Xuanxia

Chapter 2: Ghost
The overnight rain stops in the morning, and the empty mountains are filled with clear autumn air.

Fu Qingzhou stepped onto the bluestone slabs step by step and walked slowly to the door of a dilapidated temple.

Looking back, there are hundreds of thousands of mountains in the south, and eagles and falcons flying among the rolling sea of ​​clouds.

He smiled, took a deep breath, then stopped smiling and turned around to push open the door of the dilapidated temple.

With a cry, a bone-chilling cold air rushed towards them. Everywhere they looked was ruin and desolation. There were bones everywhere on the ground, incense burners toppled over, and the statues in the temple were cracked and even headless.

Fu Qingzhou strode into the temple, and then a gust of cold wind blew back, and the temple door slammed shut by itself.

He was not surprised, but just sat down in front of the headless statue in front of the temple and said calmly: "I'm here."

With a few popping sounds, the incense sticks at the feet of the statue ignited by themselves. White smoke rose up and enveloped the statue, making the image of the statue distorted and weird.

After a few breaths, a hoarse voice that sounded like a man or a woman came from the smoke: "Killed another one?"

"Killed another one."

Fu Qingzhou nodded and said, "But he's still not the one who killed my father."

"Hmph..." The voice in the smoke sneered, "I'm afraid that charlatan has already left Bailu Mountain. You won't be able to find him."

Fu Qingzhou raised his eyelids and stared at the smoke, or at the statue: "If I can't find him, you will never leave this place."

This sentence seemed to hit the other party's sore spot, and the voice suddenly became angry: "Bai Lu Mountain is only this big! Bai Lu Mountain is only this big!"

"In the past three years, I have climbed mountains and dug the ground to find more than a dozen charlatans for you. What else do you want? I can't find them! I can't find even half of them! I'll kill all the charlatans here for you!"

"Why don't you change your wish? A woman? Magic? Magic? Or do you want to be an official? I can help you fulfill all of them! I have been a dog for the past three years, change your wish!"

Fu Qingzhou listened, unmoved, and smiled softly: "Why are you in such a hurry? Didn't you say you've been here for hundreds of years? You're only one or two years away from that?"

The voice became even more angry: "You have been holding your urine for forty-eight hours and are about to burst. Now I tell you to hold it for another quarter of an hour. Will you hold it?"

Fu Qingzhou raised his eyebrows slightly: "Don't forget, when we first met, you wanted to kill me."

As soon as these words were spoken, the voices in the smoke quieted down.

After a long while, it calmed down a little and said slowly: "Humph... There is indeed no more charlatan in Bailu Mountain. If you want revenge, it is meaningless to stay here."

Fu Qingzhou knew that what it said was true.

He was not relying on this "smoker" to look for a charlatan. He was also looking for one himself. Indeed, within a hundred miles of Bailu Mountain, there should be no more charlatans who pretended to be immortals and deceived and killed people.

I'm afraid it's true as it said. The guy who killed his adoptive father is no longer around.

Three years ago, Fu Qingzhou's adoptive father was deceived by a charlatan and spent day and night at home "making pills and cultivating immortality". Fu Qingzhou was only a child of eleven or twelve years old at that time. His adoptive father did not listen to his advice, and eventually he swallowed a "golden pill" and died when Fu Qingzhou went out to buy food.

At that time, Fu Qingzhou had been traveling through time for seven years, but he had never left Xijiao Village where his adoptive father lived - after all, he was still young and not suitable for traveling outside.

As for the Qingwa Village that he had called out to the old Taoist priest before, it was just one of the villages that the charlatan had caused trouble for. The Taoist priest's activities ranged limitedly, and if he claimed to be from another place, it would easily arouse suspicion.

In that small Xijiao village, Fu Qingzhou knew very limited about the world. He only knew that he was in an ancient dynasty called Dayan, with a vast territory and strong army. Except for the occasional invasion of the border by the powerful northern barbarians, Dayan could be said to be peaceful and tranquil.

In such a prosperous era, culture should be valued more than martial arts, but there are constant legends about immortals in the world, and strange things happen from time to time in various places, so rumors about immortals become more prevalent. There is also a legend that if one reaches the pinnacle of martial arts, one can gain a glimpse of the way to immortality, so the trend of practicing martial arts became very popular.

In remote mountainous areas like these, the jurisdiction of the imperial court cannot be said to be very strong, it can only be said to be almost non-existent.

Therefore, when Fu Qingzhou found the first swindler and tried to avenge his father, he was almost beaten into a disability by the other party.

