Chapter 86

While others were still busy, some generals came over to greet Li Wenying.

"Lord Scholar!"

"Lord Li!"

"General!"

Because Li Wenying had once served as a general, those who had worked under him were accustomed to addressing him as such.

Li Wenying had already assessed the situation from the air, and his gaze finally fell on Chen Xibi. He nodded and said, "Not bad. I've seen that demon turtle before; it's the grandson of the Dragon King, with the potential to transform into a dragon. Killing it is a great achievement. For us literati, losing an arm is nothing. If you can become a Hanlin, I will go to the Holy Academy to seek a Life Fruit to regenerate your limb. If that's not possible, once I become a Great Scholar, I will go to the Demon Realm to fetch one for you."

Chen Xibi immediately replied, "I dare not hide the truth. I didn't know the demon turtle was the grandson of the Dragon King. It ambushed me and knocked me unconscious. The one who killed it was Fang Yun, who used a battle poem with nine layers of treasure light to summon the divine will of the Arrow Saint, slaying the demon turtle."

"Ah!" Li Wenying's gaze was like lightning as he looked at Fang Yun seriously.

"We were all there and saw Fang Yun use the battle poem to kill the demon turtle. I just recorded the poem. Please, Lord, take a look." Mr. Wang handed the poem over.

Li Wenying took it and immediately recognized that it was a poem based on historical facts, praising the sages of old, which would naturally have extraordinary power. He finally said, "The phrase 'embedded in the stone's edge' is the finishing touch. It's not the surface of the stone, not the heart of the stone, but the edge of the stone, making it more vivid than the previous poems praising archery skills. Does it have a title?"

"Stone Arrow," Fang Yun replied.

Li Wenying's expression changed, and he looked at Fang Yun again, as if he wanted to say something but, after a moment's thought, said, "Tell me the details of what happened."

So the junior general recounted the entire story. A few junior scholars, being too far from Fang Yun, hadn't seen exactly what he did, so Li Wenying asked Fang Yun.

Fang Yun truthfully told him how he had seen his classmate being eaten alive by the demon turtle and, influenced by the Five Layers of Loyalty and Blood, wrote the poem in anger and sorrow.

After listening, Li Wenying said, "Your strong soldier poem and 'Stone Arrow' are of great significance. Let's keep it under wraps for two months. Then I will petition a Half-Saint to find a way to conceal it. Once you become a Jinshi, we will clear your name. Otherwise, the demon and barbarian races will spare no effort to kill you. Especially 'Stone Arrow,' with its great power and long range, if multiple junior scholars use it together, they can kill ordinary demon generals, which could change the dynamics among the three races!"

"Is it really that significant?" Fang Yun asked.

The junior general explained, "At the Hanlin level, everyone writes their own battle poems. Except for a few immortal battle poems with great power, most people still use their own, as the original treasure light of the author remains, and over time, a poetic soul treasure light can be cultivated. Junior scholars and junior generals have the fewest immortal battle poems. Now with 'Stone Arrow,' the demon race's main force is no longer a threat! In at most two years, once most junior scholars have learned 'Stone Arrow,' it will be a time of great prosperity for our human race!"

Li Wenying nodded and said, "The significance of 'Stone Arrow' far exceeds your imagination. Once you become a Hanlin, you will understand and naturally receive the rewards you deserve. But your current literary rank is too low, so it would be useless for you to go now."

Everyone present guessed it had something to do with the Holy Lands and couldn't help but be envious.

"Since you have consumed a pseudo-dragon pearl and are below the Hanlin level, you might be able to enter the Dragon Ascension Platform. I will try to find a way to get you in. For others, going there is courting death, but for you, it might bring great gains. If a human takes the treasures inside, I wonder how the dragon princes and demon and barbarian saints will react." Li Wenying laughed as he spoke.

Everyone was even more envious. Even the Four Great Scholars of the human race found it difficult to enter the Dragon Ascension Platform, which was very mysterious. Once the demons and barbarians emerged from the Dragon Ascension Platform, their strength would greatly increase.

At this moment, County Magistrate He, who had gone down the mountain, returned and reported that he had buried An Chengcai and the demon snake but had not found the defiled text of a Great Scholar, which would need to be searched for later.

Li Wenying ordered everyone to set up camp and wait for reinforcements to transport the bodies of the soldiers back.

After giving the orders, Li Wenying folded his hands behind his back and looked at the distant, wide Yangtze River, asking, "Including the townspeople and soldiers of Lujia Town, how many people died today due to the demon race?"

"Nearly five hundred."

"I will kill fifty thousand demons." Li Wenying said, and clouds formed under his feet, carrying him to the sky above the Yangtze River.

The Yangtze River here was extremely wide, nearly a hundred miles across, making Li Wenying look very small in the sky.

Everyone could vaguely see Li Wenying writing on a piece of paper, and then a huge amount of river water was lifted into the sky by an invisible force, creating a large hole in the river for dozens of miles around.

A large amount of river water flew into the air, looking like a vast piece of green jade from a distance, and then suddenly fell, crashing down.

The river water slowed halfway down and then transformed into countless water swords, rapidly shooting into the river, covering hundreds of miles of the Yangtze River, lasting for over a hundred breaths before the water swords disappeared.

Subsequently, the river was covered with the bodies of demons, turning the water red.

Many people present were seeing Li Wenying's full power for the first time, and they were dumbfounded. Indeed, one poem could destroy ten thousand demons, showing his formidable strength, no wonder his status in the Holy Academy was much higher than that of the Left Chancellor.

