Chapter 314: Peace and Order Seem to Have Improved Overnight

After Bai Yi left with her rebellious mouse, Feng Xue returned to the jade carving and regarded the Void God with a peculiar gaze.

He had assumed Su'e Huiye, whose personality code hadn't even been loaded yet, would be a rigid AI at best, no higher than a Void God—but he hadn't expected that even without sentience, it was still influenced by believers.

"Could this be why summoning a Void God pollutes the soul? If I directly edit the Void God's knowledge base and then produce Emperor's Dew, wouldn't that be equivalent to directly implanting specific knowledge?"

Feng Xue's mind was quick—he immediately thought of a more obscure application—but there was still one problem: he didn't know whether this knowledge loading worked on humans.

"Tsk, the devils are still too early… Hmm, no, that's not right—his mental sea is already blocked shut. I should've grabbed some ordinary ninja as cadavers back then; now I don't even have a single test subject for spells."

Feng Xue sighed inwardly, straightened his clothes, and prepared to leave—only to be yanked back by Liu Yunxi, who had already started lunch; only after finishing the meal did he fully equip himself and step onto the streets.

"Say, why are you in such a hurry to go out again?"

Liu Yunxi wasn't a ring today; she wore ordinary clothes and walked beside Feng Xue, who shrugged and said:

"This world has human spiritual momentum—even the devils have it. If they don't provoke me, and I go out to grab them, I accrue karmic debt. So I'm just strolling the streets—if any fools bump into me, I can drag them back as cadavers."

"So I'm just your fishing bait now, huh?" Liu Yunxi's face darkened instantly—she'd thought today's refusal to turn her into a ring meant he was treating her like a person, but it was just for fishing?

"What nonsense! If it were an ordinary beauty, a petty thug might flirt a bit and that'd be it—but you, with your looks, walking beside me, a man who clearly has money? Even if someone really does hit on you, they're almost certainly after me!" Feng Xue rolled his eyes, slipped his arm through Liu Yunxi's, and the two headed toward Temple Street.

Today was the second day of the lunar month; the streets were still full of idlers. Street performers were everywhere—some drummed and monkey-showed, others set up stages to perform operas, and of course, there were storytellers and comic performers beside tea stalls and taverns—but after walking a few steps, Feng Xue felt something odd—

"Why are every few stalls doing 'Nezha Causes Havoc in the Sea'? Is this Duan Zi really that popular?"

"Aren't there also 'Great Sage Causes Havoc in the Dragon Palace' and 'Eight Immortals Cross the Sea'?" Liu Yunxi pointed to a nearby teahouse; though the storyteller was inside, their sharp hearing could still catch the line: "Too light, too light!"

"So you've got to pick a fight with the Long Wang, huh?" Feng Xue grinned, but Liu Yunxi replied:

"Did you forget where we are? This is a port city—everyone depends on the sea. If you talk about mountains collapsing and earth splitting, common folk won't get it—but if you talk about raging waves, they'll all understand. Naturally, you tell stories with the sea! Otherwise, what's the point of describing a thousand-jin drumming golden mallet that kills millions a day?"

"That actually makes sense." Feng Xue nodded, finally realizing—unlike modern storytellers and comic performers, ancient people were isolated. Even in this quasi-modern era, where literacy was high, the public's knowledge of the outside world was limited to newspapers; many Duan Zi were simply incomprehensible to them.

If you told a half-immortal tale on Hainan Island, they wouldn't understand—they had no idea what "old-cold-legs" was, so why should they believe it could predict weather? Similarly, if you told northerners about throwing melons and accidentally tossing a durian, they wouldn't get the joke.

People near the sea encountered it often, so sea-related Duan Zi were naturally easier to understand—and sea tales inevitably involved the Long Wang.

Feng Xue walked from Chengnan to Chengbei, listening to several full Duan Zi—but even so, each stall still had crowds listening; he could only sigh at how scarce entertainment was for common folk in this age.

Walking slowly, Feng Xue wandered unconsciously to the entrance of Moyu Xuan. It wasn't surprising—he only knew three places in the whole port city: Yangrenjie, Jilongzhai, and the entrance to Moyu Xuan.

Arriving there, Liu Yunxi suddenly stopped and pointed at the ground, smiling:

"Look—the hole you smashed!"

"What do you mean 'I' smashed? Wasn't that you?" Feng Xue rolled his eyes, staring at the dark red indentation still lodged in the crack—utterly speechless. Back then, he'd run into thugs just by walking around; now he'd nearly crossed the entire port city and still no thugs jumped out? Did the yakuza take holidays for the New Year?

As Feng Xue grumbled inwardly, a familiar face approached, greeting them warmly:

"Feng Daoist! Out for a stroll?"

"Long time no see!" Feng Xue smiled and greeted the owner of Moyu Xuan, whom he'd known for less than a month—leaving the man momentarily at a loss for words; finally, he forced a topic:

"Where are you planning to go, Daoist?"

"Still deciding. You know I don't know this city well—do you know any places that are particularly chaotic?"

"You ask for trouble spots like that?" The Moyu Xuan owner's expression soured—this man was trouble incarnate; earlier, selling spirit ghosts had stirred up a storm, even drawing Jiu Gu to confront him. Now he was asking for chaotic places? If not for the lack of blood-spirit aura on him, he'd suspect this was a demonic cultivator out hunting for spiritual energy!

But he'd opened the door himself—he couldn't dodge the question now. After thinking, the Moyu Xuan owner said:

"Yangrenjie has many new foreign goods—you two might find them interesting. But foreigners there are often rude; be careful when you go."

"Got it!" Feng Xue nodded, thanked him, and led Liu Yunxi toward Yangrenjie. The Moyu Xuan owner watched Feng Xue's smile and suddenly felt a chill.

Leaving the Moyu Xuan owner's inner muttering aside, Feng Xue and Liu Yunxi strolled to Yangrenjie, where rows of Western-style houses lined the street, shops overflowing with goods, and occasional wealthy ladies, surrounded by servants laden with packages, shopping endlessly. Just as Feng Xue wondered why he hadn't seen any thugs, a gavel cracked through the air—

"The Greek king Eurystheus imposed twelve impossible tasks upon the demigod Heracles. The seventh task: to bring back the head of the nine-headed serpent, Hydra!"

"This serpent was an ancient aberration, dwelling deep in the Lernaean Marsh, bearing nine venomous heads. Ordinary men couldn't even kill it—just smelling the corpse-poison gas it exhaled would turn them into pools of sludge three zhang away. Worse still, where a head was severed, two more sprouted instantly—truly an endless demon, an unkillable scourge!"

(End of Chapter)