Returning from the abyss

Chapter 1309: The Tricks of Villain

Xuan Yangzi and his gang never came again, and Lu Ning never went to look for them.

In fact, she only waited for five days before leaving Lingying Mansion on horseback.

In terms of what she brought, this trip actually seemed a bit bloated because of the increase in luggage. She had to equip her horse with a pair of boxes and cages to hold her increasing luggage, instead of being able to carry all of it in one bag as before.

The destination is also clear, continue south.

Even though winter is approaching, the weather in the south is still warm. Lu Ning held the reins with one hand and a thin book with the other, reading leisurely on the road. She was not in a hurry, as there was still a long time before the New Year. More than three months was enough for her to decide what to do next.

The breathing technique that Ma Zi got from Sanxian Island was called "Qingping Lingying Tongxinfa", and no one knew who named it. But it didn't matter. After Lu Ning read it and tried it, she found that although this technique came from Sanxian Island, an obviously problematic place, it was not a sinister method.

It is stated at the beginning that in ancient times, there was a correct way to cultivate immortality, which was to breathe in the essence of heaven and earth according to the seasons, and when one reached a certain age, one would naturally become an immortal. But nowadays, there is no way to become an immortal, and this method is modeled after this. One must breathe in the essence of the sun and the moon every day, and work hard without stopping, and one may be able to purify the mind and strengthen the body. However, if one has the chance to become an immortal, it must be achieved with a great opportunity.

Nowadays, even ordinary boxing manuals have to boast of being invincible. It is indeed rare to see a martial art with a disclaimer at the beginning.

Now, Lu Ning has been practicing this method for three days. In fact, compared with her Senluo Jiuzhuan Xinjue, this method is much easier. All she needs to do is sit on a high place and breathe in and out for a moment every day when the sun and the moon rise.

One obvious effect is that when she activates the innate purple qi, the pain will be relieved a little.

Although it was unknown whether it was the effect of the technique or she had developed a tolerance for it after using it so much, this was undoubtedly good news. Lu Ning recited the technique silently every day, trying to memorize it as soon as possible to avoid trouble in the future.

As for the other strange books sent by Xuan Yangzi, she also flipped through them. To be honest, these things are indeed not suitable to be given to people easily.

Xuan Yangzi himself gave out a collection of elixirs, talismans, water, and scrolls. The spells he knew were basically all in the previous booklet. Recorded here were methods of making some small objects, but none of them could be made without blood, and many even required demons as materials. I don't know if Xuan Yangzi's fighting ability has been actually tested.

This is still considered good, the remaining people are quite intriguing.

Liu Bozi's book, apart from a set of abduction martial arts that was useless to Lu Ning, contained all the rest of the content related to abduction and torture, commonly known as the technique of beating a beggar, and the tricks of sealing the internal force of martial artists and torturing them. Bai Tieyi's and others had a book, all of which were tricks for performing arts, and there were also performance techniques such as letting a child fly into the sky, then throwing the body parts and restoring them. Not to mention Six Fingers, the whole book was about the unethical methods of catching and raising ghosts. Monkey Hand's was about the methods of raising various animals, which sounded normal, but it also included detailed records of how to make animals obey orders to kill and eat people.

In other words, Tao Xuanzu and Wujie don't often resort to those shady tactics.

Tao Xuanzu's book is divided into two parts, one is about fortune-telling, the other is about medicine. The medical skills in that book are all folk prescriptions. After all, his medical skills are definitely not as good as those of a legitimate doctor. But the fortune-telling book is different. Just the fact that it has a legitimate name is different from the others - the first three chapters of the "Dayan Mingxiao Jing". This is a fragment, and Tao Xuanzu seems to have become a fortune-teller based on this.

Wujie's things were an unexpected surprise for Lu Ning. He gave her three Buddhist scriptures copied into a book. Lu Ning was not a person who understood Zen, but when she recited those Buddhist scriptures, she could feel peaceful. She almost immediately realized that if she could get the Buddhist scriptures earlier, the previous state of being possessed by the devil could even be eliminated by reciting the scriptures.

This trip can be said to be fruitful, but it also allowed Lu Ning to gain a better understanding of the situation in this world.

Xuan Yangzi and his people's skills were not very advanced, but they were far beyond the knowledge of ordinary people. There were probably many strange people like them. Although their martial arts skills might not be as good as those of famous sects, they had many strange and unpredictable methods.