When he first traveled through time ten years ago, he was only a five or six-year-old kid, powerless, but he was inexplicably trapped in the mountains and had to survive alone. Those thirty-plus days of eating raw meat and drinking blood were unforgettable. If he had not worked as a criminal police for two or three years after graduation in his previous life and had some knowledge of survival in the wild, he would probably have died long ago.

It was his adoptive father Fu Haichao who picked him up and treated him as his own son. He would rather eat less or not eat at all himself to ensure that he had enough to eat, so that he could survive... How could he not avenge this?

After that, he practiced martial arts hard, but what his adoptive father taught him were all crude mountain boxing, kicking and archery skills, which were useless no matter how hard he practiced... Until one day when he was hunting a wild fox, he came to this dilapidated temple.

There was a ghost in the ruined temple, trying to take over Fu Qingzhou's body, but in the end, he screamed "Why is your spirit so powerful?" and escaped from his body in a panic. Fu Qingzhou, who had read countless traditional fairy tales and fantasy novels in his early years, naturally knew that it was probably because he was a time traveler... This is just the most basic routine in various novels, but I didn't expect that reality is also like this.

But of course he couldn't point it out. Instead, after the initial surprise, he decided to make a deal with this smoker in the dilapidated temple.

Let it teach me martial arts and help me find my enemies, and I promise to take it away from here after I have taken revenge.

What happened next was as described above. Fu Qingzhou spent three years practicing archery and killed one swindler after another - including the one who had seriously injured him, but none of them was the enemy who killed his adoptive father.

Over the past three years, the two sides have gotten along exceptionally well. When there are no conflicts, they often joke with each other, and inexplicably they have become like bad friends.

After pondering for a while, he slowly asked, "According to you, should I leave Bailu Mountain?"

"That's natural."

The smoker laughed and said, "This place is remote and poor. Even if I have thousands of magical skills, it is poor and has bad water. You have no elixir and no cave. How can you practice? Why don't you take me away..."

"You can master peerless skills, and I can also help you find your enemies. When the time is right, I can find a perfect body to take over and leave. From then on, you and I will go our separate ways. How do you think?"

Fu Qingzhou smiled slightly: "Not a bad idea, but I don't know how I can take you away?"

The Smoker's voice became impatient: "Okay, okay! This statue has been worshipped for hundreds of years, and it can barely hold my soul. You take its stone heart, and I will possess it!"

"Haha..." Fu Qingzhou laughed: "Then wouldn't it be like I have an extra grandfather to carry with me?"

He stood up, picked up a piece of bone at hand, climbed onto the altar, and knocked open the cracked chest of the statue according to the instructions of the smoker, and indeed took out a round stone the size of a heart.

The round stone felt cold and natural to the touch. In an instant, all the smoke around it gathered and poured into it, causing the heart of the stone to tremble slightly.

“This stone doesn’t look solid.”

Fu Qingzhou walked out of the ruined temple while weighing the stone heart, muttering: "If it gets bumped, burned, or flooded, will you be okay?"

"Can't you be more careful, kid? When we get out of the mountain, you can find a good piece of jade or a good sword and I can live with it."

The smoker was finally able to leave this place, and his tone was very happy: "But you are just worrying too much. After all, this is just a piece of stone. As long as it is not smashed to pieces, I will..."

Having said this, it was suddenly stunned.

Because Fu Qingzhou had placed the stone heart on the ground and picked up a large bluestone from the side of the mountain path.

"what are you going to do?!"

The stone heart trembled, and the smoker's roar came out: "Don't mess around!"

"You are a nuisance."

Fu Qingzhou slowly raised the large bluestone above his head and sneered, "Shouldn't the evil be killed?"

The smoker was shocked: "Don't, don't! I, I, I will teach you everything I have! From now on you will be my disciple... No, brother! I will call you brother!"

"I do not care."

Fu Qingzhou raised his eyebrows: "If there is any magic skill in this world, I will find it myself; if I want revenge and get rid of evil, I will do it myself, as for you..."

He turned around and looked at the bones scattered all over the ground in the ruined temple.

Before he arrived, the smoker had already killed countless people. It must have taken over the bodies of countless people, but those people were not strong enough to support its spirit and eventually died.

In the past, I needed it and didn't have the ability to kill it. Now, it has let down its guard and run into a not-so-strong stone. Isn't this a godsend?
If you keep it around, there will definitely be no good ending for you.

But just as the bluestone slab was about to fall, the stone heart was shaken and the smoker roared at the top of his lungs: "I have already planted a curse on you. If I die, you will not live past the next full moon night!"

(End of this chapter)