Chapter 1062: Evil Youths of Wuling Ride Forth, Spirit-Attuning Dharma Coins Enter the Purse

Evil youths, both Hu and Han, galloped their horses along the Imperial Street, shouting, "Cao Liulang has achieved a First Rank Golden Core! Our usual playmate has now left us all staring at his back in the dust!"

A youth dressed in Hu attire, yet belonging to a Han-surnamed noble family, pointed with his horse whip: "We must find a heavy gift..."

A youth nearby caught sight of Qian Chen leading the Green-Eyed Jade Dragon horse as he headed straight for the East Market with Ning Qingchen. He quietly tugged at his companion's clothes and gestured with his chin: "Little Master Li, look!"

The youth called Little Master Li turned his head to look, then could not pull his gaze away. He sighed: "The Green-Eyed Jade Dragon, a famous horse from beyond the borders!"

He couldn't help but stare a few more times before turning back: "Sun of the Yin Clan, are you stupid? If I had the money to buy such a fine horse, I wouldn't be willing to give it to Cao Liulang! I wouldn't even let my own father touch it with a finger... I wouldn't even need a maid to serve me at night! I'd sleep hugging it!"

Qian Chen, listening from the side, felt his horse had been dirtied!

"My Nineteenth Brother is coming back in a few days; I'll definitely pester him to get me a fine horse..."

The youth blustered and rode off quickly on his horse.

He even deliberately wove through the crowds of people carrying shoulder poles and pushing carts, drawing gasps and showing off his exquisite horsemanship.

Qian Chen watched their group ride by, horses and dogs in tow, shouting and surrounded by followers, and shook his head slightly: "Evil youths of Wuling..."

He pointed toward the East Market: "Ning Ning Shimei, since we've come to Chang'an, never mind the rest; let's eat our way through all the delicacies in the city first."

"It's a pity it's not the season for Fire Crystal Persimmons. Otherwise, these ancient city spirit persimmons—inside they are like a ball of fire, crystal clear and translucent, melting the moment they touch the tongue. The spiritual energy is mild but carries a hint of the brilliant sensation of the Great Sun. Moreover, there are a few ancient trees that have grown since the Immortal Han era; one single persimmon costs several thousand coins!"

Ning Qingchen smiled: "I've eaten them. Huayin isn't too far from Chang'an. When I was young, Father brought me here a few times. I couldn't afford the ones from those ancient trees, but I've eaten the common varieties twice."

"But Yan Yan Shixiong, you were abducted by villains when you were young, so how are you so familiar with Chang'an?"

Qian Chen was just about to open his mouth, but he paused slightly and said after a long time: "I went to university in Xi'an! Oh... it's not the other shore of this life, but rather like a dream or an illusion..."

Ning Qingchen didn't say much more, just quietly turned into a street corner. A moment later, she and Master Feng emerged leading the Bai Lu, and she stuffed a package into Qian Chen's hand.

Qian Chen opened it to see several persimmon cakes covered in white frost.

"No Fire Crystal Persimmons! But these persimmon cakes from last year are still here."

Ning Qingchen was all smiles, while Master Feng poked its head over, eyeing the persimmon cakes in Qian Chen's hand like a tiger.

Qian Chen took a bite; it was indeed soft, sticky, and chewy, with a deep, soaked-in sweetness. Compared to the persimmon cakes in his memory, it had an extra hint of warmth from the sun's essence within the gelatinous texture.

Strictly speaking, it was a supreme rank spirit fruit, worth a bowl of steamed spirit grain rice.

"What kind of money did Ning Ning Shimei use to pay?"

Qian Chen asked while chewing the persimmon cake.

He suddenly remembered that the three Heavenly Masters who held the power to issue currency for the Dao Sect were all in the Southern Jin. He didn't believe that Master Kou of the Northern Wei, alone and isolated, could issue mountains of San Shan Talismans.

"Here!"

Ning Qingchen handed over a copper coin, and Qian Chen took it.

The copper coin, polished smooth by handling, had a heavy texture and carried a hint of the scent of incense and vows. The copper itself was mixed with quite a bit of Purple Haze Copper Essence.

"These coin blanks are all offered before the gods and Buddhas, mostly minted by local temples and Daoist shrines. After being minted, they flow into the human world and circulate in everyone's hands!"

