Chapter 89: Ink Painting, Tongchang County

(PS: The previous chapter was heavily revised, adding over 2,000 words.)

Fang Shi was startled and uncertain—how could sunlight reach him when he was clearly buried underground?

Could someone outside be casting a powerful light spell?

But that didn’t make sense—his profound intuition had detected no trace of magical energy.

Fang Shi’s mind shifted, and a wisp of fluctuation spilled from his brow.

This was his spiritual sense; the earlier misty little sword had merely been its particulate state.

In particulate form, spiritual sense could attack a living being’s soul.

Creatures with fragile souls would die instantly, becoming vegetative.

Even those with strong souls would suffer soul damage and be hindered in their actions.

Of course, spear and shield are relative.

When a Qi Refiner’s spiritual sense encounters a stronger soul, it suffers backlash.

The caster suffers soul injury.

Thus, under normal circumstances, Qi Refiners rarely use soul attacks.

They more often employ spiritual sense in its wave state.

In wave state, spiritual sense can replace the senses, receiving information from the surroundings.

Including touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing, and intuition.

This meant Fang Shi released his wave-state spiritual sense and made contact with the soil.

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

He could also sense the spiritual energy changes within it.

This was unbearable for ordinary people—normal objects were tolerable.

But filthy, repulsive things—how could mortals endure them?

Yet transcenders could—or rather, those seeking to advance on the path of transcendence must.

Without fearless spirit, without unwavering will.

Merely the transformation of transcendence was enough to shatter a mortal’s mind.

In later stages, a single sweep of spiritual sense rendered all phenomena as clear as patterns on one’s palm, all things known within the heart.

Hence Daoists speak of non-action, Buddhists speak of equality.

Both reflect the inner transformation required for transcendence.

Fang Shi’s current spiritual sense value was five, so his detection range was five meters.

Detection precision equaled perception intensity.

This did not mean spiritual sense could not perceive objects beyond five meters.

But beyond that range, precision plummeted drastically.

Like nearsightedness.

Fang Shi now exploited this trait to observe the outside of the cave entrance.

Upon observation, Fang Shi froze.

The environment outside had changed drastically, somehow.

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

The only difference: this city was no longer underground—it now lay on the surface.

The sun hung high, its scorching light warping the air above the ground.

How could this be!

Leaving aside the fact that he had entered at night.

How could an underground city suddenly appear on the surface without cause?

A massive-range teleportation spell?

But how could such a being exist on Blue Star now?

Moreover, before his rebirth, no such anomalies had occurred.

Was this another alteration brought by his rebirth?

After observing the situation, Fang Shi hesitated no longer—he scrambled out of the tunnel in a few quick motions.

No matter what, he had to get out and find out what was happening.

When Fang Shi finally stepped outside, he froze again.

As mentioned earlier, spiritual sense was convenient but limited.

Objects beyond its range suffered a cliff-like drop in precision.

When Fang Shi stepped out and saw the sun with his own eyes,

He discovered the sun resembled an ink painting, delicately placed against the sky.

Its style was utterly different from a real sun.

A painting?

Could this be some kind of environmental spell?

Suddenly, Fang Shi’s eyes narrowed—he spun around sharply.

The statue behind him had also transformed into ink-painting style.

Its cheerful expression now looked more lively, even more absurd.

A faint divine glow seemed to flicker, mocking Fang Shi’s foolishness.

BOOM!

Fang Shi slashed his sword straight at the statue.

This wasn’t just to vent anger—it was a test of this world.

These statues weren’t special; before his rebirth, they’d all been torn down with no unusual effects.

A gust surged again—but it unfolded like a painting, threads of ink forming wisps of smoke.

CRASH!

The statue split cleanly in two, then exploded into fragments under the supersonic shockwave.

Its internal structure, too, resembled ink painting—simple, clear, sharply layered.

Fang Shi refused to believe it—he kept cutting the statue into finer pieces.

No matter how finely he divided it, the painting style never changed.

Moreover, as time passed, the surrounding environment began shifting into the same style.

Even Fang Shi himself began transforming.

His Dragon Earth Sword, his clothes, his arms—even his entire body—became figures within the painting.

