Chapter 23 Taiqing Square

The entire Yujing City has a very cold and quiet temperament. Not only is it unmoved by the eight winds, but it also keeps people away from it. However, Taiqing Square is the only exception. Various shops gather here, with the largest flow of people and the most fireworks.

When you come to Taiqing Square, the first thing that catches your eye is a towering statue of the Supreme Taoist Ancestor, which is ten feet high. Shangqing Street and Yuqing Street intersect here, and the statue of the Supreme Taoist Ancestor is located at the intersection of the two. It is both the center of Taiqing Square and the center of Yujing.

It is said that at the earliest time, someone had proposed to erect a statue of Xuansheng here, but Xuansheng refused, so it was changed to the Supreme Taoist Ancestor.

It’s not that he deliberately disrespected the Supreme Taoist Ancestor, but there were too many statues of the Supreme Taoist Ancestor. There are not a thousand, but eight hundred in Yujing City alone, so this one is really not a big deal. But Xuansheng’s attitude is very firm. Not only Taiqing Square, but also Yujing, Xuandu, and Zifu, from beginning to end, Xuansheng did not leave any statues. It is said that only the portrait of Xuansheng is left in Jinque and Zixiao Palace, and only the real people and great real people can see the true appearance of Xuansheng.

At this time, the sky is getting darker and the lights are on.

Around the statue of Taishang Daozu, there are 24 sky lanterns with tassels hanging. Each sky lantern is the size of a water tank. It rotates slowly around the statue of Taishang Daozu in a strange trajectory, illuminating the entire Taiqing Square.

After nightfall, Taiqing Square is extremely lively, with people coming and going. Some are wearing wide-sleeved crane cloaks with double-breasted breasts, and some are wearing ordinary clothes like Qi Xuansu.

Surrounding Taiqing Square are various shops. In addition to regular shops such as restaurants and inns, there are swords, jade, spiritual objects, talismans, pens and ink, elixirs, medicinal materials, clothing, food, wood, etc. After nightfall, they all light up, and each house has more than one. If you look down from above, it seems that the entire Taiqing Square is inlaid with a layer of light.

Unfortunately, Yujing has a ban that Taoist priests below the second rank are not allowed to ride the wind, so no one except the true people can see this scene with their own eyes.

The only thing that is not there is brothels and gambling houses. The Taoist sect strictly prohibits such corrupt things, and prostitutes are not qualified to enter Yujing City, even the so-called courtesans.

Qi Xuansu stood on the edge of Taiqing Square, folded his hands on his lower abdomen, looked up at the sky lanterns floating in the sky, and recalled the scene when he first came here. He was dazzled by the sky lanterns, the surrounding lights, the statues of Taoist ancestors, and the coming and going of people...

Qi Xuansu came to Taiqing Square from the west along Yuqing Street, while Zhang Yuelu came to Taiqing Square from the north along Shangqing Street.

It has always been sitting north and facing south, so the north of Yujing is naturally Xuandu.

Although Zhang Yuelu has just been promoted from the head to the deputy hall master, she is not in a good mood. The infighting and undercurrents of the Taoist high-level officials make her extremely disgusted, but she has to be involved.

So she left the inner city Xuandu for the first time and came to the outer city Yujing to relax.

Although they were both fourth-rank priests, Zhang Yuelu's status was incomparable to Sun Yongfeng. Not to mention that Zhang Yuelu had been promoted to deputy hall master and had semi-immortal items given by the Taoist sect, Zhang Yuelu was allocated a two-entry mansion in Xuandu, and Tianji Hall also exempted Zhang Yuelu from all rental fees for a period of thirty years. The Taoist sect was not short of geniuses in the eyes of ordinary people, so it established the nine-rank Taoist system. What the Taoist sect lacked was exiled immortals.

With the strength of the Taoist sect, it could turn a useless person into an ordinary person, and it could also turn an ordinary person into an exiled immortal, but the cost of the latter was much higher than the former. Moreover, the real people and the great real people also consumed various resources. Therefore, the Taoist sect treated this kind of natural exiled immortals very well. Whether it was semi-immortal items or the mansion in Xuandu, it was nothing compared to the cost of forcibly creating an exiled immortal.

Zhang Yuelu walked alone in Taiqing Square. Although she was famous, not many people had really seen her. In addition, she wore a very plain Taoist robe without any rank mark, instead of the rather eye-catching crane cloak of the fourth-grade priest. In addition, it was night time, and no matter how bright the sky lanterns were, they could not be used as the sun, so no one else noticed her.

Zhang Yuelu walked into a shop specializing in weapons. The weapons used by Taoists were mostly swords, and they were quite disdainful of firearms. However, this shop did the opposite. Not only did it not have a single sword, but it was mostly firearms and strange weapons.

It was true that Zhang Yuelu used swords, but she had seen the sea and was no longer interested in water. After she had a semi-immortal object, she had no interest in the long sword, which was at most a spiritual object. Instead, these strange things could arouse her interest.

The shopkeeper was a sixth-grade Taoist who liked to tinker with things such as mechanisms and was quite knowledgeable about firearms. He used to work in Tianji Hall, and later when he had saved enough capital, he retired and opened this shop.

