Ya She

Chapter 38 Black Gold Cauldron

Dark clouds covered the sky, and a sudden gust of wind swept across the land with heavy snow. Tang Yuan got off the bus, declined the kind aunt's invitation to sit in the house across the street to avoid the snowstorm, tightened his down jacket, and after making sure that the two candied hawthorns and the bag of snacks in his hand hadn't fallen off, he put on his hat and rushed into the snowstorm.

"Oh dear! Which family's adults are so heartless as to leave such a young child out alone..." The aunt's nagging was gradually blown away by the wind and snow, and could no longer be heard. Tang Yuan wiped the snow water off his face, and his little face immediately turned as red as an apple from the cold.

Every time Tang Yuan went to the city market, he would feel annoyed that he lived in such a remote place. He was angry but dared not say anything. After all, he was the one who wanted to go out, unlike his ancestor at home who was detached from worldly affairs. Besides, he dared not let his ancestor go out!

Braving the wind and snow, Tang Yuan walked along the mountain path for a long time. He was only ten years old, but he wasn't afraid at all walking alone on the mountain path, and he even seemed familiar with the terrain. Even when the wind and snow were so strong that they blinded him, he could easily avoid the large potholes or sharp rocks on the road. After running deeper into the forest for another ten minutes, after rounding a dense grove, Tang Yuan saw the familiar little house peeking out from under an old locust tree.

This little house is inconspicuous, just like an ordinary white-walled, red-roofed tile house built by farmers in the mountains. However, because it has been around for many years, some of the paint on the roof tiles has peeled off, and the white walls are also grayish, making it look as if no one has lived there for a long time.

After seeing the hut, Tang Yuan did not slow down, but ran faster and faster. Just as he was about to crash into the fence outside the hut, he stretched out his little hand to support himself on the fence, and his small body became light and agile as he did a front flip over the fence, landing perfectly with a thud.

"Ten out of ten!" Tang Yuan waved his little fist and proudly puffed out his chest.

Then there was another bang. He looked down and immediately made a face, quickly picking up the candied hawthorn that had fallen to the ground due to the sudden movement. Luckily, he had asked the shopkeeper to wrap it in an extra layer of brown paper when he bought it, so it didn't get dirty.

Tang Yuan shook off the snowflakes from his body and head before pushing open the door to go inside. The swirling snow was shut out behind him by the wooden door, instantly warming him up. As he walked into the house, he took off his clothes: down jacket, coat, sweater, thermal shirt... By the time he reached the small courtyard behind the house, he was left wearing only a vest and shorts.

Holding two candied hawthorns and the bag of pastries, Tang Yuan admired the scenery that he would marvel at no matter how many times he saw it, and swayed as he walked inside.

It's the dead of winter outside, but the backyard is warm as spring, as if an invisible glass barrier keeps all the cold out. The garden is lush with green grass and blooming flowers, just like summer.

This back garden is completely out of place with the tiled houses outside; it's as if you've suddenly stepped from the Great Northern Wilderness into a Suzhou garden. With its artificial hills and strange rocks, small bridges and flowing water, pavilions and towers, although the layout isn't large, it has everything you could want, demonstrating the owner's ingenious design. Even beneath the pavilion, there's a hot spring source, emitting rising steam, creating a scene straight out of a fairyland.

"Tangyuan, you're back?" Tang Yuan was watching a bee collecting nectar from a peony when a pleasant voice immediately made him jump.

"I'm not Tangyuan! I'm Tang Yuan! Tang Yuan! Call me Tang Yuan! Otherwise, I won't give you any candied hawthorns!" Tang Yuan hopped across the small bridge over the stream, climbed the artificial hill, and saw a young man sitting with his back to him in the pavilion, playing Go. The man was wearing an ancient dark blue gauze Taoist robe with a cross-collar and wide sleeves, trimmed with dark blue piping. Upon closer inspection, the robe was embroidered with the eight trigrams of the I Ching, arranged in a mysterious way.

The man had deep black hair, which, upon closer inspection, had a subtle bluish tinge. Most of his long hair was loosely tied in a knot, casually held in place by three ivory hairpins, cascading down his chest like a piece of fine silk. As Tang Yuan's footsteps drew closer, he turned around.

The young man was extremely handsome, like a delicate and elegant ink painting. However, there was a hideous dark red scar between his eyebrows, which completely ruined his appearance, making people sigh with regret. Moreover, he always kept his eyes closed, obviously because his eyes were impaired and he was blind.

"Tangyuan, the candied hawthorn in your hand is about to melt." The man sighed regretfully.

"Oh dear!" Tang Yuan immediately realized that the temperature in the backyard was no different from that in summer, so the sugar coating on the frozen candied hawthorns melted quickly, and even the outer kraft paper was stuck on.

The young Taoist smiled slightly, as if he could really see it, and accurately picked up a candied hawthorn from Tang Yuan's hand and stretched it out of the pavilion.

