Chapter 163 - System vs. System (XIII)
The shadow of the snake snakes down from the tree without a sound, disappearing without a trace.
Soon, a scholar in black came from the east, carrying a trunk full of books.
The swordsman and the scholar meet face to face, one wearing a necklace of snake teeth, the other a bracelet of fish scales, the former slightly stunned, the latter smiling.
The scholar bent over, but he did not show much humility, and his eyes were full of the arrogance of a young man: “This gentleman, I am honoured. My surname is Ming, and my name is Night, and I am a Xucai. I was very lucky to meet you when I was in a state of fear. I wonder if you could give me a lift?”
With that, he raised his eyes and gave the white-clad swordsman a flirtatious wink.
The swordsman in white recognised him at once, probably because he was dressed as a scholar and found him amusing, pressing his fan against his lips.
Seeing him like this, Ye Jiming was confused for a moment, and even thought for a moment that he was really his little fish, and not the dashing guest with whom he drank and cursed and talked, but whose real face he did not know.
The man imitated Duan Shujue’s look and his usual movements to the letter.
…… is as real as if it were a hallucination.
Yan Jinhua was in high spirits.
Sure enough, everything was just as it says in the book, and Ye Jiming came to the mountains.
The odds are that he was trying to capture the mountain ghost’s elixir so that he could facilitate his cultivation and
But he was his benefactor, after all, and he was not in a position to compete with him.
The more Yan Jinhua thought about it, the more he felt that he had made a good business deal earlier.
One of them is willing to fight for him as a pawn, and the other, although he has no conscience, seems to have a strong affection for Duan Shujue.
With Duan Shujue’s protagonist’s aura alone, the Mountain Ghost is a handful.
When the mountain demon is put to death, all he needs to do is to pester Duan Shujue for a few minutes. With his soft, uncontentious nature and the kindness he has shown him, it will be as easy as taking the mountain demon’s elixir from his pocket.
Just ……
He glanced at Wen Yujing.
Wen Yujing stood quietly with his sword in his hand, seemingly non-threatening, but Yan Jinhua always suspected that he was deliberately targeting himself.
Why else would I have had so much bad luck after meeting him, first losing the Pearl of the Sea and then Duan Shujue?
He had better be sensible and stop competing with himself for the Mountain Ghost Dan Essence, otherwise he would have to teach this man who should be the protagonist in this world.
Yan Jinhua is looking at Wen Yujing, and so is Ye Jiming.
This man did not comment on his joining in the middle of the process, which was unexpected for Ye Jiming.
Was he so unsuspecting that he did not even ask a question?
With Wen Yujing here, Ye Jiming could not ask what the origin of Wen Yujing’s surname was at this point, so he just joined the Three Shortages brigade as a scholar and walked slowly along with the crowd to see how the mountain ghost planned to stir up the storm.
It was June and the sun was getting hot. Yan Jinhua was walking with burnt lips and a burning throat when a thatched hut appeared on the side of the road.
A young woman turns her back on several people and picks beans in front of the house.
Probably hearing the footsteps, she put down the bean curd in her hand and her voice was clear and moving: “Four guests, would you like some tea?”
The words were spoken before she turned her head to look at the crowd.
The woman is mediocre in appearance and plainly dressed, but her clothes are clean and her temperament is unlike that of an ordinary peasant woman, and she is uncommon in her manner.
Yan Jinhua smiles darkly.
What kind of ancient White Bone Demon catching the Longevity Monk routine is this?
Even if you want to charm people, you should be beautiful, right?
Yan Jinhua, whose spiritual power was the lowest among them, only knew that the woman had probably used some means to remove her spiritual power, but could not see anything else, so he pretended to be deaf and looked at Duan Shujue and Ye Jiming to see how they would react.
Duan and Ye looked at each other, both seeing confusion in each other’s eyes.
Chi Xiaochi asks 061 : “Mr. Six, is this person’s spiritual power too high, or ……”
After Chi Xiaochi’s question, Wen Yujing looks up and examines the woman’s body.
There is no “aura” in her that can be parsed.
…… has no demonic aura and no immortal aura, and breathes and exhales like a normal person.
061 cautiously answered Chi Xiaochi’s question, “If it’s not a man, it’s a god.”
At these words, Chi Xiaochi had an idea in his mind and said politely with an arching hand, “Thank you, then.”
A small wooden table with a rough porcelain teapot was set up beside the woman, and she took a few missing bowls and poured tea for the crowd one by one.
