Chapter 208

The season at this moment was only late autumn in the Seven Blood Eyes, but here in the Purple Earth, it was already midwinter.

Wind and snow drifted down, sprinkling the earth and covering this ancient ten-thousand-year-old city.

Looking from afar, those deep red palace buildings seemed to be embedded in the vast, boundless snow-covered ground like the sea.

Heavy snow was falling.

The entire earth was covered layer by layer. There were not many pedestrians on the street, each wearing thick clothes, but they could not sweep away the continuously falling snowflakes, making everyone look as if they were turning white-headed.

A feeling of decline and oppression gradually merged into the environment along with the snowflakes and the numb expressions of the pedestrians, becoming the atmosphere of this place.

And the tiled roofs exposed by all the buildings in the city were like lonely islands in a sea of snow.

This was the Purple Earth.

This was also the former imperial capital of the Nanhuang Continent.

Ten thousand years ago, there was a kingdom in the Nanhuang Continent named the Ziqing Upper Kingdom, which had once unified the Nanhuang Continent, using the Flame Phoenix as its totem, but in the end, it could not last long in this cruel chaotic world.

It could only collapse in civil strife, burying the Ziqing Upper Kingdom in history and becoming the past.

As for the original imperial family and the wealth they inherited, they were all divided by the rebels of that time, and the bloodline was the same, withering until today.

And the rebels, after dividing everything, instead became the orthodox, forming eight great clans that occupied the Purple Earth, becoming the great families of the Purple Earth, continuing to this day. They also worshiped the Flame Phoenix totem, using the Flame Phoenix as their God.

Looking around, the size of the entire Purple Earth Imperial Capital exceeded that of the Seven Blood Eyes main city, about three times as large, divided into eight areas within.

These were the eight great families respectively.

In each area, there was an existence similar to an imperial palace, which was also the ancestral land of these eight families.

Some family palaces were surrounded by emerald green pond water, filled with duckweed, revealing clarity. The flying eaves were carved with dragons and phoenixes, golden scales and golden armor, lifelike.

Other family palaces had golden glazed tiles shining with dazzling light under the winter sun. Looking from afar, the heavy-eaved hall roofs were exceptionally magnificent.

Compared to the Seven Blood Eyes, it was completely a different style.

By comparison, the Purple Earth was more like an old man wearing gorgeous clothes but stubborn and rigid. Everything followed rules, everything spoke of bloodlines, and everything was considered primarily based on family tradition.

This was their way of survival in the chaotic world, different from the Seven Blood Eyes, and it was hard to tell which was better.

But what could be seen was that the Seven Blood Eyes, as a branch of the Seven Sect Alliance, was to a certain extent inferior to the Purple Earth at the beginning, until the passage of time developed it, gradually reaching equality.

Now, with the breakthrough of the Blood Refining Ancestor, it had surpassed it in one fell swoop, even having the courage to go to war with alien races.

But the Purple Earth would not be like this.

They liked to close themselves off, did not like others to disturb them, and even while fearing the God's Remnant in the sky, they also looked down on all forces in the outside world. Even the Wanggu Continent, they didn't think much of.

They believed their own bloodline was the most noble and did not think they were frogs in a well.

Therefore, people living here, if they did not have an inherited bloodline, mostly had no future, and naturally had no vitality, and slavery slowly permeated into their souls, generation after generation, all like this.

Master Bai was one of the few people in the Purple Earth in these ten thousand years.

He was also the first to want to break the traditional concepts of the family and seek to develop together with the human race of the outside world.

His thoughts were contrary to the Purple Earth, and because of this, he paid the price, becoming a mortal.

But he did not give up. Relying on unparalleled talent and the Dao of Herbs and Trees, in his limited years, he walked out another path.

And he researched a large number of pill formulas. In the Dao of Herbs and Trees, he even surpassed cultivators by the strength of a single mortal.

To some extent, he was already the number one person in alchemy in the Nanhuang Continent.

Even the Peak Master of the Second Peak of the Seven Blood Eyes, who was a Nascent Soul cultivator, respected Master Bai very much. A figure like Seventh Uncle also had to call him "Master."

From all this, it could be seen that Master Bai's attainments in alchemy had already reached the pinnacle.

