Chapter 2: The Azure Robe of the Nine Dragons

  Liang Xin and countless prisoners were escorted by officials and soldiers heading westward, neither knowing where they were going nor what they would do.

  But for these young people, after the initial panic and fear, what replaced them was infinite freshness and curiosity. For the first time in their lives, they walked out of Crime Alley and saw the world!

  It's a beautiful spring season, with red and green hues intertwined between heaven and earth. With gentle breezes and clear clouds, everywhere is a wonderful sight.

  On the road, they kept merging with other teams of convicts, and more and more people... However, when a team of convicts came to join them later, there were very few people, and almost everyone was injured.

  After inquiring from the good Samaritan, it was finally clear that when this team rushed on the road, they happened to catch up with two groups of monks fighting, gods fighting and ordinary people suffering, originally nearly a thousand people's team, in the end only more than 100 people survived, others were affected by the powerful flying sword treasure, divine magic, and died without burial.

  Liang Xin listened with a sigh, whether it was the cultivators of the heavenly way or the demons and monsters, they all had great magical powers and were extremely powerful. In their eyes, ordinary people were nothing but ants, and in the struggle, there would be no hesitation at all.

  Liang Xin blended in with the convicts, marching forward. In the past four years, he had been well-fed and practiced boxing, fortunately, he was still a young man, his body hadn't fully developed yet, hidden under tattered clothes, not too conspicuous.

  It was unclear whether it was the 14th or 15th day, but that night, Liang Xin was sleeping when he suddenly heard a very soft whisper in his ear: "Xin'er, wake up! I'm here."

  Liang Xin was shocked and woke up, then overjoyed, Feng Xi had finally arrived.

  Feng carefully sat down beside Liang Xin, lowering his voice to the extreme: "As soon as I heard something was wrong, I rushed over and finally found you! Your mother is fine, don't worry."

  Liáng Xīn let out a sigh from the bottom of his heart.

  Feng let out a sigh and continued, "Along the way, I've already inquired about it clearly. Not long ago, something strange happened, and your corvée is also related to this matter."

  Liang Xin became more spirited and sat up gently: "What's going on?"

  Feng Xi Xi replied: "It's Ku Nai Shan!"

  Kunoyama, situated in the western extremity of Zhongtu, stretches for thousands of miles, is said to be the ancestor of all mountains, and firmly separates Zhongtu from the barbarous lands. The eastern side of the great mountain has fertile soil and boundless plains, which is exactly the divine state of Zhongtu; the western side of the great mountain is a desolate and remote land with treacherous mountains and evil waters.

  At the beginning of this year, a group of soldiers were patrolling along the foot of the mountain. One of them accidentally tripped over a small stone and fell to the ground. His comrades were about to tease him when the fallen soldier suddenly let out a loud and mournful cry. The skin on his body withered away before their very eyes.

  Other soldiers rushed forward to rescue and treat the wounded, but unexpectedly, everyone who came into contact with the injured also let out a miserable cry and fell to the ground. In just a short while, they all turned into a pile of dry bones!

  The remaining people still thought there were monsters causing trouble and hurried back to report to the sentry post.

  It just so happened that it was a key location for border defense, and the officer in charge did not dare to be slow. He immediately dispatched troops to search along the mountain carefully, but ultimately found out that the culprit was not some kind of monster, but rather the small stone that tripped up the soldier: whether human or animal, as long as it came into slight contact with it, it would instantly have its blood and flesh sucked dry, turning into a desiccated corpse.

  Only wood can isolate the ferocity of stone.

  Moreover, this small stone is extremely hard, the sentry post even used 'Da Hong Huo Lei', but it was unable to damage the stone in the slightest, instead it dug out a large pit of mud around it.

  It wasn't until then that the soldiers discovered that the small stone had a foundation and was buried underground, with only a small corner exposed above ground.

  The local officials ordered the soldiers to dig carefully, and the roots of the small stones gradually appeared, stretching diagonally into the mountains. During the excavation process, dozens of soldiers accidentally touched the roots of the stone, and they were all drained to dry bones without exception.

  Dozens of people died suddenly, and even if the officials wanted to cover it up, they couldn't. The matter was reported layer by layer until it reached the imperial court.

  Since the second emperor of the Great Flood, each generation of monarchs has been deeply convinced of the divine art. The court has supported countless people who have cultivated the heavens and obtained the Tao. From top to bottom, the trend of cultivating the heavens is prevalent among the people, and in various parts of China, monks, Taoists, and laymen... all enter the Tao, and the gates of heavenly cultivation are established everywhere.

  For the emperor, the death of dozens of soldiers was not a big deal, but the two national masters of the dynasty were as if they were facing a great enemy, personally rushing to Kunai Mountain, and soon reporting back to the emperor that the stone pulse that could take people's lives was the sprout of the killing domain's evil root!

  In the past few years, Liang Xin had been reading books and learning characters, specializing in myths and legends. He knew that among the beautiful mountains and rivers of Zhongtu, there were countless Xiantian sects, including both enlightened immortals and bloodthirsty demons. However, he had never heard of "Sha Ling Xiong Gen". He couldn't help but lean in closer to Feng and ask, "What does this mean?"

  Feng Xixi smiled bitterly and shook his head: "This is a new term invented by Guoshi!"

  The Guoshi's words were that deep within the Kunai Mountains, a vicious root was hidden, growing ceaselessly for millions of years, eventually transforming into this stone vein that could absorb human blood and bursting out of the ground. If the stone vein is allowed to grow unchecked and the evil root takes shape, the world will inevitably suffer great calamity. For now, the only solution is to dig along the stone vein and find the evil root to destroy it.

