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

“When the cherry blossoms fall in winter, it’s the best time to appreciate the broken lines of a human heart.”

The loudspeaker in the hidden compartment of the shrine suddenly emitted a trembling sound like a shamisen, and the king's tone was like a chant:
"However, this view of the frozen chidori reminds me of the words in the Kokin Wakashu: 'Snow covers Naniwatsu, and winter plum blossoms bloom alone' - but the fragrance of this plum blossom is mixed with the smell of blood and rust, which is not elegant enough after all."

Ice crystals condensed into six-sided snowflakes at Zhao Qing's fingertips, reflecting the flickering light of the ruins of the Buddhist temple. "Since you claim to be a man of elegance, why don't you show up and enjoy this 'Xuejianneng'?"

"The Tale of the Heike says: The sound of the bell at Gion-no-monagasa tells us that the world is impermanent."

The king's sigh passed through eighteen surround sound devices, reflecting multiple echoes in the palaces covered with icy ridges. "Donor, why don't you guess, am I sitting on Mount Hiei to admire the maple leaves, or fishing for sea bream on the Shima Peninsula?"

The frozen shrine suddenly cracked, and wisps of green smoke rose from the bronze incense burner, which seemed to echo the ethereal sound. The colorless hail hidden in it condensed into indigo frost particles the moment it touched the ice net, falling down like withering red spider lilies.

"Playing tricks." Shi Yiguang waved his sleeves and shattered three hidden speakers. "A hiding rat is qualified to talk about the impermanence?"

However, Zhao Qing did not care much about cathinones and LSD. Instead, he looked at Yuan Zhinv with interest. She had deliberately kept a trick up her sleeve and had not implanted the life and death talisman or frozen her. He noticed that she seemed to have something important to say.

"Isn't it possible that the Lord Osaka is admiring the tides in Osaka Bay?"

Yuan Zhinv slowly stood up, took off the mask and threw it aside. "Even though you have completely switched to artificially synthesized voices now, you still forgot that when you gave an academic speech not long ago, you only modified the voiceprint and covered the background noise..."

During the time he was among the ghosts, his every word and action was monitored. Only his ears were free.

But in order to find the devil's flaw in absolute control, Yuan Zhinv, who only got C in Physics II in middle school, secretly listened to the lecture tapes of "Basics of Acoustic Engineering" and "Ocean Infrasound Atlas", and took time out every week to sneak to the port to practice.

He recalled the tidal white noise he had heard when the king talked about the secrets of Quetzalcoatl. The subtle difference between the noise and the synthesized sound was just like the difference between the ink marks on the inkstone and the pine smoke in The Pillow Book. He suddenly smiled:

"It's a pity that the infrasonic vibrations generated by the friction between the sea breeze and the waves cannot be filtered out."

After seeing that the newcomer's fighting power was beyond imagination and even suspected to have the ability to fly, Yuan Zhinv immediately made a sharp judgment that this was undoubtedly the best opportunity for her to get rid of the king and even kill the opponent and eliminate the devil's shadow.

This wise speech is also meant to draw a line in the sand and fight for values ​​in order to avoid being attacked as an enemy.

There was a 0.3 second pause in the electronic noise.

"Young people always like to show off their cleverness."

Wang Jiang's voice switched to the reverberation of the bells from the Noh play "Dōjō-ji Temple", "The Pillow Book says 'winter is particularly interesting', but little did we know that extreme cold would make a knife blade as brittle as thin ice." The dark gold mechanism popped out from under the ice, spewing out a lavender mist infused with the scent of bergamot.

This time, it was no longer an ordinary hallucinogen, but a special nerve gas that Herzog confirmed after thousands of experiments that it could even be effective against ancient dragons.

But it was not colorless and odorless after all. Zhao Qing just rolled up his sleeves slightly, and countless tiny cyclones intercepted it.

"At that time, I sensed that the sound source was moving against the wind. According to the weather station's broadcast, the direction should be southeast - is it a converted medical ship? Or a light cargo ship with a refrigerated compartment of the Kansai Mutual Aid Association? Well... they just transported a container labeled "agricultural machinery" to Yokohama last week..."

