50: Blood Rain

Cui Residence.

Qin Chuan forcefully suppressed the negative emotions and carefully perceived the changes in the world.

He had now largely confirmed one thing—

The area of Qiao City was truly being kidnapped!

The scarlet chains severed the Qiao City region from the entire Great Zhou world, forming an isolated existence.

It seemed to be taking it to an unknown area.

Wandering Qiao City?

With the Provincial Examination approaching, Qin Chuan did not want to be disturbed by this.

So, what could he do?

The next day.

Qin Chuan left the Academy with a helpless expression.

“The Academic Administrator, Academic Assistant, and Provincial Governor are all absent. Did these people go play mahjong together?”

The reporting method didn't work; even contacting Commandant Cui yielded no results.

Fortunately, the other party seemed afraid he would worry and directly stated that the Provincial Examination would proceed as scheduled.

Qin Chuan could only put his mind at ease.

After all, this kind of thing was like worrying about nothing; he couldn't possibly go to a regular constable, could he?

It was like him going to the police station and saying a comet was about to hit Earth.

“I hope they can handle it. It's ridiculous that the Academy and the government offices are empty! Negligence!”

The sky was dark, with twisted, hideous projections upon it.

On the dark red earth, endless monsters, a collection of ugliness, evil, and chaos, surged like a tide, crashing against the barrier ahead.

Within the barrier, two people struggled to hold on.

“Gong Chui, this isn't negligence, is it?”

Lu Prefect gave a bitter smile, speaking to the scholar whose literary energy vibrated ahead, protecting them both.

Grand Confucian Li Gong Chui shot him a glance, his words filled with vastness, commanding the four directions:

“My barrier, unbroken today, strong tomorrow, and constant every day!”

After speaking, he then turned to look at the Prefect—

“You are indeed negligent. Such a major event is happening in Qiao City, and you only called the two of us to investigate! Now we're trapped in this demonic realm. From the beginning, you should have brought the Great Zhou's army of a thousand chariots and the Seven Sages to flatten this ghostly domain!”

Lu Prefect smiled bitterly: “How could I have known it would be like this? I only detected an anomaly.”

Li Gong Chui: “Stop talking nonsense. Quickly restore your literary energy; it'll be your turn soon.”

Lu Prefect sighed, looking past the twisted monsters before him towards the land ahead.

“Where exactly is this place? It doesn't look like a Grotto-Heaven.”

As soon as he finished speaking, in the far distance of the 'tide', a blood-red monster, about ten meters tall, with ram horns on its head and flames emanating from its body, sneered.

“Grotto-Heaven? Do you take it for some kind of demi-plane?

These human mages really can't distinguish reality.

This is an endless, suffocating place of terror.

This is a place with extremely harsh environments and extremely dangerous life.

This is a place of endless slaughter, devoid of morality and ethics.

This is a place of evil where there is no friendship, kinship, or love, only betrayal, slaughter, and destruction!

This is the Bottomless Abyss!”

After it finished speaking, another creature with a triangular tail behind it chuckled:

“What? Commander Tak wants to cast 'Comprehend Languages' on those two humans? To introduce it to them personally?”

Tak shook his head: “Of course not! Let those low-level lesser demons go forward and deplete these two mages' magic power; they're about to collapse! That power is truly peculiar.”

The triangular-tailed creature was unimpressed by his words, saying: “The Lord ordered you to reinforce, but you diverted to capture this plane. When he finds out... he will surely be very angry.”

Tak was indifferent, shifting his gaze to the dark red area on one side, grinning hideously:

“The Lord is still attacking that tough-to-crack stellar world. Should I be cannon fodder? Why not guide this primitive plane, which flew in midway, to fall? Why can't I be the Lord?”

Cui Residence, another early morning.

Qin Chuan woke up from his bed, looking at the somewhat reddish sky outside the window.

He thought to himself: “It's getting worse and worse.”

As soon as he opened the door, he heard Qing Mo's sullen voice.

“It's raining.”

Qin Chuan looked up and indeed saw drops of water falling from the sky.

He looked up at Qing Mo and asked: “It's raining, why aren't you happy? Don't you like rain?”

Qing Mo shook her head, unconsciously saying: “She, it seems like she's crying.”

“Crying?”

