After sending Cheng Qantang away, Qian Chao did not go to Chengqitang.
After being busy these past few days, he still had in his hand a copy of "Nine Mysterious Spirits" that he had borrowed from the Inner Hall Flower Spirit Stone, which he had never read.
While looking at the book in his hand, Qian Chao thought about the things that Senior Brother Cheng had talked about with himself.
Don't think about things that have nothing to do with you.
Regarding the matter of Senior Brother Xun, I heard that he was killed by a demonic insect in the bamboo wind, but there are still doubts. I wonder what news I will hear in the future in the sect, and who will take the risk to harm an alchemy monk. Where is the apprentice? Well, there is another senior brother who can't even find his body. Could it be that the one who did the harm didn't want to harm senior brother Xun in the first place, but it was another senior brother who just happened to do it at the right time?
Senior Brother Wu Gu's brother died outside the sect in his early years. Could it be related to Senior Brother Luan? Senior Brother Wu has been forbearing for so many years. Could it be that he got the news recently and went out for revenge?
There is also the treasure map. The few maps that Senior Brother Cheng took out on the table were not taken away. They were said to be of no value. However, it is unknown whether there may be something there over the years. However, he repeatedly asked Qian Chao not to pass it. Don’t go to Xiaowu Pass rashly.
Qian Chao was interested in the fact that the extremely intelligent senior brothers he said could infer the location of the treasure just by relying on their words or the records in the books. I took out many maps I drew from my storage bag.
Alas, this stone table is too small. Qian Chao is playing with these maps, but it is impossible to spread them out on the table. One day he will need to get a large bookcase.
…
It's time for a few people to get together again, and now they basically get together every month at the Helou Small Market.
"Brother Qian, Brother Li, come on, come on!"
When Lu Pingchuan saw Qian Chao and Li Jian coming together, he happily said hello.
"Well, this time we finally came earlier than you."
Tang Ping and Yanxuan arrived first, and were already watching Lu Pingchuan busy there, but this time it was not barbecue. Lu Pingchuan started a stove on the ground, and there were two large pots on it, one with a big wooden lid, and there was probably soup in it. The juice is boiling and steaming out. I don't know what the stew is. The meat is fragrant and tempting. In another pot, some oil was put in, and green smoke was rising. Lu Pingchuan was holding a large spoon, as if he wanted to imitate the chef in the restaurant in frying and frying.
When Yanxuan saw the two of them approaching, he smiled and said, "Brother Lu said that he recently obtained the true biography of Senior Kang. He is going to show us some tricks today to open our eyes!"
"I just don't know when I can get it into my mouth. Brother Lu, you should be faster. I'm so greedy!"
Tang Ping also said on the side, Rhubarb was squatting on her shoulders, the little monkey was staring directly at the cauldron, while Xiaobai was held by Yanxuan, staring at the steaming cauldron without blinking.
"Haha, don't worry, you won't be late for a good meal!"
By the time the cups and plates were listed on the table, several people could not wait to sit together.
"Well," Li Jian sniffed and couldn't help but praise, "I really didn't expect Brother Lu's craftsmanship to be so good. In the past, no matter whether it was a family banquet for the Li family's New Year's Day or a banquet given by the Lord of the Liang Kingdom, I couldn't do it as well as Brother Lu!"
"That's right," Qian Chao said, "I have never seen such an attractive banquet at my prime minister's grandfather's house before."
"Hehe, my master is known as the "Housou Cuoding Ding". Isn't that called for nothing? A little leakage from his fingers is enough for me to learn. Well, my senior brother Xi's craftsmanship is also good, but he is more focused on practice. It’s only me, a greedy person, who keeps begging my master to teach me this. Come on, let’s give it a try!”
"Hmm... it's delicious! Brother Lu, you have to learn more from Senior Kang in the future and learn all his cooking methods!" Tang Ping couldn't hold back for a long time and took off her chopsticks.