We should be more cautious in the future.

Traveling south, the population was sparse, and even if there were villages and towns, they were affected by the war and most of them were burned down. Lu Ning mainly hunted, and tried to use as little of his stored rations as possible. When he arrived in southern Xinjiang, there was an extra pile of animal skins behind the saddle.

Leather that has not been tanned and has only been scraped of flesh and blood will not last very long, especially in the south. Lu Ning walked into a town in southern Xinjiang. There is still a market here, which allows her to sell all the leather she has found on the road. The copper coins of the Wei Dynasty are no longer accepted here, but silver is still acceptable, but Lu Ning is not going to spend her savings here.

Although the Great Wei had reached that point, the living standard was still better than that of Southern Xinjiang. Lu Ning saw many people who were half-naked and simply wrapped themselves in cloth and walked on the streets. The vendors were hawking and selling nothing serious, mountain products, fruits and vegetables grown at home, wooden farm tools, etc. Lu Ning found a shop with a facade and sold the bundle of fur to the owner, in exchange for a handful of beautiful stones.

"...So this is the money used by Southern Xinjiang?"

Lu Ning knew that jade was also produced here, but the ones in her hands were obviously not jade, but ordinary stones stained with some mineral colors and polished. To be honest, it was hard to accept the credibility of such stones that could be obtained as general equivalents by just walking around in the mountains, but from what Lu Ning saw on the street, in addition to barter, transactions in southern Xinjiang were really carried out using such stones.

That's interesting.

Lu Ning tossed and caught the two stones in his hands, while observing the transactions in the market and estimating the value of the stones.

One stone can be exchanged for three pieces of jerky... It seems that the purchasing power is still good. But the territory of Wei would definitely not recognize such things, so this situation has never been reported back to Wei.

She squatted in front of a stall filled with all kinds of mountain products, placed the two stones in her hand in front of the vendor, and pointed to a bundle of herbs.

The vendor picked up two stones and was about to nod when Lu Ning pointed to some dried mushrooms next to the herbs. The vendor was stunned for a moment, waved his hand, separated a little from the herbs, grabbed a handful of dried mushrooms, took out a piece of paper from his pocket and placed them on top, gesturing to indicate that this was all.

Seeing this, Lu Ning pointed at the herbs again, waved her hand, and then pointed to a leather scabbard in the corner of the stall. The vendor shook his head repeatedly, pinched a stone to show her, and stretched out four fingers with his other hand.

In the end, the sign language communication deal was concluded with Lu Ning giving him three more stones and only buying the scabbard and a small amount of dried mushrooms.

She tied the scabbard to her belt, put the knife she got from Baimianqianxiang into it and fastened the buckle. Then she left the stall. Turning a corner, she threw the dried mushrooms to a few stray dogs on the street corner.

The civilians in southern Xinjiang seemed unaware that they were at war with the Wei Dynasty.

They live in poverty and have little information. Even in such a small town, there is no decent management system. Order is maintained by a few elected people who are similar to village heads.

Of course, judging from those stones, she knew there must be someone controlling this place behind the scenes.

Lu Ning had no intention of slaughtering civilians. Although she looked down on the invasion of the people from Southern Xinjiang, she did not have much sense of belonging to the Wei Dynasty. She was just looking for any hidden branch in Southern Xinjiang that could allow her to earn more benefits in this stage of the mission.

Even though she had grown a lot compared to before, Lu Ning still didn't like to control the situation. Instead, killing more monsters might be more in line with her ideas. She walked around the town and found the direction of the mass grave, so she walked out of the town and headed there.

A hazy purple color surged into Lu Ning's eyes. Amid the slight stinging pain in her eyes, she also saw the ghosts floating on the mass grave.

"That's enough." The purple flashed and disappeared, and Lu Ning began to pinch her fingers. These didn't meet the criteria for raising a little ghost, but they were enough to be used as material for the spell "Five Ghosts Moving Mountains".

Among the strange spells in Xuan Yangzi's book, the last four require precious materials to use. Moving the Mountains with Five Ghosts requires the Ghost Banner, Huge Square Inch requires the Spiritual Zombie, Traveling Thousands of Miles requires a Horse, and Changing Positions requires a Soul Card.

As for these materials, of course you have to refine them yourself.

