Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, but Thunderbolt Taoist Sect

Chapter 121 The Change of the Mural

Deep in the mountains, Juan Shoutian still couldn't find the enemy. After dark, the shadow disappeared into the darkness, and it seemed that the other party had planned to run into the mountains.

He followed the enemy's trail into the mountains, but instead of finding the enemy, he discovered two teenagers being chased by a tiger. He decisively rescued them.

It's already dark, why are there still children in the mountains?

"Where do you live? I'll take you home."

Juan Shoutian looked at the two children carefully. They were ordinary people. The slightly older one was carrying an axe. When Juan Shoutian came over, the younger one's clothes were being held by a tiger, and the older one was about to chop the tiger's head with the axe.

Given the boy's size and strength, he didn't know if the tiger would be injured by this axe blow. He only knew that if the axe completely enraged the tiger, neither of the two boys would be able to escape.

“Our...our home is at the foot of the mountain.”

The two children looked at their savior. They knew there were tigers in the mountains, but tigers usually didn't come out and stayed deep in the mountains. They shouldn't have encountered tigers where they were playing today.

They were supposed to leave; they had played a bit tonight. But then, something unexpected happened. The tiger started running down the mountain. Just as the two children were about to be killed by the tiger, they saw a dazzling golden light, and then this golden-haired person led them away from the tiger.

I've only ever heard adults talk about tigers in the mountains; I've never heard of gods or immortals.

"I will escort you out of the mountains."

Juan Shoutian glanced at the bloodstains on the ground. His sword strike was not aimed at the tiger. The sword energy grazed the tiger's side and slashed backward. The tiger bled quite a bit, but it was not seriously injured. It has now run back to a deeper part of the forest.

Before he made his move, the tiger had fresh wounds on its body, and the specks of blood on the ground indicated where it had come from; it was clear that the tiger had been provoked and had run away.

Whoever provoked the tiger, Juan Shoutian had the right to suspect a certain inhuman, ghostly figure who could only appear in shadow form. During his and Yuan Wuxiang's pursuit, the other party had done this kind of thing quite often, deliberately dragging those around them into the mess.

Releasing the tiger back into the mountains will allow us to see if there's someone in the mountains trying to drive it away.

Thinking that Yuanwu Township was near the foot of the mountain, Juan Shoutian led the two children there. What they saw was a place of broken walls and ruins, like a wasteland.

Beside a relatively intact but still drafty building, he saw Yuan Wuxiang standing with a man he had never seen before. Next to them was a wall covered with murals. The murals were strange; most of the images had faded, but one area was exceptionally bright, as if it had just been painted.

Torches had been set up all around, illuminating the area very brightly. Judging from the clothes and appearance of the man next to him, he should also be from the town below the mountain.

"This is... a child from the Zhang family?"

Upon meeting Juan Shoutian, the painter Bai did not show much emotion. Having seen Meng Danqing before and Yuan Wuxiang after, he was somewhat immune to such eccentric artists with this style of painting. Moreover, Yuan Wuxiang had already introduced him to a lot before Juan Shoutian arrived.

Aside from involuntarily marveling at how dazzling the person was upon seeing him in person, the White Painter didn't think of anything else, because he saw the two children that Juan Shoutian was with.

Thanks to the ample lighting around him, he was able to see the two children's faces clearly. To his surprise, he recognized both children and their parents.

"What time is it? Why are you two still outside the city? Hey, what's with this blood?!"

Upon seeing that they were the children of an acquaintance, the painter Bai quickly stepped forward to check on the two children, one big and one small, and found that there was blood on their clothes. Could they have been injured?

"The children are alright, this is tiger blood."

The two children were quite frightened. Juan Shoutian answered the painter's question on their behalf: the tiger had come out injured and attacked people, and then he added another sword strike, so it was inevitable that the two children would get blood on them.

"tiger……"

Upon hearing this, the painter recalled the tiger's roar that sounded like a cry of pain he had just heard. So it was this one who had injured the tiger... Wait, did these two naughty kids provoke the tiger?!

"What's wrong with you two? Going out in the mountains to provoke a tiger in the middle of the night? Uncle Zhang's stick can't handle you anymore?"

"Friend, what is this mural?"

While the painter was disciplining the two children, Juan Shoutian approached Yuan Wuxiang and inquired about the mysterious mural. The fact that Yuan Wuxiang was deliberately standing there, with another mural right next to him that was clearly no ordinary object, suggested there must be a reason for it.

