After leading the captain of the Water Guards Department away from the city gate cave, Cheng Yu's spiritual consciousness could no longer detect any strange smells nearby, so he stopped delaying. Just like before, he returned his soul to its original form and spread his wings to fly over.
City Gate Cave.
However, as soon as he flew into the inner city this time, he was so surprised that he forgot to send a message to Jia Fei to call him to enter the city.
Just because the road in front of me is no longer as wide as a road, but more like a square.
A visual inspection shows that from the west end of the road to the east end, it is more than 200 paces wide, or nearly 150 meters.
Although there are street-facing shops on both sides of the road, the highest ones are only two stories high. And as far as the eye can see, there is not a single tree in sight on both sides, and there is no green at all.
Although it was almost dusk at this time, the summer day was long and there were still many pedestrians on the road, as well as more cars and horses. However, on such a wide road, there was no feeling of crowding.
"Brother Cheng, this is the imperial street of the capital. How does it compare to the imperial street of the outer city?"
Jia Fei also entered the inner city at some point and said with a bit of pride.
"Actually, the Imperial Street in the Outer City was so wide back then, but perhaps due to changes over time, the Royal Street in the Outer City was occupied by the shops of wealthy merchants on both sides, taking up most of its width.
But the people living in the inner city are royal family members and officials at all levels, so the Imperial Street has been preserved unchanged."
At this time, Cheng Yu had recovered from the shock of a country bumpkin entering the city. When he heard Jia Fei's explanation, he suddenly remembered the leader of the trail-cutting thieves who had walked hundreds of steps before, and he immediately understood why the imperial street was built in this way.
It is more than two hundred paces wide, with bare trees on both sides. All houses along the street are not allowed to be higher than two stories, all to prevent assassins from sneak attacks.
Even if a rare and powerful archer with a hundred steps is ambushed on the roadside, and a sneak attack is carried out at this distance, the arrow will be at the end of the crossbow before it reaches the imperial driver in the middle of the road. It can be easily neutralized by the guards, and once it is shot, it will immediately expose itself.
Location.
It can be imagined that the emperor back then had to travel frequently, and the current situation was not stable.
Nowadays, the peace has lasted for a long time, and the Imperial Street in the outer city has long been changed beyond recognition. Only the inner city still retains some royal style.
He carefully spread out his consciousness again and detected the strong smell of incense in the southwest and southeast of the inner city.
Needless to say, that must be where the Wen and Wu temples are located.
In addition, there are some sporadic weak auras of the Five Elements near the imperial city.
As for the palace, when I got close to the inner city, I finally saw a large five-element formation protecting it, but the formation was erratic and not as conspicuous as the purple energy in the palace.
But in the northwest corner within the palace wall, there are still obvious fluctuations of a large amount of spiritual energy.
If it goes as expected, that should be the Weisi Yamen of Jinwu Guard. As long as you avoid there, you'll be fine.
From this point of view, the battle between the Jinwu Guards and the Xirong Brahma Sect before the capital city passed was really empty.
At this moment, a breeze with the scent of sandalwood blew up the hair at their temples. Cheng Yu turned his head and looked, and the female warrior Qin Hongyu in a golden helmet and armor appeared in front of him.
The female warrior took off the golden mask in front of her face and raised her hand to block the still dazzling afterglow of the westward light. After she got used to it, she saw Cheng Yu saluting her, and immediately clasped her fists in return and smiled:
"Sir, you came very quickly. Now that we have reached the inner city, let's not mention anything else. Last night, two barbarian souls did arrive at Wenjun Palace. It's just... It's a long story. Please, sir, follow me to Wenjun Palace.
Give it a try."
…
…
Outside the Yongding Gate of the outer city, beside the Golden Spring, a middle-aged man in black clothes stood outside the crowd, frowning, and holding a clay warrior doll in his hand.
Just now when I was on alert in the city gate cave, I suddenly felt a trace of water aura disturbing here. I immediately escaped from the water quietly and followed the aura to see something slowly moving on the branches of the ancient well.
At first, I thought it was a squirrel or a rat making trouble, but when I took a closer look, it turned out to be a clay doll waddling around in the tree.
The captain of the Water Guards Department was immediately startled, and hurriedly spread his consciousness to explore, but there was no other spiritual power fluctuation around him, so he quietly used water magic to remove it from the branch.
After carefully examining it, I found that the soles of the doll's feet contained a shallow aura of water, which allowed it to move on its own, rather than being an intelligent spirit.