After inhaling twice inadvertently, the source girl, whose strength was gradually recovering, could not bear it. She staggered and held on to the bronze incense burner. The frozen incense ash fell down, but it could not hide his excited gaze towards Zhao Qing and the others: "Use satellite imaging to track and lock it as soon as possible. He should have boarded a ship at the port of Sakai City last night!"

"Girl, I didn't expect that your obsession with tracking my daily whereabouts is even more obsessed than that of a girl in love! But everyone, have you ever heard of the 'Mirage Communication Relay System'?"

Wang Jiang's electronic voice resumed its calm pace: "Master Ya Changming once said, 'The river flows on, but the water is no longer the original water.' What is before you now is only the afterimage of my yesterday self."

The aria from the Noh drama "Dojoji", "Bell no sound, no temptation, no flower banquet, no foam no dream" gradually sounded in the background.

"I am ashamed to say that I am currently studying The New Book of Disintegration. When Sugita Genpaku translated the Dutch medical canon, he probably could not have anticipated that someone in the future would use the principle of sonar to track the location of the teahouse."

"A little trick to divert attention."

Shi Yiguang took out his tactical tablet and quickly input various commands: "Satellite shows that there is a research vessel called Marusuisan in the Kii Channel heading towards Cape Shio at a speed of 32 knots... Oh, the 'ocean observation equipment' piled on the deck looks like a missile launcher."

"I never thought that the trick of catching shadows in the mirror could be discovered so easily. It seems that today's performance will end early."

Wang Jiang's farewell was accompanied by the recitation of the haiku from "Ugetsu Monogatari", "Have you ever seen the mayflies in the winter rain on Lake Biwa? People who live and die in the morning want to chase the reflection of gods and Buddhas..."

"If I were you, I would understand that the real show is only about to begin. The identities of hunter and prey can be reversed at any time. Do you know which part of the mechanism change the Edo people are most looking forward to when watching "The Twenty-four Filial Piety of the Honcho"? "

The next moment, the speed of the mist gushing out doubled. However, Genji's pupils shrank slightly: "It's the flip mechanism of the Noh stage! The poison gas is just a cover, what he really wants to trigger is-"

"They deliberately used nerve gas to stimulate us to launch a large-scale attack. In fact, they wanted to use the shock wave to destroy the encrypted devices that hide the flow of funds of the ghosts." Shi Yi Guang waved her hand, and the bronze prayer wheels behind the Buddhist shrine flew up, and twelve Tantric vajra-shaped storage chips fell into the vortex of air flow in her palm.

"... the sound of a light tank engine... and the vibration frequency of the rotor... it's an OH-1 reconnaissance helicopter..."

Zhao Qing smiled slightly, and heard the approaching noise in the distance earlier than Yuan Zhinu: "The king who deserves death has actually mobilized a large number of Self-Defense Forces troops, and he used the name of terrorists attacking the country's important cultural heritage... The fierce ghosts have been entrenched here for many years, but no one has reported it."

"The wicked are the first to file a complaint. This is something we have seen frequently these days."

Shi Yiguang shook his sleeves, put a bottle of "Swan Blood" close to him, opened the stopper and aimed it at the nozzle that was emitting gas, and saw that the color of the gas gradually faded: "It's really cautious that you are so ruthless to deal with such a precious medicine."

Zhao Qing snapped his fingers, and the life and death spells of some of the captives stopped abruptly, relieving their pain: "Those who have committed serious crimes will be condemned to hell forever, but the rest still have a chance to repent. If you don't want to continue to suffer, you must fully cooperate with me and confess voluntarily..."

With her current state of mind, she naturally would not be influenced by the various subjective filters in the original work. For a guy like Genjitsu who had killed innocent people, even if he was controlled to do evil in a dazed state, he should at least destroy the split evil personality and could not pretend that nothing happened.

More importantly, we should atone to the victims and their families, make sincere compensation, use our abilities to punish evil and promote good, accumulate merits and virtues, and walk on the path of righteousness.

