Chapter 126: Fengdu Guest: Reminiscence of the Past (I)
The human world.
It was night time. The eighty-three-year-old head of the Zong family, Zong Xuanlang, was taking a nap at his desk. He was sitting in his wheelchair, with his hand holding a half-opened page of a book hanging naturally.
His eyeballs kept moving under his eyelids, and he seemed to be dreaming.
After Zong Xuanlang turned eighty, it became increasingly difficult for him to stay awake for long periods of time. He often fell asleep in the middle of reading. Looking at his current state, it is hard to imagine that when he was young, he fought for three days and three nights without sleep in order to catch an evil earthbound spirit.
People have to accept the fact that they are getting old.
The main house of the Zong family is located on an unknown hill with pleasant scenery. The mountain is deep and deserted, and it is very quiet. Zong Xuanlang left a crack in the window, which has been his habit for many years.
At this moment, the moon is as cool as water, and the only sound you can hear is the rustling of the wind blowing through the pine forests in the distant mountains. It is a rare day suitable for sleeping.
Suddenly, the silence was broken by a loud noise.
It turned out that a photo frame on the bookshelf not far from Zong Xuanlang was blown to the ground by the wind, making a "bang" sound.
The loud noise woke Zong Xuanlang up, and also alerted the guards guarding the door. Hasty and messy footsteps sounded at the door. The guards knocked on Zong Xuanlang's door almost immediately, fearing that the elderly man had encountered something unexpected.
Zong Xuanlang said to the outside of the door in a deep voice: "I'm fine."
The knocking on the door stopped immediately, followed by the sound of people slowly walking away.
Silence returned to the surroundings.
Zong Xuanlang sighed in his heart.
When did it start? Many years ago, the people of Xuanmen would beg him to deal with a haunted house full of dangers, but since he turned sixty, they gradually treated him as a dead tree that could be easily broken, and even feared that he would die in his sleep.
Zong Xuanlang smiled self-deprecatingly: "I didn't expect that these old bones would become a burden so soon." He thought weakly, then turned his wheelchair by himself and walked towards the photo frame that fell from the bookshelf.
There was a photo in the frame, a photo of two men. One of them was wearing a suit and tie, with his hair neatly combed. He had a slightly furrowed brow and looked at the people around him with disdain. That was the young Zong Xuanlang.
The other person in the photo, wearing the training clothes of an old man in the park, with a faint blue tattoo visible on his wrist, is talking to himself with his arm around Zong Xuanlang's shoulder, giving the camera a heartless smile.
Zong Xuanlang's hand brushed across the two eternally young faces in the photo, and suddenly realized that the carefree man in the photo had been gone for fifty years.
In fifty years, with the coming and going of cold and heat, the spring grass needs to grow and die, and die and be reborn fifty times.
Zong Xuanlang couldn't help but say to the person in the photo, "Yang Qingyu, it would be better if you died and all was settled, saving so much trouble. Do you know how many years I have been cleaning up the mess for you in the human world?" Zong Xuanlang thought viciously, "When I die, I will definitely find you and make you pour me tea and kowtow to me, and perform the ritual of kneeling three times and bowing nine times, only then can I ease the hatred in my heart."
Then, he thought again: "That day is probably not far away."
Nature is cruel. The cold winter and warm moon only burn people’s lives.
Zong Xuanlang still remembers the first time he met Yang Qingyu.
It was also a moonlit night like this. The thirty-year-old Zong Xuanlang had been the head of the family for just six months and was working in the study room. He only lit a lamp on the desk and used the dim light to check the accounts of the Zong family over the years, the major events in the annals, and the letters sent by the various side branches...
The workload was so heavy that even a mature man like Zong Xuanlang couldn't help but feel overwhelmed and rubbed his eyebrows in annoyance.
But Zong Xuanlang had been working so hard for half a year. It was just an ordinary day in his fifty years of hard work as the head of the family. It was no different from all the other days. The only difference was that a person came in through Zong Xuanlang's window. A person who was dressed sloppily and laughed heartlessly.
The man was wearing sunglasses in the middle of the night and was trying to get in through the gap in Zong Xuanlang's open window. There were a few fallen leaves on his head and he looked very embarrassed.
