My apprentice is a little weird?

Jiang Yan is no longer at the age of being shy.

Since he already knew about it and was really attracted to it, he would not deliberately try to stop it.

Unity of knowledge and action, if you think about it, then do it.

Jiang Yan's mind moved slightly, and the Dao rhyme of the mind and matter being one with the world quietly flowed.

His will flowed like mercury on the ground, silently merging into the wooden chair beneath him, into the floor beneath his feet, and into the wooden beams of the entire teahouse.

In an instant, this building in the eyes of mortals became an extension of his thoughts.

Attach a trace of your own thoughts to it, and then transmit it back along the ubiquitous network of emotions that has been laid throughout the territory of Dalan.

As for where it was delivered to? Jiang Yan could only say that it was delivered to Shen Ming, but he didn't know where Shen Ming was now.

Since the last raid and minor threat to her, he has been hiding deeper.

It is unknown whether he is planning something or is afraid that his cultivation level will increase greatly and he will take revenge on him later.

Anyway, next time we meet, he will definitely settle the score. This cultivation level has improved, it's different!

……

At the same time, far outside the territory of Dalan, tens of thousands of miles away.

In a secluded mountain, thousands of peach trees are in full bloom, and the fallen petals are as colorful as clouds and rosy clouds.

Deep in the peach forest, a stunning girl was leaning against a gnarled old peach tree. Her posture was lazy, and her eyes were moving with a hint of boredom and charm.

It was Shen Ming.

Suddenly, her delicate body trembled violently, and her lazy and leisurely expression froze in an instant, turning into extreme astonishment.

The next moment, a sickly blush quickly climbed up her snow-white cheeks, spreading from her ears to her neck.

She stretched out her hand in a daze and gently touched her heart, feeling the breath and thoughts that belonged to that person alone and came across thousands of mountains and rivers.

"Master..."

She whispered foolishly, the confusion and obsession in her eyes almost overflowing, her voice trembling and crying.

"Master...you miss Ming'er too...you really miss Ming'er..."

She suddenly hugged her arms tightly, buried her face in her knees, and shrugged her shoulders violently. She let out a suppressed, discordant laugh, which sounded like crying and laughing, like a madman or a demon.

After a long time, she slowly raised her head.

That breathtakingly beautiful face was already crisscrossed with tear marks, but the corners of her mouth were curved in a morbid and satisfied arc.

She extended the tip of her pink tongue and gently licked the corner of her dry lips. The obsession in her eyes had turned into a burning heat that burned everything.

"Master... Shen Ming misses you too... so much... so much... so much..."

"wait for me……"

"Ming'er will come to find you soon..."

……

Jiang Yan and Ling Yu set off again, heading towards the Dallan Imperial Capital.

The scenes they saw along the way made the atmosphere even heavier.

On the official road, there are no longer merchants and travelers coming and going, but an endless stream of people.

Countless people, dragging their families and carrying simple bags, were forced to leave the villages and mountains where they had lived for generations and migrate towards the major provincial capitals under the indifferent drive of the black-armored soldiers.

The teams stretched out endlessly, like long gray dragons, wriggling across the land of the dynasty.

There was not much resistance on the faces of the people, but more of a curiosity, uneasiness and obedience, mixed with confusion and worry about the future.

The entire Dallan Dynasty was shrouded in a strange and oppressive atmosphere.

Yin Li clenched her fists the entire time and said nothing, but a faint flame seemed to be burning in her empty eyes.

Ling Yu looked at this scene and understood something but couldn't believe it, his lips trembling slightly.

She turned to look at Jiang Yan, her voice trembling, "Senior... that emperor... what exactly is he going to do? This... how is this different from a sacrifice?"

Jiang Yan's eyes swept calmly across the numb faces, and his voice was calm.

"He's not trying to kill them."

He paused and said something that made Ling Yu feel cold all over.

"But to take away something more precious than life."

What that thing was, Ling Yu knew after understanding what "spirituality" was.

Half a day later, the group arrived at Jingming Mansion somewhat slowly.

The scene before him made Ling Yu even more horrified.

The city is bustling with traffic, people are walking on the streets as usual, shop assistants are soliciting customers, and the hawkers' cries are heard one after another. It seems to be a prosperous city.

But if you look closely, you will find it extremely weird.

Everyone's expression was exactly the same.

It was an expression that held a hint of a smile, yet was utterly hollow. Whether it was customers buying things or vendors selling things, soldiers patrolling the streets, or women chatting by the door, they all wore this expression.

Their movements were stiff and rigid, like puppets controlled by countless invisible strings, repeating set actions over and over again.

This is a prosperous dead city.

Ling Yu was horrified and then filled with anger: "Beast!"

Jiang Yan explained: "They are no different from the group of soldiers outside Qinglan Gate."

"The difference is that even after they lost their spirituality, someone still implanted a 'code of conduct' in them, like a programmed puppet."

