Chapter 91

Ever since he knew the Yuwen family was going to take action against Madame Wenjing.

Cheng Xiazi had not gone out to post notices and hunt criminals during this period.

And Chu Tianshu's life was still as fulfilling as ever.

Helping people see doctors, promoting some prescriptions, and then practicing cultivation.

Every night, looking at the evil spirit materials and the progress of the Qi number column, he also had an urge to actively stir up trouble, but it was not yet the time.

As the saying goes, build high walls, store grain widely, and claim the title of king slowly!!

If you want to have the high spirits and unrestrained madness of that moment of reaching the top, you must be patient, seize opportunities, and develop more.

In the past few days, Chu Tianshu still practiced the Heartfire Fist stance in the afternoon, and in the morning, besides seeing patients, he went to practice the "Blood-Refining Weapon Art."

According to the description in "Blood River Vehicle," when starting those rituals to nurture a soldier spirit, one must find a quiet place, preferably where the local Yin energy is contained and not exposed.

Those in the army who reached the standard and were taught the Blood River Vehicle initially practiced near their station by finding a battlefield.

The battlefield has enough Yin energy, and as for keeping the Yin energy contained and not exposed, one can just choose to practice at noon.

At that time, the Yin energy is often in a very restrained state.

Chu Tianshu could not find any large-scale battlefields near this Nanzhao Wang Cheng.

However, there was a mass grave outside the city.

Old people without children, swordmasters from other places seeking fame, beggars, and wanderers who were not properly buried had always been buried there.

He estimated that the Yin energy of the mass grave could not compare to a large battlefield, so he should not go at noon.

It was just right to go practice in the morning, letting the Yin energy in the environment be in a state that met the standards.

The people buried here, except for individual grave mounds, did not even have the treatment of a wooden board with carved characters.

Some grave mounds were so large that it seemed like more than a dozen people were buried at once.

Some grave mounds were so small that it seemed like only one child was buried.

Although the sunlight in the sky was bright, shining here, it could only cast patches of cold shadows.

Chu Tianshu stood in the shadow of a large grave mound taller than a person and untied the Three-Seven Divine Sword from his wrist.

He released his mental power slightly, and the divine sword hummed, straight as steel.

"Blood River Vehicle" had not yet been deduced by the token, and Chu Tianshu did not have that unspeakable feeling of "correctness" in his mind.

But relying solely on his understanding of the text and diagrams, he entered the door quickly when practicing.

Because the three vehicles and three passes of the Blood River Vehicle mainly talk about the mysteries of moving Qi and blood.

Chu Tianshu himself had a strong physique and pure blood, which, when converted into the sheep cart, deer cart, and ox cart stages, was equivalent to someone who had already practiced extremely deeply in the deer cart stage.

He didn't need to use any small needles to draw blood; he just exerted his strength, and a smear of fresh blood seeped out from the nail of his left index finger.

He pointed his fingertip at the divine sword and began to draw the pattern.

While drawing, the various visualization scenes in Chu Tianshu's mind were also changing.

Visualization is a simple thing to talk about, but in actual practice, it is a very troublesome matter.

People should be extremely familiar with their own palms, but just imagining the front and back of a palm in one's mind.

Imagining the dynamic changes of this palm clenching into a fist, ensuring there are no distracting thoughts, and not letting attention shift to other ideas.

Just this requires long-term training; if there is even a single distracting thought in the middle, or if attention shifts for a moment, the visualization is considered interrupted and has no effect.

Once one has a certain foundation, the complex patterns in the brain appear as soon as one thinks of them, with details clearly visible, as simple as instinctively lifting a finger.

At this time, one can multitask, chanting incantations and drawing talismans while visualizing.

When Chu Tianshu studied the "Annotations on Ghost Gate Witchcraft Medicine" back then, the time he spent on this basic skill was more than the time he spent later learning various acupuncture techniques.

The visualization diagrams of "Blood River Vehicle" do not require mental power to disperse outward, and each diagram is slightly less difficult.

But this is precisely what Chu Tianshu could not understand.

If mental power does not disperse outward, then visualizing so many things can only affect one's own body and cannot affect the weapon at all.

Why then must one perform these visualizations when painting the weapon with blood?

A martial artist's visualization focuses inward; the only possibility for it to have a connection with the outside world is that the outside world has some kind of powerful spirituality that is actively perceiving the martial artist's visualization process and changes in momentum.

Speaking of which, back home, martial artists can also perform rituals to communicate with ghosts and gods of the Spirit Realm when conditions are met.

That is exactly this principle.

Could it be that the soldier spirits of this world are so easy to form because of the help of ghosts and gods?

Chu Tianshu wanted to test it.

In the past few days, he had repeatedly performed the ritual and vaguely felt that the surrounding atmosphere would change a little, but the magnitude of the change was not enough.

Improving bit by bit.

Today, after he finished this set of blood-refining rituals, he should be able to expand that atmospheric change from a very small, vague omen into a clear perception.

The patterns on the sword were like incantations and seals, and also like cursive flying birds, continuous and connected.

After one side was drawn, the other side was also drawn from near the hilt to the tip of the sword.

A drag mark, thinner than the sword tip, left a light, faint red.

Whoosh!!!

A strange wind rose in the graveyard.

The grave soil turned black, and the wild grass turned a deeper green.

Especially where Chu Tianshu stood, faint white smoke drifted between the soil pores within a few feet.

