The world is like a prison, my body is holy

Chapter 145 It’s late at night

The Water Mirror Technique is free, and the two brothers were both free at the moment, so they chatted for a while.

After a while, Wang Wencai casually asked while tidying up the writing brushes, ink, paper, and inkstone on the table, "Senior brother, have you made any progress on the matter from before, after investigating for so long?"

The smile on Master Hunkun's face gradually disappeared. After pondering for a moment, he nodded and said, "We've made some progress."

"Oh?"

Wang Wen didn't stop what he was doing, nor did he look up: "Is it convenient for us to talk?"

"Junior brother, you're being too polite..."

Master Hunkun forced a smile, then changed the subject: "Junior Brother, how much do you know about the forbidden areas throughout the world?"

Wang Wen thought for a moment and replied, "Kunlun Mountain in the Northwest, Shennongjia in Hubei, Mihuntang and Heizhugou in Sichuan, Laoye Temple in Poyang Lake in Jiangxi, and Ailao Mountain in Yunnan? Oh right, and Lop Nur in the Western Regions, plus the Ghost-Dispelling Well!"

It was only at this point that he suddenly remembered that the Bewitching Pool and Black Bamboo Gully of Mingwawu Mountain seemed to be very close to each other, with a straight-line distance of only a few dozen kilometers. In addition, there was also the Ghost-Dispelling Well, which was also very close in a straight line... There must be something special about that area!
Master Hunkun stared blankly at him. He had just asked that question only to take the opportunity to bring up the issue he was about to address.

But Wang Wen's answer...

How come you know more than we do?

'The Great Zhou Dynasty has so many forbidden areas?'

Where is Lop Nur?

'Where the hell is Ailao Mountain?'

'How many descendants did our ancestors leave behind...? May the Heavenly Venerable bestow boundless blessings upon you! This disciple is guilty!'

Master Hunkun was on the verge of a mental breakdown, so much so that he didn't know how to continue...

Seeing this, Wang Wen thought he had made a mistake, confusing the forbidden zones of science with the forbidden zones of metaphysics: "Junior brother is ignorant and shallow, please forgive me, senior brother."

Master Hunkun opened his mouth, seemingly wanting to say something but then hesitated, unsure of what to say. Finally, he let out a heavy sigh, waved his hand, and said, "Junior brother, you are not lacking in talent and learning; you are clearly a man of great talent and vast knowledge. Of the forbidden areas you mentioned, those few that I know of are indeed forbidden areas..."

Wang Wen lowered his head again to continue tidying up the brush, ink, paper, and inkstone, trying his best to maintain a relaxed atmosphere for casual conversation and not put pressure on Hunkun Zhenren.

During their trip to Sichuan and Chongqing, more than half of the high-ranking Taoist priests of the Maoshan Sect were lost. The old man was under immense psychological pressure. In the previous few times they communicated through the Water Mirror Technique, whenever the topic came up with the Ghost-Breaking Well and Black Bamboo Gully, the old man would look dazed and sometimes even tremble all over... But he himself was completely unaware of his own abnormality.

He only brought up the topic for the first time because he saw that the old man's condition was much better than before.

He didn't want to put pressure on the old man, but when something happens, you have to face it and solve it before it ceases to be a problem...

“We have been going through a lot of the patriarch’s handwritten notes these days, and found some fragments and pieced together some records that had been lost for a long time.”

Master Hunkun said in a low voice, his aged face revealing undisguised fatigue and repression: "According to the records we have found so far, there are three sources for the many forbidden zones."

"Firstly, when ancient Qi cultivators traveled the world, they created magic arrays to seal off demons and monsters."

"Secondly, when the Heavenly Court and the Underworld left this world, the passage between the two realms was severed."

"Thirdly, he violated the heavenly laws and was banished to the mortal realm to be tempered by the passage of time in the prison of ancient great beings."

Three sources, each more explosive than the last...

Wang Wen's heart was gloomy, his face was ashen, and he had a lot of complaints stuck in his throat, but he didn't know where to start.

He understood: all these taboos in metaphysics were simply the legacy of those who came before him!

Good grief, I don't care about the flood after I die, right?

But you're not dead yet...

After a long silence, Wang Wencai spoke up: "The Ghost-Breaking Well can barely be considered one, but is Black Bamboo Gully one or three?"

Master Hunkun replied, "Based on our speculation, it should be the second one."

"Secondly?"

Wang Wen frowned: "What passage, in that kind of godforsaken place?"

"What a horrible place..."

Master Hunkun forced a smile: "That should be the broken Yellow Springs Road."

"The Road to the Underworld?"

After hesitating for a few seconds, Wang Wen suddenly remembered that Fengdu was in Bashu.

"I still can't understand..."