The pavilion was located at the very edge of the backyard, where heavy snow was still falling. As the person moved, the candied hawthorn seemed to break through an invisible barrier and was immediately exposed to the sub-zero temperature.

Upon seeing this, Tang Yuan's eyes widened immediately. He ran to the other side of the stone table, sat down, put down the snacks in his hand, and imitated the young Taoist's actions, extending his candied hawthorn outside the pavilion. After counting to ten, he took it back, peeled off the kraft paper wrapping, and sure enough, the candied hawthorn was frozen solid again.

"That's a brilliant move! You really are a skilled foodie!" Tang Yuan bit into the top hawthorn piece, but because it was frozen too hard, his small mouth couldn't bite it off immediately, so he could only lick the sugar off little by little. "Hey! Tell me a story? I'm so bored! There's no TV signal in this desolate wilderness, and this blizzard is really weird!"

The young Taoist was extremely tolerant of Tang Yuan and did not hold his disrespectful behavior against him. Instead, he patiently corrected him, saying, "Tang Yuan, you should call me Master."

Tang Yuan snorted angrily, "I don't care! I'll call you Master when you stop calling me Tangyuan!"

The young Taoist priest smiled faintly and said, "When I found you, you were so beautiful and lovely, just like a glutinous rice ball."

"But I'm all grown up now!" Tang Yuan said angrily, taking a bite of the candied hawthorn and getting all worked up.

“Sigh… Didn’t you want to hear a story? Then let me tell you about the disciples I took in before…” The young Taoist priest took back the candied hawthorn from his hand, peeling off the outer kraft paper with extremely elegant movements. “Once upon a time, um… a long, long time ago, my eldest disciple was from the State of Zhao.”

"People of Zhao? Now there are only Chinese!"

"Sigh...wasn't it a long, long time ago? Back then, there was still the State of Zhao."

"The State of Zhao? Are you trying to fool me into thinking I'm uneducated and know nothing? I've read all the books in your study that I can understand! There was only a State of Zhao among the Seven Warring States! That was so many years ago!"

"Oh, actually, the remnants of the Zhao state later proclaimed themselves kings again after Qin's conquest, but they were wiped out by Han Xin... Sigh, I've gone off-topic again. Didn't you want to hear a story? How can I continue telling you if you're so serious?"

"Alright, alright, go on. My senior brother is from the State of Zhao, and then what?" Tang Yuan grumbled, reluctantly agreeing to continue listening. Only then did he notice that the sugar on the candied hawthorn was showing signs of melting again, so he stretched it out of the pavilion once more. The candied hawthorn was quickly covered by snowflakes; the bright red hawthorns paired with the crystal-clear snowflakes looked like a flawless work of art.

Hmph! This is the correct way to eat candied hawthorn! His previous methods were so outdated!

The young Taoist priest ate the candied hawthorn with great elegance. He used his fingernail to make two light strokes in the air on the frozen candied hawthorn, and the hawthorn pieces on top obediently separated into four pieces, floating in mid-air. He accurately picked up one half and put it in his mouth, slowly sucking on it as he said, "Back then, when your master was traveling in the State of Zhao, your eldest senior brother was still a child. He offered me a piece of osmanthus candy, and I felt that this child had great potential, so I took him as my eldest disciple."

Tang Yuan was speechless. This guy could even take on a disciple? A single piece of osmanthus candy could trick such a powerful master? His senior brother was truly lucky! No, he should be called cunning! Tang Yuan took a bite of his candied hawthorn and urged, "And then?"

"And then? Then I discovered that he was wicked, so I stopped teaching him, left the State of Zhao, and traveled to the State of Qin."

"Wow, so it really is the Warring States period? And then what?" Keep making things up! Tang Yuan offered various criticisms, but didn't take it too seriously. It's just storytelling!

"And then? I went to the Qin state and found a pitiful child, so I took him in as my second disciple."

"Oh, and then?"

"That's all!" the young Taoist said innocently. "Didn't I say I'd talk about the disciples I took in before? Well, actually I took in many more disciples later, but I think you might not want to hear the details, Tangyuan."

Tang Yuan covered his face in exasperation, realizing that letting this guy tell stories was a mistake. Who wanted to know what nationality his senior and second senior brothers were?

Seeing that Tang Yuan had finally stopped asking questions, the young Taoist priest relaxed his brows in satisfaction and began to enjoy his candied hawthorn.

Tang Yuan didn't particularly like sweet and sour things, and after eating two, he didn't want any more. Watching the young Taoist eat with such relish, he felt quite uneasy. So when he saw the young Taoist's expression change after eating a hawthorn slice, Tang Yuan immediately grinned wickedly and asked, "What's wrong? Did you find a bug?"

The young Taoist slowly swallowed the hawthorn berries in his mouth, his tightly closed eyelids trembling slightly as he murmured, "The wind is rising..."