"It is said that if they obtain a trace of humanistic power, they can transform into Spirit-Attuning Dharma Coins, which are excellent materials for casting Buddha statues and magic treasures. Therefore, the imperial court has largely lifted the ban on coinage, ordering many temples to mint them. Before they transform, they are called 'blank coins,' and after flowing into the human world and gradually becoming stained with vows, they become Dharma Coins."

"Of course, there are also those called 'raw coins' and 'cooked coins'!"

"Issuing raw coins requires imperial documents. In Chang'an, only sixty-eight Buddhist and Daoist temples can issue raw coins."

Qian Chen sensed it slightly and found that the vows within the coin were quite pure. Even if offered to gods and Buddhas, they would be considered excellent; they were incense money in the true sense.

"Can ordinary people use this money too?"

Ning Qingchen pondered slightly and smiled: "Yan Yan Shixiong is thinking of the San Shan Talismans used in the Southern Jin overseas, right!"

"Speaking of which, the San Shan Talismans imperial-decreed by the three Heavenly Masters have only been around for these few thousand years."

"In the Immortal Han and Immortal Qin eras, it was always the imperial court that minted money. At that time, the Human Emperor conferred titles upon gods, decreeing that all gods and Fangxian Dao cultivators open major mints to cast Dharma Coins. The Qin 'Half-Ounce' and Han 'Five-Grain' coins were heavy currencies famous for a time!"

"On the contrary, the Southern Jin's way of specifically refining furnace after furnace of spiritless money for the mundane world, causing Spirit-Attuning Dharma Coins to be difficult to produce, is somewhat strange."

It is not strange.

The Earth Immortal Realm has an extremely high essence; ordinary gold, silver, and copper mines are all mixed with spiritual materials.

Ordinary gold and silver contain a trace of the Great Sun Jin Jing and the essence of the Taiyin Yin Soul, but there is too little of it; one must have mountains of gold and silver to refine even a trace.

However, using the art of yellow and white, it is not difficult to smelt Flaming Sun Jin Jing and Bright Moon Frost Silver.

In high-quality copper mines, the content of Purple Haze Copper Essence is not low; compared to pure copper, it is about five or six parts per ten thousand.

Although the Northern Wei also smelts copper ore once to extract spiritual materials, the remaining one part per ten thousand is extremely difficult to extract and is also cast into the coins.

They even deliberately leave some behind so that it can sense the vows of the living people and transform into Spirit-Attuning Dharma Coins.

The imperial court controls taxation and constantly recovers the copper coins of the world.

There are also specialized Pixiu treasures to pick out the Spirit-Attuning Dharma Coins from within; the profit gained is only higher, not lower, than minting coins and smelting copper.

In order to nurture Spirit-Attuning Dharma Coins with the vows of the ten thousand people, these copper coins naturally have to circulate in the hands of the common people. Strictly speaking, the currency used by loose cultivators and the mundane world in the Earth Immortal Realm is the same; even ordinary people can earn and spend Dharma Coins, and there is no barrier to trade with ordinary cultivators!

Even during the Immortal Qin era, although it couldn't be called universal cultivation, most mundane people were guided in Qi Refinement, and their cultivation was not inferior to today's loose cultivators.

As for higher-level spiritual objects, this was to prevent great cultivators from draining the mundane world.

The Immortal Qin already had the Luo Tian Immortal Realm and the Dharma Spirit Authority, possessing concepts close to credit currency.

The Immortal Han used Flaming Sun Jin Jing and Bright Moon Frost Silver as high-grade currency, and there were also Bai Lu Skin Coins, one sheet worth a thousand gold.

But by the time it reached the Southern Jin, the heavens and earth were already severed.

The Yuanshi Dao Academy specifically built furnaces to refine spiritless copper coins. Even if the vows could still transform them into Dharma Coins, they were extremely crude, ensuring that cultivators could not obtain even a shred of resources from the hands of the common people.

And the currency circulating in the mundane world no longer had any meaning to cultivators...

In the past, Daoist Zhen refined a copper coin sword, which cost thousands of transformed Spirit-Attuning Coins. But if sold to the Northern Wei to exchange for the Spirit-Attuning blank coins in the hands of Chang'an commoners, it probably wouldn't sell for thousands of coins.

If exchanged for the fully transformed Spirit-Attuning Dharma Coins of the Northern Wei, it wouldn't even exchange for ten large coins!

These thousands of Spirit-Attuning Coins were all originally capable of transforming into Spirit-Attuning Dharma Coins.

This is the man-made severing of heaven and earth.

But Qian Chen also understood the Yuanshi Dao's thinking.