Here, we have to mention what evil things the "evil ghosts" among the fierce ghosts do in their daily lives under the guidance of the king.

There are so many things like smuggling arms, selling banned drugs, assassination orders, kidnapping and extortion, human trade, forcing good families to commit murder, biological experiments, etc.!

And those fallen ghosts whose bloodlines are completely out of control, whose minds are completely destroyed, who are crazy and violent, and who wantonly vent their desires, have committed countless brutal murders. Even the ghosts themselves have set up a "scavenger team" to deal with and recycle them.

Although "ghosts" are said to be a species abandoned by the whole world, they gather together and walk alone in the night, not knowing where to go. It sounds quite sad and desolate, and seems to be worthy of sympathy and pity, but the premise is that they have not hurt others.

Otherwise, it just confirms why it should be dealt with.

Even if we take into account that some of the evil spirits were actually induced by Tachibana Masamune and the king using drugs, it can be said that there was a hidden factor of control, and it was not their own desire to degenerate and do evil, which seems somewhat "excusable."

But what had the victims done wrong? Why did they have to suffer such an unprovoked disaster?

Although they are all "ghosts", some can restrain themselves and avoid hurting others. This shows that "ghosts" are not completely incapable of behavior, and everyone must be responsible for their own choices.

Whether actively or passively, once you take the wrong path, you must bear the consequences. And Zhao Qing is the one who judges and executes the sentence.

An officer wearing a Prajna mask resisted the urge to scratch his rotten flesh and shuddered to stop howling. He completely ignored the leader Wang Jiang who was theoretically still monitoring this place, and immediately chose to sell out all the information he knew:
"The one we contacted should be the 15th Brigade of the Ground Self-Defense Force..."

Gen Chinu took the opportunity to pounce on the two frozen test subjects, and the tip of the red cherry-colored knife carved several lifelike camellia flowers on the ice.

He lowered his eyes to look at the half-melted bone spur at the tailbone of Yamada Ayako, and softly recited the elegy from the Manyoshu: "The morning dew has dispersed, and so has my body. The bubbles have become illusions, and all things in the world are like this."

“They could have lived.” He whispered, squatting down to scatter the frozen fragments of the sunny doll on the petals of the ice sculpture, and then untied the laces of his red hakama to cover the faces of the corpses, covering the frozen expressions of fear on the man and woman: “The dandelions of Yodogawa are blooming, and they will sprout in cleaner soil next year.”

The sudden ringing of a cell phone interrupted the long-lasting mourning. Gen Chinu took out the still vibrating flip phone from the inner pocket of Sato Shuji's frozen suit, and the screen showed an incoming call from "daughter-Yumiko".

He hesitated for a moment and pressed the answer button. He heard a child's voice mixed with the train station announcement: "Dad! I found the pen you dropped yesterday at the lost and found office at Umeda Station! It's the one with cherry blossoms engraved on it..."

Ice crystals condensed into frost on the surface of the receiver. Yuan Zhinv silently put the phone to the ear of the accounting clerk. The man's dragon-like ear trembled slightly, but he could not hear his daughter's voice in the end.

"What a touching kindness! As expected of Kabuki, which is unrivaled in the world, it can win the trust of strangers who meet for the first time with such exquisite and vivid acting skills."

Wang Jiang's tone was suddenly filled with false compassion: "Before a dewdrop dissipates, it can reflect the entire morning glow. Isn't that more valuable than a mediocre life?"

The subsequent sarcasm was wrapped in the rhythm of Noh drama drums: "But instead of mourning the experimental subjects, why not worry about the accelerating fleet of 'Falcon' helicopters? Or the Type 90 tanks hidden under the bank of the Yodo River?" At this point, he was still deliberately providing vague information to confuse the audience.

The roar of propellers in the distance crushed the eerie echo, and when Genji stood up, she broke the frozen painted shoji.