She said gently, “When you have finished your tea, go down the hill.”
Yan Jinhua gave a dark laugh.
This kind of bullshit is no different from “three bowls but no post”, right? Isn’t it just setting up a mystery and pretending to wait for people to ask questions?
And the Duan Shujue, sure enough, went along with her words, “Why?”
The woman said, “Do not go forward. There are evil spirits in the mountains.”
Ye Jiming deliberately winced and leaned towards Duan Shujue, as if he were really a soft scholar.
Wen Yujing looked at him without making much of a sound.
Duan Shujue asked on behalf of Ye Jiming, “What evil spirits?”
The woman said, “Don’t you know the legend of Tokyu Mountain? Thousands of years ago, Tokyu Mountain was a place of exile in a poor mountain, and a wicked spirit came out of it that ate human flesh.”
Wen Yujing said, “I did hear a bit about it when I arrived at the bottom of the hill, but I didn’t listen to it in detail. May I ask you to tell me more?”
They did do a bit of research before they came, and even more detailed background information than what was written in the book.
Thousands of years ago, the Tokyu Mountain area was a desolate place for the exile of villains.
A young peasant girl was travelling with her father to a neighbouring town to join relatives when she was robbed by several villains.
The young girl, who was young and unmarried, had been killed by the villains, who were afraid to kill her and to report her to the police, so they plucked out her eyes and dumped her in a bamboo forest.
The young girl was seriously injured and died in the forest before she could get out.
No one found her body until she was covered in bamboo leaves and gradually became one with the earth, becoming decayed.
Since some time, Tokyu Mountain has been home to a blind girl who is always on the go, with a white cloth over her eyes and a tattered bamboo staff.
She kept meeting people by chance, saying she was lost and begging for a ride home.
Some, out of good intentions and others out of bad, agreed to her request.
The young girl leads them around the mountain, and those with good intentions are often able to walk her to a small woodshed, receive two pieces of wild fruit and leave in peace. Those with bad intentions, after taking her to the woodshed and receiving the fruit, often ask her wickedly: “How can I get enough of this rotten fruit? What else do you have to offer me in return?
The young girl replied, “A pair of eyes, may I?”
With that, she removes the white cloth covering her eyes.
That face, where eyes should have been born, was empty.
And the next instant, the other’s eyes would exchange with hers.
The eyeless mountain ghost often snatches the eyes of others, but she doesn’t know what curse she was under before she was born, and the eyes she gets in return shrivel up and degenerate in a few days, turning into two black, empty holes.
She then moved on to her next prey.
Those who had recovered their lives but lost their eyes fled down the mountain in terror, most unable to give details of the woman’s appearance and only bringing down the name of the young girl.
The young girl introduced herself to everyone who led the way, but opinions were divided, some said her name was Su, others said it was Su, while others said her family name was Su.
As Su Ji’s reputation spreads by word of mouth, people in the neighbourhood are afraid to go up to the mountains to collect firewood, complaining but not knowing what to do.
Later, a goddess who had been travelling in the ten directions came to rest in the town below the mountain.
Thousands of years ago, there were not many Taoist practitioners, and even fewer attained the Way, and people used to call those who could ride the clouds and mists gods.
The goddess heard the prayers of the people and came up the mountain to capture and suppress the mountain ghost.
The legend of the Mountain Ghost has since ended.
In gratitude to the Goddess, the people at the bottom of the mountain built a shrine to the Goddess, burning incense and worshipping her, and although times have changed and the town of Tokyu Mountain has expanded into a sizeable city, and the shrine has long since become a spiritual temple for women to divine their marriages, the incense has continued to flow for a thousand years.
It is not known whether it was the blessing of the goddess that brought the Tokyu Mountains to a favourable condition, and the people became more appreciative of the goddess’ kindness as they received the rains.
A thousand years later, thanks to a group of grave robbers, the spirit of the mountain ghost that had been suppressed was released, killing seven or eight grave robbers on the spot, with only one escaping with his life.
The mountain ghosts come out again, but the goddess has probably long since attained the Way and is nowhere to be found.
The mountain ghosts are earth-bound spirits, and by definition cannot leave Tokyu Mountain, but according to legend, when a man was sleeping in his house in the city and felt stuffy, he got up in the middle of the night to open his window for ventilation and saw a woman in white standing not far from his window, her back to him, her hands hanging down, and the gauze belt tied behind her head extremely long and flying with the wind.
