A Flute Caressed Like a Sword, Meeting the East Wind

The term "Jingxiang" is a general term, and the territory it represents has changed several times throughout history.

Even today, this term still refers to a large area encompassing Jingzhou Prefecture and Xiangyang Prefecture.

The mountains and rivers here seem especially cold at night.

The bright moon in the sky is a lonely, pale color.

An old man with a gray scarf tied around his head and wearing patched clothes walked out of the town and saw a desolate scene before him.

Sparse saplings grow along the shore of the small lake, and weeds grow everywhere.

Fortunately, the moonlight is quite bright tonight, and the lake reflects that light.

Without hesitation, the old man looked at the moon in the center of the lake and walked down the shore step by step.

"The moon is so round."

When the lake water reached his waist, he suddenly remembered something, and without turning around, he retreated step by step back to the shore and began to take off his clothes.

Suddenly, a voice asked a question from the tree next to us.

Why did you take your clothes off?

The old man was startled and turned his head to look.

A young man in black was lying diagonally on the tree, the branches and leaves Zongheng beneath him, supporting him in mid-air.

The tree wasn't very big, but with a person dragging it at an angle like that, the entire canopy was deformed under the weight.

But the old man was so focused on getting into the water that he didn't notice him.

Who are you?

The young man in black said, "You're about to commit suicide, why bother who I am? I just want to know, why did you take off your clothes?"

The old man snapped, "I'm about to commit suicide, why should I answer you?"

The old man had a fiery temper, but after saying that, he sighed.

"I suddenly remembered a passage I read in a book before, which said that when coroners in government offices examined corpses, they had to clearly describe the characteristics of the corpse's clothing."

"So if the corpse is wrapped in clothes, they'll have to write a lot more words."

"Throughout my life, I've never asked anyone for help or troubled anyone. In the end, I'll strip myself naked, so that things can be easier for me."

The young man in black nodded slightly and said slowly, "What you're looking at must be an old book."

"The task of performing autopsies was indeed something that needed to be done well within the first hundred years of the founding of the Great Xuan, but now, ha."

"If you die here, no coroner will care."

The old man paused, straightened his clothes, stood for a moment, and then suddenly said, "My name is Old Geng. I used to be a big shot in the surrounding villages. When I was twenty-nine, the workshop owner owed us wages and was packing his valuables to run away when I caught him."

"His authentic Shaolin Bodhidharma internal energy cultivation technique, and the Yoga Mahamudra passed down by the Indian Dharma King Gyalse, are quite well-known in the county."

"My Eagle Claw Technique, although it's a treasure passed down in the village for two hundred years, and even General Fan, who ranked sixty-ninth on the Ancient Heavenly Ranking, had practiced standing in the scorching summer sun and sleeping in the snowy winter since childhood, was still no match for him. Several of my meridians were destroyed, and most of my power was lost."

"Without wages, my wife's serious illness couldn't be cured, and she died."

He spoke in a very calm tone, after all, it happened decades ago, but he still remembered it very clearly.

"Fortunately, my son is filial, and he married a capable wife who gave birth to a big, healthy son."

"But when I was fifty, my Sunzi got into a fight at the private school and was stabbed to death with a knife. My daughter-in-law ran away, and my son went insane."

"Alas, my son's illness has worsened this month. Just tonight, he had several seizures and I had to have acupressure applied to make him faint before he could fall asleep. It looks like he won't make it through the next ten days."

Old Geng sighed, tightened his belt, and turned to walk back.

The young man in black asked, "You're not going to commit suicide anymore?"

"Let me think about it. The government really doesn't care about anything these days. It's one thing for me to jump into the water, but it's another for my son to die in the house with no one to bury him."

Old Geng straightened his back. "I'd better take care of the child's funeral arrangements first."

He returned to town and went into his home, which was bare with only two broken wooden doors.

A thin blanket lay on the bed, and there lay a man with sunken eyes, thinning hair, and a slight rise and fall of his chest.

Old Geng came in, glanced inside, and turned to close the door, when he suddenly saw the young man in black follow him in.

"Even if you don't die, I bet you'll have a nightmare tonight, a dream born of your obsession."

The young man in black pulled a crystal gourd from his waist, poured out a roll of silver notes from the gourd's mouth, and counted out two.

"Everyone in the world dreams, but few dreams catch the eye of us Dream Collectors. I've bought your nightmare for one hundred taels of silver."

Old Geng exclaimed in surprise, "Dream collectors? I've heard of people like you. Years ago, you roamed around Jingxiang and Xiangyang, and a few of you did make a fortune selling dreams. But in recent years, your prices have been getting lower and lower."

"Is my dream worth a hundred taels of silver?"

The young man in black had indifferent features, and his speech was bland and uninteresting.

"I have plenty of money, and I'm willing to do it, so just tell me if you want it or not?"

