I am a swordsman in a strange city

Chapter 66 Discharged from the hospital, returning to Xijiang
Huang Chang was trained by his father from a young age and practiced martial arts.

He joined the workforce at the age of thirteen, becoming a "Flame Warrior" just like his father.

Both the Flame Warrior and the Swordsman belong to the Warrior class. However, the Flame Warrior is a modified version of the original class. In the Dragon Republic, it was originally called the Boxer. Like the Swordsman, the Boxer is easy to learn and seems to have a high ceiling, but it requires a great deal of talent to reach. Most people who enter this class can only stay at the low level.

In ancient times, boxers and swordsmen were indistinguishable, as those who carried swords also practiced boxing, and those who practiced boxing also carried swords or other weapons.

It wasn't until frequent global exchanges and the sharing of occupational characteristics and onboarding methods from different regions that many professions began to take on new life. In particular, an old and not very powerful profession was revitalized after incorporating new elements.

For example, this [Flame Warrior] can not only fight in close combat, but also create flames with his fists and palms.

However, the Flame Warrior is a reconstructed class that incorporates the professional ideas of Western fire sorcerers, but its core driving force is the Ming Jin, An Jin, and Hua Jin of the Dragon Rising Republic.

If one can unleash hidden force, one can directly punch the fire energy into another's body, burning their internal organs. It is also extremely harmful to ghosts and monsters.

Upon reaching the Transformation Realm, one can unleash fiery fist energy that incinerates those struck, making it incredibly terrifying.

Huang Di is someone who is about to step into the realm of Transformation Realm in just one step.

Huang Chang, the son of Huang Di, has now reached the peak of Ming Jin. When he practices his fists, flames burn on his fists.

However, he couldn't enter dreams, so he asked a friend for help.

The friend who can enter dreams is named Zu Qianshou. His name sounds very old and gives people the feeling that he is very old, but in fact he is not old at all, only twenty-two years old. He does not work in the Cleansing Bureau or the Police Station. Instead, he works as a junior disciple interpreting dreams in a small temple with his master. He came here only because he has been friends with Huang Chang since childhood.

This time, I came at Huang Chang's invitation to help him enter someone's dream to see if there was any truth about his father's death.

The people in the Cleansing Spirit Bureau had entered Master Pei's dreams before, but in Master Pei's dreams there were only two scenes: one was darkness, and the other was a white light that kept flashing in the darkness.

Some analysts believe that the darkness represents Master Pei's current state; his consciousness has fallen into a state of drowsiness and is no longer active.

The white light was the effect of the mirror-like spell he had been hit by, and it had not faded from his memory.

……

Inside the car, the two were still smoking.

Their purpose here, besides surveillance, is also to provide protection, but they don't enforce it very strictly.

"Yao Yuan, have you heard?" Liu Xin asked.

"What?" Yao Yuan took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled a long puff.

"Nothing?" Liu Xin then fell silent.

"You mean the time someone entered Pei Ju's dream before? Everyone's heard about it, it's not a secret anymore," Yao Yuan said.

“Everyone says his dream is terrifying, but I don’t know if it’s true,” Liu Xin said.

"I heard that someone entered his dream. It was a dark night with the Big Dipper shining down. However, after gazing at those stars, he felt a sense of terror approaching him and was so frightened that he had to retreat. After leaving the dream, he felt a chill in his body and mind." Yao Yuan slowly told him what he knew.

"In other words, there are stars protecting his dream," Liu Xin said excitedly. He had heard that this was true, but it was not something that could be discussed publicly.

"The key question is, what does this star represent? It's said that many astronomers want to go and see it."

"Tell me, who left those stars behind? The Big Dipper, or rather, the nine stars, isn't anything special. How could they possibly protect the dream?"

"I suppose Zu Qianshou didn't come here to enter my dream just to see the Big Dipper."

"should be."

……

Zu Qianshou naturally wanted to see the Big Dipper constellation, but upon entering, he immediately saw a temple.

There was a fire in the temple, and people were sitting around the fire.

The man looked tired and weak.

The two people slowly approached each other.

