Chapter 89: Ink-Wash Painting: Tongchang County

(PS: The previous chapter was heavily revised, with over 2,000 new characters added.)

Fang Shi's heart was filled with shock and doubt—he was clearly in the pitch-black underground, so where was the sunlight coming from?

Could someone outside be casting a spell like a powerful illumination technique?

But something was off—his mysterious intuition clearly hadn't sensed any spell-light.

At a thought from Fang Shi, a wisp of fluctuation seeped out from between his brows.

This was his divine sense; the white-fog little sword from before was merely the particle state of his divine sense.

In particle state, divine sense could attack the souls of living beings.

Beings with fragile souls would die outright, becoming vegetables.

Even if the soul was strong, it would still suffer soul damage and have its actions impeded.

Of course, spear and shield are relative.

When a Qi Refiner's divine sense encountered a more powerful soul, it would backlash.

He himself would suffer soul damage.

Therefore, under normal circumstances, Qi Refiners rarely employed soul attacks.

More often, they used another form of divine sense—the fluctuation state.

Divine sense in this form could substitute for the senses, receiving information from all around.

Including touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing, and spiritual perception.

This meant that when Fang Shi released fluctuation-state divine sense and made contact with the soil,

he could not only see, but also hear, and even touch, smell, and taste it.

At the same time, he could sense the changes in spiritual energy within it.

For ordinary people, this would be hard to accept—normal things were still fine.

But some filthy, disgusting things—how could ordinary people endure them?

Yet those who transcended the ordinary could, or rather, those who wished to advance further on the path of transcendence, had to be able to.

Without a fearless heart, without a firm will,

the very metamorphosis of transcendence alone would be enough to make an ordinary person collapse.

At the later stages, a single sweep of divine sense would encompass all the myriad things of the world, as clear as viewing the lines on one's palm—every thing and every matter within the heart.

Hence the Daoists speak of wuwei, the Buddhists speak of equality.

Both address the changes of heart-nature brought by the metamorphosis of transcendence.

Now Fang Shi's divine sense value was five points, so his divine sense detection range was five meters.

And detection precision equaled perception intensity.

Of course, this didn't mean divine sense couldn't perceive things beyond five meters.

It was just that beyond that five-meter range, precision would drop sharply.

Like being nearsighted.

Fang Shi was now using this characteristic of divine sense to observe the world outside the cave entrance.

At this observation, Fang Shi was stunned.

The environment outside had, at some unknown time, undergone a tremendous change.

The pit was still that pit, the city was still that city.

The only difference was that this city was no longer underground, but on the surface.

The sun hung high; scorching sunlight beat down on the earth, and even the surface air twisted and warped.

How could this be!

Setting aside that it was clearly nighttime when he came in,

how could this underground city have appeared on the surface for no reason?

An ultra-large-range teleportation spell?

But how could such an existence exist on Blue Star now?

Moreover, there had been no such anomalies before his rebirth.

Could it be another alteration brought by his rebirth?

After observing the situation, Fang Shi no longer hesitated and scrambled up the passage in a few quick moves.

No matter what was going on, he had to get out and figure things out.

When Fang Shi truly emerged, he was stunned once more.

As mentioned before, although divine sense is convenient, it also has its limitations.

Beyond the range of divine sense, precision would plummet like a cliff.

After Fang Shi came out and truly saw the sun in the sky with his naked eyes,

he discovered that this sun was like an ink-wash painting, ornamenting the sky.

It was an entirely different style from a real sun.

A painting?

Could it be some kind of environment-type spell?

Suddenly, Fang Shi's eyes narrowed and he whipped his head around.

The divine statue behind him had also taken on an ink-wash style.

Its lively eyes were even more spirited, and even more comical.

It seemed to flicker with divine light, mocking Fang Shi's foolishness.

Boom!

Fang Shi swung his sword directly at the statue.

This was not merely to vent his anger, but also to test this world.

These statues were nothing special; before his rebirth, they had all been torn down, yet no abnormalities were seen.

A shockwave rose again, but it was like a painting, with wisps of lines forming white smoke.

Bang!

The statue was directly split in half by Fang Shi, then exploded into fragments under the supersonic shockwave.

Its internal structure was also like an ink-wash painting: simple and clear, with distinct layers.

Fang Shi, somewhat disbelieving, continued to divide the stone statue.

No matter how finely he divided it, the artistic style did not change.

Moreover, as time passed, the surrounding environment also began to transform into the same artistic style.

Even on Fang Shi's body, a transformation began to occur.