Seeing Zhang Yuelu coming in, he did not rush to greet her, but let Zhang Yuelu browse by herself.

Zhang Yuelu's eyes swept over many firearms, including the "Shenlong Hand Gun" produced by the Shenjiying for 36 years, and then fell on a pipe.

No matter how talented Zhang Yuelu was, he was young after all, and his experience and knowledge that needed time to accumulate were limited. It was impossible for him to know everything. He asked curiously: "Shopkeeper, why do you have a pipe here?"

The shopkeeper smiled slightly: "This is not an ordinary pipe, but a strange weapon, named "Lan Mian Sou", with a sharp blade on the outside."

Qi Xuansu happened to walk into the store at this time. When he heard the shopkeeper's words, his eyes fell on the pipe, and he immediately thought of the long cigarette that Qi Niang never left.

Only then did he know that Qi Niang's weapon was the long cigarette, or the Qimen weapon.

However, Qi Niang had never used it, but only used it to smoke. Qi Niang occasionally attacked several times, and she killed people with her bare hands, quickly, accurately and ruthlessly, leaving the opponent no time to react. The hand knife was even sharper than a real knife, so Qi Xuansu couldn't tell the depth.

Zhang Yuelu's eyes shifted from the "Ban Mian Sou" to Qi Xuansu.

As a banished immortal in the return to the true stage, Zhang Yuelu has reached the realm of manifesting infants, corresponding to the holy fetus realm of Sanren.

It is not difficult to see from the names of the two realms that the two realms belonging to different inheritances are quite similar.

The inheritance of Sanren is very interesting. It seems that several realms have been picked up from other inheritances and put together, and it is also like a replica of the banished immortal. In summary, the banished immortal is well-read and proficient in everything, and Sanren is also well-read and sparse in everything. Therefore, the Sanren lineage is also called "Little Banished Immortal", but this title is more derogatory than praise. There is even a saying that the Sanren lineage was originally the product of the Taoist sect's attempt to mass-produce the exiled immortals, but the Taoist sect failed. It was not that the Taoist sect could not replicate the exiled immortals, but that it could not mass-produce them. The cost of replicating an exiled immortal was too high, so high that the Taoist sect felt that even if the exiled immortals they cultivated did not die midway, they could not recover the cost, so they added the Sanren lineage to the five ancient inheritances.

As a child of destiny who has already entered the upper echelons of the Taoist sect, Zhang Yuelu knows that this statement is not a rumor, but the truth.

Because the Taoist sect was inspired by the lack of successors and the self-satisfaction of the Confucian sect at the time, since the beginning of the Xuansheng period, in addition to reusing young people, it has also vigorously promoted various innovations, so there are many bold actions within the Taoist sect. Imitation of the exiled immortals is only one of the most influential examples, and various semi-immortal objects are also the result of the Taoist sect's attempt to imitate immortal objects.

Let's talk about the Sanren themselves. Because the Sanren originated from the exiled immortals, there is a subtle connection between the two, just like in the same lineage, people with a high realm can easily see through the reality of people with a low realm.

Therefore, Zhang Yuelu immediately noticed Qi Xuansu's existence, and even Qi Xuansu's realm and cultivation could not be hidden from her.

A lone man in the Kunlun stage, the inner alchemy realm.

This is nothing, but what interests Zhang Yuelu is that this peer has an aura.

Let's call it "murderous aura".

This is not accumulated by one or two lives, nor can it be raised by a young master from aristocratic family killing a few servants. Many black-clothed men who often go to the battlefield are no more than this.

The intuition accumulated by Zhang Yuelu in Beichen Hall told her that this peer was not a native of Yujing, but most likely came from the local Daofu.

Tiangang Hall Master once said that the Taoist priests raised in the Yujing flower garden could not withstand wind and rain, so Tiangang Hall had to recruit Taoist priests from the local Daofu, which was also the reason why Tiangang Hall was always short of manpower.

Zhang Yuelu asked Master why he didn't change this situation.

The answer of Master was very simple. The hardworking gardener who raised this flower garden was very satisfied with the current scenery and would not allow anyone to change it.

If the master of the hall could speak so obscurely and dare not speak directly, then the identity of the gardener is self-evident.

Just when Zhang Yuelu was distracted for a while, Qi Xuansu had already asked about the price. He wanted to buy himself a life-saving weapon, preferably a firearm, but was frightened by the price of hundreds of Taiping coins. Without hesitation, he turned around and left the store.

Zhang Yuelu also lost interest in continuing to look, and left the store.

The two of them left the store one after the other, and a young female nun came forward, handed over two wedding invitations, and asked enthusiastically: "I wonder if you two can come and watch the ceremony?"

Both of them were stunned.

Then they saw that many people gathered in the City God Temple not far away, and the atmosphere was warm. It was actually a wedding.

The wedding is about welcoming the bride in the morning and going to the evening, which means to marry the bride in the morning and hold the wedding in the evening.

In the twelve hours, the evening specifically refers to the eleventh hour of the Xu hour, which is calculated in Western time from 19:00 to 21:00.

Qi Xuansu and Zhang Yuelu took out their pocket watches and opened the cover at the same time.

It was exactly the hour of Xu.