The Heavens: A Qing, the Yue Girl at the beginning

In the early winter afternoon, the sky was like rice paper soaked in water, gray and seeping onto the window frames.

The blind fortuneteller sat cross-legged on a faded cushion, his earlobe trembling slightly. A jade-colored crystal oozed out of his ear, which grew in the wind and condensed into a three-inch long stringless harp in the blink of an eye. The body of the harp exuded an amber-like luster, and the swift relief on the tail flapped its wings in the cold light, ready to fly.

"Ding--"

When the first sound of the piano rang out, the vibration of the copper bell on the eaves suddenly solidified, and the dust accumulated on the beams fell down and condensed into thirty-six small swords. Ye Celeng's knuckles turned white as he gripped the umbrella handle. He watched the tea on the table sway slightly, creating fine ripples.

"clang--"

The jade zither trembled for the second time, passing through thirty-seven streets and alleys. The teahouse flags drooped without wind, and a few yellow dogs huddled in haystacks with their tails between their legs.

"Keng——"

When the third heartbeat sounded, Zhang Shiwu, who was dressed as a gardener and looked to be in his forties, was squatting at the back wall of the Wang family residence. His rough fingertips gently brushed the curled leaves of a wild chrysanthemum, and the frost reflected fine sword-like edges between the leaf veins.

His pair of scissors were tucked into his waist, the blades reflecting the cold light, making him look more energetic than his owner.

The sound of children playing came from inside the wall, startling the sparrows on the eaves and making them fly up.

The roasted aroma of sesame oil wafted from the depths of the alley, mixed with the steam rising from the tofu shop. In front of his frozen red nose, it was like the smoke from his hometown, warm and familiar, weaving a path home.

Then, the short and stocky gardener, who had been called by his fellow disciples, stood up straight. White steam rose from his dark red face, and dark marks of sweat appeared on the back of his coarse cloth shorts.

At this hour, Zhang Shiwu should have been pruning plum branches at Mr. Li's house in the west of the city to earn a little money, but when he woke up in the morning, he saw a blue-tailed magpie perched on the window frame outside his house, which reminded him of the magpies that always liked to rest on the sword-drying stones at the back cliff of the Bashan Sword Field thirty years ago.

At that time, he always liked to scatter broken rice grains on the stones and watch the blue-tailed magpies pecking at the food in groups with their heads tilted. In the morning mist of the sword field, the young man's clear laughter spread out.

The moment the fourth string note was played softly, the wind in the alley suddenly stopped.

The copper coins on the door curtain of the tofu shop no longer jingled, the charcoal seller's cough was stuck in his throat, and even the arc of the sparrow's flapping wings seemed frozen in the amber time.

Yuqin's face gradually turned blood red, and tears oozed out from under the blind man's tightly closed eyelids, accumulating into small ice puddles in his wrinkles.

Zhang Shiwu staggered forward half a step, and the pair of scissors fell to the ground with a clang. He felt the old scar on his palm suddenly burning like an iron, and he could not help but stare at his palm in a daze, memories flooding back like a tide.

The wind suddenly started moving again.

The air in the humble courtyard is crystallizing.

The blind fortune teller's skinny fingers hovered over the fifth virtual string, and the body of the zither had become as transparent as glass.

Zhang Shiwu bent down to pick up the scissors, the blade of which was stained with a curled wild chrysanthemum petal. He only heard the sound of a wooden spoon scraping the bottom of a jar from the sesame oil shop at the end of the alley, mixed with the hoarse calls of the peddler in the distance.

He grabbed his hat and rushed out of the door. The corner of his clothes scraped off a few tufts of withered honeysuckle vines on the wall. The half-piece of peach wood talisman in his arms was poking his chest. The sword mark on the talisman matched the one under the blind man's pillow perfectly.

The madly running posture resembles that of the boy who chased hares in the hills behind the sword field, except that the frost on his temples had already dyed his black hair thoroughly.

The sixth note of the piano settled all the dust in the room in mid-air.

Blood oozed from the blind man's ears, but before hitting the ground, it turned into red fireflies, weaving a flowing string net around the jade harp.

Suddenly, there was a faint fragrance wafting outside the door, a mixture of the scent of soil and peonies.

