You said you would practice martial arts. Have you mastered the Tiangang Dharma?

Chapter 493 Qing Aize

In the warm afternoon sun, an old woman sat on an old wooden chair. Her eyes seemed to have forgotten the traces of time, and remained dark and deep. Her eyes were kind and gentle from time to time, as if they could see the truth, goodness and beauty of the world through the long river of time. Although wrinkles covered her face, those marks of time did not seem to cover up the agility and vitality in her eyes.

She raised her eyes gently, her eyes were weathered but still clear, shining with wisdom and deep concern for life. Even in the peaceful moments, her eyes often revealed a hint of sharpness and determination, proving the countless important choices she had made in her past life.

At this moment, she is wearing a faded cotton robe, sitting under the eaves of a quaint house, surrounded by mottled stone walls and wild grass swaying in the wind. The spiritual charm in her hands turns into needlework that sparkles in the sun, and with every breath she takes, she delicately weaves the story of the years in space.

The nine furry tails behind her were still swaying slightly, like a swing, but now her whole body had begun to look old, and her originally fair face was now outlined with traces of wrinkles.

She followed her master Jiang Qiu, searching for the answers she wanted in the north.

The morning mist in Qing'ai Ze always carries a sweet fragrance. When Ah Heng pushed open the window frame carved with a pattern of albizzia flowers, dew in the shape of pansies was falling from the eaves, condensing into a crystal clear mirror in midair. The mirror reflected her antler patterns that had not yet faded - the new silver spots that had formed when she was practicing under the full moon last night were now emitting a pearly luster as the morning light flowed.

Seven glass-colored psionic butterflies flew through the mist, and the phosphorus powder from their wings spelled out the time on the wooden floor. The youngest blue butterfly landed intimately on the ice crystal lily of the valley in her hair, and its antennae lightly touched the lark wind chimes hanging from the eaves, which swayed and sang clear birdsong. This was the tree spirit's greeting to every demon family in the morning. Ah Heng dipped her fingertips into the pottery jar filled with night dew by the window, and the water droplets that bounced immediately turned into a rainbow bridge, carrying the psionic butterflies to the market.

Smoke rose from the banyan tree cave in the southeast corner. That was the kitchen of Su Granny, the cook. The aerial roots of the thousand-year-old banyan tree drooped into a natural chimney, and at this moment, clouds of pine-scented mist were wafting out. Ah Heng walked along the suspended plank road woven with vines. When she stepped barefoot on the dewy honeysuckle vines, the light yellow flowers automatically curled up into small lanterns, lighting up the still dim forest path for her.

The morning market has already awakened. The raccoon demon carrying a bamboo basket is exchanging morning dew for star sand. The silver hair on the tip of his tail is stained with wet night dew, and every step he takes prints a small star map on the bluestone. The spider spirit selling fabrics unfolds his latest work. The gauze spun by moonlight covers an open space of three meters square. The naturally formed dark patterns on it are the shape of last night's flowing clouds. The most lively place is the fox tribe wine shop. The fire pattern on the nine-tailed proprietress flickers, and she is warming plum wine with the tip of her tail - this is specially prepared for the wolf tribe who guarded the barrier last night. Their ears are still stained with frost at dawn.

Ah Heng stopped in front of a tea stall with a sign that read "Dew". The stall owner was a 500-year-old tree frog, and on the rain leaves in front of him were seven kinds of dew collected at different times. The willow branch dew at the hour of Mao was the best for making tea, and when the celadon tea whisk stirred the amber tea soup, the weather and cloud map of the day would emerge. Ah Heng was about to take out the evening primrose seeds in his arms to exchange, when he suddenly heard the clear cry of cranes from the west.

This is the signal for the young demons to do morning exercises. Ah Heng threw the grass seeds to the tree frog, and the tea soup condensed into ice beads the moment it drew an arc in the air, and fell accurately into his open palm. When she rushed to the Ancient Banyan Square on the wind, the newly transformed demon cubs were chasing water balls and playing, and the older boys and girls formed an elemental formation - the boy wearing a fire mouse fur coat had scarlet flames dancing on his fingertips, and the vines in the hair of the girl in the green skirt opposite immediately bloomed into a man-eating flower that absorbed the flames; the mermaid girl who controlled water raised a rainbow water curtain, and immediately a boy who controlled the wind element blew it into a rainbow rain all over the sky.

When the teaching elder Black Turtle slowly crawled out of the shell house, the eight trigrams on his carapace were absorbing the purple energy of the morning sun. His cough shook off a few ginkgo leaves, which turned into topaz rulers before they fell to the ground. "I have told you many times that the spirit of fire is not for roasting pine nuts!" The ruler hit the top of a boy's head accurately, but the sparks were frozen into pomegranate seeds by the rabbit-eared girl next to him, and fell into the pottery jar prepared for brewing wine.

