The Emperor is Above

Chapter 27: Rune Learning: Bloody Night Sky

The night is dark and the fog is chilly.

Yuanmu Qiujian had already gone far away. Qing Yi and Tun Shigu stood side by side, thinking in silence for a long time.

"oh oh--"

The slightly angry crow of the big red rooster broke the silence of the night. It jumped to the top of the locust tree and seemed to be angry.

"It seems that Mr. Shi's identity is not simple!" Qing Yi sighed, "I only met him once, but Doctor Yuan Mu Shang is so close to me.

Of course, he wanted to thank me for inventing the sleigh, but he wouldn't go that far. After all, I'm just a commoner, and there's a huge gap between us."

Tu Shigu's eyes were full of shrewdness at this time, and he whispered: "Brother, do you think that Old Man Shi is the Grandmaster Shi Mensou?
You see, Yuanmu Shaofucheng is a senior official, so the lowest person he can respect must be a junior official, right? But none of the four senior officials, four junior officials, and six junior officials in the capital have the surname Shi. "

"You guess that Old Man Shi is Shi Mensou? I think this possibility is not high."

Qing Yi shook his head slowly, "Shimen Sou has always been mysterious and rarely appears in public. I heard that Shimen Sou's surname is Shimen, and he is already 120 years old.

Old Man Shi is only about 70 years old, and his granddaughter Niuniu is only four years old, so he should not be Shimensou, but perhaps a relative of his family."

"That's true!" Tu Shigu pondered, "Shimen Sou is said to have three sons, and they rarely appear outside.

Now that you put it like that, it makes sense. Just looking at Niu Niu's attire and her behavior, even a doctor's family can't raise a child like this."

Qing Yi suddenly remembered that on the day of the annual tribute, Old Man Shi mentioned that he had been to Huaiqiuli twenty years ago, but it was not called Huaiqiuli at that time. Could it be that he knew that his four dragon claw locust trees were tree spirits?
This thought became particularly firm as soon as it appeared. If Old Man Shi didn't know that there were four dragon claw locust trees guarding his home, how could he let Niu Niu play here without any hesitation?
"Master, Master Tu, let's have dinner!"

Daniu stood at the door and shouted, his loud voice still exclaiming,
"As expected of the Royal Guards, they are really powerful. They dare to march 180 miles at night. If we were to march at night, we might encounter some ferocious beasts or ghosts."

As Tu Shigu walked towards the restaurant, he said to Daniu, "The imperial guards are the emperor's personal guards, and the Sima leading them are at least seventh-rank lower-armored soldiers.

It is said that the weakest soldier in the imperial guards must have a physical strength of more than 700 kilograms, not to mention that Doctor Yuan Mu Shang is a fifth-rank talisman master accompanying him all the way."

"Well, the talisman master is really amazing!" Da Niu's eyes were full of envy, "It would be great if the master could learn the skills of the talisman master, so that we can all have talisman soldiers to use."

"How do you know if I have learned the skills of a talisman master?"

"Really?" Daniu's eyes widened even more.

"I'm just teasing you, but I must go to the Imperial College to study runes."

Qing Yi glanced at Daniu and walked towards the restaurant with a smile. In order to welcome Niu Niu's arrival, Aunt Bo specially stewed an old hen soup.

After taking two sips of the delicious chicken soup and looking at Niu Niu who was happily eating the chicken leg, Yi suddenly understood why his big rooster was so angry tonight.

“From now on, animals that are eaten for meat at home must not become spirits!” Thinking of this, Yi took a big bite of the chicken, otherwise he would have to become a monk and eat vegetarian food in the future.

"Ok!"

Niu Niu didn't hear clearly what Qing Yi said. She just nodded vigorously while gnawing on the chicken leg, politely expressing her agreement.

······
After dinner, Huaiqiu was quiet.

Niu Niu, who had been sleepy for a long time, slept on the warm kang in the west wing with Aunt Bo, holding the little white fox and the civet cat. Erhei slept in the suite outside and was in charge of guarding the door.

As for Daniu, he was disliked for his loud snoring at night. Aunt Bo was afraid that he would disturb Niu Niu's sleep, so she sent the poor child to the animal shed to keep company with the four reindeer.