He took a moment to process this, then spoke again: "The spiritual energy has receded for 370 years, and the cultivation path of the Great Zhou Xuanmen was once severed. Why do the demons and monsters sealed within these forbidden areas still exist? Shouldn't they have been wiped out by the Dharma-ending Age long ago?"

If there's no water, how can the fish survive?
Master Hunkun: "Junior brother, you've misunderstood. The decline of spiritual energy is not instantaneous, but rather a gradual process, like the receding tide. The 371 years we mentioned refers to the time it takes for the Heavenly Court and the Underworld to leave this world. The time when the spiritual energy completely disappears will be more than 200 years later... Junior brother, have you forgotten that more than 160 years ago, those thieving monks from the Buddhist sects plotted against the founding emperor of this dynasty? If there were no spiritual energy at all, how could they have plotted against the founding emperor?"

If he hadn't mentioned it, Wang Wen would have completely forgotten about it.

After sorting out his thoughts, he slowly explained, "Senior brother, what you mean is that the decline of spiritual energy is like the receding tide, and these forbidden areas are like low-lying areas. Although the spiritual energy outside has long since disappeared, there has always been some spiritual energy remaining in those forbidden areas, allowing those demons and monsters to survive and endure the end of the Dharma era. Now that the spiritual energy is rising, those forbidden areas are the first to receive the replenishment of spiritual energy, allowing those demons and monsters to recover their vitality faster than the cultivators of the Xuanmen sect..."

Master Hunkun: 'No, what I meant was that there might always be residual spiritual energy within the forbidden area; I didn't propose the low-lying theory...'

But the more he pondered this 'low-lying theory,' the more apt it seemed.

Whether it's the formations used by ancient Qi cultivators to seal off demons and monsters, the passages connecting the human world to the Heavenly Court and the Underworld, or the prisons used by the Heavenly Court to imprison ancient powerful beings, none of these are ordinary places chosen haphazardly.

Take, for example, the location of the Ghost-Binding Well where the Celestial Master Zhang Daoling sealed the Six Heavenly Demon Kings and the Eight Ghost Generals. It is the eye of evil energy in the Sichuan-Chongqing region!
In that kind of place, the spiritual energy should dissipate more slowly than in the outside world...

When Wang Wen proposed the theory of low-lying areas, he also thought of a strange story he had seen on the internet in his previous life: a group of crocodiles lived inside the Sahara Desert.

Yes, you read that right.

In the heart of the world's largest desert lives a group of crocodiles.

In ancient times, the Sahara Desert was a lush oasis teeming with amphibians. But as the sea turned to land and the oasis to desert, the crocodiles that couldn't escape downstream with the tides were trapped in the low-lying areas in the heart of the desert by the sand, imprisoned there for millions of years...

Those crocodiles in the desert are just like the demons and monsters in forbidden areas!
After pondering for a long time, Master Hunkun added, "The formations that seal off those demons and monsters also slowed down the loss of spiritual energy to some extent, thus becoming protective mountain formations that safeguard them." Wang Wen nodded in agreement, then raised the most crucial question: "Now that spiritual energy is reviving, is it possible for these ancient formations, which have suffered from the devastation of the Dharma-ending Age, to regain their former power?"

Master Hunkun remained silent, his face clouded with gloom.

If these formations that seal off demons and monsters can gradually regain their full power as the spiritual energy recovers, then how could they have been swept into Black Bamboo Gully by the tide of evil energy?
In other words, the demons and monsters within those forbidden areas will eventually break free and unleash their resentment, which has been imprisoned for thousands of years, upon the human world!

There's an old saying: When the sky falls, the tall ones will hold it up.

Unfortunately, they are the tallest people on earth...

After a long silence, Master Hunkun sighed heavily and said, "Let's take it one step at a time and see where we end up."

His mood was somewhat gloomy... After this ordeal, the Three Mountains Talismans were no longer able to exorcise demons and protect the righteous path.

All they could promise was to shed their last drop of blood for the cause of eliminating evil and upholding justice.

This is their duty, just like when foreign invaders attack, the soldiers guarding the border must be the first to step up...

Wang Wen remained noncommittal, then smiled and said, "Senior brother, are you exaggerating when you say I can be the master of Maoshan?"

Master Hunkun forced a smile and said, "As the sect leader, how could I lie to my junior brother?"

Wang Wen said with a smile, "Alright, when my junior brother Jingxu was the deputy director of the Yangzhou Astronomical Bureau, he asked me to build a Taoist temple for him. Now that the temple is finished, my junior brother Jingxu has no way to preside over it, so it has been left empty, which is a real waste... I'd like to trouble you, senior brother, to select a few junior brothers who are good at training apprentices to come and help me run the temple. Let's make it clear first, the incense money will be split 30/70, with me getting 70% and the sect getting 30%!"

Master Hunkun paused for a few seconds before smiling and nodding in agreement.

