The trees in early summer were filled with the chirping of cicadas, and then a huge hammer fell to the ground with a bang, creating a dent. The surroundings suddenly became quiet, and the shouting gang of martial artists saw a dent in the ground, and their faces changed drastically. They kept pushing forward without seeing anyone behind them.
"What's wrong? What's wrong?"
"Who to hit?"
Then, they saw the figure in front of them fly out from under their noses like a cannonball, crashing into a tree with blood all over his head.
In front of him was a young man with his fist raised. In his other hand, he was holding a huge rock-grinding hammer and dragging it on the ground. A wisp of yellow hair on his head stood up. He raised his hand holding the hammer and shouted, "I'll smash you to pieces!"
The next second, a hand reached out from the side, grabbed the boy's wrist and pressed it down.
"Master?" Li Yuanba looked puzzled.
Lu Liangsheng at the side loosened his hand again and said softly in a calm voice: "This place is too close to the town, we can't go too bloody, just teach them a lesson."
After saying that, he led the old donkey and continued to move forward, leaving Li Yuanba to tilt his head and think for a while, then looked at the group of gangsters over there, a grim smile appeared on his face, he threw away the hammer handle, clenched his fist hard, and then... He pierced through the early summer sunshine like an arrow, leaving a residual shadow and crashed into the crowd, flesh bursting, blood splattering, several figures screamed, and were all lifted into the air, dragging a long sigh of "Ah--" and falling heavily to the ground with a bang, the stirred up light dust flying, and in the side view on the ground, there were people walking in a chaotic manner.
"Kill that ugly kid!"
"Ouch... My arm is broken!"
"Don't squeeze me, let me see who is so powerful that he dares to act wild in front of us brothers!"
Light dust danced through the gaps between the trees. Amid the sounds of fists and feet, figures wielding swords or with bare hands surrounded the enemy. In less than half a breath, they were blown away like a cannonball with twisted mouths and noses and trailing blood. They fell to the ground and rolled several times, groaning in pain while holding their faces, arms and thighs. Some people saw their companions at their feet, and when they looked to the other side, they saw an octogenarian leading a donkey around, pointing the tip of his knife.
"That old man is also an accomplice. You guys beat up the ugly kid, I'll go stop him!"
"Let's go together!"
Two people also shouted, picked up their swords and quickly left the battle group here, and rushed over with the Jianghu man who spoke before, "Old man, stay!"
There were swords and weapons chopping towards them. The old donkey in front that was slowly swinging its tail suddenly stopped. Lu Liangsheng, who was holding the reins, turned his head slightly and frowned. Before he could say anything, the shadow of a scroll floated out from the bookshelf hanging on the donkey's back.
The three people who caught up thought they were dizzy, but the vague outline solidified in an instant, turning into a ghost face with blood coming out of all seven orifices, with a layer of dark green, and the blood-stained lips stretched to the extreme. The leading man was so frightened that his hand trembled, and the steel knife in his hand fell to the ground. He covered his chest and fell straight to the ground.
The other two screamed "Wow~~". The next moment, Lu Liangsheng looked over. The two of them quickly shut up and turned towards the battle group where people were fighting and flying everywhere, and shouted with a pale face.
"Kill—"
In the warm sunshine, they held their knives in their hands and walked around the fiercely fighting group, then ran away towards the open field.
"that's all?"
Taoist Toad opened the small door of the compartment and looked at the two gangsters running away, as well as the outlaw who was beaten to the ground and holding his head, arms, and thighs and crying in pain. "When I was a master, I would not even look at these people, I would just kill them with a single breath."
Lu Liangsheng took the reins again, looked back at the young man standing among the wailing figures, retracted his gaze, and continued walking forward.
"They are just a bunch of thieves. Cutting off their hands and feet will greatly reduce their martial arts ability in the future. For a martial artist, it is fatal. If they are found by their enemies, they will basically die. Some of them are lucky enough to survive. Maybe they can see through the martial arts world under their feet and change and start a new life. Just think of it as me selecting some people who should survive for the way of heaven."
"As you wish."
The Toad Taoist took out his pipe and knocked out the ashes. He rolled up a cigarette and put it in to light it. He rubbed the dice in his webbed feet and blew out smoke rings against the door sill. "What do you do next? Wait for others to come to your door? This is not my style."
“Master!”
In the back, Li Yuanba ran over with a giant hammer, pointing excitedly, "I beat them all... but none of them were killed. They were gangsters with fancy martial arts skills, and they couldn't even take a single punch."