Lu Ning took out a few small flags made of white cloth, threw them into the air, made hand gestures, and began to chant the soul-binding spell, gathering all the ghosts in the mass grave onto the flags. These flags were made of ordinary wood and cloth, and could not hold too many ghosts. But in a short time, they were refined.

"The quality of dead souls is indeed not as good as the living souls described in the books." Lu Ning put away the flags. They were just a little darker on the surface. If the souls of living people were used for sacrifice, according to what was said in the book, obvious soul patterns should have appeared.

At this moment, a dog barked suddenly from behind.

Lu Ning turned her head and found a black dog, skinny and bony. It seemed to be one of the wild dogs she had seen in the town before, and was eaten by the mushrooms she had thrown at it.

"Why are you following me?" Lu Ning glanced at the dog - with her demon eyes.

The dog exudes the scent of a normal living being.

It seemed to be foreseeable that animals would chase after the people who fed them. Moreover, Lu Ning remembered that she had fed several animals, but only this one caught up with her.

The black dog barked twice and ran to a grave. It dug the soil with its front paws. Lu Ning walked to the grave, frowned and said, "You want me to dig this up?"

The black dog whimpered twice and began to circle around the grave.

Lu Ning had no objection, but she certainly would not spend the effort to dig. She untied a rope from her arm and threw it to the ground, and the end of the rope sank into the grave. Lu Ning pinched the rope and shook it, and "borrowed" an iron box from the grave.

"Who is buried here?"

Lu Ning took out the box, opened it and looked inside. Inside was a copper cigarette holder and a whistle made of something unknown, strung together by a string, but most of the string had rotted away. After taking a look, Lu Ning took out a piece of string and strung the two things together again, and tied it around the black dog's neck.

The black dog wagged its tail and barked at Lu Ning a few times, then ran away. Lu Ning returned the box and followed the black dog.

She had no intention of training the black dog. One horse was enough for her, and she didn't have to use the things she learned.

But this dog obviously had an owner before, and she would not ask the story behind it. She was just curious about where the dog was taking her.

The black dog led her to a sparse forest and barked a few times. Then, she heard a shout from inside the forest and the black dog rushed in immediately.

There was a small wooden house in the forest, and an old man came out of the house. From his gray hair and wrinkled face, it can be seen that he is a man of considerable age, but he is still energetic and does not even need a walking stick.

"Oh?" The old man raised his head and saw Lu Ning outside the woods. He looked at the thing on the black dog's neck, then raised his hand and waved to Lu Ning.

Lu Ning walked over, but the hand hidden under his coat had already touched the hilt of the flying knife.

The old man invited Lu Ning to the cabin. The furnishings in the cabin were unexpectedly rich, and there were even many items that were only found in the Great Wei. The old man sat down on a chair, grabbed two pieces of dried meat from a small bowl and threw them to the black dog, then looked at Lu Ning.

"Put your hands down."

Very standard Central Plains Chinese.

However, Lu Ning did not do so. Instead, he asked, "Who are you? Why are you living in seclusion here?"

"Several decades ago, the Wei Dynasty sent people to the southern border, one to consolidate control, and the other to educate the locals. There were more than a hundred people in total." The old man said, "In the following decades, some were recalled, some did not want to stay, and in the end, only a few people were left."

“Are you one of them?”

"I am just a criminal." The old man smiled. "It is the custom of the Wei Dynasty that this kind of hard work must be assigned to some craftsmen and scholars with lighter punishments. I am one of them. After paying for my crime with merit, if I have nothing to worry about, I may marry and have children in the local area and never go back."

Lu Ning nodded.

"There used to be many merchants from Wei here, but in recent years, there are fewer and fewer of them. I am old, so I have settled down here and don't plan to move around. Fortunately, I am still strong enough to live alone. What about you, young lady? Why are you here alone?"

"Southern Xinjiang has raised troops to invade the border of Wei. The two sides have been fighting for a long time. Don't you know?"

The old man was stunned for a moment, but did not show any further surprise.

"Finally, the war broke out? Sigh, it's hard on the people of both places..."

"It seems you have some news too."

"It's not hard to guess. The people from Southern Xinjiang and the merchants from Wei know each other and have a good relationship without any prejudice. But we have also seen how the outsiders from Southern Xinjiang behave. We just didn't expect a fight to break out so soon. When we came here, they welcomed us very much."

"Decades, old sir," Lu Ning said.

The old man sighed: "Yes... I am already half a southern Xinjiang person."