54: Chapter 54 The Celestial Dragons Have Arrived

The carriage swayed along the imperial road for most of the day, and Xie Feng's cultivation dropped by another realm.

This reminded Xie Feng of when he had first arrived in this world a few years ago, back when he was still a mortal.

Ever since the first day he transmigrated into this world, bizarre anomalies had never stopped.

Why was that?

Xie Feng counted the items he carried on himself from the beginning.

The phone number of the Primordial Immortals, the warm pack from Cthulhu's eldest son, and the rebate given by the God of Toads after finishing takeout.

Three items, three marks of the Great Old Ones.

Meng Yi had also been targeted by anomalies.

What was on Meng Yi?

The mark of Tsathoggua.

The commonality between Xie Feng and Meng Yi was that they both bore the marks of Cthulhu-mythos gods.

"Tu Ziguan."

"Hmm?" Tu Ziguan was lowering his head and dozing with his eyes narrowed.

"Do you feel like I particularly attract anomalies?"

Tu Ziguan raised his head, thought for a moment, and then said, "Now that you mention it, you really do.

Ever since Kumu Village, which mission didn't run into one?

Even going home to visit family managed to turn city-guard Cultivators into Ghouls.

With your Physique, it's a pity you don't go work as an anomaly trap."

Tu Ziguan opened his eyes and twisted his neck; sitting had made his butt numb.

"I'm bored to death.

Riding in a carriage is ten times slower than riding a motorcycle, and it's bumpy too."

He stretched lazily, his elbow almost poking Gu Jian in the face. Completely oblivious, Tu Ziguan fished a stack of small paper slips out of his bundle.

The paper slips were about the size of a palm, neatly cut into squares, with a thin layer of spiritual paper pulp pasted on the backs and patterns drawn on the fronts. He arranged the slips on his knees, smoothing them out one by one.

"What is that?" Mo Tang leaned over.

"Cards." Tu Ziguan spread out the last card, making a total of fifty-four cards arranged like a hand fan on his knees.

"It was boring on the road, so I developed a pastime gadget.

The rules are simple; you can learn them instantly.

Want to play?"

Mo Tang picked up a card and turned it over to look. The face of the card was branded with the profile of a Cultivator using spiritual power.

She flipped over another; this one was a crouching demon with green face and fangs.

"How do you play this?"

Tu Ziguan explained the rules: each suit went from one to thirteen, plus two jokers, big and small.

The big joker was a white-haired elder standing with his hands behind his back, and the small joker was a child holding a whisk. Whoever played all the cards in their hand first won.

"Isn't this just..." Xie Feng said halfway, swallowing the second half of his sentence.

"Just what?" Mo Tang asked.

"It's nothing, let's play a couple of rounds."

The four people formed a circle inside the carriage, and Mo Tang won the first round.

She slapped her last card onto the carriage floor, smiling to reveal a row of fine white teeth.

Tu Ziguan said, "Again."

Xie Feng drew a small joker and a big joker. The two cards came together, firmly pinning Tu Ziguan's last card, the Devil Flower Thirteen, onto his knee.

"You're cheating." Tu Ziguan glared at him.

"How can a blind man cheat?"

"You use spiritual power to feel the cards!"

"Don't you use spiritual power to feel the cards? If you didn't use spiritual power to feel the cards, how did you know in that last round that Mo Tang had the Seven of Ghost Flowers left in her hand?"

Mo Tang laughed so hard beside them that she was rocking back and forth, and her file even rolled off her knees.

After playing a few more rounds of cards, Mo Tang played the last card in her hand and stretched lazily.

"Have you guys ever seen Master Huo's craftsmanship?"

"Never seen it," Xie Feng said.

"I've seen one piece." Mo Tang fished a short dagger out of the wooden box by her feet.

The dagger blade was about a palm long and two fingers wide, with an extremely thick spine and an extremely thin edge, and there were no decorations on the hilt.

"Master Huo forged it twenty years ago.

My dad brought it back from Ranhuo City and passed it down to me."

She shoved the short dagger back into her boot shaft.

"Every single thing Master Huo forges is different.

He doesn't make duplicates.

If you ask him to forge a sword, he asks you what sword technique and footwork you use.

Once he asks, the sword he forges is only suitable for you alone to use.

If someone else takes it, they can't bring out that strength."