These people also learned from Lu Pingchuan the method of converting blood food into Houtu Temple. They knew that eating this delicacy was beneficial to their spiritual practice, so they were not reserved and had a delicious meal.
After the remnant seats were removed, Qian Chao took out the tea stove and teapot he brought with him and cooked a pot of hot tea for everyone to relieve their tiredness.
"It's time for us to go out again." Tang Ping said, holding a tea cup.
"Well, it's time to go out. Staying in the sect is boring, but before going out..." Qian Chao said, taking out three wooden boxes and giving them to Li Jian, Tang Ping and Yan Xuan respectively.
The three of them opened it and saw that what was inside was armor.
"Miss Tang, I know you find it ugly, but just listen to what I have to say first," Qian Chao said. "The last time I came back from outside, I heard a lot of things in Jiuxuan. One of our Jiuxuan elders, Jin, was our When he first arrived at the sect, the senior who was in charge of selecting disciples for each sect, one of his disciples, whom we will call Senior Brother Xun, was a high-level Qi refining disciple. When he went out, he encountered a powerful demonic insect and failed to come back. There was another senior brother who was killed, and it is said that the body of that senior brother has not even been found yet."
As soon as Qian Chao said this, several people became serious.
"High-level qi refining disciples will be gone if you say no outside. We are only on the third level of qi refining. We must be more careful when we go out. Even if we don't go to those dangerous places, won't some accidents still happen? That time Isn't the Wind Snake an example? So I thought, since we are going out, we should be better prepared. These armors were also refined after I heard about Senior Brother Xun. We should use them when we go out, Brother Li , you once said that the most important thing in your sword cultivation is physical skills, so I only used some armor pieces on the key parts of your case, and used a few more layers of leather armor on the rest, so as not to hinder your skills. If necessary It can also give you reliable protection at all times.”
Li Jian rubbed the leather armor in the box a few times with his hands. It was obvious that Qian Chao had put a lot of thought into this piece of his. The leather armor was dark in color and felt soft but tough to the touch. They are lined with layers of patterned iron armor, but they are all lined inside the leather armor and cannot be seen from the outside.
Li Jian was naturally satisfied with this armor and understood Qian Chao's hard work. He said with a smile: "Thank you so much, brother Qian. I will definitely wear it when I go out. I didn't expect that in this world of cultivation, I can also find that kind of armor." It feels like wearing a military uniform.”
Tang Ping picked up her armor and looked at it. She still felt a little disgusted. She said: "Oh, it will always make you look fatter when you pass it on. Forget it. Since it is your kindness, I will wear it when I go out. But when I come back, I will wear it." I have to take it off."
"You..." Yanxuan said angrily after hearing Tang Ping's words, "Thank you, Brother Qian. I will definitely wear this when I go out. This will give me peace of mind."
Qian Chao nodded, turned around and said: "As for Brother Lu, Brother Lu is the only one among us who is not afraid of heavy weight. I am trying several new refining methods. If it works, although it will be heavier than the one on Brother Lu's body, But it’s much better than this one in terms of protection.”
"Well, no problem, hehe!"
Seeing that Qian Chao's armor was divided among everyone, Yanxuan also took out four small jade bottles and placed them on the table.
"I refined all the spiritual herbs I collected last time into elixirs. Alas, speaking of my alchemy skills, I still need to continue to polish them. Almost half of the spiritual herbs were destroyed by my refining. These are the refined Yangyuan Dans. , we each have about five pills, but there are still a few more. When we come back from this trip, we will refine a batch and share them with everyone."
After speaking, distribute these small bottles to several people.
Qian Chao opened the small bottle and smelled it, looked at it, then raised his head and said, "Well, I see that Sister Yan's elixir seems to be stronger than the one given by the sect."
"Of course, the ones given by the sect are basically low-grade and low-grade. A lot of the ones refined by Sister Yan are low-grade and mid-grade, which are certainly better than those from the sect." Tang Ping looked at the elixirs with joy. said.
"Actually, there are more," Yanxuan said, taking out another small bottle, which contained three pills, but the color was different from the ones in the bottles.
