Su Yun walked in this small town. This town felt both familiar and unfamiliar to him. What was familiar was that the houses in the town were almost the same as those in Tianmen Town, but what was unfamiliar was the people here.
However, whenever he met someone a little older, he would stop and ask if anyone had lost a child seven years ago.
—He is the lost child.
Qingyu Town is not big, and you can still see the shadow of Tianmen Town.
This small town has a great relationship with Tianmen Town. Seven years ago, before the drastic changes in Tianmen Town, Qu Jin, Qu Taichang and others had realized that what they were going to do might implicate the residents of Tianmen Town, so they moved the residents of Tianmen Town out of Tianshiyuan.
At that time, Tianmen Town was not called Tianmen Town by the locals, but Qingyu Town, because the town was close to the North Sea and there were herrings in the sea, hence the name.
Qu Jin and others built another town on the edge of Tianshiyuan. The buildings were almost the same as Tianmen Town. The townspeople moved here and settled down.
Although this place is far away from the North Sea, the name Qingyu Town is still retained.
Su Yun walked around the town and asked around.
Like other towns in the countryside, young people in this town often leave the town and go to the city to work or study. Some people become city dwellers. Most of the people left in the town are the elderly and children, who make a living by farming.
Su Yun was a little confused. He stopped under the Tianmen Archway and stared into a daze.
After he left Tianshiyuan and came to Shuofang, he missed Qingyu Town very much and always wanted to come here to trace his roots, but he was always a little timid in his heart and did not dare to come.
Now he had unknowingly come to Qingyu Town, trying to find his parents, but after searching around, he found that no one here had lost a child seven years ago.
Su Yun closed his eyes: "My mind was too confused and I overlooked some details."
After a while, he opened his eyes, looked back at Qingyu Town, and said silently in his heart: "This is a town rebuilt according to the layout of Tianmen Town, so the houses should be the same as those in Tianmen Town seven years ago. There are forty-five houses in Tianmen Town, plus my house, there are forty-six houses. This town also has forty-six houses, so the house I live in corresponds to..."
He came to the house, which had been abandoned for a long time and the yard was overgrown with weeds.
"Uncle, where are the people living here?" Su Yun stopped an old man who had just returned from farming and asked.
The old man put down his hoe and said with a smile, "Are you talking about the Su family? They became rich and moved away seven years ago."
"The old Su family?"
Su Yun's spirits lifted, and the confusion and fear he had just felt disappeared. He asked, "Where did they move to?"
"They said they moved to the Eastern Capital."
The old man thought for a moment and said, "His son was admitted to some school in Dongdu, and a noble person helped them to go to Dongdu to study... Sixth Aunt, Sixth Aunt!"
He called an old woman who was washing clothes and asked, "Did the old Su family go to Dongdu?"
The old aunt had blurry eyes and poor hearing, so she didn't hear clearly. The old man asked twice more, and then the aunt heard clearly, and laughed: "Oh! What do you mean by passing the exam? I sold my son in exchange! The Su family has two sons, the eldest son is Yun and the youngest is Ye. Didn't many nobles come to the town at that time? They said they wanted to buy a few smart children to work in the ghost market..."
"Selling my son..." Su Yun's mind buzzed, his eyes widened, and he stood there blankly.
"… Those nobles in the city were looking for many children at that time. An old man with a hammer found the eldest son of the Su family and said that he was very good and spiritual. Then he bought him."
The Sixth Aunt kept on talking incoherently: "Mrs. Su didn't want to sell it at first, but the money they offered was too much, and they also promised her to move to Dongdu so that her youngest son Su Ye could go to school, so she gritted her teeth and sold it."
Su Yun was stunned: "Just sold it?"
"Of course I have to sell it!"
The old man said as a matter of course: "Tianshiyuan is always full of natural disasters and man-made calamities. It's hard to raise one child, let alone two? Selling one can make the other live better. His family moved to Dongdu and became wealthy, making the people in the town envious. Besides, he was not the only one sold. There were many other children sold at that time."
