Chapter 77 Qinglan Mountain City
Chapter 77: Qinglan Mountain City (I)
"Master, let's go to Qinglanshan City." Wen Weilan shouted to the rower at the stern.
The man neither answered nor responded, but continued to row mechanically.
But Wen Weilan was not worried at all whether the other party received the message. She just sat down cross-legged at the bow of the boat, and patted her side, motioning Liu Sheng to sit down as well.
Liu Sheng also sat beside him and asked curiously, "Is this all right?"
Wen Weilan nodded and said, "Yes, this place is originally in the painting, and the old man rowing the oars is just a person in the painting. They are one and the same. Every word spoken in the painting can be understood by all the people in the painting."
"It's magical!" Liu Sheng looked at the water and mountains in the distance, which spread out like ink. The autumn air was cool, and the misty drizzle fell on his face, making him feel itchy. Under him was a small boat swaying in the river. Everything was so real.
"Of course it is magical. This is an ancient spiritual object of the artifact level [Xiaoxiang Eight Scenes Map]. Only the owner of Xiaoxiang Tower would be willing to take it out as a gathering place for ghost hunters."
"I remember this painting is called [Xiaoxiang Autumn Rain], so, there are eight such amazing objects in total?" Liu Sheng asked.
Wen Weilan smiled and nodded, "That's right. The owner of Xiaoxiang Tower selected eight cities with the widest radiation range to build Xiaoxiang Tower, and placed these eight maps in them to take care of all ghost hunters to the greatest extent. Among them, our Tang Kingdom has five maps, and the other three are in Mobei, Lingqiu and Xuanzhou."
"It seems that the power of Xiaoxiang Tower cannot be underestimated. It has a presence in several countries. But I have never heard of it before." Liu Sheng said with some doubt.
"This is not surprising. The rise of Xiaoxiang Tower has only happened in the past two years. Before that, there was no such organization specifically set up for hunters." Wen Weilan turned her head to look at Liu Sheng. The breeze blew her hair against her face.
"Besides, you have been in Li County since you graduated from the academy, and you probably haven't come into contact with any ghost hunters in the public system. What's more, you have never thought that one day you would be associated with ghost hunters or even join them, right?"
Wen Weilan really knows Liu Sheng well.
Although Liu Sheng had heard of ghost hunters before, and even some fearless students in the academy would go ghost hunting to hone themselves so as to pass the imperial examinations, but for her, there was no need to understand.
After all, Liu Sheng originally just wanted to live a good life and enjoy retirement.
Adventurous beings like ghost hunters have nothing to do with her.
Besides, she can't practice cultivation, and if she follows them to hunt monsters, she is simply seeking death.
She never understood why she had to hunt for the monsters herself when she could just hand them over to the weaving institute or the country? It would also add unnecessary risks to her life.
But Wen Weilan told her that in addition to students like them who hunt ghosts to hone themselves and improve their strength for the imperial examinations, there are many ghost hunters who have to take this path.
There are two reasons. One is to make money, and the other is to make money in order to live better.
What can those who can practice but cannot pass the imperial examination or enter the weaving academy do after leaving the academy?
Unless one really has a skill like Liu Sheng's mother Ling Youlian, other people seem to be able to only make money by relying on physical labor.
The most profitable thing is to hunt weird creatures and sell them.
Many strange objects can be used by practitioners after being contained and purified. Some are extremely powerful, while others have infinite uses. Just like what Old Master Wen did, he found a piece of pear tree wood and re-sacrificed it into a strange object that he could use, realizing his crazy idea.
However, the strange objects taken in by the Weaving Institute will only circulate in the official system, so how can unofficial practitioners obtain them?
Naturally, it can only be purchased from the hunters.
Wen Weilan said that at first the Weaving Institute strictly prohibited this kind of transaction, and the existence of unofficial ghost hunters was not allowed to be on the stage. However, since the strict prohibition was not enforced, they had to turn a blind eye, and gradually an underground market for ghost trading was formed.
Moreover, things seem to have been gradually relaxed in the past two years, which is why ghost-hunting organizations like Xiaoxiang Tower have begun to take root.
But after all, ghost hunters are not the well-trained and well-equipped professionals like the Weaving Institute's Detective Patrol Department. Most of the time they rely on their bravery and recklessness, and are therefore easily harmed by the weirdness.
Therefore, in order to make more money, they also need to actively explore the weirdness and find at least one weird thing that suits them to increase their chances of survival.
There are even more cruel people who will even deliberately invite strange creatures into their bodies and become "ghost masters".
However, Liu Sheng had never seen a ghost tamer in reality. He only knew that although a ghost tamer was powerful, he was extremely dangerous and could easily be assimilated or attacked by ghosts. Eventually, he would become a ghost and his whole body would burst with ghost energy. At that time, some people speculated that Miss Wen became a ghost tamer in pursuit of strength but was attacked by them, which was quite disgusting.
Moreover, this method was not recognized by the Weaving Institute because it was too dangerous, so even though Liu Sheng could not practice, he had never thought of taking this path.
Just now...
Liu Sheng looked at Wen Weilan's profile as she looked into the distance. Her face had rounded edges and gentle features. This face didn't look like her at all.
She knew how determined Wen Weilan was and how difficult the path she had chosen was.
……
The bow of the boat docked at the pier.
Liu Sheng and Wen Weilan went ashore, and the boat quietly rowed away, turning into a leaf in the river scenery.
In front of me is a mountain village market embedded under the mountains. There is no rain here, but a setting sun with inky edges in the yellow sky casts a faint afterglow, illuminating the mountains behind with a green and shimmering color.
In the market, each shop stall seemed to be painted with just a few strokes of ink, with the edges still having rough edges of ink smudges. The smoke after the rain was rising, and ghost hunters with blurred faces like them were walking in groups of three or two, their figures shrouded in fog and looming.
Liu Sheng walked a few steps and saw a huge wooden sign in front of him that said "No high jump". Remembering that there was also this strange sentence "Don't jump high" on the token, he asked anyway.
"I've heard about this from a ghost hunter. It seems that in the painting over in Mobei, someone was curious and wanted to touch the clouds in the sky, so he jumped up, but he ended up poking a hole in the sky."
"After all, this is just a painting, and the sky is fake. It will break if you poke it."
"In the end, Xiaoxiang Pavilion spent a lot of money to repair the spiritual object, and the man lost everything."
"That's why there's this saying: Don't jump too high, to prevent people from being so curious again."
After Wen Weilan finished explaining, she also smiled slightly, thinking that this matter was quite funny.
Liu Sheng also laughed.
However, this also shows that Xiaoxiang Pavilion cannot use this thing to directly imprison everyone.
After experiencing the world of Qixuan Academy, Liu Sheng developed some delusions that his small world was being harmed. What he feared most was this kind of small world within a world, and then being caught in a trap by the manipulator outside the small world.
(End of this chapter)