Dragon Gate Swordsman

Therefore, those races whose intelligence and strength are at a higher stage of development will basically develop genetic locks to prevent their own biological characteristics from leaking out, or being learned and absorbed.

Wait! How do I know this?

Chongxiao was completely confused...

"Are you OK?"

"Nothing... I just figured out some things."

Seeing that Ling's eyes were still inquiring, he had no choice but to continue, "This characteristic is specifically used in combat, specifically to restrain those races that grow by absorbing the enemy's characteristics."

"Chongxiao, you mean these... the main body of the spores..."

"Yes, it may be a mortal enemy of the race I just mentioned, but I can be sure that it is definitely not human."

……

Yumen Old Town, old library.

Ling brought Chongxiao here with the intention of looking through the ancient historical books that were still preserved here to see if he could find some clues in them.

Chongyue had been in Yumen for many years and had never seen similar parasites, which meant that they had either only appeared recently or had not been noticed by anyone.

Ling is more inclined to the latter. After all, based on her experience, powerful things are all ancient.

This old library is a facility that existed when Yumen was just setting sail. It was originally just for the officers to have some entertainment when they had nothing to do... You have to know that there were no such things as television and mobile phones at that time. Therefore, for literate officers, reading was a rare activity that could kill time, and it was also useful for self-improvement.

Later, the military camp was relocated to a more remote location, and the library could no longer be moved with the camp, so it gradually fell into disrepair. After the advent of electronic products and their gradual popularity, it was completely abandoned.

The more useful and valuable books that were originally stored here have all been moved away, and what remains are all miscellaneous things, including fabricated unofficial history. It would be a pity to dispose of them all, but there is no extra space and manpower to manage them, so it has been delayed until now.

After asking the only security guard to open the library, Chongxiao was speechless when he saw the scene before him.

"How many years has it been since anyone cleaned this place?"

"...There are still more than 10,000 books of various kinds here. It is difficult for the two of us to handle them alone... Please forgive me."

"That's all I said."

Seeing Ling walked in without hesitation, Chongxiao hurriedly explained to the security guard and then quickly followed.

In the early years, the library did not have any high-tech equipment, and the materials of the bookshelves were very ordinary, just relatively thick wooden beams. Over the years, a considerable number of them had been damaged, resulting in a large number of books being piled up on the floor.

There were no visible traces of anything beneath the thick layer of dust, indicating that almost no one had visited this place before their arrival, let alone checked anything from the collection.

And if you observe carefully, you will find that most of these books are not very... serious. Most of them are shoddy works judging by their titles, such as "Yumen Ghost", "The Secret Record of General Mo Shou", "Two or Three Things I Have to Say About the Number One in the Martial Arts World" and so on, which makes Chongxiao feel dizzy.

But he still took the opportunity when Ling was sweeping the dust to quickly take out the book "A Few Things I Must Say About Me and the Number One in the Martial Arts World" and flipped through it.

Well, it seems that the author of this book is a title party. The content in it is completely different from what Chongxiao expected. It is just a record of the growth process of a female hero in the martial arts world, interspersed with many stories about Yumen’s clearing of sand bandits and robbers. The four words "number one in the martial arts world" basically never appear.

The author's writing style is not very good. It is a bit diary-like and often contains very subjective stream-of-consciousness content. It feels a bit like the diary of an adolescent girl.

Judging from the description of Yumen and certain terms used in the book, the author lived in an era when there were no mobile cities. When a natural disaster struck, the entire city of Yumen had to move away and then rebuild their homes.

Then it must have been at least a hundred years ago...

"No wonder it was left here and no one cares about it. The historical biography is written like a romance novel."

Chongxiao muttered a few words.

After flipping through a few more pages at a quick glance, he suddenly noticed a certain repeated name.

New moon.

Although this word refers to the first day of each month in the old calendar, in this book it seems to correspond to someone the author admires immensely and even has an obvious love for... Whenever this person is mentioned, he is basically described as a flawless existence.

In the second half of the book, the writing style becomes much more mature and steady, but the stream-of-consciousness content becomes extremely sad, as if the author has experienced unbearable setbacks and pain.

It was not until the last chapter that Chongxiao realized with a sentence at the end of the book that this novel was actually a love letter.

If there is an afterlife, no matter what the cost, I want to be with Master Shuoyue.

