Don't be afraid, fairy, I'm blind

Chapter 423 The clues left by the Master of Mathematics!

The snowy night was long, and the collapsed temple was immersed in a dark red like rust.

The broken statue was half buried in the rubble, with the smell of moss seeping out from the cracks, like the remaining sigh of the god.

You Su's fingertips stroked the remaining cinnabar between the statue's eyebrows, and the fragments fell down, reflecting tiny blood lights in the dim candlelight. This half of the face was already so damaged that it was impossible to tell who it was.

“Whose statue is this?”

You Su looked at Ajiu, but Ajiu just shook his head. The statue looked older than he was, so how could he know?

You Su had no choice but to look away, doubts beginning to grow in his heart.

Temples in the Five Continents are like religious sects, and are strictly controlled by the sacred mountains. The highest governing body of the five sacred mountains is the Immortal Ancestor Temple, which was established to commemorate and pass on the teachings of the five great immortal ancestors.

In the human world, building temples is only allowed in very rare circumstances - to commemorate certain people who have made unique contributions.

You Su has been to many cities, but he has never seen a temple built in a city, which shows how high the requirement for "uniqueness" is.

If a temple is built privately without the approval of the Immortal Temple, it will be considered an obscene or evil temple. Anyone involved in it will be guilty of a serious crime that will result in the loss of one's life and the involvement of relatives and friends.

Such strict regulations are to prevent the spread of faith, so as not to give those evil gods an opportunity to corrupt the human race from the perspective of faith. However, some people also believe that this is a means for the Immortal Ancestor Temple to consolidate the orthodox status of the five great immortal ancestors in the faith of all people in the five continents, so that they can always sit firmly at the top of the five continents.

All in all, building a temple is not an easy task, which makes You Su more curious about the owner of the statue.

It was Ying who raised her hand tremblingly, like a cautious student begging the lecturer to be allowed to speak in class.

You Su turned sideways and tried to speak softly, "You know?"

Ah Ying nodded, "It is... the statue of Venerable Qianlong."

As soon as he finished speaking, You Su raised his eyebrows slightly, not expecting that the great man whose image was carved was actually Venerable Qianlong. At the same time, Bai Ze's pupils also shrank unnoticed.

The two of them looked at the half-broken statue together, and to their surprise, once they knew it was Venerable Qianlong, they could actually see some similarities.

"How do you know she is Venerable Qianlong?" You Su asked again.

"My mother said so..." Ah Ying couldn't hold back her tears when she thought of her mother who had been killed by the evil mouth. "My mother said that this statue existed before she was born. She said that it was the appearance of Venerable Qianlong that gave us a city in Bei'aozhou that could shelter us from the wind and snow, so the mayor of Changshan City personally built this temple for her..."

"Why haven't I heard mother tell me that?" Jiu asked puzzledly.

Ah Ying forced a smile and said, "Brother doesn't believe it even more than mother does. Even if mother told me, brother wouldn't remember it."

You Su frowned when he heard this. The fact that a mortal girl knew the title of a being who was almost the supreme ruler of a continent was shocking enough to him, but what shocked him even more was the narcissism of this Venerable Qianlong.

According to the information he knew, this Qianlong Venerable was also an immortal official of the Immortal Ancestor Temple, and must be one of the most powerful ones. Then the petition to build a temple for her would definitely be passed on to her. Even if she thought she had made great achievements, she would not agree to build a temple for herself, right?

After all, building a temple is not a casual thing. Even if it is really necessary to build it, it should be built after she abdicates, and then the successors should agree to build it to commemorate her contributions, right?
"Brother, what are you thinking about?" Bai Ze came closer with curiosity in his eyes.

"I wonder what kind of person this Venerable Qianlong is."

"What's it like?" Bai Ze asked again.

"Two possibilities." You Su straightened his clothes, "Either he is a shameless person, or he is ignorant and stupid."

When Ajiu and Aying heard You Su's comments, they were both stunned and looked at each other, as if they couldn't believe that the brother who saved them would even dare to scold the gods in the temple.

"Why do you say that?"

You Su did not hear the concern in the girl's tone, but only felt that she was curious: "If she agreed to build a statue and a temple for herself, and was afraid that others would not know about her contribution, but did not give the proper protection to those who came to the temple to burn incense, this is shameless; if she was kept in the dark and did not know for decades that someone built a temple based on her, then it means that her so-called sympathy for the people's livelihood is also fake, and she has never seen the world, this is ignorance."

