From Under One Person: Sincere Journey Through the Heavens

"Holy crap! Wasn't that kid supposed to be off with those monks and Taoist priests performing a ritual to help the Green and White Snakes pass on? How did he end up causing such a commotion?"

Wang Yaozu wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, opened his mouth, and exclaimed in surprise, "He really did manage to collapse Leifeng Pagoda?"

"So, it seems Brother Jiang's fortune-telling is quite accurate."

Hong Guniang's focus was different from others. After realizing what was happening, she said to Dili Chuan and Sai Huohou, "You two go and take a look first. We'll be there shortly."

"Alright, Miss Red!"

He channeled his inner energy into the ground, and with his short legs, he moved at a surprisingly fast pace, disappearing from the shore of West Lake in no time.

The monkeys are incredibly agile and adept at maneuvering, their agility and speed are even greater, and they follow closely behind on the ground.

Jiang Liu, who had already found all the scriptures and scrolls inside the bricks, noticed the arrival of Dili Chui and Sai Huohou, and said to Dili Chui, "You've come at the right time. Go down there and see if you can find the Buddha's hair relic."

"what?"

Dili Chui was taken aback at first, but quickly realized what was happening. He rubbed his hands together and said with a grin, "Young Master, just you wait and see!"

He stretched, took a deep breath, and channeled his Qi throughout his body, which softened the soil beneath his feet, causing him to sink into it and grope around in the earth.

Before long, Dili Chui arrived at a small underground palace.

There was no air here, so he dared not linger. He groped his way to the center, grabbed a square box, picked it up, and "swam" upwards.

"Young Master, is this it?"

Jiang Liu saw a metal box about 30 centimeters long and wide and about half a meter high lying on the ground. He opened it and revealed a small silver tower inside.

This pagoda consists of three parts: the base, the body, and the spire. If the larger section below the base is included, it has four parts.

This is a miniature Leifeng Pagoda!

To be more precise, it should be the Ashoka Stupa and the Sarva Tathagata Hridaya Guhya Sarira Dharani Stupa, representing the 84,000 teachings of Buddhism.

The base is square, with each of the four sides carved with a scene from one of the Buddha's Jataka tales. The scenes depict Prince Sattva sacrificing himself to feed a tiger, King Candraprabha giving his head as a gift, King Sibi cutting off his flesh to trade for a dove, and King Kumbhina giving away his eye.

The tower has five stories, each with miniature silver fish-scale tiles, copper brackets at the corners, and upturned eaves. The overall structure is modeled after the pavilion-style towers of the Tang and Song dynasties.

This is different from the Ashoka Pagoda that Jiang Liu saw in his previous life. The small Leifeng Pagoda unearthed in his previous life only had five silver round pieces on its body and was not as exquisite as this one.

After touching the small Leifeng Pagoda, Jiang Liu knew that it was a silver pagoda-shaped magical artifact, whose purpose was probably to house spirits with obsessive thoughts, in order to ensure the immortality of their spirits.

The so-called Buddha's hair relic is probably stored in the square section with Buddha statues carved on it at the base of the pagoda.

In fact, this should be the underground palace of the Little Leifeng Pagoda.

Before it was burned down, the Leifeng Pagoda was probably built in the style of the Tang and Song dynasties, but overall it was built in the form of the Ashoka Pagoda – underground palace, base, body, and spire.

Therefore, this small Leifeng Pagoda, which is made entirely of silver, is roughly composed of four parts: the underground palace, the base, the body, and the spire.

The small Leifeng Pagoda is hidden inside the underground palace of the collapsed Leifeng Pagoda, so the Buddha's hair relic must also exist in the "underground palace" of this small Leifeng Pagoda.

Um--

It's like a nesting doll!

However, in Jiang Liu's perception, there did not seem to be any Buddha's hair relic inside the underground palace of the Little Leifeng Pagoda; there was only a wisp of dust-like matter that was fluctuating.

