Chang'an: Qinglian Sword Song

Chapter 4 Chapter Three Mistakes
In the turbulent ocean, the snow and ice, the endless wilderness, the mountains and rivers extending to the end of the earth, the verdant forest that seems never to decay...

A small town between the yellow sands, a ferry for ships, and a majestic city.

In his deep sleep, Li Bai dreamed of the glimpses of the long journey.

And that one, got the same answer countless times.

"Best view?"

The shepherd boy riding on the cattle pondered seriously for a moment: "I think it should be in Chang'an, right? Many uncles passing by told me that it is the most beautiful place in the world."

"Fine wine? Of course it's Chang'an!"

The old glutton in the restaurant had a red nose, and in his drunkenness he snapped his fingers: "Sanqiu Niang, Nvnvhong, Amber, Loulan Honey, Tianqing... Delicious things, I can't finish them!"

"The strongest swordsmanship? It must be in Chang'an."

The defeated swordsman put away the broken sword regretfully: "If it were you, you would definitely be able to find a formidable enemy there."

"Poetry? Then there must be Chang'an." The master under the shade of the tree twirled his long beard, complacently: "If you haven't written a poem about Chang'an, what kind of good poem is it?"

"Good things are all in Chang'an."

The salesman said happily, "The most gorgeous silk, the most luxurious carriages and horses, the sharpest sword, and the most beautiful beauties, where else can I find them except Chang'an?"

"The best place in the world? The Three Realms are in turmoil, like a house on fire. Where is the best place?"

The wandering monk clasped his hands together and said coldly, "The so-called Chang'an is nothing but a materialistic cave. Go quickly, and don't disturb my cultivation!"

"Chang'an?"

"Chang'an..."

"Chang'an!"

In the long dream, countless broken memories flashed before his eyes.

Accompanied by the drowsiness of the hangover, those fragmented images and sounds gradually drowned out Li Bai.

In the end, it turned into a hoarse voice.

"Then go to Chang'an, if you have a desire."

The rickety old man looked back and smiled at him strangely, "You can get everything you want there, but you have to remember..."

"There is always a price, Li Bai." He whispered meaningfully, "There is always a price."

Endless shadows loomed in front of us.

At that moment, Li Bai drew his sword, but his sword didn't know where to go, and he froze in place, swallowed by the darkness.

When he opened his eyes, everything in the dream disappeared without a trace.

Instead, there is a closed room, dim lights, and iron windows in front of you...

Dali Temple.

He came back again.

Behind the familiar desk, Di Renjie silently sorted out the files in his hands. When he noticed that the boy on the chair woke up, he looked up.

"In history, you are the first person to be arrested twice by Dali Temple within six hours." He asked indifferently, "Should I say welcome?
I reminded you, Li Bai! "

"You should remind me in more detail, Lord Di." Li Bai replied hoarsely: "I never thought that Chang'an would not welcome me, an outsider, so much.

I don't even know what I did wrong, can you please give me an answer? "

"The answer? Everyone wants to know the answer now, Li Bai. Most of Chang'an City has been turned into a mess." Di Renjie shook his head, "Such a bad case happened in the city, and Honglu Temple is going crazy."

"Any clues?" Li Bai asked.

"This is the most troublesome place, no."

With a gloomy expression, Di Renjie tapped the confessions of the assassins on the table: "They are all a group of rangers from other places. They take money to work for their lives. They even know who their employer is. The only guy who knew the truth died of poison.

It must not be easy to keep such dead men in the city. "

"You should think about who you've offended," he said.

"To be honest, I really want to cooperate with you, but unfortunately, I really don't know anything." Li Bai shook his head, "Last night, I already told you everything I know."

Di Renjie didn't speak.

But he also knew that it was unrealistic to find clues from Li Bai.

A traveler in the clouds, he traveled thousands of miles to Chang'an, and it was less than eight hours, and most of the time he was almost under the surveillance of Dali Temple.

Because of this, he tried his best to protect Li Bai's innocence at Honglu Temple so that he would not be caught and thrown into prison.

But now, the case has reached an impasse.

Do you want him to intimidate the victim in front of him, and just find two unlucky ghosts to beat him into a trick to deal with the pressure from above?
With a sigh, he signed his name and stamped his seal on the record described by Li Bai to ensure that the contents were correct and proved his innocence.

Di Renjie pushed the document over: "You were supposed to be imprisoned for two months, but you don't need to do this kind of superficial work. You can leave after signing. But for a while, pay attention to the summons from Dali Temple, don't Leave Chang'an at will."

"..."

After a long silence, Li Bai lowered his head and said softly, "Thank you."

"That's the truth."

Di Renjie waved his hand, signaling Yuan Fang to unshackle him.

However, before leaving, Li Bai stood at the door but couldn't help turning his head, "What's the name of that child?"

"Who?" Di Renjie asked without looking back.

"You know who I'm asking, the dead child." Li Bai asked, "What's his name?"

"Who knows, no one cares about the beggar's name." Di Renjie sighed silently, and suddenly said: "Someone called him 'official'."

"Official?"

