Laughing at Chang'an

The cliff soaring into the sky can't see the end at a glance. To the north is the North Sky Sea, to the south is the edge of the South China Sea, plus the Duankongyuan in the West Land. These four barriers go against common sense and envelop the entire Fanglu Among them, together with the invisible canopy covering the sky, it constitutes an enchantment that seals off this continent.

Li Shen was awakened by the aroma of the food, although it was just a few white flour steamed buns and a small dish of kimchi, in his eyes they were like shining treasures.He stumbled and climbed out of bed, went to the table, grabbed the steamed buns and stuffed them into his mouth. The moment his teeth touched the soft dough, tears almost fell down.In a fit of anger, he stuffed three steamed buns, and the hunger in his stomach was finally satisfied a little. He clutched his choked throat and looked for water all over the room, but he couldn't find it.

This is a small stone house with only one bed, one table, and one chair.A few stones of no apparent use were piled up in a bamboo basket in the corner, and a shovel stood beside it.Li Shen picked up the shovel, put it back a little funny, and walked out the door while rubbing his chest.

It was a fine, sunny day.

Outside the house is a small flat land on the top of the mountain, with its back facing the Dongji Cliff and facing the road up the mountain.There was an old pine growing on the edge of the plain, and someone was standing under the tree, looking at the human world in the distance with his hands behind his back.Li Shen walked over and stood shoulder to shoulder with the other party. From here, he could vaguely see the town below the mountain.Since the availability of such a convenient means of transportation as airships, more and more wealthy people like to travel around, and even this deserted frontier has gradually become popular.

"I thought you didn't want to see me." Li Shen smiled lowly and looked up at the people beside him.

The legend of the cliff guard on Dongji Cliff has been circulating for a long time, but few people have seen his true face.Perhaps there is some discrepancy between the appearance of a hermit and a master in the world's imagination. This cliff guard looks quite young, no more than 30 years old at most, with an ordinary appearance and no dusty temperament.

The cliff guard watched the scene at the bottom of the mountain, and stated without any fluctuation in his voice: "You are dying."

"Ah."

"But you can't stay here."

"What?" Li Shen smiled indifferently, "You want to drive me away?"

The cliff guard turned his head and glanced at him, raised his finger to the towering Dongji Cliff behind the two of them, and said, "If you stay here, you will attract energy from outside the domain to gather towards you, causing frequent avalanches."

Li Shen was silent.

"Although extraterrestrial energy can maintain your life, frequent impacts will cause a serious burden on the polar wall. Once the polar wall is damaged, a large amount of extraterritorial energy will pour in, causing collapses everywhere in Fanglu. If the damage cannot be repaired in time , when the breach expands beyond repair, Fang Lu will be destroyed."

Li Shenmu said with a straight face: "You mean, I alone...can destroy the world?"

The cliff guard nodded.

"Then what if I don't want to go?" Li Shen was tired from standing, so he just put one leg up and sat down on the ground, resting his arm on the raised knee, looking forward with complicated eyes, "I remember, are you You can't do anything to people, right?" He asked the cliff guard.

This was originally a secret, but Li Shen's acquaintance with the cliff guard was also based on this secret.The cliff guards have been guarding Dongji Cliff for many years, and they usually help those who have died to be buried in the ground, but there are always some unexpected coincidences - one time, when the cliff guards were burying a dead person, they were rushed to look for the dead The relatives of the family saw that the man might not be able to bear the excitement, so he had to believe that the cliff guard killed the deceased, so he wanted to kill the cliff guard to take revenge.However, he is also a strong man of the Nine Steps of the Immortal Road, and he is still wearing a battle armor. The cliff guards couldn't get rid of him, so he was chased all the way to the vicinity of Beidi, where he happened to meet Li Shen who was on a mission there.

Li Shen, who carried forward his meddling style, helped the cliff guards to clarify the misunderstanding. Of course, he was speaking the truth with his fists.Therefore, the cliff guard owed Li Shen a favor, and Li Shen also learned the secret that he couldn't attack people... It's not that he didn't want to, but that he couldn't.

"You will starve to death." The cliff guard replied calmly.

Li Shen was stunned for a moment, then burst out laughing.The other party was right. If he insisted on staying here, he might starve to death before the world was destroyed.

The feeling of starving to death is too uncomfortable, Li Shen thought, it seems that he has to wait for death in another place.

Both of them were silent for a while, and the cliff guard suddenly said: "I want to make a deal with you."

Li Shen raised his head in surprise, he didn't expect to hear the word 'transaction' from the other party's mouth, and said, "Let's hear it?"

"I'll save your life." The cliff guard lowered his head, looked at Li Shen calmly, "do me a favor."

………………

Back in the stone house where the conversation took place, Li Shen remembered his purpose of going out and asked the cliff guard for water.Hearing this, the latter turned and left, and came back with a wine jug and two wine bowls in his hand, met Li Shen's surprised gaze, and poured himself a bowl.There was only one chair. Li Shen moved the wooden table to the side of the bed, took off his shoes and sat on the bed with his legs bent, holding steamed buns in one hand and a wine bowl in the other, as if listening to a story.

