Chapter 298

In front of the Magistrate's office, a mad monk was crying and laughing by turns, even seeing the old women shuffling along the street as beauties posing and preening, and even the dogs on the street seemed to have become refined and handsome.

The monk would cry and curse: "What a heartless youngster, actually putting stuff in the wine to tease me, the monk. This is purely ruining good wine; it's a pity for the century-old vintage in the gourd. This wine was meant to drown sorrows, but now it has become the monk's bitter water."

Then the monk would laugh and curse: "People have enemies, and I, the monk, have enemies too. This is the retribution in my fate arriving; I cannot hide from it, so I, the monk, must still drink this wine."

Knowing full well the wine was problematic, the mad monk still lifted the gourd at his waist and took a gulp regardless.

After a while longer, the mad monk waved his hands repeatedly at the dog behind him: "Sin, sin, benefactor, don't take off your clothes; I, the monk, have never been one for carnal desires. If you take off any more, I, the monk, will really get angry!"

Everyone originally thought he was babbling, but then they saw the mad monk suddenly steady his qi and focus his mind, shouting the word "Freeze" at the yellow dog that was wagging its tail and begging for food.

And that dog actually stood still on the spot, like a wooden statue, with only its eyeballs still rolling back and forth.

At the entrance of the East Road alley, Xu Qing was planning to return to Well-Bottom Street to carefully study the green scales in his hand. But he never expected that, just after crossing two streets, he would bump into a mad monk, crying and laughing, stumbling toward him from across the street.

Xu Qing decisively turned around, but at the next street, he bumped into that mad monk again.

"."

Xu Qing turned around again, and on the street he returned to, he encountered the mad monk's figure once more.

Is this... a monk-built wall?

Xu Qing understood that this monk was coming for him, so he simply stopped hiding and stood by the street waiting for him to come over.

Xinyuan arrived close by, and before he could speak, his eyes were already red from crying.

"One shouldn't be too wicked as a person; if you bully a monk, you'll damage your hidden virtue!"

Xu Qing didn't blush or skip a beat, and with a cold laugh, he said: "Tricking a child into shaving their head, aren't you wicked yourself? Since you became a monk and have no one to provide for your old age, you thought about tricking a little monk into going back to be a child to support you. You're even more wicked than a human trafficker!"

The two of them exchanged words, arguing until they were at an impasse.

Monk Xinyuan and Xu Qing had very similar personalities; both were people who wouldn't let their mouths off and had thicker skin than anyone!

If it were normal times, Monk Xinyuan would still have the confidence to trade barbs with Xu Qing, but today he had been drugged, crying and laughing by turns, and simply couldn't perform at his full strength.

Finally, Xinyuan couldn't take it anymore and simply asked: "What kind of medicine did you put in the monk's gourd?"

Xu Qing flatly denied it: "I didn't put any poison in it, don't you go blaming me!"

Xinyuan, looking drunk, laughed crazily: "This poor monk knows you didn't use poison; ordinary poison is useless against this poor monk. I, the monk, am asking you what kind of 'medicine' you put in!"

Xu Qing clicked his tongue and said: "Haven't you ever drunk medicinal wine? The wine I soaked had mushrooms from Diannan; what you drank happened to have belly-ache mushrooms, weeping mushrooms, and also..."

"And what else?" Xinyuan felt increasingly that something was wrong.

"And dream-legacy mushrooms."

"What kind of mushroom is that?"

"Ha! It's just a mushroom that can make men have wet dreams and women have erotic dreams. It's a good thing to test your concentration as a monk; you should thank me."

"Thank you? This poor monk is going to break the commandment of anger on you!" Monk Xinyuan made a show of rolling up his sleeves.

Xu Qing's expression turned cold, and he said: "I haven't even settled the score with you for abducting Chen Liuer yet. Don't think I don't know what kind of scheme you're playing in front of the Magistrate's office!"

"The fact that I'm not dragging you into jail is already out of consideration for the fact that you haven't committed any major evil. If you're still obsessed, just wait and see if I don't beat you up!"

From beginning to end, Xu Qing was dealing with Monk Xinyuan as an ordinary person; those mushrooms were just mushrooms from Diannan, not fit for high society, and at most counted as underworld tricks.