"Tsk tsk... this 'wild history' is indeed wild."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing...Nothing. I'm looking for clues about the parasite."

Chongxiao put the book in his hand back.

Searching for clues that you don't even know exist among tens of thousands of messy books is no better than looking for a needle in a haystack.

If this wasn't Ling's idea, Chongxiao felt that he might be able to help more by going to the laboratory... provided that they were willing to let him get involved.

Frowning again, he swept away a large cloud of dust, letting it be carried out of the open window by the dry wind, then Chongxiao opened another book.

However, just a few seconds later, he closed it and turned his attention to another one.

Similar actions have been repeated more than a dozen times. It’s not because Chongxiao lacks patience, but there is a reason why these books were thrown here.

Either the content is incomprehensible, or the ideas are contradictory. There are also many books that you can tell are just for self-entertainment after reading a few pages... I don’t know how "out of stock" the library was when it was established, and it actually collected so many meaningless works.

In other words, they cannot be called works at all...

But Ling's idea was not without reason. The sixth book that Chongxiao opened narrated an incident in Yumen thirty-five years ago in the voice of a participant.

But he never saw any passage that seemed to be related to the parasite.

The whole morning passed slowly, during which time Yumen also entered the stage of preparing to move... As a military fortress, its startup speed is much faster than that of an ordinary mobile city. In addition, the relevant operators are always prepared, and it only takes one to two days to set off after the order is issued.

The boring work soon made Chongxiao irritable, but this emotion would immediately dissipate when he saw Ling An sitting not far away and quietly turning the pages of each book.

The wind blowing in from the window and the dust it brought up made the already uncleaned hall even worse. If an ordinary person were here, he would probably be choked and speechless. However, the mist that always surrounded them was like a solid barrier, keeping all the dirty and filthy things half a meter away.

At this moment, Chongxiao found it difficult for him to judge whether the one with a more extraordinary temperament was Ling who was flipping through the ancient books, or Xi who was extremely indifferent in the world in the painting.

Compared with the young and lively girls who are "lively and active" in a certain sense, the two of them are more like real sisters.

"Chongxiao."

"Hmm? Uh...what's wrong?"

"Go and instruct Xiao Bai. I'll be fine here alone."

Chongxiao's expression froze for a moment, and then he vowed solemnly that he would definitely read all the books here.

Ling shook her head slightly, but the corners of her mouth involuntarily rose a little...

Opening a book again whose title page had shown signs of decay, Chongxiao was surprised to find that it was actually an ancient picture album.

Although many pages are illegible due to stains and ink spots, it can still be seen that the scene is a depiction of Yumen's warriors resisting evil beasts, and the painting is quite good. On those pages that are better preserved, the warriors' figures and costumes can be clearly seen.

The scale of evil beasts in ancient times did not seem to be very large, and the warriors could fight back and forth even with only pure cold weapons. In addition, there were also heavenly masters who used source stone skills to assist in the battle... Of course, the title of heavenly master may not have been born at that time, and it seems that it should be called alchemist.

"Ok?"

As he was flipping through the pages, Chongxiao suddenly saw a strange picture.

In this picture, the one fighting against the evil beast is not a Yumen warrior, but a strange-looking... monster. Its entire body seems to be made of angular rocks, with no obvious legs, and its four arms are all sharp sickle-shaped limbs.

However, what really caught Chongxiao's attention was a figure in the corner of the picture.

I don't know how many years ago, even if the painter had amazing skills, it would be impossible for him to make the simple sketch on paper have the same fineness as an electronic picture, but it can still be seen that it is a film of a person with medium-short hair.

Chongxiao instinctively felt that this figure... seemed somewhat familiar.

Chapter 104: Mo Liang comes out and invites you into a trap

"Xiaobai, your training these past two days hasn't been going well?"

"……no."

"So what's on your mind?"

"……No."

"It can't be that something's wrong, right?"

"Master!!!"

When Xiaobai, who was originally a little listless and absent-minded, heard this, he immediately glared at his master with a slightly red face.

In fact, the reason why she was not happy was very simple: ever since the troops set out and Yumen began to move towards a certain location, Chongxiao had been following that beautiful elder sister outside, and no one knew what she was doing.

As the saying goes, women need to be coaxed, and girls are no exception... Even if Xiaobai is well-behaved and sensible, and has self-awareness, she will not be happy staying alone in an empty room all day.