  Digging the evil root, this life-and-death errand naturally fell on the heads of the guilty households. However, most adult guilty households were now burdened with corvée labor, either opening rivers and mining or garrisoning and cultivating land in harsh and cold places, making it difficult to mobilize them for a while. Therefore, the emperor issued an edict, adding 12-year-old children of guilty households to the list.

  In the end, a total of 20,000 laborers were gathered and sent to the Kunlun Mountains to 'break the evil'.

  The mountain-opening project took a long time, at the beginning, even if hundreds of thousands of people rushed over, it was useless. At first, 200,000 people were dispatched in advance, and there were enough people in the first few years.

  The strange case of Kunoyama has been a hot topic among both the government and the common people, but the ordinary citizens just don't know about it yet.

  Liang Xin listened, taking a deep breath, and after thinking for a moment, he continued to ask: "The evil spirits have appeared in the mortal world, why don't those cultivators who uphold justice intervene?"

  Feng XiXi shook his head: "This time it's a fierce and evil spirit appearing in the world, not some heavenly treasure or earthly gem. Cultivators wouldn't bother with this sort of thing. Hmph, don't even mention that nonsense about cultivators supporting the mortal world. I remember when Lord Liang was still alive, he would often scold cultivators for not respecting the laws of the mortal world and being a source of calamity."

  Kunlun Mountain has now become the focus of attention for people all over the world. In addition to the continuous influx of laborers and convicts from various states, in order to prevent evil demons from taking advantage of the situation, the two national masters also invited a well-known sect of immortal cultivators: the nineteen masters of the Zhu Li Daoist Sect, who formed an array to seal off Kunlun Mountain at its opening.

  At this point, Feng's expression suddenly became disheartened. There were immortal masters setting up defenses on Kunlun Mountain, and the little ghost wouldn't have a chance to follow Liang Xin anymore.

  Liang Xin chuckled softly and comforted in a low voice, "It's nothing, just digging soil, as long as you don't touch that ghost stone, it should be fine."

  Feng sighed and didn't say anything else. He took out two cold meat buns from his pocket and stuffed them into Liang Xin's hands.

  Since ancient times, opening mountains and quarrying stones have been extremely hard and dangerous work. What's more, this time there is also a terrible stone vein that will suck the soul out of you with just one touch, Liang Xin and his nephew are well aware of the danger of this trip, but they can only follow the countless convicts, marching towards Suffering Mountain in a mighty procession.

  So, Liang Xinbai followed the team during the day and came to visit the camp quietly at night, still bringing some food as usual.

  The vast territory of Da Hong, Liang Xin set out from home and walked for over 40 days. The terrain finally started to rise gradually, according to the team leader's calculations, in two or three more days' journey, they would arrive at their destination.

  At this time, the team of convicts where Liang Xin was in had gathered tens of thousands of people. Just after dinner that day, the officers and soldiers escorting the team dispersed all the more than 10,000 convicts, and then divided them into teams of a thousand each.

  Before long, the sound of horseshoes came from the direction of Kunlun Mountain, and a team of mighty cavalry rushed over. The prisoners were all ignorant and saw these cavalry, but only wondered why they didn't wear helmets and armor, but wore black robes instead.

  Only Liang Xin was secretly shocked, he had read books and recognized characters for many years, and had a good understanding of the Great Flood Dynasty. This team of cavalry wore inkfish robes and waist-hung embroidered spring knives, which were the elite soldiers under the jurisdiction of the Jiulong Temple, known as the Jiulong Qingyi.

  The Jiulong Temple's Dahong Dynasty's Imperial Regent, supervising the hundred officials' actions and stopping them, below stabbing the people to discuss the world's situation. The temple has its own prison, sets up its own government office, with the power of independent judgment. The Jiulong Temple is solely responsible for following the Emperor's orders, its power is truly frightening.

  Jiulong Qingyi, apart from being skilled in archery and horsemanship, and having exceptional martial arts skills, most officials also have some special abilities. However, these abilities are not the result of cultivating the Tao, but rather a natural gift among ordinary people.

  Liáng Xīn didn't expect that the people from Jiǔ Lóng Sī would also come, but after thinking about it, he felt relieved. As Jiǔ Lóng Sī bore the heavy responsibility of governing the country, with such a big incident happening in Kǔ Nǎi Shān, they naturally had to take action.

  This team of nine dragon green shirts has a thousand people, the leader is a pale-faced young man, slender and handsome, with a long knife by his side, and a dark longbow on his back. However, his expression and demeanor all reveal a sickly color, looking precarious, as if he might fall off his horse at any moment.

  As soon as Qing Yi arrived, the officer in charge of escorting the prisoners immediately went up to greet him, smiling and speaking softly to Commander Qian.

  After a moment, the pale-faced Qian Hu raised his head, his eyes scanning over the chaotic crowd of prisoners divided into groups of one thousand, and weakly waved his hand at his subordinates behind him.

  His elite soldiers immediately divided into ten teams, under the leadership of the hundred officials, and inserted themselves into the ranks of the convicts. Each team of 100 Jiu Long Qing Yi was responsible for 1,000 convicts.

  However, after a short while, the Jiulong Qingyi had already tidied up the troops. Qian Hu then opened his mouth to speak to the sinners in a light tone: "Seven Kills: Slanderous Speech Kill, Lazy Escape Kill, Fighting and Quarreling Kill, Night Roaming Dream Walking Kill, Robbing Food Hiding Eat Kill, Fearful Crying Kill, Feigning Deafness and Dumbness Kill!"

  His voice was also weak and powerless, sounding like the hissing sound of a poisonous snake spitting out its letter, although it was light and fluttering, but every word was so clear!

  "In short," Qian Hu said with a helpless gesture, "do whatever you want to do, apart from this, anything else you do will undoubtedly lead to death."