"This is an intermediate-level Yuan Yang Dan, but I have only obtained three of them so far. I will give them to everyone when I have collected five."
"Intermediate level!" When Tang Ping heard about the intermediate level elixir, she couldn't help but move over to take a look.
"Well, it is indeed an intermediate level. Even if this elixir is given to everyone, don't use it normally. If we use it when we want to break through, it will definitely help a lot."
Lower-grade and higher-grade Yangyuan Pills cost ten spirit stones each in Helou. This middle-grade pill is unavailable. Usually people who make pills keep it for their own use. Yanxuan took all the pills. When I came out, it was obvious that I had no selfish motives at all.
"Thank you very much, Miss Yan." Li Jian said.
"Why are you thanking me? This is what we should be doing. What's important is that we practice together."
Yanxuan put away the elixir again. Lu Pingchuan suddenly thought of something and said: "Hey, speaking of going out with my master a few days ago, I also got something, but among us, only Miss Tang can do it." Use it, come on."
Tang Ping heard that there was something for her, so she looked curiously and saw Lu Pingchuan holding out something. It was the size of a small grape, irregular in spherical shape, and white with yellowish color.
"This is..." Tang Ping took it from Lu Pingchuan and seemed to recognize it, but she hadn't seen it much and didn't say it out loud.
"The demon pill!" Lu Pingchuan said.
Hearing the word "demon pill", several people couldn't help but get closer and take a closer look. After all, the demon pill Tang Ping got last time was about the size of a grain of rice, and this one was much bigger than that one.
"Is this the demon pill? I thought the demon pill was the same size as the last one." Qian Chao looked at it and said.
This was naturally a demon elixir, but Tang Ping didn't know what kind of demonic beast's inner elixir it was. Xiaobai and Dahuang seemed to be interested in this demon elixir. After driving them away, Tang Ping asked: "Lu Brother, what kind of demonic beast’s inner elixir is this?”
"Uh...my master said at the time, what it was...by the way, that kind of monster is called a mirage."
Mirage!
The others were fine, but Qian Chao was very surprised. He had read the story about mirages in a book a few days ago, and he didn't expect to see the magic elixir of mirages today. What a coincidence.
Yanxuan was a little curious and asked: "What does that mirage look like?"
"Hey, it's so ugly. I couldn't recognize it at first. My master saw through this guy's illusion at a glance. Hum, this thing has a big mouth and transformed into a cave. Some good things were also transformed into it to seduce him. If the monks passing by don't notice it and go in to get the good things in the hole, they will be deceived by it, and they will eat people as soon as it closes its mouth."
"Is it so dangerous?" Yanxuan frowned and said.
Tang Ping interrupted and said: "It's not necessarily to lure the monks. If other monsters are fooled, they will become its meal."
"Well, my master said the same thing. Let's talk about the wind snake thing last time. Brother Li said that the wind snake's illusion was powerful. After he came back, I asked my master if he had any way to break it, and my master taught me a trick. Then he took me out to try out those demonic beasts that can use illusions. Unexpectedly, I encountered it, so it was unlucky. But my master said that there shouldn’t be such things in the place where I went that day. He I'm still wondering, hey, anyway, I killed it with a few moves using the trick my master taught me. The guy's real body is just like a big toad, but it's the size of a millstone. Except for its belly, it's covered with eyes. It's very eye-catching. I'm really panicking, it's so ugly!"
Tang Ping and Yan Xuan couldn't help but frown when they heard the horror he said.
Only Qian Chao had another idea in his mind!
"Brother Lu," Qian Chao said, "do you still remember the place where you killed this mirage?"
"Of course I remember."
"Okay, wait a moment."
After saying that, Qian Chao went to the paper and pen, and drew the map of Brother Wu Gu exactly as he remembered it in his mind.
"Brother Lu, take a closer look. Is this the place you and Senior Kang went to?"