But even so, in the Purple Earth, he was still locked by heavy rules, unable to do many things. Everything was because of bloodline.

Master Bai was not a direct descendant of the Bai family; he was from a collateral branch.

At this moment, the wind and snow were heavier.

As the snowflakes drifted, in the public cemetery of the city area where the Bai family was located, more than a dozen people stood silently. In front of them was a crystal coffin, Master Bai's corpse lying inside, the wound on his forehead already covered.

And although the body was blessed by magic power and sealed by the crystal coffin, looking closely, one could still see Master Bai's corpse rotting and turning black.

This was a manifestation of poisoning. This poison was very domineering and could accelerate rotting.

Therefore, the corpse could not be preserved for too long and could only be buried in the dim sunset of the snowy day at dusk.

The thinness of his bloodline meant that Master Bai had no qualification to enter the family's imperial mausoleum after his death, and Master Bai himself had disdained this during his lifetime. He had instructed many years ago that after his death, he could be buried in the public cemetery.

The crowd was mostly silent, and Bai Yundong was among them.

The people who could come here were either Master Bai's juniors or those who had shared their hearts with him. The number was not large, but in one's life, perhaps one didn't need too many friends; three or five confidants were enough.

With the burial of the coffin, the oppressive atmosphere around the people in front of the grave became even heavier, until a girl could not control herself and let out a cry, breaking this oppression.

The one who cried out was Tingyu.

Two years had passed, and she had grown up. In the prime of her youth, she should have been as carefree as ever, but now, with Master Bai's death, her sky had collapsed.

She knelt before the grave, tears sliding down drop by drop, extremely sorrowful.

Standing beside her was a youth of eighteen or nineteen years old. This youth had a tall and straight posture, looking imposing, his robes extremely luxurious, and the jade pendant tied to his waist even emitted the light of a magic artifact.

He was Chen Feiyuan.

He was the eldest grandson of the Chen family's current generation. The transmission blockade after Master Bai's death this time was actually achieved under his full promotion.

At this moment, he clenched his fists tightly, his breathing rapid, and the killing intent in his eyes was incomparably intense, concentrated to the extreme.

And amidst this sorrow and anger, they did not notice that in the distance of this cemetery, a middle-aged man was standing silently in an alley, gazing at this place.

The middle-aged man wore a coarse hemp robe, looking unremarkable, his face somewhat sallow, but his eyes revealed endless sorrow. His body was trembling slightly at this moment, his right hand gripping the wall beside him, having already crushed it.

For a long time, the sky grew dark. With the sunset gradually falling and the dusk about to dissipate, the crowd in front of Master Bai's grave in the afterglow left silently.

The last to leave were Tingyu and Chen Feiyuan, as well as Chen Feiyuan's few attendants.

The middle-aged man was silent, walking forward. He did not look at the crowd leaving, approaching this public cemetery, passing by Chen Feiyuan and Tingyu during this time.

Chen Feiyuan, supporting Tingyu who was extremely sorrowful and still shedding tears, also noticed Xu Qing, but immersed in sorrow, he did not pay attention. This cemetery was very large, and many people came to mourn every day.

This was also what made him even more indignant—his teacher, Chen Feiyuan's teacher, was actually buried here, yet he was powerless.

"Tell me, will he come..." Tingyu, in her sorrow, wiped away her tears and said softly and weakly.

"Him? Hmph, if he were going to come, he would have come long ago. Since he hasn't come yet, he should be like the others—all ungrateful wretches!" Chen Feiyuan didn't need any thought to know who Tingyu was talking about, and spoke through gritted teeth at this moment.

Tingyu was silent.

The middle-aged man walked past them silently. Until the crowd behind him went far away, he also arrived in front of Master Bai's grave. Looking at the tombstone, his eyes turned red.

"Teacher..." The middle-aged man muttered, his voice hoarse, and knelt down toward the tombstone.

He was Xu Qing, who had transmitted to the Purple Earth!

After transmitting to the Purple Earth, Xu Qing immediately probed the news of Master Bai's burial and rushed over immediately. But he knew his Daoist robe was too conspicuous, which was not conducive to investigating the murderer.

So he changed his appearance and came to this place.