"That's right." Di Renjie stopped writing, and said softly, "It is said that a humble name is easy to make a living, but if you can't survive, you will want to give yourself a good name so that you can become rich and powerful in the future.

The beggars in Chang'an City are all like this, calling the richest names, carrying the most miserable and poorest lives... Like weeds, no one knows about their deaths, and no one remembers them. "

"..."

After a long silence, Li Bai suddenly said, "Someone will remember."

He turned to leave, and the door closed.

"...Let's go."

Looking at Li Bai's back outside the window, Yuan Fang couldn't help turning her head and asking, "Why did you take their case from Honglu Temple? Don't you hate violating your authority the most, my lord?"

"Isn't this kind of murder case involving assassins and rangers not under the jurisdiction of Dali Temple?"

Di Renjie sneered darkly: "Besides, I'm also very curious, who is it that dares to use so many killers in Chang'an City to kill a person who has been in Chang'an for less than four hours?"

"Then why did you let them go again?" Yuan Fang reacted as soon as she finished speaking, she couldn't believe it, "No, you want him to find it by himself...do you trust that guy so much?"

Di Renjie didn't speak.

He just lowered his head, looked at the file in front of him, and compared it with the emblem on Li Bai's sword hilt.

There are two patterns, one is dusty in the old files of Chang'an, and the other is from the traveler in the cloud, but they are exactly the same without the slightest difference.

Such a coincidence.

That is the emblem that symbolizes the strongest swordsman in the cloud...

"I don't believe him, Yuan Fang."

Di Renjie replied softly, "But I believe the 'Heavenly People' in the cloud, those idiots, probably don't know what they have provoked."

He closed the confidential files and reports in his hand, sealed them with mud and wax seals, put them in an iron box again, and handed them to the boy.

"Yu Hengsi, file the application number B."

He got up, put on his robe, put on the Jinxian crown again, and hurriedly ordered: "I will go to the palace."

Once again outside Dali Temple, it was still evening, Li Bai only felt in a trance for a while, as if everything that happened before was a hallucination.

It's been less than a day since he came to Chang'an, and he was drunk for six hours, but everything has become completely different.

The bustling city in front of him has also changed from brilliant to cold, and the lights mockingly look down on the overwhelmed outsiders in front of him, as if silently sneering.

Li Bai sighed and heard the sound of the door opening behind him.

It's Xun Qing.

The embarrassed young man came out with disheveled hair and disheveled hair. When he saw Li Bai waiting for him, he was stunned for a moment. After a long time, he managed to squeeze out an awkward smile and wanted to say hello: "That... are you okay?"

Li Bai nodded: "I'm fine, they didn't do anything to you, did they?"

"It's just squatting for two hours."

Xun Qing shook his head, trying hard to look like nothing happened, but he staggered and fell head-on.

Li Bai stretched out his hand to support him, but found that his hand was shaking.

"I'm sorry, my legs are a little weak." Xun Qing propped up his body in embarrassment, but couldn't, squatting on the ground panting, suppressing the choking impulse: "I, I..."

"Go and rest first, don't think so much." Li Bai patted him on the shoulder: "Sleep, everything will be fine."

"We're looking for the most upscale hotel, the softest bed." Li Bai shook the money in his hand.

Xun Qing was stunned for a moment, and then couldn't help but smiled wryly: "It's very troublesome to have the seal of Dali Temple on the road guide. There is no good place to live. I'm afraid you won't be able to spend the money."

He hesitated for a moment, and said, "Go to my house...the place is small, don't think it's broken."

"It's fine if you have a bed." Li Bai smiled back.

It doesn't fit well with the gorgeous Chang'an, it's hard to imagine that such a city has such a dark and cramped corner.In the gaps between the high-rise buildings, the sewage flows across.

Some of the dilapidated buildings on both sides of the alley were still dimly lit, and there were cries of babies and dogs barking. After the noise faded away, the dead silence returned.

Even the watchmen on patrol are reluctant to come to this kind of place.

It's hard to imagine that there is even a mechanism workshop here.

"Why do you live here?" Li Bai looked around: "Isn't mechanism division very profitable? Besides, the houses outside are not expensive, right?"

"It's not long since I became a mechanism engineer, and I still owe a lot of money. Besides, the places in each city are limited, and there are not enough people to live in. We homeless survivors can only live in this corner Or I can only go to Huaiyuanfang to sleep in Datongpu... This workshop was left to me by my teacher before his death, if I hadn’t been lucky enough to be admitted as a mechanical engineer, maybe it would have been taken away.”

After searching for a long time, Xun Qing finally found the key. After opening the door, there was a cloud of musty dust blowing towards his face.

Li Bai lit the candle, and saw several organs and equipment covered by dust-proof felt cloth, as well as a mountain of mechanism parts and semi-finished products in the corners, and even a huge mechanism arm as thick as a beam...

He watched curiously, and also found a dismantled huge organ man in disarray, like a dead giant. The organ man's chest was wide open, but there were no internal organs inside, but one body after another. of steel organs.

But many are incomplete, obviously half-finished.

"what is this?"

"...what the teacher left behind."

Xun Qing sighed, "Before he died, he had been studying this. Once he saw the scene of the legendary mechanism of heavenly masters catching ghosts on a night trip, and he never forgot to copy that mechanism.