The voice just fell.

A scholar in blue official uniform appeared silently in front of them and blocked their way.

He had a thin face, with an expression of inextricable melancholy, his eyes were dull, and he was muttering to himself, as if he was humming a sad poem.

With his appearance, countless invisible threads seemed to spread in the air around him, weaving a maze of memories that enveloped the entire city, making people unconsciously fall into the worries of the past.

"Worry", one of the seven emotions monsters, is the host of the Worry-wrapped Mist Spider.

The scholar bowed solemnly towards Jiang Yan, his voice calm but with a tone that implied that no one could refuse.

"Your Majesty invites you. Please follow me."

Jiang Yan did not refuse and followed the scholar, passing through the silent yet bustling streets, and finally arrived outside the imperial city.

He raised his head.

In the sight, one can see a blood-red light curtain that stretches from sky to earth, like an inverted giant bowl covering the entire imperial capital.

Above the light curtain, countless mysterious runes flowed endlessly like blood-red stars, and the unimaginably majestic karma of the dynasty and the iron-blooded murderous aura intertwined and rose in it, forming a peerless formation that was powerful enough to suppress high-level cultivators.

Jiang Yan raised his own "momentum", and the world in his eyes suddenly changed.

He could clearly see that the foundation of this great formation was not just this capital city.

Countless blood-colored veins invisible to the naked eye extended from the bottom of the formation, spreading like a spider web to all directions of the entire Dalan Dynasty, connecting with every provincial capital and every gathering place of the people who were forced to migrate.

That emperor actually used the entire dynasty's capital as the base of the formation and all living beings as sacrifices to set up this shocking situation!

Jiang Yan led Ling Yu into the imperial city, with Yin Li following closely behind.

As she got closer to the majestic imperial palace, her already pale face lost even more color, and her body began to tremble slightly.

That was not fear, but a kind of rejection and repression that came from blood and soul.

Jiang Yan noticed her abnormality, but did not turn around. Instead, a warm and peaceful aura of Tao emanated from him, silently enveloping Yin Li and relieving the invisible pressure on her.

Yin Li's trembling body finally calmed down a little.

Jiang Yan's gaze fell on the blood-red light curtain that enveloped the entire imperial capital. He then turned to look at Ling Yu beside him and asked casually:

"Does this imperial city's formation look familiar to you?"

Hearing this, Ling Yu forced himself to suppress the anger that was boiling in his heart because of those numb faces, and looked intently.

At first glance, she felt it was majestic and vast, with a murderous aura. However, when she carefully distinguished the blood-colored runes flowing on the light curtain and the strange aura that was fueled by living beings, a sense of familiarity arose spontaneously.

Under the underground palace of Qinglan Sect, Li Muran sat on the throne of bones. Countless lines of blood spread out from the bodies of his imprisoned fellow disciples and merged into his body... The shrill howls, the desperate expressions, and the excruciating pain of having his soul crushed seemed to transcend time and space and descend again at this moment!

Ling Yu's face turned pale in an instant, and his breathing stagnated.

"Qinglan Sect...the blood sacrifice formation in the underground palace!"

Her voice trembled and her eyes were full of horror.

"This... this is so similar! No, this is basically the same formation principle, just... it's just magnified thousands of times!"

Jiang Yan smiled, agreeing with her inference.

"Qinglan Gate is most likely a testing ground."

"As for the content of the experiment... perhaps it's related to the 'Desire-Barrier Heavenly Root', or perhaps it's something else."

He spoke calmly, but what he said shocked Ling Yu.

"It's that emperor!" Ling Yu blurted out without thinking, with rage burning in his eyes.

"It was him! He must have set up the testing ground! In order to control the Heavenly Root, he actually...acted so cruelly!"

Jiang Yan looked at her indignant expression, but his face once again showed that strange smile that Ling Yu couldn't understand.

"Do not."

"It doesn't have to be him."

"The emperor is not the only one who can modify other people's cognition and distort their minds."

Ling Yu was completely stunned.

In her understanding, who else could be capable of such unpredictable means, except for the mysterious emperor who controlled the seven emotions? And she only knew of this person from Jiang Yan, who else could it be?

But Jiang Yan kept silent and just led her to the depths of the silent palace.

……

Inside the Qianyu Palace, there are carved beams and painted buildings, and it is magnificent and golden, but there is a coldness that penetrates deep into the bones.

Emperor Dalán sat high on the dragon throne, his aura connected with the entire formation, majestic and solemn, like a god.

The melancholy civil servant who led the way quietly retreated. In the huge hall, only Jiang Yan and the other two were left, along with the lonely man sitting on the throne.

The emperor's gaze passed over Jiang Yan and fell on the huddled figure behind him. A rare look that could be called kind crossed his majestic face.

"Yin Li, I'm glad to see that you're okay."

