Daoqi Huangcheng

Chapter 41. They were busy as oxen and horses.

The figure came suddenly and left suddenly, disappearing right before Song Chen's eyes, but Song Chen had no idea how it disappeared.

Without checking the door, opening the window, or feeling any wind or spiritual energy fluctuations, it simply vanished.

Song Chen bowed respectfully and said, "Respectfully seeing you off, senior."

Immediately, he began frantically checking his body for abnormalities.

He mobilized all his spiritual energy and began to explore the traces left by that cup of tea.

The traces left by the tea are very clear.

It tastes like water when you put it in your mouth, and like tea when you taste it, but now it has turned into a green aura that travels through his body with each breath, like a soldier diligently patrolling a city wall.

Song Chen tried to use his own spiritual energy to "drive away" the emerald green aura.

He mobilized all his energy to surround and block them from all directions.

As the verdant aura turned a corner, it suddenly enveloped the entire thing.

The next instant.
A terrifying, excruciating pain followed.

Song Chen's vision went black, and before he could even process a single thought, he fainted.

There were no dreams, no darkness, no pain; all his senses had vanished.

Suddenly, in his dazed state, he saw a glimmer of light and heard a woman's voice colder than a block of ice.

"Awake."

As the word was uttered, the ray of light slowly expanded.

Song Chen slowly opened his eyes, only to see a pale, eerie smiling face looking down at him from above, a sinister aura descending upon him with chilling force.

Goosebumps instantly covered his entire body. He instinctively sprang up, propped himself up, and gasped for breath, glancing out the window at the same time.

It was already dawn.

Warm light streamed through the window, casting soft dappled patterns on the table beside it.

Beyond, the shadows of the trees swayed, and the faint fragrance of peach blossoms drifted in through the cracks in the windows and doors, carried by the swaying branches and flowing floral scent.

Song Chen looked ahead again.

That pale, eerie smile was just a mask.

Ceramic mask.

The person wearing the mask is a long-haired woman.

The woman had a beautiful figure with long legs and a full bust, but her eyes were extremely indifferent, looking at him as if he were a corpse.

The woman's robes and mask were both white, deathly white, but the white robes were embroidered with blood-red peach blossom patterns, creating a terrifying and stark contrast.

"Stop messing with newspapers."

"Report?"

The woman in the ceramic smiling mask didn't answer the question again, nor did she introduce herself. Instead, she simply said, "I'll guide you into the world, and then I'll take you to the Yellow Springs of the North."

After saying that, she turned around and walked out.

Song Chen stood up and followed closely behind.

He is still in pain all over his body, and he is recalling the excruciating pain that caused him to suddenly faint yesterday.

From the woman, he learned that the cup of tea had sown the seeds of his downfall.

He would faint from unbearable pain if he touched the "report" even slightly; this was a power that was completely beyond his comprehension.

The two exited through the round moon gate, and the wooden puppet guarding the gate no longer stopped them.

The woman in the ceramic smiling mask led him to a giant peach tree at the deepest part of the Imperial City Temple.

Ordinary peach trees don't live long, but this peach tree has exposed aerial roots that are intertwined and its branches and leaves are incredibly lush. The peach blossoms are as dense as a rosy cloud, so dense that you can't even see the sky when you look up.

The woman crashed headfirst into a peach tree and disappeared.

Song Chen immediately realized that a secret realm was hidden in this peach tree.

He followed them inside.

In the secret realm, the clouds and mist are shrouded in mist, as if they are in the sky. The surrounding area is all white, and you can't see your hand in front of your face.

"Stay close." The voice of the woman in the ceramic smiley mask came from about a foot ahead.

Immediately afterwards, Song Chen felt a white ribbon float over from the front and wrap around his hand.

He was pulled forward.

They entered a room.

Inside the room, everything became clear.

This is a room filled with many glass lamps.

The woman in the ceramic smiling mask took an unlit glass lamp, placed it in front of Song Chen, and said, "Light the wick with your finger."

Song Chen stared at the wick, then looked at the glass lamps that lit up the room.

He has no choice.

He reached out and touched the wick.

The lamp wick lit up, but he felt as if something had been drawn away from his body, while at the same time a wisp of candle incense wafted in.

The woman in the ceramic smiling mask said, "This is my Five Elements Sect Talisman Lamp, which is also proof of identity. Whether someone is one of us or not is immediately clear. With this aura, you can also exert a rank-based pressure on the inner and outer disciples of the Imperial City Temple, and by using spiritual energy in conjunction with a map, you can see their movements and where they are."

"And if you die, the abbot can see through this lamp where you died and what happened before you died."

"Try it."

The woman wearing the ceramic smiling mask tossed out a scroll of map.

Song Chen took the map, which was unfolded and was extremely vast, almost the size of an entire wall. It contained a map of the Dayong Dynasty.