"How high is his cultivation?" Tu Ziguan asked.

"I don't know. My Master said that Master Huo's cultivation cannot be measured by the standards of the Nine Provinces.

When he forges swords, he doesn't rely on spiritual power, but on something else.

As for what specifically he relies on, my Master can't explain it clearly either."

No, that's not quite right. In this world, you rely on something else?

Don't go relying on that old man.

Xie Feng raised an eyebrow.

"Then how does he charge money?"

Mo Tang was stunned for a moment. "What?"

"Forging swords. Doesn't he charge money?"

"He does. But he doesn't accept Spirit Stones. He accepts Materials.

You bring a piece of Materials he's interested in, and he'll forge it for you.

The better the Materials, the better the things he forges.

Gu Jian, what are you bringing?"

Gu Jian was silent for a few breaths. "My Master's sword."

"What about you?" Tu Ziguan turned to Xie Feng. "What are you going to Ranhuo City for? Just to accompany Gu Jian to retrieve his sword?"

"To forge a stick." Xie Feng raised his blind stick.

"This staff was forged by Tie Rong, with a cold-iron staff tail, and it's handy to use.

But cold iron is mortal iron; no matter how good mortal iron is, it's still mortal iron. I want to forge a new one."

"What kind of Materials?"

"I don't know. I'll buy it when we get there."

"What about you?" Xie Feng tapped with his blind stick in the direction of Tu Ziguan.

Tu Ziguan fished a square-folded piece of paper out of his bundle and unfolded it.

Drawn on the paper was a slender tube with a straight body, a hollow inner wall, and extremely fine spirals engraved on the inner wall.

Mo Tang leaned over and took a look. "What is this?"

"A gun barrel," Xie Feng said.

Tu Ziguan raised his head to look at Xie Feng, a hint of surprise in his gaze, but it was quickly covered over by a helplessness of "as expected, I couldn't hide it from you."

Mo Tang took the blueprint and looked at it back and forth. "What is a gun barrel? What is this tube used for?"

"A kind of hidden weapon." Tu Ziguan snatched the blueprint back from her hands, folded it, and shoved it into his bundle.

"It's still in design. Master Huo might not be willing to take it; the spiral grooves on the inner wall are too hard to engrave.

If he can't take it, I'll have him forge a few seamless steel pipes and draw the rifling myself when I go back."

Mo Tang's brows furrowed slightly; she obviously didn't understand what "seamless steel pipes" and "drawing rifling" meant.

The carriage swayed. Old Man Cai's pipe poked in through the slit of the curtain.

"There's a river ahead. Once we cross the river, it'll be the territory of Qingzhou. Do you want to rest?"

"Rest," Tu Ziguan quickly chimed in; he had been tired of sitting for a long time.

Old Man Cai drove the carriage onto the grass, reined in the horses, jumped down from the carriage shaft, and carried his pipe to the river to fetch water. The four people got down from the carriage.

A wave of bizarre low-frequency vibration sound came over.

Xie Feng twitched his ears, spreading his spiritual perception toward the northern sky, stretching it to the limit of his perception until it touched a flying boat.

This flying boat had a deep sound, and its hull was made of some heavier material.

The flying boat descended from the clouds. Its hull was extremely long, at least twice as long as the flying boats of the Qingyun Sect. The hull was mysterious black, a metal that Xie Feng had never perceived before—heavy and matte, without any paint on the surface, shimmering with an extremely faint dark golden luster.

The bow was high-tilted, carved with a golden Phoenix with spreading wings. The Phoenix's tail feathers extended from the bow to both sides of the hull, gathering at the ship's belly into a huge circular crest.

The crest of the Zhou imperial family.

The flying boat swept past right above their heads, its altitude pressed extremely low—so low that they could see the Imperial Guards standing on the gunwales.

The Imperial Guards wore uniform black armor, the armor surfaces gleaming coldly in the afternoon sunlight, with standard long sabers hanging at their waists, the bronze ornaments on the scabbards polished to a bright shine.

Mo Tang looked up at the flying boat flying south.

"The Third Princess's ship?"

The flying boat continued south, the Phoenix's tail feathers at the stern gradually blurring into the clouds. That direction was the Qingyun Sect.

Tu Ziguan picked up the carving knife from the bronze shell and looked at the direction where the flying boat disappeared. "What is she going to the Qingyun Sect for?"