Dao Cheng Gui Xian

Chapter 122 Nighttime Investigation of the East City: All Old Acquaintances (3000 words)
Three Immortals Pavilion

Li Wushou solemnly lit seven incense sticks inside the room.
After stepping out of the room, he stomped his foot, and the square table with missing legs that was placed in the courtyard turned upside down, with three legs in the air!
With one step, Li Wushou seemed to disappear underground, but the next moment he was standing strangely outside the courtyard.

Looking back at the wooden board with the words "Three Immortals Pavilion" that he had written, Li Wushou casually flicked his finger, and a speck of incense ash fell onto the board.

After doing all this, Li Wushou clapped his hands, turned around and disappeared into the Three Immortals Pavilion. Tonight, he was going to find out Zhu Sihai's background.

At the same time, the Wu family father and daughter, who were resting in Cuiwei Alley, suddenly opened their eyes. In a moment, the two walked out of the room and looked up at the sky. The bright moon hung in the sky, and the stars were few and the night was deep.

Scholar Wu, with a solemn expression, slowly said:

"The secrets of heaven are shrouded in mystery, and the universe is turned upside down. It seems that the Five Directions City is about to get serious!"

Wu Qinghe nodded slightly, her brows furrowing slightly. "Who in Wufang City has such abilities? The City God or that Sparrow from Fengling Path?"

Wu Zhuangyuan shook his head; he was also somewhat unsure.

Logically speaking, if the City God in Wufang City were to use the Five Directions City God's Decree, the other party would have the ability to do so. However, he had seen the City God's condition before. Once he was caught off guard and had been tricked, it would be difficult to get rid of him unless he was willing to pay any price.

As for that sparrow? Wu Zhuangyuan felt that the other party was still a bit naive. If this situation really came from the other party, then it could only be a method left by the Sparrow Lord. However, this would only make things more troublesome. Given the Sparrow Lord's personality, such protection was a testament to how much the Sparrow Lord valued him.

Once the Sparrow Master gets involved, even if that bastard Li Wushou had eight hundred heads, it wouldn't be enough for him to eat!
Cursing under his breath, Wu Zhuangyuan was also somewhat annoyed.

He wasn't upset about the situation itself, but rather about how he had started to consider things from Li Wushou's perspective without realizing it!
That bastard, let the Sparrow Master kill him!

Wu Zhuangyuan cursed under his breath, while Li Wushou, outside the Jia family's granary in the east of the city, rubbed his nose.

His nose had been itchy ever since he started sneezing, and he wondered who was thinking about him all night.

It must be Zhu Sihai, Li Wushou concluded immediately. Through his experience over this period of time, Li Wushou summarized a pattern: when in doubt, just throw the problem at Zhu Sihai!
Calm your mind and look ahead.

Lu Fan and Cai Yuan surveyed the surroundings with heightened vigilance, figuring that this must be the Jia family's granary!

Li Wushou stood atop the canopy of an ancient tree, showing no intention of approaching. He focused his mind and gazed intently at the granary, smoothing out the folds of space and peeling away layer by layer. The scene inside the granary was laid bare before him.

Li Wushou noticed something amiss at a glance!
The rice in the granary varied in quality. Looking through the rice bags, the rice near the entrance was relatively refined, each grain crystal clear with very few impurities. The rice inside, however, remained the same, white with a yellowish-black tinge.

At first glance, the two seem similar, but when compared side by side, the difference becomes clear.

There is indeed a problem!

With a sigh, Li Wushou felt no joy; he secretly hoped he had guessed wrong.

He had just pulled off a clever switcheroo on Zhu Sihai, and in the blink of an eye, the other party had retaliated with a feint, making him incredibly difficult to deal with.

Seeing the two kinds of rice laid out in front of him in the granary, Li Wushou roughly understood Zhu Sihai's scheme, and many of his guesses were confirmed.

First of all, the fleet must have been disappeared by Zhu Sihai. The other party's purpose should have been to create a food shortage in Wufang City in order to gain the people's incense offerings and prayers.