Such an evaluation is of course somewhat rigid and arbitrary, but when it comes to an enemy who wants to take his life, who can resist being a little harsh? You Su is not a perfect person, so why should he pretend to be a reasonable person in front of Bai Ze who shares the same hatred with him?

"Yes... She built a temple here for people to worship, but the surrounding area is all in tatters, which means that no one has come to worship her for a long time. She is not as good as a little mountain god like me!"

Bai Ze hummed and praised himself, but he was just short of belittling Venerable Qianlong to the point of being worthless.

You Su smiled at her, "At least you have really protected many people who have experienced the Arctic snowfields. You are much better than her."

When Bai Ze heard You Su praising her, she quickly moved closer. According to her habit, she should have rubbed her little head in You Su's arms at this time, but this time, she seemed to just stop there and did not make any more intimate moves.

You Su was secretly surprised, but it also saved him the trouble of having to explain himself in front of outsiders.

The brother and sister sitting on the side heard every word of the conversation. They could no longer imagine what kind of gods they had met.

The cold wind blew open the leaky window, and the remaining candle on the altar suddenly went out. Jiu hurriedly got up and tied up the leaky window frame with a straw rope.

You Su thought to himself that the temple of Venerable Qianlong was indeed in disrepair after many years, so what was the significance of this temple?

He suddenly felt that something was wrong. Since the city lord had advocated the construction of this temple, it showed that he respected Venerable Qianlong very much. Why did he just ignore it even if the people did not believe it?

You Su seemed to have grasped something and turned to ask Ajiu and Aying about the evil tide.

From their mouths, we learned that this evil tide suddenly broke out two days ago, and no one knew where it came from. Beiaozhou was covered with ice and snow, and the probability of evil spirits causing chaos was the lowest among the five continents. Such a large-scale evil tide directly defeated the defense line of Changshan City, which had just been built not long ago, and the killing spread to the entire city. They wanted to escape, but they didn't know where to escape to.

You Su had also experienced the evil tide in Izumo City. Relying on his experience, he asked: "While you were staying in this city, have you noticed any strange phenomena in the city recently? For example, heavy fog falling from the sky, snow changing color, etc.?" But the two did not give him the answer he wanted. Ajiu and Aying shook their heads together.

Ah Jiu whispered, "We were just living our lives the same way, and didn't notice anything unusual, and then suddenly we heard screaming and roaring on the street. We didn't even know what was happening at first, we just ran with everyone... but we couldn't run away at all..."

"You don't even know what happened?" You Su frowned, "Don't you have any monks in Changshan City? Even if the evil tide exits in the city, even if these monks can't resist it for a while, there won't be no monks to spread the news of the evil invasion."

Ajiu and his sister looked at each other. Based on their cognition, they didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with this. After all, the presence of monks in their lives was very small. They only knew that they were immortals who could not be provoked.

Of course You Su wanted to think more deeply. There were only two possibilities for this situation. One was that all the monks in Changshan City attacked and were completely wiped out. The other was that there was indeed no monk in Changshan City - because they all ran away before the evil spirits invaded!
The first possibility was too small. Even the fog-covered ghost in Izumo City was not able to wipe out the entire city's monks in an instant without them being able to react at all. If an evil spirit of this level really appeared, it would probably be a disaster that would threaten the safety of the entire continent.

The latter assumption was too dark, and he didn't dare to think why a cultivator would deliberately abandon the people of a city. You Su really didn't want to make a conclusion, so he didn't say his guess.

"There isn't anything strange, but I have seen a strange person." Seeing You Su in deep thought again, Jiu didn't want to be a useless child, so he racked his brains to dig out information that might be useful to the immortal in front of him.

"What weirdo?" You Su was indeed intrigued.

"A Taoist priest dressed in fancy clothes, he placed seven puzzles under an old tree in the south of the city, saying that anyone who could solve all the puzzles would receive 100 taels of silver. At first we thought he was a fake Taoist priest, but we didn't expect him to be a kind person!"

As soon as he finished speaking, You Su suddenly opened his eyes. He subconsciously glanced at Bai Ze, only to see that the girl was also looking at him in surprise.

It’s because they know better than anyone else that in this black, white and gray Beiaozhou, there is only one Taoist priest who is dressed in shabby clothes, and that is Master Aoshu!
Seeing that his information was really helpful to these two immortals, Jiu was obviously interested and looked at his sister proudly and said:
"My sister also solved a puzzle of the Taoist priest, but unfortunately we went there too late. He said that he had already distributed all the money and asked if we could owe him some. Of course I refused, but my sister saw that he was kind-hearted and had distributed money to so many people, so she agreed. She said that my sister had a good mind, and said..."