The cliff guard said: "1000 years ago, I made a deal with Li Sanduo..."

Before the words finished, Li Shen choked on his wine and interrupted him coughing wildly: "Ahem... 1000 years ago? Li Sanduo?"

The cliff guard looked at him calmly and nodded slightly. Li Shen finally took a breath and asked hesitantly, "Aren't you kidding me, was it you yourself 1000 years ago?"

"Yes, to be precise, I am not human."

Li Shen was mentally prepared this time, and he was not too frightened, so he said dumbly, "Oh."

"1000 years ago, I made a deal with Li Sanduo." The cliff guard continued, "I helped him defeat the non-human race, and he helped me build Chang'an City."

Li Shen felt that there was nothing to be surprised about, anyway, it sounded like the Arabian Nights.He took a bite of the steamed bun, and echoed cooperatively: "So?"

"This Fanglu was originally an ark, traveling through thousands of worlds, going everywhere, and reaching everywhere." Finally, there was a trace of fluctuation in the eyes of the cliff guard, as if he was recalling, but also seemed to be confused. He slowly told the story in a quiet voice. Said, "However, the Tiantianzhu of this ark has been damaged, and it has lost the ability to travel freely, so it can only stagnate here."

"My original name was Ark Administrator Nine Five Seven Three."

Li Shen pressed his forehead, feeling that the amount of information was too much to bear.After the cliff guard said the string of names that were more similar to the number, he also fell silent. After a while, he picked up the wine bowl on the table and took a sip.

"After the Dingtian Pillar was damaged, a breach was left on the ark. As I said just now, it is related to the survival of the ark. So I collected materials to repair the breach, and asked Li Sanduo to build Chang'an on it. city."

The location of Chang'an City happened to be the center of Quan Fang Lu, and Li Shen did not expect such a reason.For the time being, he didn't want to think about the authenticity, just thinking about the big hole under the place where he had been living, his mood was complicated enough.

He cleared his mind and asked the cliff guard: "Then what do you want me to help you with? Is that hole broken again?"

The cliff guard shook his head and said, "No, I want you to protect Chang'an City from being destroyed."

Li Shen was really stunned this time.

"According to my calculations, the possibility of Chang'an City being destroyed this time is over 50.00%." ​​The cliff guard added, "If the breach is damaged again, there is no longer enough material to repair the inside of the current ark. So I had to prevent that from happening."

"No, wait." Li Shen shook his hand, frowned, "Tell me first, what happened to Chang'an."

The cliff guard picked up the wine bowl and poured the wine in the bowl into the air. In Li Shen's eyes, the transparent liquid swirled and turned into a hollow ball.The cliff guard quickly swipe the surface of the sphere a few times with his fingers, and six huge origin patterns that almost overlapped appeared in front of his eyes.

This scene seems familiar.

A colorful picture suddenly appeared on the transparent liquid ball, and the cliff guard gently moved it, and the picture also rotated. Li Shen recognized that this was the scene of Chang'an City he was familiar with, and soon, the picture was frozen at On an overwhelming battleship group.

"This is the situation recorded by my 'eye' in Chang'an City." The cliff guard explained, "So I went to Chang'an in person. Three days ago, the army of the Guangming Empire had already attacked the city. The comparison of strength is not optimistic."

Li Shen looked at the picture on the sphere silently. This was Geng Yan's purpose. Geng Yan did not hesitate to sneak into Chang'an himself as the emperor, in order to weaken the strength of Chang'an City. Now, he is finally going to succeed.

That Geng Yan who keeps saying that he wants to climb to the top of Chang'an, does his ambition go beyond a small city of Chang'an?From the very beginning, it was all deceit, all lies.

"So you want me to go back to Chang'an to repel the army of the Guangming Empire?" he asked the cliff guard.

"Yes, the reward is your life." The cliff guard replied.

Li Shen smiled.

"I'm a useless person, even if I don't die, what's the use of going back?" He laughed, "Could it be that you want me to trick His Majesty the Emperor?"

"External energy has transformed part of your body. It will absorb and transform the source energy in your body, causing you to weaken to death." The cliff guard waved his hand to disperse the water polo in midair, and said to Li Shen, "I can't help you either." Get rid of it completely, but you can choose to further integrate with it, turn it into your power, use it to absorb the energy of the outside world for it to consume, and reach a state of balance."

Li Shen was silent for a moment, then said: "Then I will become a monster?"

The cliff guard didn't answer this question, and Li Shen didn't want the other party to answer. He just knew clearly that he couldn't refuse the deal.Not to mention turning into a monster, even if he turned into a cripple, he is still hopeless...he wants to live.

It's terrible, Li Shen thought, he is really... a terrible monster.