And the means is through this rice!

Li Wushou couldn't figure out how he could obtain the power of incense offerings through this rice, but that didn't stop him from knowing that there was something wrong with the rice.

Zhu Sihai was also aware of this, so he burned down the Zhu family's granary and then delivered rice through the city lord's mansion in a cryptic manner, drawing the attention of all the officials in the city god temple to the Zhu family's rice shop.

But the rice that was actually problematic was secretly delivered to the City God Temple and sold through them.

The City God Temple was short-staffed and wary of the rice from the City Lord's Mansion, so it could only inspect the rice daily. The Jia family rice shop, which was the first to show its loyalty, was naturally classified as safe after the initial inspection.

As for why Lin You didn't notice anything amiss during the day, the problem likely lies with those two kinds of rice.

The reason this refined rice is displayed so prominently is probably to facilitate its transport to various rice shops and sales outlets tomorrow, as the daily rice supply is fixed due to the policy of limited rice sales.

These premium rice grains were sold out at various distribution points long ago. When Lin You came to check, he could only see the normal rice at the back, so naturally he couldn't find any problems.

What a clever substitution!
So how did the other party deliver this rice?
Li Wushou calmed his mind and waited patiently. He had just counted the rice bags, and there wasn't enough rice for tomorrow's sales. The other party would probably come again.

Sure enough, it didn't take long before Li Wushou noticed the commotion.

A dark green sprout silently emerged from the ground of the granary, its body emitting a dark green fluorescence that connected with the earth's energy. The earth vein talisman that was locking in the earth's energy ignored it and failed to hinder the sprout in the slightest.

Li Wushou could see clearly that this was the tree seed of the Tree Goddess!

After the sprout broke through the seal of the earth vein talisman, it grew rapidly. When it reached about the height of a person, its leaves curled up, and five little devils with blue faces and fangs jumped out from it.

The moment the five little ghosts appeared, they hovered in mid-air, holding hands and spinning around. After nine full circles, they suddenly stopped, tilted their heads back, and opened their mouths wide. The rice from the Jia family, which had been placed in front of the granary, mysteriously disappeared.

The five ghosts rubbed their bellies, looking like they were stuffed. Then, holding hands again, they spun around in circles, this time nine circles in the opposite direction. After that, they spoke again, and a new bag of rice was added to the empty space where the Jia family's rice had just disappeared.

Five Ghosts Moving Goods?

Li Wushou looked closely and saw that the newly added rice was exactly the same as the previous refined rice. Just as he suspected, his guess was correct.

After finishing their work in the granary, the five ghosts became somewhat listless and hurriedly flew back to the tree leaves. The tree goddess's branches and leaves flipped up, engulfing the five ghosts again, before they sank into the ground and disappeared.

The earth's energy stirred, smoothing out the cracks in the ground, restoring it to its original state in an instant.

Li Wushou locked onto the tree species that was moving through the earth's veins, took a step and disappeared into the tree canopy. Tonight, he was going to investigate it thoroughly.

Those five ghosts were clearly made of paper. Li Wushou could smell the scent of the paper Taoist priests from the White Paper Taoist Temple on them. Obviously, these five ghosts were made by the Paper Goddess.

He wanted to see just how many old acquaintances he'd see tonight!
This paper goddess is truly still up to her old tricks. It seems that the sparrow is still more frightening? Even an inner golden core can't scare her.

As Li Wushou flew, he pondered for a moment, then suddenly stopped, exhaling a wisp of mist. The City Lord's Mansion was just ahead, and Li Wushou had no choice but to be cautious.

Following the tree species, Li Wushou quietly landed in the darkness under the eaves of a house, which should be a backyard of the city lord's mansion.

Five bronze pillars stood in the courtyard, and hanging upside down on each pillar was a naked young man. Five paper figures, holding paper knives, stood beneath the heads of the five young men, tilting their heads back and swallowing blood.

The abdominal cavities of the five strong young men had been cut open, and blood flowed down their necks and heads into the mouths of the paper figures.

