The drizzle hung a bead curtain along the eaves, and the sound of wind chimes echoed in the quiet temple.
Inside the tightly closed door of the City God's main hall, the gloomy and green ghosts in the court wailed. Behind the extended altar, the sound of clanging iron chains lingered in the deep corridor.
"Heavenly King, Ji has offended me."
In the prison cell with mottled rusty fences, an umbrella made of iron sheets and oiled paper slowly rotated to cover the figure locked by two iron chains. The divine light that bloomed out of the body was then suppressed by the dark green light in the umbrella. As the iron chains swayed, the figure's majestic face could be vaguely seen, and he stared fiercely at Ji Xin in front of him who was wearing the City God crown.
"You are the city god of a place, and you have committed the crime of imprisoning my Dharma image. I know that it was not your own will, but you were constrained by the order of the cultivator. When heaven and earth are connected, there will be no more such selfish people in the world, and you don't have to..."
"King of Heaven!"
Before the figure could finish his words, Ji Xin's voice interrupted him. He turned the book with his fingertips and looked at the contents. Then he raised his eyes and said softly, "Whether it is the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King or the General of Chentang Pass, I have always respected you. In terms of status, you are high above, commanding all the stars in the sky, majestic and awe-inspiring... But you have already been deified in heaven, why bother to go down to the mortal world? As for matters on earth, the demons and ghosts are under the jurisdiction of our City God on Earth and the Underworld of Mount Tai. Why do you want to get involved?"
Ji Xin memorized the contents of the book in his hand, turned around and walked outside. The door opened silently, and he spoke again.
"There is no difference between the Heaven and Earth. The Heavenly King has been a god for too long. Do you think that we, the City Gods and the Underworld, have to obey your orders? Besides... before I became the City God, I was also a human being. How could I watch you messing around in the world!"
"Ji Xin!! How dare you, a mere city god, be so presumptuous in front of me! If you dare to spy on my grand plan, you will be punished by heaven!"
The door opened with a bang, blocking out the hysterical screams of the figure. Ji Xin turned his back to the dark room, raised his head and sighed, "This world... is really going to be in chaos."
His magical power was not low, but it was still not enough in front of these gods. It took him three whole days to finally glimpse the person they were incarnated from their appearance. He was skeptical at first, but after reading the content, Ji's confidence was boosted.
He sighed, and tightened the City God's Book of Laws in his hand. Just as he was about to fly away, he heard a shrill scream from the front, tearing the tranquility of the City God Temple.
Ji Xin suddenly became alert and rode on the cold wind towards the court where the screams were coming from. The sounds of shouting, screaming and fighting came from afar. A dark shadow passed through the door leading to the court and hit the hideous ghost head on the pillar of the hall. Before he could even scream, his figure stopped and disappeared in an instant.
Like a shadow in the melting snow, he was none other than the chief clerk of the temple's Rewarding Charity Department.
"you-"
Ji Xin gritted his teeth and squeezed out the voice, raised his eyes and swept across the court, and saw several figures in his eyes. He turned his head to look with a divine light in his eyes, and his majestic voice echoed throughout the hall.
"How dare a mere city god imprison the king of heaven!"
The divine light was so bright that it shone on the City God and overflowed from the doors and windows of the main hall. The eaves swayed wildly in the wind, and the crisp sound of bells spread outside. In the lead-blue rain, a short figure came out of Chang'an, humming a little tune and skipping, carrying a bag on his back, and walked towards the official road in the southeast.
"… The little Taoist boy who traveled far and wide… missed his mother… He obeyed his master’s order and took the road… "
The humming of the little tune suddenly stopped, and the jumping little figure stopped. He turned his neck in the rain and looked at the hill where a small path branched off the official road extended. He knew that there was the temple of Ji Chenghuang.
"Just now... was that divine power?"
The fleeting divine power made the Taoist boy blink his eyes in confusion. Driven by curiosity, he trotted over there. If there was nothing else, he would ask for some fruits to eat on the way.
As he stepped onto the stone steps in front of the temple, he could hear the sound of wind chimes swaying in the distance, making random and light sounds. The eerie atmosphere made his hair stand on end. There was no temple keeper inside, and the doors of the surrounding temples were all tightly closed.
"Is there anyone who dares to commit murder in the City God Temple?"
