sigh.
Liu Wangshi also nodded and said worriedly:
"If you two have relatives in the Huai River, it would be best if you could seek refuge there for a while."
The king and his ministers smiled bitterly and responded perfunctorily. The Liu family also knew their limits and did not say much.
…
Farmers eat dinner early, and the sun is setting after dinner. Liu Wangshi goes to clean the side rooms, and Xu Zhenguan goes with her to help.
Zhao Duan walked out of the yard and got familiar with the entire village. The little yellow-haired girl nicknamed "Lily" became familiar with him during the meal time and smiled as she acted as his "guide".
I'm introducing the village a bit awkwardly. Baihua Village is neither big nor small, and has dozens of households.
Zhao Duan listened with a smile, and after making sure that there were no spies from the local big families in the village, he looked towards the mountain behind the village.
At this time, the light of the setting sun just happened to peek out from between the two mountain peaks. Zhao Duan suddenly narrowed his eyes and stopped.
"Sayuri, are there people living on the hill behind the village?"
He suddenly asked.
The innocent little girl tilted her head 45 degrees, looked in the direction of his gaze, said "Oh", and said:
"No, there's only a dilapidated temple on the back hill."
The little farm girl with a slightly chubby face and tanned skin suddenly showed a frightened expression and whispered:
"The adults in the village said that there were ghosts in the temple and that anyone who went in would come out dazed, so they wouldn't let me go."
ghost?
Zhao Duan curled the corners of his mouth and looked at the temple in the back mountain with an increasingly solemn gaze.
He was sure that he had never been to this area, but for some reason, he always felt that the scenery before him was familiar.
"It's as if... I've seen..."
"What is it? I must have seen it before? Where? I've never been here before..."
"Think about it carefully..."
Zhao Duan stared at the corner of the temple building on the lush green hill behind him under the setting sun. Suddenly, a flash of inspiration flashed through his mind.
He remembered!
"Master Guhuo! I've seen this temple before in the memories of Demon Guhuo!"
At the beginning, when the demon was bewitched and sent to Beijing to kill people, Zhao Duan used the vast amount of memories from his previous life to counterattack the demon's magic and "read" some of the demon's remaining memories.
This includes the scene where he colluded with Zhuang Xiaocheng;
Another thing is that before he entered the capital, he entered a dilapidated temple, opened a secret room, and took away some magical instruments.
At this moment, in his eyes, the dilapidated temple on the mountain behind Baihua Village perfectly overlapped with the vague scene in his memory.
"Is it simply a resemblance? Or... is the secret treasure trove of the bewitching master hidden here?"
Thinking of the haunted legend that Sayuri told him, Zhao Duan held his breath and immediately returned to the Liu family.
"Are you sure?" In the side room, Xu Zhenguan also showed a look of surprise after hearing what he said.
"I'm not sure yet, so I'm going to take a look." Zhao Duan said seriously:
"Your Majesty, your injuries have not healed yet and you need medicine to heal them. I am also stuck at a bottleneck. If this is truly that demon's treasure trove, the things inside will surely be of help to us!"
Xu Zhenguan's eyes also lit up, but he immediately said worriedly:
"But if that demon is hiding there to recuperate, it would be too dangerous for you to go there rashly. Let's go together."
"No, Your Majesty, please stay outside. I was able to kill him in his prime back then, and I am not afraid now."
Zhao Duan suppressed Zhenbao who wanted to go with him.
If it were any other sorcerer, Zhao Duan wouldn't have the confidence, but if it was someone who could deceive a real person... haha, it could only be said that the human-shaped tonic had been delivered to his doorstep again.
"But……"
"Your Majesty, have you forgotten? At the critical moment, I can still ask Pei Niannu to descend." Zhao Duan reminded seriously.
The empress nodded reluctantly:
"If you don't come back soon, I'll go and help you. Oh, and bring the Tai'a Sword with you."
Zhao Duan did not refuse and said self-deprecatingly:
"Perhaps I am mistaken. How could it be such a coincidence? We were running away and just happened to run into this?"
Xu Zhenguan pondered for a moment, then suddenly shook his head and said:
"No, perhaps it wasn't luck, but destiny. I chose that day for the Fengshan ceremony because it was the day with the brightest star in my destiny and the best fortune of the year. Unfortunately, someone used the 'Sang Shen' to forcibly change my fortune, bringing it to its lowest point...
But this tampering is not without cost. Besides the inevitable backlash against the caster, my previously obscured 'luck' will also gradually recover... and as the Son of Heaven, my luck is equivalent to the fate of the nation, and is inherently far superior to that of ordinary people."
Zhao Duan was stunned:
"Your Majesty, are you saying that our encounter with this temple wasn't necessarily a coincidence, but rather the accumulation of our luck reversed by the Death God that day, which has now erupted?"
"It's possible, that's why we were able to escape successfully. However, the influence of luck is ultimately limited. Everything depends on human effort, and good luck and bad luck often go hand in hand." Xu Zhenguan hesitated and said:
"Always be careful."
The word "luck" is too metaphysical.
But Zhao Duan, who had personally experienced the seven-day curse, did not dare to underestimate it.
After the two of them agreed, they waited silently for dark.
When the sun set, Zhao Duan quietly climbed out the window and left, floating like smoke and like a ghost, heading towards the back mountain.
…
The temple on the back mountain was not close to Baihua Village, but with Zhao Duan's current cultivation level, he tried his best to get there. Soon, he walked along the dilapidated mountain road and arrived outside the abandoned temple.
A full moon hangs high in the sky, emitting a cool and mirror-like light.