"That is the Buddha's hair relic."

Within the ancestral aperture, the white dragon transmitted a message to Jiang Liu, saying, "We have never seen Shakyamuni, but through this dust-like relic, we can roughly guess just how profound and unfathomable his cultivation level was."

“The hair, after being forged in fire, turns into dust, yet each grain is crystal clear and invisible to the naked eye. Only by closing your eyes and looking with the eye of your heart can you perceive it.”

Upon hearing this, Jiang Liu closed his eyes, held the Hunyuan Dan with his ten fingers connected to his heart, and through his mind, he observed the entire appearance of the Buddha's hair relic through the underground palace.

Just as Bai Long had said, each one was crystal clear, like dust or grass, rising and falling, as if gathered by an invisible force, like a vast galaxy, flowing endlessly, seemingly real yet illusory, making it impossible to fathom.

Even, after staring at Jiang Liu for a while, his scalp began to tingle—

It really does feel numb.

It seems that the undulating motion of this Buddha's hair relic is also a peculiar practice used to cultivate... the scalp and hair?

It is currently unknown...

"Brother Jiang, is this a magical artifact?"

Lu Jin also noticed the unusual nature of this small Leifeng Pagoda and exclaimed in surprise, "A magical artifact made entirely of silver? That's incredibly extravagant!"

"It is indeed a ritual implement, and its main function is probably to house spirits."

Perhaps it was because it contained a Buddha's hair relic, or perhaps it was because the material and function of this magical artifact were so simple that Jiang Liu discovered that it did not require matching the holder's cultivation method; as long as Qi was injected, it could be used to store spiritual bodies or something similar.

After Jiang Liu closed the iron box again, Wang Yaozu, Hong Guniang, and the apprentices led the children to arrive.

"You've come at the right time. Please help carry the scriptures back."

Jiang Liu clapped his hands and beckoned the children over—84,000 scrolls, although many were damaged, most were still in good condition.

Once taken back, they will definitely need to be copied again. These ancient scrolls are antiques, and in the future, a museum could be built in the cultural street to exhibit them.

"You really managed to collapse Leifeng Pagoda, didn't you?"

Looking at the ruins, Wang Yaozu quietly gave a thumbs up. "To match your divination! That's ruthless! I wonder if those Taoist priests also divine in this way? If the divination is inaccurate, they deliberately make it accurate?"

Jiang Liu just rolled his eyes at him.

"I didn't collapse it. After the Azure Dragon and White Dragon returned to their rightful place, the Leifeng Pagoda lost its function, so naturally..."

Halfway through his sentence, Jiang Liu suddenly remembered that after he withdrew from that state of "enlightenment," his Qi surged and vibrated outwards, causing the base of the tower to tremble...

The collapse of Leifeng Pagoda seems to have a tiny, almost imperceptible connection to me.

But Jiang Liu is certain!

Even if he had managed to control the Qi of the external earthquake at the time, with the core of Leifeng Pagoda having withstood a thousand years of wind and sun, it was only a matter of time before it collapsed.

But then again, if I hadn't gotten involved, how did Leifeng Pagoda collapse? Could it be that Qingjiao and Bailong went berserk and fought Rusong and the others to the death, affecting their physical bodies and causing Leifeng Pagoda to collapse?

"So you really were the one who caused it to collapse?"

Seeing Jiang Liu pause halfway through his sentence, Wang Yaozu became suspicious and uncertain.

"Accident!"

Jiang Liu admitted responsibility for the collapse of Leifeng Pagoda, but insisted it was not intentional, but rather—

"It's fate!"

"He's acting strangely and mysteriously."

Wang Yaozu stopped mentioning the matter and instructed his apprentices and children to take the scriptures home.

Thereafter.

Residents of Yuhang City came to see it. Some of them found the broken scriptures that Jiang Liu and his group had overlooked among the bricks and stones. They were overjoyed and took them home to worship.