With a creak, the wooden door was pushed open, and dozens of dead leaves swirled around. The gardener stepped in with the bitter scent of grass leaves. The draft lifted Ye Celeng's hair, and she saw her uncle, whom she hadn't seen for ten years, standing at the intersection of light and shadow, his coarse cloth shorts stained with grass clippings.

At this moment, the blind man's sunken eye sockets glowed with blue light, and the swift relief on the tail of the jade harp suddenly flapped its wings and left the wood. At the same time, several jackdaws outside the window were startled and their quack sounds pierced the sky, breaking the stagnation in the room.

Zhang Shiwu's dark and rough face twitched, and he slowly took out an oil-paper bag from his arms. The twenty-year-old lotus leaf had already turned yellow, and it contained a bunch of freshly fried pumpkin seeds.

The blind man took it with trembling hands. The moment his fingertips touched the calluses on his palms, two turbid tears fell on the lotus leaf, leaving dark round spots.

The setting sun shines through the latticed windows, pinning the shadows of the three people on the mottled wall.

Ten years of time suddenly collapsed into a three-inch sword edge, and the cold light pierced Ye Ce's throat so hard that it tightened.

She looked at the green mud embedded in Zhang Shiwu's rough palm lines, and suddenly remembered what her master said when he wiped his sword in the apricot rain at the spring equinox that year:
"The disciples of the sword field have the seeds of sword buried in their bones and blood. Even if they turn into mud in the fields or ash under the stove, they can still burn into the shape of a sword when encountering sparks, so that the world can see it clearly."

Now, looking at the light that had rekindled in her uncle's cloudy eyes, she finally believed that some fires, even if buried thousands of feet underground and covered by ice and snow for years, would never go out. Once the spring breeze passed, they would burn like a prairie fire.

In the humble room of the small courtyard, amid the lingering sound of the jade zither, Zhang Shiwu was silent for a moment, and finally spoke, his voice hoarse and slow, like pulling out a long-forgotten sword from a rusty scabbard bit by bit: "A Leng, you have worked hard these years."

Just a few words seemed to have exhausted all his life's energy, and also exhausted the decades of time between them. The high spirits of their youth, fighting side by side on the sword field, and the subsequent separation, wandering, and reunion...

All the past is condensed in this sentence, turning into a deep sigh.

The corners of Ye Celeng's eyes were slightly moist. She took a deep breath and tried to calm the waves in her heart. When she spoke, her voice had returned to calm: "Uncle Master, I'm not tired. But you, hiding your identity and wandering around for these years, it's really not easy."

Zhang Shiwu shook his head and tapped the table with his rough palm, sending pumpkin seed crumbs flying everywhere. "It's all in the past. Now that you've found me, it's time for this old bone to contribute to the Bashan Sword Field again."

As he spoke, he untied the pair of scissors that had accompanied him for many years from his waist, and lightly touched the edge of the blade with his fingertips, splitting it into two, turning it into two swords that were rust-free and sharp in an instant. One was pure snow-white, and the other was pure black.

The sword divides into yin and yang, and it controls the creation of nature.

This meant that the former Yin-Yang Sword Master of Bashan Sword Field had finally returned after lying dormant in Changling City for many years.

……

Almost at the same time, in the village where Zhao Qing had distributed wealth before, a cavalry of over a hundred men was galloping along the official road. They were all wearing black leather armor with brown cotton robes underneath. The sound of their horses' hooves was like muffled thunder, but they stopped abruptly a few dozen steps away from the village entrance.

The leading general raised his hand to signal, and more than a hundred elite cavalrymen reined in their horses and stopped in unison, without any sound of metal colliding.

Hengshan Xu Hou was the first to jump off his mount. The four hooves of the warhorse covered with black scales sank slightly, and his strong body as big as a hill landed without any sound. He took off his tiger-head helmet, revealing a fat face as round as a full moon. The flesh on his cheeks trembled slightly with his steps, but he didn't look bulky at all.

"The armor never leaves the body, and the blade never drinks blood."

His voice was like a loud bell, shaking the dead branches beside the road rustling: "Unload the crossbows and bows, and form a goose formation." The sound of iron armor rubbing against each other was like a tide sweeping across the plain. The hundreds of riders dismounted in unison, and the light sounds of leather and iron merged into one when the crossbows were put into the sheaths.

The soldiers formed a wedge-shaped formation along the ridges of the fields, deliberately avoiding the furrows with fresh mud - there were still strings of gold coins left by Zhao Qing stuck there, and the copper coins jingled in the wind.

