Step on...
Tap tap tap…
With his robe fluttering, Lu Liangsheng walked up the stone steps. There was a rain-praying platform and a tribute platform on top.
The scholar took out the ink block, crushed it, put it on the paper, poured a little clean water, and rubbed it with his thumb, then looked back.
Below, the old donkey was running with a humming sound, as if dragging something. Zhu Ziyi, who was chasing him, was almost at the bottom of the rain-praying platform. A little further away, the city gate was in chaos. In order to quell the civil unrest, the prefect almost killed his wife and ate with the victims...
"I don't know if the Earthly Evil Fire can be broken as soon as the rain comes..."
Lu Liangsheng stopped his thumb which was stained with ink and took the brush to dip it.
"… At least, if the rain falls, they will see hope… and there will be no civil unrest…"
The stone wall below the platform shook with a bang. Zhu Ziyi stepped on it and rushed up to the platform with a sword in hand. Amid the murmurs of the scholar facing him, he suddenly turned sideways and waved his wide sleeves.
“Get out!!”
As Lu Liangsheng shouted, ink from the tip of his pen drew an arc in the air, solidifying into a solid mass that instantly blocked the oncoming Zhu Ziyi. When the latter tried to evade, the scholar's shouting seemed to have a force that held him back for a moment.
"Confucianism..."
moment.
The moment the ink thread touched the opponent's robe, it became soft like a rope, binding him tightly, and fell to the platform with the remaining force.
Bang.
Fell heavily to the ground.
An old donkey not far away stopped its hooves at the entrance of the stone steps, wagging its mane and breathing heavily. The Toad Taoist climbed up, kicked the donkey's hoof hard, looked at the bound monk over there, then he breathed a sigh of relief and grinned with a gloating look.
"It must feel uncomfortable to be tied up... hahaha..."
He flipped over the gourd on his back, stomped his webbed feet on the ground, and ran over excitedly with his long tongue hanging out of his mouth. He jumped onto Zhu Ziyi's chest and pointed the mouth of the gourd at him.
"If I call you, will you answer me?!"
"Toad demon?"
Zhu Ziyi quickly closed his mouth and turned his head. The magic sword was not far away and he could not reach it at all. He twisted his body and struggled, but he refused to speak.
"That's his mother!"
The toad turned its head holding the purple-gold gourd with black stripes, and its cheeks were bulging with bubbles.
"Is that what you, a youngster, should call a toad monster?!"
"Toad, what do you want to do..."
Zhu Ziyi opened his mouth quickly, and the round bottom of the gourd hit him hard in the face with a bang.
Bang!
Bang!
"I told you to shut up, quack!"
The gourd was raised and then dropped, and blood splattered.
…
The noise coming from below did not affect the scholar on the high platform. The scroll unfolded from his hands, spread out, and fell onto the tribute platform.
A dot of blue ink is placed on the white paper from the tip of the brush. Magical power is infused into the ink stain, and mountains and fields take shape, with grass and trees rising from the ground.
"I will bring a startling wind from the north to disturb people's hearts."
“… and also cirrus clouds and water vapor.”
The tip of the pen sketched gusts of wind and rolling clouds as the sound of words was spoken.
On the distant city wall, chaos continued from the back and surged into the quiet crowd in the front. A woman holding a child was knocked down. The child looked at his mother with blood all over her head in horror and cried loudly. In the crowd, wind blew and dust rolled up into the sky.
Many people raised their arms to cover their mouths and noses and shouted.
"It's so windy..." "What's going on?" "Don't push, you're stepping on people."
"Don't believe the words of the city's dog officials..."
There were a lot of different voices, and at this moment, a loud bang exploded in the night sky, and the originally noisy and chaotic noise completely quieted down.
"Oh God, open your eyes and look at the people below..."
On the top of the city wall, the prefect holding a half-broken sword cried out, his official robe fluttering in the wind, his beard fluttering. He raised his round face to look at the dark sky, and there was a flash of blue-white lightning in his eyes.
“This… This is…”
Boom! Another thunder rolled across the sky. Lightning flashed through the clouds, illuminating the earth and reflecting the shocked faces. "It's thunder..."
"It's thundering."
Then, a heart-wrenching cry was heard from the crowd.
"It's thundering! God has finally opened his eyes—"
On the rain-praying platform, the tip of the pen was still moving, and countless crying words were heard in his ears. With every stroke of the pen, the clouds in the night sky spread out and surged, and lightning struck.
In the bluish-white light, the scholar's robe fluttered in the wind, and drops of crimson blood slid across his mouth and nose, dripping onto the scroll.
Next up…
Lu Liangsheng took a breath and suddenly gripped the pen with both hands, as if some invisible force was preventing him from falling.