His voice was gentle, but it made Yin Li hide deeper behind Jiang Yan. Her small hands tightly grasped the corner of Jiang Yan's clothes, and she didn't look at him at all.

The emperor's gaze then shifted to Jiang Yan, and his eyes instantly became solemn.

"Your cultivation level... I can no longer see through it."

He spoke slowly, with a hint of regret in his voice.

"Have you already... Never mind, never mind."

"I don't want to be your enemy. To be honest, there's no unsolvable hatred between us. If you insist on taking Yin Li away, I'll let you go and never bother you again."

"I can even return Yin Li's mother Zhiwei, everyone in the Qin family, and your two junior sisters to you intact."

The emperor's eyes seemed extremely real. Every time he said a name, a corresponding figure would appear in the void beside him.

The imprisoned Li Qiao'er and Qin Xiangling's eyes lit up with excitement and hope the moment they saw Jiang Yan, but they were restrained by invisible forces and could not speak.

As soon as Qin Menglin appeared, he stared blankly at Luo Zhiwei, who was standing beside him with empty eyes and looked like a doll. The light in his eyes dimmed little by little, leaving only endless sadness.

"Look, do I still have a chance?"

The emperor spread out his hands and lowered his posture very low.

Jiang Yan narrowed his eyes slightly, feeling only amused.

Are you playing the game of retreat with me and manipulating people's hearts? Sorry, this is all left over from my tricks.

His mind moved slightly, and the Dao rhyme of the unity of mind and matter spread out like water waves.

In an instant, this majestic and cold palace underwent earth-shaking changes in the emperor's suddenly contracted pupils.

The carved beams and painted buildings turned into lush bamboo forests, the ground paved with golden bricks became a gurgling stream, and above the dome, flowers, birds, fish and butterflies appeared out of thin air, creating a natural and harmonious scene.

The dragon throne under the emperor also turned into a plain bamboo chair.

He was in this world created by Jiang Yan's will. His expression changed again and again, but he finally suppressed the shock in his heart and spoke silently:

"Fellow Daoist, what do you mean? You must know that if you and I fight here, the consequences... will not be something that a mere Jinglan Territory can bear."

As soon as he finished speaking, pale red, almost invisible threads emerged from Li Qiaoer, Qin Xiangling, Qin Menglin and others, connecting to the void and the jade pendant on his chest that was full of cracks.

The threat is self-evident.

Jiang Yan acted as if he didn't see anything and sat down slowly on a blue stone by the stream. Seeing this, Ling Yu hurried forward and filled the teacup that he had conjured up out of thin air with tea.

Jiang Yan blew away the hot steam from the tea and spoke leisurely:

"No, I also don't want to fight with you. After all, the conditions you offer are so generous. Besides, I'm not a heartless person. I can't just ignore the lives of my junior sisters."

Upon hearing this, the emperor's tense expression finally showed a hint of relaxation, and where he couldn't see, the corners of his mouth curled up slightly.

However, the next moment, Jiang Yan suddenly changed the subject.

"But there's someone I want back."

"As soon as this person comes back, I will take everyone away and leave immediately. I will not stay here for even a moment longer."

The emperor's heart suddenly jumped, and he had an ominous premonition, but he still held on to the last glimmer of hope and asked in a deep voice: "Who else do you want?"

Jiang Yan put down the teacup, raised his eyes, glanced at the emperor sitting on the bamboo throne with an indifferent look, and gently uttered two words.

"Pillow book."

Time seems to have stopped at this moment.

A terrifying atmosphere so thick that it could freeze space instantly enveloped the entire bamboo forest.

The disguise of kindness on the emperor's face faded away at this moment, leaving only the icy indifference and murderous intent that penetrated his bones.

He stared at Jiang Yan intently.

"why?"

His voice was hoarse, with a hint of suppressed madness.

"Can't you change someone else?"

Jiang Yan didn't answer, but just looked back at him quietly, his eyes calm and without any waves.

It was unknown how long this strange confrontation lasted, but in the end, it was broken by the emperor's long sigh.

He raised his head and leaned back on the bamboo chair, his whole body revealing the reluctance and desolation of a hero at the end of his life.

"I've been planning for years, working for this my whole life, and it seemed like success was just around the corner, but then... someone like you suddenly appeared to disrupt things..."

The emperor sighed and looked at the puppet-like Luo Zhiwei with complicated eyes. He raised his hand as if he wanted to touch her face, but stopped halfway.

Then he waved again.

Another figure appeared out of nowhere, it was Zhenshu!

Her eyes were as lively as those of Li Qiaoer and others, filled with fear, and her whole body was trembling uncontrollably.

The emperor looked at the pillow book with the same loving eyes, but deep in those eyes, there was an unbreakable cruelty and coldness.

"My daughter, you hid yourself so well."

"Even I was deceived by you back then."