Chu Tianshu lowered his gaze, greatly surprised.

This is, the aura of the Spirit Realm?!

But there were no ghosts around, nor was there a Longhua ritual, that feeling of ghost and god power descending from afar.

Although the environmental atmosphere had changed, it was only a change in atmosphere.

It was not the actual environmental overlap mutation of the overflow zone.

Chu Tianshu looked around and walked a few steps.

Confirmed, it was really just a change in atmosphere.

Even, because he walked around like this, it did not meet the requirements of the ritual.

That faint aura of the Spirit Realm was about to dissipate again.

To have such an easily dissipated Spirit Realm aura—back home, no one would believe it if it were written in a report.

Many guesses flashed through Chu Tianshu's mind, and finally, he felt that one of them was the most likely.

That is to say, this world also has things similar to the Spirit Realm.

But the "Spirit Realm" of this world exists in another form, so there are not so many spiritual bodies, wandering ghosts, or Spirit Realm species, but it prefers the spirituality of weapons.

The ancestors of this realm discovered this characteristic and utilized it.

That is why "Blood-Refining Weapon Art" became the most important part of martial arts.

And why the way of the soldier spirit is so prosperous.

"If this is the case, then will the soldier spirit I cultivate here still be useful after I go back?"

Chu Tianshu recalled the relevant knowledge in his mind.

Back home, soldier spirits are rare, mainly because the forming stage is too difficult, and no one knows how to form them.

However, nurturing a soldier spirit is a very simple matter, and the difference from nurturing an ordinary spiritual body is not too great.

As long as one can form a soldier spirit here, the most difficult step is bypassed, and after bringing it back, one only needs to nurture it, which should be a piece of cake.

"Since it mainly relies on the uniqueness of the environment, I must nurture the sword spirit to be as strong as possible in this world."

Chu Tianshu calmed his mind, returned to his original position, held the sword in front of him again, and visualized silently.

After the shallow, wondrous aura steamed up from the surrounding soil, it wrapped around the Three-Seven Divine Sword.

The daylight became brighter and brighter, and the shadows of the graves became shorter and shorter.

Chu Tianshu stood still and visualized for an hour. Feeling the sunlight becoming increasingly intense, he stopped visualizing in accordance with the records of "Blood River Vehicle."

He rolled the Three-Seven Divine Sword back onto his hand, covered it with his sleeve, turned around, and walked away with long strides.

It was just time for lunch, and the Wen family restaurant should be very lively.

When Chu Tianshu returned, he found that there were not many guests in the main hall, and they were all whispering, not in a hurry to eat.

Several staff members were standing by the counter, looking indignant, and Cheng Xiazi was also leaning against the counter.

Madame Wenjing was behind the counter, dividing the wine from the vat into wine bottles.

Chu Tianshu walked over, "What happened?"

Cheng Xiazi said, "A few people were making trouble, and I drove them away."

"Those people are too hateful; they came over to extort us, and after being refused, they actually brought a pile of rotten, stinking banana leaves inside, wanting to throw them everywhere."

A kitchen helper auntie said, "We said we would report them to the officials to be arrested, and they were still arguing loudly there."

"Saying that we Tang people are so rich because we robbed them of their money, and we should share half with them."

The waiter also said, "It's really nonsense. We work from dawn to dusk selling food and only earn this little bit of hard-earned money; when did we rob them?"

"Besides, there are poor people among us Tang people, and there are so many rich people among them, the Nanzhao people; why don't they go to those people's shops to make trouble?!"

Madame Wenjing suddenly knocked on the wine vat, her tone severe, and said, "What do you mean by going to make trouble at the shops of rich Nanzhao people?"

The waiter turned back, confused for a moment.

"Nanzhao is an aggregation of dozens of large and small tribes. When many people moved near this Wang Cheng, they came even later than us Tang people who were abducted."

Madame Wenjing's voice was neither high nor low, clearly also meant for the guests to hear.

"Nanzhao is not a single tribe, and it is even less something that one or two people can represent. Most people are just commoners, people working hard for their livelihood."

"If you push other ethnic groups to the opposite side of us Tang people just because of those few black sheep, then you have fallen into their trap."

The staff members were very convinced by her and had to nod.

Cheng Xiazi greeted Chu Tianshu and took him to the corridor near the guest rooms.

"In the past few days, two or three important figures of the Junzi Alliance were indeed assassinated, and only one was successful."

Cheng Xiazi's expression was solemn, "But when I was inquiring about the assassination news, I found that several other famous figures had also been assassinated recently."

"They are not members of the Junzi Alliance, but tribal leaders and elders of several tribes near the Wang Cheng, such as the Xi'er and Bo people."

Chu Tianshu understood, "Do you think this was also done by the Yuwen family?"

"Recently, the claim that it is all because we Tang people robbed Nanzhao of its wealth that the Nanzhao people are living in poverty has become rampant. Those idlers didn't dare to come to the Wen family restaurant to run wild in the past; it was just that they were incited by rumors, which emboldened them."

Cheng Xiazi snorted coldly, "I suspect that the Yuwen family is behind all these things."

Chu Tianshu was even calmer.

"But what good does this do for the Yuwen family?"

Chu Tianshu touched the sword on his wrist and smiled, "They might indeed be involved, but if they really want to do something big and escalate it, I'm afraid it's not something a single Yuwen family can support."

(End of Chapter)