Day and night tour

Chapter 468 The Fate of Bai Yujing

A piece of paper landed in Zhou Xuan's hand.

This piece of paper looks just like the bearer notes in the Jingguo Bank, about the size of two palms.

After Zhou Xuan obtained the paper, he sensed it and felt that it was lively and jumping around, but it was not the kind of joyful feeling of a "living thing", but more like a "sound".

The vibration and rustling of the paper, the "rustling" texture it made when it moved, made Zhou Xuan feel that this paper was a concrete manifestation of sound.

"Is this piece of paper a message from the stage to me?"

Zhou Xuan thought for a moment and realized that his words were poorly organized—he was the owner of the stage, the true master of the stage. If the stage wanted to speak to him, how could he use the word "dialogue"? It should be "consultation".

However, this inquiry was vague, and he had no idea what the stage was trying to tell him.

He lowered his head and asked the engineer in the secret realm, "Professor Engineer, what does this piece of paper represent?"

The engineer's consciousness appeared beside Zhou Xuan and, after carefully examining the paper, said, "This paper contains the rules of the stage."

"This piece of paper doesn't even have a single stroke or character. What rule does that represent?"

Zhou Xuan asked.

"Your incense offerings haven't even burned to the next inch yet, so you can't see the rules on this paper."

“Then my incense has almost burned down to the next inch.”

Zhou Xuan glanced at the incense burning in the secret realm—his method at this level was called "drawing a platform on the ground."
Using the techniques of traditional opera, a large stage is built, and audience members and actors are invited to enter.

Now, with the increasing number of audience members and actors, his popularity is growing rapidly, and it seems that it is about to reach the next inch.

"Then let's wait a little longer. As long as the audience's enthusiasm grows, your popularity will increase even faster."

The engineer said, "Such a large theater is enough for you to burn a whole stick of incense for the opera today, but..."

"But what?"

Zhou Xuan sensed a hint of unease in the engineer's words and asked in response.

The engineer's eyes, tinged with fear, gazed at the holy eyes in the sky and said...

"Such a large-scale spectacle, once staged, will likely attract the attention of the heavens and cause great chaos."

The reason why the magicians were destroyed was because they were targeted by beings in the heavens, who then sent out countless gods and Daoists to hunt them down.
As for the engineer, he was also suppressed by the first generation of "Star Lord", "Peng Hou", "Mountain Ancestor" and "Ghost Hand" because of this innocent disaster. He was imprisoned in the underground of East Market Street for more than two thousand years.

The engineer couldn't help but feel a pang of emotion when he thought of those dark and hopeless years.

"If the heavens truly hold you accountable, then we'll lock you all up together. I'll devise a game of 'civilization' for you—one that you could only play a few rounds in two thousand years, absolutely thrilling and exciting, a perfect way to kill time."

Zhou Xuan said with a smile.

For some reason, the engineer felt extremely safe whenever she saw Zhou Xuan's smile. Even if there were mountains of knives and seas of fire ahead, she firmly believed that Zhou Xuan could lead her safely through them.

"Perhaps, following Boss Xuan in the underworld means you really don't have to be afraid of anything."

The engineer thought to himself.

……

There are only a few passages between the heavens and the human world.

At the end of each passageway, the people of the Sky called it the "sick window".

Just like the viewing window on a hospital ward door, the purpose of the ward window is to monitor the "sick village" of people.

As usual, Mr. Yan hummed a little tune and occasionally popped a couple of pills into his mouth, chewing them until juice dripped down his throat.

The elixirs nourished his obese, maggot-like body, causing his flabby flesh to spasm continuously.

A feeling of complete comfort surged through his body.

"Ah, that feels so good...it feels so good..."

As Mr. Yan was feeling sentimental, he suddenly noticed a beautiful flower blooming on the land of Mingjiang Prefecture.

The flower was seven-colored, with shimmering light surrounding it, making it extremely beautiful.

"How could such beautiful flowers bloom in that diseased village? It's impossible... impossible..."

Mr. Yan quickly stood up, his right hand transformed into a claw, and he plunged it into his eye socket, gouging it out sharply.
A warm, pulsating eyeball landed in his palm, and he suddenly threw it into the world.

His gaze swept across Xiejia'ao in Mingjiang Prefecture. In this valley, he saw a place where spring reigned all year round, layered mountains, and many people dressed in clean, tidy clothes, bathed in the beautiful scenery.
"The world is a sick village, it's a lie! A lie!"

Mr. Yan roared, his anger mixed with a faint sense of jealousy.

How could those sick people on earth possibly see such a beautiful sight? Even if it were an illusion, they wouldn't deserve to see it!