The so-called Yuanshi governance of the world is supervision and balancing the divine path.

The essence of the San Shan Talismans is the corvée labor imposed by the Yuanshi Dao upon the divine path. Its value condenses the "labor" of the gods; it is a genuine labor theory of value!

The brilliance of it is such that even Qian Chen, upon arriving, had to give a thumbs up.

The Dao Sect printing San Shan Talismans was originally intended to tax the gods... collecting taxes from the gods themselves.

It must be said that the Yuanshi Dao, relying on the support of the Dao Ancestor and the two great spiritual treasures—the Investiture of the Gods and the God-Beating Whip—is truly hard-headed!

And the Northern Wei's current method of minting money is a "tax farming system."

The imperial court contracts the faith and spiritual sentiments of the world to various temples and Daoist shrines, minting blank coins through them, then circulating them in the human world to absorb the vows of all living beings and transform them into Dharma Coins.

They collect an "faith tax" from the human world, and then the imperial court, the temples, and the gods each take their share, carving up the faith of the world.

After all, wanting the common people of the world to entrust their spiritual sentiments to gods and Buddhas is too difficult!

But wanting them to entrust their sentiments to money—that is too simple!

By comparison, the Dao Academy pours the faith and spiritual sentiments of the world into the Dao Sect, concentrating power in one place, restraining the gods of the world, and abolishing licentious and evil sacrifices, so that the wisdom, courage, integrity, and benevolence of the people of the world are not wasted on gods and Buddhas.

This also accords with the Great Wish of the Supreme!

But the good scriptures, once they reached the mouths of the Southern Jin noble families in power, were twisted out of shape!

The faith and spiritual sentiments of the world are indeed collected by the Dao Academy and not carved up by the gods.

But they also forcibly created the severing of heaven and earth, making it so that the mundane commoners and the loose cultivators of the world cannot scrape a single bit of resources from the human world. It is an extremely clever technique of impoverishing, trapping, and exhausting the people.

The population is all circled within the noble families' manors; they don't even use money anymore!

The upper classes use the Dao Academy to carve up the wealth of the world.

And the three Heavenly Masters also constantly use the printing of money to gather the spiritual materials and resources of the Southern Jin overseas into the Dao Sect.

Speaking of which, he even feels a bit guilty; Qian Chen himself is also a vested interest holder.

In the past, the San Shan Talismans printed by the overseas Dao Sect crushed the spirit jade mined by overseas immortal sects, the spirit pearls produced by the Dragon Clan's shell farms, and the vow money and incense money of the Buddhist sects, all relying on the concerted efforts of the Dao Sect.

How many people did Shaoqing kill?

First, in the name of environmental protection, they banned the mining of spirit jade.

Then they threatened the Dragon Clan, telling them to guard the wealth of the Hong Hong Sihai well, lest the Dao Sect turn its back and strip the Dragon Clan of their position as Lords of the Hong Hong Sihai.

Finally, they struck from the shadows, nearly wiping out the overseas Buddhist sects.

They made the remaining Buddhist sects like Mount Luojia change color at the mention of San Shan Talismans, never daring to mention incense money again!

"The seniors of the Dao Sect are conservative and not very progressive in many things, but in the matter of the San Shan Talismans, they are too progressive, even somewhat radical! I estimate it's also because the Human Emperor Immortal Dynasty suppressed them too severely in the past, making them realize early on what monetary sovereignty is!"

"The concepts and systems of the San Shan Talismans are very advanced; they can be called a model of controlling gods with humans and governing the world with the Dao."

"It's a pity they encountered the Southern Jin, just like paper money encountering a garbage regime..."

"Do you know what 'Great Unification Treasure Notes' are!"

Qian Chen wrung his hands and sighed.

Speaking of which, it's still the Supreme's fault. Clearly, it is the Dao Sect governing the world, the Yuanshi governing the world, but the Supreme Dao Ancestor, because of conceptual problems and also because of his position—he is the genuine leader of the Human Sect.

He raised the position of the Human Emperor to a level comparable to the Heavenly Emperor.

Thus, the Emperor Dao Fruit and the Human Emperor's karma position can confer titles upon all the gods of the world, no less than the Heavenly Emperor and the Investiture of the Gods, causing a de facto tripartite division of divine power—the Heavenly Court, the Dao Sect, and the Human Emperor!

And the three great divine dynasties adopted the Daoist tradition of the unity of heaven and humanity.