Su Yun felt dizzy and took out some five-zhu coins and stuffed them into the old man and Aunt Six, and asked, "What happened to the child who was sold?"
He felt a little dizzy and had to sit on the threshold of the Su family.
The old man leaned on his hoe and said, "You mean the eldest son of the Su family? What else could he do? He was taken by people from the city and taken to the ghost market with other sold children. They said they were going to catch the same gods and demons as those on the Heavenly Gate. Later, almost all of them died, and the child of the Su family probably died too."
The old lady Sixth Aunt shook her head and said, "Nonsense! I went back to get something once and saw that child. He was very pretty, just sitting there. The nobles in the city were stuffing something between his eyebrows. It was very big and looked like a dragon. I don't know how it got stuffed in. Someone said it was number seventy-six, and I don't know if it can still be sealed. The child was very quiet, not saying a word..."
Her dim eyes suddenly brightened up. She looked at Su Yun who was sitting there and said with a smile, "The way you sit here is exactly the same as that child! That child also sat like this, without saying a word!"
…
Su Yun saw the two old people off and sat there for a long time without moving.
After a long time, he stood up and walked into the Su family's house. It was deserted. It was obvious that after the Su family got a large sum of money, they left Qingyu Town and went to Dongdu. They never lived here.
Su Yun walked out of Qingyun Town and waited silently at the town post station for the Zhulong chariot bound for Shuofang.
"After the chaos, the Zhulong Chariot has two shifts a day, which is not as frequent as before."
Chi Xiaoyao came out from nowhere, sat next to him, and said softly: "Su Shizi, is your seal unlocked?"
Su Yun shook his head, his voice a little hoarse: "The seal is still there."
"So do you remember what happened back then?" Chi Xiaoyao asked.
Su Yun shook his head, lost in thought. After a moment, he stood up and said, "I don't remember. When I left Tianmen Town, Qu Bo said that it was Cen Bo who asked them to take care of me. Cen Bo told them that they owed me and had to take care of me until I grew up."
He took a step forward and walked along the post road towards Shuofang City.
Chi Xiaoyao, dressed in white clothes as white as snow, shining with scales, followed behind him, and the two of them walked along the post road.
"I always thought that they felt guilty because I was implicated by the drastic changes in Tianmen Town and Beihai, so they wanted to take care of me until I could see the light again."
Su Yun turned around and smiled at the girl: "What I didn't expect was that they were actually experimenting on me."
Chi Xiaoyao followed him, feeling a little distressed.
"Number seventy-six? I might be the seventy-sixth child they bought."
Su Yun turned around, waved in the direction of Qingyu Town, and said with a smile: "I have made up my mind. I will leave Shuofang and go to Dongdu! I want to go to Dongdu to see my brother and see how he is doing since my parents sold me so that he could go to school. Is he worthy of the money they got from selling me?"
Chi Xiaoyao hesitated and stopped.
Su Yun turned around and said with a smile: "Senior Xiaoyao, do you want to go to Dongdu with me?"
Chi Xiaoyao shook her head and said, "When I finish my studies, I will go back to Tianshiyuan No Man's Land. My dream is to open a school and a herbal medicine shop in Tianshiyuan No Man's Land, so that people there can go to school and study, and they can also get treatment for injuries and illnesses. I can't go to Dongdu with you."
Su Yun looked at her, and after a moment, he smiled and said, "Okay. When I come back, I'll go find you in the no-man's land."
He stretched out his hand. Chi Xiaoyao looked at his hand, hesitated for a moment, and also stretched out his hand.
Su Yun took her hand and rushed forward.
Chi Xiaoyao staggered a little as he led her, but then she let go and followed his footsteps.
After all, she had a high level of cultivation, and she soon surpassed Su Yun. She was giggling in front, holding Su Yun's hand and galloping across the countryside.
The spring sunshine brings all things back to life. The spring scenery includes tender green, clear waves, light yellow, and flowers of various colors, which are clustered on both sides of the post road.
Young boys and girls walked in the spring sunshine and ran towards the distant city.
