Global Games: Reporting the Great Ascension Stage at the Start

Upon hearing that the history of Qingzhushan was to be told, the audience instantly lost interest.

As a resident of the neighborhood, I am very familiar with the history of Qingzhushan. I can almost recite it by heart and I would like to hear it again.

So the three listeners drank their tea in one gulp and left looking disappointed.

The remaining few stayed.

However, they weren't really interested in listening; they were waiting for Shen Hua to leave so they could continue the storytelling.

And the storyteller said their tea is free! We have to take advantage of this.

Shen Hua ignored all of this and listened silently, occasionally interjecting with questions.

The storyteller continued his eloquent narration.

In fact, Shen Hua knew everything the storyteller was telling.

To put it bluntly, he knows far more about the history of Qingzhu Mountain than the storyteller in front of him, and he is well aware of many secrets that the storyteller does not know.

However, he listened patiently, or at least appeared to be patient.

Isn't he wasting time? Who would deliberately waste time by spending spirit stones?

All I can say is that what he heard was useful, and very useful!

After listening for about half an hour and having asked all the questions he needed to, Shen Hua breathed a sigh of relief, stood up, clasped his hands in a fist and said, "Thank you for your guidance, sir. I shall take my leave now."

"Ah, are you leaving already?" The storyteller seemed reluctant to leave; he still had so much to say.

And young master, you only spent one spirit stone to listen for such a short time.

"Yes, goodbye."

Before Shen Hua finished speaking, he had already gracefully left the teahouse.

However, not long after, he actually returned again, and said to the storyteller somewhat embarrassedly, "Sir, could you give me back ten coins?"

Storyteller: "Huh?"

……

A minute later, Shen Hua strolled into a bookstore not far from the teahouse, laid out ten large coins on the counter, and said arrogantly, "Is that enough this time?"

"That's enough, sir, please feel free to borrow whatever you like." The bookstore clerk said with a smile.

After leaving the teahouse, Shen Hua came to this bookstore to look up some information, but it wasn't until the bookstore clerk reminded him that he realized—reading books costs money!

Although the money wasn't much—only ten five-zhu coins for half an hour of work—the problem was that Shen Hua didn't have any five-zhu coins!

He regretted giving away more than two hundred Wuzhu coins to the Taiping Dao gang members out of generosity, but he couldn't very well throw away a low-grade spirit stone and ask the bookstore clerk for change.

So, he reluctantly returned to the teahouse and asked the storyteller for ten coins back...

……

Inside the study, Shen Huaxia and Hou Dun were reading—reading ten lines at a glance, quickly flipping through many bamboo slips.

The contents of the bamboo slips are mostly folk tales, strange stories, local customs and traditions.

However, after reading through a few key books, I finally felt I had done enough preparation!

He breathed a huge sigh of relief as he walked out of the bookstore.

First, I wandered around the market several times.

He continued until dusk, when the sun was setting, before suddenly disappearing into a narrow alley.

There are five or six shops side by side in this alley, but because it is not a main road, there are few people. In addition, it is lunchtime now, and there are only a few pedestrians passing by.

Finally, Shen Hua stopped in front of one of the old-looking shops. The shop was called Duobaoxuan, a rather ordinary name.

Looking into the shop, there were no customers, only one person behind the counter, who seemed to be the shopkeeper.

This was a woman who looked to be about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, with an oval face and fair skin. She was lying casually on a wooden rocking chair with her legs crossed.

It is worth mentioning that she was not dressed in silk like ordinary women, but in a coarse cloth outfit that old farmers often wore, with a pair of coarse cloth shoes on her feet.

At this moment, she was holding a dusty bamboo scroll, reading it with great interest, with a foxtail grass dangling from her mouth, swaying up and down with the rocking of the chair.

"As expected, all this effort was worthwhile," Shen Hua thought to himself.

Looking at the woman, Shen Hua's eyes suddenly welled up with tears, and years of pent-up longing surged forth.

However, the feeling of nostalgia was fleeting, and he quickly suppressed it and regained his composure.

Shen Hua took a deep breath and stepped into the store.

At the same time, the female shop owner also noticed him.

She put down the bamboo scroll and was surprised to see that the person who entered the shop was actually a visitor from outer space.

However, she didn't say anything, and calmly said, "Welcome to my humble shop! May I ask what you would like, esteemed guest?"

Shen Hua did not answer, but bowed and said, "Greetings, Sect Leader Xu. This junior, Xia Ye, greets you."

"???!!!" The woman in front of him was utterly astonished, her pupils contracting.

She put down the bamboo scrolls and sat up in the rocking chair, shocked. "How...how did you know?"

"How could I not know?" Shen Hua thought to himself, "I buried your remains with my own hands in my past life!"

……

The woman before them was none other than the sect leader of the Green Bamboo Mountain Sect, named Xu Lan, with the courtesy name Ruoyun, currently a peak Foundation Establishment cultivator.

The reason she opened a small shop here instead of inside the sect is because she is about to form her Golden Core. Before forming the Golden Core, she needs to go into the mortal world for five years to temper her mind and stabilize her state of mind. This way, the quality of the Golden Core she forms will be higher.

Shen Hua had just suddenly thought of this, so he immediately abandoned his plan to go to Wanzhen Pavilion and came to see Xu Lan.

The most important thing in worldly trials is secrecy. Too many people can't know her identity, otherwise everyone will know she's the sect leader, and then what's the point of her trials?

No one in the neighborhood knew she was the sect leader. If a disciple happened to walk in to buy something, Xu Lan would immediately change her appearance and voice.

But she couldn't be bothered to change her appearance when it came to Shen Hua, until Shen Hua saw through her disguise.

As for the question of the remains from the previous life.

After the Qingsong Mountain clan was wiped out, Shen Hua, the second elder, collected the remains of Xu Lan and the first elder and buried them in the same grave he had dug in the back mountain.

By the way, the Grand Elder is her mother. The mother and daughter were the only two Golden Core cultivators in the sect at that time.

……

Shen Hua would definitely not reveal everything about his past life.

He adopted a respectful posture and said solemnly, "Sect Leader Xu, a few days ago I encountered an old man with a venerable air and white hair but a youthful face in a village inhabited by extraterrestrial visitors."

The old man claimed to be a friend of your father and asked me to convey a message: "Because of the duel your father was in ten years ago, your family will face a great calamity thirty years from now."

As for how to find you, the old gentleman explained it to me in detail, saying that you were experiencing trials in the mortal world, and that I should come to this location in the market to find you.

"My...my father?" Xu Lan's face was ashen, clearly indicating that she believed him.

Xu Lan's father was the previous sect leader, and the powerful characters on the mountain gate were written by him personally.

Xu Lan never allowed the servants inside the gate to touch or clean the mountain gate, which is why the mountain gate became very old.

After her father passed away, the responsibility of being the leader of the Green Pine Mountain Sect fell on her shoulders, and it has been almost ten years now.

"Who could that old man be?" Xu Lan murmured, her thoughts drifting far away.