The Great Martial Arts World: Hot Topics and Great Heroes

She had originally wanted the one with the white flag, but Little Red snatched it back...

"What's wrong?" Chu Luren asked, noticing her unusual expression.

Indeed, the scale of this treasure was enough to start a rebel army. However, Chu Luren originally thought that Murong Jiu's understanding of rebellion was just "winning over people in the martial arts world," and that he didn't really care about starting a rebel army!

I underestimated her?

At least they know that rebellion relies on righteous armies, which means they need money!

“Treasure…that’s right! Given the ancestral beliefs of the Manchus, they would definitely place this treasure along with their ancestral graves on the dragon vein! As long as we find this treasure, we can find the dragon vein beyond the Great Wall!” Murong Jiu said excitedly.

Chu Luren: ...

Okay, Chu Luren takes back his previous assessment.

So what excited Murong Jiu was the dragon vein where the treasure was located?

"You know about dragon veins too? If you ask me, when it comes to rebellion, we should be down-to-earth. Dragon veins are nothing but..." Chu Luren was about to correct Murong Jiu's superstitious ideas.

However, Murong Jiu interrupted, "What do you know!"

“I know you covet my scriptures,” Chu Luren reminded her about the ownership of the scriptures.

"Isn't this from the Qing Dynasty? How did it become yours?" Murong Jiu retorted defiantly, looking as if she wanted to "embezzle" it.

"What you're saying is ridiculous. It's already in my hands... Have you seen me return the Yi Jin Jing to Shaolin?" Chu Luren said righteously.

Murong Jiu:......

The example of Chu Luren was very convincing, and Murong Jiu was speechless for a moment.

"Consort Ying, how can you and I be distinguished?" Murong Jiu smiled charmingly, and with a "KU" sound, her chest returned to its original state.

Chu Luren shuddered and repeatedly refused, saying, "Don't give me that. We haven't even done anything yet, and you're already calling yourself 'I,' right? I never wanted to be your shadow concubine..."

"I thought this would excite you more."

"Huh? What makes you think I'd get excited? Don't interrupt, give me back the scriptures!"

"What's yours is mine... Take your bird away."

"Hey! Watch out, it might peck you..."

dong dong dong-

There was a knock on the door, and then Mu Wanqing used her palm to knock off the latch and walked in.

Previously, Mu Wanqing and A Zhu also came to Manjing, but Wang Yuyan and A Zi remained at Leigushan.

"What are you doing here in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?" Mu Wanqing felt like she had said this many times, only the female protagonists she asked were different.

Chu Luren thought for a moment and then honestly said, "Read Buddhist scriptures."

Mu Wanqing: ……

That's quite a novel excuse!

"Your bird has pecked all over the scriptures," Mu Wanqing reminded her.

Upon hearing this, Chu Luren immediately picked up Xiao Hong and discovered that it had pecked through the hard cover of the scripture and pulled out something from inside—it looked like a grass root, but was as long as a forearm, and was coiled up in the lining of the scripture cover.

Little Red looked like it wanted to eat it, but Chu Luren snatched it directly from its mouth because of its unknown origin.

Xiao Hong pecked Chu Luren's hand a few times in anger... but couldn't get it, so she looked at him pitifully.

"What is this?" Chu Luren looked at the grass-like thing with a puzzled expression.

At the same time, Murong Jiu took out a cloth bag that had already been exposed from the cover, reached inside with her fingers, and found some fragments of sheepskin with maps drawn on them!

"A map! It must be a map of the dragon vein. As long as we collect all eight copies of the 'Forty-Two Chapters Sutra,' we can piece together the complete map!" Murong Jiu said excitedly.

Moreover, judging from this, in Murong Jiu's heart, the dragon vein is even more important than the treasure.

Afterwards, perhaps feeling that Chu Luren was truly a lucky star for Great Yan, Murong Jiu also looked at him excitedly. However, Chu Luren's attention was now entirely focused on the grass tendrils that Xiao Hong was interested in.

When Mu Wanqing saw Murong Jiu's appearance, she couldn't help but purse her lips and say, "Your chest is sticking out."

Murong Jiu ignored her and instead followed Chu Luren's questioning gaze to look at the grass tendrils in his hand.