"Meng Danqing is inside the mural, but his current situation is still unclear."

"Is Meng Danqing inside?"

Upon hearing this, Juan Shoutian frowned; this matter was indeed not simple.

The two escorted the painter and his two children back to the city. They originally planned to wait outside the city until the next day, but the painter invited them to his home. He said that his family was in business, his father had gone out to do business, and he was the only one in charge of the house. They didn't need to worry about anything else once they moved in.

The reason for leaving the person behind was that the painter wanted to make it easier to study the murals. Meng Danqing had disappeared because the murals were missing, and Meng Danqing was, after all, his savior. He couldn't just stand by and watch.

“I have a friend who is also a painter, the most famous one in town. Why don’t we invite him over to study that mural?”

The painter said it, and he actually did it. The next morning, he ran out and dragged his colleague home with him.

Before entering the house, this friend was reluctant because, in his opinion, the painter was clearly obsessed with restoring the mural. There are too many stories about paintings becoming sentient in the painting industry, and countless colleagues use this kind of gimmick for marketing. He seriously suspected that his friend was hallucinating from being frightened by the tiger.

Therefore, as the two pulled each other into the door, they were also arguing and bickering.

"Let go! I haven't finished painting yet! Old Bai, wake up! Those murals have been abandoned for years. If there were something magical, would they have been left to dry outside the city until now?"

The person being pulled by the white-clad painter appeared to be older, with a more mature face, but the way he was pulling on the painter revealed a touch of childishness.

"You're not starting to give up on yourself because of gossip that your family has something to do with a female ghost, are you?"

"What does this have to do with it?"

Although the painter looked thin, he was surprisingly strong. He dragged the man into his courtyard, where Shuangxiu was watching this little farce unfold.

"And you're talking about me! Old Wu, all you do is draw Lü Dongbin, draw Lü Dongbin all day long. Your room is full of Lü Dongbin portraits. Compared to each other, who looks more like they've gone mad?"

“What do you know? This is my devotion to Lü Zu. Ask around in this city, who can paint Lü Zu as lifelike as I can? This is much better than you, who's never home and just likes to search for paintings in ruins.”

"What do you know? As the saying goes, 'Read ten thousand books and travel ten thousand miles.' Do you know how many masterpieces by famous teachers throughout history have been buried in ruins due to war and natural disasters? I am just following in the footsteps of my predecessors and learning from their treasures!"

After arguing for a long time, the two were really evenly matched. In any case, their daily behavior was quite different from that of normal artists, and they both had their own unique characteristics, which explains why they became friends.

The argument between the two friends continued until they entered the house and saw Shuangxiu, which stopped for an unexpected reason. After entering the house, the painter surnamed Wu was clearly startled by Shuangxiu's appearance. Just as the painter was about to introduce her to his friend, he turned around and found that his friend was gone. Upon closer inspection, he saw that his friend had rushed to Juan Shoutian's side.

Painter Wu was excited and sincere. He pleaded with Juan Shoutian in every way possible, and all his words boiled down to one sentence: he hoped that Juan Shoutian would be his model.

The whole process was baffling. Not only did the painter think his friend was acting strangely, but Juan Shoutian, the person involved, also found it strange. Had he done something outrageous to attract the other party's attention? It seemed like they were just having a normal cup of tea. Why did they suddenly want him to be their model?

Juan Shoutian couldn't quite understand, so he turned to Yuan Wuxiang for help. Yuan Wuxiang naturally picked up his teacup and watched the show.

"That's great news, my friend. It means that this artist also recognizes your talent and elegance at Peking University."

While drinking tea, Yuan Wuxiang asked why Juan Shoutian wanted to be a model after just one look. He was also very curious.

"What does this gentleman want Juan Shoutian to help him paint?"

"Naturally, it is Lü Dongbin, the ancestor of the Lü clan!"

"Pfft, cough cough, cough..."

The painter Wu answered with great excitement and decisiveness, while Yuan Wuxiang, who was drinking tea, was almost single-handedly killed by the tea in his hand.

From the argument the two were having when they entered the room, it seems that this painter Wu really likes to paint portraits of Lü Dongbin. So, did he suddenly ask Juan Shoutian to be his model because he thinks he looks like Lü Dongbin?

"What's wrong with you?"

"It's nothing, I just choked a little. Your idea is very good."

