Beyond the Divine States

Chapter 38 It Snows with the Spring Chill

In the darkness, the whole imperial city appeared extremely silent.

The shocking incident happening in the long street before only caused a sensation on a small scale, which didn't affect a large area. Many people were still immersed in the joy of surviving the calamity. The corpses outside the imperial preceptor's mansion had been cleanly dealt with. The assassins on the list of the state of Jin were either dead or injured. It could be imagined that the assassination organization of the state of Jin would have the succession problem for a long time from now on.

The imperial city was very big. The surrounding inkstone mountains were towering and foursquare, just like a huge palm holding up the ancient city.

Thanks to the continuous chaos caused by the war, even in the imperial city, quite some people secretly migrated to the other states, leaving a lot of mansions empty. According to the folk legend, once the mansion was abandoned, the antique furniture within would nurture sprites, so those mansions said to be haunted would be closed with a seal.

In the imperial city, there were the footsteps of soldiers again. It was Zhao Xiang'er who was in charge of the imperial palace. They were acting as per her order.

The order was the top grade but it didn't involve a lot of key information. They were required to carry out a thorough search for there was still a fish out of the net. The empty mansions surely became the key places for search.

Now there were not many available soldiers in the imperial city. As they had been busy searching for the whole day, they were overwhelmed by the inner fear and physical tiredness.

They were all waiting for the night to pass.

It was not 9 p.m. yet. The night had just begun.

...

...

Ning Changjiu didn't pick any empty mansions. Instead, he sneaked into the largest temple in the city with Ning Xiaoling. Today, due to the turmoil in the imperial city, the temple was closed early. The closed main hall was empty with the faint sound of cleaning.

In the main hall, a statue of Buddha was enshrined, which was golden and looked majestic. On the brass candlesticks ahead, there were four lines of candles flaming. The old Buddha statue shone under the cold candlelight. There were about 64 candlesticks. Before the candlesticks was an altar, on which some offerings and two statues of Avalokitesvara made of painted porcelain were placed. Both statues looked quite amiable.

On both sides of the Buddha statue, there were various statues of gods in different shapes. The statues all looked quite thin. One of them had three heads and six arms; one of them was holding magic weapons and one of them gave a sorrowful face. Now, with the silence and emptiness of the hall, the statues appeared quite horrifying against the faint candlelight.

However, the righteous Buddhist radiance accumulated over the past time could naturally oppress the evil spirits in the world.

Ning Changjiu shrugged off a copper coin from his sleeve and placed it on the threshold. Then, he went into the temple and worshipped the Buddha and the gods. He knelt on the cattail hassock and bowed simply.

On the threshold was the copper coin used by Ning Qinshui before he died. It was an object refined by a rogue cultivator, which could isolate one place from the world and prevent the ghosts or evils within from escaping as well as stop the evil Qi outside from intruding.

Ning Xiaoling's petite body was wrapped in the semi-transparent white cocoon with the illusory foxtails leaning against her. Currently, her pretty face appeared extremely calm and the color of her skin became so faint that even the veins were vaguely seen. The contradictory combination of coquetry and holiness embodied in this 14-year-old girl made her appear like an evil sprite outside the secular world.

Now, she was trapped in the inner demon tribulation.

She had her realm elevated too fast, skipping the Profound Realm and Immortal Realm and directly rushing towards the realm of Purple Court from the realm of Long Life shockingly.

Therefore, she lacked the experience in overcoming the inner demon. Essentially, she was only a 14-year-old girl. Normally, she should leave the imperial city and steel herself for half a year before she could break through her original realm. However, now, with the "help" of Ning Changjiu, she directly came to knock on the door of the realm of Purple Court.

The inner demon tribulation was about the heart.

Now, Ning Xiaoling's cocoon became thicker and thicker with her vital signs getting weaker and weaker, which indicated that she was trapped in the tribulation more and more deeply.

Ning Changjiu took out two talismans from his sleeve, stuck one of them to Ning Xiaoling's cocoon and the other one to his own forehead.

Those were the Purple Gold Divine Talismans taken out by Ning Qinshui that day. Clearly, the talismans were drawn by a real master outside the world. The natural and exquisite talisman-drawing style truly impressed him.

At that time, the two talismans were the locks that sealed their bodies. Ning Changjiu changed a few strokes of them to twist the talisman intent, so these two talismans became a bridge connecting their consciousnesses.

Before Ning Xiaoling became a demon, Ning Changjiu had told her that with a few changed strokes, many talismans might create completely different mysterious effects.

However, the talisman-changing method was quite difficult to grasp. Any mistake or error in the drawing style or strength could make the whole talisman fail to work.

Ning Changjiu lit up a joss stick to record the time. Then he leaned back against the dark red wooden pillar in the hall and sat quietly in meditation with his eyes closed.

He connected himself with Ning Xiaoling's consciousness with the two Purple Gold Divine Talismans.

He went into her inner demon tribulation.

...