The Earth Dragon Sword, his clothes, his arms, and even his entire person transformed into figures from a painting.

"Damn! Is this physical creation, or cognitive distortion?"

"I haven't yet figured out the changes in the underground palace, and now this strange thing has happened."

The surrounding scenery and objects had become a Chinese painting, indeed exquisite and beautiful.

Vivid spirit and movement; simple strokes outlined a detailed and aesthetic artistic conception.

Yet in reality, it was so horrifying.

"No, I must go into the city to see; I don't believe even that legendary Golden Corpse would undergo such a change."

Fang Shi did not care about the mere change in appearance; what he feared were the consequences triggered by such a transformation.

Was the purpose of the change so simple?

That was not necessarily so; moreover, the occurrence of the change coincided with the shift of the underground city.

This inevitably made one suspect an unknown connection between the two.

Not far away, Fang Shi saw a person.

A person fishing by the moat, wearing a bamboo hat and a straw raincoat, with a bamboo-woven basket beside him.

His artistic style was the same as the surrounding environment, like a colored ink-wash painting.

Fang Shi walked beside the fisherman and peered over.

The coffin in the river had long vanished without a trace; instead, fish swam and played within it.

"Old man, where is this place?"

The fisherman was an old man, his face covered in wrinkles, sharply defined by the lines.

Hearing Fang Shi's words, the old man did not answer; instead, he looked at Fang Shi with a strange gaze.

After a while, he spoke softly, "Young man, you are not from around here, are you?"

To be honest, Fang Shi did not understand; the old man's language was very strange.

But it was clearly distinguishable as a Han-language dialect.

Only the accent and tone were very different, like the dialects of various regions.

Seeing that Fang Shi did not answer, the old man said again, "Young man, this is Tongchang County."

"If you have nothing to do, leave quickly; the Great Sacrifice is about to be held, and outsiders are not welcome."

Fang Shi's expression did not change; even though he did not understand, he could sense the old man's emotional shift through his perception—a feeling of alienation and admonition.

And most importantly, he was very accustomed to the ink-wash painting scene and did not feel anything wrong with it.

"Old man, please speak a few more words to me."

The old man also did not understand what Fang Shi was saying and said impatiently, "Leave quickly; the fish will be scared away by you."

Fang Shi heard the old man's impatience and silently walked away.

After the Niwan Palace was opened, his Spirit Terrace became clear, and his wisdom became transparent.

With just a few simple sentences, various thoughts collided in his mind like lightning and sparks.

Fang Shi then gained some understanding of the old man's language.

After all, it belonged to the Han language family; with careful study, Fang Shi could still figure out the meaning.

However, specifically, it still required big data statistics.

Therefore, Fang Shi also hoped the old man would speak a bit more to him.

But it did not matter if he did not speak; Fang Shi had already seen guards patrolling on the city wall.

He believed the people in this city were certainly numerous.

Ancient cities were actually not very large; a few square kilometers constituted a city.

But this did not mean a city had few people; houses stood in close rows on both sides of the streets paved with bluestone.

The streets were narrow, and the density of the houses was enough to make modern city planners blush.

Fortunately, the main road Fang Shi walked on was still quite spacious.

Various street vendors shouting their wares and the crowds coming and going all became objects of Fang Shi's study.

The people in the city saw that Fang Shi wore strange clothes, had his hair loose, but wore a long sword at his waist and carried a long bow on his back.

At a glance, he was not from an ordinary family, so they all instinctively kept their distance from him.

Even the guards at the city gate did not dare to stop him.

Let alone the sword and bow; even the exquisite clothes on his body were beyond what a commoner's family could afford.

He absolutely belonged to the level of high officials and nobles.

Therefore, Fang Shi could wander freely along the streets.

Especially walking right in the middle of the main road.

That is a position only nobles may tread.

If an ordinary commoner dared to walk there, it would be a violation of taboo.

"Business has been too good lately; the Magistrate is preparing to hold a Grand Sacrifice."

"Procurement of various supplies is so vast that even the wealthy merchants in the county cannot monopolize it alone."

"The clerks in the yamen have ordered many new clothes from me."

"They say it is to wear new clothes when sacrificing to the spirits."

Another person shouted: "You fool! How dare you take on this business? It is not that the wealthy merchants refuse to monopolize it."

"It is that the yamen's treasury is tight; they simply cannot pay."

"During the previous Grand Sacrifices, the wealthy merchants in the city were cheated; now none are willing to contribute."

"So, such a good thing has fallen to you!"

"Ah!" The person who spoke earlier said in panic: "What should I do? I obtained the cloth on credit. If there is no money to repay them later, they will not let me off."