Others followed suit, and rumors even spread that the bricks and stones of Leifeng Pagoda had the effects of "giving birth to children," "ensuring peace," and "bestowing blessings," and people took them home.

Meanwhile, writers and scholars began to write, using their pens as weapons to satirize those in power and to awaken the world, but—

You can't straighten people's spines overnight with just a pen...

# Chapter 246 Persuading Lu Mingfei

On the very day Leifeng Pagoda collapsed, a warlord surnamed Sun entered Hangzhou. Everyone said it was an unlucky day, but he dismissed it with a laugh, citing the legend of "Lady White Snake transforming into a dragon."

But is that really what he thinks?

not necessarily.

After the Leifeng Pagoda collapsed, he began to plan the city and build roads on a large scale. He even planned to renovate the Yue Wang Temple and hold a "Martial Arts Tournament" to recruit extraordinary people in order to stabilize the people's hearts.

Fortunately, he didn't think much of the slum area.

"That smiling tiger surnamed Sun is no ordinary person."

Inside the Caixi Courtyard, Lu Mingfei ran over to tell everyone, "He has occupied Anhui, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Fujian, and Zhejiang. His total military strength is over 200,000. There are currently 10,000 troops in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang area. He has led nearly 5,000 troops into Yuhang. He has recently started recruiting soldiers. I estimate that next year, the number of troops in Jiangsu and Zhejiang will reach around 50,000. Once he integrates the military forces of these five provinces, the number of troops stationed in Yuhang will reach nearly 20,000."

It must be said that Lu Mingfei has a knack for controlling the current situation.

This is not much different from what Jiang Liu knew about the warlord Sun in his previous life.

"so?"

Jiang Liu asked.

"So, should we cooperate with this warlord Sun?"

Lu Mingfei looked at Jiang Liu and said, "He is the largest warlord in the southeast. The territory he controls covers both the north and south of the Yangtze River and is close to the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea. In China, he is in the southeast, but in the world, as long as he can develop and catch up with the West, he may become the center of the new world!"

[You're overthinking it!]

Jiang Liu couldn't help but roll his eyes at Lu Mingfei's "delusions" and said, "He can't succeed. In the end, he's just a warlord. Things are different now than in the past. The emperor is a thing of the past, at least not in our land anymore."

"That guy surnamed Sun has no chance of succeeding."

Upon hearing this, Lu Mingfei smiled and said, "I think so too."

Obvious.

This was his way of testing Jiang Liu.

As an ambitious young man, Lu Mingfei realized that Jiang Liu, like himself, was also seeking a way to save the country during the process of Jiang Liu and his group annihilating the Azure Dragon Society. However, he still needed to probe further to find out what Jiang Liu's specific thoughts were.

If he were to place his hopes on warlords—

In that case, they can only befriend each other, but not engage in genuine cooperation.

"Who do you think can determine the fate of the world in this day and age?" Lu Mingfei asked.

"I'm not a fortune teller, how could I possibly know? But the future of the world does indeed depend on us."

Jiang Liu chuckled and said, "The line between extraordinary people and ordinary people is too obvious. If we are going to make changes, how can we not be thorough? If in the future, people like us have to hide and conceal our abilities from the general public when we use them, then how can we talk about changing the world?"

"Change is not just a matter for ordinary people, but also for us extraordinary people."

"My purpose in establishing the Cultural Street is to experiment. I don't expect the extraordinary individuals from major sects and families, but most independent individuals, small families, or those with special skills can gather together to seek a better future. We can even cooperate with insightful and ambitious ordinary people who truly want to change the world, so that extraordinary individuals and skills can be put to practical use and we can achieve common prosperity."

Lu Mingfei knew that the other party had seen through his probing, so he sighed and said, "Ordinary people are still quite afraid of the abilities of superhumans. Prejudice is a mountain in people's hearts."