Old Geng quickly took the two silver notes and checked the stamp on them by the moonlight.

He hadn't seen a fifty-tael silver note in decades and couldn't figure out what it was.

However, the paper's texture is extraordinary; the cinnabar and ink used for printing are incredibly clear. Ordinary people wouldn't even have a way to buy this kind of paper.

It's probably not a fake.

How can I sell my dream to you?

Old Geng was still somewhat dazed, pondering some thoughts.

With this money, could we take my child to the city to get proper medical treatment?

But tonight's experience was a bit bizarre, and he was still unsure if it was real.

No, since Cai Mengsheng likes nightmares, could this person be deliberately giving him a sum of money, waiting for him to be happy, and then stealing the money and beating his son to death?

To let him lose what he gained, fall into an even more miserable situation, and have an even more terrible nightmare?!

"Relax your mind, listen to my guidance, and circulate your internal energy through the Yuzhen acupoint. Only then can I help you enrich the details of your dream, so that when you sell it to others, they can truly understand your state of mind and perspective."

As the young man in black spoke, he pulled out an iron flute from his back waist and pointed it at Old Geng's forehead.

Old Geng carefully put away the silver notes, stuffed them into his pocket, stared blankly, clasped his hands together, and slowly raised them from his dantian, following instructions to circulate his internal energy.

As the young man in black recited some phrases that sounded like incantations for practicing internal energy, Old Geng's eyelids could no longer stay open and slowly closed.

A moment later, Old Geng shuddered. The black-clad youth, guided by his iron flute, drew a wisp of colorful mist from between his eyebrows and channeled it into the crystal gourd.

"Ah!"

Old Geng was drenched in sweat. He took two steps back, sat on the edge of the bed, and gasped for breath, clutching his wildly beating heart.

He seemed to be seeing his own nightmare, but he couldn't remember anything. Just that alone made his mouth dry, his heart pound, and his ears ring.

"Can this kind of nightmare really be sold?"

"Ha! You wouldn't understand how bored those people in the capital can be. Besides, they wouldn't actually be in such a situation in reality. Your dream is a very real theatrical experience for them."

The young man in black plugged the crystal gourd. This gourd could hold both ethereal dreams and physical silver notes—it was truly convenient.

Old Geng's eyes were still a little dazed when he suddenly asked, "What's your name?"

He had confirmed that the deal was real, but one hundred taels of silver was far more expensive than the market price he had heard of.

More than ten times higher.

"You don't need to think I'm losing money. I never lose money; it's just that some dream pickers are making too much."

The young man in black seemed to know what he was thinking and casually said, "My name is Yan Shisansheng."

"I was born because our lineage's names all contain that character, and I was named Yan Shisan because I also love reading ancient books."

"The Chronicles of the Martial World once mentioned that the Great Immortal Zongheng and the Death-Claiming Sword God jokingly said that he wanted the Sword God's son to be named Yan Shisan, but unfortunately the Sword God never married."

"When I was a child, I admired the banter between the immortal and the sword god, so I asked my godfather for this name."

The young man in black had already left Old Geng's house when he said these words.

"Unfortunately, I'm afraid I'm not worthy of this name. If the Sword God had a son, he would surely be a great hero, a man of unrestrained laughter and dashing elegance, with friends all over the world."

"It certainly wouldn't be someone like me, someone who just drifts along, never smiling or crying."

He walked along the moonlit path, these faint thoughts lingering in his mind.

Suddenly, a colorful firework exploded in the distant sky, shaped like a gourd, and lingered for a long time.

Yan Shisansheng quickened his pace slightly, gracefully gliding through the desolate forest, and soon entered the prefectural city, finding the Dream-Eating Relay Station.

Besides the innkeeper, there was also a burly woman carrying a two-foot-tall gourd on her back at the post station.

"Senior Sister Cangyun?"

"Haha, Xiao Yan, come and let me see you. Thankfully, you haven't lost weight recently."

Cangyun laughed, "You silly child, it's been years since you've returned to the Dream-Eating Marquis Manor. Your godfather must be worried."

Yan Shisansheng remained silent.

There are two types of disciples of the Dream-Eating Marquis: those he adopted in his early years and those he gradually became disciples of after he became famous.

Cangyun and Yan Shisansheng to the former category.

Several years ago, the Dream-Eating Marquis was looking for a disciple to test whether a person's dreams could be replicated.

Yan Shisansheng volunteered at the time.

This child was raised under the watchful eye of the Dream-Eating Marquis, and learned his Dream-Savoring Divine Art. The Dream-Eating Marquis believed he knew the child very well and that he was indeed suitable to use him to try to replicate dreams.

So he first had Yan Shisansheng circulate the Dream-Savoring Divine Art, brewing for several days to create a dream as a sample.

Because the dream needs to be extracted before it is actually dreamed.