As the sun climbed above the treetops, Ah Heng came to the Mirror Lake to wash the silk. This was the silk silk used in the Moon Festival. The lake water soaked in ninety-nine kinds of herbal juices would allow the fabric to absorb the moonlight. The demon girls who came with her stepped barefoot on the waves, their ankle silver bells playing in harmony with the waves, and the coral branches in their hair attracted curious koi. When they shook open the veil, the entire lake surface was rippling with silver-like spots of light, startling the heron demon who was napping in the reeds. As his snow-white feathers swept across the water, he snatched away the hydrangea fruit that a girl had deliberately dropped.

The sunlight at noon was filtered by the layers of treetops into emerald light rain. Ah Heng took a nap on the branches of her tree house, and the wisteria wrapped around the beams and pillars automatically dropped its flower curtains. A squirrel demon passed by with a pine cone in his hand. Seeing that she was sleeping soundly, he secretly dripped the accumulated sunlight dew on her lips - this was a popular prank among demon children. Those who secretly drank the sunlight dew would dream of turning into a young animal chasing its tail. When Ah Heng laughed out loud in her dream, a bunch of pale purple bellflowers bloomed on the pillow made of tail grass.

The market in the evening is more lively than in the morning. The night demons began to move, firefly lanterns lit up one after another, and bat demons hung upside down under the eaves as living signs. Ah Heng exchanged the tea soup she had frozen in the morning for a string of dusk cloud candy - this candy made with sunset glow will turn into clouds in the mouth, and after eating it, the breath will be filled with rose-colored smoke. When she passed by the shell house of the turtle elder, the old man was making memory tea with morning dew. The illusion condensed by the tea smoke showed the scene of the demon ancestors making a covenant with the mountain god. At dusk, the mirror lake began to condense moonlight. The first star fell into the center of the lake, stirring up circles of glowing ripples. Ah Heng saw the wolf boy on the other side polishing the moonstone. His silver-gray tail flickered in the night. The ore in his palm gradually became transparent as he was polished, and finally turned into a crystal that could store singing. Further away, there were older demons teaching their young ones to identify star maps. The fireflies in their hands formed ancient demon characters that read "Heaven and earth live together, and all things coexist."

When the full moon rose to the top of the ancient banyan tree, the entire Qing'ai Lake was filled with a mother-of-pearl-like glow. All the demons walked towards the Mirror Lake, and the evening primroses in their hair hummed in resonance. Ah Heng felt the antler pattern on her forehead slightly hot, and she knew it was a sign that the tree spirit was about to wake up. The lake water began to boil, but it was not water, but the dancing of the light elves formed by millions of moonlight. When the first ray of pure silver moonlight poured into the altar in the center of the lake, the dormant ancient contract came to life again, and the ancient songs of the demons drifted to the stars with the night wind, and the dewdrops had condensed into crystals on the tips of the leaves to record the memories of tonight.

The dawn of Qing'ai Lake begins with the rustling sound of dew condensation. When the first ray of light pierces the night clouds, the water elves living on the back of the luminous fern leaves extend their transparent tentacles and weave the water vapor in the air into a crystal net. The moonlight moss beside Ah Heng's pillow suddenly ripples with fluorescent blue waves - this is the tree spirit mobilizing the spiritual energy in the earth veins. Millions of mercury beads suddenly bulge on the surface of the moss. When rolling down the pillars of the tree house, they etch a tide scale on the agarwood that only the demons can recognize.

The mist three meters outside the window began to stratify. The bottom layer of bamboo-green mist precipitated into liquid and gathered into a hexagonal prism on the serrated leaves of the phoenix fern. The milky white mist in the middle layer was pecked by the early-rising wind birds. Every time their emerald beaks opened and closed, they would spit out a miniature whirlwind with the fragrance of pine needles. The top layer of lavender mist was carried as a whole by the group of psionic butterflies. Every time these translucent wings vibrated seven times, a piece of mist gauze was cut into the size of a wedding dress and temporarily stored in the natural ice cellar formed by the aerial roots of the banyan tree.

When Ah Heng stepped onto the corridor barefoot, the dragon blood vine under her feet immediately secreted warm amber resin. This natural resin produced from the joints of the vine will change its shape according to the body temperature when it touches the skin of the demon tribe - at this moment, it is turning into soft silk with morning dew, gently wrapping the old crescent-shaped scar on her ankle. The rain curtain hanging at the end of the corridor suddenly solidified vertically, and each water droplet sealed a fragment of the dream of the demon tribe on duty last night: in one water droplet, the afterimage of the wolf boy chasing the meteor was frozen, and in another, it reflected the blue-purple fingers of the mermaid weaving star tracks in the deep pool.