Fang Yun asked in a low voice, "Is it true that Lord Scholar has a reputation of 'You kill one of mine, I kill a hundred of yours'?"

The junior general replied with great admiration, "Of course it's true. Since Lord Scholar became a University Scholar and took charge of Jiangzhou, he has been tallying the number of people killed by the demon race and the number of demons we kill each year. If the number of demons we kill is less than a hundred times the number of people killed, he will personally go to the sea, the Yangtze River, and the Wild Demon Mountains to kill demons until the number reaches a hundred times, before returning home for the New Year."

"In recent years, the number of people killed by the demon race in Jiangzhou has been decreasing, and there have been no incidents of over a thousand demons killing people. At most, demon generals lead a few hundred small demons. Some clever demon soldiers don't kill people when they surround human villages; they just leave if they get enough meat."

"Lord Scholar is the pillar of the human race. Some people have different opinions about the demon and barbarian races, but Lord Scholar says that demons and barbarians are like wolves that can never be tamed. Only by making them fear us and forcing them to seek peace can we talk about other things. Otherwise, it would be a disaster for the country and a sin against the human race. The longer we serve and the more demons we kill, the more we believe in Lord Scholar's correctness."

Everyone looked at the Yangtze River, which was now calm, with blood covering a hundred miles and tens of thousands of bodies floating, but no demon king or great demon dared to come out.

Li Wenying returned on the clouds and casually threw the ancient sword of talent to the top of the mountain.

Li Wenying said, "To protect Fang Yun, once we return to Dayuan Prefecture, all junior scholars and above must go to the Holy Temple to swear an oath. All students and below must be quarantined! The quarantine compensation will be doubled! Once Fang Yun becomes a Jinshi, you can be released from quarantine."

The soldiers and students were both worried and happy. They were worried about how many years they might be quarantined, but happy because the benefits of quarantine were great. They could bring their families, and both they and their children would receive free education, with countless free books to read, and all their living expenses would be covered. They would also receive a salary during quarantine, and if the quarantine was too long, they could be promoted upon release, and some might even receive the lowest rank of nobility.

Most people were happy, as getting more money without risking their lives was a good thing for anyone.

Li Wenying gave some more instructions before leaving.

"With Lord Scholar's ancient sword of talent here, we will be safe tonight. Continue to wait for the reinforcements."

After cleaning up the battlefield, everyone lit a bonfire and camped around it.

The night was quiet, with no birds or insects chirping within dozens of miles, which was very eerie.

Once most people were asleep, Fang Yun, under the pretext of needing to relieve himself, came to a nearby forest and took out the cloth bag given to him by An Chengcai.

Opening the cloth bag, he found a layer of strange skin, cold to the touch, tough yet delicate. With his Night Vision, Fang Yun examined it carefully and found it to be very similar to the skin of a dragon.

Fang Yun gently opened the skin, revealing a yellowed piece of paper stuck to the dragon skin. The words on the paper were not black but a vivid and eerie blood red, as if made entirely of fresh blood, and seemed to be slowly flowing, ready to drip at any moment.

The blood-red words emitted a strong aura, but it was masked by the dragon skin.

"In the Taiyuan period of the Jin Dynasty, a man from Wuling made his living by fishing. One day, he followed a stream, forgetting how far he had traveled. Suddenly, he came upon a peach blossom forest, stretching for hundreds of steps on both banks, with no other trees, and the grass was fragrant and the flowers were in full bloom. The fisherman found this very strange. He continued forward, wanting to reach the end of the forest. At the end of the forest, he found a mountain with a small opening, through which a faint light could be seen. He left his boat and entered the opening. At first, it was very narrow, barely wide enough for a person. After walking a few dozen steps, the space suddenly opened up."

The page ended here, with the bottom edge unusually neat, as if cut by a sharp blade.

Fang Yun recognized the first sentence as Tao Yuanming's famous work, "The Peach Blossom Spring."

On Earth, Tao Yuanming was just a scholar who refused to bow for a meager salary, but in the Holy Yuan Continent, Tao Yuanming was not only a famous poet but also an expert in the classics. Due to his personality, he could not become a Saint for a long time, but he finally achieved his Saint path by writing "The Peach Blossom Spring" and entered the Demon Realm alone, making great contributions to the human race, thus becoming a Saint.

"It is said that after Tao Yuanming became a Saint, he was determined to create a 'Peach Blossom Spring,' as it was his vow when he became a Saint. Unfortunately, no one knew whether he succeeded before his death. It is believed that the Holy Academy and his descendants are convinced that he did create it and are still searching for it."

"This 'Peach Blossom Spring' was written by Tao Yuanming when he was a Great Scholar, and even this fragment is only a quarter of the original. However, it is the foundation of his Saint path, so it can only be defiled by the blood of a Demon Saint. Unfortunately, 'The Peach Blossom Spring' is just the preface to 'The Peach Blossom Poem,' which was only half-written before Tao Yuanming became a Saint and completed it later. The two texts combined are likely the complete Saint text, with extraordinary power."

"I forgot to mention this to Lord Jianmei, and now that he's gone, I don't trust anyone else with it. Never mind, once we return to Dayuan Prefecture, the Holy Temple will naturally sense it, and I won't have to worry. Tomorrow is the first day of the fifth month, and the new issue of 'The Saint Path' will be published. I must buy it and read it."

Fang Yun was about to close the dragon skin when something unexpected happened!