Ahem, although this word is definitely inappropriate, it’s okay as long as it can convey the meaning.

In addition, Xiaobai was a little worried about the side effect of Bei Ming Divine Art automatically absorbing other people's true energy. He did not dare to improve himself with all his strength as he did at the beginning, so he fell into a state of anxiety, and his mood was naturally not good.

In fact, it's not just her. This is a problem that every teenager will encounter during their growth. Parents, elders, teachers, and even friends can solve it in various ways, but Xiaobai can't...

Because now she only has Chongxiao as her master.

"I just said it casually."

"It's not okay to just say it casually!"

"Okay, okay...eat quickly, eat quickly."

Chongxiao smiled flatteringly, "I'll take you outside after dinner."

This trick might work against ordinary boys and girls, but Xiaobai is relatively self-disciplined, and like Chen Huijie, he has a goal in his heart that forces him to keep moving forward, so he flatly rejected it.

Unfortunately, in front of Chongxiao, no one's veto will have any effect unless they can defeat him.

So half an hour later, the master and disciple appeared on the brightly lit streets of Yumen.

As the only large mobile city within a radius of hundreds of kilometers, Yumen is undoubtedly the most important communication hub in the desert, without a doubt.

If the various ethnic settlements and villages scattered across the desert wanted to sell or purchase supplies, they had to rush to this city... In fact, all the successive Yumen defenders were very conflicted about this. On the one hand, they did need to trade with them economically, but on the other hand, they could not guarantee their personal safety.

Groups of evil beasts, sand bandits, and cultists would all attack caravans, especially the latter two, who would even use this as their main means of obtaining supplies, causing headaches for the border guards.

However, under the deterrence of Yumen, most of the caravans were able to arrive successfully.

They gathered on fixed streets in the city, forming a bustling commercial district similar to Kowloon Street. Although the scale and quality were far inferior, it was still very lively.

And liveliness is exactly what Yumen needs most... People can't live in a state of tension every day. Even the most elite border guards need appropriate relaxation and entertainment.

"Is that so? I was wondering why there were so many people in military uniforms."

Xiaobai, who was walking on the street, showed an expression of sudden enlightenment.

After all, she is a girl at heart. Just a few minutes after she threw a tantrum at Chongxiao, Xiaobai, who was brought out by force, liked the atmosphere here.

Caravans from various tribes put their wares on the street for sale or provided samples for viewing. Rather than being a dazzling array of goods, the word "strange and bizarre" should be used to describe the goods.

The barren desert is not enough to support these tribes in producing too many luxury goods and high-end items. They mainly produce some raw materials and simple handicrafts, or exquisite gadgets that embody the unique craftsmanship of the tribe. They are varied but none of them are expensive.

Chongxiao doesn't think much of these things, and Xiaobai... is a young girl after all, and has a weak resistance to things like shopping.

Therefore, it didn't take long for her to completely get rid of any resentment she had towards her master.

"Master, can I ask a question?"

"what?"

"What were you and...Sister Ling doing outside these past two days?"

Good question.

After failing to find any clues in the ancient books in the old library, Ling took Chongxiao to visit the retired scout who was living in the city, went to the laboratory to inquire about Mr. Fang's research progress, and went to the dungeon of the Five-Party Alliance headquarters to interrogate the prisoners of the Yangshen Sect.

In short, I have been very busy, but have not achieved any substantial results.

Ling had to drag Chongxiao into all kinds of investigations, not because she had any ideas, but because Zuo Xuanliao, who was temporarily in charge of Yumen, did not have a good attitude towards Sui Yi. If Ling used her identity as a military advisor to mobilize military personnel, it would probably create conflicts.

By the way, Xi never showed up again during this period, so much so that Chongxiao began to suspect whether she had left Yumen.

"Doing my old job: investigating cases."

"Eh? What happened in Yumen again?"

"Children, don't ask so many questions."

Chongxiao had no intention of telling Xiaobai about the Yangshen Sect and the parasite. She had nothing to do with these things.

After wandering on the street for more than an hour, Chongxiao couldn't help yawning, but Xiaobai was still very energetic... After making some progress in the Beiming Divine Art, her mental and physical strength surpassed her peers by a lot.

Just then, Chongxiao's cell phone suddenly rang.