None of them knew what Qian Chao was going to do. When they saw him asking Lu Pingchuan to identify the map, they all came over curiously to take a look.
"Hey! Have you been there too? Or did you also go there that day? The painting you drew is exactly the same as the place we went to!"
On that piece of paper, there was a cave in a small ravine, surrounded by mountains, trees, grass and rocks, almost exactly the same as what Lu Pingchuan saw that day.
really! It seems that Senior Brother Wu Gu is really weird. He must have known that the hole was a mirage, and he sold the map to Senior Brother Luan. Could it be that he wanted to kill Senior Brother Luan? Maybe the mirage was placed there in advance by Senior Brother Wu!
"So that's it, that's it!" Qian Chao murmured.
"Hey, what's going on? What's going on? How do you know where Brother Lu went? Tell me!"
Tang Ping was impatient. Seeing Qian Chao knowing that something was going on, she urged him to tell him quickly.
"This map," Qian Chao picked up the map he drew, "was originally sold as a treasure map."
Qian Chao then told what happened to Senior Brother Wu Kuan and Senior Brother Luan Xiuzhang, as well as what happened to Senior Brother Wu Kuan who came to find him late at night that night, including the scraps of the map that he had burned, and he did not hide them. out.
After listening, no one expected that such a thing would happen.
Tang Ping said: "What you mean is that senior brother Wu Gu probably prepared the mirage there in advance, and then drew a blueprint and sold it to senior brother Luan. He was planning to kill senior brother Luan. ,Is it right?"
Qian Chao nodded after listening: "Now it seems that we are almost the same, but Senior Brother Wu would not have thought that the mirage he arranged there would be killed by Brother Lu."
After hearing this, Lu Pingchuan thought about it for a while and finally understood. Hearing this, he couldn't help but smile and said: "Hey, that's a coincidence. It seems that I saved someone."
"I didn't expect it," Li Jian said, "There is such a conspiracy between brothers and sisters!"
Qian Chao said: "Brother Li, this is nothing. The senior brother Xun I just talked about, it is said that his master, the senior Jin, saw something strange on his body and suspected that his apprentice had been infected by someone else. The one who plotted the plot has already asked his disciples to check it out. I don’t know what news there will be in the future. Even for Senior Brother Wu, what makes me strange is that he suspected that I had taken those map fragments, so he came to ask me late at night. At that time How can I give him those fragments? I can only bite him to death and refuse to admit it. However, before he left, he warned me again and again, saying that it was extremely dangerous there and that I must not take the risk to go there. You say, look at it this way, this Senior Brother Wu It's not like he was a very evil person. He just had some grudges against Senior Brother Luan, but it didn't seem like he had affected innocent people. I also heard that one of Senior Brother Wu's brothers died outside when he was out in the early years. He was probably related to His current calculation may also be related."
After hearing this, several people nodded again and thought about it.
Tang Ping raised her eyes and asked: "How many people did you say Senior Brother Luan started the quarrel in the Chengqi Hall?"
"There are four of us. Senior Brother Luan went with three other senior brothers. What happened?"
After hearing this, Tang Ping nodded and smiled: "So, this Senior Brother Wu's strategy was actually successful, but the mirage he got was not good enough."
"What do you mean? Come on, tell me."
"This," Tang Ping said, weighing the demon pill in his hand, "Looking at the quality of the demon pill, you can probably know what kind of cultivation the mirage is. Well, according to my judgment, Brother Lu killed If that mirage had only dealt with one Senior Brother Luan, he would have died outside long ago. However, according to what Mr. Qian said, Senior Brother Luan did not go there alone, but with three Go with companions who have similar cultivation levels. In that case, this mirage will not be your opponent. Don’t underestimate this mirage. It is very cunning. It will eat if it can eat, and if it can’t eat, it will tolerate it. The four monks together, It thought it was not an opponent, so it just stayed still, making people think it was an empty cave. Therefore, Senior Brother Luan felt that he had been deceived by Senior Brother Wu, and thought he had bought a fake treasure map. I angrily went to the Chengqi Hall to argue with Senior Brother Wu, do you think that’s right?”