Even when mentioning Chen Liuer, Xu Qing had always been speaking in terms of worldly human sentiment, never mentioning matters of the Profound Gate.

It was just that the monk before him seemed to have some restrictions on him, so even if he experienced being teased by others, the other party would just let it be.

Xu Qing didn't know what kind of Buddhist cultivation method this was, but it seemed to have some commonalities with his Silence Curse and Closed-Mouth Zen.

Monk Xinyuan anxiously took another sip of wine and said: "Don't you ruin the monk's big plan! That child shouldn't have been alive in the first place..."

Halfway through his sentence, Monk Xinyuan's voice stopped abruptly, as if he had accidentally let slip something he shouldn't have said.

"Shouldn't have been alive?" Xu Qing narrowed his eyes, leaned in close, and said word by word: "What does that mean?"

"It means nothing! Don't ask, this poor monk will just consider this matter over, but if you keep pestering this poor monk..."

Monk Xinyuan, right in front of Xu Qing, struck a starting pose of a martial arts external technique.

"I, the monk, am also a practitioner, a martial monk by origin; you can't beat me!"

Xu Qing narrowed his eyes, not afraid in the slightest, and said: "You can let this matter go, but I can't! Chen Liuer is the County Magistrate's foster son. If I can't beat you, I can still report it to the authorities and have the head constable come to arrest you. The Linjiang County head constable, Zhao Zhonghe, is a Qi-Condensing martial master. Can a monk like you beat the government?"

"You mean that head constable?"

After hearing the name Zhao Zhonghe, Monk Xinyuan suddenly calmed down. He hesitated for a moment and said: "Whether Chen Liuer is willing to go with the monk is not something you can decide..."

"That doesn't require the Master's concern. I believe in Chen Liuer; he won't go with you."

Monk Xinyuan was half-believing and half-doubting.

The determined tone of the fair-faced young man before him actually made him waver a little.

No! Can't keep entangling with this kid anymore!

For the first time, Monk Xinyuan had the thought that someone was his nemesis, so without another word, he turned to leave.

Xu Qing hadn't gotten a clear answer, so how could he just let the other party leave?

"Stop! You still haven't said what you meant by Chen Liuer shouldn't have been alive."

Xinyuan hesitated for a moment and finally replied: "This poor monk calculated his fate; this child has a death tribulation in his life, but he dodged it..."

Watching Xinyuan leave, Xu Qing stood on the spot pondering for a long time before leaving.

Well-Bottom Street.

Xu Qing turned into the coffin shop nearby and couldn't wait to take out the scales from his bosom.

Xu Qing originally knew very little about heavenly treasures, but ever since the disciples of the Celestial Master's Mansion had come to him one after another for funerals, he had learned quite a bit of knowledge from these 'old corpses'.

A thousand years ago, the Celestial Master's Mansion was also a renowned righteous sect, a vital force in the secular world for subduing demons and upholding the righteous path.

To this day, although the Celestial Master's Mansion had rotted from the roots, the things recorded in the Celestial Master's Mansion's scripture library had remained unchanged.

Besides the Celestial Master's Mansion, Hu Baosong, who had traveled the world for nearly a hundred years, was also an encyclopedia.

In addition, there were the Water-Craft Daoist, the Hundred-Infant Pagoda medicine corpses, the nameless old woman's avatar...

The knowledge of these people was like an invisible treasure vault, allowing Xu Qing to know the world without stepping out of his door, and to see the Dao of Heaven without peeking through his window.

Now, looking at the cyan dragon scale containing pure spiritual energy before him, Xu Qing had already identified the origin of this scale.

"The Four Symbols Divine Lords, the Azure Dragon is the head. Among them, the Azure Dragon's scale can guard the Heavenly Stems, master the profound and control the order, and at the same time, it can serve as the legendary Hundred-Scale Key to open the Dragon Palace Water Mansion. It can also be taken as medicine to dispel filth and make the Three Treasures clear and bright."

Xu Qing's index finger corpse-nail popped out an inch and grazed the scale; the green scale instantly produced emerald waves and golden patterns, becoming harder than mysterious iron and as tough as silk.

Even the Unchanging Bone that Xu Qing had already fully cultivated in his left hand couldn't scratch it.