They had heard of the Pei family's temple, but had never had the chance to enter. However, the relevant authorities had information about the Pei family's temple, and his master had also told him about it.

So when they entered, they immediately recognized that this must be the Pei family temple.

Zu Qianshou frowned slightly. He didn't rush in with Huang Chang because he knew that entering someone else's dream was a very dangerous thing. Anything could happen in a dream, and dreams were the most absurd and bizarre things.

He felt terror from the temple and dared not approach it.

He looked up at the sky and said, "What a big sun!"

"The sun?" Huang Chang looked up in surprise. Just as he was about to ask where the sun was, a ray of sunlight shone down from the sky, dispelling the darkness of the area.

Sunlight streamed into the temple.

Disrupting the original dream environment is to change the opponent's dream environment, which is a first move in dream battles.

Zu Qianshou pointed to the temple again and said, "What a huge fire."

Huang Chang looked again and saw that the temple, which was already in the sunlight, had caught fire at some point and quickly grew out of control, turning from a small fire into a raging inferno.

The people inside the temple were still sitting there.

Just then, the person in the dream, who had been listless, seemed to be awakened. He stood up and looked outside. His sharp eyes immediately spotted two people in the darkness.

Without the slightest hesitation, he turned around and leaped out from the broken corner of the temple.

"He's trying to escape." Upon seeing this, Huang Chang immediately ran towards the temple, determined to catch the man.

His running posture was like a tiger moving through the forest. He wanted to chase after Pei Ju who had run out of the temple. He leaped into the forest below, but found that the trees in the forest below were unusually tall, and it was actually quite dark inside the forest.

For a moment he was disoriented when a sword flash pierced the darkness, heading straight for his throat.

Caught off guard, Huang Chang pushed off hard with his feet and turned his body to the side. Even in this situation, his first thought was still to counterattack.

He reached out and grabbed at the sword light, instinctively knowing where Pei Ju was in the darkness.

He practiced Iron Palm Eagle Claw Kung Fu, making it easy for him to grab metal and blades. Once he had a grip on the blade, he could smash into his opponent's body. He was confident in his close-combat abilities; a single punch could penetrate the body and reach the heart, causing the power of flames to erupt there. He didn't believe that Pei Ju could withstand it.

He reached out to grab the sword light.

However, his hand was empty. The sword light seemed like an illusion, disappearing from his sight. Startled, he realized that the sword light had suddenly appeared in his blind spot, and by the time he saw it, it was already within his reach.

The sword flashed.

The needle landed between his eyebrows.

Everything went black before his eyes, and he vanished. Zu Qianshou sensed it; he pointed to a grove of trees, and sunlight shone through the leaves, transforming the light into flames that burned fiercely within the forest.

In an instant, flames engulfed the area where Pei Ju was located.

Zu Qianshou was surprised, because in his other dreams, he rarely woke people up. The reason he had just broken the temple with sunlight and flames was because he sensed how terrifying the temple was.

The temple in Pei Ju's dream actually gave him a sense of danger. He dared not enter the temple rashly because he felt that he would be swallowed up if he entered the temple. That's why he wanted to burn the temple with fire.

Just then, a person rushed out of the flames, his whole body engulfed in flames.

The other person was covered in flames, yet he ran across the burning treetops; he was a fire person, but he also possessed an unusual ethereal quality.

Zu Qianshou pointed to the sky, and a giant eagle swooped down from the heavens, pouncing towards Pei Ju. Pei Ju swung his sword, and with a flash of light, the giant eagle was cleaved in two.

Then, Pei Ju suddenly thrust his sword towards him. Although he was still far away, his sword was already in front of him in an instant.

A flash of white light appeared in his eyes, followed by darkness.

……

In the parking lot below the Institute of Abnormal Pathogens, Yao Yuan and Liu Xin were sitting there smoking, not thinking anything serious was going to happen. However, suddenly, they heard a scream.

Someone fell from the third floor, hit a tree, and then fell to the ground. Two people immediately drove over and saw a person lying under the tree.

When they turned on the lights in their hands, they saw clearly that the person was Huang Chang, and in an instant, they were both shocked.