Qian Chao nodded frequently after hearing this, secretly thinking that this is probably what happened. The mistake that Senior Brother Wu made was that he did not know much about the science of monsters. If he had Tang Ping's knowledge, I'm afraid Then Senior Brother Luan would really be plotted by him.
After hearing this, Yanxuan felt that such a thing made people feel scared, and said: "Well, after all, it is all conspiracy and conspiracy, which is really scary. Is there anything that we can't sit down and talk about carefully? Is it necessary to harm others? ?”
"Sister Yan," Tang Ping put her arms around Yanxuan's shoulders and said, "If everyone was like you, there would still be so much hatred, right?"
Qian Chao knew that these words must have cast a layer of gloom on several people's minds, so he also smiled and said: "But, through this incident, I made another discovery."
Tang Ping said as soon as she heard this: "You are so clever. What conspiracy did you discover?"
"No, this time is not a conspiracy, but something that is useful to us."
After saying this, several people were attracted by the money tide, and Tang Ping said: "Hurry up, don't show off, what did you find out?"
Qian Chao smiled and tapped the map he drew on the desk with his hand, and said
"Treasure Map!"
"Hey! Isn't that picture fake? Besides, Brother Lu has already killed the mirage!"
"No, listen to me. After that incident, I also inquired with several senior brothers, and the results were similar. The various treasure maps popular among our Qi Refining disciples in the sect are actually not good at all. There is no need to buy things, you will be fooled if you do, hey, my senior brother Cheng bought these pictures back then, he told me that the things found in the places in the pictures are not worth buying the spiritual stones in this picture."
When several people saw it, they picked up the maps Qian Chao took out and looked at them.
"But, within the sect, there are indeed some smart senior brothers who can use various information to deduce where there may be some good things, and then they will go there to look for treasures."
After hearing this, Tang Ping asked: "Have you also discovered this method?"
"I've said it before," Qian Chao said, pulling out a large map from his storage bag. "Look, this is my result in a few days. It's not complete. There may be more in the future. "
Everyone then remembered that Qian Chao did talk about something similar at a previous gathering. Not only did he ask several people to find books for him from various libraries, but he also took out drawings for everyone to see.
This map is even more detailed, but these four people are not as good at this as Qian Chao, and even after looking at it, they can't tell any clues. Tang Ping found that some places on the map had been marked by Qian Chao with a light-colored pen, so she pointed at them and asked Qian Chao
"Is it possible that the place you marked here is a place with good things?"
"That's right," Qian Chao replied, "This map also cost me a lot of effort, but unfortunately, we can't go to most of the places I marked here yet. With our current cultivation level, It’s too dangerous there, and I don’t know if my picture and my inference are accurate. It’s not worth the risk, but there is one place…”
His hand moved slightly toward the map.
"This place is closest to the sect. I have also inquired with some senior brothers. In terms of our cultivation, it is not risky to go there. This time we go out, we might as well go and take a look to verify my Is the picture accurate? If not, I will come back and think about it. Secondly, if there is really something to gain there, it will be a good thing for us, how about it? "
"Well, great!" The first one to respond was Lu Pingchuan. He rubbed his big hands together and said, "I think there's no problem. Brother Qian's ideas are never wrong."
Li Jian also agreed. He nodded and said, "I think we can go take a look. As long as we are cautious and withdraw if there is anything wrong, we should be fine."
Tang Ping and Yan Xuan also nodded. Tang Ping said: "Since you have put a lot of thought into it, let's go and take a look. Maybe we will actually gain something."
Qian Chao said: "Then it's settled. I've checked out what spiritual herbs there are nearby. Tomorrow we'll go to the Jingshiyuan to receive the mission according to that, and then go out."
The matter was settled like that, and then Tang Ping made a fuss about going to Helou for a walk. Anyway, he was going out tomorrow, and today was another day for a few people to gather, so he left Houtu Temple and came to Helou.