He raised his eyes and glanced at the crowd of onlookers. There were old and young in the crowd, and there was even a group of nearby urchins laughing and playing nearby. Could it be...
Some playful kid climbed up the tree to play and forgot the clay doll on the tree. The water element of the Golden Spring passed through the previous battle with the Xirong Brahma Sect, which caused the spirituality to overflow. This caused the mud doll on the tree to rise.
Occasionally, I am contaminated with the water element and cannot move around on my own?
"Whoosh!"
There was a sound of armor scales clashing together, and among the Jinwu guards guarding the city gate, two of the leaders, Jian Jian, hurriedly ran over to clasp their fists and salute:
"grown ups!"
The black-clothed Jin Wuwei snorted lightly and asked if there was anything unusual nearby. After receiving the reply that there was nothing unusual, he gave a few more instructions and quietly escaped through the water, avoiding the crowd.
The two golden-armored warriors looked at each other, sighed softly, and stepped back to the city guarding formation.
"My benefactor! Well..."
"Ta-ta! Ta-ta!"
"Bold! Dismount!"
Wu Dingliu chased him to the outer city on horseback, but was stopped by the Jinwu Guards who guarded the city. He hurriedly turned over and dismounted, held his fists in his hands and saluted, and asked carefully:
"I would like to ask you sirs, have you ever seen two young gentlemen, one white and one green, entering the city?"
He asked twice in a row, but he didn't expect that the Jinwu guards guarding the gate all had their eyes high and ignored him.
He hesitated, took out a piece of broken silver from his arms, walked to the side of the one who seemed to be the leader, and quietly stuffed the silver into his armor belt.
The Jin Wuwei raised his hand and gently tucked his belt, coughed lightly and said:
"We have been here for a day, and there are countless people entering the city. You don't understand. Just ask two scholars, one white and one green, who can remember it?"
"Forehead……"
Wu Dingliu thought for a moment, then hurriedly added with a smile:
"I was just confused. It must have been about half an hour ago. I wonder if adults have any impressions?"
The Jinwu Guard turned his head and glanced at the setting sun. After thinking about it for a moment, he shook his head and said:
"If it was half an hour ago, we did not see Bai Qing, the two literary students, entering the city. You should look elsewhere."
After saying that, he stopped paying attention. Wu Dingliu scratched his head. Could it be that the two benefactors went out of the city again?
After thinking for a while, he had no choice but to lead his horse back to the road he came from.
…
Northeast corner of the inner city.
Cheng Yu stood in front of the Confucian Temple, looking up at the plaque on the door, which read "The Confucian Temple of the World" in five golden characters.
The gate of the Confucian Temple in Dudu is actually covered with golden glazed tiles.
It was almost dusk at this time, and many pilgrims came out and few came in.
As Qin Hongyu entered the gate, what he saw in front of him once again stunned Cheng Yu.
What I saw in front of me was an extremely spacious square, with two towers standing on both sides of the square. With the help of the cat demon's clairvoyance, I could see that they were the Bell and Drum Towers.
Opposite it, there are nine main halls lined up in a row. Each main hall is almost identical. They are all nine bays wide and about forty paces wide.
They are all shaped like double-eaves verandah roofs. Looking around, everything is golden, dazzling, incense-filled, solemn and solemn.
The structure of each palace is almost the same, only the name of the palace written on the plaque above the door is different.
Qin Hongyu led Cheng Yu to Daizhou Confucian Temple, leaving Jiafei wandering around in the temple.
Although she grew up in the capital before becoming a demon, she had never been to the Tianxia Dou Confucian Temple. This was her first time here, so it was very fresh.
Cheng Yu told Jiafei again about several places with spiritual power fluctuations in the city, and told him not to get close to these places, especially after he entered Wenjun's palace, there would no longer be a barrier to protect her.
The cat demon protected Cheng Yu and nodded and replied:
"Brother Cheng, don't worry, I'll just wait for you here."
"Sir, please don't worry, let alone this time, even in normal times in the past, Jin Wuwei would not easily come to this Confucian Temple in the world.
Moreover, the house is not closed at night, so the cat demon can roam around here, but I am afraid that we have not finished visiting any of the temples, and we have already come out before it gets dark."
After Qin Hongyu finished speaking, she made an invitation gesture to Cheng Yu, and Cheng Yu walked with her into the Daizhou Wenjun Hall.
At this time, there were only a few pilgrims in the temple, and two old temple worshipers were chanting sutras and viewing incense.
Although the sun has already set, the lights and candles in the temple illuminate it, so it is not very dark.
