Everyone was silent for a while. Shuikeng picked up the invitation that Wu Changtian had left behind and read, "On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, we will meet at Taihang... Senior Brother, what are you going to do? Are we going too?"

Yan Zhengming groaned in silence.

Li Yun said, "Tian Yan is sending invitations everywhere without stopping, and they want to make this known to the world. If I were Han Yuan, I would definitely bring people to show up. I think they are asking for a fight, right?"

The demon cultivators in southern Xinjiang are disorganized and wreak havoc everywhere, making life miserable for the people. Tianyan is powerless to give orders to the world, and both sides are fighting each other on their own. There will be no peace if this goes on. It would be better for us to get together, find a deserted place, and overthrow Taihang Mountain so that everyone can have a good fight.

"If I were Han Yuan, I wouldn't join in the fun," Yan Zhengming whispered. "Wouldn't it be convenient to take advantage of their gathering in Taihang to rush into the capital, kill the emperor, and overturn the Tianyan Division's lair?"

Li Yun said: "Whether the man surnamed Wu gave a long speech or not, I did hear some other information - there must be internal strife in Tianyan now. The original Tianyan faction may be thinking about leaving the court, so they may not care about the emperor's life or death."

As he spoke, Li Yun's brows were filled with worry, and he sighed, "Han Yuan... Alas, he made such a big scene just to seek revenge on Tian Yan, but those demons in Southern Xinjiang... won't this account be attributed to him in the future?"

Yan Zhengming's face was a little solemn, and he turned around and said, "Send a letter to Zheshi. I want to find Han Yuan before Tianyan."

At this time, Cheng Qian, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke up: "I always feel like something is wrong."

Li Yun: "What?"

"It is said that 'when the great way is abandoned, there will be benevolence and righteousness, wisdom will emerge and there will be great hypocrisy, when the six relatives are not harmonious, there will be filial piety, when the country is in chaos, there will be loyal ministers'. Tianyan claims to be 'acting on behalf of heaven', but isn't 'acting on behalf of heaven' itself against 'the great way of nature'?" Cheng Qian frowned and said, "This is inconsistent with what Master taught me back then. I really can't understand why Fuyao's ancestors would sign such a vow with Tianyan? I always feel that there is something else here - by the way, Second Brother, I remember that we found an island chronicle on Qinglong Island that year, which listed many major events. Is that book still there now?"

"It should still be there," Li Yun said. "What we took away from Fuyao Mountain back then, as well as the classics we copied and collected on Qinglong Island, were all carried in a storage bag by He Shi for fear of losing them, so they were preserved when we fled from Qinglong Island in a hurry. You can look for them, they should be there, in the small scripture building behind the bamboo forest."

After hearing this, Cheng Qian immediately stood up and walked over. At the same time, he kept recalling what Ji Qianli had said in his mind, and always felt that there were many clues in the old madman's words.

Following Li Yun's instructions, he went behind the bamboo forest and found the legendary Small Sutra Tower.

This place is also called Jinglou, but it is a pity that it can no longer be built into a nine-story Jinglou to store all the world's classics. It is just a small two-story wooden building, so thin that it is about to fall down.

The first floor stores some martial arts techniques that Yan Zhengming and his team have collected over the past hundred years, ranging from orthodox Taoist techniques to unorthodox ones. Some of them were only fragments when they were collected, but were revised by Yan Zhengming or Li Yun, and accidentally became a new set of martial arts techniques.

The second floor holds the things of the Fuyao sect, including the scriptures copied by Yan Zhengming, the Fuyao wooden sword manual edited by Cheng Qian himself, and the miscellaneous books they brought with them when they left Fuyao Mountain. These books have survived many twists and turns and have been preserved to this day. Although each of them is attached with talismans to prevent moth and moisture, the pages are inevitably tainted with the vicissitudes of time.

Cheng Qian's fingers reluctantly moved across a row of book spines. At this moment, he suddenly missed Fuyao Mountain more than ever before. It was like a hometown he could never return to. There was an unopenable human lock between them, as well as the chaotic world and the demon-killing seal that were extremely dangerous.