Zong Xuanlang did not open the window as wide as possible, but only left a small gap. It was a grown man, so it was a little difficult to get in, so the man changed his posture and tried to squeeze in from different angles.
Zong Xuanlang didn't know why he didn't call for help the moment he saw the man. Maybe he was too tired from work that day, or maybe he was too annoyed at work and just wanted to find something to distract himself. In short, Zong Xuanlang just sat quietly at his desk, watching the man fighting with the window frame.
Because there was a corner between where Zong Xuanlang was sitting and the window, someone who was concentrating on climbing the window did not notice his presence.
After struggling for a long time, Yang Qingyu, the man who climbed through the window in the middle of the night, finally succeeded in getting into the Zong family.
Yang Qingyu came here today to steal a magic weapon to save someone. How could the Zong family be so easy to break into? This place was guarded by many people, and many formations had been set up long ago. Yang Qingyu had to five levels and kill six generals before he finally succeeded in finding a window that was not closed tightly.
After much effort, Yang Qingyu finally managed to get into the window that was less than half open. However, he had only taken two steps when he found that not far away , a man in a suit and tie was sitting behind a desk in the middle of the night, frowning at him.
Is this...exposed?
Yang Qingyu could only laugh awkwardly. Then, with lightning speed, he sent two restraining talismans to the man.
Zong Xuanlang frowned even deeper, because he found that the intruder in front of him didn't seem to be a simple thief, but a self-taught mystic who came from nowhere.
But no matter what kind of unconventional method one has, it is too bold to dare to show off one's skills in front of a serious master. After all, systematic learning can save a lot of detours compared to self-study, so the master of aristocratic family will naturally grow much faster than these unconventional masters.
Facing the confinement talisman that was coming straight towards him, Zong Xuanlang simply raised his arm and waved it lightly. Two flames instantly shot out from his hand, entwining with Yang Qingyu's talisman and instantly burning the two talismans to ashes.
Zong Xuanlang said to Yang Qingyu calmly: "You are using the immobilization talisman, which was invented by my ancestors. You can't beat me with the Zong family's spell. You'd better surrender quickly."
However, just when Zong Xuanlang was confident of victory and was still trying to persuade Yang Qingyu, he felt that the right half of his body could not move and his senses became numb. He looked down and suddenly found a soul-suppressing nail on the right shoulder of his shadow.
Zong Xuanlang recognized the technique. He narrowed his eyes and said word by word, "The technique of sealing the soul."
The Soul Sealing Technique is a branch of the Zhong family's ghost-controlling technique. It can use the Soul Sealing Nail to seal the three souls and seven spirits of the dead soul, thereby controlling the evil ghosts and using them for one's own purposes. Similarly, if a person's shadow, along with the three souls and seven spirits, is nailed to the shadow of a living person with the Soul Sealing Nail, the actions of the living person can be restricted unknowingly to achieve one's own goals.
Zong Xuanlang stared at Yang Qingyu, who was standing opposite him with a carefree expression, and asked, "Where did you learn this from?"
First, it was the immobilization talisman of the Zong family, and then the soul-suppressing nail of the Zhong family. You have to know that these are secret methods that are not passed on to outsiders by the aristocratic families. They are not cabbages on the roadside. How could it be easily learned by an unknown outsider?
Zong Xuanlang felt that he had to find out the truth, otherwise this person would only cause endless harm.
Yang Qingyu was stunned for a moment when being questioned by Zong Xuanlang, and then quickly retorted: "Don't accuse me, what do you mean by stealing? I learned it seriously from books."
Zong Xuanlang was also stunned when he heard this: "Book?"
Is there a book in this world that covers all the mystical arts of the four schools of Xuanmen? Why hasn't he seen it? You have to know that Zong Xuanlang had read all the books in the Zong family before he was seventeen years old.
Yang Qingyu said confidently: "Yes, I bought it at a street stall for fifty cents last month."
Zong Xuanlang was silent. He felt that his behavior of listening carefully to an unknown intruder was a joke. The other party was obviously fooling him. Obviously, Zong Xuanlang did not believe that these untold skills would easily appear on a street stall. And Yang Qingyu himself did not care whether Zong Xuanlang believed him or not. He came here today for an important thing to do——
"By the way, I'm here to borrow the Penglai Pearl."
