Strange Stories

Chapter 587 Picking Bones

"What a pity for this Tianshan Mountain..."

The third brother was covered in wounds, standing on the clouds, looking at the Tianshan Mountain, which was originally covered with snow all year round but is now still burning with blazing fire. He couldn't help but think of the past:

"I remember that several decades ago, Princess Hua and I rode on jade horses down from the Tianshan Mountains. It was midsummer at that time. The sky was covered with snow, holy and majestic. From a distance, the ground below looked green. When we got closer, the grassland was full of wild flowers of various colors. It was really leisurely..."

It is a story about the travels of a Taoist priest and a woman in red.

"It's a pity for the ancestor's palace and these snow lotuses. What a nice house and what good crops." The eldest brother sighed as he looked down, "It's also a pity for these heavenly soldiers and bean soldiers."

“The longest of these snow lotuses may be a thousand years old,” said the second senior brother.

This is a pity for the old farmer and the alchemist.

"Thank you three friends." The Tianshan Patriarch was no longer as lazy and wealthy as before, and was equally sad. "If it weren't for you, I would have been captured today."

"My condolences, old ancestor." The eldest brother said, "The Purple Emperor is determined to eliminate the demon, and the Nine Heavens Gods will not stop making things difficult for the old ancestor just because of a failure. The old ancestor must either follow us back to Yishan, or continue to find a place to hide. In any case, he cannot stay here."

"It can only be this way……"

The Tianshan Patriarch was very distressed and waved to his children, "Go and take out all the snow lotus in your storage and give them to a few friends."

"You're too polite, ancestor."

The three did not refuse.

The remaining thousand-year-old snow lotus was quickly taken out.

There aren't many left.

However, three people did not think it was too little, because the Millennium Snow Lotus was only one of the many ingredients of the Four Directions Five Elements Golden Pill, and although the Millennium Snow Lotus was precious, because there was an old ancestor of Tianshan who liked to plant the Millennium Snow Lotus, it was already relatively easy to find among many ingredients. Others such as Swallow Egg Incense, Earth Spirit Pill, and Millennium Fire Ginseng were more difficult to find, and might even slowly become extinct - what was more likely to happen was that before these Millennium Snow Lotuses were used up, Swallow Egg Incense, Earth Spirit Pill, and Millennium Fire Ginseng would no longer be found in the world.

Many golden elixirs also became extinct in this way.

"Grandmaster, please do not completely remove the remaining roots of the snow lotus on Mount Tianshan. Once my junior brother has completed his meditation and attained supreme magical powers, he may be able to restore it to its original state."

"Have a good time, my friend! Be careful!"

"Please be careful, too, ancestor."

When the three of them parted, they looked at each other, each of them had wounds on their bodies.

He is worthy of being called the True Martial God of the North!

Although the Long Snake God did not have the peerless demeanor of the Floating Pool God, his fighting power was much stronger than that of the True God under the command of the previous Tianweng. Even with the cooperation of the three of them, they only won by a narrow margin.

……

On the other side of Fengshan Mountain, two Taoists, Luo Gong, and an increasingly elderly man in a flowery robe walked slowly along the ridge of the mountain, with a refined horse following silently behind them.

The whole world is green.

The grass is as green as silk and even as water. When the mountain breeze blows, it creates ripples, outlining the shape of the wind.

"The world is really completely different now." Lin Jue sighed, "When we were young, what were the stories about fairies, ghosts, and gods like? Most of them were about a scholar who was studying hard and met a fox from the neighbor's house, or a drunken scholar who met a female ghost at a lonely grave at night, or upright officials who got along with fairies, or gods who made friends with humans on an equal footing..."

When Fuyao heard the word fox, she turned around and looked at him.

"But now..."

Lin Jue stopped and took a breath of fresh air:

"The most popular story in the world is that a human and a demon fell in love but were ruthlessly separated by the laws of heaven. If an upright official who is not afraid of demons has too much contact with demons, he will be criticized by his colleagues. I don't know when the gods in heaven seem to be higher than those on earth. I really don't know when it started."

“It all started with the Purple Emperor.”

The man in the flowery robe with a dog head on his head said this, but paused for a moment and spoke for the Purple Emperor:

"But the world is indeed much more peaceful. There are fewer and fewer goblins and ghosts, both good and bad. Nowadays, many people in the world have never seen goblins and ghosts. They have only heard of them in stories. Some people even start to stop believing in them. When they occasionally encounter them, no matter if they are good or bad, they are very scared. Haha, from this point of view, the Purple Emperor's achievements are not small."

"yes……"

Lin Jue also nodded.

Thinking carefully about the present time, it is completely different from the last time Tianweng was in power.

When the previous Tianweng was in power, he was lazy and idle. Even in times of peace and prosperity, goblins and ghosts could be seen. Many goblins and ghosts coveted the prosperity and civilization of the human world, and ran to the city to live with humans. There was even an absurd incident where goblins and ghosts transformed themselves into humans and served as officials in the court. There were many goblins and ghosts in troubled times.

There are many good monsters, and there are also many evil monsters.

Whenever there is troubled times, there will be many monsters who are led by the blood and evil spirits and take the shortcut of practicing cultivation. Whenever there is a natural disaster, there will be monsters and evil creatures who take advantage of the chaos to cause trouble. Every time a big monster is born and causes trouble, it will inevitably harm one side for a long time before being slowly eliminated by the Nine Heavens True Lord warriors who are slow to realize the situation.

