Chapter 54
Xu Yizhuo and Yuanwu had not yet thought of a way to obtain jiaoren pearls. They planned to spend the first day walking around the city, doing their best to get a general impression of every part of it. Along the way, they saw quite a few cultivators. Here, cultivators were easy to recognize. After all, their appearances were completely out of place among the natives of the Realm of Reincarnation.
When they occasionally saw them, they would even nod in greeting. Not long after entering the Realm of Reincarnation, the atmosphere among the cultivators was still fairly harmonious. Once most of the cultivators found jiaoren pearls, they would probably have no choice but to start guarding against any cultivator they saw along the way.
Most people had the same plan as Xu Yizhuo and Yuanwu. They were not in a hurry to collect jiaoren pearls on the first day. First, they wanted to familiarize themselves with the city they would be staying in for a month. Not long after Xu Yizhuo and Yuanwu started walking, they remembered they could ride swords. Viewing the city from above would be much more efficient than walking and looking around from below.
Xu Yizhuo was able to remember sword flight in time thanks to Jun Yu. Yesterday’s incident of getting lost in Jun Yu’s courtyard had finally made her realize that she was already a cultivator. When she encountered something, she should not keep feeling that she could only rely on her two legs to walk.
However, just as Xu Yizhuo drew out the Xuanwu Sword, another cultivator flew into the sky on his sword before she could. Immediately afterward, he was… he was shot down.
He was shot down.
Xu Yizhuo: “…”
She and the spectating cultivators were all stunned. They watched as that cultivator flew more than ten meters into the air, then touched an invisible barrier. Pale golden ripples spread out, and that cultivator was fiercely bounced back to the ground. When he brushed past the rooftop, he even knocked down two or three roof tiles.
Three menacing stick-figure-faced people descended from the sky with great momentum.
They wore guard uniforms and seemed responsible for protecting the city.
When the guard leader saw the cultivator lying on the ground, the two charcoal-drawn eyebrows on his face twisted, and he said roughly, “Sword flight is forbidden above Liuzhu City. Jia-One, Jia-Two, cuff him and take him away!”
The two guards called Jia-One and Jia-Two answered loudly. Their iron palms lifted the cultivator from the ground, and they drew a chain painted with blood-colored runes from their waists, wrapping it around the cultivator several times.
The cultivator had already been dazed from falling from the sky and had yet to react.
At this moment, a fat man in brocade clothes ran out from a nearby shop. With one glance, he found the person in charge and complained to the guard leader, “Officer, this brat damaged my roof. Look, the broken tiles are still on the ground! You must uphold justice for me!”
The guard leader looked at the few broken tiles on the ground and agreed, “Compensation is indeed needed!”
As he spoke, he casually swept a hand over the cultivator’s waist. No one knew what he had done, but a jiaoren pearl appeared in his hand. The guard leader looked disgusted. “Unlucky. He only has one jiaoren pearl on him. A complete pauper.”
The cultivator finally came to his senses and lunged forward to snatch it back. “My jiaoren pearl—”
Jia-One and Jia-Two attacked at the same time and immediately pressed the cultivator to the ground.
The guard leader coldly swept him a glance. “If you don’t want to suffer, behave yourself for this lord!”
The cultivator hated them so much that he almost crushed his teeth, but the chain binding him had some unknown mystery to it. He only felt all the spiritual energy in his body solidify, unable to use even the slightest bit. Right now, he was not much better than a mortal.
“Here.” The guard leader casually tossed the jiaoren pearl he had looted from the cultivator to the fat man. The fat man’s expression was not eager at all. His stick-figure face vividly expressed the exact same disgust as the guard leader.
Just like that, the cultivators who had entered the Realm of Reincarnation watched in shock as that unlucky cultivator was escorted away by the three guards. For a long time, they could not recover.
Beside Xu Yizhuo, a passerby shook his head and sighed. “Stupid, stupid. Liuzhu City’s flight ban has been issued for so long, yet there are still fools who have nothing better to do than fly into the sky. And on the main street too. Was he afraid no one would come catch him?”
The companion walking beside him burst out laughing. “He only had one jiaoren pearl on him, so of course he wasn’t afraid of being arrested.”
The person who had spoken first laughed too. “They didn’t manage to take the chance to make a fortune. Those two’s faces are about to turn green.”
Xu Yizhuo looked carefully. They really had turned green. The fat man’s paper-white face seemed to be coated with a faint layer of green paint, clearly different from those around him.
The fat man gripped that jiaoren pearl and spat at the ground, then walked back into the shop with a green face.
