Chapter 1 The Lure of the City

The bustling metropolis, with its highly developed technology, brought a fast-paced life.

The old days of working at sunrise and resting at sunset were long gone.

Even after midnight, at the height of yin energy, the metropolis remained brightly lit, like a giant, exquisite honey pot, filled with all the anesthetics humans craved, allowing everyone to indulge in physical or mental release and addiction.

Sometimes, Wang Qi felt that modern cities were like giant, unprecedented monsters.

Monsters used magic to seduce humans, then absorbed their essence to cultivate.

Giant cities attracted more and more people with their dazzling temptations, then absorbed their most valuable ten or twenty years, absorbed their energy, and spat them out, luring more humans in. Through the sacrifices and contributions of these people, the cities became more and more prosperous and larger.

This was the modus operandi of a giant monster.

Could demons be born in cities?

"Dr. Wang, Dr. Wang?"

The gentle call brought Wang Qi back to her senses. She smiled apologetically, prescribed medicine for the patient, and then, amidst a chorus of thanks, smiled and watched the young man, who had just enjoyed a good sleep, leave. Her business was actually quite good.

High-paced, high-pressure life. This city plundered and occupied people's spirits and time, so most people retaliated by staying up late, and then gradually suffered from insomnia under immense pressure.

Their bodies gradually collapsed, their sleep deteriorated, and nightmares abounded.

Therefore, the profession of psychologist became increasingly popular.

Wang Qi looked at the sky outside, took a sip of coffee, and, still wearing her white coat, not very tall, with simple black hair and wire-rimmed glasses, casually clipped her pen to her coat pocket and went to the underground garage to get her car.

Another young nurse was with her, and Wang Qi nodded politely.

Squeak, squeak—

The elevator suddenly shook.

The lights flickered.

Suddenly,

The elevator plummeted.

Then it stopped abruptly, stopping at the morgue of this private hospital.

The little nurse screamed, collapsing to the ground, her legs weak.

As the elevator doors opened, a man walked in step by step, a bell from a corpse in the morgue hanging on his wrist, his eyes numb and cold. Wang Qi sighed. Her eyes behind the wire-rimmed glasses turned into vertical slits, and then the corpse suddenly stopped and fell to the ground with a thud.

The nurse shuddered in fright, unable to speak, "Dr. Wang..."

Wang Qi stretched out her finger and tapped the nurse's forehead.

The nurse couldn't say a word and collapsed in the elevator.

Then she stepped over the resurrected corpse of the man, the corpse visibly melting away.

She opened the car door, stepped on the gas, and reversed.

She was already proficient in modern technology.

Wang Qi drove back to where she lived now, the car playing the news, which seemed to indicate that the bad weather of the past few days had passed, and the next long period would be sunny. It was also strange that there had been sudden storms and heavy rain a few days ago, the sky dark, and then it had suddenly returned to normal.

When she got back, there were many hideous and terrifying monsters kneeling in the house.

[Book Friends Benefits] Reading books can get cash or coins, as well as iPhone 12 and Switch waiting for you to draw! Follow the VX public account [Book Friends Base Camp] to receive!

And surrounded by the demons was a man wearing loose robes, his black hair falling behind him, his face chiseled, extremely heroic, calmly flipping through a book. These were the reasons for the abnormal weather of the past few days—a bunch of passing monsters, some of whom even claimed to be gods.

"We are willing to submit to your Excellency."

"We will do whatever you command, and dare not say a word of dissent."

The leading monster knelt on the ground and kowtowed.

They had all been captured.

The black-haired man turned a page in his book and said,

"From Fusang?"

"Yes."

The domineering and muffled sound of a sword swept across, and when it retracted, these monsters had already been killed. The one with the highest cultivation tried to escape. He felt that he had already rushed out, but the cold feeling on his neck brought him back to reality. Before his eyes, he clearly had rushed out, but in reality, he had not moved a step.

Was it a dream?!

The monster's eyes widened.

The sword tore through him.

Finally, accompanied by a low tiger's roar, all the demons were devoured into his stomach.

Wang Qi knelt in front of him, leaning forward to pour tea, and said,

"Why doesn't shanjun subdue them? At least they could be of some use."

The black-haired man turned the pages of the book and said, "Simply because I dislike them."

"These monsters will attract the attention of the Tianshi Mansion. It's better to bring them back and kill them."