A breeze? There's no wind at all inside this barrier! Tang Yuan looked out of the pavilion in confusion, only to be horrified to find that the wind and snow outside had intensified, and the opposite mountains and forests were completely invisible...

two

The doctor peeked out from the boss's trench coat pocket. The fierce wind on the top of Mount Yi made his ears fly everywhere, so he dared not lean out too far, otherwise he would easily be blown away by the wind.

Seeing the boss silently walking slowly up the ancient sheep cart road of Mount Yi, which the locals call Yulu Ridge, the doctor grew increasingly anxious. For the past month, he had been trying to persuade the boss to give up on using the Crimson Dragon Robe as the last imperial antique to suppress the evil spirits in the Qiankun Grand Array, but in the past thirty days, the boss had not found a suitable replacement imperial antique.

The Crimson Dragon Robe was personally designed by Emperor Huizong of Song, Zhao Ji. It is a magical garment that can completely preserve the wearer's body from decay. However, if the boss takes off this Crimson Dragon Robe, he will quickly rot and die...

"Damn it, they haven't even gotten my body back yet! How could they let you die so easily?" the doctor muttered to himself.

"Don't worry, I'll find a way to get him to give your body back," the boss said with a gentle smile.

That's not the point at all! The doctor was furious, but then he realized that the boss had already entered a cave; otherwise, with the cold wind blowing outside, the boss wouldn't have heard his complaints. The doctor shook his dusty, long ears, looked around the long, narrow cave with many crevices, and asked, "Where have we ended up?"

"This is Zulong Cave, named after the First Emperor who climbed through this cave when he ascended Mount Yi," the shopkeeper said casually, bowing his head as he slowly walked through the cave.

The doctor's heart sank. He knew where his boss was headed; he had been secretly researching online for the past few days. His boss had found the first eleven locations where imperial artifacts were buried, and the only missing one was the summit of Mount Yi, where Qin Shi Huang first erected the Jieshi stone.

Mount Yi is a famous mountain near the hometown of Confucius and Mencius. The Mencius said, "Confucius climbed Mount Dongshan and found Lu small; he climbed Mount Tai and found the world small." The Mount Dongshan mentioned here refers to Mount Yi. Qin Shi Huang chose this place to erect the first Jieshi (a type of ancient Chinese stone tablet) because of its excellent geographical location.

More than two thousand years have passed, and Mount Yi still stands there, now a national 4A-level scenic park. Because it was the dead of winter, the wind was strong and the mountain was bitterly cold, so there were no other tourists. The owner passed through the narrow Zulong Cave and at the northeast exit, he saw a Taiping Tree. Legend has it that this Taiping Tree was formed from the brush of Han Xiangzi, one of the Eight Immortals, and the area here is called Tongtian Jade Well, which can only accommodate one person at a time.

Continuing onward, you reach Wuhua Peak, the main peak of Mount Yi. There is a saying here that you can "ascend to heaven in one step." The mountain is formed by five giant rocks, the highest and most dangerous of which is called the Sky-Piercing Rock, with a top as narrow as a knife blade. The owner looked up for a long time, but in the end, he did not climb up. Instead, he chose a sheltered spot, sat down cross-legged, and closed his eyes.

The doctor knew he was probably waiting for Fusu to appear, so he stopped talking, grabbed the boss's pocket, and stared intently at the exit of Zulong Cave.

After an unknown amount of time, the wind atop Mount Yi suddenly picked up, whipping the boss's hair into a frenzy. He slowly opened his eyes and sighed softly, "The wind is rising..."

Tang Yuan rested his chin on his hand, watching the wind and snow outside the pavilion. After a while, he stopped feeling anything was wrong, since the wind wasn't blowing on him anyway.

Turning his gaze away, Tang Yuan noticed that the young Taoist's expression was somewhat solemn, no longer the relaxed and carefree look he had just had. He had even forgotten to eat the candied hawthorn that Tang Yuan had specifically requested earlier.

Tang Yuan suppressed his unease and chuckled, "Hey! Are you still going to eat candied hawthorns? If not, I'll eat them!"

The young Taoist priest was startled upon hearing this, as if he had been awakened from a meditative state. The next moment, he reflexively opened his lips, and a hawthorn slice obediently floated into his mouth.

"What a glutton!" Tang Yuan muttered, looking down at the Go board on the table. He was puzzled as to how the unseen young Taoist could play against himself. Although the board was carved into a flat stone table, and the Taoist could feel the intersecting grooves, and the black and white stones were divided into squares and circles, how could he possibly play like this? It must be so tiring! Upon closer inspection, Tang Yuan noticed that some of the stones had been scattered due to the snacks he had carelessly placed on the table. Tang Yuan tilted his head, trying to restore the board perfectly.

The young Taoist priest did not stop Tang Yuan's little tricks; in fact, he did not mess up the chessboard and did not care at all.

But Tang Yuan was very concerned about his unusual silence, so he made conversation by asking, "Hey! Once the snow stops, can you teach me how to create such an awesome barrier?"