The crowd that had stopped to watch gradually began moving again. Xu Yizhuo silently put the Xuanwu Sword away.
Yuanwu still felt lingering fear. “That guard leader has Nascent Soul cultivation.”
“That high?” Xu Yizhuo was somewhat surprised.
Among this batch of cultivators, the one with the highest cultivation was probably Yuanwu, who was half a step into Golden Core. After all, according to the information Xu Yizhuo had learned, none of the cultivators in this batch were at Golden Core.
“If that guard was at Nascent Soul cultivation during this past period of time, then the cultivation shown in the Realm of Reincarnation is also Nascent Soul,” Yuanwu paused for a while, then continued, “But right now, there has never been a Realm of Reincarnation where a Great Ascension cultivator appeared. Most people believe that Realms of Reincarnation can only replicate cultivators below the Great Ascension stage.”
Xu Yizhuo said, “That guard still doesn’t count as the person in charge of this city.”
Yuanwu naturally continued, “Which means there are still people in the city with higher cultivation than him.”
The two reached a consensus that they would act low-key from now on.
Xu Yizhuo no longer thought about flying on a sword. She slowly walked along the street the way she usually would when shopping. Most of the pedestrians coming and going were natives of the Realm of Reincarnation. Aside from their stick-figure faces, everything else was very normal.
The buildings here were unfamiliar to Xu Yizhuo. However, since transmigrating, she had become used to seeing unfamiliar things, so she did not feel much about them. Yuanwu, on the other hand, had quite a reaction, widening her eyes as she observed every building they passed.
“How long ago must this memory be?” Yuanwu sighed. “The Western Continent no longer has buildings of this style.”
Xu Yizhuo saw some interesting little ornaments on a roadside stall and wanted to buy them, but when she was told that only jiaoren pearls were accepted, she could only regretfully withdraw her hand.
Although the price was only one jiaoren pearl, Xu Yizhuo currently only had one jiaoren pearl on her entire body.
Xu Yizhuo said to Yuanwu, “Liuzhu City should be by the sea.”
Yuanwu nodded. Most of the things sold at the stall they had just left were handicrafts made from seashells and conches. Walking farther ahead, they could see people selling sea fish. If they calmed their minds, they could also smell the faint fishy scent of the sea carried over by the wind from afar.
“No wonder this place can be extravagant enough to make jiaoren pearls a common currency,” Yuanwu said. “Jiaoren have a much lower survival rate inland. Most of the captured jiaoren were imprisoned in cities near the sea. The jiaoren pearls they produced were then sent from the seaside to the inland regions.”
“However,” Yuanwu changed the topic, “I heard a shopkeeper earlier say that they also accept spirit stones.”
So whenever they passed shops, Xu Yizhuo would go in and ask. Her luck was not bad. After passing three shops, they finally encountered a cosmetics shop that accepted spirit stones.
Xu Yizhuo was rich and imposing, and bought every cosmetic that looked decent. She did not even blink when she paid several hundred middle-grade spirit stones. Afterward, when she asked the proprietress questions, the proprietress could be said to answer everything she knew without holding back.
“Why don’t we keep using jiaoren pearls… Ah, these days, there are fewer and fewer jiaoren pearls on the market. Sooner or later, we’ll have to switch back to spirit stones.” While directing the shop assistants to wrap up the cosmetics Xu Yizhuo had chosen, the proprietress said, “There aren’t many jiaoren still alive now. Only our Liuzhu City has the Goddess Shrine, so our yearly pearl production is a little more stable than other places. But I reckon it won’t stay stable for long. In many surrounding areas, the jiaoren are already dead and gone. If you think about it, there’s no way our place can keep holding out forever.”
The proprietress’s tone was relaxed and casual, but Xu Yizhuo felt somewhat uncomfortable listening to it.
Enslaving another race and forcing them to create wealth for oneself might have been an extremely normal thing to the people of Liuzhu City, but Xu Yizhuo could not agree with it.
However, the proprietress’s words still made her notice a particularly special term.
“Goddess Shrine?”
The proprietress asked in surprise, “Is this your first time in Liuzhu City?”
Xu Yizhuo nodded.
“No wonder. If you had come to Liuzhu City before, you would definitely have heard of the Goddess Shrine long ago.” The proprietress sounded somewhat mysterious. “What’s enshrined in the Goddess Shrine is our Liuzhu City’s money tree. If you have time, you can go take a look and offer worship. Maybe wealth will fall onto your head.”