The books on Qinglong Island had special symbols, and Cheng Qian quickly picked it out from a pile of messy scriptures. The Fuyao sect had confiscated disciples, and all of these people could recite the scriptures backwards, so no one would look through them for no reason. They were piled together casually, and Cheng Qian pulled out the island record, and seven or eight scriptures fell down immediately, covering a pile of dust.

Cheng Qian let out a "tsk" and was about to pick them up when he suddenly discovered that there were two copies of "The Classic of Purity and Tranquility" inside.

Who memorized an extra book?

Cheng Qian picked them up and flicked the dust off the books. He saw that the handwriting on one of the books was elegant and thin, which should be written by Li Yun. The handwriting on the cover of the other book seemed a bit childish, with the strokes sloppily arranged, and none of the horizontal, vertical, left and right strokes stayed in the right place. It was exactly the handwriting of his senior brother when he was a teenager.

When he was a child, Cheng Qian wrote countless volumes of punishment scriptures for him, and his handwriting was imitated so vividly that he could recognize it at a glance.

Cheng Qian was puzzled, so he opened the book "Qingjing Jing" at the back. He was shocked to find that there was another cover underneath the cover of the book. On it was a colorful painting of carved railings and jade buildings. Among the flowers and plants there was a figure, holding a jade flute in a coquettish manner, smiling at people in disheveled clothes. Next to it was a line of small words - "Fengliupu".

Cheng Qian: “…”

No...what is this!

He stood there for a long while, and then somehow opened it. This booklet pretending to be a copy of "The Classic of Purity and Tranquility" was very lively inside, with pictures and poems. It told the story of a series of romantic affairs that took place in a brothel in the mortal world. A handsome scholar and a lovesick prostitute enjoyed each other under the moonlight, but eventually they parted ways. There were a few lyrics in the middle that were appreciated by both the elite and the masses. The story was told completely, with true feelings, and a bit of the romance of the market.

…but the illustrations are very outrageous, and really couldn’t be more explicit, not only did they depict the protagonists’ various actions without any obstruction, even the men and women in the back room next door were depicted in great detail, it could be described as an advanced guide on “how to have fun”.

It's hard to look directly at.

Cheng Qian took a quick look and didn't see any paintings that were exactly the same. He didn't know who had invented all these different paintings. Compared with the world in this painting, the noisy demon cultivators in the magic cave in Zhaoyang City were just a bunch of barbaric bumpkins!

Cheng Qian did not dare to take a closer look and was about to close the book. When he thought of the handwriting of the senior brother on the cover of the fake Pure and Tranquil Scripture, his face suddenly became strange.

Before he finished wondering, there was a sound of footsteps. Yan Zhengming took two steps at a time and went up the stairs of the Jing Building. He asked, "What did you find out?"

Cheng Qian was so frightened that his hands trembled on the spot.

The fake Qingjing Jing fell out of his hand and onto the ground, sprawling across the ground, exposing his whole body.

Yan Zhengming: “…”

What is a bolt from the blue?

At this moment, Cheng Qian suddenly felt that the heavenly tribulation was actually nothing.

He was stunned for a long while, then he made a prompt decision and pretended nothing had happened. He calmly tried to pick up the evil object mixed in the scriptures, but a hand got there first.

Sect Leader Yan was so busy with his daily affairs that he had long forgotten the bad things he had done as a child. When he first saw this thing, he did not feel guilty, but became furious, as if someone had stepped on a black footprint on the snow that he had worked so hard to protect.

He slapped Cheng Qian's hand away and said angrily, "Where did this evil heretic come from? Didn't you say you came to find Dao Zhi, and you found this thing?"

Cheng Qian had no choice but to explain palely: "...it fell off the bookshelf by itself."

Yan Zhengming took the booklet and found the pictures on it extremely glaring. He asked fiercely, "Have you read it?"

Cheng Qian: “…”

Yan Zhengming was so angry that he scolded him: "I thought you were less troublesome than those two, you are really good! What's so good about this, huh? Don't you know that you have internal injuries? Instead of concentrating your mind and regulating your breathing, you are watching these indecent things..."