Although the animal shed was simple and a bit smelly, it could block the cold wind. There was a pile of hay in the corner. He spread a thick layer of hay on the ground and covered himself with a thick animal skin blanket, so he was not afraid of freezing.

Tu Shigu did not go back at night, sleeping in the room next to the east wing, and was snoring constantly, and the snoring of the big bull in the animal shed was like a duet. Qing Yi couldn't sleep because of the noise of the two guys, so he simply lit a big butter candle to study the runes. The bright candle flame flickered, illuminating the boy's focused expression.

After reading "The Initial Explanation of Runes" twice, Qing Yi spread it out on the table and placed two paperweights made of polished wild wolf bones on both ends of the leather scroll.

Then he took out a piece of wild wolf bone, held a carving knife in his right hand, and carefully engraved runes on the bone, initially deciphering the twelve basic runes.

"Swish—"

Under the blade of the carving knife, white bone foam kept falling to the ground.

Qing Yi stared at the carving knife he borrowed from Master Tuan Gu, but couldn't help shaking his head: "The carving knife made of eighth-grade animal bones is still not good enough. It's a bit difficult to engrave ordinary wild wolf bones. I still need to make a carving knife with better animal bones."

At this moment, the skeleton of the giant beast that he found in the snow rabbit cave that day suddenly emerged in his mind, and he had an urge to take it out immediately.

However, Qing Yi still suppressed this impulsive thought: "The skeleton of that giant beast may be a third-grade exotic beast. Now is not the time to take it out."

Since the carving knife made of eighth-grade animal bones was not easy to use, Qing Yi simply took out his sixth-grade bone sword and used it as a carving knife.

The twelve runes mentioned above were already memorized in his mind. Even though the sixth-grade bone sword was too long and difficult to operate, he still seemed to be able to handle it with ease.

Runes of different shapes appeared on the wild wolf bones, flashing different colors at night, with a strange beauty.

"Click——"

As the light continued to flicker, the wild wolf bones could not withstand the conflict of various forces. Tiny cracks appeared on them and they soon shattered. The flickering light of the runes also quickly dissipated.

“Since ordinary wild wolf bones can’t withstand the conflict of power from so many runes, I’ll try the wolf tooth armor-piercing arrows!

The hardness of ordinary wild wolf teeth is comparable to the bones of ninth-grade exotic beasts, and what is needed on the wolf tooth armor-piercing arrow is speed, so I only need to engrave the rune of acceleration. "

Thinking of this, Qing Yi took out ten wolf-tooth arrows from the processed ones and began to carve runes using the sixth-grade bone sword as a carving knife.

"Click——"

The first wolf-tooth arrow used for testing was too small, so it was accidentally cut off by the sixth-grade bone sword in his hand before the first rune was engraved.

The wolf's fang, which seemed extremely hard, became as soft as tofu under the blade of the sixth-grade bone sword and broke into two pieces without any resistance.

The second wolf-tooth arrow had just engraved a rune when the sword blade accidentally knocked off a piece of it, so the rune flickered a few times, declaring that the rune was invalid.

"Anyway, I have more than 300 ordinary wolf teeth, so I don't believe that I can't succeed." Qing Yi also became stubborn, and if one didn't work, he would move on to the next one.

When the big rooster crowed for the first time with the chickens in the locust hill, Qing Yi finally completed the rune engraving on ten wolf-tooth arrows, but the price was the loss of fifty wolf-tooth arrows.

"It seems that I still need to be promoted to corporal and knighted as soon as possible, so that I can petition the king to enter the National Academy. As long as I stay there for a month, I can not only learn orthodox runes, but also find a chance to read all the books inside."

Qing Yi kept thinking about how to get promoted to the title as quickly as possible, and blew out the candle and prepared to rest.

I had just laid down on the bed when I felt it vibrating. At first I thought it was the civet cat catching mice under the bed, but then I realized something was wrong. It seemed that the ground was vibrating.

"There's an earthquake, there's an earthquake, run!" The panicked voice of Tun Shigu came from next door.

Without thinking about anything else, Qing Yi hurriedly put on his winter clothes and ran outside. When he ran outside, he found that the originally dark night, now half of the eastern sky seemed to be stained with blood.

(End of this chapter)