"Could this be..." Murong Jiu seemed to have thought of something.

"You recognize it?" Chu Luren asked, handing the item to her for identification.

Murong Jiu sniffed it and then said, "It seems to be ginseng rootlets."

"Huh?" Chu Luren was taken aback.

The Eight Banners are so stingy!

They hid what they had stolen like moles, and... they even carefully preserved the ginseng whiskers?

Shouldn't the land of Changbai Mountains and Heilongjiang River have many ginseng plants that are hundreds or even thousands of years old?

"Could it be... used to repel insects and prevent the scriptures from being eaten by insects?" Chu Luren speculated.

Thinking about it that way, it does seem luxurious... But can ginseng root really repel insects?

Then Chu Luren looked at Xiao Hong again: "You're not interested in these two books? Don't these two books contain ginseng rootlets for expelling parasites? By the way... when did you start eating ginseng? I haven't seen you eat it before."

In Chu Luren's memory, Xiao Hong had seen ginseng before, but its diet should prioritize snake gallbladders, and snake meat would be barely acceptable if that wasn't enough.

They shouldn't be interested in herbs or the like!

"Coo coo coo!" Little Red seemed very anxious.

Murong Jiu also looked solemn at this moment, and then compared the three scriptures.

The one from the Bordered White Banner had its front end pecked through. After turning it over and comparing it carefully, Murong Jiu discovered...

"The interlayer seals of these three scriptures are not quite the same. The one with the white border is different from the other two," Murong Jiu said after comparing them.

"Huh? You mean, the ginseng rootlets were added later?" Chu Luren seemed to understand.

However, Murong Jiu shook his head and said, "No, these two seem to be newly sealed. It should be... someone took out the ginseng roots from these two books! Where did these three books come from?"

"They were all taken from the Empress Dowager. This one was left after Consort Dong'e's death, and the other two should have been confiscated from Ao Bai's house," Chu Luren said honestly.

Ao Bai had his own banner of the Bordered Yellow Banner, but after killing Sukesaha, he took the banner of the Plain White Banner.

"Ao Bai...Are you going to see Ao Bai later?" Murong Jiu suddenly seemed interested in the ginseng root.

"What's wrong? Is there something strange about these ginseng roots?" Chu Luren naturally noticed that she seemed to know something.

Murong Jiu nodded, then said with some doubt, "This ginseng root... it matches some of the legends about the dragon veins beyond the Great Wall passed down from my ancestors, but I'm not sure if it's true or not!"

Upon hearing Murong Jiu's words, Chu Luren also remembered that although the place where the Murong Xianbei rose to power was further south than that of the Jurchens, which is why they established their state as "Yan," it was indeed in the northeastern region...

Chapter 467 Reencounter with Fellow Travelers

"What dragon vein? The country was won by fighting with swords and horses, and preserved by the support of the people. What use is a dragon vein?" Chu Luren clicked his tongue in disdain.

"Did any of your ancestors have emperors?" Murong Jiu asked in return.

"Does being a descendant of Yan and Huang count?" Chu Luren asked after thinking for a moment.

Murong Jiu rolled her eyes at him, probably feeling contempt for his behavior of using a big name and pretending to be something he'd never done.

"In the secret documents passed down along with our family genealogy, there are records about dragon veins in my Murong clan... It is said that the Central Plains is the well of heaven and earth, and there are dragon veins in all eight directions. Only a dynasty with a stable dragon vein can occupy the Central Plains for a long time!" Murong Jiu said with great confidence.

"Then was the dragon vein of the Yan Kingdom later dug up? And dug up several times?" Chu Luren asked in return.

Former Yan, Later Yan, Southern Yan, Western Yan... During the Sixteen Kingdoms period, the various Yan states of the Murong clan were restored and destroyed several times.

Upon hearing this, Murong Jiu glared at him irritably, then said, "What do you mean, 'dug it up several times'! Dragon veins... the idea of ​​dragon veins is not entirely unbelievable, but it's not the only thing that can be believed! Besides, dragon veins themselves can shift within a certain range, otherwise how could I not know where the Manchu dragon veins are!"

Seeing that Chu Luren still didn't believe her, Murong Jiu got angry and held up the ginseng root in front of him, saying, "I didn't completely believe you before either, but this is the evidence!"