He saw three black spots in the sky tearing through the snow curtain, and the 20mm cannon hanging on the belly began to warm up and rotate, but his tone was not anxious at all: "You made a mistake - real mourning does not require tears, just remember their last... eyes as human beings." The violent explosion almost swallowed up the second half of the sentence, and the frozen South Gate collapsed. Two light tanks disguised as engineering vehicles rolled over the century-old stone steps one after another, and the gunpowder smoke and crystal roses from the muzzles rose up, startling egrets flying over the melting ice sculptures.

"It seems that the closing applause is more enthusiastic than expected." Zhao Qing smiled again, "Thank you for sending this batch of arms as fireworks." She turned to look at Shi Yiguang who was analyzing the chip data: "This time, how about letting you try your hand first and practice your moves?"

"Alright." Shi Yiguang immediately threw the data cable aside and slashed several sword energies to destroy the remaining equipment of General Wang. "I'll go and hone my combat skills while you set up the Dragon Reversal Ceremony here... The Astute-class nuclear submarine supported by the Laurent family will be able to take out General Wang's boat in five minutes."

Nuclear submarines are coming? Where did this dragon from? No wonder they can easily suppress the local snakes like the fierce ghosts.

Yuan Zhinv was thinking about something in her heart, and then she focused on the word "reverse dragonization" and said in a trembling tone: "Can you restore the half-dead waiter who has been deeply transformed into a dragon? Remove the pollution of the uncontrolled bloodline?"

"Yes, it's just what you thought." Zhao Qing responded simply. He casually lifted the two unlucky guys who were injected with swan blood in front of him, floating them in the air. Then he stretched out his thumb and drew a short vertical line between the eyebrows of a man and a woman, cutting their foreheads.

Then, she summoned forth her vast innate vital energy, which, with its sword intent of sweeping away all things and cutting through everything, slowly seeped into the two men's minds, mixed with their blood, and spread throughout their bodies. She then used the blood as ink to once again draw the ancient totem patterns on their faces.

If you ignore the blue-gray scales, the cheeks of the two men seem to have turned into jaguar warriors in the Mexican jungle. The mysterious patterns are ferocious yet mysterious, and are quite similar to the structure of dragon characters. There is a faint sense of transcendent power flowing.

"A modified version of the Dragon's Blood Baptism."

Sensing the strange look from Yuan Zhinu, Zhao Qing thought for a moment and continued to introduce: "This is not a tattoo, but a spiritual alchemy ritual that refines the soul with blood. If a high-level dragon actively grants it, the hybrid can stabilize the bloodline that is about to get out of control, just like the 'Emperor' who regained his clarity of mind."

Half of this technology comes from Xia Mi's free sharing, and the other half benefits from the mental isolation effect of the sword scripture program.

"It can mass-produce 'Emperor'-level hybrids?" Yuan Zhinv asked in surprise, "Which resurrected Dragon King are you?"

"Not a Dragon King, but a practitioner."

Zhao Qing smiled and replied, "The effect of my baptism ceremony is mainly to filter out the toxicity in the dragon blood, that is, to reduce unnecessary deformities and mutations, and the transformation of the character towards brutality and bloodthirstiness. It will not improve the bloodline itself - but it can be compensated by evolutionary medicine."

As they spoke, their rugged faces gradually recovered, the dragon transformation slowly faded, the scales fell off, revealing the pale skin underneath that was oozing blood, the blade claws turned back into normal human hands, hanging limply at the sides of the body, and the tail vertebrae extending out of the body were peeling off one segment at a time.

It looked similar to the state changes of some fallen ghosts after being killed, but the still strong pulse could not be faked, and surprisingly, its bloodline had gradually stabilized at level B+.

"The three souls return to their places, and the seven spirits guard their forms."

Zhao Qing lightly pointed in the air, and the sound of Qi rushing like the sound of a rushing river echoed from the vital points on both of their bodies. As the Cheek-River acupoints quickly turned red, they opened their mouths, and several green pills the size of peanuts sank into their throats and swam deep into their gastrointestinal tract.

With her current level of skill, even if she just casually infused her true energy, the effect would be exaggerated to the point of being horrifying.