The young Taoist priest pursed his lips and complained, "Tangyuan, you don't even call me 'Master,' yet you expect me to teach you anything?" The priest was incredibly resentful. He thought back to all his former disciples, who had always treated him with utmost respect? How come no one even understood the importance of respecting teachers anymore? "We've already agreed on an equal exchange! If you won't call me Tangyuan, I'll call you 'Master'! What are you still dissatisfied with? Honestly! I absolutely keep my word!" Tang Yuan slammed his hand on the table; he was the one who truly wanted to complain! Luckily, there was no one else in this desolate wilderness besides him and the Taoist priest, otherwise, he would have been known by the name Tangyuan everywhere. No, he had to correct this before it became a stain on his reputation for life!
"A word is as good as gold..." The young Taoist was clearly moved by these four words. After eating another hawthorn slice, he sighed and said, "Tangyuan, do you know what this cauldron is?"

"A ding?" Tang Yuan was confused for a moment, but the topic was easily changed. "Isn't a ding just a bronze vessel? It's so big, with three legs, and it's very heavy." Tang Yuan gestured with his hand, indicating that the big thing could easily fit his whole body inside.

"Oh? Do you know what it's used for?" The young Taoist asked with great interest, eating hawthorn berries one by one.

"This must have some symbolic meaning, right? Like a national treasure or something?" Tang Yuan tilted his head, thinking about the knowledge he had read in the book, and answered somewhat uncertainly.

The young Taoist priest finally seemed to grasp the essence of being a master, sitting upright with a somewhat solemn air. He slowly said, "The cauldron was originally used for cooking food."

Tang Yuan's chubby face darkened; he knew this glutton couldn't stop talking about food. Seeing that he had almost finished his candied hawthorn, he handed him his own and stuffed it into his hand.

The young Taoist priest didn't mind and took the food to continue eating. As he ate, he spoke clearly and distinctly: "You must know that the Bronze Age was an era when food was the most important thing for people. People from a family or tribe ate together, which is why the cauldron was so big. But only the head of the tribe had the power to distribute food. Over time, the cauldron became a symbol of power."

"Huh, is this what it means for foodies to conquer the world?" Tang Yuan sighed helplessly. He had been out for so long and was quite thirsty, so he casually picked a lotus leaf, folded it into the shape of a bucket, and bent down to scoop some water from the steaming hot spring pool.

"But this cauldron has more than just these two uses; it's also a form of torture." The young Taoist seemed tired of eating hawthorn berries piece by piece, so he ate one at a time, his cheeks puffing out, completely ruining his carefully constructed image of a hermit.

"A torture device?" Tang Yuan blinked, holding up the lotus leaf, completely forgetting to drink, and all the water droplets from the lotus leaf leaked onto him.

“Yes, it’s an instrument of torture that directly boils people.” The young Taoist said calmly, as if he were just saying the weather wasn’t great, chewing on the frozen hawthorn berries in his mouth with a crunchy sound. “Those who stand in the highest position like to give hope to people, and they also like to deprive people of their rights. The power of life and death—that phrase sums it up very well. So the cauldron is also a very contradictory existence; it is both a vessel for cooking food and an instrument of torture for boiling people. Such a thing that is both related to life and death is indeed rare.”

“Indeed…” Tang Yuan’s interest was piqued by the young Taoist’s words, and he urged, “Come, tell me more about the cauldron.”

"Well, later on, the ding (a type of ancient Chinese cooking vessel) became a symbol of the world. All those in power devoted the resources of their nation to casting the largest and most exquisite ding to demonstrate their power. In the early years of the Xia Dynasty, Yu the Great divided the world into nine provinces and cast nine ding. He engraved the famous mountains, rivers, and other wonders of these nine provinces on the ding, with each ding symbolizing one province. He then gathered the nine ding in the capital of the Xia Dynasty to signify the unification of the nine provinces. In this way, the nine ding became ritual vessels used by each emperor to worship Heaven."

"Wow, that sounds amazing! Keep going! What happened to the nine cauldrons later?"

"Later, the Xia Dynasty was destroyed by the Zhou Dynasty, and the Zhou Dynasty ascended to the throne and continued to possess the Nine Tripods. But towards the end of the Zhou Dynasty, well, I forget which year it was, but it was during the reign of King Wu of Qin, that guy King Wu of Qin insisted on seeing what the Nine Tripods looked like, so he sent Gan Mao as general to attack the Han Dynasty, march straight to Luoyang, and destroy the Zhou Dynasty."

"Huh? Isn't this a very powerful person? Wait, I remember it was Qin Shi Huang who unified the six kingdoms, not King Wu of Qin!"

"Yes, King Wu of Qin was brave and warlike, thinking himself invincible. When he saw the Nine Tripods, he asked the strongmen attending him if they could lift them. One of them lifted one, and King Wu, driven by his competitive spirit, also tried. This attempt was disastrous; he was a king, not a strongman, and those bronze tripods were incredibly heavy! Alas, they crashed down with a bang, and he died that very night." The young Taoist priest spoke as if he had witnessed it himself, shaking his head and sighing deeply.