Looking up again, there was still someone standing on the third-floor platform. Just as the two were wondering what to do, the person standing on the third-floor platform suddenly collapsed.

One of them immediately caught it.

"Come on."

Yao Yuan immediately said.

These two people are not ordinary; they cannot die here.

Although Huang Di is dead, there are still members of the Huang family.

Pei Ju also slowly woke up.

He got up, wearing his hospital gown, and walked barefoot to the window. It was quiet outside, with a few lights in the distance.

Everything seemed so quiet.

But he knew very well that beneath the quiet and the lights that symbolized peace, all sorts of events were happening or brewing.

He suddenly woke up from his dream and immediately realized that he was dreaming. He didn't know how he woke up in a dream, but he wasn't really awake.

He stood there all night until dawn, when the sunlight dispelled the darkness and shone upon him.

During this time, a nurse came in, saw Pei Ju, said a few words to him, and then left.

Time passed quickly, and no one bothered him again, nor did anyone enter his dreams.

Only two young men came over and told him that if anyone tried to harm him, he should call the police, and the police would take care of him.

Pei Ju didn't care. He now trusted his sword more and wouldn't believe or care about anyone's promises.

A month later, Grandpa woke up, but he needed to use a wheelchair, his speech was no longer fluent, and he was listless.

However, the doctor named He Hong said that he could be discharged because he had done all he could, and there was no point in staying in the hospital any longer. Pei Ju understood what he meant, and combined with what Su Yunchen had said earlier, he knew that his grandfather's health was being taken seriously.

So, he took his grandfather out of the hospital.

After being discharged from the hospital, he did not return to his original residence, but to a new house that was given to him as compensation. The environment was completely new, and the neighbors were completely new. No one knew them except for a tall young man who was always taking a walk in the neighborhood with an elderly woman in a wheelchair.

Pei Ju was unable to continue his schooling because he had to take care of his grandfather.

My normal life was suddenly thrown into chaos.

Originally, someone from the relevant department came to him, saying that they could take Fourth Master in and take care of him, but because Pei Ju was afraid that someone might harm his grandfather's health, and he didn't want to entrust his grandfather to someone else's care, he took care of him himself.

His entire social life and lifestyle seemed to have been disconnected from the previous fifteen years.

The world suddenly seemed to have become lonely.

"Take me back to Xijiang to find your maternal grandfather," Master Pei said with difficulty.

So Pei Ju bought train tickets and took his grandfather south.

After two days, we finally arrived at a small county town in Xijiang.

He went to find him by address, but his grandfather lived in a Taoist temple in the mountains, which didn't have a telephone, so he couldn't notify him beforehand.

So he could only go to the address, but as soon as he stepped out of the train station, he saw someone.

The female Taoist priest I briefly saw in the spiritual realm of the temple.

The female Taoist priest was very tall and had very fair skin, but what was most striking about her were her eyes.

She had a pair of phoenix eyes that looked very arrogant, and coupled with the fact that she was now wearing a Taoist robe, she had an air of indifference towards all living beings.

However, the moment Pei Ju saw her, he suddenly felt an urge to cry.

He doesn't like to cry, but there are always times when he feels like crying.

He had heard someone say that only people with rich emotions are prone to crying.

He disliked being like himself; he wanted to be a calm, ruthless, and aloof swordsman.

The female Taoist priest stepped forward and said calmly to Pei Ju, "Junior brother, you've finally arrived. Master has been waiting for you for a long time."

Before Pei Ju could speak, the female Taoist priest said again, "Don't worry, no one here can touch you."

"What, Junior Brother, a grown man like you, actually cries?" the female Taoist teased.

Pei Ju wanted to laugh, but his laugh was ugly.

“My master said that people who cry are not weak, but only because their emotions are more abundant. Only by being extreme in sex can one be extreme in swordsmanship. He said that you are actually a born swordsman. I saw it in my dream that day, and I also think so.”

Pei Ju rarely heard anyone praise him. His grandfather rarely praised him, and other people only saw his mischievousness, his restlessness, and his constant fighting.

(End of this chapter)