Xu Yizhuo politely thanked her. After taking the box filled with cosmetics and casually stuffing it into her inventory, she left the cosmetics shop with Yuanwu.
Yuanwu was thinking about the Goddess Shrine, but Xu Yizhuo suddenly said, “Do you think someone would exchange jiaoren pearls with me if I use spirit stones?”
Yuanwu was dumbfounded. She had never thought one could do that.
And Xu Yizhuo had already run to the nearest money house without another word.
Two quarters of an hour later, when Yuanwu left with five hundred jiaoren pearls, her expression was still somewhat dazed, and she could barely recall what had just happened.
As for Xu Yizhuo walking beside her, she had a full one thousand jiaoren pearls on her.
Yuanwu had exchanged fewer jiaoren pearls than Xu Yizhuo purely because she did not carry as many spirit stones on her. If Xu Yizhuo wanted, she could completely empty the money house’s jiaoren pearl reserves. However, in the end, she only symbolically exchanged for a thousand first. In any case, if it was not enough, she could come back and exchange more.
“Let’s go.” Xu Yizhuo, now carrying a huge sum, was full of confidence. “We’re going to the Goddess Shrine!”
Outside the Realm of Reincarnation.
Cheng Xuanduan could not help laughing loudly. “This little girl really does things flexibly!”
Although Jun Yu did not echo him, the smile in her eyes showed that she also agreed with Cheng Xuanduan’s words.
Yizhuo was naturally very clever.
Jun Yu selectively ignored the matter of Xu Yizhuo getting lost for ages and forgetting that she could ride a sword.
This time, several more water mirrors were used. Seven water mirrors showed different scenes. Jun Yu selfishly made one of the water mirrors continuously follow Xu Yizhuo, but everyone around her thought she wanted to watch her sword attendant, Yuanwu.
Jun Yu did not explain. Letting others discover her special attitude toward Xu Yizhuo too early was not necessarily a good thing.
In Yunwu City, it was very difficult to see clouds when raising one’s head. The cloud layer was beneath Yunwu City. The afterglow of the setting sun fell unobstructed onto Yunwu City’s land, coating large stretches of white stone buildings in a layer of golden-red light.
And within the Realm of Reincarnation, brilliant sunset clouds had already appeared on the horizon.
Xu Yizhuo heard the sound of ocean waves.
The waves struck the reefs along the shore. Xu Yizhuo and Yuanwu stepped along the even stairs and walked up the cliff. The Goddess Shrine was built atop the cliff. They did not even need someone to point the way to get here, because there were people going to the Goddess Shrine to worship at any time. They only needed to follow those people.
Liuzhu City was built by the sea, and the Goddess Shrine was the place in Liuzhu City closest to the ocean.
Xu Yizhuo’s gaze was drawn by the red setting sun. The red sun sank below the sea level, dyeing even the distant surface of the sea in magnificent golden-red color. The sky was like an oil painting with gorgeous, lively colors. The seabirds flying past were black shadows on the canvas. Whether it was the rising sun leaping out from mountain streams or the setting sun sinking into the sea, no matter when or where, Xu Yizhuo would always stop involuntarily for it.
“So beautiful,” Yuanwu also stopped and murmured. “Where is this place?”
Xu Yizhuo asked, “Have you heard of Liuzhu City?”
Yuanwu shook her head. “Too many years have passed since the era when jiaoren were active. Many cities have changed their names, and some places no longer exist.”
She sighed. “Don’t look at cultivators casually living for hundreds or thousands of years, making it seem like the same people come and go. In reality, the Western Continent changes very quickly.”
Xu Yizhuo understood. Setting aside everything else, when two great experts fought, they could directly change the terrain of a place. Perhaps after only a year, one would no longer recognize a place one had once walked through.
After watching the sunset for a while, Xu Yizhuo and Yuanwu finally set off toward the Goddess Shrine.
The Goddess Shrine was somewhat similar to Daoist temples Xu Yizhuo had seen in reality. However, perhaps to reduce erosion from sea winds, it was built from stone. Passing along the sacred path and around the incense burner wreathed in smoke, Xu Yizhuo stepped into the main hall first. There were already many people worshipping inside. Xu Yizhuo even saw the faces of cultivators among them.
However, the cultivators who entered the Realm of Reincarnation were not properly paying respects to the statue. Instead, they were observing everywhere. Xu Yizhuo and Yuanwu also began observing, but very quickly discovered there was nothing wrong with this place.
If one had to say what was special, it was probably the pool in the center of the main hall.