The more he spoke, the angrier he got. He took the booklet and slapped it hard on Cheng Qian's chest, almost shaking the pages apart. "Asshole!"

Cheng Qian didn't dare to hide, and at the same time he really didn't know what to say.

Yan Zhengming said angrily: "If I knew which bastard put this thing in the Sutra Building, I..."

Cheng Qian finally whispered: "Brother, it seems to be you..."

Yan Zhengming: “…What?”

Cheng Qian stretched out two fingers, carefully turned over the book that was smashed to pieces by Yan Zhengming, and pointed at the three words "Qingjing Jing" that were trying to cover up the truth.

Yan Zhengming stared at the three familiar words and was stunned.

Cheng Qian quickly said in an understanding manner: "It's okay, Senior Brother. I know you were young and ignorant at that time..."

Before he finished speaking, he himself felt that something was wrong. When he was "still young", he secretly mixed this kind of stuff in the scriptures and even smuggled it out of the house from thousands of miles away. Doesn't this just show that he is a prodigal son from inside to outside?

Sure enough, Yan Zhengming's face turned even greener, his ears turned red, and with a forehead full of red and green lawsuits, he snatched the witty little picture book, turned around and left without saying a word.

Cheng Qian's heart suddenly moved, and he lay on the wooden railing on the second floor. The moisture-proof and insect-proof talisman on the wood emitted a faint white light in his palm, making his face, which always looked a little cold, soften a lot.

"Big Brother," Cheng Qian called him and asked boldly, "Zhuang Nanxi told me that there was a casual cultivator who loved her so much that he would remain devoted to her even though she was a mortal. You read these... well, stories when you were a kid. Have you ever seen someone who 'loved a mortal who was born and died every day'?"

The light downstairs was dim, and most of Yan Zhengming's face was buried in the shadow of the bookshelf, so his expression could not be seen. He did not say a word for a long time, and for a moment he seemed to hold his breath, like a stiff stone statue.

After a while, Yan Zhengming asked irrelevantly, "Who is Zhuang Nanxi?"

Cheng Qian: "The talkative disciple from White Tiger Villa."

Yan Zhengming's voice suddenly turned cold: "In the future, don't associate with these questionable people. Since you know that you should give up the five flavors for the sake of the heavenly tribulation, don't you understand what it means to have a 'pure and upright heart'? If you keep having these nonsense thoughts, you'll have to go to Qing'anju to reflect on your mistakes!"

Cheng Qian's eyes suddenly dimmed.

The footsteps downstairs gradually faded away. The door of the scripture building creaked, opened, and was automatically sealed by a talisman. A gust of cold wind blew in the building.

Cheng Qian bent down silently, picked up the books that had accidentally fallen to the ground one by one, and put them back on the shelf one by one. Finally, he took out the Qinglong Island Chronicles and opened it while sitting on a small stool by the window.

The small oil lamp on the wall lit up obediently. Cheng Qian flipped through two pages and suddenly felt a little bored.

Over the years, he has fought against the heaven and earth, against his fellow men, and against life and death. He has never turned back and has never believed that there is anything in the world that he cannot do.

It was not until this moment that he realized that many things in the world are not as we wish.

Maybe it was because his damaged soul had not recovered yet, but Cheng Qian felt a wave of fatigue overwhelm him. He aimlessly read a few lines of the boring island chronicles, and suddenly thought: "What's the point of becoming a great power? Wouldn't I just be envied and framed? What's the point of ascending to heaven? I'll leave behind all the truth and falsehood in the world and throw myself into a vast and unclear road. Will I just stand by and watch the mountains and rivers decay?"

Not even as good as mortals who are born and die in the same day.

Cheng Qian's heart sank. He came to his senses and truly felt his own turmoil.

He might really need to retreat for a while, but at this critical moment...

While Cheng Qian was reciting that ascension was boring, he quickly scanned the Qinglong Island Chronicles without specifically looking at the ones related to the Fuyao Sect. Suddenly, his eyes focused and he discovered something.