Zong Xuanlang frowned even deeper: "How do you know that Penglai Pearl is in the Zong family?"
Yang Qingyu said confidently: "Of course I calculated it."
Zong Xuanlang refused without thinking: "I can't give you the Penglai Pearl." The Zong family is so big, if you have the ability, you can look for it slowly, but there are many people in the Zong family, it is believed that Yang Qingyu will be caught before he is found.
Yang Qingyu spread his hands indifferently: "Since you won't give it to me, I can only take it myself."
After that, Yang Qingyu took out another soul-suppressing nail and immobilized the other half of Zong Xuanlang's body. Then, he moved closer to Zong Xuanlang, took off his sunglasses, showed a sly smile, and then grabbed Zong Xuanlang's wrist. On that wrist was a string of crystal clear crimson Buddhist beads - that was the Penglai Pearl.
Legend has it that the Penglai Pearl is the fruit of a fairy tree that has stood on the Penglai Fairy Mountain for thousands of years, and only one is produced every hundred years. The string in Zong Xuanlang's hand contains a total of 108 Penglai Pearls, so you can imagine how rare they are.
Penglai Pearls are rare, and few people have seen them. Most people thought that this was just a new find of Zong Xuanlang. He didn't expect that Yang Qingyu actually knew the value of the pearl.
Zong Xuanlang showed a rare look of surprise: "You actually recognize the Penglai Pearl?"
Yang Qingyu denied it and said, "I don't recognize him."
Zong Xuanlang was thinking about the possibility that Yang Qingyu was just trying to trick him: "Then how can you be sure that this is the Penglai Pearl?"
Yang Qingyu rolled his eyes when he heard this: "I told you, I calculated it."
Zong Xuanlang hesitated. Could it be that this person not only knew the unique skills of the Zong and Zhong families, but also knew the fortune-telling of the Qian family? Is this possible... Is there really someone in this world who can combine the strengths of the four families?
Yang Qingyu was still waiting for Penglai Pearl to save him, and he didn't have the patience to waste any more time, so he left a message: "In an emergency, I'll go save people first. Bye!"
Then he climbed out the window again and ran away.
Then, because Yang Qingyu was busy after saving the people, he forgot to return the Penglai Pearl. So a month later, Yang Qingyu, who was setting up a stall to earn a living, was surrounded by Zong Xuanlang and his men.
Soon after that, there were rumors that a new genius had emerged in the Xuan Sect. Unlike the aristocratic children of the four major families who had been taught the Xuan arts for generations, this one was a wild one.
By chance, this unconventional man got hold of a fragment of an ancient book, which contained only some basic Taoist techniques. However, it helped him find a new and smooth path.
What is so special about this half volume of ancient book is that it covers all aspects of exorcism, controlling ghosts, summoning gods, and writing with planches.
As mentioned before, among the four Xuanmen families, the Zong family is good at exorcism, the Zhong family is good at commanding ghosts, the Qi family is good at summoning gods, and the Qian family is good at writing with a planchette. While the four families have their own strengths, they also guard against each other and try to ensure that their unique skills will not be leaked. Therefore, each family has no strengths other than their own family skills. However, the content of the ancient books covers ancient and modern times. Although it is only a basic Xuanshu, it is comprehensive enough. Moreover, after the techniques of exorcism, commanding ghosts, summoning gods, and writing with a planchette are interconnected, they can complement each other, allowing Yang Qingyu to make rapid progress.
So, those who are good at only one subject will never score higher than those who are good at all subjects.
In addition, Yang Qingyu was studious and had a high level of comprehension. He actually gradually found a new path of practice, gradually emerged in the Xuanmen, and became a leader of the new generation. Even Zong Xuanlang, the youngest head of the Xuanmen in history, who became the number one person in the Xuanmen at the age of 30, looked at him with admiration.
From then on, with the support of the clan and his own strong strength, Yang Qingyu finally earned a place in Xuanmen.
Of course, the Xuanmen people had more negative comments about this sudden genius : "Do you really think he can become a phoenix by relying on a crappy book? He has climbed up the big tree of the Zong family!"
Ye Luzi, also known as Yang Qingyu, didn't take these comments seriously at all. He was thinking about making a trip to Xiangxi.