A handkerchief was thrown from the shaking bookshelf, and Hong Lian's voice rang out: "Wipe the sweat off."
The excited young man stopped talking, nodded with a grin, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and continued to talk about how powerful he was. Lu Liangsheng just nodded, pulled the old donkey and left the town directly, crossed the Weishui River and the Ba River, and the outline of the huge city could be seen in the distance.
Li Yuanba ran over there dragging the giant hammer like a colt that had broken free from its reins, but was stopped by Lu Liangsheng, who pointed him in a direction outside the city. The words of the Toad Taoist priest had given him some ideas. Instead of waiting for others to come, he might as well take the initiative to find out who these gods were incarnated into.
The sun rose among the clouds. It was noon. Lu Liangsheng, who was leading his old donkey to Chang'an, bypassed the official road and came to a temple outside the city. A few ancient pine trees with lush branches and leaves passed over the temple roof covered with fallen leaves and stretched out to the outside of the courtyard. The spots of light they cast swayed. Amid the crisp sound of birds singing, pilgrims carrying baskets entered and exited the red-painted temple door. The high stone steps were covered with moss.
The temple is simple and ancient, showing a sense of tranquility.
"Master, why are you here in this temple?" Li Yuanba, carrying a huge hammer, looked up at the plaque above the temple gate with the words 'City God Temple' inscribed on it. When he saw a pilgrim looking over at him, his eyes glared with ferocity and he scared the person away viciously, then burst into laughter.
"It's quiet here, no noise allowed."
Lu Liangsheng handed him the reins and said, "Wait here." He walked up the stone steps, passed the door plaque with the words "Chenghuang Temple", entered the temple, walked around the cauldron with rising incense, stood in front of the main hall, shook his sleeves, and saluted towards the opposite side.
"City God Ji, would you like to see me?"
It was as if there were invisible things separating the pilgrims who were worshipping and the temple priests who were interpreting the divinations. In the main hall opposite, the painted clay statue was shining with divine light, and a phantom in an official robe walked out, floating down from the altar. The moment he walked out of the hall door, his figure became solid. When he saw the figure outside the door, he was stunned for a moment, then he felt the familiar magic power, and quickly walked up to him, clasping his fists to return the greeting.
"It turned out to be Master Lu."
Then he turned sideways and spread his hands: "Please come in."
"please!"
Lu Liangsheng followed suit, spreading his hands and following the City God Ji Xin into the main hall. As soon as he stepped over the threshold, the clay sculptures of the altar in his sight began to ripple, then quickly faded away, transforming into a gloomy court. Ghost messengers were floating by with chains holding ghosts, and there were also several desks where the heads of various departments were handling official business and questioning the crying ghosts, presenting a noisy scene in the court of the living world.
"Master Lu, please take a seat."
After having someone show him the chairs, Ji Xin brought some tea from the underworld and placed it in front of Lu Liangsheng, then sat down opposite him. Ever since the incident with the corpse demon had damaged his soul, he had been staying in the temple to recover, and had seldom been out in the city. In the past few years, the imperial teacher of the dynasty had suddenly visited him, and he had some doubts in his mind, so it would be better to ask clearly.
"The Imperial Master is drinking tea. I wonder if the Imperial Master has anything else to ask me for when he comes to the City God Temple today?"
Lu Liangsheng sniffed the tea from the City God's underworld, and felt the fragrance of the tea filling his mouth, nose and throat like an ordinary person, and then he put the teacup aside.
Let's get straight to the point...
"The City God is good at torture and punishment. My national teacher just caught someone and needs the City God's help to find some things from his memory."
Ha ha!
Over there, Ji Xin held the teacup in one hand, stroked his beard with the other hand and laughed. This interrogation was one of the specialties of the underworld. He nodded with some pride and stretched out his hand heroically.
"To be honest with you, Imperial Master, this City God's Underworld has many interrogation instruments. Not to mention demons and ghosts, even if a god from heaven came here, Xin can still tell you everything."
"Oh? That's perfect. What I caught happened to be a fairy."
Hearing him say this, Lu Liangsheng was happy. It seemed that he had come to the right place. The City God Ji Xin on the opposite side saw that he did not seem to be joking. He was stunned and hesitated for a moment. He whispered: "Master, did you really catch the immortal?"
"Yes, Li Jing, the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King in the sky."
Ji Xin shuddered suddenly, staggered and almost slipped off the chair. The originally noisy courtroom suddenly became silent, and countless eyes were looking at him.