Although Qinglong Island is located overseas, it has always had a universal heart. In addition to island affairs, the island chronicles also record the major events among the cultivators of the world at that time, following the example of mortal history books.

Cheng Qian discovered a pattern: anyone who cultivates his primordial spirit after the age of 300 will basically stop there. Even if he has any adventures in the later period, he will die of old age after living to 1,800 years old.

There is another type of people, who are either determined or gifted, and who cultivate their primordial spirits early on. They are recorded in the annals of Qinglong Island and must have been influential figures of the time. However, these people either disappeared later on, or became possessed or met with some disaster and died prematurely.

There is not a single record of ascension in the entire Qinglong Island Chronicles.

Cheng Qian pinched his brows to gather his scattered mind, and a doubt came to his mind - so... did these people ascend to heaven in a low-key manner, or has no one succeeded in ascending to heaven during the many years since Qinglong Island was founded to its destruction?

Cheng Qian put away the island history and quickly went to the first floor. He made a hand gesture on the talisman next to the bookshelf, slowly injected his true energy into it, and whispered, "I want to read the records about 'ascension'."

The wooden bookshelf trembled for a moment in his frosty true energy. A few books on the shelf emitted a faint light. Cheng Qian picked them out one by one and brought them back to Xiaoqing Anju.

Yan Zhengming regretted his anger at Cheng Qian in the Sutra Building that day, but he had no choice. God knows, when Cheng Qian asked him that question while lying on the stairs, he felt as if a heavy stone had hit his chest, and all his internal organs had been displaced, and he felt pain and vibration. He had no choice but to lose his temper and run away, hiding from Cheng Qian for several days.

However, he soon found that it was unnecessary to do so, because Cheng Qian never left Xiaoqing Anju after that day. The two lived next door to each other, but neither of them saw each other for more than ten days.

And it was at this time that Zhe Shi's letter came.

The errand runner was still the puddle that could easily turn into a bird. In order to hide her increasingly eye-catching bird appearance, Li Yun saw her skillfully transform into a sparrow.

The sparrow puddle flew away with its tiny wings, carrying the grudge against the second senior brother. But she soon discovered that this body was too convenient, and its omnipresence was almost second only to that of flies, and it could sneak into any place with two or three little birds.

This time, she finally saw ochre.

"Brother Zheshi said that the Tianyan Department has clear levels. All new members have to serve as spies in the outer periphery for dozens or even hundreds of years. After that, they have to go through a thorough investigation to confirm that their backgrounds are clean before they can enter the inner gate. But I don't know what happened a while ago. The people in the inner gate seemed to have started fighting among themselves, and they were extremely fierce. More than half of the familiar faces disappeared overnight. And then it happened that the Fourth Master... Well, the Demon Dragon rebelled, and the Tianyan Department was in urgent need of manpower, so they set up a substitute inner gate outside the inner gate, and gathered all the outer gate spies like Brother Zheshi who have good cultivation and no flaws for the time being. Recently, they have taken turns to ambush near Taiyin Mountain, as if waiting for someone to fall into their trap. Although there has been no order from above, Brother Zheshi said that they should be waiting for Fourth Senior Brother."

Taiyin Mountain...is less than fifty miles away from the original site of Fuyao Mountain.

Yan Zhengming said without hesitation: "Seal off the villa tomorrow and we will set off to Taiyin Mountain immediately."

Li Yun hurriedly chased after him and asked, "What will you do after you reach Taiyin Mountain? What should you do? Do you plan to help Tianyan capture Han Yuan, or do you openly break the oath, disobey the Demon-Slaying Seal, and help Han Yuan get revenge?"

"The Demon-Exorcising Seal must be followed." Yan Zhengming said firmly.

After hearing this, several people felt a sinking feeling in their hearts.

The next moment, Yan Zhengming continued, "But we must not let Han Yuan fall into the hands of Tianyan. We must intercept him before the Taihang Conference and bring him back. We are from the Fuyao Sect, and even if he pokes a hole in the sky, it is not up to outsiders to decide whether to kill or cut him."