Wang Qi didn't say much. She had previously designed for a disciple of White Cloud Temple to place the shanjun's statue in the ancestral hall where sacrifices were made. Now, that disciple no longer existed in this world. The shanjun had borrowed his identity, and the latter had used the money he got to buy this house, so it naturally belonged to them.

Boqi, who understood illusions and dreams, could hide in the human world more easily than many demons with higher cultivation. The shanjun who drove the chang gui was the same. Wang Qi's gaze swept across the table, and she saw the book that the shanjun had flipped through, The Modern General History of Shenzhou, which he had just finished reading, was clearly visible.

So she understood what the shanjun's killings were for just now.

In any case, he was once a mountain god of Shenzhou.

The shanjun sat cross-legged on the sofa in a relaxed posture, surrounded by books in this borrowed skin.

"The Structure of Modern Society," "Blue Star Military," "Basic Principles of Economics"

As if forgetting sleep, as if not knowing boredom, he read one book after another voraciously.

"The human world two thousand years later is really interesting."

Wang Qi hummed in agreement.

And in the elevator of that private hospital, the nurse yawned, slowly opened her eyes, and was stunned for a moment. Then she hurriedly checked the time, answered a few calls, and left in a hurry. She only remembered that she was too busy tonight and returned later than Dr. Wang. Perhaps because she was too tired, she had fallen asleep in the elevator.

………………

Humanity's steel jungle rose from the ground, and monsters had no choice but to blend into human life.

Originally, in ancient times, wastelands and forests could be occupied, but now they needed protection to exist.

Wei Yuan was really having a headache.

He sat cross-legged at the highest point of the museum, able to see tall buildings in the distance. The sky was covered with a thick layer of smog, making it difficult to see the stars. He finally found a little starlight, and Wei Yuan held the insect maiwang from the book in his palm, aiming it at that star.

The stars seen through this maiwang seemed brighter.

Then beams of light gathered in the void, as if the brightness of the star suddenly increased. Wisps of starlight fell through the maiwang, and finally converged into a translucent elixir. Wei Yuan held this elixir, knowing that this should be the immortal pill that the heavenly maiden said could be obtained at night using the maiwang.

The black cat stretched lazily next to him, losing interest: "So it's just starlight and moonlight."

"You humans can't cultivate with the essence of the sun and moon like monsters, so you use the maiwang."

"Mortals can't withstand the starlight, so you have to break the maiwang and take its essence with it, which is just a slight strengthening of the body. It's really boring."

Wei Yuan held the elixir in his palm, somewhat surprised. Lei thought for a while, then stared at Wei Yuan again, and said:

"But you have the maiwang, so you can participate in the grand gathering on the fifteenth of July this year."

"The Zhongyuan Festival?"

"No, it's the Di Liu Jiang."

The black cat Lei stretched lazily and said: "On the gengshen night, there is the Di Liu Jiang in the moonlight, its shape is like countless olives, with ten thousand golden threads, strung together, hanging down to the human world, if the grass and trees receive its essence, they can become demons, if foxes and ghosts eat it, they can display supernatural powers. You are also a cultivator, haven't you heard of this?"

"I think the soul-nurturing wood in your house can barely become a spirit."

"As for you, mortals have no way to accept it. You can use the maiwang to turn the Di Liu Jiang into a pill that humans can also take. As the old Daoist Zhang Ruosu said, grass and trees have nature but no life, and the fluid has nature, so it can supplement life; foxes and ghosts originally have life, so eating it is of great benefit."

"You are human, one level higher than foxes and ghosts. If you can absorb the Di Liu Jiang, your cultivation should be much faster. This is a major event that only happens every sixty years, and since the spiritual energy has been cut off before, it hasn't happened for a long time. The one sixty years ago was too small, so this one should be bigger."

Wei Yuan smiled: "You don't seem like someone who would tell me this."

Lei simply didn't answer, muttering to himself that this guy was human after all, even if the maiwang turned the Di Liu Jiang into an elixir, he wouldn't be able to absorb that much, so wouldn't it all be his?

Wei Yuan sat on the roof of the museum and swallowed the elixir.

It stung a little.

But after entering his stomach, the elixir dissolved, and a cool, watery medicinal power circulated.

The Crouching Tiger Art circulated, and the hidden injuries he had suffered in the ghost domain were finally completely healed.

