A mermaid dancer in a white dress holds a small boat and moves slowly through the water.
On the boat, the mermaid girl Yu Chan was lying there peacefully. Her hair and body were covered with flowers still stained with dewdrops. Her face, lightly painted with pink and white, was slightly rosy, making people feel that she was just Fell asleep.
The long dress she wore with a blue background and gold thread embroidered with wavy patterns was exactly the same as the one Xia Qiu wore when she saw her in her dream, except that there was an extra delicate belt around her waist filled with colorful gems and feathers.
Thousands of white sails had already been hoisted on the lake in Dongyao City, surrounding the boat carrying Yu Chan to see her off. Everyone standing on those boats held a lotus lantern in their hands and stared quietly in the direction of Yu Chan.
As a mermaid, it was unprecedented for her to receive such a funeral. Qianqi indeed prepared everything for her as if she were her own biological sister.
Xia Qiu and Ling Yu picked flowers for her in the palace garden and decorated her body carefully. In her eyes, Yuchan is so beautiful that she is willing to sacrifice herself for the one she loves deeply, without any regrets.
Her words "Don't ask for love, but don't ask for forgetting!" still echoed in Ouyang Xiaoleng's ears. He didn't know what he could do for her, so he recited the last paragraph of the Heart Sutra, hoping it could guide her. The soul goes to the other side of light.
"Reveal the truth, uncover the truth, Polo reveals the truth, Pāloṇṭhāna reveals the truth, Bodhisattva reveals the truth."
Pulled by the mermaid dancers, the boat sailed toward the center of the lake. Accompanied by the ethereal singing of the male mermaid singer on the boat next to it, the dancers began to dance around the boat in the water.
It was a traditional dance performed by the mermaid tribe for their companions. Qianqi insisted not to let them dance any other dances to worship the spirits, but only danced this one, because in his heart he did not want the ceremony to be too complicated. Too sad.
The ferryman rowed the boat he and several other teenagers were riding next to Yuchan's boat. They took a close look at the beautiful girl for the last time. Under the sunset, she became a real princess.
Although he was reluctant to give up, Qianqi knew it was time. He ordered the ferryman to row the boat a certain distance, and then summoned the dragon fire bow on his arm to shoot an arrow at Yuchan's boat. The entire boat burned, and blazing flames shot into the air.
Cremation is the tradition of the mermaid tribe, and Qianqi does not want to violate it.
Because they come from the water, and they have lived there most of the time in the past, so in order to obtain a completely different fate in the next life, they believe in burning the skin of this life with fire after death, in order to be reborn from the ashes.
After the grand funeral, Shuicheng's journey to break the formation came to an end for the time being. Seeing that the Amber Dragon King was fine, several young men decided to bid farewell to Dongyao and return to the royal city.
During the time they left, the royal city was relatively calm.
As planned, Ouyang Hongye dispatched a seven-person secret weapon intelligence team he trained to secretly investigate the details of Wang Jue's red-eared demon.
I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or not, but Qingyang, the Tucheng in the Qi Lie Formation, once belonged to the Demon Spirit Clan. And Wang Jue's red-eared demon spirit happens to be a descendant of the demon spirit clan leader, and his intuition tells Ouyang Hongye that there must be inextricably linked.
After days of tracking and investigation by the Intelligence Seven, some clues were finally discovered.
The red-eared demon spirit has only one son named Zuokui. Kui was attacked by an unknown evil spirit when he was a child. Since then, he has become weak and has stopped growing. He should have become an adult long ago, but now he still looks the same as when he was attacked when he was six years old. In the demon world, this situation is called ghost hiding.
The so-called ghosts are those evil ghosts or monsters that are powerful and are born by absorbing the demon power of others. They will designate the underage demon circle as their provider, and he and the provider will be connected by an invisible tube. , and the evil spirits use this tube to absorb their demonic power and vitality from these children. When the donors are completely sucked out, it is also the moment of their death.
Dong Muya and Min Endong also used this time to collect a lot of information about Qingyang. Because the soil and water of green soil are different from other places, it is particularly suitable for growing several plants that can produce elixirs. Moreover, elixirs produced from plants grown in green soil not only have twice the efficacy but also have less obvious side effects.
The palace where the Lord of Qingyang City once lived is called Wangzi Palace. As the name suggests, this palace is in the shape of a king. An avenue in the palace connects the front hall, main hall and back hall respectively.
Taking the meaning of the seven heavens, the stepped Qingyang City is divided into seven levels. The people of the Demon Spirit tribe live in different levels according to their status. The higher their status, the higher the level they live in. The palace is on the top floor, and the lower floors are occupied by nobles, merchants, soldiers, and then almost all civilians who rely on cultivating elixirs.
In the past hundred years, children born in Qingyang City have been haunted by ghosts many times, and will die before they reach their twenties. Therefore, nobles and businessmen have abandoned the city and fled, and the entire city has declined, leaving only an old man. The weak remained in the city. But in fact, leaving Qingyang could not prevent the occurrence of ghosts. Although Kui, the son of the red-eared demon spirit, was born in the royal city, he still did not escape the fate of ghosts.
Over the years, in order to save his son's life, the red-eared demon spirit often traveled between the royal city of Yongchuan and Qingyang.