After they had drunk their fill, the five paper figures holding knives turned into pieces of paper and floated back to the altar of the Paper Goddess. At the same time, five little devils crawled out from the ground and rushed into the bellies of the five strong young men to feast.

However, the tree seed of the Tree Goddess is hidden in the earth's veins and has never been exposed above ground.

Li Wushou looked around and saw that, apart from the newly cut paper doppelganger of the Paper Goddess, there was only Zhu Sihai's lark.

Upon closer inspection, he quickly noticed something unusual underground in the city lord's mansion. The place was eerie and hazy, making it difficult to see clearly. Li Wushou focused his gaze, trying to see clearly, when he suddenly felt a pang of fear!
He quickly composed himself. It seemed that this was the place where the sparrow was. Just now, Li Wushou seemed to hear countless prayers in his ears. The feeling was very familiar, as if he were worshipping a god!
Are you worshipping that "spirit"?

Suppressing his murderous intent, Li Wushou continued to lie in wait, determined to find out what was going on with the rice!

"Please ask City Lord Zhu to prepare five more fresh offal tomorrow!"

The Paper Goddess's somewhat stiff voice came from the white paper altar. After the five little ghosts had eaten and drunk their fill, they crawled out of the Paper Goddess's abdomen and floated back into the Paper Goddess's sleeve.

The lark flew to the bronze pillar and replied succinctly, "Don't worry, Paper Goddess!"

The two had collaborated many times, but always stopped short of achieving their goal. Watching the Paper Goddess lay flat again on the white paper altar, the lark spat out another egg, which hatched into a giant lark that swallowed the five corpses and flew towards the eastern outskirts of the city.

Li Wushou remained silent, got up and followed.

In the blink of an eye, the bird and the man were out of the East Gate. This was Li Wushou's first time outside the East Gate. The reason was simple: the City Lord's Guard was stationed outside the East Gate.

Aside from the villagers outside the East City, other residents of Wufang City rarely go there on weekdays.

A moment later, after flying over a forest, Li Wushou saw the camp of the School Guard. The camp was not large, with a total of about two hundred people, but looking down at the entire camp gave Li Wushou the feeling of overlooking Wufang City.

The layout of these camps is remarkably similar to that of Wufang City!

Although it was late at night, guards were still patrolling the tents, and the main camp was brightly lit.

The giant lark flew straight towards the central camp, and Li Wushou followed at a distance, landing on a high point to observe it secretly.

In the open space of the central camp, there also stood an altar. Li Wushou was quite familiar with this altar. It was also made of white paper and its style was the same as the altar for cutting longevity in Wusheng Pawnshop, only more exquisite.

The Wusheng Sect?
Li Wushou zoomed in and looked toward the altar. Sure enough! The two white banners bearing the characters "Wu" and "Sheng" fluttered in the wind on either side of the altar, and the figure sitting on the altar made Li Wushou's pupils shrink.

Tonight's gathering is definitely with acquaintances!
With smiling eyes, a white veil covering her face, and a plain dress, she resembled a white lotus. That figure was none other than the Wusheng Envoy who had gone to the Three Immortals Pavilion to steal Li Wushou's soul!

At the same time, Zhu Sihai's lark form finally flew to the camp, opened its mouth and spat out the five corpses from its belly, then spoke to the Unborn Envoy on the altar:
"I'm going to have to trouble Wusheng again!"

The Unborn Envoy nodded slowly, smiling before speaking, his voice like a silver bell, and replied directly:

"Lord Zhu, you're too kind. It was just a small favor!"

After saying this, Wusheng gestured to his left and right, and a burly man in white robes stepped out from each of the two white banners bearing the characters "Wu" and "Sheng".

The two burly men walked silently to the five corpses, each grabbed the ankle of one of the corpses, tore it in half, and then swallowed it whole!
Wusheng's smile deepened, and he then spoke:
"I need to trouble Lord Zhu to protect me; I'm going to start planting rice!"

(End of this chapter)