I am a swordsman in a strange city

Chapter 72 The Cave, The Assessment
Pei Clan's Demon-Slaying Sword Hall is now an urban village. If it weren't for the fact that this area has a strong ancient style and commemorative value, it would have been demolished long ago. Even now, the relevant authorities are still discussing whether to demolish and rebuild it.

But whatever the discussion above, that's all for the future.

Many people, though they have nothing to do with you or your life, determine your life and your personal future.

……

At that moment, Pei Ju sensed that someone was watching him through the crack in the door.

He didn't dig the other person out immediately; he came here just to take a look. His gaze swept around the courtyard.

The yard was overgrown with weeds, and the grape trellis next to it was full of dead branches. The leaves on the branches were also infested with insects and diseases, and the leaves were not healthy. The well under the grape trellis was still there, but grass had grown over the well opening.

The scene of being hung on this grape trellis and beaten after a fight that year is still vivid in my mind. In the blink of an eye, it has all become the past, just a memory.

The Sword Hall has two floors. The first floor is locked and difficult to enter. There seems to be something spying on you from behind. Pei Ju leaped up and grabbed the edge of the second-floor balcony. With a strong push, he flipped himself up and landed on the second-floor balcony.

He first looked around the second floor and found that nothing had changed. It was like an abandoned house, covered in dust, and all the household items were still there. He saw his room, with a jujube wood sword hanging on the wall, and the pillows and blankets on the bed were still there, crumpled into a ball.

Someone may have moved it; there was a box under the bed. He pulled it out and opened it, and inside were his books, which had obviously been rummaged through and then put back.

There's nothing special about it; it's just that he couldn't bear to throw away or sell his own textbooks from his school days.

After closing and returning the clothes, I opened the cabinet again. Inside hung his old clothes, one by one, some folded, some hanging, some crumpled up and out of shape. Looking at the old clothes, memories of the past inevitably surfaced in my mind. These memories were like a clear spring flowing over rocks, or like the wind passing through a pine forest, causing the pine needles to sway, or blowing a few withered pine needles to fall to the ground.

Just then, Pei Ju turned around, and a person peeping at the door quickly shrank back.

He frowned slightly, turned around, and realized that something had been spying on him. He hadn't wanted to pay attention to it at first, but now he wanted to see what it was.

The person he just saw when he turned around gave him a sense of familiarity, a strange kind of familiarity, as if he had seen them before but didn't know who they were.

So, wanting to see clearly what it was, he went down the stairs to the sword hall below. The furnishings were messy and not what he remembered.
He realized that his grandfather must have been able to enter that temple world through some kind of arrangement.

He didn't know the specifics, so he wandered among the furniture, found the switch, and discovered that the light could still be turned on. He searched for the person, but no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find him. Finally, he looked at the octagonal table, but there was nothing on it anymore; the shrine was gone.

He searched inside the house, all the way to the small hut, but found nothing. He was puzzled. He was certain that someone had been watching him; with his keen senses, he could tell there was a gaze. But now he couldn't find it.

Looking around, he couldn't find it and there was nothing he could do, so he could only go back to his current place to sleep.

He had a deep longing and attachment to this house, and getting it back from the relevant authorities would not be easy. Obtaining professional certification would allow him to make contributions, but this was not the path he wanted to take. So he stayed home and slept instead of going. In the end, Chen Sheng took him to the Lotus Theater to perform in a play.

He went back home, sat on the balcony, felt the breeze, stared blankly at the sky, and watched the children playing in the neighborhood below.

What he didn't know was that photos and videos of him were spreading rapidly online.

Soon, the topic of the "masked man" from the Lotus Theater spread in various groups, or the "flute player".

Pei Ju suddenly attracted a lot of attention. If it were anyone else, they would definitely be starting to verify their identity on social media at this time. But he just sat at home, not even looking at his phone or reading the news. He just slept and rested, or sat on the balcony watching the children playing downstairs.

……

In a dark bungalow, this house was somewhat different from other people's homes.

The room's floor wasn't leveled with cement. If you looked closely, you'd see that the cement had been removed, revealing the soil underneath. This soil had numerous pits, like a rabbit being kept in a cage. The pits were deep and mysterious.

There was a short man sleeping in a nearby cave. In the darkness, he suddenly heard a voice calling to him. The voice entered his dream directly, and he immediately woke up.

Her surname is Xu, and her given name is Xu Binling. She came to Haishi from the county town to work, but by chance she came into contact with the cave culture and became fascinated with it. She joined a group and, through the introduction of the group members, rented a cheap house.

The person who introduced the house to him had only one request: to dig holes in the house.

This would be an unreasonable request for others, but for Xu Binling, it was something that made her happy.

Growing up in the countryside, she loved exploring hidden caves and grottoes. But as she grew up, she had to stop doing many of those things and keep her strange hobbies to herself.

Now someone actually asked her to dig a hole and even paid her a salary, so she started digging a hole in her house and built herself a nice cave.

Around the cave where she slept, she dug three more holes and deepened them every day, not caring that they were covered in dust and dirt.

She slept in the cave until one day, while she was in the cave, she heard some magical sounds.

For example, she heard information about hell and about reincarnation.

Other things, such as whose elderly person is dying, whose woman is having an affair, whose husband is cheating on her, whose child is not his biological child, and so on, all these secrets appear in her dreams when she is sleeping in the cave.

This kept her entertained until one day, she heard some news.

"The true master of Pei's Demon-Slaying Sword Hall has finally returned. That imposter has gone into hiding. One of the club's field agents has died. We don't know who killed him. His team members suspect it was the swordsman, but we can be sure it wasn't one of the officials from Hai City. The club's manager has instructed all staff to be careful about their personal safety when going out on field missions."