Ouyang Hongye remembered that Ling Yu from the Fire City Chilemir once said that Qingyun suffered from some kind of stubborn illness or was seriously injured, so he had always needed to take elixirs. Salamander, the lord of Fire City, would send a fleet out of the city from time to time to purchase for him, and the place where the fleet went happened to be Qingyang, Tucheng. Is this just a coincidence? He felt it was definitely not the case!
According to Min Endong's previous analysis, the array material of Tucheng's green soil is fragrant soil.
The only thing related to Qingyang that is related to fragrant soil is probably the sculpture made by the Demon Spirit Tribe for the Ape Red Demon they believe in in the Pagoda Hall in the back hall of Wangzi Palace.
The Ape Red Demon was a legendary figure when the Demon Spirit Clan was first established seven hundred years ago. It is said that he is eight feet tall, wears golden armor, has footsteps like a bell, and a heartbeat like a drum. He is extremely powerful and is best at jumping. Stamping his opponents vigorously, and what is even more peculiar about him is that he is said to have thousands of arms, and each arm can use different weapons.
But in all the records, there is no one about how he died. There are only a handful of big monsters that can compete with him in the demon world. Logically speaking, he shouldn't suddenly disappear in the demon world and never appear again.
After he disappeared, the Demon Spirit Tribe made this statue out of red copper. Not only was the statue the same size as him, it even had a thousand arms. They filled it with incense and enshrined it in the pagoda hall of Wangzi Palace, so that his dead soul could continue to protect the green soil.
There is also a sensational rumor about him. It is said that in his later period, he was obsessed with pursuing power and liked to eat children to increase his demonic power. Some people also said that the ghosts that later happened in Qingyang were related to this monkey red demon.
Just in the past few days, something even more unusual happened. The red-eared demon spirit secretly left the royal city with his son Kui in a demon carriage at night. The seven-person intelligence team secretly followed, only to find that he had returned to Qingyang with his son. During this period, his actions obviously had some special meaning.
Ouyang Hongye ordered the seven people to stay in Qingyang, remain silent and continue to observe the movements of the red-eared demon. At this time, what he hoped for most was that Mochizuki would appear and help him.
Ever since Mochizuki rescued Ouyang Xiaoleng and others in Chilemir, he has never appeared at the contact point with Sanmu, and no one knows what happened to him afterwards. But Ouyang Hongye always believed that with his strength and the blessing of his brother Tingyue's spirit in heaven, he would be able to escape.
After several young men left Dongyao, they decided to camp out one night on their way back to the royal city. In the evening, they passed by a barren mountain and happened to find a cave to shelter from the wind and cold. They called their demon horses and walked into the cave. At this time, the night lanterns obtained in Dongyao had a chance to work, and they each held them and walked into the cave.
"I really don't want to live in a place like this. It's cloudy and damp and it's easy to give birth to strange things!" Ling Yu complained.
Qian Qi glared at him and said, "Don't scare Xia Qiu with your nonsense!"
Xia Qiu hurriedly advised: "It doesn't matter, there is nothing to be afraid of as long as you are here!"
Looking at the two of them, she felt it was a bit funny. Qian Qi always competed with Ouyang Xiaoleng in the past, but now that there was another Ling Yu, it was even more exciting.
Ouyang Xiaoleng, who had been silent since entering the cave, suddenly made a gesture and whispered a reminder: "Don't talk!"
Among them, he had the best sense of smell and feeling. He had already discovered some strange smells in the air, but he was not sure whether the smell was left over from the past or whether the owner of the breath still existed in the cave. But the deeper he walked into the cave, the more he felt that there were other people in the cave besides them.
Several teenagers summoned their weapons and decided to meet the challenges that may come at any time. They found a pile of firewood that had just been extinguished in a slightly open area ahead. It was probably that the other party also discovered that someone had entered the cave and quickly extinguished it.
A black shadow rushed down from the sky above the cave. Ouyang Xiaoleng, Qianqi and Lingyu hurriedly protected Xia Qiu behind them and dueled with the black shadow.
But Bu Suzhi, who was wearing a black cloak, did not fight with them head-on, but just dodged back and forth, and even used his bare hands, which made them very strange.
"Stop it, Brother Shadow, I know it's you!" Ling Yu suddenly stopped and shouted.
The black figure lifted the hood on his cloak, revealing his true face. Ouyang Xiaoleng and the others saw that it was indeed Wangyue.
Wang Yue, whose face was covered with stubble, and whose braids on his head looked messier than before, smiled cheerfully and said to them: "Long time no see again!"
Ouyang Xiaoleng asked: "Since you know it's us, why didn't you say anything just now?"
Mochizuki touched her head and responded to him: "I have been hiding during this period, and I also want to stretch my muscles!"
It turns out that he has been tracked by Qingyun's men since he escaped from Chilemir. At first, he decided to kill every one he found, but later he realized that it was impossible to kill all the stalkers, and they would always keep coming out. Apparently he had been lurking in the East Hotel and suddenly helped the Demon King Fox escape, arousing Qingyun's great interest.
It took a lot of effort for him to barely get rid of the pursuers, but because he was afraid that those people were still hiding in the dark, he did not dare to return to the place where he met Sanmu, and chose to sleep alone in various places. This cave was where he had stayed these past few days. Unexpectedly, he met Ouyang Xiaoleng and the others here.