"Ouch..." Tang Yuan winced, as if he were the one who had been hit. It sounded painful. "And then what happened? This cauldron killed King Wu of Qin, so it had to be smashed to atone for the crime, right?"

The young Taoist placed the empty candied hawthorn stick on the table, saying with exasperation, "How could that be? That was one of the Nine Tripods! That unreliable King Wu of Qin killed it himself. At the time, some people said it was retribution for challenging the Mandate of Heaven by destroying Zhou. Instead, they investigated the strongmen around King Wu of Qin and Gan Mao for instigating King Wu of Qin to enter Zhou to view the tripods. Gan Mao heard the rumors but did not return to Qin. He fled to other countries and was stripped of his title."

"Gan Mao?" Tang Yuan was paying attention because he heard the Taoist mention this name for the second time.

"Oh, that's not the point." The young Taoist waved his hand casually, opened the bag of pastries on the table, picked up a piece and ate it. "However, after King Wu of Qin's younger brother, King Zhaoxiang of Qin, ascended the throne, he completely destroyed the Eastern Zhou and transported the Nine Tripods back to Xianyang. But one of the tripods fell into the Si River when it passed Pengcheng. Later, when Qin Shi Huang unified the six kingdoms, he sent people to retrieve it when he toured the Si River, but they were never found."

"Oh? You're not telling me it's such a coincidence that the lost cauldron is the one that killed King Wu of Qin, are you? Otherwise, how could it be such a coincidence?" Tang Yuan suddenly felt like he had realized something. The young Taoist nodded and said, "That's right. What I said above is the official story. That cauldron once killed the King of Qin. The Qin royal family naturally couldn't allow the cauldron to exist. Making it disappear was a tacit understanding."

"Oh, politics is quite hypocritical. They clearly want to smash it, but they don't dare, so they just find an excuse to lose it." Tang Yuan scoffed, somewhat disdainful of this art of whitewashing politics. "So, is that square cauldron still in the Sishui River now?"

The young Taoist priest casually shook his head and said, "No! I saw that no one wanted that cauldron, so I picked it up, refining it. I refined the bronze, took a small part and added black gold, and finally it became my small medicine cauldron for refining pills."

"..." Tang Yuan opened his mouth, but found that he couldn't find a fault with him this time. Could his master have mental problems? Is it too late to run away now?
However, Tang Yuan turned his head to look at the backyard where flowers bloomed in all four seasons, and the strange phenomenon of a blizzard raging just a stone's throw from the pavilion. He thought to himself that with such heaven-reaching and earth-shattering abilities, living for thousands of years wouldn't be difficult, right?

Thinking about this, Tang Yuan felt anxious and restless. He felt that his eccentric master wouldn't mention the Black Gold Cauldron for no reason, so he curiously asked, "Then where is that Black Gold Cauldron now?"

The young Taoist priest paused, his hand holding the pastry still. He thought hard for a long time before finally saying blankly, "I don't know where I lost it..."

"..."

The doctor didn't know how long the boss had been sitting on that mountaintop, but he'd noticed the boss frequently falling into a deep sleep. If this happened to someone else, he'd assume it was a neurological disorder, but the boss was clearly no ordinary person!
So even though he knew that being anxious was useless, his inner unease still rose uncontrollably like a tide, and when he saw the two people emerging from the Ancestral Dragon Cave one after the other, this unease immediately reached its peak.

The boss opened his eyes and calmly looked at Fusu, who was walking at the front, without saying anything.

“I knew you’d be here.” Fu Su’s face still wore a warm smile. His gaze shifted to the rabbit doll in the shopkeeper’s pocket, and then he smiled slightly at the shopkeeper and said, “Can I talk to you? Just by myself.”

The boss nodded, stood up, ignored the doctor's struggles, and handed the rabbit doll to Hu Hai, who was standing behind Fusu.

"Damn it! Boss! Are you crazy! If you give me to this guy, he can just turn around and throw me down the mountain!" The doctor was furious. Everyone knew that this young master Hu was a brother-obsessed brother! He couldn't wait for his soul to dissipate so that Fusu could continue to occupy his body and live on.

Upon hearing this, Hu Hai stiffened, unable to utter a word of refusal. He could only blankly accept the rabbit doll, even carefully choosing an angle to avoid the wind blowing it into his arms. The little red bird perched on Hu Hai's shoulder was startled, flapping its wings a few times, wondering if its young master had misjudged something.

Huh? He's actually being so obedient? The doctor suddenly remembered that the boss had used the Dragon-Patterned Bell on Hu Hai before, so he figured he could probably control him with this level of command. But is it really okay to do this in front of his brother?
The doctor glanced at Fusu subconsciously, only to meet the latter's slightly cold gaze, and couldn't help but shiver. When he tried to look again, he found that the other had already looked away and was walking with the boss towards the towering stone of Wuhua Peak.