"What can be done? You can only consider yourself unlucky. Do you dare to defy the Magistrate?"

"We artisans have no fields in the countryside; we rely entirely on our craft to eat."

"If you offend the Magistrate and he sends people to block your door every day, will you still be able to do business?"

Then came a round of sighs and groans.

Outside the door, Fang Shi leaned against the wall of the alley, listening quietly.

His perception was so acute that even standing outside the house,

he could easily hear the commotion inside.

Fang Shi had wandered outside for two hours before he could barely understand the local language.

But listening along this way, two terms kept appearing repeatedly.

Grand Sacrifice!

This was the term Fang Shi first heard from the fishing old man by the river.

It has been repeatedly mentioned by the people of the county town.

The gist is that the Magistrate is holding a sacrificial ritual again.

Everywhere, supplies are forcibly requisitioned under the guise of purchase, causing the people of the city to complain bitterly.

Especially during the previous sacrifices, when the Magistrate had no money, he simply levied taxes directly.

He collected the money and used it for the sacrifice.

Later, he stopped collecting taxes altogether and simply took supplies from the wealthy under the name of donations.

Now that even the wealthy have no surplus grain, he has started seeking money from the lower classes.

This is simply outrageous!

The purpose of sacrifice was originally to calm people's hearts and allow the subjects under his rule to stabilize production.

How could the Tongchang Magistrate make everything chaotic and begin to extort and oppress?

Fang Shi even has reason to suspect that the so-called sacrifice is merely an excuse.

Could the Tongchang Magistrate be trying to make a profit from this?

Of course, considering the strange atmosphere of this place.

In the center of the city, which is the location of the yamen, Golden Corpses are stored.

This sacrifice might actually be real.

But one thing is quite strange: the object of this sacrifice is not the Ten Thousand Gods beside Tongchang County.

It is an existence called the Great Auspicious Greatly Kindly Radiant Heavenly Venerable.

Furthermore, His statue is not stored in the relevant temple but, contrary to reason, placed inside the yamen.

Such behavior is extremely bizarre and simply violates ritual propriety.

Fang Shi has already heard several Confucian scholars express dissatisfaction with this.

But in Tongchang County, the Magistrate is the highest heaven.

The title of Marquis of a Hundred Li is no joke; especially in the Wei and Jin eras, local officials were controlled by local powerful clans.

The family the Magistrate was born into is the strongest scholar-official clan in the area.

He is also the clan elder, the one with the greatest power; his word is absolute authority.

Even the Jin Emperor's orders in this locality are less effective than the Magistrate's word.

Yes, Fang Shi has already eavesdropped and understood clearly.

The residents of this county town live in the Jin Dynasty period; whether it is Eastern Jin or Western Jin is unknown, as those are later designations.

In short, it is not the modern era; no wonder the accent is so strange.

Modern Mandarin was a local dialect back then; it is perfectly normal that others could not understand it.

However, it is also possible that the people of Tongchang County are not speaking the official language.

Dialect versus dialect; it would be strange if they could understand each other.

If Fang Shi's intelligence had not been enhanced before entering, allowing him to analyze the local language, he would be no better than a deaf person now.

"Fortunately, the atmosphere here is so peculiar; it definitely is not a true ancient era."

"Otherwise, with all these True Persons, I would think I had been reborn back into ancient times."

Fang Shi truly does not understand; the opportunity that was relatively normal before his rebirth, how could various accidents occur now?

The disturbance in the Pure Yang Qi was understandable, being part of the Cultivator's legacy.

Fang Shi had suffered no loss; on the contrary, he had reaped an immense benefit.

But what followed was quite bizarre; Fang Shi now did not know whether he had fallen into an Illusory Realm.

Or had he arrived in a world where the laws were twisted.

Just like the Beast Garden in the Endless Wilderness, where any animal entering it would speak and be filled with wisdom.

Fang Shi hoped it was the first kind; the second kind would be very troublesome.

If it were an Illusory Realm, breaking it would end everything; the second kind would require an Interdimensional Teleportation Spell to leave.

That was a Ninth-Ring Spell; Fang Shi could not handle it.

He planned to leave the county town.

The intelligence gathering was nearly complete; staying any longer would mean facing the highly problematic Great Sacrifice.

Fang Shi did not intend to confront a County Magistrate who very likely possessed Legendary combat power.

He would wander around the county town to see if the countryside mentioned by the residents actually existed.

After all, cities in any era require supplies from the countryside to sustain them.

This would allow him to further confirm the situation in this bizarre land.