If Qiao Shui was an ordinary person who was afraid of death, he would be surprised.
The two of them didn't say much. They quickly paid the bill and left.
Qianliyan stopped where he was, reached into his arms, took out the thick history book of the lonely city, his mind full of thoughts.
This history book was handed to him by the old man in the armory. It was a history compiled by the petty officials and the disabled old people in the city in the past.
Now that he has left the desert, he should spread the story of the lonely city.
This is not only his main job as a storyteller of strange stories, but also what he wants.
As the storyteller of Tingchao Tower, Qianliyan is actually not an ordinary person. He has a horizontal eye between his eyebrows and actually has half demon bloodline, making him a half-demon.
His father was actually one of the 100,000 soldiers in the past. He ventured to explore the hundreds of miles of desert, which was actually a search for his roots.
... ..
Before leaving, Qiao Mu and Captain Hai planned to go to Mrs. Bai, the commander of Anxi Pass, to borrow two fast horses.
When the two of them found Mrs. Bai, she was reminiscing about the past with the old man from the armory in front of the city wall of Anxi Pass, and the two were having a great time talking.
The old man in the armory is Li Changge’s younger brother, so Mrs. Bai is actually his sister-in-law. The two are old acquaintances and have a common relative.
Upon hearing that Qiao Mu and Hai Duwei were preparing to go to the imperial capital, the old man in the armory stopped Qiao Mu before they left.
"If you want to go to the palace to see the emperor, you might as well bring this thing with you."
There was a flash of light in the old man's hand, and a storage bag appeared.
"Storage capsules are magical storage tools used by immortal cultivators. Almost all of them have restrictions, and require a stronger magical power than the original owner to forcibly break them."
"And this storage bag was stolen from the storehouse by Jian Zexian. He cracked the restrictions in it with unknown means, so even non-immortal cultivators can use it. It's just that the space inside this storage bag is a little small."
"I already have the stone city left by the exiled sword immortal. Why don't you give this unrestricted storage bag to Elder Qiao?" said the old man in the armory.
"The things in the storage bag may be useful for you to enter the palace and meet the emperor."
Storage bags are not a rare item for immortal cultivators, and cultivators from the nine major immortal sects all have one.
However, storage bags that have no restrictions and can be used by ordinary warriors are quite rare.
All the soldiers and civilians in the isolated city are grateful to the Qiao family.
Therefore, even though he had just met Qiao Shui, the old man in the armory was willing to give him valuable things.
Qiao Mu sighed slightly: I've been around for almost two hundred years, and finally I have a usable storage bag.
He weighed the storage bag in his hand, and saw that the bag was full, as if it was stuffed with things.
The old man in the armory explained, "In addition to the things needed for reporting to the emperor, the storage bag actually contains many handwritten copies of secret books from the old Lonely City armory. There are a total of nine spiritual training methods, as well as some other secret books collected in the armory. They are all in it. It can be regarded as a gift to the Qiao family."
Qiao Mu was slightly stunned. This was indeed a generous gift.
Obviously, it was not given to him as "Qiao Shui", but to Qiao Shuangsen and other heroes who died for the people of the isolated city.
However, since the old man in the armory was generous to him, he naturally would not be stingy. He took out a storage bag from his pocket and handed it to the old man in the armory.
"This was handed over to me by Qiao Xiaoming. It belonged to a cultivator named Dao Ni."
"I don't know any immortal cultivators, so I might as well give this thing to you, so that it can be put to good use."
When the two sides were about to part ways, Qiao Mu also asked the old man in the armory about his plans.
The Li family, to which the old man from the arsenal belonged, was not a large family. Those who returned to Jiuzhou were actually homeless and had nowhere to go, so they could only sigh slightly:
"I have guarded the city for half my life. Although I can't go to the battlefield now, I have learned some Taoist magic. I also have the stone city left by the exiled sword immortal. I can at least protect the people of the lonely city."
"I have nowhere to go. If I can find a place to live for myself and the women, children, disabled and elderly people who have escaped from this lonely city, I will have no regrets in my life."
The old man in the arsenal paused and said:
"I heard that when the Great Qin Palace was first built, there was a lot of work to be done, and the King of Qin in the Great Qin Palace was said to be a martial artist who took up the banner of martial arts. I'm curious about what martial artists mean..."
"The Great Qin Mansion may also be a good place to live in retirement."