The Heavenly Emperor and the Human Emperor are one family, ruling the Heavenly Realm and the Earth Immortal Realm, while the Dao Sect supervises from the side, which also ensured the stability of the divine path.

It wasn't until the Immortal Qin Qin Qin Shi Huang was born, offending heaven with humanity, that the divine path of the Earth Immortal Realm formally split. The Immortal Qin relied on its ability to completely suppress the divine path of the Earth Immortal Realm, and the Luo Tian Immortal Realm became the de facto divine realm of the Earth Immortal Realm.

The Qin Qin Shi Huang became the de facto Heavenly Emperor of the Earth Immortal Realm.

But by the time of the Immortal Han, the suppressed contradictions began to sprout. The fall of the Immortal Han had a direct relationship with the divine path's rebellion and the offense between heaven and humanity.

The Yellow Turban Uprising of the Taiping Dao, in a sense, was an attempt to reshape the divine path and establish a terrestrial Daoist state of the unity of heaven and humanity.

These various contradictions can be said to have been planted by the Supreme Dao Ancestor himself.

His Primordial Spirit Dao Fruit, which prioritizes the concept of the True Person.

His status as the leader of the Human Sect and the current situation of harmonizing with the Dao to establish a new heaven.

His feat of not abandoning sentient beings and staining heaven with humanity.

All led to the primary contradiction of the entire cosmos—the offense between heaven and humanity.

The Great Dao is like a god, operating the sun and moon, combing through all laws.

The old heaven's sun and moon were heartless, gods ruled humans, and the Heavenly Emperor had virtue and power, dominating the fate of all living beings.

But the Supreme saw that the living beings of the old heaven were like ants, gods offending the human path, and he defiantly inherited the legacy of the five ancient emperors, defying heaven!

Now that a new heaven has been opened, in order to prevent the gods and Dao Ancestors of the new heaven from falling into the indifferent and heartless state of the old heaven.

The Supreme Dao Ancestor refined the Primordial Spirit Dao Fruit to protect all living beings and protect the humanity of all "humans."

But if the sun and moon have feelings, heaven and earth have consciousness, and gods and Dao Ancestors all have love, hate, and choices, then it is inevitable that they will also fight endlessly, just like in the human world.

This is the offense between heaven and humanity!

Therefore, there must also be someone to protect the divine path and protect the justice of the Heavenly Dao.

That person is—the Yuanshi Dao Ancestor!

Qian Chen even knows which spiritual treasure the Yuanshi Dao Ancestor uses to maintain the divine path and balance heaven and humanity.

I'm talking about you—the Investiture of the Gods!

Currently, the Yuanshi Dao Ancestor is doing not bad. Although the offense between heaven and humanity has caused the Earth Immortal Realm's calamities to stretch on, the Heavenly Realm has at least maintained stability; the various Dao Ancestors have not taken direct action, and the many Dao Lords have not launched large-scale attacks.

But as the Earth Immortal Realm where the offense between heaven and humanity is most intense and calamities have stretched on for tens of thousands of years.

How could there be no reflection and action?

The Taiping Dao!

The San Shan Talismans!

The Dao Academy!

Great Unification!

But how to return to the unity of heaven and humanity—is it to establish a new heaven again, or to rule humans with heaven, or for both to retreat and each occupy their own position?

Even the three Heavenly Masters—Zhang, Sun, and Tao—have different opinions themselves.

In Qian Chen's view, the clues to the eternal demonic calamity of the Earth Immortal Realm have one cause originating from this!

Through the hole in the copper coin in his hand, Qian Chen caught a glimpse of so much.

He flipped his hand to store the copper coin in his palm, turned his head, and smiled at Ning Qingchen: "The two dynasties, North and South, are bound to have a war just for this money! The Buddhist sects, in order to contend with my Dao Sect, have tried their best to interfere with the power of minting money. Originally, hindered by my status, I wanted to take the time to clean up these northern temples, but now that they are so deeply entangled with the human path, I find it difficult to act!"

Ning Qingchen smiled: "If Yan Yan Shixiong Yan heard this, I'm afraid he would rush over from overseas immediately..."

"Yan Yan Shixiong Yan also has a fiery temper... Overseas was once the front line of the contention between Dao and Buddha, and the enmity between Shaoqing and the Buddhist sects is extremely deep, unlike the Northern Wei, which has a trend of the three teachings becoming one."

He raised his head, looked at the cooking smoke nearby, pulled Ning Ning Shimei Ning, and said: "Let's go! Besides persimmons, the local mutton is also not bad!"