“… I don’t want to be an immortal…”
"I don't care about being an official... I live in this world, just wanting... just wanting..."
The tip of the pen fell bit by bit, rain clouds rolled in, lightning flashed and thunder roared, and the rain falling from the sky moistened the earth.
Lu Liangsheng held down the brush and kept dotting the paper, with blood seeping out of his eyes and ears.
At some point.
The scroll in his hand suddenly unfolded towards the sky.
"I just hope that fewer people will die here..."
…
Below the high platform, the Toad Taoist who was riding on Zhu Ziyi's face stopped his gourd. Something fell from the sky and landed on the ground with a "hiss" and a wisp of white smoke rose.
"It's raining?"
The Toad Taoist thought of his disciple's words and realized... Thinking of this, he jumped down quickly and ran towards the rain-praying platform.
“You good-for-nothing… you’re going to be struck by lightning, do you know that?” Toad looked at the scholar on the platform and shouted.
Snap…
Snap, snap…
Raindrops fell from the sky and landed on people. Sun Yingxian and Fa Jing subconsciously looked up at the sky. Even the monks under Zhu Ziyi stopped what they were doing.
Someone wiped the water off his face and murmured, "It's over..."
Within his field of vision, white smoke was rising from the long-dry earth, which was a sign that the fire was being stirred. Soon, raindrops merged with the sky and the earth, and heavy rain fell.
Crash...
Countless disaster victims below the city stretched out their hands to scoop up the rain falling from the sky, looked up at the high platform illuminated by lightning, and saw a lonely figure holding a scroll, and burst into tears.
The dark figures knelt down one after another.
On the city wall.
The prefect dropped the broken sword with a bang and raised his hands to bow towards the platform.
"The Liyang prefect congratulates the people of Liangzhou and thanks the master for saving their lives!"
Mist was rising from the ground. The toad stepped onto the stone steps and ran and shouted. At the same time, a whirlpool formed in the clouds above Lu Liangsheng's head. The bluish-white electric light turned into fluorescent yellow, flickering in the clouds.
"Liang Sheng!!"
The toad shouted loudly and jumped up when he was still several steps away. The scholar on the other side staggered back, his nose, mouth, eyes and ears were all covered in blood, but he was still laughing.
"Master... I succeeded."
At this moment, there was a loud bang in the sky, thunder rumbled, and fluorescent yellow lightning broke through the swirling clouds and struck down.
The short figure that jumped up also threw something out from his hand—a purple-gold gourd with black patterns.
The moment the thunder touched the gourd.
It was as if everything between heaven and earth had stopped for a moment at this moment. Then, the dazzling light spread out in all directions like waves with the Rain-Seeking Platform as the center. The falling rain was instantly twisted and stagnant.
The entire platform exploded inch by inch, and bricks and stones shattered everywhere.
In the strong light, the scholar's figure flew out and slammed in front of the crowd, leaving a gully. His body and clothes were charred black, and he lay on the ground motionless.
From the rubble not far away, Taoist Toad pushed aside the debris and crawled out. He looked at his disciple in front of the crowd, his lips trembling slightly.
"Liang Sheng..."
“Young Master!!”
"Old Lu—"
Nie Honglian and Sun Yingxian cried and ran towards this side.
Zhu Ziyi, who had lost the restraint of magic power, had blood all over his face. He no longer looked like a middle-aged Confucian scholar. He picked up the magic sword on the ground and laughed out loud.
“Going against the will of heaven… A mere cultivator at the foundation-building stage dares to go against the will of heaven, hahahaha—”
Behind him, his subordinates rushed over and supported him.
Zhu Ziyi swept them away, raised his sword and pointed it, his face grim: "Kill that scholar!"
The few of them looked at each other and rushed down the hill. Just as they were approaching the scholar lying motionless on the ground, a little girl suddenly stood in the middle, stretched out her thin arms, looked at them tremblingly, and opened her mouth timidly.
"You are not allowed to hurt big brother!"
“Get out of the way!”
"Leave her alone."
The monks reached out to grab her, then stopped halfway. In the field of vision, old men, young men, and women moved cautiously over and stood in front of the little girl. Then more and more people came out, standing in the middle, forming a thick human wall.
"Don't worry about them, kill the scholar!"
Zhu Ziyi was still shouting.
call out.
An arrow shot over and landed powerlessly a few feet away.
"Let me see who dares to do it—"
On the city wall, the fat prefect found a sword from somewhere and held it in his hand.
"You cultivators have no regard for the safety of the people, and yet you dare to commit murder."
He swung his sword and pointed it towards the city.
"Soldiers, go out of the city and welcome the master."