Chapter 66: My First Look at the Heavenly Rift

The next day, there was no difference.

Chu Xun has already sent people to count the number of scarecrows in the city, and all the families have started to pack some of their pathetic bundles, so that after tonight, they can leave the city in order to seek refuge in Putuo Mountain in the morning under Chu Xun's arrangement.

Mo Ran sighed as he sat at the entrance of the government office, watching the crowds of people moving around, "Chu Xun is so well set up that if no one had tipped them off, it would have been difficult for an ordinary ghost's mind to quickly identify the puppet dummies left in the city. It seems that someone has indeed leaked the information. What do you think, Brother?"

No takers.

"Hey Master."

When Mo Ran turned his head, his younger brother had gone off to watch a line of cavalrymen, but it was Master Chu's son who had come to sit beside him with his cheeks resting on his head.

"Big brother."

Mo Ran was taken aback by his sudden appearance, "What's wrong?"

The little one pointed to an old tung tree with a kite hanging on it and said, "Mother left it for me. Help me, big brother."

"Yes, yes, yes." Mo Ran flew up to the top of the tree, took the Butterfly kite off, and then landed firmly on the ground, handing it to him, smiling, "Take it well, don't lose it again."

The little one nodded ignorantly.

Mo Ran saw him wandering around by himself, thinking that Chu Xun had no time for his son, so he asked him, "Where is your mother? It's so crowded here, I'll take you to your mother's place."

" Mother Mother in the back of the hill."

Mo Ran wondered, "What are you doing in the back of the hill?"

"Sleep." The little one opened her round eyes and said softly, " Mother sleeps there all the time. It blooms in the spring, and Daddy used to take me to see her."

Mo Ran let out a soft "ahh" and was speechless for a moment.

The little one did not care, as if he was too young to understand life and death, and was happily fiddling with the kite in his hand.

As he said this, he dug into his coat pocket and pulled out a small piece of cake wrapped in a reed leaf.

All the people of Lin'an were hungry these days and could not get enough to eat, so I don't know how this little thing managed to save such a snack. He bent the cake in half, keeping the big one and handing the small one to Mo Ran.

"Big brother, you eat hush, don't tell anyone, I don't have any more."

Mo Ran was just about to reach for it when the little one suddenly changed his mind, thought better of it, took the smaller piece back and handed him the larger one.

"Delicious, with bean paste."

He was used to being treated badly, but didn't know how to react to the sudden kindness. He reached out to take the flower cake and thanked him in silence. The little man looked pleased by this, smiling brightly up at him, his dark lashes curling and warm.

Mo Ran took the flower cake and did not want to eat it, so he went to the side and picked a tung leaf, wrapped it up and put it in his lapel. He was about to say a few words to the little one, but after all, children are children and cannot stay in one place for long, so they turned around and ran away.

At that moment Chu Wanning approached and, seeing Mo Ran standing still, raised his eyebrows slightly and asked, "What's wrong?"

Mo Ran looked at the little one's distant back and sighed, "I wondered how all those people died for a good reason."

It was night and the sky was cloudy, with occasional blue and purple thunder and lightning tearing through the sky. Towards the latter part of the night, the wind was howling and mournful, and a torrential rainstorm rushed in.

Rain is Yin, which makes ghosts and spirits more powerful. On that night, Chu Xun told all the survivors of Lin'an to gather near the Tai Shou House and not to set foot outside the Shangqing boundary.

Due to the heavy rainfall, many places where people could barely sleep were rendered useless.

Mo Ran was able to keep an eye on Xiaoman at first, but as more and more people crowded in to escape the rain, Xiaoman disappeared without notice.

Mo Ran whispered, "Not good."

Chu Wanning, who is small in stature, immediately said, "I'll go after them and see."

He dived into the crowd and was immediately lost to view by the dense crowd of shoulders.

After a while, Chu Wanning returned, his eyes beady and cold, "Escaped."

"Out of the knot."

"Hmm."

Mo Ran stopped talking and looked outside at the pouring rain and the busy people of the Imperial Household in the rain.

These are but visions of two hundred years ago, and everything is now a fait accompli.

The women and children around them all look hopeful, thinking that at dawn Chu Xun will take them away from this ghostly place to take refuge in Putuo. In the heavy rain, the guards in their white and red cloaks were all making their last stand, preparing for the dawn migration.

None of them knew they would not live long.

It was late at night, and the people who had been so noisy and boisterous were sleeping on each other's pillows.

Chu Wanning and Mo Ran are sleepless, and all they have to do is kill the Demon King when he appears. Now that Xiaoman has escaped the boundary, the change must come tonight.

Mo Ran glanced sideways at Chu Wanning and said, "Go to sleep, I'll wake you up if something happens."

Chu Wanning said, "I'm not sleepy."

Mo Ran stroked his hair, "Then eat something haven't eaten since you've been here."