“Damn it! Is this physical transformation—or perceptual distortion?”

“I haven’t even figured out the underground palace’s changes, and now this bizarre phenomenon?”

The surroundings, the objects—turned into a traditional Chinese ink painting, they were exquisite and beautiful.

Vital and lively, simple brushstrokes conjured rich, exquisite atmospheres.

But in reality, they were horrifying.

“No good—I must go into the city. I refuse to believe even that legendary Golden Corpse has changed.”

Fang Shi didn’t care about mere visual alterations—he feared the consequences such changes might trigger.

Was the purpose of this change simple?

Unlikely. And this transformation coincided precisely with the underground city’s relocation.

It raised suspicion: a hidden connection between the two.

…

Not far along, Fang Shi saw a person.

A man fishing beside the moat, wearing a bamboo hat and a straw raincoat, a bamboo basket beside him.

His painting style matched the environment—like colored ink painting.

Fang Shi walked up beside the fisherman and peered down.

The coffin in the river had vanished entirely; instead, fish swam and played within it.

“Old man, where is this place?”

The fisherman was an old man, his face creased with wrinkles, sharply defined by ink lines.

Hearing Fang Shi, the old man did not answer—he stared at Fang Shi with a strange look.

After a moment, he murmured softly: “Young man, you’re not from around here, are you?”

To be honest, Fang Shi didn’t fully understand—the old man’s speech was strange.

But it was clearly a Han-language dialect.

Only the accent and intonation differed greatly, like regional dialects.

Seeing Fang Shi remain silent, the old man added: “Young man, this is Tongchang County.”

“If you have no business here, leave quickly—the grand sacrifice is coming soon. Outsiders aren’t welcome.”

Fang Shi’s expression didn’t change; even if he didn’t understand the words, his perception sensed the old man’s emotions—distance and warning.

More importantly, the old man was perfectly at ease with the ink-painting scene, seeing nothing wrong with it.

“Old man, tell me more.”

The old man didn’t understand what Fang Shi was saying and growled impatiently, “Leave quickly, you’re scaring away the fish.”

Fang Shi sensed the old man’s impatience and silently walked away.

After the Dantian was opened, his spiritual platform became clear and his wisdom sharp.

Just a few simple phrases triggered rapid collisions of thoughts in his mind like lightning.

Fang Shi began to grasp the old man’s language.

After all, it belonged to the Sino-Tibetan language family; with careful study, Fang Shi could still understand the meaning.

But to fully comprehend it, he would need large-scale statistical analysis.

Thus, Fang Shi hoped the old man would speak more.

But even if he didn’t, Fang Shi had already noticed soldiers patrolling the city walls.

He believed the city’s population was certainly large.

Ancient cities were actually small; a few square kilometers constituted a city.

Yet that didn’t mean few people lived there—houses stood densely packed along streets paved with blue stone.

The streets were narrow, the buildings so tightly clustered they would make modern urban planners blush.

Fortunately, the main road Fang Shi walked was relatively wide.

Street vendors hawking their wares and the constant flow of pedestrians became Fang Shi’s subjects for study.

The townspeople saw Fang Shi’s strange attire, his loose hair, his long sword at his waist, and his long bow slung across his back.

Clearly not from an ordinary family, they all kept their distance.

Even the guards at the city gate dared not stop him.

Not to mention the sword and bow—just his finely crafted clothing was beyond what a common family could afford.

He was unquestionably of noble rank.

That was why Fang Shi could stroll freely through the streets.

Especially since he deliberately walked down the center of the road.

That was a position reserved for nobles alone.

For a commoner to walk there would be a grave taboo.

…

“Business has been too good lately—the County Magistrate plans to hold a grand sacrifice.”

“All the supplies needed are so vast, even the county’s wealthiest merchants can’t handle it alone.”

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

“Saying they need fresh garments to wear during the spirit sacrifice.”

Another man shouted, “You’re foolish! How dare you take this business? It’s not that the wealthy merchants don’t want to monopolize it.”

“It’s because the yamen’s treasury is empty—they can’t pay a single coin.”

“During past sacrifices, the wealthy merchants were all cheated. Now none are willing to contribute.”

