Touching the Sky

Heaven rebelling and earth cracking

Qiuling County was brightly lit at night.

The late returning caravan, the Si family stronghold guards who were escorted back by the soldiers, and the stolen “heirloom”…this news spread like wildfire in Qiuling County.

“…the Si family will be killed this time! A servant stole the account book, and they said that it fell into General Liu’s hands!”

“What account book? Could it be the ledger for bribed officials? What a joke, what’s the use of this kind of incident? The Si family is one of the best in Qiuling County, even Lord Wu of Pingzhou would give the Si family some face, and he’s a fourth rank official in charge of Pingzhou affairs. That General Liu is just a military officer demoted here to suppress bandits, how dare he challenge Lord Wu?”

Inside the Xiaoyu building, there was a table where people were so inebriated that they couldn’t help talking nonsense.

The expression of the women sitting beside them changed slightly, and they looked around subconsciously. The leading woman, who was wearing a pink tulle, hurriedly held a jug to persuade them to drink, so as not to make these people become too loud and cause unnecessary trouble.

As a result, after a few words of persuasion, many guests came out of the small building with pale faces, hurrying away.

“Hey, isn’t that Zhang Yuanwai?”

“Shopkeeper Qian, you’re here tonight as well…hey, don’t leave? What happened?”

The drinking guests stood up crookedly, wondering in their hearts.

After a while, someone said, “Speaking of which, their caravans are all back tonight, are they rushing to get news?”

What kind of news wouldn’t let Wenruo County Town sleep?

The people drinking in the building looked at each other, having a bad feeling in their hearts. Some sensible people paid quickly and ran out to figure out the situation.

Before they even went out, a young man stumbled in and shouted, “Not good! People from the Si family stronghold attacked General Liu on the mountain road. Now that Bandit Sweeping General assembled his troops and horses to go to Si family stronghold to question them!”

Everyone was in an uproar, what they just said actually happened?

Before Liu Dan came, the investigation of the gold mine in Qiuling County was very perfunctory. The Si family also assumed that as long as they paid enough money and bribed the government, then handed over the gold mine, nothing would happen, so no one believed that the Si family would fall.

Half of Qiuling County was owned by the Si family, and even if the rest were not, they’re inextricably linked to the Si family. Now that it became like this, it’s no wonder that the indirectly related shopkeepers couldn’t stand still.

The Xiaoyu building became empty in the blink of an eye, and even the female brothel keeper went out to see that the whole street was like this.

Her building was the first one in the alley and had a good location so she could see it clearly.

“What the hell, the Si family is not the sky, and even if the sky is falling, what’s the use of you guys running there?” The old brothel keeper sniffed, and when she was about to go in, she suddenly saw two people passing by outside the alley entrance.

The lantern was hung high, and she could clearly see that the man on the left was wearing an ordinary cloak, but with his shoulders straight when walking, he was definitely not a poor man without money.

“Those two gentlemen! Come in and have a drink!”

The people she greeted didn’t even look her way and continued to walk forward.

The brothel keeper was annoyed then suddenly saw the man on the right carrying luggage, so she quickly raised her voice: “You two are from out of town? It’s already this hour, there are no vacant rooms at the inn. Another incident happened in Qiuling County tonight, I’m afraid it wouldn’t be a peaceful night. If you two want to sleep peacefully, you’d better enter my Xiaoyu building!”

The two people passing by were Physician Mo and his patient, who slipped away after arriving in Qiuling County.

“Physician.” Meng Qi couldn’t help laughing, “Do you think after going in, would you sleep well or couldn’t sleep?”

“Don’t pick on semantics.” Mo Li didn’t take the old brothel keeper’s greeting seriously, nor did he feel discomfited.

In fact, Zhushan County was very poor, so poor that there were basically no brothels or a pleasure district.

If the brothel keeper didn’t greet them, Mo Li wouldn’t have realized where they were.

But that’s all. Because the price here was too high, and definitely not within the scope of Physician Mo’s consideration. The advantage of brothels was that you can hide your identity. You need to show where you came from when staying at an inn, and locals needed household registration, but there’s no such rule when entering the pleasure quarters, so everyone who came was a guest, and as long as they paid, no one cared where they came from.

“The Si family’s influence in Qiuling County is greater than I imagined.” Meng Qi looked at the panic-stricken people on the street and said thoughtfully, “I’m afraid there will be trouble.”

The old brothel keeper called them for a long time and found that the two were getting farther and farther away, and became angrier.

They didn’t look like they have no money, why would they rather go to the inn and endure the noise? They must know that the inns in Qiuling County were almost all the business of the Si family, now that the owner was in danger, did those guys still have the heart to greet guests?

“They don’t know a good heart!” The brothel keeper angrily turned around and went back to the building, but bumped into the woman in pink. The two of them couldn’t dodge so they bumped into each other.

“Qiu Hong! Why are you running out?”

The woman in pink lifted her skirt and said in a panic, “Mama*, I just went to the backyard and heard a sound from the well.”

*not literally mother, just what they call brothel keepers in that time, not all the time though

“How is that possible? There are still ghosts in our building?” The old brothel keeper didn’t believe it at all.

