Myriad Paths

After chatting, Li Qi finally arrived at Liu's house.

Li Qiyao looked at the Liu family's mansion.

It looks...uh...

Just ordinary.

It's plain and simple, with no spectacular scenery.

An ordinary room with ordinary decoration covers an area about ten times that of Li Qi's small yard. It looks like... a wooden house in the small yard.

As if he saw Li Qi's subtle expression, Liu Junyi immediately said: "My uncle is frugal and simple, and does not like luxury. This is what a gentleman does."

Li Qi nodded: "That's exactly what it should be."

But Liu Shenzhi didn't seem to like this. He curled his lips: "So I said there is no need to pretend. To be honest, the cost difference in decoration is not big. Just don't use high-quality magic weapons. It has to look like this." , Dad specified that it was a bit——”

Having said this, he quickly stopped and looked around.

Li Qi blinked, knowing that he shouldn't speak at this time.

Although what Liu Shenzhi said is almost correct.

For modern society, who is more expensive, an ornately decorated glass or a medieval wooden beer mug?

The answer is no difference. As long as it comes from the assembly line, the price difference will not be too big. It just depends on which side of the assembly line has lower cost.

Same here.

There is no difference in cost between making it look splendid or simple. As long as you don't use a lot of high-quality magic weapons, it doesn't matter at all.

Decorating it like this is purely a matter of aesthetics.

Besides, Li Qi felt that although the courtyard was simple and elegant, it was still unique.

Li Qi followed the two of them into the courtyard, and saw that there were also rockeries, playthings, crowns, and utensils in front of them. Some were carved with fine wood, and some were piled with stones. Although they were not expensive, they were very thoughtful.

It can be seen that although the owner here does not use any valuables, he still takes care of them frequently.

As Liu Junyi walked, he introduced: "Brother Li, don't think this place is simple, but a sage has a saying: soak it in the ether and harmony, be imbued with morality, and show it is simple. Although there is no heavenly dragon, matchmaker, velvet bridle, or precious bridle, There are seven jewels and emerald green flags, but it also has a unique charm, which can purify people's hearts if they stay there. "

Li Qi knew that the other party was telling Liu Shenzhi through the stall introduced to him, so he also echoed: "It is made of grass and silk, carved on the balcony, decorated with pearls and jade, etc. It looks extremely exquisite, and one plate is as good as the other." It's worth hundreds of thousands, but it's all useless, just for fun, not as good as here."

"It's the same as having no desire, it's element, quality is pure. This is my uncle's teaching, don't forget it." Liu Junyi said to Liu Canzhi again.

Liu Shenzhi's expression looked a little impatient, and he replied: "Everything without decoration is called plain, and flowers are called colorful seals. I like colored seals, and I prefer singing and playing flutes and drums, and selling gold and colored satin. It's just style, and it's not extravagant. What's the problem?"

Li Qi nodded, which was regarded as agreement, but not support. It was regarded as expressing his attitude.

In fact, it doesn't matter. As far as the current situation is concerned, as long as you don't take out exotic animals and high-quality magic weapons to play with, and the decoration style and your own dressing preferences, then it must be whatever you like.

But he also saw that no matter what the temperament of the children was, the Liu family must always quote scriptures and have reason for everything they said. In addition, they were all Tai students, which already showed their level.

This old man Liu is very good at teaching children, and he does have something.

I don’t know how it compares to offering wine as a sacrifice, or comparing it to my own teacher...

Forget it, there’s no need to compare this one.

Liu Junyi continued: "It's not that you are wrong, but that you don't like such exaggeration too much. Your mind has its own turmoil. Simplicity makes people calm, and colorful medals make people anxious. You are too out of touch. It's time to cultivate your temper. "

"Okay, I understand. I haven't moved out recently, have I? Even entertaining friends here, I feel very peaceful." Liu Shenzhi waved his hand impatiently, and then walked to Li Qi: "Brother Li , let’s not talk about this anymore. After you come in, follow me to a place and I will show you my results.”

Naturally, Li Qi didn't want to get involved in other people's education issues, so he immediately changed the subject and said, "What results?"

"You will know when you come here. My father and others should still be working. Let the eldest brother go in and inform them first, so as not to disturb the elders." Liu Shenzhi said.