The two brothers chatted for a few more minutes before dispelling their Water Mirror Techniques.

As the Water Mirror Technique dissipated into a puff of water vapor, the smile on Wang Wen's face gradually disappeared as well.

Just then, Yu Shitou, who had been standing outside the door for a long time, heard that there was finally no more movement inside the hall, and then mustered up his courage to push the door open and enter.

……

"Squeak."

Bianjing, Daning Palace and Zichen Hall.

A well-to-do, white-haired old eunuch in a crimson python robe pushed open the palace door a crack, holding a whisk, and tiptoed into the hall. He walked along the crimson pillar on the right side of the hall to the emperor's desk and whispered, "Your Majesty, it's late..."

Above the main hall, the thin, sunken-eyed Emperor Hongtai, Guo Kai, sat in the middle of the empty dragon throne, wrapped in a thick white fox fur coat, his eyes calmly flipping through the mountain of memorials piled on his desk.

The fire inside the firewall was burning intensely. Outside the hall, the north wind howled and the air was bitterly cold, but inside the hall it was as hot as summer. The white-haired old eunuch stood on the right side of the hall for the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, and a thin layer of sweat appeared on his forehead.

Meanwhile, Emperor Hongtai, seated on the dragon throne, was wrapped in an airtight white fox fur coat, completely oblivious to the heatwave inside the palace…

Without Emperor Hongtai speaking, the white-haired old eunuch could not move and stood there with his head bowed on the right side of the hall.

But his peripheral vision would often drift uncontrollably to the six-legged black crocodile lying in the center of the hall.

This enormous creature has been sitting in the center of the hall for three days now…

Yesterday, a clueless eunuch sensed the putrid smell emanating from this enormous creature and asked Emperor Hongtai whether the crocodile should be removed from the palace.

As a result, Emperor Hongtai, who had not used severe punishment on palace servants for many years, secretly had that poor little eunuch beaten to death and his body thrown into the Bian River!
Those who carried out the executions were all old palace servants, but even they couldn't figure out what the little eunuch had done to offend the emperor yesterday.

The old eunuch with white hair had been by Emperor Hongtai's side since he was young, from when Emperor Hongtai was first the crown prince, to when he was demoted to Prince of Jin, and then to when he was reinstated as crown prince and ascended the throne as emperor... He had been by Hongtai's side through more than fifty years of ups and downs.

Therefore, he could vaguely guess what Emperor Hongtai was thinking...

But he would rather he hadn't guessed it!
After a long while, Emperor Hongtai in the hall, without raising his head, asked in a slow and unhurried voice that only the two of them could hear, "Which loyal ministers and generals did the Crown Prince meet with tonight?"

The white-haired old eunuch also responded softly in a voice that only the two of them could hear: "Left Attendant Jia You'an, Senior Protector Zhang Zhou."

Has Zhang Zhou also returned to Beijing?

Emperor Hongtai's cloudy eyes were like two pools of murky water, making it impossible to see through the emotions in them.

The white-haired old eunuch said, "Last night, I secretly arrived in the capital in disguise and stayed at the Fulin Inn in Anjifang. I was accompanied by only four family guards."

Emperor Hongtai slowly pulled at his withered, age-spot-covered skin and smiled, saying softly, "It's only human nature..."

The white-haired old eunuch seemed not to hear his laughter, and said softly in a murmured tone, "Zhang Zhou deserves to die."

Emperor Hongtai seemed not to hear his murmur, slowly put down the memorial in his hand, and looked up at the six-legged black crocodile in the center of the hall.

The head of the six-legged black crocodile faced the dragon throne, its unseeing, gloomy eyes meeting the cloudy eyes of Emperor Hongtai.

Emperor Hongtai stared intently into the eyes of the six-legged black crocodile, as if trying to see a flower bloom in its unseeing eyes.

Out of the corner of his eye, the old eunuch with white hair followed Emperor Hongtai's gaze and landed on the six-legged black crocodile.

He gazed at the six-legged black crocodile, murmuring to himself, 'The Demon-Slaying General of Huainan, the Demon-Slaying General of Huainan…'

I don't know whether to blame the Demon Suppression Division officer I've never met, or to thank him.

He was just a eunuch.

He shouldn't have any emotions other than loyalty.

After a long pause, he spoke again, his voice soft and gentle: "Your Majesty, it is late at night, you should rest."

Emperor Hongtai seemed to suddenly come to his senses, and murmured softly in a daze, "Yes, it's late, and time is running out..."

The whisper, as light as the wind, sounded like a thunderclap to the old eunuch with white hair, sending a chill down his spine.

In an instant, a thousand words welled up in his heart, and he had to say them.

But in the next second, all those words vanished into thin air...

'You're just a eunuch!'

He said to himself, and then looked down into his nose and into his heart, seeing nothing and hearing nothing.

(End of this chapter)