Chapter 166: Magic Tricks, Wizards and Strange People (Six Thousand Monthly Ticket Addition)

A slightly familiar Hu partner, with a darker skin tone, Qian Chen thought he was a Kunlun slave from Persia and Food at first glance!

He is now performing the art of swallowing fire. He put a piece of burning charcoal in his mouth and chewed it, reached out to scoop a piece of firewood with residual fire from the fire pile beside him, opened his mouth and spat, spraying a fierce flame. The fire was scorching, like a blooming lotus, causing bursts of applause from the people around.

There was also a thin boy climbing on a bamboo pole, with several small swords on his back, standing on that thin thread-like silk thread, which was completely powerless. Even if a cat stood on it, it would definitely not stand firm, but the boy walked like flying, throwing up the small swords on his back. The palm-long swords were thrown up several dozen zhang high, and then reached out to catch them.

Soon he increased to two, three, and finally increased to nine small swords.

The sword light intertwined in his hands, but it never fell on him.

The cold-glittering sword blades were continuously thrown up and down, and the two hands intertwined. Suddenly, the boy threw his hand, and the sword light tore through the night sky, stabbing towards a slightly older boy below. The boy shook his head and bit the sword with his teeth. On the thin rope, the sword light shone, and the two boys threw the flying swords to each other, until they manipulated nine swords at the same time, letting the sword light shuttle between the two.

This kind of trick is called flying sword jumping pill, which is the prototype of the sword cultivator's flying sword technique.

These boys, although their true Qi is shallow, have already initially been able to control the sword with Qi, like throwing hidden weapons, manipulating the coming and going of flying swords.

There is also the performance of rushing through the narrow, a big man borrowed two sharp horizontal knives from the Great Tang soldiers beside him, clamped the horizontal knives between two wooden boards, only exposing a palm-wide gap between the two knife edges, and picked up a chicken feather that flew from the cockfighting beside him, and lightly drew it on the knife edge. Immediately, the chicken feather flew and broke into two halves.

The big man took a few steps back, and suddenly rushed towards the knife edge.

Amidst the screams of the crowd, he suddenly passed through the palm-sized knife edge and jumped behind the wooden board unscathed. Qian Chen saw it clearly. This person pinched a magic formula of escape, and when he rushed to the knife edge, his body shrank several times. He passed through the gap extremely agilely.

The soldiers watching on the side were dissatisfied: "This narrow passage is too wide! I have seen people who can pass through a narrow gap as big as a finger."

After saying that, he was about to come up to adjust the knife edge, shrinking the blade edge by half again, only three fingers wide.

The big man was pale with fright, hurriedly waved his hand and said: "Military master, no, military master, no! Little one's skill is not refined, and there is still a head that cannot change... This is really impossible to rush through."

The small school smiled: "Others can rush through, but you can't?"

The big man was helpless, so he had to go to the old man beside him to ask for a knife-edge talisman, stick this talisman on his body, even if he was cut into two pieces, as long as he pulled the talisman paper, he could heal the knife wound.

This kind of talisman is a kind of illusion, used to deceive the blade edge, pretending that the person has been cut.

As long as the illusion is withdrawn, the person will naturally be safe. Like wall-passing techniques and invisibility techniques, they are all applications of illusion. The old man beside him is a trickster, often using this talisman to cut people into two pieces and then put them together.

It is easy to deceive the dead, but difficult to deceive the living, so it cannot prevent people from coming to slash.

Even if it is cultivated to the point of deceiving foolish men and women, it only needs to be pressed before the gods, and ask for a magic knife to be beheaded. No knife-edge talisman will work.

The beheading blades used by the executioners of the Great Tang were all magic blades consecrated before the government gods, specifically to prevent anyone from faking death to escape.

Qian Chen saw that his head was indeed difficult to change, and could only shrink a little flat. I am afraid that his head would be cut off later. Those soldiers didn't know the severity. Can the knife-edge talisman prevent ordinary blades, and can it prevent horizontal knives engraved with divine spells? The team of soldiers only thought that the big man wouldn't perform if he didn't have the ability, and the big man thought that if the performance failed, he could pull off the knife-edge talisman and recover from the knife wound.

Unexpectedly, this time he borrowed two standard horizontal knives from the military.

Under the coincidence of both sides, it looked like there was going to be a life at stake in this performance.

When the big man jumped towards the knife edge, he still pinched the escape formula. At this time, he looked like a long, thin "noodle" being pressed flat, but his head could never be pressed small. Seeing that his head couldn't pass, he was about to be cut off by the horizontal knife.

The big man closed his eyes and thought secretly: "This time I'm going to make a fool of myself!"

At this time, the gap between the knife edges seemed to be pulled open by several points by someone. There was no change in the eyes of others, but if the big man opened his eyes to see, he would find that the two rows of knife edges had been enlarged like door panels.

The big man rushed, and passed through without any feeling.

He touched his head suspiciously, wondering why his head didn't fall off. On the other side, the old man who performed the trick just finished the performance—he jumped into a large vat and drilled out from a small vat, and his body became only one-third of the original size, which was exactly the ratio of the large vat mouth to the small vat.

Jumping back once more, he returned to his original appearance.