Cheng Yu and Qin Hongyu stood side by side in front of the four-foot-tall statue of the main god. In the blink of an eye, a white halo of light invisible to ordinary people flashed around them, and then the Qi connection between him and the cat demon was interrupted.
After the white light flashed again, Cheng Yu was already in the Palace of the Underworld. He saw a person coming out from behind the vermilion case above. This person was dressed as a scholar, with three strands of long beard under his chin, and was wearing an ordinary plain gown. He hurriedly walked up the steps.
He came down, bowed his hands and said:
"I have met Aunt Qin. This gentleman is the one you just mentioned..."
"Exactly, this is Mr. Cheng, Mr. Cheng, this is Daizhou Wenjun who is on duty at the Duwen Temple this year."
After Qin Hongyu said the last sentence to Cheng Yu, Wenjun, who was dressed in Vincent's clothing, glanced this way and then his eyes fell on the lapel of Cheng Yu's clothes.
Cheng Yu knew in his heart that he had a Wujun token given by Qin Hongyu hidden in his lapel. The Wenjun must have sensed the aura of the token to act like this, so he smiled slightly and returned the gift.
Upon seeing this, Na Wenjun bowed back and said:
"Sir, you are polite, I am Su He and Su Bojing."
Cheng Yu saw that this Wenjun only mentioned his name and epithet in his self-introduction, and did not call himself Wenjun. This was different from Wenjun in Qingchuan County and Qianjiang Prefecture.
Looking at his speech and behavior, we can see that the other person is a humble and respectful person, so he can't help but respect him more.
After Cheng Yu returned the gift, he suddenly felt that the name the other party reported seemed familiar.
Su He...
Zi Bojing...
"Ah! It turns out it's Su Zi. I'm sorry that Cheng, being an outsider, didn't recognize Wen Jun as Su Zi in a moment of rudeness. It's rude and disrespectful."
It turns out that Su He and Su Bojing were the founders of the sect more than a thousand years ago.
I still remember that in the Qianfu Library in Qingchuan County, the ancient books written by this man were placed in the most conspicuous place.
There was also Zhuangzhou Zhuang Huaijin, who later passed the examination for Jieyuan in Qianjiang Prefecture. The scriptures that he kept in his hands day and night on the way to the examination were also written by this great master.
But I never thought that after his death, he would be replaced by Daizhou Wenjun.
After the two briefly exchanged greetings, Su Zi took Cheng Yu and Qin Hongyu to an unmanned side hall nearby. After the guests and hosts were seated, a Yin Secretary official held three cups of Yin tea on a tea tray. Cheng Yu He thanked but did not drink tea. Instead, he went straight to the topic and asked Su Zi:
"I dare to ask Su Zi, did the souls of two barbarians report to the palace last night?"
When Su Zi asked, he looked at Qin Hongyu first, and when he saw the other person nodded slightly, he pondered for a moment or two before replying:
"Yes, it is true that two barbarian souls came to my palace, but I couldn't sacrifice their life and death records. Moreover, the two souls seemed to have been manipulated by others, and they looked ignorant. No matter how I asked, They all ask one question and don’t know three things.”
"Are these two dead souls still in the palace at this moment?"
"Now, I didn't know how to deal with it for a while, so I first placed it in the Requiem Hall, hoping that after warming up its soul for a while, there might be some improvement..."
"I wonder if it would be convenient for me to take a look?"
After Cheng Yu asked, Su Zi frowned slightly and looked at Qin Hongyu inquiringly.
Qin Hongyu stood up and smiled:
"Su Zi, don't worry, Mr. Cheng is not an outsider, and his cultivation is very good. He should be able to go to the Requiem Hall."
When Su Zi saw what Qin Hongyu said, he stood up and took Cheng Yu and Qin Hongyu to a more remote palace on the opposite side.
From a distance, Cheng Yu saw a plaque hanging on the door of the palace with three large gilt characters "Requiem Hall" written on it.
Just at this moment, a man who looked like a judge passed by with several of his subordinates.
When those officials saw Wen and Wu Erjun walking towards the Requiem Hall with Mr. Wensheng in white, their eyes suddenly glowed with envy, and their steps even slowed down a bit.
"cough!"
The leading judge paused and coughed lightly, and then several officials hurriedly lowered their heads and quickened their pace to follow the judge.
Cheng Yu looked at the backs of the officials and heard the judge scolding him in a low voice from a distance:
"Is that where you can see? From now on, stay away from that temple..."
I don't know if the judge lowered his voice a little more or if he had already moved away. No matter how good his ear was, Cheng Yu could no longer hear what the judge said next.