Therefore, Yan Shisansheng himself didn't know what was in that dream at the time.

As a result, when the Dream-Eating Marquis extracted the dream, he sensed it first, and his face darkened.

In the dream, Yan Shisansheng had mastered martial arts, becoming the pillar of his family, turning the tide, saving the sect, reforming the sect rules, and expelling Taohua Scholar and others.

There's also a scene where the Dream-Eating Marquis is reflecting on his actions in a dream, tears streaming down his face, repeatedly bowing to Yan Shisansheng, and being helped up and comforted by his adopted son.

"This little rascal, I never knew he was such a rebellious brat!"

When the Dream-Eating Marquis was enraged, he unleashed his power, which suppressed Yan Shisansheng's thoughts.

But that attempt still failed.

"Those who practice martial arts with profound skill either don't dream at all, or their dreams are beyond their control. I don't know why those things appear in my dreams."

Yan Shisansheng said calmly, "We are all people who pursue extraordinary dreams, but he even nitpicks about our dreams, wanting us to be obedient even in them."

"This kind of godfather—I think he's gotten addicted to being kowtowed to by Taohua Scholar and the others every day."

Cangyun sighed, "My godfather has issued the most urgent decree, ordering all his disciples to come to Jingxiang."

"He will definitely come on his own. I remembered you were here, so I came to remind you not to talk back to your godfather again."

The young man in black drew his iron flute again and gently wiped it, as if caressing a sword.

My godfather now is very different from before.

Even Senior Sister Cangyun would comfort herself by thinking that her current adoptive father wasn't so bad.

But if things continue like this, the rate at which the godfather changes will only accelerate.

If they wait until their adoptive father is no longer the person he once was, what will become of Taohua Scholar and the others, who already have to consider the Marquis's attitude?

Yan Shisansheng didn't want to think about it; he only hoped that his sword could defeat his adoptive father before that happened.

However, my godfather's talent far surpassed theirs.

Back then, the Dream-Eating Marquis originally came to Jingxiang to learn the Sky-Spanning Divine Art, which is why he came to see the stone tablet left by the Sword God.

Even though his true intentions and sword techniques did not align, he was still able to successfully comprehend the Sword Intent inscribed on the stone tablet.

Yan Shisansheng, however, focused on comprehending the Sword Intent of the stone tablet, but his progress was still not very fast.

"Do we really have to ask Old Man Lan for help before then? But wouldn't that mean we're actually bringing outsiders to beat up our godfather?"

A few thoughts flashed through the young man's mind, and he closed his eyes heavily.

Cangyun chimed in, "Given your godfather's pace, he'll arrive by dawn, faster than many of your fellow disciples. You should at least put on a smile."

The young man in black pressed two fingers to the corners of his mouth and curled them upwards.

Helpless, Cangyun simply sat down at the table, closed his eyes to rest, and circulated his internal energy to pass the night.

That evening, several more fellow disciples arrived.

As dawn broke, the rising sun gradually illuminated the sky with its colorful glow.

Inside the post station, everyone's crystal gourd trembled slightly, a sign that the Dream-Eating Marquis was approaching.

The young man in black looked up and gazed outside.

He was certain that his godfather would have Taohua Scholar by his side, and upon meeting him, Taohua Scholar would definitely flatter him, utter some polite formalities, and then kowtow to his godfather in public.

This forced the other disciples to also perform elaborate rituals in their worship.

On his godfather's face, there would probably be another smile of taking it for granted, accepting the kowtows of the masses.

Several figures gradually approached in the distance.

Dream-Eating Marquis Eater, was easily spotted by the young man in black.

Sure enough, that round face... why is it so expressionless?

Could it be that this emergency summons, unlike the previous ones, isn't some kind of publicity stunt by Taohua Scholar, but rather a genuine emergency?

The disciples in the post station looked at each other, Zhongdu harboring the same suspicion.

Fellow disciples.

The figures had already arrived at the post station, and as expected, Taohua Scholar spoke first.

"Today, Lord Marquis has arrived, along with several other distinguished guests. This is Daoben of the Laoming Temple, and this is General Wu Bo, the commander of the Divine Machine Battalion of Hanyang Prefecture."

"And this one—"

Dream-Eating Marquis himself spoke up, "This is Senior Chu Taixu. From now on, you should respect him as you would my father."

"Whatever orders Senior Taixu gives, you must carry them out meticulously."

Everyone was calculating in their hearts: if they had to kowtow to the Marquis when they met him, wouldn't they have to kowtow even more to the Marquis's father?

"Don't kneel."

Chu Tianshu noticed that some of these people were already on the verge of kneeling, and immediately spoke up.

He now finds himself quite calm no matter what these Dream-Eating Lineage are doing, though his tone still rises a little.

You have too many bad habits.

"Listen carefully, from now on you are not allowed to make others kneel, and you are not allowed to kneel yourself!"