Longzang

Chapter 594 Visitors
"Look over here! I'm talking to you, you smug-looking guy!" The scholar turned his head and saw a burly man with a face full of scars waving at him.

Beside the burly man was a desk with a pen and paper on it, and behind it stood a filing cabinet filled with neatly stacked piles of paper. Next to the desk was a sign that prominently displayed the three large characters "Registration Office".

Along the road at the town entrance, there were eight or nine identical desks, each with two or three burly men behind it.

The scholar walked over and asked with great curiosity, "Does entering Qingming require registration?"

The burly man glared at him and said gruffly, "Otherwise what? Do you think this is a place you can just come and go as you please? Enough nonsense, hurry up and register, I haven't finished my tasks for today yet!"

With that, the burly man slapped a piece of paper into the scholar's arms and said, "Judging from your appearance, you seem to be literate and can write. Save me some effort, you can fill it out yourself!"

The scribe pointed to the small square beside him and asked, "What are those people doing?"

The small square was packed with thousands of people, forming dozens of long queues, waiting to register. There were a hundred desks in the square, and each person in charge of registration wrote with lightning speed, so although the queues were long, they shrank relatively quickly.

The burly man looked in the direction the scholar was pointing and said, "Those are refugees, preparing to join Qingming. You're different; you're probably not here to join, are you?"

The scholar glanced at the form, frowned slightly, and said, "Why is it so complicated? Forget it, I won't go into town, I'll just leave."

The burly man immediately shouted, "Stop! You can only leave after you've registered!"

The scholar, indignant, questioned, "I'm not going in, so why do I need to register?"

"Why so many questions? I'll do it because I want to! I'm telling you to register, so you have to register!"

The scholar tried to argue, but the burly man had already raised his fist and shouted, "If you dare to utter another word, I'll charge you with obstructing official business, beat you half to death, and then send you to jail!"

The scholar angrily said, "Is there no law here? You think you can just arrest people like that?"

The burly man sneered, "Stop talking nonsense. Who says we don't have laws? We only arrested you because you refused to register. If you had registered obediently, none of this would have happened. Enough talk, are you going to fill out this form or not?"

Seeing that several burly men had surrounded him, and with the situation beyond his control, the scholar had no choice but to obediently pick up his paper and pen.

There are more than a dozen columns on the paper, and the registration information is extremely detailed. It takes a lot of effort to fill it out. At the very end, there is a line of small print: If there is any lie, may I be struck by lightning.

Finally, it's time for the signature, and it's required to sign your name in both the human and witch languages.

The scholar carefully wrote the document, signed his name, and then said, "How could I possibly know the Wu language? I can't sign this!"

The burly man picked up the form without even glancing at it, tore it up with a "rip," and said, "Fill it out again."

The scholar was furious: "Why is that?"

The burly man said expressionlessly, "There can't be any alterations on it. Fill it in again!"

Surrounded by several muscular men, the scholar had no choice but to swallow his anger and accept the new paper to fill out again. Just as he signed his name, one of the men snatched the paper away and tore it up, saying, "Fill it out again!"

This time, he didn't even bother to come up with an excuse.

The scholar was so angry that his face turned ashen and his hands trembled uncontrollably, but the people around him who were handling the matter ignored him.

A man in official robes passed by, chatting and laughing with the burly man, but no one paid any attention to the scholar. The scholar finally understood that all officials in the world were one family, and in this desolate place, there was simply no place to reason.

He filled out four forms in a row, and each form was torn up. It wasn't until the fifth form that the burly man carefully examined the signature and nodded in satisfaction.

The scholar had spent a full hour here, too exhausted to speak, and walked blankly into the town. As soon as he entered the town, he suddenly raised his sleeve and looked at it, and saw several thin lines of cause and effect that ordinary people could not see at all, stuck to his cuff.

A faint smile appeared on his lips as he muttered to himself, "So that's how it is! I didn't expect you to have such a cunning trick up your sleeve."

At this moment, there were five lines of cause and effect stuck to his cuffs, which were exactly the five forms he had filled out. Four of the lines were so faint that they were almost invisible, but the fifth one was very obvious.

The scholar strolled aimlessly through the town, soon noticing several pairs of eyes watching him. A sudden thought struck him, and he looked into the distance, his gaze struggling to penetrate the many obstacles, finally catching sight of a corner of the calamity clouds peeking out on the distant horizon.

"Someone is undergoing tribulation? Hmm, I didn't see the tribulation clouds clearly, I need to take a closer look." The scholar squinted, about to look again, but the world changed instantly, and everything in the distance disappeared into the clouds and mist, no longer visible.

He glanced down at the causal threads on his cuff and chuckled, "So that's how it works? I underestimated you. Qingming truly lives up to its reputation as a celestial stone; it is indeed wondrous."

At this moment, these threads of cause and effect were connected to something unknown, and whenever the scholar tried to look into the distance, the power of the realm would automatically block him. After trying several times, the scholar nodded slightly and said, "They should have already discovered me, but why is there still no movement? In that case, I'll go and see for myself."

The scholar turned and went into a shop by the roadside, disappearing from sight. Several people who had been following him noticed something was wrong and rushed into the shop, but the scholar was nowhere to be found.
The scholar strolled along, the scenery changing with each step. In the blink of an eye, he had seen Yong'an City and entered Ding'an City, which was still under construction.

Yong'an City is vast, now home to hundreds of thousands of people. The streets are bustling with people, and the houses stand side by side, stretching as far as the eye can see. Yet the scholar only took a few steps before leaving the city.

But in Ding'an City, he stopped and quietly watched the new city gate under construction. People walked around him, but none of them paid him any attention.

