Three ancient painting scrolls

  "This is the key to the old bookcase, tidy up carefully!"

  Wang handed over a set of keys to Ye Chen.

  "Yes!"

  Ye Chen took over the bright yellow key.

  The library has five floors, the second floor is for ordinary miscellaneous books, and students of the academy can borrow them freely. The third floor and above are martial arts books, which require spending different amounts of gold and silver according to the level of martial arts, in order to borrow. The top floor even has rare and precious martial arts classics, only a handful of top-notch disciples are allowed to view.

  The old book warehouse is located on the first underground floor of the book building.

  Ye Chen came alone to the first floor underground of the book building, opened the heavy copper lock on the door, "creaked" open the old book warehouse door, inside the light was dim, cobwebs filled every corner, apparently this place rarely had anyone come to clean.

  Ye Chen lit the oil lamp on the wall inside the library.

  Only then did I see that there were several piles of old books and scrolls, disorderly stacked on the ground, as high as a zhang. Inside the book storage room, there was also row after row of empty wooden bookshelves, with neatly arranged books that could be placed beside them on the wooden bookshelves.

  "So many books!"

  Ye Chen was surprised, came to the book pile side, and began to patiently sort out old books. He didn't read many books in his daily life, most of his time was spent practicing and doing odd jobs for money. However, he had been in the academy for ten years after all, and he still recognized the characters.

  He picked up an old yellow leather book and dusted it off.

  "Travels of the Five Nations!"

  Ye Chen furrowed his brow, casually flipping through it, and couldn't help but burst out laughing after reading it.

  "Who wrote this nonsense, running around the borders of Wu Guo for dozens of countries, recording all sorts of trivial and interesting things they saw along the way... In a certain country, a king lost a chicken, which was said to have spiritual energy. It's said that the neighboring kingdom sent someone to steal it, and the two kingdoms went to war over it... In a certain place, sweet water gushed out of a well, attracting the attention of several large villages nearby, leading to a group fight. The things recorded in this book are purely about a group of people who have eaten their fill and have nothing better to do. Otherwise, why would they start a group fight over losing a chicken or a mouthful of well water? It's just absurd."

  Ye Chen's eyes widened in amazement at the same time, and he couldn't help but shake his head.

  The texture of these books also amazed Ye Chen.

  Hundreds of years old paper scrolls, thousands of years old bamboo slips recording ancient books, and even more ancient oracle bones and tortoise shells. The rare ancient texts above are profound and abstruse, making Ye Chen dizzy and unable to understand them at all.

  These are probably some very old families, because the family has declined and had no choice but to take out the old books for sale. In addition, some obviously defective and damaged scrolls can be found. Such books are useless and cannot be read, all of which need to be found.

  Ye Chen was in the library, carefully organizing books one by one.

  This work must be extremely meticulous and cannot afford even the slightest carelessness.

  There is no one else in the old bookroom.

  He is the only one working quietly.

  Ye Chen practiced every morning and came to tidy up books every afternoon, and this went on for over ten days.

  On this day, Ye Chen dug out a dusty gray stone scroll from deep within the pile of old books.

  "What's this?!"

  Ye Chen curiously used his sleeve to wipe away the dust from the scroll.

  The axle of the scroll is a gray stone axle. The workmanship appears to be quite rough, with pits and bumps that are not smooth. On the curved handle, two ancient characters "Xianfu" are written.

  The texture of the ancient painting scroll is very strange, like paper but not paper, like cloth but not cloth. And it's very hard, pulled a little, can't pull it off.

  Ye Chen curiously unrolled the scroll.

  It was an ancient painting, about one foot wide and two feet long.

  In the painting, there is a floating island in the sky, like a dream, like an illusion, as if it were an immortal island.

  There is also a wooden house on the island, a medicine field, a simple alchemy pavilion, an instrument pavilion, and a beast enclosure, etc., scattered all over the island.

  In the upper right corner of the painting, a small fox is also painted, with its teeth and claws exposed, looking strange and eerie.

  "This painting is called 'Xian Fu', isn't it a picture of an immortal's island where immortals live?"

  Ye Chen muttered to himself, and couldn't help but feel delighted.

  From the imperial court down to the common people in the markets and alleys, everyone knows many legends about immortals.

  Even the first president of Beiyue Academy was said to be a cultivator who practiced flying swords, a disciple of a major sect, and had once been the national teacher of the Wuguo. Of course, that was already hundreds of years ago, and no one had ever seen this president.

  "How can an immortal live in a wooden house?"