"What did you say?" You Su asked quickly.

Ajiu scratched his head and gave his sister a look with some embarrassment.

Ah Ying understood what her brother meant, knowing that he had forgotten the flower Taoist's flowery words, so she took over the conversation:

"He said, 'It is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish.' He gave me a booklet and said it was a reward worth many times more than a hundred taels of silver. He said that if I understood what was in this booklet, I would have to be respectful even to the city lord."

You Su was shocked. "What book is it? What's written in it?"

"Probably... it's an account book." Ah Ying tried hard to recall, then apologized, "I'm not very literate, and I have to help my mother with work during the day, so I didn't study the book thoroughly. I really don't remember what was written in it..."

"Sister, you are the most literate person in our family." Brother Jiu encouraged his sister.

You Su also smiled at Aying to express his affirmation, and then fell into his own thoughts.

Based on the words "The city lord must be respectful when he sees us", You Su could easily guess that this account book was the tax account book of Changshan City! So as long as he understood this account book, he would know where Changshan City had made a move. This was indeed a reward that was countless times more valuable than a hundred taels of silver!

Ledgers, ledgers, and another ledger!
The Master of Mathematical Olympiad came into contact with certain people's conspiracy under the guise of checking accounts, which led to him offending that group of people!
For some reason, You Su always recalled the scene when he and Master Aoshu had a hasty farewell on the snowy plain at the foot of the sacred mountain. At that time, the unruly Taoist Hua smiled at him meaningfully.

I had survived the sea for a long time and had no time to care about the matter of Master Ao Shu. But now that I had just escaped from the sea, I met the girl he had given the account book to, and I was once again involved with him.

You Su suddenly had a strong intuition that the account books of Changshan City might not be that simple.

It was somewhat unreasonable for a great monk to give a city's account book as a gift to a kind-hearted girl...

Suddenly, You Su sat up in shock! He suddenly realized that the Taoist Hua's irrelevant appearance had almost made everyone forget that he was the leader of the art of calculation in Beiaozhou!

He had already calculated that this account book would come in handy today!
You Su clenched his fists unconsciously. He felt his hair stand on end, but also felt that he was worthy of the title of Mathematical Olympiad.

"Where did you put the book?"

Ah Ying was startled by You Su's sudden standing up and murmured, "Under my mattress..."

"Take me to find it, I will protect you."

You Su put the Mosong sword on his waist and saw that Ah Jiu was a little hesitant, so he continued in a gentle voice:
"The safety here is not because of the blessing of the statue, but because there are too few people here, so most evil spirits are not attracted here for the time being. But this is not a place to live for a long time. Take me to get the account book, and I will take you away from here!"

Upon hearing this, Jiu also clenched his fists. He knew that You Su was right, so he had no choice.

"it is good!"

……

The north wind blew snow particles against the broken window frames, and the tung oil lamp in the accounting office swayed in You Su's palm.

He used his fingers to wipe away the dust on the cover of the sheepskin account book, and in the dim light, he saw the Nine Palaces diagram outlined in cinnabar on the title page - it was the unique mark of the Master of Mathematics.

Ajiu moved the fire lighter closer, and You Su's back straightened.

Bai Ze tiptoed on You Su's shoulder, her nose almost touching the yellowed paper. Her twin ponytails brushed the side of the young man's neck, carrying the cedar scent left by the Xuanye Pool: "Are these tadpole-like runes the account books of the human world?"

Before You Su could answer her, his fingertips stopped at the last page where the red ink was written. The ink was as sharp as a knife, penetrating the paper: "In the frost of the 5104th year of the Shenshan calendar, the vegetable garden outside the city consumed 73,000 taels of silver, which should have produced 9,000 dan of spiritual grain. However, the revenue this year is only a little over 100 dan."

Ice crystals were winding along the window lattice, making the frost between his brows even darker. There were dark brown fingerprints on the corners of the account book, as if someone had pinched their palm while flipping through it.

The teahouse in Shuocheng is the core of the tax issue, while Changshancheng is a vegetable garden.

You Su found it hard to imagine what kind of vegetable garden would require 73,000 taels of silver. There was definitely something wrong with this vegetable garden!

(End of this chapter)