Even if a person has been dead for half a day and has lost all vitality, he can be "resurrected" under the stimulation of Shenzhao Zhenqi, which is equivalent to tens of thousands of years of hard practice for ordinary people, and become a zombie with infinite strength that can continue to move for several years. He is comparable to a top-level Deadpool, but there is nothing unusual in his body shape and appearance.

What's more, is it just to assist in activating the medicinal effects of the pills made from "Dragon Blood Grass"?

In the blink of an eye, their stomachs began to rumble, as if they had suddenly woken up after a long sleep, and they were still talking in their sleep like "Mom...", but their complexion had long returned to normal, their spirits were at their best, and their body functions had undergone a transformation.

At the same time, flames exploded outside the ruins of the temple, and the tracer bullets of the 20mm machine gun formed a red spider web in the air.

Shi Yi Guang's plain skirt rolled up into clouds faster than the trajectory of the ballistic missile. Wherever the sword pointed, the armor-piercing bullets as dense as locusts seemed to hit an invisible mirror, and bounced off towards the vast sky like a snowy curtain with a clang.

The metal torrents that should have torn apart flesh and blood turned into fireflies that rose up in the sky and blossomed into golden and red fireworks hundreds of meters in the sky.

She just put her fingers together to make a sword and draw a circle in the air. The two OH-1 reconnaissance helicopters were like dragonflies falling into a spider web. They collided out of control under the restraint and attraction of the Taiyin aura. The flying rotor fragments melted into liquid iron.

……

The rain threads formed a gray-green gauze over the sky above Chidori Abyss.

The remaining cherry blossoms wrapped in the scent of moss fell into the moat, and the ripples scared away a few scarlet koi. Chu Zihang's sneakers rolled over the wet pebbles, and his black hair was condensed with water droplets. The demon sword Murasame was stored in the dark green sword bag, showing a cold and hard outline.

Two steps behind him, a young Frenchman was using a silver-handled cane to push aside the slanting branches. His sapphire cufflinks and iris-patterned scarf flickered in the rain. He was a young member of a branch family of the former Elector Palatinate, the son of a French earl, and an outstanding half-blood of the new generation of the secret party, Lancelot.

Because the family had a personal relationship with a certain emperor in the past, had invested a lot in Japan, and had recently started a cooperation with the "Kunlun Group" on the historical exploration of King Arthur, they were specially sent to Tokyo by the Secret Party Elders Council to participate in the negotiations and assist Kassel Academy in dealing with this major crisis.

Of course, Lancelot is only a 16-year-old young man after all, only slightly older than Chu Zihang. He is not born with S-level bloodline and his weight is limited. This time he came here just to gain some knowledge and try to make friends with outstanding talents of the same generation. The specific matters will be handled by the elders in his family.

"This trail was chosen by Chu Zihang."

Lancelot tapped the water with the tip of his silver-handled umbrella. "I heard that Emperor Meiji planted 900 Somei Yoshino trees here to make amends to the British envoy. The cherry petals fell on the eaves of the Yasukuni Shrine and were blown by the wind into the forest of steles in the Japanese military cemetery..."

“Is this a reminder that the weight of history always weighs on the roots of the cherry trees?”

Chu Zihang held Murasame in one hand, the dragon pattern on the brand new scabbard glowing in the darkness, his sneakers crushing half-rotten cherry petals, the humus smell mixed with the lingering incense of the distant shrine: "The cherry blossoms are too noisy when they bloom, now is just right."

From deep in the rain came the clear sound of wooden clogs hitting stone slabs, and Yuan Zhisheng emerged from the pine forest holding a plain white oil-paper umbrella.

It was a rare occasion that he did not wear the dark-colored feather robe of the Sheqi family today. The collar of his light gray shirt was casually open. The 19-year-old young master was like an ancient sword that had not yet been tempered, with a weariness between his brows that was inconsistent with his age.

Yuan Zhisheng looked at the dim vermilion torii in the rain, and casually pushed his wet hair behind his ears. The frayed cuffs of his sleeves revealed the thin calluses formed by years of holding a knife: "You should see the cherry blossoms at night in spring. The whole avenue is illuminated by lanterns and becomes scarlet, like flowing coagulated blood."