The words "I" am not hungry were replaced by silent swallowing after seeing the flower cake that Mo Ran brought out.

Mo Ran handed him the flower cake, "You eat it."

Chu Wanning took the pastry and broke it in half, giving the bigger one to Mo Ran and taking the smaller one for himself. Mo Ran watched his actions in awe, not knowing what to think.

After taking a bite of the pastry, Chu Wanning suddenly let out a low mumble before asking, "Is this from Peach Blossom Yard? Why does it taste different from the one I had before?"

"What's wrong?"

"The scent of cinnamon is so heavy."

Mo Ran laughed bitterly, "Really? It's from Chu Xun's son and it's about Lin'an flavour."

"It does taste like Lin'an." Chu Wanning silently takes a second bite, but only opens his lips a little, then suddenly freezes, as if realising something, and the blood suddenly fades from his face.

"No."

Chu Wanning rose abruptly, his eyes wide and his face extremely pale.

Mo Ran doesn't know what's wrong: "What's wrong"

Chu Wanning did not answer, but got up and went out into the courtyard, looked around in the rain, picked up a sharp-edged stone and cut himself hard on the arm, and in a flash blood was spattered everywhere.

Mo Ran pulled him back, "You're crazy."

Chu Wanning stared for a moment at the blood that snaked across his arm, then looked up sharply, his eyes blazing with light and intensity: "Don't you know what's happening" he said sternly, "someone is trying to hurt us"

The blood kept dripping down his arm and was washed away again in the rain to a pale pink.

In the pouring rain Chu Wanning's face was pale and stern, his dark brows furrowed deeply, and the rain droplets soaked him to the bone.

With a loud bang, the sky thundered through the air, instantly illuminating the dark night as if it were day.

Mo Ran also reacted abruptly to this thunderclap and took a step back.

And he knew what was wrong.

The so-called imaginary realm, in which things are false even if they are made real.

The pastries could not really taste good and the sharp objects could not really hurt anyone. In short in a word things within the realm of the imaginary could not possibly be of any use to them.

"Someone has made the realm of the imaginary materialize." Chu Wanning whispered.

It is also known as the Tao of Virtual Reality. The most skilled practitioners of this technique are the Lonely Moonlit, one of the Ten Schools, whose mission is "to heal the world and the heart with a holy hand", the latter half of which refers to the fact that some of them specialise in the Tao of the Realisation of the Void. The latter half of the sentence refers to the fact that some of them specialise in the realisation of the imaginary realm, knowing that there are many people in the world who cannot accept the death of their loved ones, and that through the "Imaginary Realm" they can create an imaginary realm where the deceased survives to be by the side of the living.

However, as this real and imaginary realm is extremely difficult to make, usually only a small scene can be made. For example, drinking with an old friend, sleeping together, etc., at most one thing.

But the Feathermen's imaginary realm is so vast, so long, and so involved that it would be impossible for the master of Lonely Moonlit to realise it all himself.

Mo Ran immediately thought of someone and wondered if it could be the fake Gouchen from Jincheng Lake.

But before he could think about it, he heard a strange sound burst from the sky.

Those who were asleep woke up like frightened birds, looking around with frightened, haggard eyes, and then they saw the sky.

For a long moment there was a dead silence, shrieks steaming and bursting like splashes of water in boiling oil.

The crowd ran in all directions, but found nowhere to go and screams everywhere. A gaping hole in the sky and a huge blood-red ghostly eye was shining eerily above the boundary.

The eyes were so close together that they were almost pressed against the mouth of the knot.

A muddy, cold voice rumbled out, " Chu Xun, how dare you, a mere mortal, try to fool me."

Mo Ran murmured, "It's the Ghost King."

There are nine kings in the ghost realm, and their powers are far apart. At this point he has not yet shown himself, and it is not clear how many kings he is. The only thing in the sky was the bloodied eye that looked down at the mansion: "You are a ridiculous, ridiculous mortal who wants to save them, but since you are disobeying me, I will kill all the people in the city.

With a loud scream, a blinding red light bursts from the centre of the ghost's eye and slashes straight towards the Shangqing boundary

In a flash the sky and the earth changed colour, sand and rocks flew in a storm of gold and red, the woods in the courtyard cackled and broke, and the people under the boundary were in disarray, hugging and crying, howling.

Shangqing The boundary withstood the first attack, but then another red light struck down, again in the same place, and again the boundary withstood the heavy machine, but it was cracked.

"It's hateful when you don't know what you're doing."

Beam after beam of red light came crashing down, bursting into a shower of fire. As the boundary was about to break, Chu Wanning knew that since the void had been realised, his opponent's attack would be the same as in the present world. If the attack came down, he and Mo Ran would both die in the realm.

As Chu Wanning thought about it, the light between his fingers was already glowing gold.