After getting the reward, the old man went to find the big man, saw him standing in front of the two horizontal knives, scared out of his wits, and hurriedly grabbed him and said: "How dare you borrow official knives? Official knives are all cast with magic. No magic can deceive them, and no change can be hidden. With one knife down, your head would have fallen off!" 【166-3

The big man was drenched in cold sweat from fear and hurriedly begged for mercy: "Many thanks to you, old man, for saving me. I won't dare do it again next time!"

The old man asked him about the whole story before saying thankfully: "Just now, a master intervened to pull you back and save your life. Otherwise, your head wouldn't have been able to be reattached!"

The big man broke into a cold sweat and hurriedly returned the horizontal blade to the soldier. Upon hearing this, the junior officer spoke sternly: "It was our presumption! We almost harmed someone... You lot aren't allowed to stir up trouble anymore!" He shouted at the soldiers behind him, then took out several dozen copper coins from his person. The other soldiers also chipped in and handed them to the big man, saying: "Take this to calm your nerves! We don't know which master intervened to save your life."

But Qian Chen had long since walked away to watch the excitement elsewhere.

A Hu person wearing a black robe with tattooed facial markings, likely a shaman from a nearby Qiang tribe, left the narrow performance area with an old Qiang man. He said in the Qiang language: "That Han person also possesses strange arts, yet he can only sell his skills in this arena and gain no wealth. Could it be that even after we cultivate magic arts, we can only herd sheep in the mountains, eating sour, spoiled cheese and old mutton without salt?"

The old Qiang man warned him: "Yeli Yuqi, there are countless formidable people among the Tang people. Do not rely on a little magic to dare provoke them."

The young Qiang man said: "We can't afford to provoke the Tang warriors, but can't we afford to provoke those who are rich but have no ability?"

He pointed casually toward Qian Chen, who was dressed a bit better but looked full of wonder amidst the crowd, and said: "Look at that man. His body is frail, and he stares unblinkingly at even the most superficial magic. He is just a rich, mediocre person, yet he can wear silk clothes, carry fine jade pendants, eat roasted mutton, and strap on a sharp precious sword."

"And I have been cultivating magic arts since I was six. I hung upside down naked on cliffs in the wilderness, dismantled my bones to refine them with shamanic medicine, practiced blade techniques every day, and didn't dare touch women while cultivating magic, not even having descendants, and I even blinded one of my own eyes!" He lifted his head, revealing the horrifying scar on his left eye.

"After enduring so much hardship, can I not become a person above others?"

The old Qiang man sighed: "Yeli Yuqi, in the tribe, aren't you already a person above others?"

"But the tribe is poor and the Tang people are wealthy. Yet here among the Tang people, those who have studied strange arts are only fit to perform for others and beg for that little bit of reward? Can't we just take the things of those who have no magic arts as we please?"

The old Qiang man advised: "The Tang people have the Tang people's rules. Their strength is formidable; they only need to send out a team of warriors to slaughter our tribe. And such warriors, they have hundreds of thousands in a single city. In the territory of a powerful tribe, one must follow their rules, otherwise, one will inevitably be slaughtered by them. This is the ancient teaching of our Qiang people."

"Yeli Yuqi, if you do not listen to the teachings of your ancestors, something will definitely happen!"

The young Qiang man had to lower his head, but a flash of defiance flickered in his eyes...

Qian Chen strolled around the night market, thoroughly enjoying the lively atmosphere. Although the various magic arts were superficial, they radiated a vitality absent in his own era. Magic was no longer the exclusive property of aristocratic immortal sects, nor was it the high-and-mighty pure discourse of the Dao, but had integrated into the marketplace, appearing in ordinary alleys.

Those artists who practiced magic arts performed tricks and begged for tips to make a living, possessing a brilliance that deeply attracted Qian Chen.

He turned past this campfire, preparing to pass through a dark tent area to reach another campfire clearing. Suppressed, strange sounds came from a nearby tent. Qian Chen walked on tiptoe, not wanting to disturb them.

Just as he turned past a tent, he saw a black shadow leap in front of him. The black shadow opened its mouth and spat out a puff of cyan smoke, attacking Qian Chen's nose and mouth.

Yeli Yuqi opened his mouth and spat out the medicinal smoke, intoxicating the frail Tang person. He hurriedly reached out to take the jade pendant from the man and put it into his bosom. He also wanted to unstrap the precious sword at the man's waist; the rubies on the scabbard dazzled his eyes.

But he tugged at it, and it didn't budge.

He tugged again and discovered that Qian Chen's right hand was still pressed on the sword. Yeli Yuqi lifted his head in surprise, wanting to see what was going on with this soul-bewitching smoke, and why it hadn't left the Tang person weak in the limbs?

Just as he lifted his head, he saw Qian Chen tilting his head, looking at him strangely.

As if looking at a silly roe deer that had bumped into the muzzle of a gun...

A short while later, Qian Chen clapped his hands and feet and walked out from behind the tent. He put the jade pendant back on his waist, and in his hand, he held a bone Qiang flute. The Qiang flute was of an ancient style, carrying a trace of wild ruggedness. Qian Chen wiped the mouthpiece of the Qiang flute with disdain, washed it with the wine from his gourd, brought it to his lips, and played a desolate and vast tune.

The sound of the Qiang flute echoed over the fences, as if carrying the vastness of the grasslands, causing many people to lift their heads in nostalgia.

Behind Qian Chen, a Qiang man with a soul-lost expression leaned powerlessly against the tent, his limbs limp, like a puppet.