But after spending so much effort, I refused to install a mechanism core on it.In the end, it was all wasted effort, and before he died, he still couldn't forget this unmovable semi-finished product... As a result, his life's painstaking efforts became a joke in the circle. "

"Where is it ridiculous?" Li Bai shook his head, and asked seriously: "I've been to a lot of places along the way, and this thing definitely looks a bit powerful... just because it's so tall, it must be very strong when moving, right? "

"Then you have to be able to move. Without the mechanism core, how can the mechanism person be able to move? There is no such thing as a ghost story like the mechanism celestial master... In the final analysis, it is not necessary to rely on the mechanism core to create such agility. It's simply not possible."

Xun Qing said halfway, couldn't help but shook his head with a wry smile: "I'm sorry, I said a lot of things you don't understand."

"No, it's obviously very powerful."

Li Bai asked puzzledly: "Why are you so harsh on yourself, Xun Qing? It's already quite remarkable to be admitted as a mechanical engineer at your age."

"It's all under the protection of Teacher Yu Yin and Lord Daoxuan, so where can I have any abilities?"

Xun Qing shook his head, tugged for a long time, and finally tore down the upstairs ladder.There was a sound of collision, and countless dust fell like rain, making him ashamed and coughing for a while.

"Come with me. I live upstairs. I'll clean it up for you first... You can take a shower first. I just checked and the water boiler is still working."

"Hello, Xun Qing."

Li Bai stopped him suddenly.

Upstairs, Xun Qing looked back blankly and saw Li Bai's serious expression: "Don't be sad, it's not your fault."

Xun Qing froze for a moment, forced a smile, and nodded.

The narrow room was cleaned very clean, and it was obviously not prepared for guests to stay overnight. The sheets and bedding were a bit old, but it could be seen that the starch was clean and well preserved, and there was no mold.

Xun Qing tidies up quickly, it's hard to imagine that a man can do housework so quickly.The water boiler he made is also very useful, and it is not troublesome to take a bath and drink water.

But Li Bai still tossed and turned and couldn't fall asleep.

Finally fell asleep for a while, but still woke up in the middle of the night, hearing the faint sound of wind.

When he got up and pushed open the door, he saw the narrow corridor with the windows wide open.Xun Qing's room was empty and there was no one there.

The guy didn't know where to go.

When Li Bai poked his head out of the window, he saw the young man sitting on the roof, staring blankly into the distance, as if sleepwalking.

The brilliant lights of the distant city fell far away, illuminating his empty pupils.

Hearing the sound of Li Bai turning over, he turned around suspiciously, and saw the young man's smile.Li Bai reached into his bosom, and pulled out a jug as if by magic. After shaking it twice, the sound of water came from inside.

"Can't sleep? Do you want a drink? I still have a little here, which is cheaper for you."

Xun Qing was stunned, and wanted to shake his head subconsciously.

But after Li Bai raised his head and took a big gulp, he handed over the jug, and the soft aroma of the wine came to his nostrils, with an intoxication that dissolved the pain.

Can't refuse.

But the scent was so soft, but the entrance was so sharp and strong, scratching his throat, as if swallowing a piece of red-hot coals, making Xun Qing cough violently.

"Oh, this is burning iron in the clouds. It can pour a cow in such a mouthful. I didn't expect you to be so bold?"

Li Bai pretended to sigh, but a mischievous smile appeared on his face.

Too childish.

How old?
Xun Qing sighed helplessly, but soon, he felt in a trance.

The lights in the distance became blurred, and those heavy blocks in the lungs seemed to disappear.It was as if the cold world suddenly abandoned him in place, and he rushed forward, and the pain and sadness also went away.

But for some reason, but once again, I couldn't help but want to cry.

Just like seeing the beggar who died innocently again, Xun Qing covered his face, and from the bottom of his heart, he repented for his 'proud deed'.

"They came after me... must have come after me, sorry, sorry, I shouldn't steal, if I... if I..."

"If you don't take it, there will be more victims." Li Bai shook his head: "You can't reason with the wicked, and you shouldn't attribute the child's death to your responsibility.

Besides, he wanted to save us..."

"Why exactly?"

Xun Qing covered his face, choked up and moaned, "That child is so cold, but there is no wine... I just... I just want that child to drink some hot soup..."

"I originally wanted to help him, but I obviously..."

"I know."

He heard voices beside him.

When Xun Qing turned around, he saw the boy under the moonlight looking at him and told him, "Because I am the same."

He was stunned.

"If there is a mistake in helping others, then it is definitely not you alone, but also me." Li Bai said softly, "But I have never made a mistake, so it must be others who are right."

"Someone must have made a mistake, Xun Qing."

The young man stared at the city in the distance, pressed the hilt of his sword, as if looking at his own enemy, and whispered softly: "We are going to find him."

Such calm words, yet so resolute, were like cutting off the blade of a sword, tearing apart the confusion and pain.

Only the crisp results remain.

Xun Qing raised his head, drank the bad wine in the jug, and raised the jug above his head for the first time in his life.

"Together we will!"

(End of this chapter)