Liu Junyi shook his head with a wry smile. Although he knew that Liu Shenzhi just wanted to pull Li Qi away quickly and didn't want to listen to his nagging anymore, it was indeed important to inform his uncle in advance...

There are no servants at home. After all, my uncle doesn't want to do this, but it would be inappropriate to take guests directly to visit the master's house.

It would be bad if a guest caught his uncle doing something private and it would be embarrassing for both parties.

Although the probability of this kind of thing is very low, the existence of etiquette is for this kind of thing, and Liu Junyi will naturally not refute it.

So, he nodded and said to Liu Shenzhi: "Then you take Li Qi to your room to rest for a while, and I will inform my uncle."

"Okay, then Brother Li, let's go." Liu Canzhi couldn't wait and hurriedly took Li Qi to visit his masterpiece.

Li Qi was also curious about what attracted Liu Shenzhi so much, so he said goodbye to Liu Junyi and followed him all the way there.

After passing through the small courtyard, we actually didn’t walk very far, only a few dozen steps away. However, although the courtyard is not big and the materials used are not very precious, but by arranging the garden in a certain way, it is possible to change the scene as you move. wonderful.

Li Qi was only led around twice, and it was only a few dozen steps, but he felt as if he had changed places. As the cave turned around, the surrounding scenery suddenly changed.

Li Qi looked at the changes in the surrounding scenes with some surprise.

Even... Zhenzhi didn't respond.

Moreover, it is not because the grade is too high, because Li Qi is very aware that the things around him are all ordinary things, and even those with grade are rare. Just like what he showed, this is a very simple thing.

There was no supernatural power or magic involved, just the arrangement of stones and roads to accomplish this.

It's really... amazing.

Seeing Li Qi's expression, Liu Shenzhi said proudly: "My father said that this is called the method of blinding one's eyes with one leaf. As the saying goes, if one leaves blinds one's eyes, one cannot see Mount Tai. Even a great person will lose his vision if his eyes are covered. Although He has other perceptions, but what he cannot see is what he cannot see.”

"So, as long as you cover your eyes with a leaf, you can openly block Mount Tai. This way of arranging the garden only blocks the light, but it can give people a sense of changing the world. To put it bluntly, it is just that stone over there. It just blocked the previous road." Liu Shenzhi said, pointing to the other side.

Li Qi saw a rockery. He walked over curiously, adjusted his sight, and then jumped up.

With this jump, the field of vision expanded, and everything in front of him suddenly became clear, and all the scenes that had disappeared before appeared.

It turns out it's just blocked behind the rockery.

In fact, it’s nothing strange at all, it’s just that it’s blocked so that you can’t see the previous scenery, so you have this illusion of changing scenery as you move.

I don’t know the true face of Mount Lu, just because I am in this mountain.

But this still shocked Li Qi.

Such attainments are simple to say, but extremely difficult to achieve.

"Your father's level is truly breathtaking." Li Qi was impressed, feeling great interest and awe in this elder whom he had never met before.

Because Li Qi knew that this arrangement... showed the opponent's formation level.

With a few stones and nothing else, you can achieve this level by just placing them in position. If the opponent uses heavenly materials and earthly treasures, or even arrays, flags, arrays, or even many magical weapons to make an array Eyes, I'm afraid I won't be able to get out in this life.

"Okay, don't look at these. It's just a pile of stones. It's strange at first glance. After walking through it twice, you can walk out with your eyes closed. There's no need to bother. Come to my courtyard quickly. Let me show you the good stuff I made recently." After Liu Shenzhi finished the introduction, he didn't pay much attention to the courtyard, and pulled Li Qi towards his backyard.

Indeed, as he said, no matter how well arranged the courtyard is, there is nothing magical about it and it will not change.

If something doesn't change, it won't work no matter how magical it is. If you walk two more times and memorize the route, you can indeed walk out with your eyes closed.

Liu Shenzhi has lived here all year round, so he must have been used to it.

But Li Qi had never seen the world before. He was amazed and took a few more glances, trying to remember the pattern and layout and see if he could learn anything from it.

Learning has become a subconscious habit of Li Qi. Even if he drinks sugar water, he still has to use true knowledge analysis to analyze the proportions to see if he can reproduce it.

Maybe it's a bit crazy, but that's the reality.