At this time, Meng Qi and Mo Li in the distance stopped at the same time, listening suspiciously.

There was a strange sound coming from the ground, getting louder and louder.

Mo Li’s expression changed drastically, then called out, “It’s an earthquake! Everyone, run!”

The ground had already started to shake slightly. Because the sound of silk and bamboo had stopped, and the brothel quarters were rarely quiet, many people heard that weird sound.

The screams came one after another, and many women ran out in a hurry but got tangled with the gauze skirts on their bodies.

Tiles fell one after another, vases shattered, and the ground shook violently.

“The earth dragon turned over!”

Shouts of terror echoed far away in the night, and the entire county woke up from the shaking, but by this time, it was already too late.

Mo Li had just dragged a person away from the area where the tiles fell when he turned around and saw several people buried under the collapsed eaves. Even the number one master in the world would be at a loss at this time.

To make matters worse, Mo Li felt that his inner strength was being drained.

It’s very inexplicable, but his spiritual power was consumed rapidly, and he didn’t know where it went.

“Physician!”

Meng Qi jumped over a pile of ruins and grabbed Mo Li.

As soon as their palms met, they felt that the other party was just the same, the aura in their bodies was affected. If this continued, it would be difficult to protect themselves, let alone save others.

At this time, people could no longer stand and could only hold on to the things around them to maintain balance. A crack appeared on the road, quickly extending and widening.

The crack was bottomless, and there was a rotten smell coming out of it.

Some people couldn’t dodge in time and fell into the crack, screaming endlessly.

In an instant, Wenrou County Town was in ruins. The survivors struggled to escape, but the strange noise from the ground made their eyes go black as if a ferocious beast was roaring in despair at them.

“Boom!”

The sound silently disappeared, and there was a faint thunder in the sky.

Thunder in winter was truly ominous.

Mo Li stood there in a daze, his consciousness leaving his body and floating into the dark night sky. He saw that the entire Qiuling County had been turned into ruins, there was wailing everywhere, and where there was light, there were fires caused by candles and overturned oil lamps.

A huge crack divided Qiuling County into two halves.

Going forward, he could see that this crack extended all the way into the mountain.

The situation in the mountain was even worse than in Qiuling County. From a distance, the whole mountain was torn apart.

Rivers diverted, cliffs crumbled——

Mo Li suddenly remembered that Liu Dan was taking people to the Si family stronghold, and he didn’t know where they were. He wanted to find this group of people, but it was too dark, and he couldn’t see anything clearly except for the general mountain outline.

“It’s dead.”

A voice suddenly sounded and Mo Li was taken aback.

He had heard this voice before, it was Taijing dragon vein.

He quickly “raised his head” but he didn’t see the huge body of the golden dragon.

“…where are you?”

“I’m right beside you. You can’t see me because our real bodies could only be formed above the dragon veins, and the dragon vein of Mount Silang is no longer there.”

“You said it died.”

Mo Li was naturally shocked. He came to Mount Silang just to find the dragon vein.

But how did the dragon vein die? Mountains and rivers are its shapes, could the dragon vein formed by the gathering of spiritual energy still die?

“Because the Si family dug gold mines in the mountains?” Mo Li couldn’t help asking. He never believed in such things as “digging out the dragon veins” but it turned out to be true?

“That’s not the case.” Taijing dragon vein’s voice suddenly changed, and the following words were blurred, “there’s someone…”

Mo Li wanted to listen carefully, but his consciousness became confused for a while, and when he woke up, his ears were already filled with wailing.

“Physician, are you alright?” Meng Qi helped Mo Li climb out of the ruins.

Mo Li felt that his dantian was empty. He tried to absorb spiritual energy but was almost overwhelmed by the spiritual energy pouring in from all directions.

It’s too rich, a hundred times better than Qimao Mountain, but he didn’t find it at all when he first arrived in Qiuling County.

Reminiscing what Taijing dragon vein said just now when his consciousness was blurred, Mo Li was secretly startled.

——the dragon vein of Mount Silang died.

Earthquakes, landslides, and spiritual energy all around were the scenes that would occur after a dragon vein disappeared?

Mo Li suddenly thought of his previous guess. He turned his head to look at Meng Qi and tentatively asked, “What did you see just now?”

“We both passed out just now. When I woke up, I saw you lying here.” Meng Qi also found that his internal strength had recovered, letting out a light sigh and saying in shock, “Physician, when an earthquake occurs, will it still absorb a person’s internal energy and then return it back?”

“…”

Mo Li couldn’t answer. He subconsciously felt extremely sad. He had obviously never seen the dragon vein of Mount Silang, nor did he know if it has a consciousness, but this kind of discomfort was like someone digging out a piece of his flesh with a knife.

In addition to sadness, there was anger.

The monstrous rage of wanting to destroy everything was like the distorted and desperate roar of the ground when the earthquake occurred.

Mo Li almost thought that Meng Qi’s madness had infected him. His hands kept shaking and scales began to appear on his face.

There was a faint cry for help from the ruins around him.

The instinct belonging to a physician reminded Mo Li that he was a “human” right now and the scales disappeared. He took a deep breath and said, “Brother Meng, save people first!”

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