With a thought, a wisp of smoke carrying candle fragrance seeped from his fingertips.

The smoke settled on the map, suddenly transforming into names. These names began to rapidly form trajectories, intricately intertwined and densely packed together.

He silently recited "Que Tan'er, Zhang Yi, Zhong Xu" in his heart, and only three tracks remained.

He could see three tracks circling around Jinxia Mountain, clearly indicating that the three had been diligently cultivating during this time, and even when carrying out sect missions, they only stayed in the vicinity.

The woman wearing the ceramic smiling mask said coldly, "Every disciple of the Five Elements Sect has this map of the Great Yong Kingdom; this one is yours."

From now on, as long as you are within the territory of Dayong, you can use the map to check the trajectory of every cultivator in the Imperial City Temple;
As for areas outside the Great Yong territory, these incense can be used for direct tracking.

Song remained silent.

He had come to realize how ridiculous it was that he was hiding in Yongcui County and deep in the mountains; Huangcheng Temple simply didn't want to find him.
No.

It is not the Imperial City Temple.

It is the Five Elements School.

"May I ask how I should address you, Senior Sister?"

"Go to the North first, to prove you have the ability to draw in the Yellow Springs." A cold, icy voice rang out.

After that, no matter what Song Chen asked, the woman with the ceramic smiling mask completely ignored him.

Squeak, squeak.
The screeching sound of wheel hubs echoed outside the imperial city.

Gaa. Gaa. Gaa.
Black crows were cawing noisily on the branches.

One oxcart after another carried the bodies of the plague dead. The bodies, covered with white cloth, were piled up roughly like garbage. When they arrived at the mass grave, the bodies would be thrown into pits and hastily buried.

The most recent one is the place where Song Chen killed Yang Dongdu and disposed of his body.

But Song Chen didn't know that this mass grave was just one of many in the North.

There are too many burial sites in the northern part of the capital.

There were so many of them, like pearls scattered across this gloomy land.

Like springs, they are constantly forming streams that intersect and converge to form a vast ocean.

Ordinary people walking on this land will only feel a chill and be terrified, as long as they don't accidentally enter the ghost realm, but nothing will happen to them.

As for how to avoid accidentally entering the ghost realm, the official road has already marked it for you.

As long as you follow the official road, you'll be fine.

The official road is repaired every now and then, and the monks from the Imperial City Temple also participate in the repairs.

Even if one goes astray, it doesn't necessarily mean something bad will happen, and one won't be able to sense the dark, evil, and resentful "river" deep within the earth.

Song Chen and the smiling masked woman had landed from the escape light, stepping on the decaying forest ground and walking deeper into the forest.

Suddenly, without knowing when, Song Chen felt the surrounding fog rising and sensed a ghostly figure darting through the forest. The ghostly figure suddenly rushed towards him, revealing a venomous face, but before it could touch Song Chen, it abruptly turned and fled like a mouse seeing a cat.

As the ghost fled, the fog suddenly disappeared.

Song Chen stepped into the next fog.

But unsurprisingly, the fog soon disappeared again.

With just a cup of tea and a wisp of news, all evil spirits would be warded off and dare not approach.

"That's it."

The woman with the smiling mask suddenly stopped in her tracks.

This is a mass grave.

Song Chen's current main study is the "Yellow Springs Scripture," so he is naturally very sensitive to the location of the Yellow Springs.

Here, the Yellow Springs have receded somewhat, clearly because the mass grave here has not been used for some time to perform the [Exploration] technique, so the ghosts do not gather and the Yellow Springs do not rise.

What he needed to do was use the [Exploring the Netherworld] secret technique to reignite the mass grave and maintain it for a period of time.

Without hesitation, Song Chen put his plan into action, disregarding everything else.

He sat cross-legged, channeled his spiritual energy, activated his magic, pointed a finger at the mass grave, and said, "Rise!"

The air was filled with the fragrance of incense, which was then rekindled, attracting an inexplicable gathering of evil spirits.

The fallen Yellow Springs were drawn back up.

The evil spirits on earth fell into the underworld.
Meanwhile, the evil spirits in the underworld crawled out of the ground, transforming into the ambush ghosts that Song Chen had seen before, the multi-headed female ghosts, and the eerie ghost domain that could make people feel like they were trapped in a ghost wall spread out, and then went far away like bubbles.

Seeing that he had succeeded, the smiling masked woman said, "My surname is Meng, and my given name is Jing. Everyone calls me Xiao Meng, and you can call me that too."

Song Chen respectfully said, "Senior Sister Meng."

Xiao Meng said, "The Crane Clan has recently gone on strike, so our workload will be quite heavy. Alright, let's take a short break and head to the next mass grave."

(End of this chapter)