Before he could even regret not being able to eavesdrop, the doctor was horrified to find that he had been pulled out by a cold, pale hand grabbing his long ears. He looked down and saw a bottomless ravine shrouded in layers of mountain mist.

Oh no! The boss has entrusted this to the wrong person! The doctor didn't even dare to struggle anymore, let alone shout for help, afraid of upsetting this short-tempered young master Hu, lest a tremor of his hand cause him to never see the boss again. Well… although it seems like a plush toy wouldn't die from falling, right?

The little red bird took flight out of curiosity. The fierce mountain winds posed no threat to it; it flew steadily. The doctor, annoyed, raised his fluffy eyebrows, wanting nothing more than to swat away the silly bird that had been watching him.

Fortunately, this test didn't last long. Hu Hai squinted his red eyes and hesitated for a moment before pulling the doctor back and tossing him to the super curious little red bird.

"Here, you can play with it. Just don't break it," Hu Hai said casually.

"Nonsense! What do you mean 'just don't break it'?" The doctor was furious, but a plush toy was clearly no match for the little red bird, which, as if it had gotten a toy, grabbed the doctor's long ear and started flying around.

Well...actually, after getting used to this roller coaster-like dizziness, this experience was quite exhilarating...The doctor finally lay on the back of the little red bird, feeling like the male protagonist in a fantasy world, able to ride a flying mount.

The doctor looked down to try and make out the two people standing on the mountaintop, who were faintly visible in the mountain mist. Unfortunately, he couldn't hear what the two people below were saying at all.

Having confirmed that the doctor was being well "taken care of," the boss withdrew his gaze and turned his attention back to Fusu, saying calmly, "Have you thought it through?"

Fusu smiled wryly, "After all these years, Bi Zhi, you still understand me so well." Fusu glanced at Hu Hai, who was standing not far away, and chuckled, "Did you control Hu Hai and report all my actions these past few days to you?"

"No, although I wasn't sure at first, thanks to you, those details that I had almost forgotten in the depths of my memory have been gradually brought back to light, which has made me certain." The boss spoke calmly, but his eyes were full of tenderness.

"Oh?" Fusu smiled, his handsome face showing no embarrassment whatsoever. He hadn't expected his little trick of applying the Moon Fragrance to fool his boss.

"I remember you used to secretly read the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic all the time." A smile played on the boss's lips. Those memories were incredibly precious to him. It was precisely because he cherished them so much that he couldn't bear to bring them up to reminisce, like a beautiful but fragile soap bubble in the sunlight, easily shattered and vanished without a trace.

"Prevent illness before it manifests, prevent chaos before it arises." Fusu uttered one of the most important ideas from the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic, then sighed and said, "You must have read it too, otherwise why aren't you worried that I really want to overthrow the world?"

The boss didn't answer his question. Instead, he reached out and touched the red dragon on his right shoulder, and said calmly, "People always say they have no choice in what they do. In reality, they just don't want to give up what they've already gained, nor do they want to let go of what they hope to gain. Perhaps this is what is called greed."

Fusu understood his meaning and said self-deprecatingly, "Bi Zhi, are you really that at ease? Aren't you afraid I'll become greedy?"

"There's no point in trying to persuade him; I can only let him realize his mistake on his own. I think a year should be enough time for him to see things clearly." The shopkeeper withdrew his hand, revealing a cut on his fingertip from a sharp thread. He didn't waste the drop of blood, smearing it directly on the Crimson Dragon. A glimmer of light flashed in the Crimson Dragon's lifelike eyes, then dimmed again.

Fusu didn't notice this detail. Instead, he leaned on a rock and looked down. The mountain mist had eased slightly, partly dispersed by the strong wind, revealing the majestic and magnificent scenery below. Fusu gazed at it for a long time before murmuring, "Back then, Father Emperor must have stood here and seen a similar scene... Back then... More than two thousand years have passed, and I am truly free now."

The boss's heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally settled back down.

He finally won his gamble.

Although this outcome was within his expectations, why did he feel even more distressed than he had imagined when he actually faced this moment?

Fusu pulled a small cauldron from his robes. The shopkeeper, upon closer inspection, realized it looked extremely familiar—it was the black gold cauldron he had once traded with the curator for three antiques, which he had since lost. The shopkeeper didn't pursue how the cauldron had ended up in Fusu's possession; with Hu Hai's Bai Ze brush, entering and leaving his hut was a simple matter. "This cauldron is…"

“Since the Qiankun Grand Formation has already suppressed eleven of its key points, let’s seal this one as well.” Fusu paused for a moment before taking a deep breath and continuing, “Before I change my mind.”

The boss took the black gold cauldron, his lowered eyelids concealing the complex expression in his eyes.