The old man in the armory has already turned to cultivating immortality, but he is still quite interested in those martial artists who are rumored to have the potential to fight against immortals.
There were 300 old soldiers from the depths of the desert, as well as a large number of women, children and the disabled. The sudden appearance of so many people at Anxi Pass naturally could not be concealed from others.
Besides, no one is hiding it.
Tingchao Tower was presumably a group of listeners who followed the tide of the times. When they heard about the old soldier who appeared outside Anxi Pass, and heard the whole story from Qianliyan, one of the pillars of the Qiwen School, the entire Tingchao Tower was shocked by the incident.
"They held out in the desert for forty years. If you hadn't seen it with your own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it."
"This incident may be more likely to cause a sensation in Kyushu than the previous 'Death of the Martial Saint'..." Someone immediately made a judgment.
after all.
The Martial Saint is just a warrior.
Although he was extremely famous and had been slaughtering people in the martial arts world for thirty or forty years, his fame was more limited to the martial arts world.
But this is not the case with the lonely city in the desert.
This matter is related to the alien war forty years ago. There are one hundred thousand soldiers, and there are one hundred thousand families from all over Kyushu, plus the original residents of the lonely city... .
This incident was both true and bizarre, which attracted the attention of both major factions of storytellers in Tingchao Tower.
...
To the north of Anxi Pass there is a city called Dancheng.
A few months ago, a disaster struck Dancheng. There were continuous lightning and thunder in the sky, and the thunder was like rain. It was suspected that immortal monks were fighting. Half of the city was destroyed by thunder, and hundreds of thousands of people were killed or injured.
The city was originally severely damaged because of this, but after the rise of King Qin, the Great Yan court renamed the original Dancheng and established it as the new "Great Qin Prefecture".
The Great Qin Prefecture was just established, but the nearby Anxi Town and Anxi Pass were also within the jurisdiction of the King of Qin.
At this time, inside the Prince of Qin's Mansion in the city of Daqin.
After listening to the report from the envoy from Anxi Pass sent by Madam Bai, the King of Qin waved his hand and let him go.
But his expression looked a little unhappy.
Today, along with the envoy from Anxi Pass, there came an order from the Da Dao Sect to the Qin Palace. It was said that it was something that an elder of the sect asked him to do.
"Elder Qingzhuo wants me to take care of his tail?"
The King of Qin felt a little helpless.
Although he became the King of Qin, and was seen by the people as one of the hopes for using martial arts to fight against the way of immortals, and was famous for a while, but in reality he was just a white glove for the Da Dao Sect to handle worldly affairs.
He had a good reputation, in fact, it was because the disciples of Da Dao Sect were willing to play supporting roles and personally build up momentum for him, so he got the name King of Qin and became king by force.
This matter concerns the great plan of the Da Dao Sect. With the intervention of the Da Dao Sect's cultivators, it is naturally not difficult to conceal it from Emperor Yonghe and disguise himself as a "King Qin" who has the potential to conquer the immortals through martial arts.
Emperor Yonghe might come to his senses later, but by then it would probably be too late.
"There are quite a few people walking out of the desert. How can I deal with them? If a few dozen people sneak out, I can easily kill them all. But if there are half of the women and children in the city, can I still massacre the whole city and all the people who know about it in Anxi Pass?"
The King of Qin frowned, somewhat complaining.
He is not a soft-hearted person. If the problem can be solved by massacring a city or a pass, he will not hesitate.
But things are not that simple.
Tingchaolou got the news from somewhere and was spreading the story of the lonely city in the desert in the surrounding areas.
Therefore, even though the Qin Palace was not far from the Parthia Pass, it was too late for the King of Qin, who had already mastered martial arts, to rush there in person and massacre the city at the risk of ruining his reputation.
"The truth cannot be hidden. I am afraid this matter can no longer be covered up. Even if it is the request of the immortal sect elders, I am powerless to do anything." King Qin said to himself:
"Even so, doesn't Elder Qingzhuo want to deal with the Qiao family? This matter is not without a way to remedy it..."
Speaking of the Qiao family, King Qin's face suddenly turned cold.
The Qiao family is not just one person, but a family.
He had suffered at the hands of the Qiao family in the past. Although he turned a disaster into a blessing and became the first martial artist in the Da Dao Sect to master the "Golden Body Art" martial arts to the golden body level, this does not mean that he should be grateful to the Qiao family.