The pool was lotus-shaped, and the statue was located at the center of the pool. It was a jiaoren draped in thin gauze, with a human upper body and fish tail. The jiaoren sat on a stone platform, half of the fish tail immersed in the water. Xu Yizhuo silently watched the statue’s face. She had already grown used to seeing stick-figure faces in Liuzhu City, but the statue’s face was normal.
Xu Yizhuo could not distinguish the statue’s gender.
Just like the Eyeless Jiaoren Xu Yizhuo had seen in the Lidan River, jiaoren did not seem to have gender distinctions. Their faces were androgynous, their upper bodies flat, and their lower bodies long fish tails.
But in appearance, jiaoren looked closer to what humans recognized as feminine.
Perhaps this was also the reason this place was named the Goddess Shrine.
Goddess? Xu Yizhuo felt a little like sneering. What goddess would be bound in chains? A full five chains bound different parts of the statue’s body. If this were a living jiaoren, she would not even be able to move.
At the same time, the goddess’s face was sorrowful, and tears continuously flowed from her stone eyes. When the tears fell onto the stone platform, they turned into jiaoren pearls, and the jiaoren pearls rolled into the pool.
The stone statue shed tears without pause, yet the jiaoren pearls did not fill the pool. Xu Yizhuo estimated that someone came to collect the jiaoren pearls in the pool every once in a while.
The reason Liuzhu City still had a stable production of jiaoren pearls was probably this stone statue.
What exactly was going on with this stone statue?
Just as Xu Yizhuo was thinking, Yuanwu beside her was scolded by a woman. “You’re just standing here without praying. If your heart isn’t sincere, the goddess won’t give you jiaoren pearls!”
Yuanwu laughed dryly twice, knelt on a prayer cushion, and pretended to pray a few words. Xu Yizhuo followed suit convincingly, but her gaze remained fixed on the stone statue’s face.
The stone statue did not change at all.
Xu Yizhuo smiled helplessly. After all, it was only a stone statue. The most important thing was to find out how it was connected to the jiaoren.
After leaving the main hall, Xu Yizhuo and Yuanwu wandered around the Goddess Shrine for a long time. In a side hall in one corner, Xu Yizhuo finally found a jiaoren.
It was just that this jiaoren was already at his last breath.
This jiaoren’s appearance was closer to male. He lay at the edge of a pool, his lifeless eyes looking out the window. When Xu Yizhuo saw his eyes through the gap in the window, she almost thought he was already dead.
His eyes were just like the stagnant water he was in.
There were no lamps in the room, making it dim and gloomy, and Xu Yizhuo could not see the situation beneath the water. At this moment, several people came from a distance. Xu Yizhuo and Yuanwu had their attention fixed on the jiaoren the entire time. It was only when those people came close that they reacted, and by then, it was already too late to avoid them. However, those people only glanced at them and had no further reaction. Right in front of them, they opened the door to the side hall, their stick-figure faces filled with indifference.
Xu Yizhuo and Yuanwu stood at the hall door and looked inside. They saw those people begin fishing things out of the pool. The jiaoren remained as if dead, not moving once during the process.
“Only this few jiaoren pearls!” An angry roar erupted from inside the hall, startling Xu Yizhuo.
As if venting his anger, that person threw several jiaoren pearls at the jiaoren’s face, knocking his face to one side. Then he said angrily to the people beside him, “Bring the fumigation grass!”
The person who received the order immediately took out something he carried with him.
At first, Xu Yizhuo did not know what that person intended to do. But the next scene made her completely dumbfounded. The leader lit the plant called fumigation grass. It burned very slowly, but emitted white smoke, and he took that bundle of grass to smoke the jiaoren’s eyes.
For a moment, Xu Yizhuo could not even feel anger. An evil deed exceeding the range of her understanding made her brain crash.
She thought nothing. She could not think anything. Her body made a choice before her mind did. Xu Yizhuo strode forward, fiercely snatched the bundle of fumigation grass, and threw it to the ground. When she spoke, even her lips were trembling. “What are you doing!”
For the first time, Xu Yizhuo realized that words could be so powerless. She did not dare look at the jiaoren beside her and could only glare furiously at the stick-figure person opposite her.
The stick-figure face twisted instantly. “Who are you? Do you know the consequences of interfering with pearl harvesting?!”
Xu Yizhuo had already drawn her sword, and she thanked Yuanwu, who had drawn hers first at the hall door, for reminding her.
The person being pointed at by Xu Yizhuo’s sword looked terrified. He was about to call for help, but before his voice could leave his mouth, Xu Yizhuo knocked him unconscious.