At this moment, looking at the tombstone, Xu Qing felt a stinging pain in his chest. This pain grew deeper and deeper, beginning to spread throughout his whole body.

In his life so far, he had only knelt before two tombstones: one was Captain Lei, and one was Master Bai.

"Teacher, for this matter, I will find the murderer and find the mastermind behind the scenes." Xu Qing muttered bitterly. After kowtowing to the tombstone, he took a wine gourd from his bosom and placed it in front of the grave.

"Captain Lei said you liked to drink, Teacher. Your disciple will accompany you." Xu Qing said, took a sip from the wine gourd, then sprinkled it gently in front of the grave, and placed the wine gourd aside.

"Teacher, the Herb and Tree Scriptures you left behind before you passed, your disciple has already memorized them all and kept them in mind. I will recite them for you once."

"The Dao of Herbs and Trees is one of the ten thousand phenomena, which can be the same as the Great Dao. Know the nature of things, understand the principles of heaven."

"The first plant, Golden Button Grass, also known as Three-Leaf Bead, Cold-Dispersing Grass, is the whole plant of the Cyperaceae plant Single-Spike Water Centipede. It is a perennial herb, growing under forests on hillsides and in damp places in the wilderness, distributed in Lingyou and Guangling, two prefectures in the south of Nanhuang."

"The second plant, Rhinoceros Fire Flower, also known as Cloud Dream Silk, is a plant of the Spirit Fire family, a perennial spirit plant. Its function can promote lung function and stop coughing, clear heat and detoxify, disperse blood stasis and reduce swelling, and has miraculous effects on poisonous snake bites and traumatic injuries."

"The 137th plant, Soul-Melting Mist, also known as Heaven-Closing Eye, is a large spirit-stage strange herb of the Mist-Born family. Its function can melt souls and mark them, difficult to detect, difficult to clear, and is the main ingredient of the Twelve-Hour Decay-Dispersing Pill."

Xu Qing muttered softly, reciting the herbs he had recorded in the Herb and Tree Scriptures.

In a trance, he seemed to see Master Bai's figure appear before him again, drinking wine, looking at him with a smile, his eyes carrying majesty, but the relief could not be hidden.

"Night Corpse Cow-Tether, also known as Poison Mountain Root Spotted-Dove Chrysanthemum, is the vine stem and root of the Asteraceae plant Fine-Veined Spotted-Dove Chrysanthemum. It is a woody vine, growing in corpse-yin mountain gullies, cold and damp creek sides, or jungles. Its taste is astringent and pungent, slightly warm at the entrance, with a feeling of rotting. Its function has the miraculous effect of dispelling wind and releasing the exterior, but it is poisonous in excess and belongs to the typical yin-yang bipolar herb."

The cold wind blew, snowflakes fell one by one, and Xu Qing's voice echoed in front of Master Bai's grave until night fell. His shadow emitted a wisp of emotional fluctuation.

As if telling him, he had found it!

Xu Qing raised his head abruptly, gazing silently at Master Bai's tombstone, kowtowed three times heavily, and the moment he stood up, his whole body was filled with astonishing killing intent, disappearing into the night.

Not long after he left, several figures arrived quickly from afar. The one at the front was Tingyu, and behind her were Chen Feiyuan and his several attendants.

"Tingyu, did you see wrong? How is it possible? He is a popular person in the Seven Blood Eyes now; how could he remember Teacher here?"

"I couldn't have seen wrong. His eyes—I recognize them. After I went back and recalled carefully, it must be him!"

I want to shape a protagonist with a soul. This child, Xu Qing, has many shortcomings, such as being petty, such as having a cold personality, but he has his own warmth. Whether it is gratitude or some partner who will walk into his heart in the future, he will cherish them.

He is a person who values relationships and righteousness.

At the same time, I recall my previous books. Except for "Xian Ni" and "Qiu Mo," the group portraits were somewhat lacking in flavor, so I also want to enrich more characters in this book, such as the Captain, the Ancestor, Zhang San, Huang Yan. They all have their own stories, woven together to become a web, and there will be more in the future, all in my mind.

Life is like a dream, living by chasing dreams.

Xu Qing is like this, and so are we. Let us encourage each other.