All the news Xu Binling had heard before was far removed from her own life, but what she heard today was very close to her, because she passed by the Pei Clan's Sword Hall of Demon Slaying every day. She had heard that this sword hall used to be quite famous in the area, until something happened to it, and so the sword hall was abandoned.

If it were just that kind of information, it wouldn't be so bad. But while she was sleeping in the cave, she heard a voice telling her to write a note, throw it into one of the caves at midnight, and then go back to her own cave to sleep.

The note contained a question: "Who killed Jie Guolong in Jingtai Lane?"

That night, while she was sleeping in the cave, she heard a faint voice calling a name.

“Pei Ju, Pei Ju, it’s Pei Ju.”

She didn't know who Pei Ju was, nor did she know what secret she had overheard.

So her life went on. She didn't want to go out during the day and stayed in her cave. But she was human and had to eat, so she would occasionally go out to eat something. She would only go out to eat after dusk, like a rabbit going out when it was getting dark, and then she would come back and go back to her cave to sleep.

Pei Ju was also sleeping. It wasn't that he liked sleeping, but rather that he felt there was nothing else to do besides sleep. He found many things boring and didn't want to do them, lacking any interest. He sat on the balcony, half asleep and half awake, when he suddenly heard someone calling his name.

Then he felt himself floating up, like a wisp of smoke, detaching from his body and drifting with the wind, completely beyond his control.

"Pei Ju, you killed people from my Underground Club, did you ever think this day would come?"

Pei Ju's thoughts were somewhat unclear, as if he were drunk, and he couldn't help but ask, "What underground club? I've never heard of it."

Pei Ju felt as if he had been taken to a dark and mysterious cave. The cave was dark and mysterious, with no idea how many holes it contained or what was inside. However, a voice came from the depths of the cave.

"Hmph, you don't know about the Underground Club, you deserve what you have today. Today I'll show you what it means to be ignorant and die anonymously."

"Death? What death?" Pei Ju's hazy consciousness seemed to clear up at this moment.

"If you want me to die, take my sword first."

Then, a sword light seemed to appear in the void.

In Pei Ju's room, a scream rang out. Pei Ju, who was lying on the balcony, woke up. He got up and looked back at the room. The room was dark and empty, but to him, it looked like a cave.

He got up, turned on the light, and the room was lit up, but there was nothing there.

He poured himself a glass of water, thinking about the unknown person he had killed in that alley.

"The Crypt Club?"

He came out with a glass of water, and the lights were already on in the next room.

Chen Sheng had returned. She appeared on the balcony and saw Pei Ju sitting there. She immediately said, "Pei Ju, do you know? You've become famous online."

Pei Ju turned his head and shook it.

"Oh, I know you don't care, but there will definitely be more people coming to see tomorrow's performance."

As she expected, the second performance attracted even more people, and the theater was almost full, with many people coming specifically to see his final solo performance on the xiao (a type of Chinese flute).

Many people want to get to know him, but he always leaves right after his performance.

However, while others couldn't contact him, some people were able to.

Jin Fengyue suddenly called him and said, "Pei Ju, there's a professional certification event next week. Do you want to participate?"

Pei Ju didn't hesitate. He didn't take the initiative to go, but he knew in his heart that it would be best to get it verified.

So he replied, "Okay, Uncle Jin, where is it?"

"I'll send you the address later. I've already registered you. As long as you participate in the certification, you'll get credit and have a chance to win at the fencing arena."

After hanging up the phone, Jin Fengyue sat there, with a woman making tea for him next to him. She said, "The Pei family has only been around for twenty years, and now they have a child left all alone, without any adults. It must be really tough."

"Yes, I still remember the time when Pei Xu brought his lover and I brought you, the four of us eating and drinking by the roadside. Time really flies, and things have changed."

"Nothing is more cruel than time; none of us can resist it."

"So many people are pursuing longevity and searching for a spirit world where time does not flow, which shows that this spirit world must exist."

"That's them. You're just a small-time captain. There are so many big shots above you. That's what they're after."

Jin Fengyue sighed and remained silent. As the captain of the Detective Division, although he was not among the upper echelons, he knew many secrets and that many people in the upper echelons were searching for that higher-dimensional spirit world.

I hope to enter some spiritual realm and gain a long life.

The reason for this idea is that, according to legend, some senior figures have already been imprisoned.

Pei Ju looked at the information on his phone and noted the time in his mind.

Time flies, and the day of professional certification arrived in the blink of an eye. He found the place, took out his ID, and entered. He noticed that the people who came for certification were all very young.

His appearance drew the attention of everyone else who came for certification, and he even heard a child say, "Wow, he's so old, and he hasn't passed the test yet?"

"Don't say things like that," the other person's mother quickly stopped her.

Pei Ju discovered that it was actually a Level 1 Swordsman qualification certificate.

He couldn't help but approach a staff member and ask if he could directly obtain certification as a swordsman.

After asking, it was confirmed that it was not possible.

So, under the watchful eyes of many young men and women, he obediently went back to the queue.

He heard the boy's mother say, "You have to study hard and take the exam seriously. Look at him, if you don't practice properly, you'll end up like him, still taking exams even at this age."

The boy kept glancing at Pei Ju, while his father said, "Sigh, don't say such things. Be careful that someone doesn't overhear. He's just old, but the blood in his heart is still hot. That's the heart of a swordsman, and it's rare."

Pei Ju sat there listening without moving, while he watched the young men and women doing their pre-exam practice. Then he noticed that the sword technique they were practicing was no longer the seventh set of assessment sword techniques.

But he didn't study it.

(End of this chapter)