Seeming to hear the movement of an open window, she turned back.
The occupant of the open window had just seen her face and was stunned to the spot, nearly dying.
When they woke up the next day, word spread throughout the city that the mountain ghost had entered the city, and those who witnessed it claimed that the mountain ghost was now not only blind, but that half of its face had decayed into white bone, and that its grievances must be even heavier.
A few waves of monks came to the mountain, but unfortunately each one went without return.
The people below the mountain are in fear, but the incense at the Shrine of the Divine Maiden is getting stronger and stronger, and the smoke stays on day and night, filling the city with the smell of sandalwood.
In the midst of the incense that continues day and night, Duan Shujue they went up the mountain.
The woman in front of them said that the mountain ghosts had hurt people, that the goddess had ambushed the ghosts, that the mountain ghosts had reappeared, and that all the circumstances were not far from what they had known.
Hearing her out, Ye Jiming wondered, “Aren’t you afraid?”
The woman spoke clearly and articulately, “I have lived here long before she came, and if I leave here, where can I go? Besides, I am a woman, not a man who would harm her, and she would not hurt me.”
Hearing this, 061 asked Chi Xiaochi: “Any ideas?”
Chi Xiaochi replied, “No.”
061 : “What’s wrong?”
Chi Xiaochi took a sip of tea and glanced intently at the woman’s hand without replying.
In The Immortal Sailor, Duan Shujue does not meet this woman, but Ye Jiming does, and he persuades him, disguised as a scholar, to go down the mountain.
In the book, Ye Jiming, who had originally come for the mountain ghost Dan Jing, agrees to do so, and turns around and goes up the mountain again by a different path.
When they are put into the same cell, Ye Jiming mentions the encounter with the woman, but afterwards the author hastily wraps up the Tokyu Mountain line, so this ambiguity is not recovered.
From what is known so far, it is highly likely that the woman was sincerely trying to persuade people to go down the mountain, rather than falsely tantalising them and deliberately luring them up the mountain, and because she was only a mortal, she could persuade Ye Jiming but not Duan Shujue.
But if she was as she said, she was just a lone woman, guarding a road into the mountains all day, risking being targeted by mountain spirits at any moment, just to do a good deed?
Although Su Ji had some sense of propriety a thousand years ago, who knows what will become of her after a thousand years?
Where did she get the confidence that the mountain ghosts would not harm her?
Besides, her hands ……
The four of them drank, thanked her for the tea, and turned to walk down the hill until they could not see the woman, then they changed paths.
The Daoists were still trapped on the mountain by that demonic creature, and they had no reason to fight their way back to their homes.
Duan Shujue looked at Ye Jiming, who was pretending to be poor and helpless, and deliberately teased him, “If you are afraid, Sir Ming, why don’t you go in a different way?”
Ye Jiming looked sadly at Duan Shujue: “I hope that you will protect me, for I am counting on you.”
While he was dealing with Duan Shujue, he was secretly watching Wen Yujing and cursing Wen in his heart.
If this obstructive Wen Yujing had not come with him, why would he be pretending to be vulnerable now?
Although Little Fish cannot manipulate his body now, he can at least see everything that is happening outside. If Wen Yujing was not there, why would he have to tie his hands and feet like this, fearing that his demonic power would leak out, he would have been able to show the results of his sudden improvement in cultivation in the past three months in front of Little Fish.
The more time he spends with the little fish, the more he will be attracted to him.
Then Wen Yujing has had enough of the little fish for so many days, why doesn’t he let go?
As we approached the top of the mountain, Chi Xiaochi asked Wen Yujing, “Master, are you tired?” as he wanted to observe the situation nearby and see if there were any changes.
Wen Yujing understood what he meant and pushed on, “Yes, there are some.”
Ye Jiming interjected, “I’m tired too.”
Chi Xiaochi glances at him and Ye Jiming smiles lightly with narrowed eyes, but his hands are tugging at Chi Xiaochi’s sash.
Wen Yujing glanced at Ye Jiming’s hand clutching his sash without saying a word.
At this moment, 061 and Ye Jiming are both thinking of different people, but neither is feeling very well.
As for Yan Jinhua, he himself feels redundant.
He didn’t expect Ye Jiming, who had always been cold-hearted, to be attentive to him, but he didn’t expect it to be so distant, as if he had never known him before.
What he didn’t expect was Duan Shujue.