What can the patient see? Horrible sights of blood, rotting flesh, and filthy, stinking ditches!

"I remember now, this is... a type of opera."

Mr. Yan's rationality was returning. He remembered, he remembered more than two thousand years ago, when the magicians' troupe ran rampant, and in that sick village, beautiful flowers bloomed everywhere...

"That's right, it's Cai Xi, it's Cai Xi! A new Cai Xi master has appeared in the human world."

"Who is that magician? Who is he? Don't let me catch him."

After a fierce roar, Mr. Yan forced his eye to see more.

He saw a man carved from jade in the colorful and wonderful world of Xiejia'ao.

The man was slender and had an otherworldly air about him. He hovered above Xiejia'ao like a god roaming the sky.

"This person...this person...is Zhou Xuan, the alchemist whom the Palace Master of Longevity admires and values ​​the most."

"Zhou Xuan is actually a magician?"

Mr. Yan's primary duty, like that of deities, is to oversee the human realm.

However, he was a native of the Heavenly Fire Clan, and his status and position were above those of the gods.

When he sees a "lesion" in the human world that must be removed, he has the authority to send out deities or Taoist masters to erase the lesion.

If the magician in this incident wasn't Zhou Xuan, then he would have already dispatched a god-level being to kill that person.

The leader of the Longevity Cult and the Crippled Monk happen to be in the mortal realm, and they are perfectly suited to take over this "annihilation" mission.

But since the magician was none other than Zhou Xuan, he dared not act rashly.
He was going to consult with "Palace Master of Longevity" Qingyang Yu.

Thinking of this, Mr. Yan didn't even bother to close his eyes. With an empty eye socket, he picked up a lantern and hurriedly walked into the endless night of the sky...

……

Inside the Longevity Palace, Qing Yangyu was sulking. He held up a large gourd and gulped down several mouthfuls of medicine.

He swallowed dozens of pills that resembled human eyes in one gulp.
His corpulent body finally found a moment of peace. Under the influence of the elixir, he saw the flowers in the Longevity Palace bloom.
The palace is like spring all year round, with exotic flowers and rare herbs blooming everywhere.

But this strange sight lasted for less than a quarter of an hour before disappearing on its own.
He flew into a rage, threw the medicine gourd on the ground, stomped on it until it was smashed to pieces, and shouted curses.
"What a load of bull! With such meager efficacy, you dare to offer this as tribute to the heavens? What kind of lousy pills are those people at the fire pit making?"

The gourd was crushed, and the "human eye" elixir, which even the most esteemed mortals coveted, rolled onto the ground, becoming soaked and contaminated by the filthy water.
But Qing Yangyu showed no sign of heartache. He stomped the pills into the mud one after another.

"Palace Master, I have something to report." Mr. Yan appeared beside Qing Yangyu, carrying a lantern.

"Xiao Yan, it's you." Qing Yangyu didn't care about managing the human world at all; all he cared about were the pills.

He complained, "The elixirs offered at the hearth lately are becoming less and less effective. The flowers in my Longevity Palace are fading too quickly."

"I'll have those deities from the sick villages go and give them some more supervision." Mr. Yan offered a few words of comfort before getting down to business: "Palace Master, another magician has appeared in the mortal realm."

"The magicians, those swindlers who are like maggots?"

Qingyangyu waved her hand and said, "Just erase it and that's it. Why are you asking me about such a small matter?"

"That person is not easy to kill."

Mr. Yan said, "He is Zhou Xuan, the young man who is very likely to become the strongest alchemist."

"It's him? Then this is going to be difficult."

The Palace Master of Changsheng Palace, Qingyang Yu, asked, "Was the scale of that colorful performance large?"

"Huge! Huge! The people in that colorful play were densely packed, numbering in the tens of thousands."

"Such a grand spectacle can't be kept secret any longer."

Qing Yangyu originally thought that if the scale of this performance was not large, and Zhou Xuan was so important to the heavens, she could just turn a blind eye and let it go.

However, Zhou Xuan's elaborate performance was so large that it was unlikely to be able to fool anyone.

"Why Zhou Xuan of all people?"

Qing Yangyu was very frustrated and said to Mr. Yan, "Xiao Yan, please calm down. I'm going to Baiyujing to see what the people above are thinking."

He walked towards the gate of the Longevity Palace, and as he walked, his fat sagged off.

As he crossed the threshold, he transformed into a black beetle, flapping his wings and soaring higher than the sky, plunging into the depths of the sea of ​​clouds.

However, he left quickly and returned just as quickly. Before Mr. Yan could wait long, Qing Yangyu returned to the Longevity Palace, back to his obese state, waddling around with his flabby body.

He sighed and lamented.