"It's a pity that the old man from the Qiao family who fought with me is now dead. Now that I have achieved the golden body, I cannot take revenge myself." The King of Qin said to himself:
"But justice is clear. Besides him, the Qiao family still has other elders. This can give me some comfort."
..
Imperial capital.
At dawn, the Hai Mansion welcomed several uninvited guests.
Captain Hai Siyuan who has not returned for forty years, Qiao Mu who is already 210 years old, and the old man in the armory with only half of his face left.
Without exception, these three people are all old men, and the youngest among them, Captain Hai, is over 60 years old.
The sixty-year-old Captain Hai has been living in the desert for many years and has been fighting in battles for years. He does not look much younger than his father Hai Wuya.
The two men looked more like brothers than father and son.
After the alien war, Hai Wuya was imprisoned in the Heavenly Prison, while Hai Siyuan was trapped in the desert for forty years. The immortal gate's formation separated the inside and the outside, and Hai Wuya didn't even know that his eldest son was still alive.
Captain Hai reunited with Hai Wuya and his son after forty years of not seeing each other, and naturally they shed tears again.
However, Qiao Mu was in a hurry and was not here to see the father and son reunite, so he interrupted their conversation very unkindly.
"Mr. Qiao means that you want me to take you into the palace to meet the emperor?" Hai Wuya understood what Qiao Mu meant.
"Not bad." Qiao Mu nodded.
What they are going to do this time is to have Captain Hai and the old man in the armory, two eyewitnesses, narrate the past forty years of events in the lonely city in the desert.
But the palace is not a place that anyone can enter.
If they followed the normal rules and procedures, they would have to wait for Mrs. Bai from Anxi Pass to report it through the chain of command, and the news would have to wait until it reached the palace, by which time it would be too late.
After all, Hai Wuya was a Shangshu, a second-rank official of the current dynasty, holding a high position and great power.
Given his status and position, it would not be difficult for him to bring them to court.
Hai Wuya also knew the priorities of the matter. After listening to Captain Hai's story about the past of Lonely City, he immediately agreed.
But when they arrived at the imperial palace a few days later and saw this magnificent palace, these old men were all moved.
Captain Hai and the old man in the armory were lamenting that when they returned to the imperial capital after forty years, everything and people had changed and their hair had become gray.
But this is not the case with trees.
What he recalled was his youthful and frivolous past.
When he was young, he was planning to assassinate the emperor all day long. When he was in his sixties, he assassinated the emperor at the Xuantian Sect Taoist temple. When he was over a hundred years old, before leaving the imperial capital, he thought about breaking into the palace at night and seeking his own death.
And now he is 210 years old. He is now an old man who is gentle and kind to the world. This time when he entered the palace, he went in through the main gate with a bright and grown-up look, without thinking of doing anything impulsive like killing the emperor. This is probably what is called growth.
.
The throne room of the imperial palace.
The court meeting went on as usual without any incident.
Emperor Yonghe listened to the court officials' discussion somewhat absent-mindedly, his eyes occasionally glancing at the Human King Sword hanging in front of the Golden Throne Hall, a little distracted.
The Human King Sword is no longer an ordinary object, it represents the destiny of the Great Yan Dynasty.
But for some reason, the light on the Human King Sword has dimmed slightly recently. Does this seem to indicate that the country's fortunes have declined
But it seems like nothing major has happened in Kyushu recently
Ever since the awakening of the Human King Sword, the nine major immortal sects, including the Zhongzhou Dao Sect, have kept a low profile and there has been no movement recently... Could it be that the decline of the country's fortunes has nothing to do with the immortal sects
While he was thinking, a court official stepped out from the crowd. It was the Minister of Rites Hai Wuya.
"Your Majesty, your servant Hai Wuya has important matters to report."
"explain."
"Your Majesty, do you still remember that you mentioned the alien war forty years ago to me after the court meeting?"
"Hai Wuya, why are you bringing up this old matter again?" Emperor Yonghe's face was a little dull.
The war with aliens was a disgrace to Da Yan and also the turning point when the country's fortunes turned from prosperity to decline.
Such past events should naturally not be mentioned repeatedly, especially at a court meeting in front of all the civil and military officials.
"Your Majesty. If what I am saying is that there is a hidden story behind the alien war forty years ago, and that the 100,000 soldiers were not completely wiped out, but held out for forty years and are still here today?"
Having said this.