From a martial arts disciple to a god through countless trials and tribulations

Chapter 155 Dark City
The mushroom spirit looked shrewd and enthusiastically recommended the communication talisman to Chen Xuan, saying that no matter how small a mosquito is, it is still meat.

"I have no money."

Chen Xuan shook his head and refused with a clear conscience. Although nine days ago, he had killed one of the "Four Great Spiritual Monsters" of the Mushroom Jingzhi Kingdom, a top expert, and five other ordinary Daozang, and obtained a large amount of Wood Virtue Spiritual Rhythm income.

However, whether these six spiritual essences of different qualities can support the Huangliang Daozang of the second heaven to successfully ascend to the sixth heaven is still uncertain. He wants to keep them for his own use.

Moreover, the number of spiritual objects needed to practice "The Secret of the Five-Tibet Military Immortal Body" in the future will be an astronomical number.

Afterwards, Chen Xuan asked the Fungus Spirit about the details of Luoyue City:
"Are there still people from Chu in the city? How many Daozang are there in Zhi Country? How many Dinglu masters are there?"

The Chu State has limited military strength, and it is unknown when it will be able to recruit experts to fight back. This time is too long.

He didn't want to wait too long.

The mushroom spirit was startled when he heard the sound, and quickly waved his hands, saying in horror: "Why are you asking this? I, the mushroom, will not be a spy! Unless, unless..."

He signaled Chen Xuan with his eyes and rubbed his two fat white fingers, indicating that he wanted something.

Chen Xuan glared at him and said, "There are powerful cauldrons in the city. What bad things can I, a small Taoist monk, do? Tell me quickly... Good mushroom, in this desolate mountain and wild place, don't you want someone to steal your things?"

"??"

The mushroom spirit felt threatened, quickly put away his fingers, laughed dryly, and said:
"Fellow Daoist, you're such a joker! How could someone of your noble status in the Southern Wilds commit such acts of banditry... Well, it's nothing to be ashamed of. I, Junzi, can't stand the evil deeds of some of the plant and tree spirits of Zhi Country, like the Willow and Bamboo tribes... They're too much."

In Zhi State, there are more than a thousand plant tribes, unlike Chu State, which only has one human tribe.

Therefore, the mushroom spirit felt no psychological pressure to betray the news of other spirits in Zhi Country.

Then, the mushroom spirit told Chen Xuan the details of the situation in Luoyue City:
"There are approximately one hundred Daozang realm masters stationed in the city."

"This large army is mainly composed of four major tribes: the Willow Tribe, the Bamboo Tribe, the Ginseng Tribe, and the Ganoderma Tribe."

"The most powerful among them is a top expert from the four clans who has the potential to achieve the cauldron... Liu Qi from the Liu clan. He went out to sweep the area over ten days ago and must have made a great harvest, so he has been reluctant to return."

The mushroom spirit introduced the origins of these four races to Chen Xuan.

The Ginseng Clan and the Ganoderma Clan are both noble royal families of the Zhi Kingdom.

The former was a descendant of Zhenjun Dawu, and the latter established the Guzhi Kingdom.

Liuzhen and Zhu clans are large clans within Zhi country, similar to the thousand-year-old families and local sects in Chu, but they are stronger and have deeper foundations.

"The four great Dinglu masters of Luoyue City are from these four families."

The mushroom spirit paused for a moment and continued, "Four great masters take turns to govern Luoyue City. The one currently sitting in the City Lord's Mansion is the great master of the Bamboo Clan—Purple Bamboo Taoist."

The other three were either stationed in a small town thousands of miles away, or had returned to the rear, or were patrolling further ahead.

Chen Xuan nodded when he heard the voice and asked:

"How strong is this Taoist Zizhu? Tell me all his deeds. I'm very curious."

The mushroom spirit was stunned when he heard this. Why did he want to know so much? What was he going to do?
But on closer thought, he didn't even know this basic information, so he definitely had nothing to do with the villains from the Chu State Demon Suppression Division. But what good would it do for a Taoist monk who had defected to the Southern Wilds to inquire about the news of Dinglu Da Neng? Could he even kill Dinglu Da Neng?
"The Taoist Master Zizhu is a master of bamboo, his bloodline comes from the ancient purple jade bamboo."

"Several years ago, he returned to his ancestral form and condensed into a purple bamboo treasure body."

"Taoist Zizhu is a gifted spirit. Just after turning a hundred, he became a great Dinglu master. Like the ancestor of the Liu clan, he is also a proponent of war in Zhi State."

When the mushroom spirit spoke of the Purple Bamboo Taoist, his face was full of admiration, and then his body shuddered a few times. It seemed that the Purple Bamboo Taoist was also a notorious monster.