"Are you trying to say... this is dragon whiskers?" Chu Luren asked with a "Are you alright?" expression.

“Of course not! My ancestors said that dragon veins are often guarded by strange beasts, and the strange beast that accompanies the dragon vein in the northeast, which is the Zhen trigram, is a ten-thousand-year-old dragon.” Murong Jiu said.

The Zhen trigram points to the northeast, which is the orientation of the Earlier Heaven Bagua, the most common Bagua orientation of "Qian above and Kun below".

However, the maps at this time were conventionally the opposite of those in later times. Modern people are used to "north at the top and south at the bottom," but in ancient times, whether in the vast world, the emphasis was on "sitting facing south." Maps were also viewed from north to south, that is, "south at the top and north at the bottom." Qian was the south, Kun was the north, and the northeast position was the Zhen trigram.

Chu Luren didn't care about whether it would shake or not, but questioned, "A ten-thousand-year-old ginseng dragon? A ginseng... transformed into a dragon spirit?"

“No, our ancestors said that it was a strange beast that lived in symbiosis with ginseng, half ginseng and half snake, and had lived for an unknown amount of time. If this is the whisker of the Ginseng Dragon, it can explain why Little Red wanted to eat it, and it can also explain why it was placed together with the map fragment of the dragon vein!” Murong Jiu had already made up his mind about this matter.

At the same time, it can be seen that Murong Jiu is now full of fighting spirit, probably because after discovering the clues to the dragon vein, he feels that he is the chosen one.

"Are you a descendant of Murong Zhuyan?" Mu Wanqing asked from the side.

That's right. Previously, Mu Wanqing only knew that she was a woman, but she didn't know that she was a descendant of the Zhu Yan!

Murong Jiu:......

Murong Jiu paused upon hearing this. She had been too excited just now, and since Mu Wanqing already knew that she was a woman, she hadn't taken any precautions and had just blurted it out!

“That’s right, I am a descendant of the royal family of the Great Yan, so… Princess Mu, we are a perfect match. How about I propose to the Prince in the future? As long as Dali is willing to help, I will help you when I revive the Great Yan… Hey! Don’t go!” Murong Jiu wanted to reveal her true colors, but Mu Wanqing had no interest in playing games with her.

Chu Luren then picked up the ginseng rootlets that Murong Jiu had just put down on the table, examined them carefully, and muttered to himself, "Ginseng Dragon?" Unfortunately, he could only tell that they were ginseng rootlets, but he couldn't discern anything else about them.

When Murong Jiu returned looking disappointed, she saw Chu Luren still watching, so she said irritably, "It's easy to verify the truth! Aren't you going to see Ao Bai? You can ask him what he did with the other two ginseng roots! He might just know the true nature of these ginseng roots!"

Chu Luren nodded upon hearing this, then glanced at her and said, "Alright, it's getting late, you should go back to your room."

“You…” Murong Jiu glared angrily. She didn’t want to stay here, but she still felt it was strange to let Chu Luren speak first.

Before leaving, Murong Jiu also gathered up all the parchment fragments from the three scriptures.

"Hey, did I say I gave it to you?" Chu Luren called out to her.

However, Murong Jiu then turned her head and awkwardly put on a charming expression, saying, "After I ascend the throne, I will definitely make you my empress!"

"Eek..." Chu Luren felt a chill run down his spine and instinctively shrank back.

Murong Jiu quickly left the room, and two "KU, KU" sounds were heard outside, indicating that she had probably "changed" back.

Chu Luren didn't care about any treasure map, since he needed to collect all eight to find the location anyway—otherwise, even Chu Luren would be like a blind man searching for a needle in a haystack near Luding Mountain.

Compared to the treasure, the Chu Lu people were more interested in this so-called "Ten-Thousand-Year-Old Ginseng Dragon"...

Moreover, after Murong Jiu mentioned it, Chu Luren remembered another matter—back in Sichuan, after an earthquake, a cave appeared at knee height around the Leshan Giant Buddha…

At the time, Chu Luren didn't dare to go at all, after all, it was too similar to Lingyun Cave in "Storm Riders", and in addition to the fire unicorn, there was also a "dragon vein" in Lingyun Cave!