Tang Yuan used a lotus leaf to fill it with some more hot spring water, took a few sips, and casually wiped the water from his lips with the back of his hand. Only then did he realize that his foodie master actually had a serious expression.

"What's wrong? Is something the problem?" Tang Yuan was terrified, afraid that his foodie master would say he hadn't had enough candied hawthorns and make him go buy two more.

The young Taoist frowned, stretched his hand out of the barrier, sensed the outside atmosphere, calculated with his fingers, and sighed, "The Qiankun Grand Formation has changed."

"The Qiankun Grand Array? What's that? How is it so awesome?" Tang Yuan's eyes lit up, but then widened in disbelief. He suddenly saw that behind the Taoist, the ethereal hot spring mist had materialized into the figure of a slender woman. The translucent mist became increasingly solid, and soon it became clear that this was an extremely beautiful man. His white mist was as hazy as snow, his features were as exquisite and enigmatic as an ink painting, his thin lips curved into a mocking smile, and his pupils, though white, were empty and lifeless, yet he exuded a charm that could not be described in words.

Although Tang Yuan was young, he knew that if there were mountain spirits and ghosts in this world, then the one appearing before him now was definitely one of them. Seeing that the woman's lower body was actually a clearly visible, graceful snake tail, Tang Yuan was so shocked that he couldn't speak at all, only making a hoarse sound in his throat, his mind completely blank.

The woman stretched out her fair, jade-like hands and placed them on the shoulders of her gluttonous master, then lowered her head towards his neck in an incredibly ambiguous manner.

Tang Yuan blushed, instinctively wanting to stay away from what he shouldn't see, but the scene seemed to have a magical power. He watched as two sharp teeth suddenly appeared in the mouth of the incredibly charming woman and bit down on his master's neck.

Tang Yuan was shocked and stood up abruptly, wanting to rush over to rescue his master, but he seemed to be frozen in place, with no strength in his body.

To his surprise, there was no bloodshed. The gluttonous master didn't even move, calmly letting the woman devour his spiritual energy. The woman's materialized, thick snake tail ravaged the garden, turning the beautifully decorated garden into a mess in the blink of an eye.

Perhaps a long time passed, or perhaps only a moment, before the snake demon finally finished feeding and dissipated back into the steam of the hot spring. Tang Yuan then found his voice and stammered, "What...what...what happened?"

"Oh, it's nothing. It's just a medicinal snake I used to keep. It's been retraining itself and its mind is a little confused."

The young Taoist's face was somewhat pale, but he didn't take it to heart. With a wave of his hand, the flowers and plants that had been trampled down in the garden bloomed again, and the messy rockery was rebuilt, as if nothing had happened.

A snake? Then how come the upper body is that of a stunningly beautiful woman? Tang Yuan felt his legs go weak. He was just a normal ten-year-old child! He couldn't bear such a dramatic life! Tang Yuan leaned on the stone table and sat down again, beginning to seriously consider whether he should try to go to primary school or something, even though he had finished reading those books years ago.

"Sigh, where were we? Oh right, the Qiankun Grand Formation. Do you know why Qin Shi Huang toured the world back then? It was because the southeast possessed the aura of an emperor. So I set up the Qiankun Grand Formation. If the formation is perfected, the entire Central Plains will be under Qin Shi Huang's control, and the Qin Empire will surely stand for ten thousand generations." The young Taoist sighed, those youthful days that are gone forever! He too had been so passionate back then.

"This is such a load of bull..." Tang Yuan nitpicked, "Didn't the Qin Dynasty fall after only two generations? How can it last for ten thousand generations?"

"Well, Qin Shi Huang died before he could finish erecting the Jieshi Mountain! At first, I also felt it was a pity that the Qiankun Formation wasn't fully set up, but later I discovered that my eldest disciple was wicked. You know, it's normal for a Zhao person to infiltrate Qin and plot to destroy Qin, but there's no need to make the whole world suffer, is there?" The young Taoist shook his head disapprovingly, patted the crumbs of pastries on his hands, and said helplessly, "But his cultivation was already high, and even I couldn't be sure I killed him at the time, so later I modified the Qiankun Formation, using the remaining eight Nine Provinces Cauldrons to create the Investiture of the Gods Formation to imprison him, luring him to the dead end of the formation, and finally... the world was at peace."

Looking at the relieved expression on the young Taoist's face, Tang Yuan felt a chill run down his spine. This method of purging a sect was truly ruthless! To subject someone to the torment of wishing for death for over two thousand years? Tang Yuan suddenly realized how incredibly risky it had been to have recognized this master. Licking his lips, dry from nervousness, Tang Yuan anxiously pressed, "Then what did you mean when you said the Qiankun Grand Array had changed?"

The young Taoist frowned, the scar between his brows appearing even more menacing. "How strange… to break the God-Sealing Formation, one must gather twelve top-tier imperial artifacts to suppress the evil spirits at the formation's core. These twelve imperial artifacts are no easy find! Just who is this person…?"

