"Afeng, what happened?"
The woman who held up the last mural put away the recorder and looked at her male companion who was holding the communicator with a strange expression on his face. The latter said "um" into the communicator and said, "Yulin and I will be down soon."
After saying that, he put away the communicator and gestured to the woman to leave. The work here has been completed. He will report back and someone will come down naturally. The murals in the cave will be reported to the Cultural Relics Bureau and handled by professionals.
"Just now, a message came from the foot of the mountain that there are some new things in the mission record screen. We need to take a look in person..."
"This isn't the first time for either of them. What could possibly scare them?"
"It is said that there is one more person inside."
The two men walked out of the Water Curtain Cave, talking as they walked, and went down the gentle slope of yellow mud. The previous group of people had their memories cleared, and they were lying on the ground in a row, sleeping. Not far away, in a half-built villa building, two burly men in suits were squatting on the ground, watching an open box with connected wires extending over it. Under the box cover was a display screen the size of a human face with amazing clarity.
The two men heard footsteps and knew it was the captain returning. One of them pressed the button down, while the other stood up and walked over to him, his rough face still showing fear.
"Captain, the picture is very bumpy. It was caused by the strong wind that blew it over. But because of this, we accidentally saw that there was another person on the mountain... And the monster flew towards that person."
"This kind of thing?"
The young man codenamed Afeng took off his gloves and handed them to his deputy. He walked over with the woman next to him and watched the mission record screen being replayed on the ground.
Just as a voice was heard on the screen shouting, "What is that?!", the wind blew violently, covering up the people's shouting. The next moment, the picture shook violently, accompanied by a person's body rolling on the ground. In the shaking, suddenly a picture flashed before the eyes of several people. The woman hurriedly pressed the back button, rewound the picture a little, replayed the stuck picture, and pressed pause again.
On the screen, with the camera tilted at an angle, a blurry figure can be vaguely seen facing the forest on the gentle slope of yellow mud, standing under a tree with his hands behind his back.
"This..." The woman codenamed Yulin widened her eyes, with surprise on her face, "It is indeed a figure of a person. When did he appear there?"
She looked at the young man, who was somewhat proficient in the instrument. He captured the picture and opened it with another program. He put his hands on the screen and pulled it outward. The picture slowly enlarged. However, the moment it became clearer, the screen suddenly went dark and cracked with a "bang".
The sudden change startled everyone and they looked at each other in confusion.
"The instrument is too old? Fortunately, the original content has not been lost." "It has only been used twice... Not really."
"Let's go back first and report what happened here to the higher-ups. Let's see if there is any conclusion. Anyway, I won't come to Qixia Mountain next time. The strange things in this mountain are a bit scary."
"Well, fortunately, that huge creature has no interest in us. It should be intelligent and was just giving us a warning just now."
For the time being, they suppressed their curiosity. After all, the matter was beyond their capabilities. Going up would be pure risk of death. Afterwards, the four of them sorted out whether there was any follow-up work that was missed, then took the instruments and left. When they returned to the outside, the woman named Yulin instinctively turned around, looked at the forest on the gentle yellow mud slope, and let out a long breath.
'I hope it's just an optical illusion...'
As I walked towards the construction site gate and drove away, in the dark and quiet construction site, the yellow mud and gentle slope forest swayed gently in the wind.
The leaves rustled softly.
In the barrier that ordinary people cannot see, the tea was emitting steam. The cup was gently placed on the table. Lu Liangsheng raised his eyes and looked at the branches of flowers opposite him.
"So, Rouge has left here?"
"She left decades ago. She asked me to take her place here temporarily." Huazhi held the teacup in both hands, feeling the real temperature coming from it. She was shocked that the Immortal Master could already take the virtual as the real. Then, she thought about what the Red Fox had said to her decades ago, stopped talking and continued, "Immortal Master, she refined the ninth tail about a hundred years ago, and then made little progress. A new country was established here, and many people no longer believed in immortals. In addition, the spiritual energy gradually became thinner. Yanzhi heard from somewhere that there was a large island in the east, and the country on the island was very superstitious about immortals and monsters, so she decided to go there to absorb some incense. She said that she would come back when she became a celestial fox..."
"One tail per hundred years, after a thousand years, nine tails were indeed formed." Lu Liangsheng knew something about the nine-tailed fox in the "Shan Hai Tu Zhi·Shan Juan". As for the celestial fox, there were few records about it. He vaguely remembered that a fox could learn the art of transformation at the age of fifty, become a wizard at the age of a hundred, and know things a thousand miles away. After a thousand years, it could communicate with the sky.
The Heavenly Fox is probably able to use some magical skills. Based on Yanzhi's personality, she shouldn't cause any major trouble there. To become a Heavenly Fox, her hostility must be eliminated first.
As for the impression of the Japanese, Lu Liangsheng simply put it out of his mind without even thinking about it, and immediately asked about the murals under the waterfall, "What about Lao Sun? Are the murals there painted by him?"
"Yes."
Huazhi looked back while holding the teacup. "At that time, Taoist Sun was already over a hundred years old. After the immortal sister passed away, he suddenly came to the waterfall one day. In front of Yanzhi and me, he forcibly dug a cave out of the waterfall with his hands. At that time, Taoist Sun had great magical powers. He used his two fingers to emit sword energy and shaved the wall of the cave flat. He then found some paint and painted inside. He painted for a year. After he came out, he told Yanzhi and me to take good care of Qixia Mountain, then he left with a big laugh and never came back."
Lu Liangsheng closed his eyes, raised his face and pursed his lips. He knew the meaning of the last laugh. He thought that after he ascended to heaven, the burden of the entire Qixia Mountain and his parents at home would fall on Old Sun.
… After all, I owed him too much.
"Do you know where he went?"
Hua Zhi shook her head. She never left Qixia Mountain and spent most of her time practicing in the cave. She had no idea what was going on outside, and it was even harder for her to know where Sun Yingxian, who was always free and easy-going, would go.
Seeing that she didn't know much, Lu Liangsheng asked more about the Qixia Mountain Spirit Gathering Array. He learned that two hundred years after he ascended to heaven, the earth dragon turned over and moved the array away. Even if Sun Yingxian tried to remedy the situation later, it could not return to the way it was before. In addition, after the connection between the earth and the sky, the spiritual energy in the world was not as good as before and was slowly declining. As a result, many practitioners who were seeking immortality gave up the idea of ascending to heaven, so that in the long river of time that followed, it was difficult for anyone to ascend.
"How could the Absolute Heavenly Connection actually cut off the spiritual energy?"
Lu Liangsheng was unaware of this. He did not expect that what he had done would implicate many people who practiced Taoism. However, in the same way, demons and ghosts would find it difficult to achieve success, and there would be fewer bizarre ghosts in the world, and no gods would be able to descend to the earth at will and change dynasties.
'If I had known what I was doing, would I have continued to do it?'
Getting up from the bench, Lu Liangsheng walked to the cliff under the tree, looking at the unfamiliar Qixia Mountain and thinking. In front of the stone table behind him, Huazhi looked at the scholar's back, turned her head to look at the Toad Taoist who was holding a cup of tea and sipping it at the table next to him, her eyes gradually brightened.
Over there, the Toad Taoist shuddered suddenly, raised his eyes, and saw the woman with a feather headband approaching with a smile on her lips.
"you… "
The Toad Taoist was stunned for a moment. He just opened his mouth and before he could finish the sentence "... What do you want to do?!", the woman pounced on him. The Toad turned into a human and pushed him. During the tug, he rolled into a ball and fell under the stone table. The sky was dark and the moon was covered by the night clouds.