"After a hundred years of practice, you can become a genius by making a cauldron? Ha, genius is really worthless."

Chen Xuan muttered in his heart, thinking that a newly promoted Dinglu master from a few years ago should only be at the first level of Dinglu...

He immediately asked:
"Are there still people from Chu in Luoyue City?"

The mushroom spirit replied, "There are still hundreds of thousands of old, weak, sick and disabled people..."

Luoyue City is the only big city in an area of one or two thousand miles. During its prosperous period, its population reached one million.

During the past six months, most of the mortals in the State of Chu were relocated, but there were still many who chose to stay.

After trekking thousands of miles to escape the disaster, some ordinary people, with sick, elderly, or children at home, could not endure the journey and were forced to stay behind...

Moreover, although being a servant to the monks of Chu State and being a servant to the monsters of Zhi State are more dangerous, they are essentially the same.

After all, when Zhiguo attacks, it is impossible to kill all the mortals. In the future, ploughing the land, building houses, and serving... these jobs will still need to be done by mortals!
But if you meet a brutal monster like Liu Qi, it means you are doomed to die.

Chen Xuan thought for a moment, then asked the mushroom spirit to take him to Luoyue City for a tour.

The mushroom spirit was stunned when he heard this.

……

Soon after.

The mushroom spirit and Chen Xuan arrived at the city gate.

The one guarding the city gate was a Taoist monk from the Ginseng Clan. He was white and fat, with a big belly and a white beard on his chin that dragged on the ground.

It stared at Chen Xuan, whose origins were unknown, for a long while before muttering, "A mortal..."

Chen Xuan possesses Taiyin Qi, which has the effect of isolating perception. Even Liu Qi and Deputy Xu, who are high-level Taoist Canons, cannot detect anything unusual. The ginseng monster, who is an ordinary Taoist Canon, cannot detect Chen Xuan's breath at all.

The ginseng monster turned around, looking embarrassed, and complained to the mushroom spirit:

"There are hundreds of thousands of humans in the city. Why are you, a profiteer, capturing mortals from outside the city? I'm afraid you're a spy from the State of Chu. This is really putting my job in a difficult position!"

He extended a hand implicitly, signaling the mushroom spirit to give him some benefits.

The mushroom spirit immediately flew into a rage and shouted, "I just paid you protection money half an hour ago when I left the city. Don't bully me!"

The ginseng monster chuckled, scratched his head, and looked embarrassed:
"You have money from business... Forget it, you profiteer, go into the city!"

The mushroom spirit nodded in satisfaction, then ordered Chen Xuan, "Come here, what's your last name? Follow me into the city. There's a lot of work for you when you get back!"

Chen Xuan replied: "Xue, the surname is Xue!"

"Xue, Xue Da! Go into the city!"

As he spoke, the mushroom spirit led Chen Xuan into the city openly.

The ginseng monster did not stop the mushroom spirit. He was just an ordinary mortal, and he couldn't cause any trouble in the city...

Chen Xuan safely entered the dilapidated Luoyue City and turned a few streets.

The mushroom spirit immediately said goodbye and said, "Fellow Daoist Xue, I have big business to do outside the city. You can go shopping by yourself and don't cause trouble! I live in the merchant inn in the east city. If you want to leave the city, you can find me." A Taoist monk who caused trouble in the city was seeking his own death. Mushroom knew that Chen Xuanxiao knew his limits.

Chen Xuan nodded, and then casually said:
"Good mushroom, please don't do bad things and become a bad mushroom. Next time I see you, I will make you into mushroom soup."

The mushroom spirit quickly waved his hands and said, "We, the mushroom tribe, never fight or kill. We only do business... In fact, we, the mushroom tribe, would rather live in the orderly and stable Chu State!"

After saying that, he ran away quickly.

The mushroom spirit was anxious to do business with the traveling merchants from Chu State, and they had already urged him several times through talismans! Chen Xuan watched the mushroom spirit leave, and then he walked alone on the wide stone road, with faint bloodstains remaining in the cracks between the bricks.

Luoyue City is extremely large, with black walls dozens of meters high, enclosing an area of dozens of miles. Even if Chen Xuan stretched out his soul and body with all his strength, he could only cover a small corner of the city.

"Crack!"

The street under Chen Xuan's feet was empty. Most of the houses on both sides of the road had collapsed. Some were charred by the raging fire, while others were swallowed by various vines and plants. Occasionally, some broken corpses could be seen in the ruins.

The cold wind blew up the dust and fallen leaves on the ground, creating a bleak feeling.

"There are quite a few mortals..."

Chen Xuan walked along the long street. In some well-preserved houses, pairs of frightened human eyes stared at him suspiciously through the window lattices, as if wondering why Chen Xuan dared to walk on the road in broad daylight. Wasn't he afraid of being killed by monsters or abducted and used as a toy?