He stepped into the temple and approached the main hall cautiously. He gently pushed open the door, only to see that the painted clay sculptures that had been standing on the altar were shattered to the ground, and the statues of the chief clerks on both sides were missing arms and legs. He hurriedly used his magic power to focus his eyes, and the surroundings suddenly changed. A mighty divine power rushed towards him. The scene in the originally messy main hall changed in an instant. Several gods with golden light standing in the inner room, wearing armor and floating fairy belts. One of the gods was holding the City God Ji Xin mentioned by the Taoist boy.
The latter's divine power was overflowing from all seven orifices. While struggling, he saw the boy with wide eyes at the door, squeezed his lips and opened and closed, "Let's go! Give it to Lu Liangsheng—"
The book that he had been guarding tightly in his hand was suddenly thrown into Mingyue's arms. The boy was stunned for a moment, and the divine man inside turned his head instantly and saw the child at the door.
However, before Mingyue could react, she felt a flash before her eyes, and her whole body was thrown out with a bang, leaving a long trajectory, and hit the cauldron outside the hall hard. There was a dull thud, and the cauldron moved half an inch in the sound, causing the temple keeper who was resting in the room to open the door, stick his head out to look at the empty courtyard, then shrink back in confusion and close the door.
In the scene that ordinary people cannot see, a figure wearing armor, with a fluttering fairy belt, with goat horns on his head and an iron whip in his hand, stepped out of the main hall, glanced at the little man lying motionless in a pool of blood, and snorted.
"Dead already? A half-demon from the underworld."
In the main hall at the back, a voice rang out: "Ghost Golden Sheep, don't dawdle, quickly retrieve the City God's seal book."
"Um."
Ghost Golden Sheep is not a name, but one of the twenty-eight constellations. Originally, he also had a surname and a name, Zhao Baigao, but he is rarely called by that name anymore. After descending to the mortal world, he incarnated into a general in a nearby army. He sensed that the king of heaven was imprisoned, and contacted the gods in the sky who were also incarnated nearby. Unfortunately, they were not from the twenty-eight constellations, but Zhang Guifang, the star of misfortune among the stars, and Cai Gong, the star of shortness of earth among the evil spirits...
Hearing the urging, he reached out and took the book from the half-demon boy's arms with some dissatisfaction. When he turned around and flipped through it, the book in his hand suddenly disappeared.
"Illusion?!"
Almost at the same time, Mingyue, who was lying in a pool of blood behind him, suddenly opened her eyes, propped herself up with her hands, turned over and jumped up, protecting the book in her arms. With blood at the corner of her mouth, she rushed out quickly, using both hands and feet, like a madly running fox, rushing out of the temple gate and heading straight for Chang'an in the distance.
"Ghost Golden Sheep, this is your mistake, you go and take care of it."
Several people in the inner room carried the weak City God in their hands, lifted their cloaks and strode into the inner hall. Zhao Baigao, who was outside the hall, looked at the figure running out of the temple gate, and immediately turned into a ray of divine light and followed closely.
A demonic wind swept across the ground, and golden light spread, extending in the direction forward and backward. At this moment, there was a warm cheer in Chang'an City. In Yining alley, on a wooden platform amidst a sea of people, a copper stick swept across, knocking the seventh green forest knight who came up to challenge off the stage along with his weapon. He covered his broken arm and was then carried away.
The sturdy man named Xiong Kuohai slammed the copper stick onto the stage, glanced at the audience, and then looked at the attic behind him. With a provocative look and thick beard, his voice sounded majestic and heroic in the rain curtain.
“Who else!!”
On the second floor opposite, Li Yuanba glared, pointed at the burly man who was shouting below, and was about to turn over and jump down by pressing the fence, but Lu Liangsheng calmly waved his sleeves and pulled him back.
"Don't worry, Yuanba. There are still people coming up from below."
Just as Yuwen Tuo nodded in agreement, Lu Liangsheng finished speaking and suddenly felt a slight pain in the center of his eyebrows. He frowned and raised his eyes from the arena below to the south.
The next moment, a voice rang out from below, "Chen Chou of Fumo Mountain, please teach me!"
A young man with a long sword on his back walked past his female companion and slowly walked onto the stage. He bowed to the burly man opposite him and also bowed towards the attic.
His eyes were fixed on the current Eastern Palace Grand Tutor standing beside the old man, then he withdrew his gaze and glanced at a weapon covered with carvings leaning against the fence.
… Xuan-Yuan Sword.