Chapter 298

In Qingyun Xia, the immortal Dao has always been supreme; opera was merely lowbrow entertainment, and no one bothered with its lineage.

Moreover, under heavy taxes and levies, the common folk struggled to survive; for these old performers, passing down their art for three generations was already a blessing from heaven.

Some old performers starved to death; others were beaten to death by tax collectors—nothing unusual.

But fortunately, few among the common people could craft stories, and all forms of opera borrowed from each other, preserving many arias from being lost.

Old Zhao regarded his shadow puppetry as a means of livelihood, knowing only that good performances earned rewards, but he never cared where the stories originated.

Ji You did not obtain the key information, yet he was not disappointed.

If something the immortal sects deliberately concealed could be heard outright in such trivial performances, that would be the real cause for caution.

But since similar details could be heard even in casual arias, it meant the matter of the Night Watchers had not yet reached the point of extinction.

"Master, do you have a standard script you often recite?"

"I do have one—it's in my box."

Old Zhao snapped back to himself and pulled out a chipped wooden box from his set of props.

He opened the lid; inside were several worn, hand-copied manuscripts, clearly aged by many years.

"May I look through them?"

"Of course—Young Master, feel free."

Ji You pulled out some silver coins from his sleeve and handed them to Old Zhao, then had the waiter bring a chair. He sat in the dim backstage of the teahouse and began flipping through the handwritten scripts.

These were the base scripts for Old Zhao's shadow puppet play.

When veteran performers passed on their craft, they first gave their disciples a stack of these scripts to memorize verbatim as their introductory exercise.

They recorded every aria the master had ever performed in his lifetime.

Ji You had no time to listen to every single performance; after all, every tavern and teahouse in Qingyun Xia offered not just opera but also song and dance—completing an entire play would take months.

So whenever he heard something noteworthy, he would spend silver to examine the performers' scripts directly, saving time.

He regretted not bringing his cheap brother-in-law along.

If it were Yuanchen, he could stare all night without blinking.

But as Old Zhao said, his shadow puppetry was adapted from the three-string book.

To suit his performance, his scripts had been revised countless times by his ancestors, filled with original segments designed to captivate audiences.

For instance, the aristocratic daughters' favorite: "The Tyrannical Heir Loves Me"; the aristocratic sons' favorite: "My Fate Is Mine, Not Heaven's"—both had been so thoroughly altered they were barely recognizable.

Yet Ji You still found key details: in the several scenes of Old Zhao's puppet play depicting the Great Virtue slaying the demon ghost, the "Great Virtue" was always alone.

In the logic of shadow puppetry, being alone made sense—it was easier to control one puppet.

But the drum ballad Ji You had heard recently also featured a lone hero.

When the same setting appeared across different performance styles, the likelihood of adaptation was minimal.

This was indeed different from what Ji You had originally assumed.

He had always thought the Night Watchers were an organization, secretly selecting suitable prodigies, manipulating them into abandoning the world's pleasures to join their ranks.

But now it seemed the Night Watchers had always been one person.

Immortals lived longer than mortals, yet their lifespan rarely exceeded three or four hundred years; the Night Watcher had passed from generation to generation, but only one existed in each generation.

As for other plot elements, they were too full of embellishment for Ji You to verify; after pondering for a while in the dim backstage, he returned the scripts to the box.

As dusk fell, night slowly descended.

The nearby teahouses and taverns lit up brightly, filled with nobles from various immortal sects.

The owner, seizing the opportunity, switched the performances to the dances and songs preferred by local playboys.

Ji You rose and left the teahouse's backstage, returning to the inn he had stayed at.

After one night's rest, Ji You stepped out of the city under the faint morning light, crossed the forest, and arrived at the next area with denser spiritual energy.

He sat cross-legged, as he had for the past several days, inhaling the spiritual energy and igniting the spiritual flame to refine his body.

When the spiritual energy dwindled, he rose and left, found a teahouse, paid for a performance of the three-string book.

Repeating this cycle, Ji You traveled from the border of Zhongzhou toward the southwest.

"The opportunity to break through is nearly here…"

"Get some spirit stones, find a place to break through."