Zhao Duan looked up and saw that the archway outside the temple was broken. There was no name on it, only the word "three" was vaguely left.
"If this is truly the location of the treasure vault, the so-called 'ghost' is probably just some kind of deception set up by Gu Qizhen to prevent mortals from entering."
Zhao Duan pondered for a moment, then reached into his bosom and pulled out a stack of talisman paper from the scroll. This was also what he had applied for from the government office before heading south.
"Let me find out... The spell to see through the formation is... the Sky Eye Talisman, that's it."
He took out a piece of talisman paper from a stack, channeled his Qi into it to ignite it, and wiped the burning talisman paper across his forehead.
Suddenly, his eyes flashed with a bright blue light in the darkness, just like when the empress opened his eyes in the Emperor's Tower to let him see the gods of heaven and earth.
"My guess was right!"
Under the watchful eyes of the heavens, Zhao Duan quickly discovered that this dilapidated temple was indeed set up with a maze, but there was no killing formation.
"Yes, if someone were to kill someone, it would easily attract the attention of the authorities. The maze is sufficient."
Zhao Duan leaped to the southeast corner of the ruined temple and cracked a stone pillar with one palm, revealing a silver bowl buried inside.
When the silver bowl was put away, the formation was immediately broken and lost its effectiveness.
Following his memory, Zhao Duan entered the temple and stopped behind a Buddhist shrine. He tried to feel around and turn the "mechanism" hidden behind the shrine.
“Zazaza—”
One side of the wall suddenly cracked, and with the sound of friction between gear hinges, a secret passage opened!
"You're not wrong!"
Zhao Duan's eyes lit up, and he took out another "illuminating talisman" and stuck it on his head. The cinnabar on the talisman lit up like a flashlight, tearing through the darkness and illuminating the way ahead.
Holding the Taia sword, he walked up the stairs into the secret room.
No one!
Only a secret room that was exactly the same as the one in his memory appeared before his eyes!
As he entered, the beads inlaid on the walls of the secret room lit up one after another. On the rows of wooden shelves, the most conspicuous thing was a pile of gold, silver and jade artifacts, as well as books.
There were piles of objects of various shapes and sizes on the ground, which looked extraordinary.
In the open box on the ground were bottles of elixirs, and on the wall hung armor and weapons that were obviously extraordinary.
However, after careful comparison, I found that the items in the secret room were nearly half less than I remembered!
Especially the pills in the boxes and the things that looked like talismans on the shelves, which were reduced the most!
"It seems that Guhuo Zhenren is indeed not dead. After I killed him, I was afraid that this guy was seriously injured and resurrected again, and then came here to take away a lot of things. Damn, they are obviously all mine..."
Zhao Duan smacked his lips, but when he thought that it might be more beneficial to fatten up the demon before killing it, he stopped being angry.
"There are many things I don't know, but Zhenbao is knowledgeable and experienced, so he must know them."
Zhao Duan was not polite at all. Like a mouse entering a treasure mountain, he picked up all the precious things and stuffed them into the scroll space, especially the elixirs, which he completely emptied!
His movements were so swift that they swept away everything in a flash.
After a while, the treasure house was completely cleared out, leaving only a few things that were of little value and took up space.
"You are a good demon. It took a lot of effort to escape. Thank you for the airdrop." Zhao Duan was a little touched.
He had volunteered his soul power before, and now he was offering him a treasure trove. If anyone said that the old Taoist was actually a spy sent by the imperial court, he would believe it.
"Justice!"
Zhao Duan felt unsatisfied and explored the secret room again, when he suddenly discovered that there was a hidden door inside.
“Squeak—”
Pushing the secret door open, the view suddenly opened up and in front of me was a small courtyard blocked by walls on all sides!
"What's this……"
The yard was very small, with only a square pond in the middle, from which gurgling warm spring water emerged. In a corner of the pond, a small black and white tree, intertwined with each other, took root.
The leaves of the tree are like jade, with a fiery red color flowing through them.
Zhao Duan was stunned, and suddenly recalled the jade leaf that the demon had taken from the treasury, which was strong enough to withstand the attack of the gods.
"According to Pei Niannu, it's Kunshan jade... So, is this tree also some kind of natural treasure?"
…
Baihua Village, inside the Liu family's small house.
Xu Zhenguan sat in the side room, pacing back and forth anxiously. The candlestick on the table flickered with orange flames, casting her shadow on the wall.
The empress's face was filled with worry. Suddenly, she turned her head to look at the backyard. As the window opened, Zhao Duan jumped in.
"How is it?"
Xu Zhenguan looked him up and down first, and when he saw that he was not injured, he breathed a sigh of relief and asked immediately.
Zhao Duan pulled off the black cloth covering his face, walked to the table, picked up the teapot and drank a full belly of water. Then, with a gleam in his eyes, he placed the silver scroll on the table:
"Returning with a full load..."
He quickly recounted his treasure-seeking experience, leaving Xu Zhenguan stunned. He looked at the various elixirs, magic tools, and strange objects piled on the table with a look of delight and surprise.
"It's a pity... the tree is rooted in the spring water and it's difficult to get it out." Zhao Duan's face was full of regret again, and he talked about the black and white trees.
After hearing this, the Empress' eyes suddenly lit up: "Black and white trees?"
"Your Majesty knows this thing?" Zhao Duan was curious.
Xu Zhenguan's eyes truly revealed a rare joy that she had experienced along the way. She looked deeply at the bewildered Zhao Duan and said:
"Your opportunity to advance to the World Realm has arrived!"
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