Upon seeing this, Mr. Yan hurriedly went to greet him and asked, "Palace Master, what did the higher-ups say?"

"Sigh, Zhou Xuan is finished."

"Shall we go and kill Zhou Xuan now?" Mr. Yan asked.

He also felt it was a real pity to kill Zhou Xuan—he had heard Qing Yangyu say these past two days that Zhou Xuan was very likely to become the strongest alchemist in the history of the Heavenly Vault.

Talented individuals of this caliber cannot be cultivated at will; killing one diminishes their numbers. With the passing of a genius, the emergence of the next one is uncertain, perhaps even a long time from now.

"The people of Baiyujing don't want us to kill Zhou Xuan right now."

Qing Yangyu then took out another gourd, poured several mouthfuls of pills into his mouth, and said,
"Bai Yujing also values ​​talent. After much deliberation, they came up with a plan—tonight Zhou Xuan must refine his first true batch of pills. If he does a good job with this batch, then we will give Zhou Xuan a break."
If the refining is not done well—then eliminate him.

Mr. Yan was quite vague about the boundary between "good and bad pills," so he asked again, "Palace Master, what kind of pill is considered good, and what kind of pill is considered bad?"

Qingyang Yu said, "Two days ago, Zhou Xuan refined a medicinal dust. If the pill he refines today is of better quality than that medicinal dust, then it is a good pill. If the quality is the same as that medicinal dust, then the pill is not good."

"This... is probably very difficult."

Mr. Yan said, "The last pill was already the best it could be. I'm afraid that even the pills refined by those large fire pits in the diseased villages over decades would be hard to surpass in quality."

"Who says otherwise? It's easy to go from fifty to ninety steps, but going from ninety-eight to one hundred steps is probably as difficult as climbing to heaven. That's why I said, Zhou Xuan, you're finished."

Qingyangyu sighed.

"Couldn't the higher-ups relax the requirements a bit more?"

"That's beyond our scope for discussion," Qing Yangyu said, waving her hand.
"Go, go, Xiao Yan, distribute the orders from above."
Such a promising alchemist! What a pity, what a pity.

Mr. Yan had no choice but to leave.

……

Mingjiang Mansion, inside Xiejia'ao,

The two, the Eternal Life Cult Leader and the Crippled Monk, were still acting as spectators when suddenly they noticed an eye.

These eyes, filled with sorrow, belong to Mr. Yan.

"Mr. Yan."

The leader of the Longevity Cult and the Crippled Monk bowed simultaneously.

"Zhou Xuan's elaborate display today has shocked Baiyujing. The higher-ups have decreed that if Zhou Xuan refines an even better elixir than before, Tianqiong will turn a blind eye to his role as a master of embellishments, and pretend they didn't see it."
"If the pills Zhou Xuan refines tonight are similar to the last ones, then you two should take Zhou Xuan's head and the blue and red fish back to the heavens."

"The secret of immortality is known."

“The crippled monk knows.”

The leader of the Longevity Cult and the Crippled Monk nodded simultaneously.

After Mr. Deng Yan's eyes disappeared, Chang Sheng and Tian Can looked at each other and smiled bitterly.

If Zhou Xuan becomes a pill official, the two of them will have the merit of recommending him, and their lives will be better when they return to the Heavenly Vault.

But if Zhou Xuan dies tonight, the two of them will likely suffer the consequences, and their lives will become even more difficult.

"Refine an even better pill than last time? Isn't this forcing Zhou Xuan to his death?"

The leader of the Longevity Cult sighed.

"If he dies, we won't fare well either."

The Heavenly Monk and the Lord of the Longevity Cult, having lived in the heavens for so long, how could they not know the ways of those people up there?
"Perhaps Zhou Xuan can succeed. His first batch of pills was just a single medicinal dust. Today is his second batch. The second batch should be somewhat better than the first."

The words of the Eternal Life Cult Leader carried a hint of luck, but upon closer examination, it was not entirely unreliable. "Practice makes perfect," meaning that the more times you do something, the more skilled you become.

“You don’t understand alchemy either, so why don’t we find someone who does and ask them?”

"Who are you looking for?"

"That old white deer, he knows about elixirs."

The crippled monk thought of the White Deer Hermit.

……

To be honest, Zhou Xuan's alchemy incense hadn't even been officially lit yet, and his understanding of alchemy was still quite limited.
The person who truly understands alchemy is the White Deer Hermit, who was once a Celestial Alchemist.

"What? You've refined an even better pill than the last batch? That's impossible."

When asked questions by the Master of the Longevity Cult and the Crippled Monk, the Hermit of the White Deer immediately shook his head.

"Why can't it be refined?"