  "This island is so barren, not even a single spiritual herb or medicine is planted! The alchemy room and the artifact workshop are also idle, without any smoke rising from them. Not even a few spiritual beasts are raised in the beast enclosure. The immortals living on this island are truly lazy!"

  "Wait, isn't the little fox supposed to be white? Why is it only red fur?! What's with the bared teeth and claws? It looks like it's really scared and unhappy."

  Ye Chen felt amused.

  This painting of a fairy mansion is quite interesting, but the brushwork is really not worthy of praise. The strokes are careless and sloppy, somewhat like a child's random scribbles with ink.

  "How strange! This is obviously a painting, why is it placed together with these old books and sent to the Beishan Academy?"

  Actually, Ye Chen didn't know that calligraphy and painting are usually placed together.

  Those declining families want to sell their collections of books, and more than half of them are sold together with paintings.

  Ye Chen held the ancient painting scroll and looked at it repeatedly for a while.

  The more he looked at it, the more he liked it.

  Although the painting is quite poor, it's still a picture of an immortal living on an immortal island.

  He spent ten years cultivating at Beifeng Academy, and his greatest wish was to break through the sixth layer of Lian Ti and graduate from Beifeng Academy smoothly. If one day he could reach the ninth layer of Wu Zhe's Lian Ti period and become a divine knife guest at the national level of Wuguo, it would be a great honor for his ancestors.

  The legend of the immortal was a very distant story for him.

  This ancient painting scroll makes him feel close to home.

  Ye Chen felt a bit worried, the book tower of Beilu Academy only collected books and did not collect paintings. This painting was probably piled up in an old warehouse without seeing daylight or discarded elsewhere.

  It's a pity that this ancient painting was abandoned.

  "But to take it away, we need to get the approval of Wang Guan Shi, and it's likely that some money will be spent. In this case, the amount of silver used for buying medicinal herbs will naturally decrease."

  Ye Chen hesitated.

  In the late afternoon, Ye Chen finished today's work and left the old book warehouse, locking the door behind him.

  "Wang Guanshi, today the disciples cleaned up over 400 volumes of books! The complete books are all categorized and placed on various bookshelves. There are also dozens of completely useless waste books and damaged scrolls that need to be discarded!"

  Ye Chen reported to Wang Guanshi about the situation of sorting out the old book warehouse.

  "Uh-huh."

  Wang Guanshi was still quite satisfied with Ye Chen. For more than ten days, Ye Chen came early and left late, worked diligently, and didn't slack off at all.

  "Wang, I'd like to buy three old book scrolls to take back and read. These old books are all marked as discarded items, one hundred copper coins each, what do you think?"

  Ye Chen took out two old books and a scroll of ancient painting.

  He was a bit apprehensive, the two tattered old books were completely used to cover up that ancient painting scroll. He worried that taking this ancient painting scroll alone would be too conspicuous and would be seized by Wang Guan Shi, which would be troublesome.

  "Uh..."

  Wang was about to shake his head and say no, but when he heard Ye Chen pull out money to buy it, he immediately swallowed the word.

  "One hundred coppers is too little, these two books are both good ones, one or two silvers each! Consider this painting a gift to you."

  Wang Guanshi glanced at several tattered books and raised an eyebrow.

  That ancient painting scroll had a coarse and ugly grey stone roller, not a fine and smooth jade one, it wasn't worth more than ten copper coins, he didn't have the interest to flip through it anymore. These few books belonged to discarded books, sooner or later they would be dealt with, this silver could enter his private account, no need to count it into the academy's accounts.

  "Isn't it expensive?"

  Ye Chen was shocked. If he had known earlier, he wouldn't have taken these two old books and would have asked for the ancient painting scroll directly. But now if he were to regret it, he feared that he would offend Wang Guan Shi.

  He gritted his teeth and made a decision, "In the past ten days, he had already earned ten taels of silver, far exceeding his expectations. In the past decade, he had never bought anything he liked for himself, today he would spend two taels of silver to buy it back."

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  I woke up in the morning and was surprised to see "Xian Fu Zhi Yuan" on the weekly recommended list of Qidian's homepage. The new book made it onto the weekly recommendation chart on its second day, which is much better than my previous best performance. I have no words to thank you, all I can do is work hard to write and keep updating.

  The plot of this book will unfold very quickly, and the immortal mansion will be revealed in just a few chapters. During Ye Chen's time as a warrior, he will only use an extremely small part of the immortal mansion's functions. More functions will be revealed after Ye Chen embarks on his cultivation path, and they will be incredibly vast.

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