The city gate tower had barely had its foundation laid when iron cages made of steel bars were erected, and wooden planks were used to shape them before monks began pouring buckets of mud into them. This was a completely new construction method, and the scholar watched for a full quarter of an hour, then closed his eyes and silently calculated the time needed for the city gate tower to be completed, his expression changing for the first time.

He scanned the city wall construction site with his divine sense, breathed a slight sigh of relief, and muttered to himself, "Fortunately, the defenses are slightly weaker than traditional city walls..."

But before he could finish speaking, he saw a group of monks carrying more than a dozen steel plates flying over, laying the thick steel plates on the city wall, and then covering them with a layer of mud.

The scholar was speechless for a moment.

And so he looked around, and before he knew it, half an hour had passed. Only then did he suddenly remember: Where are the tribulation clouds?
This time he didn't delay any longer. His figure disappeared instantly, and a moment later he appeared outside the Hall of Heroes, looking at the upper half of the Hall of Heroes, which had already collapsed.

Wei Yuan's voice rang out in the hall: "Distinguished guest, you have come from afar, why not come in and have a chat?"

As the scholar entered the hall, he saw Wei Yuan standing before rows of memorial tablets, gazing intently at each name on them. Many tablets were dull and lifeless, while others shimmered with a faint golden light, and some were even as lustrous as jade, radiating a hazy glow.

The scholar smiled knowingly and strolled in.

Wei Yuan did not turn around, and slowly said, "Those enshrined here are the people who died in the war with you. They knew that going to the battlefield meant certain death, but they still went without hesitation. I'm afraid they didn't expect that they would have to go through another life-or-death test."

The scholar glanced around and smiled, "Your heroes are our enemies, so I wish I could burn this place down."

Wei Yuan seemed not to hear what he was saying and continued, "There are still a million tombstones outside, taking up two mountains. If you hadn't come, they wouldn't have died."

“If I don’t come, other tribes will. Besides, even if we don’t come, you will come anyway.”

Wei Yuan nodded: "That's true. You're only arriving now, so you must have already seen everything in Qingming. What did you think?"

"This is quite unexpected, and in some ways, it's even shocking! This is something that normal humans couldn't possibly come up with. You must have come into contact with beings from some wondrous world, right?"

Wei Yuan was slightly taken aback and said, "Impressive! You could even see that. But with your wisdom, why did you insist on attacking me? And why would you risk your life alone for a woman and a child? You should know that once you're here, you can't leave easily."

The scholar chuckled self-deprecatingly and said, "I never imagined that one day I would be threatened face-to-face by a mere law official. The last person to speak to me like that was Long Zhe."

Wei Yuan finally turned around, his eyes blazing, and said, "Our major realms are roughly equal. I used to be two minor realms behind you, but now I'm only one. With such a small difference, I don't think you're anything special."

"So it was you undergoing your heavenly tribulation just now. No wonder. You arranged so many things in the Azure Netherworld just to buy time so you could successfully complete your tribulation, right?"

Wei Yuan readily admitted, "I didn't expect the heavenly tribulation to arrive at this time. Otherwise, I wouldn't have needed to show you so much."

The scholar smiled slightly and said, "You think this is just a coincidence?"

"What do you mean?"

"If I come today, your tribulation will come today. If I come tomorrow, your tribulation will also occur tomorrow."

Wei Yuan sneered: "What a boast!"

This calamity was triggered by the Three-Eyed Bird Beast digesting the Thunder Eagle's Dharma Form Soul. Wei Yuan did not believe that any being in this world could manipulate the Shadow in the Moon.

On that day, under the Great Curse of Cause and Effect, the Three-Eyed Bird was able to tear through space and send itself and Zhang Sheng to the far north, the only place with hope of survival. The power transmitted from a distance was already so terrifying, its true status should be above that of the Heavenly Witch.

The scholar was not angry and said, "If I'm not mistaken, your tribulation this time is probably quite unusual and much more difficult than others, right? And it's not just this time; the previous ones should have been the same."

Wei Yuan said calmly, "It's not hard to guess. If you think you can use this to disturb my Dao heart, you can save your breath."

The scholar casually grabbed at the air, and several strands of calamity energy appeared in his palm. These hair-like gray wisps took shape and continued to writhe.

The scholar smiled slightly and said, "If this is a guess, no one would guess that you would be undergoing the inner demon tribulation that only Yu Jing experiences."

A cold glint flashed deep in Wei Yuan's eyes, but he said nonchalantly, "There are only so many kinds of Heavenly Tribulations. You can guess randomly, and you'll eventually get it right. Besides, you only say it's a Heart Demon Tribulation because you're standing here. Although I don't know how to read tribulation energy, it seems you do."

So, accept this approach. Only if you had written to me beforehand, telling me you were facing a trial by fire at a certain time today, would I have believed you had the ability.

The scholar said, "I won't beat around the bush with you. It's indeed difficult to influence your personal tribulation. However, it's not so difficult to intensify the tribulation of the thief who steals the heavens, and this is in line with the will of heaven and earth. As long as you continue to steal the power of heaven, the tribulation will not be easy."

"Well, even if you intercepted the soul of the Witch Clan that should have returned to heaven and earth, it shouldn't have come to the point where you have to directly face the tribulation of inner demons. You've most likely done something else that heaven and earth wouldn't tolerate, which is why the heavenly tribulation is so severe."

The scholar looked Wei Yuan up and down, seemingly lost in thought: "So, the one standing before me right now isn't some inner demon, is he?"

"You are the inner demon! Your whole family are inner demons!" Wei Yuan didn't know why, but he accidentally blurted out his true feelings.

(End of this chapter)