The heart of the morning market beats in the knot of the thousand-year-old ginkgo tree. This ancient tree, with a hollow trunk split by lightning, has naturally grown spiral shelves on its inner wall, each layer arranged according to the five elements: On the stall of the wood demon tribe on the east side, the vine demon is peeling fresh mist lotus - this fruit that grows in the clouds, after peeling off the seven layers of gauze-like skin, the core flesh is actually a ball of light green mist that can hum. In front of the gold mole spirit on the west side, there is a pile of meteorite iron, which automatically arranges into the pattern of the constellation of the season every half a quarter of an hour, and the brightest one always points to the buyer's destined opportunity.

The crystal lichens in the center of the market spontaneously formed a trading balance. When the flower fairy exchanged three drops of dusk tears for seven early spring down feathers of the sparrow fairy, the light golden tears fell on the surface of the lichen, immediately giving rise to luminous mycelium of the corresponding weight, and the down feathers on the other side attracted exactly seven colorful bees carrying morning dew. The sound exchange going on nearby was even more mysterious: the lark bird fairy offered the chirping of seven seasonal winds in exchange for the thousand-year silence sealed in the empty cicada shell by the old man of the cicada molt.

The aromas from the food area materialize into visible vortices. At the fox pancake stall, each dough is wrapped with a small ball of tamed fox fire, which burns flames on the surface when baked. In front of the cat demon's fresh fish stall, dozens of spring rainbow trout swim in suspended bubbles, and every time they swing their tails, they shake minty snow from between their scales. The most peculiar is the soup stall of the mirage demon. The sea blue mist floating in front of him will change shape according to the diners' thoughts: when a homesick bear demon takes the mist, it immediately solidifies into a honey jar with icicles hanging in front of his childhood cave.

On the training ground of the Ancient Banyan Square, 230 banyan leaves were arranged according to the trajectory of the Luoshu. The newly transformed demon cubs were learning to condense water spirits in the water formation area. Their tender palms pressed on the green bricks that were not yet dry with morning dew, and tadpole-shaped living water droplets immediately gushed out from the cracks of the bricks. A little girl with deer horns used too much force and forced the water tadpoles into transparent little snakes with their heads held high. The hedgehog demon controlling the flames nearby was so scared that it rushed three feet away, and the spikes on its back fell off and turned into red coral branches.

The scene in the Wind Spirit Training Area was like a broken glass world. Seven demon boys stood in the center of the whirlwind eye, practicing to visualize the airflow: one compressed the gusts of wind into a jade-colored flying knife with wind patterns naturally etched on the blade; another girl pulled the whirlwind into extremely fine silk threads, weaving a net with air that could capture sound. The suddenly uncontrolled airflow swept away the sand table of the earth demon clan, and the yellow sand in the sky spontaneously formed a lost ancient score of the demon clan in the air. The melody recorded on the tortoise shell shook the aerial roots of the old banyan tree.

The most tranquil is the fusion of the spiritual charm of Changmu and the spiritual charm of Yangshui. A pair of twin sisters stood in the light spots projected by the tree canopy. The translucent vines like light pipes grew from the fingertips of the elder sister, and the younger sister released the tamed morning light from her pupils. When the golden light was injected into the vines, liquid sunlight began to flow in the meridians of those plants, and eventually a small sun fruit the size of a thumb was produced at the top. The old demons watching recorded this wonder with their memory shells - the wine brewed from this fruit can allow the drinker to hear the sound of flowers blooming on the night of the winter solstice.

The shell house of the turtle elder is actually a living giant clam. This thousand-year-old shellfish changes its internal space form every day at midnight. At this moment, the dome is showing a cavity with the reflection of the starry sky. The eight trigrams on the old man's carapace float three inches in the dark blue light. Each trigram has a corresponding memory crystal suspended in it: the Zhen trigram seals the scene of the thunder beast coming into the world tens of millions of years ago, and the Li trigram burns the eternal fire of the phoenix nirvana.

The tea-making vessel on the tea table is a hollow dragon horn, covered with breathing dragon scales. When Elder Turtle poured the Sophora japonica dew collected at the hour of Mao, a distant tide sound came from the dragon horn, and the boiling water vapor condensed into a tangible cloud of memory above the cup mouth. When Ah Heng reached out to touch a cloud with a gold border, she suddenly found herself at the scene of the contract signed by the ancestors of the demon clan: she saw the first generation of tree spirits digging their roots into the reflection of the moon, and the mountain god used the snow peak as a pen, dipping it in the water of the Milky Way to write the terms of the contract in the night. Those words older than the stars fell into the Qingmize and turned into the spiritual veins that nourish all things today.

The deepest part of the memory pool is a tortoise shell chamber. Forty-nine tortoise shells are suspended in the still water, each of which records the lost secrets of the demon race. When Ah-Heng's eyes swept across a blood-red tortoise shell, a flowing tattoo suddenly appeared on it - it was a forbidden time-traveling technique. The words began to melt the moment they came into contact with her eyes, turning into warning cinnabar tears that fell to the bottom of the pool, awakening the sleeping secret-keeping leeches. Their slender bodies immediately formed a barrier to reseal the dangerous memory.
(End of this chapter)