Yuanwu sighed and also turned her blade around to use the back of the sword.
Among the people who had come to “harvest pearls,” most were ordinary people without cultivation, and the few cultivators had not reached Foundation Establishment either. In the time it took Xu Yizhuo to knock one person unconscious, the more experienced Yuanwu had already knocked all the others unconscious.
With a clang, the Xuanwu Sword fell to the ground. Xu Yizhuo covered her face, weakly sat on the ground, and her whole person looked dejected.
She had indeed felt killing intent just now.
In truth, Xu Yizhuo knew very well that these stick-figure faces were not real people at all. They were like NPCs in a game. Even if she really cut them down, it could not count as her killing people.
But Xu Yizhuo could not do it.
At the final moment, Xu Yizhuo still turned the sword around and knocked him unconscious with the back of the blade.
Xu Yizhuo felt she was a little disappointing. Clearly, that was an evil person, and a fake person at that.
Yuanwu patted her shoulder, like someone with experience. “If you’ve never killed anyone before, it’s normal to feel burdened. It gets much better after the first time.”
Xu Yizhuo looked up at her. “You’ve killed people?”
“Sometimes, if you don’t kill others, others will come kill you,” Yuanwu said. “And as for those demonic cultivators who kill like flies, we generally don’t treat them as people.”
Xu Yizhuo was not comforted and remained very dispirited.
A weak force tugged at Xu Yizhuo’s sleeve.
Xu Yizhuo looked over. The one tugging at her sleeve was precisely the jiaoren in the pool.
Xu Yizhuo’s voice was very soft, afraid of frightening him. “Is something the matter?”
It seemed the jiaoren had not spoken in a long time. At first, he could only make hoarse sounds that did not form words. Only after a long while did he barely manage to say one sentence. “Save her… Please save her…”
Xu Yizhuo was lost. “Save who?”
Blood tears flowed from the jiaoren’s eyes, and he caught his own tears. Those red jiaoren pearls were stuffed into Xu Yizhuo’s arms again and again. “The goddess… save her.”
Xu Yizhuo was at a loss. The jiaoren pearls dropped to the ground and rolled everywhere.
The jiaoren’s eyes were full of sorrow as he stubbornly looked at Xu Yizhuo.
Xu Yizhuo numbly nodded, even though she had yet to fully understand the jiaoren’s words.
The jiaoren barely tugged at the corners of his mouth. He was too tired and no longer had the strength to think about whether Xu Yizhuo was lying to him. Gradually, even blood stopped flowing from the jiaoren’s eyes. He could no longer support his body at the pool’s edge and slowly slipped into the water.
The jiaoren’s tears had dried up.
His life also stopped at this moment.
Xu Yizhuo lay on the roof, looking at the eternal, unchanging moon above her head.
No matter where one was, the bright moon in the sky seemed to be the same.
Someone flew onto the roof. Xu Yizhuo did not need to look to know who that person was. At this hour, the only person who would come over was Yuanwu.
Yuanwu sat down beside her. “Can’t sleep?”
Xu Yizhuo said, “I don’t dare close my eyes.”
Once she closed her eyes, she would remember that the jiaoren’s eyes would never open again.
Yuanwu hugged her knees, her mood equally poor. In the past, her understanding of jiaoren had all come from books. Just as she had always said, that part of history was already too distant from her. It was very difficult for Yuanwu to understand the jiaoren’s situation back then from a few sparse words in a book.
But today, she saw it.
Yuanwu was still very young. She had grown up in Shiwai Tower and had never experienced such cruel things before. This was not cruelty toward one person, but cruelty toward an entire race.
This cruelty was too heavy, pressing down until she could hardly breathe. She did not even dare look at the pile of jiaoren pearls in her spatial magic artifact. In the past, these jiaoren pearls had been obtained by exploiting the lives of jiaoren.
Pearl production, pearl harvesting—those words sounded very much like a business.
“All life under the Heavenly Dao exists within cause and effect and the cycle of reincarnation,” Yuanwu suddenly said. “In the past, the human race abused and killed the jiaoren. That was the cause. Today, Yellow Springs water threatens the yang world. That is the effect. Whatever cause we plant today, one day we must bear the fruit it produces.”
“This must be what the Tower Master wanted us to understand, aside from obtaining tokens for Knocking on the Immortal Gate.”
Xu Yizhuo reached out a hand, as if she could stir the stars in the sky. A strange feeling appeared in her heart. It seemed there was a thread connecting many things together.
From a very long time ago.
From before she came to this world.
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