If he uses a big move at this point, his identity will be seen by Mo Ran, but there is no other way out. He was about to summon the Heavenly Question for a quick battle. Suddenly, like a powerful arrow, a colourful light broke through the clouds and pierced the boundary.

When the crowd looked back, they saw Chu Xun coming in the rain from above the roof beams of the Vallon.

He holds a phoenix-headed konghou in his arm and plucks its strings with his fingertips. The sound of the harp was as sharp as the cracking of gold and stone, and beams of light were drawn out and gathered in the canopy. In an instant, the Shangqing boundary, which had been in jeopardy, was re-enforced.

"It's the Duke."

"My Lord."

There were shouts of joy and tears of joy from the people below. Chu Xun fought against the Demon King's Eye technique and was not outgunned. In the blink of an eye, a hundred strokes had passed and the Demon King could not even get half an inch closer to the boundary.

The cold voice in the air grew gloomier and gloomier.

" Chu Xun, with your ability, no one can hurt you if you run for your life, why are you meddling and making an enemy of my ghost world"

"If you wish to harm the people of Lin'an, what is your business?"

"Ridiculous ghosts and monsters have always fed on the souls and spirits of the living, my clan eats souls and spirits just as you eat meat and vegetables, there is no difference when you die, you will see clearly"

Chu Xun answered freely, and his zither did not stop playing: "Then we will see if you have the ability to take my head."

As he speaks, the strings beneath his fingers become more and more rapid, and at last the light of the dragon shines through the sky, piercing the bloodshot eye of the rainy night.

"Ah."

The mournful, horrific hiss shook the heavens and the earth as if they were shaking.

The eye was burned by the Chu Xun technique, and a foul-smelling splash of blood flew in all directions, instantly raining blood from the sky and making ghosts cry at night. In his fury, a light blade several times stronger than before slashed down through the blood and wind. Chu Xun's sleeves were raised to block the blow, but it was the Ghost King's violent slash, and as the two sides struggled, Chu Xun was knocked back by the wave of air and his strings stalled.

"My Lord."

"The crack has a crack the boundary is going to break."

" Mother Mother "

The crowd was in a state of panic, with those with family members crying and hugging, and the lonely ones huddled in the corner, shivering.

Chu Xun's teeth were clenched and his gaze was like a torch, but he was unwilling to give up so easily. In the midst of a difficult stalemate, a light suddenly flared up to his left and right. He looked to his side and saw Mo Ran and Chu Wanning coming up to him, a steady stream of golden and red light coming to him, merging with him and sealing the boundary once again.

A hideous, violent cry emanated from the canopy.

The ghost eyes disappeared.

The trio landed on the ground and the fetid blood in the sky continued to rain for a while longer before it slowly returned to a transparent rain.

Chu Xun, his face pale, bowed to Mo Ran, "Thank you both for your help."

"No need to be polite." Mo Ran waved his hand, "Get some rest, you look awful."

Chu Xun nodded that he had indeed lost a great deal of his magic power, so Mo Ran helped him to rest under the porch. The people who had been in such a state of confusion were grateful to see Master Chu re-fill the gap and save them from the fire. They all gathered around him and handed him water and clothes.

Someone said, "Master Chu, your clothes are soaking wet, go to the fire and roast them."

Chu Xun thanked them all, but as he was too tired to walk any further, he politely declined the invitation. Undaunted, the men simply brought over some pine branches and built a fire pit around Chu Xun.

The only sound that remained was the crackling of the fires. Suddenly one of the townspeople asked him, "My lord, we have set up so well, but how come the Ghost King has seen through us?"

"Yeah yeah yeah."

"How do you know we're moving out? Gong Meng said this ghost can't tell the difference between a golem and a living person, what's going on? He was clearly trying to say whether Chu Xun had made a mistake or whether Chu Xun hadn't got it right.

This look was seen by the white clad guards of the Imperial Household, and immediately someone wrinkled his brow and said angrily, "What are you thinking about? Someone must have leaked the news and let the Ghost King know."

The man muttered, "Who's going to talk to a ghost?

After a moment of silence, another person asks

"My lord, that old ghost won't let up, what should we do next?"

Chu Xun was very tired and did not open his eyes, but still said in a gentle voice, "Just survive the dawn, after which we will leave the city and make our way, as they cannot be haunted in the daytime."

"But with so many of us, old and young, and some wounded, can we make it to Putuo Mountain in a day?"

Chu Xun said gently, "Don't worry, rest now. Tomorrow you will just hurry on, I will think of a way."

A child came over and held a small piece of jellybeans for Chu Xun to eat. Chu Xun opened his eyes, smiled and stroked his hair, and was about to say something when a guard suddenly ran over in a panic, shouting, "Sir, Sir is in trouble!

"What's wrong?"

"The man was so irritated that he was unable to say a full sentence.

Chu Xun rose abruptly, the last vestiges of blood fading away as he ran towards the rain.