Volume One: Odd Jobs in Longwater County Chapter Ninety-Five: The Sea Changes into Mulberry Fields

The group lay in ambush all around.

Bianyuan and two or three others hid on the fourth floor of the tower. The rest took positions in the surrounding area.

Everyone held their breath, waiting in full readiness.

Tap, tap, tap...

After an unknown length of time, the sound of footsteps came from outside the tower.

Bianyuan did not show himself. He merely sensed the other party’s cultivation.

Eighth-rank martial arts cultivation. Not especially high.

Both the men and the great demons concealed themselves as best they could, making sure not to be discovered.

Tap, tap, tap...

The footsteps drew nearer and nearer.

In a flash, Bianyuan erupted into motion. He leaped straight down from the fourth floor and charged into the second floor.

It was a human martial artist, around fifty or sixty years old, with eighth-rank cultivation.

The instant he saw Bianyuan, he reacted. He drew his sword and struck out, filling the cramped space with flashing blades and sword light.

This man was exceedingly formidable. For a moment, Bianyuan could not even get close.

“Terrifying,” Bianyuan muttered. “The depth of his spiritual power is only half a step weaker than my own seventh-rank cultivation.”

The finesse and might of his technique were even more beyond anything in the arts Bianyuan himself used.

Hisssss...

Outside the tower, the serpent demon’s body expanded dozens of times over and reached in through the tower’s frame.

The others rushed in together.

These members of the Demon-Slaying Office, along with the great demons, were all at the eighth rank. In the outside world, none of them could be considered weak.

Yet even under their encirclement, the man still had room to fight.

“Who are you people?”

The man was frightened.

“Die!”

Taking advantage of the moment he spoke, Bianyuan stepped in and slashed his blade into the man’s leg.

Immediately, Director Song of Nanwu County coordinated with him and severed one of the man’s arms.

With several people working in concert, they quickly brought him down.

Now we can talk.

With his hands clasped behind his back, Bianyuan stood before the man.

The others and the great demons surrounded them on all sides to guard against any unexpected change.

“Who are you?” Bianyuan demanded.

“I am Huochanggong of the Flame Gate, an outer sect elder!” the man in his fifties cried. “And you? Are you from the North Blade Sect, or the Li Sword Villa?”

“If you stir up internal strife between sects and bring ruin to all living things, can you bear the consequence?”

“Cut the nonsense!” Bianyuan sprang forward and drove Huochanggong, the self-styled outer sect elder of the Flame Gate, beneath his foot.

“Director Bian, I have some recollection of that Li Sword Villa,” Director Song of Nanwu County said slowly. “I have reviewed the records of this place. Li Sword Villa was founded a hundred years ago and destroyed seventy years ago.”

“A simple inference would be that the Flame Gate and the North Blade Sect were also sects established here, and were then drawn into the relic, where they settled down.”

“Indeed. Humans are not like demons; there are too few of us, and our numbers grow too slowly. These people could not possibly be stray survivors from the relic’s destruction all those countless years ago,” said the Demon-Slaying Envoy Li. “The North Blade Sect and the Flame Gate must have been sects founded here even earlier.”

After a brief analysis, the matter finally became clear.

These people could not have survived for tens of thousands of years. They must have been members of those lesser sects that later established themselves here, only to be drawn into the relic for reasons unknown, after which they began to multiply in this land.

“I am Bianyuan, deputy director of the Demon-Slaying Office in Anxi Prefecture, under the Great Zhou Dynasty,” Bianyuan said, pressing down harder with his foot. “I ask, you answer. If you dare deceive me, you will bear the consequences.”

Under that heavy threat, Huochanggong, who called himself an outer sect elder of the Flame Gate, could only lower his head and agree.

“When was your sect founded here?”

“In the twentieth year of the Zhengde reign of the Great Feng!” Huochanggong answered.

“The twentieth year of the Zhengde reign of the Great Feng?” Bianyuan murmured to himself.

That should belong to the previous dynasty.

If memory served, the Great Feng Dynasty was already nearing collapse at that time.

The year after Emperor Zhengde died, the final emperor ascended the throne. After that, uprisings spread everywhere, and powerful clans and aristocratic houses rose in great numbers, fighting without end.

Fifty years later, burdened by a world where countless lives were plunged into misery, the founding emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty led his righteous army to conquer the realm, suppressing one warlord after another. It took him more than twenty years to lay the foundations of the Great Zhou.

If that was the case, then the Flame Gate had already been founded here six or seven hundred years ago.

“And when did you enter the relic?”

“In the first year of the New Emperor,” Huochanggong replied.

This New Emperor was naturally not the New Emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty, but the final emperor of the Great Feng Dynasty.

“Hearing you all speak, it seems the outside world has already changed dynasties,” Huochanggong said through gritted teeth, enduring the pain. “In the underground world, there are no seasons, and we have no sense of time. We only know that one generation after another grows old. By my time, there have already been fifteen generations.”

He gave a bitter smile.

“Who would have thought that outside, mountains and rivers would have changed beyond recognition, and the Great Feng Dynasty would have fallen?”

These people lived here as though in an earthly paradise.

The turmoil of the outside world could not reach them.

Here, they cultivated in seclusion, absorbing the rich spiritual energy of this place, yet at the same time they were trapped here.

“The final emperor of the Great Feng reigned for only seven years. After that came decades of chaos. Five hundred years ago, the founding saint emperor of the Great Zhou unified the realm and built an empire even greater than the Great Feng by half.”

“Now the Great Zhou is flourishing, and with the new emperor’s accession, auspicious signs have descended from heaven and all things are at peace,” Bianyuan said.

“That must be truly wonderful,” Huochanggong said, and in his eyes there appeared a faint longing for the outside world. “It is said that our Flame Gate’s founding ancestor established the sect in the deep mountains simply to avoid taxes.”

“But who could have imagined that harsh rule is fiercer than tigers? The taxes on small sects were even worse. At that time, no one in the world dared resist the Great Feng, so we could only swallow our anger. When our founding ancestor broke through to eighth-rank martial arts cultivation, everyone in the sect, together with the beasts we kept and even the chickens and ducks, was drawn into this special space.”

“After that, we settled here. To avoid the cruel taxes, we never dared go out.”

Bianyuan’s expression darkened.

“I’m not here to listen to your life story. Who is the strongest in the Flame Gate? Also, are there any rare treasures or valuable relics here that you have not yet obtained?”

“Has no one truly gone out in all these hundreds of years?”

Worried that the man might refuse to speak, Bianyuan set his blade against Huochanggong’s neck.

The blade pressed a fraction deeper, and thin threads of blood began to seep out.

...

At the edge of the relic, Lu Jiuzhang and the others moved cautiously around the perimeter. Fortunately, nothing major had happened along the way.

Scritch, scritch, scritch...

Suddenly, a faint sound came from ahead.

“Who’s there?”

Zhong Zhengming reacted instantly and slashed out with his blade.

Blade qi swept across the path, severing the weeds and bushes along the way.

Within the withered grass, a woman in black was revealed, long sword in hand, apparently about to defend herself.

Her cultivation was only at the ninth rank of martial arts. She could not possibly block Zhong Zhengming’s strike.

Fortunately, she turned at the last instant, and the blade qi left a deep wound across her body.

Blood gushed out, and in an instant her black clothes were soaked through.

The woman lost consciousness from the pain and collapsed to the ground, her life and death uncertain.

“Director Zhong, easy there,” the big black dog chided. “We’ve been walking all this way and it’s all been men, not a single woman. Finally we run into one, and you strike so hard. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life alone?”