Qin Chuan's face sank. He activated his Heavenly Heart perception, and a strong wave of sorrow instantly permeated his heart.

The sky was weeping.

He then turned his head to look at the raindrops falling from the sky, which, under the illumination of the crimson sky, looked like blood rain.

Qin Chuan was silent; the situation seemed to have worsened.

He felt he had to do something.

But in this situation, what could a scholar do?

“Why not read!”

On the day of the Provincial Examination, at the end of the Yin hour.

The world was still pitch black, and scholars, in twos and threes, arrived outside the Academy.

Although the top three officials were absent, the remaining people in the Academy still managed to conduct the Provincial Examination in a proper manner.

—Perhaps these people wanted to prove themselves through these actions, or perhaps the inherent 'ancestral laws' allowed them to find inner peace.

Following the procession into the Academy, they stood silently beneath the stone tablet.

Whether it was an illusion or not, Qin Chuan felt that the Bixi shadow on the stone tablet was listless.

But after he arrived, the dragon shadow suddenly became energetic.

Upon entering the cubicle, Qin Chuan discovered—this was not his illusion.

Even before the examination paper was in hand, dragon shadow patterns had already appeared on the paper before him.

Standing upright, the divine dragon peered out!

Seeing this, Qin Chuan could only whisper: “I haven't written anything yet, and you're taking up so much space. How am I supposed to write anything! Get down quickly.”

The Bixi shadow, however, ignored him and bared its fangs and brandished its claws at Qin Chuan.

Unfortunately, Qin Chuan didn't know sign language, and even if he did, he probably wouldn't understand its meaning.

“You should still go down.”

Bixi was greatly anxious, then, as if thinking of something, it leaped, actually detaching from the paper and transforming into a streak of light, rushing towards Qin Chuan.

The next moment, Qin Chuan saw the scene before him suddenly change drastically.

He saw the sky-high scarlet chains tighten, pulling Qiao City upwards in one direction.

“Why are you showing me this? I've seen it, but what can I do?”

Before he finished speaking, scenes he had never seen before appeared before his eyes.

He saw the soldiers fighting valiantly in the south of the city, and he saw the exhausted Commandant Cui.

He saw the boundless sea of demons within that dark red area.

Just then, a sorrowful sound echoed in his ears.

“Qiao City can be broken, and the soldiers can die...

But what about us scholars?

We can hide behind others, pursuing our studies, waiting for the Heavenly Army of Great Zhou to descend.

But we won't wait.

Though I wish to govern a region, what use is it if the city falls and its people perish?

Soldiers can die, common people can die.

Today, it is our turn...”

After speaking, a rainbow of vast energy radiated splendidly in mid-air.

Fire rain fell, annihilating the monsters continuously surging from the dark red area.

But the people in the south of the city no longer cared about this.

They looked at the isolated, aged figure in front of them.

“Elder Cui!”

“How could you go to such lengths!”

Cui Zou Zhao sighed, turning to look at the remaining people in the field.

“I originally intended to slay all these demonic evils, but it seems... I'm still far from it. Since that's the case, I shall go first! Hahahahaha...”

After speaking, the vast rainbow in the sky suddenly dispersed, and specks of light scattered onto the people in the field.

Healing their wounds and restoring some of their strength.

As for Cui Zou Zhao, after that hearty laughter, his already aged body completely turned to dust.

His action seemed to infect the other literati in the field; some picked up his clothes, but didn't know what to say.

“Only a fight to the death!”

“Fight to the death!”

Inside the Academy, Qin Chuan withdrew his gaze, not knowing what to say.

An old man, whom he remembered as somewhat obsessed with officialdom, had gone to such lengths.

What about him?

He lowered his head to look at Bixi, whose dragon shadow was gradually thinning after just transmitting the method to his mind, and softly said:

“Yes, I know what I can do. Heaven and Earth are without heart, yet they take the hearts of all people as their own; he who exhausts his heart knows his nature. He who knows his nature knows Heaven. To preserve one's heart and nourish one's nature is to serve Heaven.”

After speaking, he perceived the Heavenly Heart.

With brushes and ink laid out, Qin Chuan no longer thought about the Provincial Examination; his entire mind immersed itself in inscribing the human culture.

He picked up his brush and wrote the first sentence!