"rumble!"

Suddenly, at the end of the road, smoke and dust billowed, and the roar of a cavalry charge sounded, coming towards this side.

Chen Xuan looked intently and guessed that it was some monsters from Zhi Country, about to leave the city.

"Crack!"

At this moment, in a low wooden house on the side of the road, the wooden door opened a crack, revealing a pair of dark eyes. The man whispered to Chen Xuan:

"Hide, idiot!"

Chen Xuan turned his head and saw a pretty girl of about thirteen or fourteen years old.

"Wow!"

The little girl rushed out, grabbed the corner of Chen Xuan's clothes, and dragged him into the wooden house. Then she slammed the door shut, took a few breaths, leaned against the wall, and squatted on the ground. It was as if this thing had exhausted all her strength.

Chen Xuan looked down with a puzzled look.

The girl, about thirteen or fourteen years old, had a pretty face that was deliberately smeared with stove ash, but her complexion was pale and her expression was full of fear.

This made Chen Xuan inexplicably think of Junior Sister Yang in Liuzhen Martial Arts School, who was about the same age... When he crippled Master Yang, Junior Sister Yang had a similar look on her face, a deep fear of the world suddenly turning upside down.

"Cough cough!"

The sound of an old man coughing came from the inner room, and then an old man's voice shouted weakly and panickedly: "Nier, what happened?"

The little girl immediately whispered, "Grandpa, please speak softly... I, I found a fool who won't run away..."

Chen Xuan didn't need to enter the inner room to sense that it was a hard wooden bed, on which lay a withered old man with difficulty walking, perhaps also sick. There were two bowls on the ground, one filled with cold water and the other with rice porridge.

Families like this cannot escape from Luoyue City and can only stay.

Chen Xuan stared at the little girl's face for a few seconds.

The little girl was panicked and immediately lowered her pretty face alertly, while secretly grasping the scissors in her sleeve... She was afraid that she had saved a villain who repaid her with evil!

The monsters in Zhiguo were vicious, but some humans took advantage of the chaos to commit evil. In the past two weeks, she had witnessed many tragic events.

"rumble!"

The sound of iron hooves outside the gate was approaching, and more than ten monsters from Zhiguo, riding various dark green precious horses, ran out of the city.

Some excited conversations were mixed in with the sound of iron hooves.

"Someone saw the Xuanniao King Flag of the Jiang Family of Chu in the wild!"

"Either the prince of the Jiang family or the princess of the Jiang family!"

“First come, first served!”

"Hurry! The strong men of the Ginseng Clan are moving out, and we of the Ganoderma Clan cannot fall behind!"

"..."

The sound of iron hooves faded away and the smoke and dust cleared.

In the distance, there were faint shrill screams, as if some ignorant pedestrian was knocked over by the galloping precious horses and then trampled into a pool of flesh.

In the distance, several dragon-like monster teams, like sharks smelling blood, rushed towards the city from all directions...

The noise gradually subsided.

The little girl mustered up her courage, raised her face, and stared at Chen Xuan fiercely like an angry little female cat:

"If I hadn't saved you, you would have died just now..."

At the same time, she showed the scissors in her hand, indicating that she was armed.

"...Thank you."

Seeing this, Chen Xuan smiled, clasped his fists and said thank you, then opened the wooden door and left the room.

The little girl stared at Chen Xuan's gradually disappearing back. She was stunned for a while, then closed the wooden door. A suppressed sound came from the house, like silent crying... The monsters were attacking, and she didn't know when this kind of life would end.

When night falls, the little girl has to sneak out alone to look for food...

There is no shortage of food for the time being. In the aftermath of the war, too many mortals died. There is leftover food in many houses... but after a while, no one knows what will become of it.

"Wow."

Chen Xuan stood in the middle of the street, raised his face, squinted his eyes, and looked at the warm sunlight in the sky.

Immediately, he stood under the road sign at the corner for a while, identified the location, and walked towards the former location of the City Lord's Mansion in Luoyue City.

The mushroom spirit said.

Taoist Zizhu's residence is in the City Lord's Mansion.

A powerful person like Dinglu should naturally live in the most magnificent and gorgeous building in the city.

Have a look……

……

The city gate.

After finishing his big business, the mushroom spirit returned to the city and once again "captured" mortals in the wild, this time a group of mortals.

"There are so many mortals and profiteers of mushrooms. It would be unreasonable for you not to give them a bribe, right?"

The ginseng monster guarding the city gate, with a smile on his face, earnestly asked for a reward.

The mushroom spirit's legs were trembling. He stared at his hand hanging in the air and forced a smile that was uglier than crying.

(End of this chapter)