The Taoist priest abruptly stopped speaking, and Tang Yuan immediately looked out of the pavilion as if sensing something. He saw that the swirling snow and thick dark clouds from just moments before had been instantly taken away by the heavens, completely ceasing. Only the white snow on the ground and the brilliant sunshine streaming down from the sky remained.

"That formation... was actually broken..."

Tang Yuan was dumbfounded. Didn't this mean that a certain god of death had been trapped for more than two thousand years and had actually been released?
The boss and Fusu stood side by side on the summit of Mount Yi, watching the mountain mist dissipate and the gale suddenly stop, a scene of peaceful and tranquil delight, and in the distance, a magnificent rainbow appeared.

Fusu closed his eyes. He was someone who should be used to standing at a high place, but now, looking at the beautiful scenery of the mountains and rivers, he actually felt a little dizzy. After a moment, he opened his eyes again, gazed for a long time, and finally sighed softly, "Now that this matter is over, even if I am unwilling, I should return this body to its original owner."

The boss's body trembled slightly, as if he wanted to say something, but he only opened his lips.

Fusu chuckled self-deprecatingly, "I'm not afraid Bi Zhi will laugh at me for saying this, but actually, I gave up the idea of ​​using the Qiankun Grand Array long ago, once I understood how this era truly operated. But the fact that I delayed for a year was that I was also greedy for the world's prosperity." He paused, and though it was difficult, he continued, "But what doesn't belong to me will never truly be mine. Please apologize to him for me..."

Seeing that he was about to turn back immediately after speaking, the shopkeeper instinctively grabbed his sleeve, "Young Master..."

“Bi Zhi, you’ve finally decided to call me Young Master…” Fu Su sighed wistfully without turning around. Ever since he woke up, his boss had always addressed him as Your Highness in a distant manner.

The boss paused for a moment before whispering, "I can find other suitable bodies for you."

Fusu's body stiffened, but he then said calmly, "Don't try to coax me. My soul is unstable. If I were to transfer to another body again, and there were even the slightest incompatibility, my soul would immediately be scattered..."

The boss lowered his eyes and said softly, "My body is fine."

Fusu slowly turned his head, his handsome face expressionless. He stared at his boss for a long time before finally uttering two words: "Really?"

The boss smiled again and nodded solemnly, saying, "I have lived for more than two thousand years, that is enough."

Fusu remained silent this time.

No agreement was given.

Of course, there was no opposition.

The doctor opened his eyes, looking at the blank white ceiling with some confusion. Wasn't he happily flying in the sky on the little red bird? He even wanted to tug on the bird's feathers to make it fly lower, and ideally, to secretly eavesdrop on what Fusu and the boss were talking about. How did he end up in a completely different place in the blink of an eye?
The next second, the doctor suddenly rolled off the bed and looked at his hands in shock.

It was a human hand, no longer the soft, unparted claws of a doll, and there was a callus on the right index finger, a mark left from frequent use of a scalpel.

These are his hands!
Realizing this, the doctor quickly looked around and discovered he was actually in his own home. He rushed to the bathroom, found himself back in his own body, and immediately grinned. But this joy didn't last three seconds. How could he have been back in his body without knowing anything? Where was his boss?
He quickly grabbed his clothes and rushed out the door. He saw the mute house in the distance, and his unease grew even stronger. He staggered and pushed open the heavy, carved door, but when he saw the situation inside, he breathed a sigh of relief.

The interior of the Silent Shop remained unchanged: the colorful terracotta warriors at the entrance, the ever-burning Changxin Palace Lantern, the gilded dragon-shaped incense burner that constantly emitted the fragrance of agarwood… everything was still there, and even the placement of the face hadn't changed in the slightest. The doctor had run too fast and could only slump on the chicken-wing wood recliner, panting for a long time before realizing something was wrong.

In the past, the boss would have sensed his arrival and, even if he was busy, would have come out from the inner room. The doctor straightened up and called out, "Boss? Boss! Where are you?"

Apart from his own echo, the silent room was completely still.

The doctor was driven mad by his own anxiety. Just as he was about to turn around the jade screen to look for someone in the inner room, he heard the carved door creak. The doctor immediately turned around.

"Boss, you... wait, it's you?" The doctor looked at Lu Zigang, who was carrying a suitcase, with surprise as he walked in from outside.

Lu Zigang took off the scarf around his neck, smiled and said, "The boss sent me a letter, saying that he wants me to help him watch the shop."

The doctor stood frozen in shock, as if struck by lightning, before finally managing to squeeze out a sentence through clenched teeth: "Did he... say... how long he'd let you see me?"

Lu Zigang shrugged and said, "He didn't say, so I quit my job at the National Museum."

The doctor felt as if he had fallen into an ice cave.

Deep underground, unknown to most, in a magnificent and luxurious tomb, the air, which had been still for over two thousand years, began to flow again, and the enormous coffin enshrined in the center suddenly began to rustle…

(End of this chapter)