He suddenly chuckled, and the knot on the umbrella ribs was untied and tightened as he moved, as if revealing his inner annoyance: "I know your attitude towards us, but the current R capital..."

"No hurry." Chu Zihang interrupted him, his tone surprisingly calm, "Some people say that they can provide full support, but you must first show your sincerity and agree to some valuable conditions... But it's better to talk about these things later, so as not to spoil the mood."

"This is not my personal opinion, so you should pay special attention to it." The young man always spoke briefly and seemed to completely ignore the experience of the sword fighting exchange between the two sides a few days ago: "Similarly, you will also witness the powerful strength displayed by our side later."

“Historical issues are always complicated, but we can build cooperation first and then gradually resolve these differences.”

Lancelot stopped and tried to ease the atmosphere: "Besides, the Sheqi Eight Clan doesn't have the Emperor, let alone the Prime Minister and the majority party... If they really want to accomplish those things, they have to think long and hard."

He took out his gold-plated pocket watch and pressed the mechanism to reveal a miniature phonograph. "By the way, would you like to enjoy the new work of the band 'Echo of the Rhine' that I organized? The third chapter of 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' with a Baroque double-necked lute -"

Lancelot pulled out a record with his own signature like a magician: "Recorded just last week in the Roman Baths in Trier, mixing an Alsatian harmonium and a replica of Wagner's tuba... Of course, now you can only listen to the 128kbps low-quality version."

"Although critics say it's like grafting the cursed tenor solo in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony onto a drunken bard." It's hard to imagine that this guy is a senior musician and composer: "Serious talks need some soothing music."

Hearing this, Yuan Zhisheng couldn't help but think of those psychopaths in Kassel who were wearing opera cloaks and reciting sonnets by the swimming pool. Last Halloween, someone even carried an organ and played the "Nibelungen Suite" on the top floor of Valhalla. Suddenly, he felt that the sound of rain was the best background sound.

"As for music, there's no need for that." He finally chose to respond in the most restrained Tokyo accent, swallowing back the complaint "You secret party members are all psychopaths", and then remained silent for a moment, took out a worn silver coin from his pocket and threw it into the air.

The silver coin drew a silver arc in the rain. Chu Zihang reached out to catch it, but found that it was a fifty-sen coin from the 37th year of the Showa era. The rice ear pattern on the front had been worn out and was blurred.

"I picked this up on my way to school in the mountains," Yuan Zhisheng said. "I was thirteen years old that year and had just learned how to use the eight-grip sword."

He flicked the edge of the coin, and the rusty copper peeled off a little in the rain, revealing the pale nickel core inside: "At that time, the forest road collapsed due to heavy rain, and this coin stuck between the tree roots happened to hurt the toe bone that I stepped on barefoot."

Chu Zihang rubbed the coin with his thumb, and the oily sweat drew a shiny thread between the grooves of his fingerprints: "You keep it as a talisman?"

"It's more like an anchor point." Gen Chisei looked at the cherry petals swirling in the moat. "Fifty sen in 1962 could buy a bowl of vegetarian soba noodles in Asakusa. Now... even vending machines refuse to accept this alloy. But it remembers the temperature of a certain moment after all."

Chu Zihang handed the coin back to him: "And then?"

“Then I realized that all the history was hidden in this metal.”

Yuan Zhisheng put the coin back into his pocket. He felt that this hybrid from China always reminded him of the stone lions in the shrine in his hometown, coldly and silently guarding something that cannot be violated: "Just like all the future, it is hidden in our genes."

"When the anonymous online proposal to convert the old shrine into a marine biology research institute in order to deal with the invasion of dragon vipers was denounced as treason at the family gathering, I suddenly remembered the philosophy course at Kassel College - Hegel said that history always repeats itself twice."

"But the first time was a tragedy, and the second time became a farce." Lancelot deliberately changed the subject, "Speaking of the academy, Yuan Jun, have you met Principal Ange during your time at school? What kind of person is he?"

...(End of chapter)