Decaying World

Chapter 98, Idea 098

Huang Shan's voice was as straightforward as ever, but at this moment, it sounded like a demonic voice to Qiu Yiren.

"Yiren, are you shy?" Huang Shan's loudspeaker blared again.

Qiu Yiren's body began to tremble.
She never imagined her friend's voice would be so annoying!
Lin Hui, sitting in his seat, watched this scene speechlessly, realizing that Qiu Yiren was indeed distracted and hadn't heard his question. He had no choice but to speak again and repeat himself.

"Tell me, where do you usually go to get a talisman in Amamiya?"

"Yes, we're going to the outskirts of the Rain Palace. There are many warehouses there that specialize in distributing jade talismans; we usually call them talisman warehouses. Individuals have their own talisman request points, while organizations have more needs and need to contact different people. Generally, if the demand is more than ten talismans, a small handling fee has to be paid. It's about one hundred coins."

Qiu Yiren snapped out of her daze and quickly answered.

"Isn't there anything else to do?"

“No, this rule has been in place for many years. It’s only occasionally changed because the location of the talisman warehouse has changed, but otherwise it has remained the same,” Qiu Yiren said quickly.

"Understood." Lin Hui nodded. "In the outer city, have there been any cases of accidents caused by the jade talisman malfunctioning?"

"No, or rather, even if the jade talisman has become ineffective, we have no way of knowing. Because outsiders cannot determine whether the jade talisman was damaged first, causing the mist to infiltrate, or whether it automatically became ineffective before the mist infiltrated." Qiu Yiren understood the meaning behind the question and immediately became solemn.

"However, doesn't the abbot have someone in the Rain Palace? Asking him directly would be much more reliable than what we hear in the outer city, right?" Huang Shan asked doubtfully from the side.

"That's enough. You can go back and rest." Lin Hui nodded.

"Yes!" The two women quickly retreated, and as soon as they left the room, they began to chase and fight each other. Qiu Yiren's voice, filled with shame and indignation, drifted from afar and soon disappeared.

Lin Hui slowly stood up, strolled over to the wall in the council hall with the mural hanging on it. This empty council hall was usually used for receiving guests.

He noticed that many times when receiving guests, they liked to stand here with their hands behind their backs and look at the murals.

I initially thought they were all knowledgeable about painting, until he himself stood here.

They realized it wasn't that they understood painting, but rather that the hall was empty and there was nothing there, so they couldn't find anything to do except for this ordinary landscape painting hanging there. With nothing else to do, they would unconsciously come over to wander around and take a look.

'Looking at it this way, perhaps we can do something with this painting. If I want to plot against someone, I can use this painting as a pretext and do it without anyone knowing.'

Unconsciously, Lin Hui's thoughts drifted back to causing trouble and killing people.

He touched the edge of the mural.

There was a square red seal there: Hermit of Distant Mountains.

"Drawn by Song Zhanlong?" Lin Hui remembered seeing a note left by Song Zhanlong in the martial arts manuals that had been confiscated. The name he gave himself was Yuanshan Jushi (Hermit of Distant Mountains).

Touching the mural's texture, which resembled fabric, Lin Hui couldn't help but recall his previous battle with Song Zhanlong.

He left the council chamber and returned to his study.

Lin Hui picked up a paper calendar from the table, intending to check the time.

This was a gift from someone who didn't know any better during the celebration. It was made in the inner city, with exquisite materials, and each page had a different colorful painting of a beautiful woman. I guess the person who gave it to him thought Lin Hui was fond of women, so they just catered to his tastes.

Little did I know that he was just making an excuse to ask for medicine.

"Speaking of which, how does Tu Yue calculate days using the calendar she's always used?"

Because he had never paid attention to these things before, Lin Hui recalled that he seemed to have never seen adults talk about these things from childhood to adulthood. It was as if the calendar on the wall would be marked off every day and replaced with a new one when it was used up.

He didn't know who made the calendar.

If it were the old Lin Hui, he might not have been curious about these things, but after awakening his memories of his previous life, he was indeed curious about how the calendar was calculated in this place.

"The calendar system of the previous life was based on the solar calendar, hence the abbreviation 'Gregorian calendar.' Here, even in the inner city, where the sun is practically invisible due to complete fog isolation creating a fog-free zone, the sun is still not clearly visible. So how did they determine the calendar?"

Lin Hui glanced at the small print on the back of the calendar.

'Supervised by the Yin-Yang Decree, April 4th, 3788.'

Lin Hui flipped the calendar over again. He had never used this before and didn't even know what year, month, or day it was.

"Someone come here!" he called out immediately.

"Master, I'm here."

Ding Ning quickly got up outside the door and gently knocked.

When he returned home recently, his father saw that he, as the abbot, had no one to take care of him, so he sent Ding Ning, his personal maid, to serve him in his daily life.

"Ding Ning, do you know what year, month, and day it is today?" Lin Hui asked.

"It was June 15, 1989." Ding Ning clearly remembered the date very clearly for some reason.

Lin Hui glanced at the calendar.

"June 15, 3789?"

"Yes, Master."

"Alright, go and rest. You don't need to keep guarding anymore."

"Yes, I'll rest in the next room. Young master, you can call me anytime if you need anything," Ding Ning said quickly.

"Understood." Lin Hui felt that this place was quite troublesome because there was no one to take care of the surroundings, and he even had to go to the kitchen to boil hot water himself.