“That’s why this ‘good fortune’ fell to you!”

“Oh no!” the first man panicked. “What do I do? I bought cloth on credit—I won’t be able to pay back, and they won’t let me off!”

“What can you do? Just accept your bad luck. Do you dare defy the County Magistrate?”

“We artisans have no land in the countryside—we survive solely by our skills.”

“If you anger the Magistrate, and he sends men to block your door every day, will you still do business?”

Then came a chorus of sighs and groans.

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

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

he could easily hear every sound within.

After wandering for two hours, Fang Shi finally managed to barely understand the locals’ speech.

But throughout his listening, two words kept recurring.

Grand Sacrifice!

This was the term Fang Shi first heard from the fisherman by the river.

It was repeatedly mentioned by townspeople.

It meant the County Magistrate was preparing another ritual.

Under the guise of procurement, he was forcibly seizing supplies, causing widespread resentment.

Especially in past sacrifices, when the Magistrate had no money, he simply imposed taxes.

He collected the money and used it for the sacrifice.

Later, he stopped even collecting taxes—instead, he demanded supplies from the rich under the pretense of donations.

Now, even the rich had no surplus left, so he turned to lower classes for money.

This was utterly absurd!

The purpose of a sacrifice was to stabilize the people’s hearts and ensure steady production.

Yet Tongchang’s Magistrate turned everything into chaos, imposing heavy levies without restraint.

Fang Shi had reason to suspect the sacrifice was merely an excuse.

Was the Tongchang Magistrate trying to make a fortune off it?

Of course, given the bizarre nature of this place,

at the city’s center—the yamen—lay a Golden Corpse.

This sacrifice might indeed be real.

But something was odd: the sacrifice was not dedicated to the Ten Thousand Gods near Tongchang.

It was dedicated to a being called Hong Zhen Da Miao Ci Hui Tian Zun.

And His statue was not kept in any temple, but illogically placed inside the yamen.

This behavior was extremely strange, utterly violating ritual propriety.

Fang Shi had overheard several Confucian scholars expressing discontent.

But in Tongchang County, the Magistrate was the supreme heaven.

The “Lord of a Hundred Li” was no joke—especially in the Wei-Jin era, local officials were controlled by regional aristocratic clans.

The Magistrate’s family was the most powerful clan in the region.

He was also the clan patriarch, the one with the greatest power—his word was absolute authority.

The Jin Emperor’s orders were less effective here than the Magistrate’s.

Correct—Fang Shi had clearly overheard.

The townspeople here lived in the Jin Dynasty period; whether Eastern or Western Jin, those were later terms.

In short, this was not modern times—no wonder the accent was so strange.

Modern Mandarin was then merely a local dialect; others not understanding it was normal.

But perhaps the people of Tongchang weren’t even speaking the official language.

Dialect to dialect—how could anyone understand?

Had Fang Shi not gained an intelligence boost before entering, and analyzed the local speech, he’d be as deaf as a stone.

“Good thing the setting here is so bizarre—it’s definitely not real antiquity.”

“Otherwise, if everyone were real people, I’d think I’d been reborn into ancient times again.”

Fang Shi truly didn’t understand: his original rebirth had seemed normal, yet now all sorts of anomalies had occurred.

The changes at the Pure Yang Qi site were understandable—it was a Qi Refining lineage.

Fang Shi had gained immensely, suffered no loss.

But what followed was deeply strange—he no longer knew whether he was trapped in an illusion

or had entered a realm where reality itself was twisted.

Like the Infinite Wilderness’s Ten Thousand Beasts Garden—any creature entering would speak and possess wisdom.

Fang Shi hoped it was the first case; the second would be a nightmare.

An illusion could be broken and ended—but the second required an interdimensional teleportation spell.

That was a ninth-tier spell—he couldn’t possibly handle it.

He planned to leave the county.

He’d gathered enough intelligence; staying longer meant facing the suspicious Grand Sacrifice.

Fang Shi had no intention of confronting a County Magistrate who might possess legendary combat power.

He would tour the outskirts of the county, to see if the countryside the locals spoke of actually existed.

After all, every city in every era needed rural resources to sustain itself.

This would further confirm the nature of this strange land.