That was an ancient city where it was snowing.

Ning Changjiu's consciousness seemed to fall from the sky. He felt that he was looking down at a vast border city veiled by white snow. It was a snowstorm sweeping across here and there. The residences, towers, tiles, wine flags and bridge railings were all covered with snow.

The white snow seemed like the marginal strokes, outlining the whole city in a foursquare manner.

The river that went through the city had frozen. There were very few passers-by and horses in the street. Where it was covered by snow, it was quiet and peaceful.

As he plunged, he looked down slowly and then finally landed in a street. Beside him, there was a wine flag, which wrote the word Wine foursquarely. Now it was also frozen stiffly. There was also the bustling sound of wine drinking and cups clinking. No one inside seemed to notice the sudden appearance of a man in the street.

After all, a lot of people would die every winter.

Ning Changjiu took a glance and only saw the thinly clad people in the room looked quite happy as if the wine could expel the coldness. He took a glance only and then walked into the center of the city.

The city should be the hometown of Ning Xiaoling.

He didn't care about the secular noises. Moreover, he was in an illusory dreamland of her inner demon tribulation.

He needed to find Ning Xiaoling as soon as possible, suppressed her evil seed and then got rid of the inner demon for her.

The heavenly tribulation period was the weakest moment of the evil seed, during which it would be asleep. This was the best time he figured out after calculating numerous times.

However, in such a big city, how could he find a young girl?

Ning Changjiu didn't rush. He walked unhurriedly and spread out his consciousness little by little, slowly feeling the frozen city.

At the end of the long street was a stone bridge. Looking from the stone bridge, he could have an open view. As he looked into the distance, he saw a bunch of bungalows and an eye-catching tall tower. They didn't seem illusory, which also contained an air of simplicity and primitivism over the yore.

If he looked further, he could find a lot of places in the city were still veiled by untouchable mist.

That was the missing part of Ning Xiaoling's memory about this city.

Walking forward along the long bridge, he found more people in the street. Peddlers were pushing their stands, looking around and hawking their wares continuously. There were also women dressed in the colorful silk holding the umbrella and laughing sweetly, and horses dragging the carriage slowly across the street, which left two long and deep tracks in the snowy street.

Ning Changjiu looked at their faces and then looked away. He vaguely felt that something was wrong with the world. For the moment, he couldn't find the root of the problem.

He continued strolling forward. In the end, he saw a little girl before a shabby bungalow.

The little girl, wearing the old lined jacket, fetched water from the old well, carried the bucket, and stumbled in the snowfield. A few boys gathered around her.

Then, he saw the little girl fell to the ground. The water spilled out of the bucket. She got up, cursed the several boys taller than her, rolled up her sleeves and beat them up. Of course, the girl couldn't defeat them. What she had was fortitude only. She knew that if she did nothing, they would go even further next time.

She was knocked down again and again but she still glared at them fiercely. The boys' laughter reverberated around, which sounded very delightful.

Looking at the girl's slightly tanned face, Ning Changjiu was sure that the girl was not Ning Xiaoling.

He didn't do anything. This was the illusory world of the inner demon, which had also happened in the real world. Even if he reversed the consciousness to go back to the past and help the girl carry the water to the room, he still couldn't change anything that had happened in history.

This was the dust and sand which blew across. No matter how eye-pricking it was, he could only let it go.

He kept walking forward.

The city was a lot more lively than he imagined. Yet, the heavy snow suggested loneliness. This was the thin ice layer covering the prosperity.

A magnificent mansion was ahead. The dark red door was closed, at which there were two awe-inspiring stone lions. Inside the high yard walls, carved wooden windows, painted pavilions and overhanging eaves could be vaguely seen.

However, Ning Changjiu knew that Ning Xiaoling must have nothing to do with this place.

Because he could see that under the overhanging eaves and carved fences there was grey mist only.

Because across the high yard wall, Ning Xiaoling could only see those things on tiptoe. As to the things below, they had never existed in her memory because she was always separated from such a mansion with a high yard wall.

He continued going forward.

It snowed silently, covering the ancient city. The snow just looked like the increasingly thick cocoon around the young girl.

He gradually found the problem of the city. In the city, most of the trees were withered but with a closer look, it could be found that the new sprouts were buried under the snow.

A lot of pedestrians dressed in the thin spring clothes didn't seem to feel cold.

Now, in the ancient city, the winter should have been gone and the spring should have arrived.

Many people even didn't even notice the snow.

Because this was the snow from Ning Xiaoling's heart.

The snow was floating around.

Ning Changjiu searched around the city, leaving his footprints in all the places except the inaccessible places veiled by the grey mist.

But he couldn't find Ning Xiaoling.

In the end, going around and around, he arrived before the mansion and looked at the copper rings of the gate, thinking about something.

After a while, the door was suddenly opened. Four people carried a sedan out.

The cold wind billowed the curtain of the sedan and a pretty girl's face was vaguely exposed.