Ji You murmured to himself and walked to the nearest city, finding a spirit stone shop.

For days he had trained without rest; the constriction around his body had reached its peak, as if a highly elastic barrier encased him, preventing further physical enhancement.

This was the natural limit of mortal flesh—a lock binding the human body.

It meant that after half a year of dawdling since returning from the Sage's Sanctuary, he had finally reached the first threshold of Flesh Beyond Boundaries.

Body refinement and breakthrough were different.

Body refinement could be halted at any time due to insufficient spiritual energy—the worst consequence being the extinguishing of the spiritual flame.

But a breakthrough required shattering the body's limit directly.

If this process were interrupted due to insufficient spiritual energy, the consequences would be severe—possibly even backlash.

Thus, he needed spirit stones to maintain a continuous flow of spiritual energy, increasing the chance of success.

Thanks to his earlier shipment of vast quantities of Snowland demon stones into Jiuzhou, spirit stone prices had returned to their former levels, no longer as exorbitant as during the Xin Yuan era.

He purchased a large quantity of spirit stones, stored them in his storage gourd, and left.

Following the main road south, then turning west, Ji You entered a forest.

He traveled through it, crossed low hills, and finally arrived at a circular, low-lying lake.

The lake was surrounded entirely by mist; in the dew's refraction, it resembled a blue crystal embedded in the earth, its spiritual energy swirling and flowing around its shores.

Ji You stepped to the lakeside and noticed several young cultivators sitting quietly nearby.

As if startled by his footsteps, all of them opened their eyes, turning their gazes toward Ji You, filled with wariness and warning.

Ji You paid no mind, finding a flat spot to sit.

Several minor clans lived nearby; the presence of other cultivators was not unusual.

He smoothed his robes, took out the spirit stones from his gourd, and smashed them one by one, releasing their refined spiritual energy.

Seeing this, the young cultivators by the lake exchanged glances, then rose and moved to the opposite shore.

Ji You had already closed his eyes and entered meditation; thick spiritual energy flowed into him through his breath, and with a thought, the spiritual flame within him roared to life.

Instantly, the intense constriction slammed down upon him, as if he had been plunged into a swamp, his breath growing heavy and labored.

Fortunately, Ji You had prepared mentally; he merely let out a muffled grunt.

He clenched his fists tightly, exerting force continuously, his entire body's qi gathering from every limb and bone, striking repeatedly against the invisible lock.

Boom!

Boom!

Like a divine giant beating a drum, the muffled impacts grew stronger with each heartbeat.

"Uncle, an outsider is cultivating at our Longquan Lake!"

"Who is he?"

"Unknown."

In a mansion not far west of the lake, the men and women who had been meditating by the lake now knelt in the front hall.

This was the ancestral land of the Huai family of Zhongzhou; these youths were all Huai clan members.

Though the Huai family ranked nowhere among the great clans of Qingyun Xia, they were among the larger families in this region.

Longquan Lake did not belong to them, but since surrounding clans were weak and the lake's spiritual density offered little benefit to cultivators above the Fifth Realm—far less than elixirs—major clans had no interest, so the Huai family claimed it as private property.

Now, the Huai clan elder seated on the high seat, a Rong Dao cultivator, frowned darkly upon hearing someone had come uninvited to Longquan Lake.

"What realm is the intruder?"

"Higher than us—we can't confirm, but he looks very young."

At that moment, another middle-aged man entered: "He's the same as me—Tongxuan Realm."

The Huai clan elder frowned: "So young and already Tongxuan? Likely a scion of a prominent clan—but still, coming uninvited is terribly rude."

"What should we do, Elder?"

"Tongxuan is a high-level cultivator—I'll go myself, bring him in, find out which clan he belongs to, and make his family come to apologize and retrieve him."

The white-bearded elder rose from his seat and led the clan youths out the door.

The Huai family was not independent; like the Qiu family, who relied on the He family, they too had a patron clan—so they were not afraid.

Yet as they neared Longquan Lake, they faintly sensed a subtle warmth.

It was still early spring, cold and crisp; the presence of warmth was unmistakable.