Ning Qingchen also nodded and said excitedly: "That's right! The Dragon Herding Office has more than ten large pastures in Guanzhong, grazing nearly a million large cold-weather sheep, most of which are supplied to Chang'an... The Imperial Palace uses over a hundred sheep every day!"

"In the past, the Dragon Herding Office would come to my home every year to collect sheep in autumn and sell them in spring. Counting the wool and skin, nearly half of the sheep were raised for them."

"When I was little, I was most afraid of them coming! Every time they came, several of our snow-white little lambs would be missing. At that time, I would even secretly hide in the sheepfold and cry!"

Qian Chen said indignantly: "That's too much!"

"They didn't even share a bite with Ning Ning Shimei..."

"Yan Yan Shixiong!"

"Is it fragrant?"

Ning Qingchen hesitated, her eyebrows knitted together, but in the end, she couldn't help but beam and smile: "Fragrant!"

"Eating while crying is what makes it fragrant..."

The East Market was bustling with carriages and horses, with countless shops and taverns lining the streets, and even more peddlers and laborers on the roadside! As soon as the two stepped into it, they were drowned out by the endless cries of hawkers.

Qian Chen followed his nose, found a tavern, and led his Ning Ning Shimei inside.

It was a small two-story shop facing the street. It was very crowded, and they waited a while before a table was cleared. A large basin of mutton was brought up, the oil soup clear, sprinkled with a handful of green onions, the fragrance hitting them in the face.

Large chunks of mutton were simply chopped open, served skin-on in a full basin.

Ning Qingchen picked up a piece, stuffed it into her mouth, and nodded: "Hmm! It's Star Sea cold-weather sheep, a fine breed from the Sea Child Continent in the Western Regions. Only the pastures in Tianshui raise them. They should have been supplied directly to the palace, but the Dragon Herding Office secretly sold them out again!"

Qian Chen calculated with his fingers: "The price of this one sheep is worth several dou of Purple Pattern Dragon Tooth Rice!"

"Even a small shop like this can afford it. The consumption level of the Chang'an workshop residents is stronger than the Qi-refining loose cultivators in the Wuling market! Chang'an is worthy of being Chang'an; earning Dharma Coins and spending Dharma Coins, it is truly not easy to live here!"

In the small shop, don't look at it as just an inconspicuous one facing the street,

But sitting inside, besides the Imperial Guards who were robust but not condensed, loose and sloppy, there were merchants from all directions, foreigners from the Western Regions, and even loose cultivators entering the city.

Their cultivation was really not bad!

The two ate heartily, listening to the hawking sounds beside their ears...

"Western Region spices, Western Region spices..."

"Fine jade from Khotan! Naturally formed in the shape of a phoenix, it is a divine jade stained with phoenix blood! In the past, when the Immortal Qin marched west, they conquered the countries of the Queen Mother of the West in Khotan. In one battle, they slaughtered countless phoenix species, and the blood fell onto the jade produced in this place, only then forming such a supreme treasure. It is one of the seven great divine jades in the universe! You don't want this? Mysterious Yellow Ancient Jade, Mysterious Yellow Ancient Jade..."

"Take a look at the Primordial Divine Jade!"

"What about the Longevity Treasure Jade?"

"I have all seven great divine jades here... they are all genuine products produced in the Khotan Kingdom!"

"What do you mean mine doesn't reach the quality of divine jade?"

The customer below shouted: "This Mysterious Yellow Divine Jade of yours is at best the grade of Earth Yellow Ancient Jade. And this Phoenix Blood Divine Jade—not long ago, a genuine one appeared at the overseas Jiazi Sea Market. The five-colored Qi rushed to the stars, so magnificent one could not look directly at it!"

"A genuine one, besides the phoenix blood falling, must also be nurtured in a jade mountain for a million years."

"It has been a million years since the Immortal Qin! But this of yours doesn't reach the level of jade mountain nurturing either. It should be Phoenix Blood Ancient Jade that came with the genuine product! And the phoenix species that shed the blood, its bloodline is not very pure either. I estimate it's not a Blue Luan, but some kind of spirit bird of the phoenix species..."

"Alright, alright... I'll sell it to you for three thousand strings!"

"One thousand strings. If it were genuine Phoenix Blood Divine Jade, forty thousand strings would be worth it, but this of yours is at most one thousand..."

?? Making up for yesterday's update; there will be another chapter later.

? (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 1063 =====