Hengshan Xu Hou's eyes swept over the strings of copper coins, his nostrils twitched slightly, and then he took off the jade-inlaid ceremonial sword from his waist and threw it to his guards, then strode forward. His black iron boots stepped on the frosty and hard ridges of the fields, leaving half-inch deep dents.

Referring to a portrait of the local headman, he looked around the village carefully, then called out to an old man who was repairing a roof in the distance: "Zhang Lizheng! I am here to comfort the people. May I ask how many houses in the village have been damaged? How many casualties have there been?"

He did not expect the Qin cavalry to arrive so quickly, and he did not know how they would deal with these properties of unknown origin. Zhang Lizheng's heart was trembling, his hands trembled, and the tiles rolled down the eaves, but were stopped by the flow of true energy casually emitted by Hengshan Xu Hou, and fell back to their original place as lightly as a feather.

The old man nervously climbed down the bamboo ladder, only to see the Qin army array spread out like goose feathers ten steps away. The crossbows that the soldiers had unloaded were neatly stacked in camphorwood boxes, and the cavalrymen in the front row were putting bits on their horses' mouths to prevent them from eating the newly sprouted winter wheat between the ridges.

The accompanying clerk unfolded the bamboo slip album and made some strokes with a cinnabar pen, as if he was recording something.

At the end of the team, two young soldiers were squatting by the well, using leather bags to distribute maltose to crying children.

Many people know that Xu Hou of Hengshan, who came from an ordinary family, has a direct command of the Hengshan Shenzang Army, which is the most disciplined army in the entire Qin Dynasty. And because there are a large number of people from Changling and Guanzhong among them, they are even more kind to the nearby people.

"Thanks to the general's great fortune..." The old man suddenly realized something was wrong when he was halfway through his words, and hurriedly changed his words: "Thanks to your majesty's grace, when the stone ball fell from the sky, only seven thatched roofs collapsed in our village, and twelve animal sheds were damaged. At that time, every household ran far away to avoid it in advance, so no one was injured..."

As he listened, Hengshan Xu Hou suddenly laughed. His right hand hanging by his side suddenly tightened, and the black iron wristband made a slight creaking sound. Then, a light breeze blew past the open door of the firewood room next to him, blowing up the scattered papers on the ground.

One of them was covered with straw and happened to float between his thick five fingers and was naturally absorbed by his palm.

When Xu Hou rubbed his thumb on the three words "Tu Na Fa" for a while, the ink on the surface of the paper twisted and faded like a living thing, revealing the batch-printed ten thousand-word book between the layers.

The next moment, his pupils suddenly shrank to the size of a needle tip, the fat on his face surged like waves, and his body suddenly grew larger, showing the uneasiness in his heart at the moment.

"My Lord..." The personal guard took two steps forward holding the ceremonial sword.

Hengshan Xu Hou waved his hand to indicate that it was all right. He twisted a corner of the letter with his stubby fingers and looked at it carefully in the sun. The seal characters in the interlayer flowed in the light and shadow. In a trance, they looked like the relief carvings of coiled dragons on the beams and pillars of the Qin Palace, and every stroke concealed thunder.

"Why are you panicking?" He took a deep breath, folded the letter into a square, and stuffed it into the secret compartment of his black iron wristband: "Send an eagle message to the Heavenly Supervisor and tell them that the traitor is trying to use money to confuse the people in the village..."

He suddenly paused, crushing half a piece of frozen soil with the tip of his boots. "One more thing, wherever the Hengshan army passed, the people were fed and drank."

"In addition, an order has been issued to all camps that any leaflets of this kind which are encountered should be sealed with wax immediately. Anyone who opens them privately will be punished for spying on military secrets."

He then issued an order, leaving behind several clerks to assist the village head in registering the damage to the houses, and ordered craftsmen to be mobilized from nearby military towns to start repairing the damaged houses. Then, Hengshan Xu Hou led his Shenzang Army to continue heading towards the next village.

With thunderous shouts, more than a hundred cavalrymen retreated like a black tide.

When the last scout collected the command flag and accidentally crushed the moss on the edge of the well with his boot heel, no one noticed that these mosses, which should have turned yellow and decayed due to the cold weather, were actually glowing with a faint emerald glow in the sunlight. A closer look revealed spore sacs as big as needle tips that were slowly swelling.