The Purple Emperor, however, was strong and overbearing, and would not tolerate any grain of sand in his eyes.

Therefore, in today's prosperous world, it is rare to see goblins and ghosts. Even if they do exist, they dare not conflict with people at will, let alone harm people, and dare not enter the city easily.

It's much better in troubled times.

It was like the previous change of course of the long river, or the drought, or the war on the border, especially in the north and central regions, all the demons and evil creatures at the core of the Purple Emperor's incense were suppressed.

If a big demon shows up to cause trouble, the heavenly soldiers and generals will soon arrive.

Therefore, even Lin Jue could only say: "If the Purple Emperor can distinguish between good and evil and not judge people by one stroke, he is really a diligent Heavenly Emperor." Lord Luo listened in silence, and suddenly asked:
"When was Senior Hua stripped of his priesthood?"

"It was only a dozen years ago." The man in the flowery robe said, "It's not just me. Most of the non-human gods in the world have been deposed one after another. It's just a matter of time. I'm better off because I was deified at the end of the previous dynasty and was deified once by His Majesty Luo Gong himself. Therefore, the gods have issued decrees many times, the Zixiao Palace has petitioned many times, and the Ministry of Rites has asked the emperors of the world. After discussion, they were all rejected."

Senior Hua didn't say much else, but everyone could hear it.

If the nine gods in the sky will fall, the human court will naturally become corrupt as well.

Today's emperor is no longer the same as before, and today's court is no longer the same as before. The officials are more incompetent, the court is weaker, and the emperor is more incompetent, so they will be more afraid of the gods.

Ever since the river changed its course, the people of the country and the court officials blamed the emperor for his lack of virtue. After the benevolent and generous emperor issued an edict of self-blame and then bare-chested to ask for forgiveness, the majesty of the emperor began to gradually decline. This is something that every dynasty has been unable to escape, and for this dynasty, it has been maintained for a long time.

On the contrary, the Purple Emperor's prestige grew higher and higher, he became more and more overbearing, and his control over the human world became stronger and stronger.

"Um……"

Lin Jue thought for a while before saying:

"Senior Hua is old now. It's not good for him to live here alone all the time. Why don't you stay with me or go to Yishan and keep the company of the mountain gods and monsters there? Wouldn't that be much better than now?"

"What? Is the Purple Emperor going to take action against your nine-tailed fox?"

"Sooner or later."

"Are you going to use this on me again?" The man in the flowery robe rolled his eyes. "I was once a god!"

"..."

Lin Jue felt helpless seeing him like this.

The approach of the True Lord under the Purple Emperor might be different from that of the Protector of the Saint, but it is also possible to find him and, by taking advantage of his identity as both a monster and a former god, pick on him to find problems with himself and Fuyao.

Just in case.

But this senior is very concerned about his reputation, and saying this would probably make him depressed and sad.

Before he could speak, the voice of the junior sister came from the side:
"Brother, I just saw that you are old, and as the saying goes, an old man in the family is like a treasure, so I just wanted to take you in to enjoy the good life!"

When the man in the flowery robe heard this, he showed some joy.

He just turned his head, his eyes turned in the opposite direction, and glared at them with his head tilted:

"Don't tease me!"

"Brother told me the same thing last time." The younger sister said, "Not only last time, but also decades ago, he said that if we invite Senior Hua to his place, the disciples he accepted at that time could be taught by Senior Hua to read and write, the art of freedom, the art of persuading the emperor to be happy, and Senior Hua's paper-cutting art."

"Ha ha ha ha……"

The man in the flowery robe immediately burst into laughter.

The laughter was shrill, almost like a dog barking.

A few figures were enjoying the breeze on the top of the mountain for a while, looking down at the mountain. They saw a few scholars and literati climbing the mountain together. The people on the mountain looked at them, and they also looked at the people on the mountain.

From the perspective of these literati, they probably thought that they were just a few ordinary people and an ordinary horse.

But before long, some of them disappeared in the wind, some rode the clouds back to the mountain, and some rode on the horses and rode the clouds and wind away.

……

Almost a few days later——

A god is coming down to this place.

The general, with heavenly soldiers protecting him and the True Lord watching over him from behind, entered the cave in the mountains to search.

However, the cave was now empty. Only some rags and cotton wool, some used paintbrushes, rotten wood and some dog hair were found.

"Ugh……"

Zhenjun couldn't help but have a headache.

The True Lords and generals in the north all fought their way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood. If he were asked to go and eliminate demons, he would definitely do it without hesitation. But if he was asked to investigate a True Lord who was also good at eliminating demons and had great merits, he would inevitably feel that he had no idea where to start.

After several days of investigation, he finally found a place to start by imitating the true master of the previous dynasty, but he came up empty-handed.

……

Almost at the same time, a priest also arrived at Mount Yi and questioned the immortals in the mountain why they were blocking Jiu Tian from exterminating the demons.

The immortal in the mountains debated with him and countered his moves.

Not only did the True Lord go to the underworld to investigate those who had died in Mount Yi in the past hundred years, but the Martial God also descended on Mount Yi to investigate the monsters in the mountain that were harming people.

If he is not a saint, how can he be perfect?

Yishan Mountain is so large, steep and rugged, and the mountain roads are difficult to navigate. How could it be possible that no one would fall and die? There are so many monsters in the mountain. How could there not be a single evil monster or ghost for thousands of years?
This is the same as the mountain god of Hammer Mountain.

……

Asking for double monthly tickets!
(End of this chapter)