……………………

He had previously obtained a hundred merits, and healing and exchanging for a higher level of cultivation technique cost a total of forty points.

With the remaining sixty points, Wei Yuan planned to use them after his injuries had healed.

Now that he was going to Qingqiu in three days, and there was also the disaster of the shanjun Boqi hiding in the dark, Wei Yuan always felt like a beast was chasing him from behind. Today he had the opportunity, so he naturally began to try to cultivate. As he had thought before, he wanted to exchange for the Moonlight Shadow left by the previous generations of Sili Xiaowei.

To improve his experience and combat response.

Wei Yuan had already made his choice in advance.

After he solved the ghost king of the ghost domain, "Strange Forces and Chaotic Gods Picture Scroll, Strange Number Seventeen" ended. It seemed that this type of major case, or certain powerful demon king incidents, were very important for the Sili Xiaowei's assessment. After that day, a new batch of options appeared on the Great Han Arsenal selection list.

Among them were the Moonlight Shadow, which had a fixed merit of one and could only be exchanged by the Sili Xiaowei himself.

His subordinates, the twelve hundred elite troops directly under his command, as well as the various levels of envoys in charge of catching demons and arresting ghosts, could not see these choices. After thinking about it, Wei Yuan felt that these might be the inheritance that distinguished the Sili Xiaowei from other members. After all, the basic ghost expulsion, spirit injection, and the Crouching Tiger Art were all open to all demon-catching envoys, as long as they had merits, they could exchange for them.

The Crouching Tiger, as a commander, should have some differences.

And he couldn't start the exchange at first. It was only opened after solving a major case recorded in the files, to prevent the waist token from falling into the hands of incompetent people.

The first on the list was the Moonlight Shadow.

And it only required one merit.

This meant that all previous generations of Sili Xiaowei believed that future successors must experience this illusion to hone themselves.

Wei Yuan looked at the sixty points he had left and felt very rich.

And he was also very curious about what kind of terrifying and powerful demon or ghost this Moonlight Shadow was, that it had been carefully preserved by generations of Xiaowei.

So he spent one merit and clicked on this Moonlight Shadow.

It was a talisman that looked extremely ancient, or rather, not even a talisman, but just an imprint. Then Wei Yuan saw that it was not an imprint of one person, but a dense, countless number of people's imprints combined together.

In an instant, magic power engulfed Wei Yuan.

Like the feeling when he opened the Skin Painting File before, an incomparably real painting slowly unfolded in front of Wei Yuan, but there were large patches of black on the painting, giving people a sense of oppression. Then a line of words appeared on this huge painting—Fifth Year of Emperor Gaozu.

The picture burst into flames, and the burning ashes engulfed Wei Yuan.

His eyes blurred, and he had entered the illusion, entering the memories in this imprint.

The towering sky was dyed blood red, the rushing rivers, the incomparably strong smell of blood, this was a battlefield, and the most cruel ancient battlefield. Dense elite soldiers were like waves and dark clouds, surrounding a mountain. Knives and guns were like forests, and the stern murderous intent shrouded the heavens and earth in a thick cloud. Wei Yuan breathed in, feeling the murderous intent and bloody aura of the battlefield making the hairs on his body stand on end.

He subconsciously looked at the main subject of this memory scene.

Cao Cao, Zhang Fei, Du Yu, Zhuge…

Generations of Sili Xiaowei all agreed that this was a necessary experience for all future Crouching Tigers.

But it wasn't a demon.

It was not a high mountain, but it gave people an extremely towering momentum. Thousands of people, and even more elite soldiers, chased after it, but there were only twenty people on the mountain. The leader sat on horseback, holding a war spear, facing thousands of troops. He was already at the end of his road, but he showed no fear, only laughed loudly.

"Since I raised my army eight years ago, I have fought more than seventy battles, defeating those I faced and subduing those I attacked. I have never been defeated and have seized the world. But now I am trapped here. This is Heaven's will to destroy me, not the fault of battle."

"Today I will surely die. I only wish you gentlemen a quick battle and must win three times."

"To break the siege for you gentlemen, to kill generals, to cut down flags, to let you gentlemen know that it is Heaven's will to destroy me, not the fault of battle!"

The twenty-eight riders struck their armor with their weapons, their expressions fanatical.

"Yes!"

ps: Three thousand eight hundred words.