In the air, the Taoist Saint sat cross-legged on the clouds, his two white eyebrows growing longer and longer, hanging down from the clouds.
The book monster Yingying flapped her paper wings below, grabbed his two long eyebrows, braided his hair into a long ponytail, then flew to the clouds and continued to braid his eyebrows seriously.
"Number seventy-two, what does that mean?"
Dao Sheng looked at the boys and girls running happily below and frowned, "Is this really the meaning of the 72nd test subject? I always feel that there is something strange here..."
Yingying braided until she reached his forehead, then stopped, blinked, and asked, "Has the Taoist been to Tiandao Temple?"
Daosheng shook his head and said, "I've been there before, but that was a hundred or ten years ago. I haven't been there in the last hundred years."
"Emperor Ping ordered the scholars of Tiandao Academy to replicate the Eight-Faced Heavenly Palace based on what Qu Taichang and others had found in Tianmen Town. There are twelve gods and demons on each of the Eight-Faced Heavenly Palaces. With eight sided Heavenly Palaces, there are ninety-six gods and demons."
Yingying turned around and looked down, her eyes flickering, and whispered, "So the seventy-two that the Sixth Aunt heard might not be the seventy-second child, but the seventy-second god and devil. So at that time, seventy-two gods and devils had been sealed, and there were still twenty-four gods and devils to come..."
Dao Sheng couldn't help but shudder and laughed, "Daoyou Ying, you are just guessing!"
Yingying chuckled and said, "That's right, I was just guessing! Qu Taichang is not a god, how could he capture ninety-six gods and demons and seal them in the memory of a child?"
Dao Sheng laughed and said, "That's right! What's more, those divine beasts, sacred beings, gods and demons are rarely seen in decades. How could Qu Taichang and his men capture ninety-six of them at once?"
Yingying clapped her hands and laughed, "That's exactly the truth! Since there's no place to find these gods and demons, they must be fake!"
"That's right! That's right!" Daosheng nodded repeatedly.
The two looked at each other, then looked away, each in a daze.
"I want to go to Dongdu with him."
Yingying suddenly made up her mind and said, "I am here to find the whereabouts of Qin Wuling, not to worry about Su Shizi or the ninety-six gods and demons."
The Taoist's brows relaxed, and the braids tied into his eyebrows immediately relaxed as well, becoming shorter and shorter, returning to normal. He stood up and said, "I want to go back to the Eastern Capital, too. I'm not worried about Pavilion Master Su, after all, he is the Pavilion Master of Tongtian Pavilion, and it's not my turn to worry. I'm about to die of old age, and although I extended my life once seven years ago, my life span is finally coming to an end."
He sighed and said quietly, "I must arrange for a new headmaster for the Taoist sect as soon as possible. Of course, since Pavilion Master Su is also going to the Eastern Capital, it is only natural for him to go with him so that we can take care of each other on the way."
Yingying nodded repeatedly.
After Su Yun returned to Shuofang, he did not rush to Dongdu immediately. Instead, he hid in Shanshuiju and did not go to class.
Chi Xiaoyao has also been living in Shanshuiju these days, Yingying is also living in Shanshuiju, and Daosheng shamelessly entered Shanshuiju and stayed there too.
Su Yun waited for a few days and finally caught the flower fox who came back to visit Qingqiu Yue and others. He smiled and said, "Second brother, don't leave! I have sorted out the complete Honglu Transmutation in the past few days. There are very few flaws. I will pass it on to you. After teaching Honglu Transmutation, I will go to Dongdu. The emperor summoned me, so I have to give him face."
The Taoist Saint originally did not intend to listen to him teach the Honglu Transmutation, Su Yun smiled and said: "Honglu Transmutation is not a secret, it is okay for the Saint to listen. If you think it is useful to the Saint, you may teach Hu Buping and others for a few days as compensation."
Dao Sheng smiled and said, "Well. If your Honglu Transmutation lasts for one day, I will teach them for one day. If it lasts for two days, I will teach them for two days."