Along the way, he admired the many changing scenery on the road. Soon, Li Qi was pulled into the small courtyard where Liu Shenzhi lived.

However, before he arrived, Li Qi heard a bird-like chirping sound.

It was as if he had raised many birds, and the sound was crisp and pleasant.

Li Qi was a little curious about what it was.

But when he walked in, Li Qi saw the source of the sound.

Not birds or anything like that, but countless... insects.

A square-foot bamboo cage contains hundreds of insects, shaped like large flies, with the back half of its body twisting like a large maggot, and it keeps chirping like the sound of a yellow magpie.

Those chirping sounds just now were made by these insects!

However, Li Qi didn't feel disgusted. Instead, he stepped forward curiously, looked at it, and said, "Is this... Gu worm? But I haven't seen it before. Is this the research result you mentioned?"

"That's right! This is it. Although it looks disgusting, I named this thing the Witch Silkworm. Look at what they are capable of." Liu Shenzhi was like a child showing off a toy. , pick up a piece of armor.

Li Qi could tell that this was a magic weapon. It looked like a ninth-grade magic weapon. It should be handmade. It looked... a bit like Liu Shenzhi made it himself.

The quality is considered good among the ninth-grade ones, but it can be seen that there are still many flaws. It was probably built in a hurry and there was no time to carve it carefully and repair these small holes.

Then he saw Liu Shenzhi lift the armor and throw it into the bamboo cage holding the magic weapon silkworms.

The armor had just fallen into it when I saw the witchcraft silkworms that had been chirping lazily before, suddenly seemed to have gone crazy, quickly clinging to the armor, and then started to gnaw at it!

Even if the armor is made of metal and makes a harsh crunching sound when bitten, it cannot resist the gnawing of these witchcraft silkworms!

Although it cannot be seen with the naked eye, the armor is indeed being chewed by these magic weapon silkworms.

Even the runes on it and the Qi built up were all eaten together, with only a few missing.

"It will probably take two quarters of an hour to eat this thing. Brother Li, wait a minute. You will know how powerful it is. As for my father, he is not in a hurry. He is probably still busy with his own things. Even my eldest brother needs at least a quarter of an hour to see him. Let's rest here." Liu Canzhi said, asking Li Qi to watch this wonder carefully.

Li Qi was also very curious about what scene Liu Canzhi valued so much, so he also stayed and waited to see what these so-called witchcraft silkworms were capable of.

After all, this is a Gu worm. Liu Canzhi actually learned to cultivate Gu worms?

Was it inspired by the magic weapon of the witchcraft that he gave him? It sounds very similar, but how did he do reverse engineering? Moreover, these Gu worms do not have the characteristics of the Gu worms that Li Qi is familiar with...

Rather than Gu worms, it is better to say... another type of magic weapon?

Unlike the life cultivated by witches, but just something similar to a machine, these insects do have vitality, can move, and can even reproduce.

It's just... very mechanized.

It's as if someone has set them to reproduce and eat, instead of using self-consciousness to make choices like living creatures.

This difference may not seem very obvious on insects, after all, insects don't have much brains, and instinct is enough.

But if you magnify the number, you will find that some of the poisonous insects cultivated by the witch can be transformed into monsters. Among them, those with extremely high talents can get rid of their animal nature, use self-consciousness to make choices, and finally transform into monsters.

But these so-called poisonous insects of Liu Canzhi, no matter how many there are, cannot be transformed into monsters. They can't do anything "outside of the setting" and can only act according to the established logic.

This gap is too big, equivalent to the difference between weak artificial intelligence and strong artificial intelligence, which is an essential difference.

Time passed quickly, and Li Qi found that these witch silkworms had slowly eaten one-third of the armor, and seemed to be a little tired, and the efficiency began to decrease rapidly.

Seeing this, Liu Canzhi took out some broken demon souls and threw them among the poisonous insects.

When throwing them, he looked distressed, thinking that it was not cheap.

These poisonous insects absorbed the demon souls and soon regained their spirits, speeding up their gnawing speed.

Seeing this, Li Qi guessed that these broken demon souls... were the energy source of these poisonous insects?

After a while, the armor had been completely eaten.

After eating, these witchcraft silkworms began to spin silk.

They did not spin randomly, but spun silk in a certain pattern and in a specific place.

The silk threads they spit out actually formed the shape of a piece of clothing.