Chapter 709: A Promising Talent, the Southern Wind Ghost Market!

“The late Emperor Cheng Jun…”

Su Mu’s deep eyes narrowed slightly as old memories sped past before freezing upon the Land of Cyan Clouds, Canghe County.

He had once gone to Canghe County because of Xiaohu and Uncle Li. There was a Donghe Town there that leaned against a great mountain, and back then he had learned from Uncle Li and Xiaohu’s mouths:

The mountain that Donghe Town leaned on had rich, unique soil; it had once been a major official kiln famous throughout Qingzhou, all because when the previous Old Emperor Chengjun of Great Yan was still alive, he was especially fond of the Qingzhou porcelain fired in Donghe Town.

Yet as time passed and circumstances changed, after the old emperor died, the one holding the great regalia of the Great Yan realm was the new Heavenly Martial Emperor. The new emperor did not favor Qingzhou porcelain. Though no explicit edict was issued, Donghe Town no longer dared continue firing porcelain from that point on.

Afterward, the major powers in the town moved away one after another, and the originally prosperous, uniquely endowed Donghe Town thus fell into decline.

Su Mu remembered this clearly. Even without Uncle Li and Xiaohu’s explanation, just from the two characters “late emperor” used in the classics to refer to Emperor Cheng Jun, it was enough to show that the Old Emperor Chengjun had passed away—otherwise he ought to be referred to as the “Retired Emperor.”

Su Mu couldn’t help feeling a jolt of bafflement. By his understanding, an emperor who held the Great Yan Dynasty’s national sacrificial artifact in his grasp, even if not one of the most powerful cultivators of the age, should at least be a Great Cultivator of the Upper Three Grades.

So why had this Old Emperor Chengjun only lived for sixty-nine years, not even reaching the age of seventy?

With that question in mind, Su Mu continued flipping through the pages. Unfortunately, how could such publicly circulated classics ever record imperial secrets of this sort? Suppressing the doubts in his heart, Su Mu kept reading onward.

Over the last hundred years, Sanshan County had produced no shortage of geniuses, but aside from that Yang Dingbian, there was no one else who gave Su Mu any sense of astonishment.

After finishing the book in his hand, Su Mu went on to peruse other texts that interested him—various miscellanies, local gazetteers, histories, even some records of demons and ghosts, and short story chapbooks.

“Sha, sha——”

The yellowed pages, bearing the wind and frost of years, rustled with different whispering sounds as they turned, yet without exception they were reassuring. Su Mu sank into the anecdotes of the histories.

“In the autumn of the third year of Heavenly Martial, thirty li southeast of Second Jiao Mountain in Sanshan County, there appeared a Deadman’s Pit of ten-zhang radius. The corpses within bore twisted, ferocious expressions, all cut open and disemboweled, their Five Viscera and six internal organs utterly empty. Not long after discovery, it was handed over in full to the Qingzhou Demon Slayer Bureau for processing—suspected to be the work of a Demon Fiend…”

Seeing this, Su Mu paused slightly. Many of the books had mentioned Demon Fiends, but only this volume recorded a Demon Fiend matter in detail—yet even then it only brushed past it in a single stroke, as if reluctant to say more, shrouded in taboo.

“A ten-zhang Deadman’s Pit, the Qingzhou Demon Slayer Bureau, Demon Fiends, hm? … Do Demon Fiends truly exist in this world?”

Once again doubt rose in Su Mu’s heart, but he quickly thought of those Demon Martial Artists of the Starving Jiao Blood Gang, who, after invoking demonization, took on forms resembling Demon Fiends; and he inevitably recalled the Changping Demon Dao he had previously encountered in the Land of Cyan Clouds, who Refined Pills using human beings.

Those Demons who Refined so-called Human Pills would first cut people open and disembowel them, then dig out unnecessary organs and implant the pill embryo.

Lastly, Su Mu also thought of how the original purpose behind the establishment of the Demon Slayer Bureau had been precisely to slay demons and eradicate fiends.

Perhaps Demon Fiends truly did exist; it was only that he himself had not yet encountered them.

“Demon Beasts of the Hundred-Thousand Great Mountains, Demon Fiends hidden in the histories, Demon Daoists of a chaotic age, bloodthirsty, battle-mad barbarians… This world is anything but peaceful!”

Su Mu sighed inwardly, feeling this truth even more keenly. In that moment, a certain figure surfaced unbidden in his mind—a man whose chest he had pierced through with a single spear, who by rights should have died.

That fellow had once vowed they would meet again in Qingzhou. He wondered what Realm that fellow had reached by now.

“I only hope you aren’t too weak.”

A streak of battle intent, together with a dense, murderous will, rose from the depths of Su Mu’s eyes. If he saw that man again, Su Mu would not give him another chance to escape with his life; he would certainly strangle that hidden threat completely.

After leaving the Land of Cyan Clouds, Su Mu’s horizons and knowledge had broadened; yet the broader they became, the more he felt the eerie strangeness and power of Wang Xuantian’s Demon Technique—that devouring of others’ flesh and blood to strengthen himself, and the ability to turn back age and regenerate severed limbs.

Moreover, this man held some unknown, unfathomable means capable of shattering Great Yan’s Destiny and cutting down officials of the Court.

Any single one of such methods, taken alone, would likely be enough to shake Donglai County. Thinking back on it now, it was no wonder that after the great battle ended, the officials of the Three Counties had been in such a rush to escort that man’s corpse to the Qingzhou Demon Slayer Bureau.

It was precisely this that gave Wang Xuantian the chance to exploit a loophole. He must have erupted midway, slaughtering the escorting men and thus making his escape.

All in all, this man gave Su Mu a profound sense of danger. Among all the formidable enemies Donglai County had faced—including Old Thief Gongyang and the Thirteen Great Bandits—no one had ever instilled this kind of apprehension in Su Mu again.

Not even the Great Cultivator of the Tao Family had done so. What a Great Cultivator pressed upon the present Su Mu was merely pure strength, which only stirred in him a hunger to become stronger.

Next, Su Mu spent some time going through one miscellaneous record after another. Although none of them offered a dedicated introduction to Qingzhou, from the various historical entries he teased out threads and pieced together an approximate framework of Qingzhou’s major powers.

“The Ancient Qingzhou likewise has Noble Families—four in all: Liu, Yang, Li, and Zhong. The Yang Family of Sanshan County, from which Yang Dingbian hails, appears to be a branch of the Ancient County Yang Family, while the Donglai Li Family is a branch of the Ancient County Li Family.”

“Aside from the Noble Families, there are the Holy Lands of the Three Religions: the Confucian Holy Land Qingzhou Academy, the Taoist Holy Land Qingfeng Temple, and the Buddhist Holy Land Longfu Temple. All Academies in Qingzhou seem to share myriad ties with Qingzhou Academy; Shuangbai Academy is no exception…”

Su Mu recalled the pair of brother-and-sister in Confucian robes at the foot of Bai Jiao Mountain who had helped him escape. Their bearing had been extraordinary; perhaps they were connected to Qingzhou Academy. And he still held in his hand that Qingzhou Academy Order left behind by Liu Zhengyuan when he took Qinghe away.