In just three short months, Duan Shujue has been transformed, his face is still the same, but his temperament has settled, and he no longer looks like a licking dog who is eagerly awaiting his return home.
The …… comparison is frightening.
Especially after enjoying the pleasure of being licked by the protagonist, Yan Jinhua felt that nothing was right when he saw the normal Duan Shujue.
He was getting anxious when he heard his system mutter, “Strange.”
His system rarely speaks outside of posting bonus messages, and the sudden vocalisation startled Yan Jinhua.
Looking back, Yan Jinhua said, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong with Duan Shujue?”
”It’s not Duan Shujue.” The system replied, “…… is Wen Yujing .”
”What?”
The system said, “The spiritual energy emanating from him is too regular.”
Yan Jinhua couldn’t understand: “Huh? Isn’t that normal?”
”…… is too precise, like the result of a careful calculation.” The system paused and said, “Host, I can’t draw any conclusions yet, I need to observe a bit more.”
Yan Jinhua shifted his buttocks on the roasting rocks, “No, you’re not being ambiguous, aren’t you hanging on? What are you trying to say?”
The system said, “I suspect that Wen Yujing is also a crossover like you.”
Yan Jinhua was horrified, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense.
Yes, precisely because he was also a crossover, he knew how to pick up the pieces and committed himself to clinging to Duan Shujue’s thighs, swooping in at the Jingxu Sword Meeting and stealing his own treasure pearl as well as Duan Shujue’s apprenticeship.
It was because he was also a traveller that he was able to bend over backwards to make Duan Shujue treat him with such respect that he didn’t even think of himself.
It was because he was also a traveller that he knew that the chakra of Duan Shujue was in Tokyu Mountain and followed him on his mission.
What a pretext for not worrying about the disciple, what a teacher for life!
So, it turns out, this is the real reason why his plans have failed so often!
Yan Jinhua instantly found a reason for his disillusionment and defeat these days and said hopefully, “What if it is certain that he is also a crossover?”
”Generally speaking, our system is exclusive.” Having developed doubts, the system had run through the relevant regulations, “It is clearly written in the charter that if a similar situation arises, in order to ensure the progress of the mission on our side of the system, our upper system will simply intercept the signal sent by the other system, imprisoning and detaining it.”
Yan Jinhua couldn’t hide his joy: “So, you can just kick it out?”
The system replied, “Not really, it’s just brought to our Lord GOD space for temporary captivity, until it explains where it came from and when we complete our mission, we will beat him back to his original home. It is the duty of each of our systems to protect the host to complete the mission successfully.”
Yan Jinhua was too busy saying, “Then why don’t you do it?”
The system replied, “Host, take it easy. It is not my duty, I need to gather considerable evidence before I can report to my higher system and submit a report.”
Yan Jinhua had to clench his fists, trying to suppress his over-excited emotions, and began to plan for the good things to come after “Wen Yujing” disappeared.
” Wen Yujing” once the system is lost, it either disappears or is knocked back into shape.
By then, the Master would have been discredited and Duan Shujue would have lost his backing.
But he still had the sword in the stone, and even if Wen Yujing was gone, Chi Yunzi would not necessarily let himself be with Duan Shujue.
…… has it.
If he could destroy “Wen Yujing”, he could also destroy Duan Shujue along with it.
Once he takes away the system of “Wen Yujing”, the travellers in the waistcoat of “Wen Yujing” will definitely be revealed, and all he needs to do is to control him and entice him with benefits, so that he can testify as “Wen Yujing” and ruin Duan Shujue’s reputation. If he testifies as “Wen Yujing”, he will ruin Duan Shujue’s reputation, stealing pills, collaborating with outsiders, and being a criminal, all of which will bring down Duan Shujue, who is now highly valued by Chi Yunzi.
If you want to play it safe, you can simply kill the “Wen Yujing”.
If a charge of regicide was brought against Duan Shujue, he would be completely ruined and might even be hunted down and killed by the whole mountain. All he had to do was step in then and offer his benevolence, and he would not only receive his gratitude, but he might even get back the sword in the stone and the treasure pearl of the fixed sea set in it. As well as his next series of qi.
When his use is exhausted, then try to get rid of him ……
Yan Jinhua was so excited, so full of all the titillating things he had seen in TV dramas, that when a horrible coldness mixed with the scent of women climbed up his ankles, he didn’t notice it at first and passed out.
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om