Chapter Fourteen: The Straw Sandals Have No Number

  Outside the dense forest, the angry roars of the item crab echoed back and forth, sounding very much like 'the cries of monkeys on both banks never cease'. In between, they also tried to probe the forest's restrictions several times. According to the barbarian leader's imagination, if someone were to attack, the mechanical crossbows would be triggered, so sending just one person would trigger all the restrictions.

  Unbeknownst to them, the silver crossbow mechanism made by Jiulong Temple was extremely ingenious. The ground in the dense forest was covered with countless trigger points, each corresponding to a hidden crossbow bolt, and each point could only trigger one arrow.

  Seven or eight daredevils were sent out in succession, all of whom were shot dead by a single arrow, and the large-scale ban did not move at all.

  The barbarians did not dare to try again, heavily surrounding the dense forest, not daring to attack and not willing to disperse, only howling loudly to vent their anger.

  Three people in the office, except for Liang Xin who was frightened and didn't understand the situation, Qu and Liu were completely unmoved.

  Just a moment ago, Liang Xin had guessed the ultimate answer. Qu Qing Shi didn't dare let him make another wild guess, and with a nameplate in his hand, he said: "This deceased official who died in the yamen is a commander of the same rank as well as an officer of the Mountain Moving Institute!"

  The Jiulong Temple has a separate organization under Qingyi, from top to bottom, there is one commander, who is in charge of all the affairs of the temple; three commanders-in-chief, who are respectively in charge of the Heavenly, Earthly and Human Institutes, as well as the Three Halls. Under the commander-in-chief, there are also positions such as commander, qianhu, baihu, tongling, lishi, etc.

  The commander-in-chief in Kowloon Walled City was a high-ranking position that was second only to one person and above all others.

  Liang Xin was ignorant and had a look of indifference on his face, while Liu Yi's expression was surprisingly shocked, asking: "Is this the big boss of Ban Shan Yuan?"

  Qing Shi nodded slowly: "In the valley, the blue brocade we were looking for before is on his body!" As he spoke, he tossed a neatly folded handkerchief to Liu Yi.

  After Liu Yi received it, he opened it and took a glance, only to see that the surface was densely packed with countless small characters. He exclaimed in shock: "How can there be so many words?!" Following which his gaze fell upon the vermilion seal at the end of the document, and he couldn't help but exclaim again: "Liang Yier? This is a decree from Lord Liang himself!"

  Qu Qing Shi hummed and said, "This letter with the blue clothes and brocade pattern is indeed from the hand of Lord Liang. The task has only one goal, but all sorts of conditions are written clearly and plainly. In my estimation, when Commander Tong received the order, he had not seen Lord Liang, so Lord Liang wrote down the places that need attention one by one to make it clear for his subordinates."

  Liu Yi nodded again, took another look at the brocade, and actually chuckled: "This... Lord Liang is both literary and martial, and the writing on the brocade is also written in a beautiful style, reading it would be a headache for me, this old roughneck. Even if I looked at it, I'd still have to trouble you, sir, to explain it."

  Qing's voice was lost in laughter, and he cursed: "Unlearned and unskilled!" Then, he slowly spoke out the secret order on the blue brocade, mixed with his guesses and understanding.

  This commander is named Jing Nanfei, and as one of the four major commanders under the jurisdiction of the Jiulong Temple Commander-in-Chief, he leads the Banshan Institute.

  This time, under the orders of Commander Liang Yiliu, Jing Nanfei personally rushed to Kunlun Mountain, joined forces with the top masters of the Heavenly Ape Clan, and went to hunt down a powerful earth-dwelling giant demon!

  Although he had mentally prepared himself, Liu couldn't help but hum a low tone: "The Honorable Jing of the Mountain Moving Institute is dealing with a demon? The enemy who dug holes and escaped in the mountain valley, was it a demon?"

  The Central Plains are full of spiritual energy, and there are many cultivators who have reached the extreme. Naturally, there are also many strange creatures, demons, and ghosts. However, whether it's a cultivator or a demon, they are all much stronger and more terrifying than ordinary people. The Great Flood has a strong army, but after all, it is an ordinary human court, and it has never dared to interfere with the affairs of cultivators or monsters.

  In the world, there are often cases of immortals fighting and harming ordinary people. As the saying goes, "When gods fight, mortals suffer." Those who get caught up in it can only consider themselves unlucky. The authorities cannot control it and will not intervene.

  The Jiulong Department has a wide range of talented people, many of whom have divine powers. In terms of strength, they may not be able to cope with low-ranking cultivators or ordinary spirits, but the court does not want to cause trouble and has explicitly prohibited them from investigating cases involving cultivators and ghosts.