……

That night, a bright moon hung high in the sky, and the cold stars were hidden behind the clouds.

The bright moonlight spread across the earth, covering this huge capital city with a layer of silver gauze.

The city of Changling is still brightly lit, but the hustle and bustle of the past is gone. Only a small number of pedestrians are hurrying on the streets, and most of the shops have closed early, making the city seem a little deserted. Faintly, one can sense a tense atmosphere as if a storm is about to come.

A sudden stone ball attack broke the peace of the capital and made many people panic. They dared not stay outside for long for fear of encountering another accident.

At the same time, in the council hall deep in the palace, the lights were bright and there were many people. Emperor Yuanwu was summoning a group of important ministers and servants to discuss various countermeasures.

"Your Majesty, according to the statistics and estimates just made by me and others, a total of 17 UFOs were affected in this attack. Five of them were severely damaged and can no longer be repaired. The other 12 were also seriously damaged and will require a lot of time and materials to repair."

"In addition, the rest of the ships and facilities in the port were also severely damaged. The specific damage assessment and follow-up matters are still being further counted... After investigation, it was confirmed that not long before the attack, the soldiers and craftsmen on the ship all suffered from diarrhea, suspected to be some kind of water poisoning."

"Because almost everyone chose to go off the ship to seek medical advice and treatment, not many people stayed at the scene, so there was no power to activate the protective array, which made many ships useless and more easily damaged by the stone balls. At the same time, the number of casualties was greatly reduced, and it has not exceeded ten yet."

A middle-aged general wearing a general's robe and armor covered with smoke and scorch marks, accompanied by several colleagues, came before Emperor Yuanwu, half-knelt on the ground, and reported in a deep voice the losses caused by the attack.

Although his face did not reveal much expression, anyone could hear the deep grief and self-blame contained in his words, as well as a trace of fear and uneasiness that was difficult to conceal, for fear that he would be punished.

Yuan Wu leaned on a dragon-head table carved from black jade. Ninety-nine gilded coiled dragon candles illuminated the throne as bright as day. He casually tapped the star-patterned meteorite inlaid on the armrest. The pattern changed with each tap. What appeared at this moment was the star map of Wei Yueyan from the Twenty-Eight Mansions.

"Let's talk about water poison."

The candlelight flickered in the hall, casting a half-bright and half-dark shadow on Yuan Wu's face. He lowered his eyes and looked at the star patterns flowing on his fingertips, as if those tiny pieces of silver sand were more interesting than the other party's report.

The general kneeling on the ground broke out in cold sweat, and the dripping sound of the copper clock in the corner of the hall suddenly became particularly harsh.

"Your Majesty," the general's Adam's apple rolled, his voice as tense as a fully drawn bowstring, "The military doctor examined the patient's filth and drew blood for steaming, and found that the poison was invisible and only related to the circulation of the five qi and the movement of the true essence in the human body. It doesn't look like an ordinary poison, but more like a special kind of true essence."

"When it attacks, it is like ordinary dysentery, but the pulse is weak and floating like reed wool, and the tongue coating has scaly patterns. It also has the property of flowing along the meridians, merging into the sea of ​​qi, and taking root there. This is not recorded in the classics, nor is it something I have seen in my life... The military doctors are helpless and can only use silver needles to temporarily suppress it and relieve some of the symptoms."

As he spoke, he pulled out a palm-sized glass tube from the secret pocket on the lining of his armor. The tube contained a translucent liquid and a few black particles as fine as dust. He asked the deputy general to present it to him and added:
"This is the essence of water poison extracted from hundreds of patients by washing the meridians and forcing the qi with needles. Of course, this is only a part of it. The specific analysis and testing has been handed over to Lord Xu Fu."

Upon hearing this, Yuan Wu paused his fingertips, and the Wei Yueyan Star Map dissipated, turning back into meaningless silver sand. He said calmly, "So, the person who poisoned me intended to weaken the combat power of our navy?"

"Exactly."

The general crouched on the ground, cold sweat dripping down his forehead: "If it weren't for this, the loss would never have been so heavy."

"I understand."

Yuan Wu responded nonchalantly, as if all the losses were insignificant. He stroked the star map that reappeared on the armrest, this time it was the Guansuo in Tianshiyuan: "So, what about the villages and towns that were crushed by the stone ball along the way? "

...(End of chapter)