Should we commend this painter Wu for his keen eye? Juan Shou Tian is indeed related to Lü Dongbin, not in terms of his identity as a Daoist, but in terms of his appearance.

First, Ren Yunzong was mistaken for Han Xiangzi, and now Juan Shoutian is mistaken for Lü Dongbin. Good, good, good, this is truly a reversal of the Heavenly Gang.

Just then, the painter Bai pulled his friend back and accused him of going astray in his painting. Juan Shoutian helped Yuan Wuxiang, who had been choked by the painting, catch his breath. A streak of light flashed past the window and then shot towards him like an arrow. Juan Shoutian caught it; it was a letter.

"It's a letter from Meng Danqing."

Upon seeing the sender of the letter, Juan Shoutian was somewhat surprised. He then handed the letter to Yuan Wuxiang. When Bai Huashi heard the familiar name, he fell silent and waited patiently for Yuan Wuxiang to finish reading the letter.

"Why are you from the north?"

Juan Shoutian glanced out the window. Meng Danqing was able to send a letter, which meant that she had already come out of the world in the mural. But judging from the direction the letter came from, why was it flying from the north?

Since they entered through the murals, they should have left through the murals as well. It's really strange that Meng Danqing didn't return from the ruins where the murals stood outside the city, but instead sent a letter from the far north.

“This type of mural is not found in one place; Meng Danqing has already separated from other places.”

After reading the letter, Yuan Wuxiang closed it again.

"Meng Danqing didn't encounter any danger, but... the murals and the world inside them might be in danger."

……

"How about it?"

Meng Danqing asked the girl with her hair tied in a spiral bun beside her, but the girl placed her hand on the mural and remained silent.

"...There's nothing here, I can't go back."

This is the Flower Scattering Fairy from the painting who left with Meng Danqing. After waking up, she was told that the mural was being damaged. Although she was afraid of being hunted down, she was also worried about her former companions.

If they hadn't been covering for her all along, she wouldn't have been able to live comfortably after breaking the rules, nor would she have been able to find Meng Danqing in time and escape the world in the painting.

If she needed to go back and inform the people inside, the girl hoped that Meng Danqing could take her with her. She was not only worried about the safety of her companions, but also because having her, a resident of the world in the painting, as a guarantor would make Meng Danqing's words more credible, even though she herself was a criminal.

Because they were unsure of the current situation and there were many limitations in the world within the painting, the group planned to rethink their plans after the girl woke up. Now that she was awake and intended to go back to inform her companions, they wouldn't stop her.

The girl was much more familiar with the world on the other side of the mural than they were, and with her and Meng Danqing going in together, they should be able to avoid some dangers.

But just as they decided to let Meng Danqing and the girl enter the mural again, the mural did not respond. Neither Meng Danqing nor the girl, who was herself a part of the painting, could activate the mural in the temple to reopen the door.

According to the two of them, although the murals in Changqing were well preserved, they contained the least spiritual energy of the three murals. When Meng Danqing and the others came out, they had almost exhausted the spiritual energy in the murals, and now there was very little left.

You can reopen the door and go back in, but definitely not now. Given the murals' own recovery speed, it would probably take months.

"The recovery speed is so slow... Could it be due to a seal in the back mountain?"

The slow speed indicates that there is less spiritual energy here. Ren Yunzong and the others thought of the snake cave in the back mountain. This place could nurture such a large snake demon, so it must have plenty of spiritual energy. It is impossible for the speed to be so slow.

However, on the other hand, the snake demon is currently sealed, and no one knows when it was sealed. A seal that is ancient and of a small scale must have cost a lot to set up. Therefore, it is very likely that the seal on the snake cave in the back mountain takes up most of the spiritual energy, leaving less for other things.

Come to think of it, there really aren't any monsters in this area. When I was asking around, I often heard that there was a highly accomplished monk in Changqing, but I hadn't heard of any monsters causing trouble anywhere.

Wait a minute, the old monk's soul drifted out of Changqing before being resurrected in another body. Could this also be related to this? Because there's too little spiritual energy, there aren't any good corpses that meet the conditions for resurrection... No, I'm getting off-topic.

"Since that's the case, this is the only way."

Ren Pingsheng sighed, Jian Feidao understood, and Meng Danqing looked up while comforting the girl. Since they couldn't enter the murals here, they had to find another "entrance".

For example, the murals in the temples of the capital city are the closest to the world depicted in the paintings, and are currently in the most dangerous situation.

"Let's go to the capital."