This village is small in area and is located on the mountainside. It is surrounded by lush vegetation and scattered houses.
"What is this place?" Gu Xu asked Qi Ling.
"I am incomplete now, and I am not truly omniscient and omnipotent," Qi Ling shrugged, looking irresponsible, "Ask me, who should I ask?
" But no matter what, it is definitely not the time and space we had before."
Gu Xu stopped paying attention to him, and with a thought, he threw the "Astrolabe" into the "Xianyun Residence" again, intending to close it again. The little bastard is in confinement for a few days.
Then he walked alertly towards the village.
A thick stack of talismans appeared in his hand out of thin air. If something unexpected happened, he would be able to respond in time.
On the roadside paved with gravel and gravel, stood a group of poorly dressed villagers.
There are white-haired old men, thin children, and women with sad faces.
Only no mature men.
These people all have withered faces and haggard expressions, and they look lifeless, like withered reeds in the cold winter.
Seeing Gu Xu suddenly appear out of thin air in the middle of the road, the villagers first looked at each other, and then someone shouted, "The Supreme Immortal of Yaowang Sect is here again"
Yaowang Sect< /p>
Hearing this word, Gu Xu frowned slightly.
According to the records in the books he had read, the "Medicine King Sect" was a sect located in a remote area in the southwest of the Daqi Dynasty. Its disciples were extremely good at cultivating medicinal materials and refining elixirs, and there was a steady stream of them. The land is supplying cultivation resources to the imperial court and major aristocratic families.
Just a few decades ago, the "Yao Wang Sect" collapsed without any warning for unknown reasons and completely disappeared in the long river of history.
Unexpectedly, I came to this place in person through "Guixu" today.
Immediately afterwards, led by a woman holding a baby, the villagers knelt down in front of Gu Xu one by one.
They begged in hoarse voices. All the men in the family had been taken away, and they really could not spare more people to work in the sect.
Go to work in the sect
Gu Xu’s brows furrowed even more.
He gently raised his hand and used the power of his true energy to lift these old, young, sick and disabled villagers from the ground.
"I'm not from the Yaowang Sect, I'm just a practitioner who happened to pass by here," he said to them in a kind tone, "Can you tell me what year this is and what village this is? Why do you have to do hard labor for the Shiwang Sect?"
Seeing the surprised expressions of the villagers at the questions he raised, he made up an excuse and explained, "I have been in seclusion in the cave for many years. I haven’t talked about the world for a long time. Now that I have come out to relax, I hope you can tell me about the situation here.”
The villagers were silent for a long time.
Then, the woman holding the baby took the lead in answering, "This year is Guangshun Three Days."Year, we are here in the Shancha Village under the jurisdiction of Yongchang Prefecture, Nanzhao Province.
"The immortals of Yaowang Sect are the patron saints of our mountain. As long as we work for them, they can protect our village from ghosts and monsters."
"This time it happened during the reign of Emperor Guangshun," Gu Xu sighed silently in his heart.
Emperor Guangshun is the grandfather of the current Emperor Tianxing of Qi.
It seems that this era is not far away from the era he lived in.
As far as Gu Xu knows, Nanzhao Province is located on the southwest border of the Daqi Dynasty. It has crisscrossing mountains and complex terrain, covered with dense primeval forests, and is home to rare ghosts and tough alien races.
It took the Daqi Dynasty many years to incorporate this land, known as the "Barbarian Land", into its territory.
However, due to the deep-rooted local forces in Nanzhao Province and its unique folk customs, it was difficult for the Daqi court to copy the local systems of other provinces here, and it was even more difficult to organize the practitioners. , set up exorcism division offices one after another.
Therefore, the imperial court chose to use the power of some large local sects to administer this remote place with a certain degree of autonomy.
For example,
the Duke of Yan can be understood as the leader of the country in charge of Youzhou.
The Yaowang Sect, Spirit Beast Gate, Jiuli Cave, Baihua Villa, etc. in the Nanzhao area can also be understood as small kingdoms.
However, they need to pay taxes to the Da Qi court and be supervised by the court.
Of course, the sky is high and the emperor is far away here, and Daqi officials often cannot control it, or in other words, they are simply too lazy to control it.
Even if two sects suddenly come into conflict and fight to the death, all you need to do is give a little money and some training resources to the Nanzhao general sent by the imperial court. I am willing to turn a blind eye. After all, these local affairs are a thankless mess.
It was not until Emperor Guangshun died and Emperor Xingde ascended the throne that the situation here improved slightly.
At that time, several larger sects in Nanzhao Province rebelled.
Chiyangzi, the current national master of Daqi, has attained the great truth and transcended the world to become a saint.
He took the initiative to ask for a tassel from the imperial court, and went south with the counter-rebellion army, killing several rebellious sects in one fell swoop.
Since then, the imperial court's control over Nanzhao Province has increased year by year.
"If I remember correctly, senior Chiyangzi seems to be from Nanzhao"
Just as Gu Xu was lost in thought, there was a rush of footsteps not far away. and heavy breathing.
He couldn't help but turn his head and look.
I saw two skinny men, carrying a corpse, walking hurriedly along the hillside. In his consciousness, the body was still warm, and it was obvious that it had just died.
At the same time, the moment he saw the face of the corpse clearly, the man holding the corpse in front of Gu XuThe face of the middle-aged woman with the baby suddenly turned as white as paper.
She opened her mouth slightly and her eyes widened, as if it was difficult to accept the scene in front of her.
Her legs became as weak as sugar syrup, and she suddenly fell to the ground.
"Daniu, A Zhuang, my tiger brother, what happened to him?" I heard her asking the visitor in a trembling voice.
Gu Xu had already figured out that the deceased was her husband.
"I'm sorry, sister-in-law, I didn't take good care of him," a man carrying the body responded with a low expression, "Elder Xiong of the Yaowang Sect called him into the house and asked him to give it to the alchemy furnace. Fanning him, he kept fanning him there for several days and nights. When I finished my work and went to find him, I found that he had died of exhaustion."
The middle-aged woman's eyes were red. , with a sad look in his eyes, "This year our village first lost Uncle Chou, and then Hei Wa, and now it's my Brother Tiger's turn. Is the Yao Wang Sect going to completely push our village into a dead end?"
As soon as she finished speaking, she fainted.
Seeing that the baby in her arms was about to fall to the ground, Gu Xu was ready to reach out to catch it.
But there was one person who moved faster than him.
It was a young man of about twelve or thirteen years old with a thin body and dark skin. He was controlling the real energy to make the baby hover in the air and stop falling.
. ,,