"If you can't refine it, you just can't refine it. The art of alchemy is profound. It's entirely possible for an alchemist to toil for decades without making any progress in their practice."

"You think you can improve with just one or two batches of pills? Even the most talented person can't do that."

The White Deer Alchemist spoke with great confidence, but in reality, he knew Zhou Xuan's secret, only he hadn't revealed it to the Longevity Cult Leader or the Crippled Monk.

He had witnessed it firsthand; Zhou Xuan now relied on the "Starry Sky Scroll" for alchemy, and he didn't know where that scroll came from.

However, this painting can refine elixirs on its own—like an automated machine.

This automated alchemy scroll has one advantage—even if Zhou Xuan doesn't understand alchemy, he can still refine extremely powerful pills after collecting enough materials and building an alchemy furnace of the corresponding level.

However, the scroll also has a drawback: because it is an automatic alchemy machine, it has no independent consciousness.

It can only refine that one type of pill; it can't refine any other pills. And if you add some miscellaneous pill ingredients to the furnace, hoping to improve the quality of the pill? Sigh, then just wait for the furnace to explode.

therefore,

At best, the quality of the pills Zhou Xuan refined tonight will be on par with the quality of the medicinal dust from last time. To think he could refine better pills... that's just wishful thinking.

"Oh no, we're going to get our hands on some 'gualuo' (a type of food)."

The Longevity Cult Leader smiled bitterly.

The monk Tiancan sighed and said, "It seems that the new alchemist of the Heavenly Vault will have to offer up his head."

After hearing what the White Deer Taoist had to say, the two lost all hope in Zhou Xuan and began to plot how to kill him and remove the blue and red fish from his body.
"There are too many skilled fighters tonight, and Zhou Xuan is the kind of person who would draw his sword against anyone. It might be a bit difficult for the two of us."

The Longevity Cult Leader then said to the Crippled Monk, "Stop watching the show and go fetch the old incense master."

"I can't get out, you go."

The crippled monk said helplessly.

That's how the stage for the opera is set up; once you've entered, you can't leave until the performance is over.
Unless, of course, the audience or actor's level of influence is too high, so high that Zhou Xuan's stage cannot contain them.

Although both the Heavenly Crippled Monk and the Longevity Cult Leader are deities above the nine-stick incense level.

However, even among those who burn nine incense sticks, there is still a distinction between high and low.

The level of the Longevity Cult Master surpasses that of the Crippled Monk. The Crippled Monk cannot leave the stage, but the Longevity Cult Master can.

"I'll go if I want to."

The leader of the Longevity Cult left the stage to find a Taoist priest to perform the final act...

……

The audience in the arena felt a surge of hatred as they looked at the disciples and followers of the Dunjia Incense Sect.

As their hatred intensified, their resolve strengthened, and Zhou Xuan's incense burned even faster.

"Fuck."

From Zhou Xuan's incense, came the sound of lighting a fire.

"It's already burned down to the next inch, Mr. Gong."

Zhou Xuan said to the engineer.

The engineer immediately began to teach, saying, "Boss Xuan, the eighth level of the magic show is called 'The Hundred Plays of All Beings.' When all beings watch the play, the combined power of countless wishes condenses into this performance."

The power of everyone's vows can also change the course of the play. First, guide those vows, and then look at that piece of paper from not long ago.

"it is good."

After Zhou Xuan agreed, he first held his breath and focused his mind, then opened his secret realm and guided the overwhelming power of his vows into his body.

With the blessing of the power of the vow, Zhou Xuan looked at the paper again and saw the numbers "one, two, three".

"Teacher Gong, there are three numbers on this paper, but I don't quite understand what they mean."

“Boss Xuan, the stage is for you to set three rules for this performance.”

"Should I set the rules for this play?" Zhou Xuan countered.

"Of course. You're the theater owner. If the owner doesn't set the rules, what's the point of putting on this grand show?"

"That's what the engineer said."

Zhou Xuan immediately said, "Then I'll set a rule—all members of the Dunjia Sect will be wiped out, won't that solve it?"

"I asked you to set the rules, not to make a wish."

The engineer immediately said.

"What kind of rules can be set?"

"The rules are designed to make this play more fair, just, and transparent," the engineer said. "The playwright sets up the stage so that the actors can't pull any tricks, which is why the rules were created."

"Then I'll make their incense offerings equal to mine... That's within the rules, right?"

Zhou Xuan recalled the arena that the butcher had once set up, where everyone's incense offerings were suppressed to the same level.

If the theater were like this, Zhou Xuan would be able to dominate the world—among those of the same realm, Zhou Xuan has never been afraid of anyone.

Unexpectedly, the engineer said, "If you set these theater rules, it will actually be disadvantageous for you..."

(End of this chapter)