  What surprised and secretly thrilled Liang Xin and Liu Yi was that in his heyday, not only did Liang Yier have a troop of goblin minions at his command, but he also dared to take on and kill powerful demons.

  Qu Qing Shi nodded at the two of them and continued to explain this piece of green brocade.

  On the blue brocade, Liang Yier wrote a lot of dense and dense words, most of which talked about the terrifying aspects of this earthy stone monster.

  At this point, Qu Qing Shi paused for a moment and smiled: "This demon's name was not mentioned by Jin Xiu, let's just call him Cao Xie for now."

  "Grass shoes without a number", a Chinese idiom referring to an unknown person.

  Cao Xie is the top demon of the Earth element, and he entered Kunlun Mountain a year ago. He discovered an evil and fierce killing aura root, which was also of the Earth element. Cao Xie's goal for this trip is to seize the Earth element power from the killing aura root and make it his own.

  Liang Xin and Liu Yi exchanged a glance, and the two of them could guess that the culprit they were going to deal with was none other than the stone vein they had been digging non-stop for half a year.

  In the embroidered brocade, repeatedly entrusting him with a difficult task, to deal with Grass Shoe, he must not be allowed to escape into the mountain rocks. Grass Shoe is a terrestrial spirit, once hiding in the vast mountains, it would be like a fish in water, and it would be impossible to deal with again.

  Liáng Xīn finally understood, why did he put on the straw sandals and take the two mountain roads of different sizes without escaping, but instead opened up a hole and hid in the big mountain.

  Finally, as clearly written in the secret order, it would be best to kill Grass Sandal, if not possible, then try to trap him for some time, and the worst outcome is that no matter what, he must be prevented from obtaining the evil spirit root vein's power.

  Here is the translation:

  "Speaking of which, Qu Qing Shi pointed to the ground and said with a sigh: "Just now when I examined Lord Jing's body, I found that he left two lines of words on the ground before his death, but they were covered by dust. We didn't notice it earlier."

  Liang Xin followed Qu Qing's finger and looked over, only to see the deep marks on the green bricks, with two lines of small characters carved on them:

  Tianyuan made nine turns, sacrificing his life to seal off the demon at the foot of Kunlun Mountain, and Jingda was lucky not to shame his orders.

  Seriously injured and on the verge of death, I rushed back to the office only to keep an appointment. Song Hongpao has not arrived yet, I have let you down, sir! I will die with my eyes open!

  －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－

  As the events of the past gradually became clear in Liang Xin's mind, with Jin Yu's secret order and Zong Nanfei's first message:

  Under that desolate mountain valley is where the root of evil lies, so nothing grows there.

  The straw sandals somehow found the killer root through some kind of magic, a small cave in the mountains and valleys, it must have been him who broke through to take the power of the killing root.

  Liang Yier ordered his men to stop this person, and the brocade above basically didn't mention the root of evil. It seems that Liang Yier's purpose is also just to kill Cao Xue.

  After a fierce battle, the grass shoes were beaten enough, but finally still found an opportunity to rush into the mountain wall.

  Embroidered brocade, once the grass shoes entered the mountain, they could no longer be pursued. The nine heavenly apes formed an array and sealed off the cave entrance. Although they were unable to kill the grass shoes on the spot, as a second-best option, they not only foiled the grass shoes' plan to seize the power of the killing root method but also trapped him at the foot of the Kunlun Mountains.

  According to the first sentence of Jing Nan Fei's comment, apart from him, the last nine monkey masters used a technique that would sacrifice their lives to seal the grass shoes at the foot of the mountain. When the boundary was successfully set up, these nine heavenly apes had already died. Even with the strongest techniques, there is always a time limit. Three hundred years later, the person who cast the spell turned into a withered skeleton but still stood upright, but the power of the boundary they laid down had disappeared, so Liang Xin and others could follow the mine tunnel and escape to the surface.

  The second sentence of Ke Yun's message was something they couldn't penetrate no matter what.

  "Seriously injured, the thread of life is already broken, rushing back to the office just to keep an appointment, Song Hongpao has not arrived, I have let you down, I will die with my eyes open!" Liang Xin then carefully read through the second message left by Jing Nanfei again, only then did he raise his head and ask: "Song Hongpao... is a person's name?"

  Qu Qing nodded: "Let's go back and see if we can find any information about this person first!"

  After finishing speaking, Qu Qing Shi paused for a moment and cast his gaze towards Liang Xin, with a hint of amusement in his expression: "Also, I just thought of something interesting."