The outer city was basically the same as in ancient China. Lighting relied mainly on oil lamps and candles, and transportation relied mainly on oxcarts, horse-drawn carriages, and human labor. Communication was limited to letters, and if it weren't for my suggestion to my father to set up a joint supermarket, I would have had to run around to buy all sorts of things, which was very inconvenient.

'Once I go to the inner city this time to investigate whether the jade talisman has any hidden dangers, I'll come back and improve our lives.'

Perhaps we'll move to the inner city in the future, but for now, we'll be living in the outer city for many more years.

Therefore, Lin Hui felt that he should first improve his own comfort.

I put down the calendar and went back to my room to rest. The next morning, the fog had just lifted.

He then changed into a plain white robe without any patterns and tied it with a matching white cloth belt.

“People in the inner city like white. If you don’t want to stand out, try to wear white as much as possible when you enter the city. It just so happens that our Qingfeng Temple’s main attire is also white.” Ding Ning quickly got into character and now considers himself a member of the Qingfeng Temple.

She combed Lin Hui's long hair, tied it into a bun, and put a sky-blue python-skin hairpin on it. She also helped him wash his face and tidied his cuffs, collar, and buttons.

"Speaking of which, besides robes and skirts, what other clothes do people usually wear?" Lin Hui asked casually.

"It's mainly silk and leather clothing. The rich wear expensive furs, while the poor mostly wear rat or pig skins. I've heard that some nobles in the inner city even wear furs from the Fog Zone," Ding Ning replied.

"What about the color?"

"The colors aren't anything special, they have all sorts. I've also heard that some people in the inner city only wear a few pieces of cloth with a veil over them when they go out. I wonder if that's true? Young master, could you help verify it when you go into the city?" Ding Ning asked cautiously.

“I’ve been there. Some people do that; it depends on personal preference,” Lin Hui replied.

He put on a pair of white leather ankle boots made of some unknown material and then took a new longsword.

This is a valuable longsword that someone gave to Lin Hui at the last celebration. Since his Qinghe Sword is broken now, he took it out of the storeroom to use temporarily.

The longsword's scabbard was jet black, and the end of the hilt was engraved with two small characters, "Yun Song," like a seal.

Clearly, this sword, like the Qinghe Sword, originated from the Yunsong Pavilion in the inner city.

A sword costs at least 100,000.

Lin Hui picked it up and swung it around, but it didn't feel quite right. After all, he was used to the Qinghe Sword, and he was extremely familiar with its length, style, and many other details. With a new sword in his hands, he had to readjust, which also affected his strength to some extent.

But for now, I have no choice but to make do.

'Since I'm not short of money right now, I might as well go to Yun Song Pavilion and see if I can spend a fortune to get a good enough sword.'

After getting ready, he pushed open the door and looked up at the sky outside the glass corridor.

After a short delay, the fog dissipated considerably.

"time to go."

laugh!
The next second, he disappeared from the spot.

Traveling on the highway is a very strange feeling.

You need to be fully focused and always be careful not to bump into people or things.

Therefore, when moving at high speeds, Lin Hui prefers to take open routes; otherwise, at such high speeds, many places that are wide for most people are even narrower for him.

The faster the speed, the less time he has to react.

Emerging from the corridor, he leaped directly onto the roof.

With a light tap of his toes on the black-tiled roof of Qingfeng Temple, he dashed out like an arrow.

Just as Lin Hui was about to leap more than five meters into the air, a thought suddenly struck him.

He circulated his internal energy, and a large amount of air surged around his body.

These air currents blew downwards, significantly reducing his downward momentum.

With a clang, Lin Hui drew his sword and unleashed the Gale Sword Technique. Surprisingly, he didn't land; instead, he lifted three meters off the ground and hurtled forward.

It floated for dozens of meters, leaving the Black Dragon Headquarters of Qingfeng Temple, before lightly touching the street.

He leaped up again and did the same thing, rushing more than 30 meters at high speed.

This cycle repeats almost like low-altitude gliding.

In less than half a minute, the huge arched gate leading to and from the inner city appeared before Lin Hui.

We've arrived at the South Ninth Gate.

Lin Hui touched the permits in his waist pouch. These were bulk permits obtained through Wang Yueheng's connections with the Wang family. Given the current cooperation between Qingfeng Temple and the Wang family, Wang Yueheng had given them over a hundred during her last visit, which were stored in Qingfeng Temple's warehouse for disciples to use when entering and leaving the inner city.

The South Gate 9 remains unchanged, with the inscription above it made of black crystal.

However, on the right side of the entrance, there were several irregular small pits on the ground, which looked like they were left by a fight.

People were constantly coming and going through the small gate below the main gate. Lin Hui landed and followed a red carriage into the city gate.

The horses pulling the carriage did not seem to be ordinary breeds. They were at least two sizes larger than ordinary horses, standing more than three meters tall, with strong muscles, dark red fur, and bloodshot eyes, suggesting a rather irritable temperament.

After passing through the South Ninth Gate, the cliff on the inner side reappeared before Lin Hui's eyes.

He gazed once more from the cliff face at the vast expanse of inner-city buildings in the distance below.

The sky was still shrouded in mist, but the mist seemed to be blocked by some force, held at a very high position.

The entire inner city was like a huge, hollow cavity.

This time, Lin Hui planned to come without a guide, just wander around for a bit before taking care of his business.

With his speed and agility, he dashed off in one direction to gauge the size of the area. He had twenty permits on him, enough to easily counteract the inner city's radiation. If he could see the legendary thousand-story Moon Tower, that would be even better.
'Use the licenses freely, is this what it feels like to have connections?'

He turned around and walked toward the cliffside driveway.

"It feels pretty good."

(End of this chapter)