Not following the expected path? Reborn and unexpectedly married to a demon.

"I'll tell you after you finish playing," the old man said with a smile.

Chu Luo obediently finished playing.

The old woman asked her to pick up a piano with out-of-tune sound and said, "Try playing it."

Chu Luo gently plucked the strings of the zither; both the strings and the sound of the zither were beautiful.

She couldn't help but ask, "What's going on?"

The old man said, "Those instruments that require manual tuning are instruments with a spirit, and other instruments that have problems because of your pipa playing can naturally be tuned using pipa playing."

Chu Luo suddenly understood. "So, the reason you made me play the sheet music you gave me thirty times a day with my internal energy was to tune it."

"right"

"But there are so many expectations in your town, how can you possibly transfer them all in just thirty days?" Chu Luo still didn't understand.

“Girl, the strings of the zither are like arrow strings; they need to be stretched and relaxed in moderation. They are not always taut. When they are not being played, they are all loosened, so the sound of the stringed instruments is not affected as much.”

The old man's words had a hidden meaning.

“You…” Chu Luo didn’t understand why they were doing this.

When she played the pipa for the last time out of the thirty times, she was surprised to find that her pipa skills had improved significantly and her mastery of the pipa had become even stronger.

He seemed to become one with the pipa, playing it as he pleased.

"Are you helping me improve my pipa skills?" Chu Luo asked in confusion.

"Not just the pipa, try the guqin too," the old man said, pointing to the guqin.

Chu Luo immediately played another piece on the guqin, and it was the same.

"What's going on? I didn't do anything, I just adjusted the pitch."

"And why are you helping me?"

Chu Luo looked at the old man and some people from the half-empty mountain and asked.

"Because you can play a pipa tune that resonates with the ancestral instruments of Bankong Mountain, you must have a connection with our ancestors. We need your help to tune the ancient instruments, and you also need our help to achieve that."

Chu Luo was a little confused. What ancestral origins? What ancient musical instruments?

Her Chu family hadn't produced any notable figures for hundreds of years, as clearly stated in the family genealogy.

"I don't know anything, can you tell me?" Chu Luo was determined to find out.

There may be many secrets and entanglements behind this.

Her ability to play the pipa is related to many things, but there's nothing really connecting them all.

If the news is true, it seems that the old gang leader's decision to have Jin Wuchen marry her was also related to her ability to play the pipa.

Wang Youshi and his group wanted the pipa score to unlock the secrets within it and find their family's secret recipe.

And what they need to uncover is the secret left behind by General Lan and the head of the Jing family.

What about Feng Zhe?

Why are you also looking for someone who can play the pipa?

And why did the old leader of the Canal Gang also want a daughter-in-law who could play the pipa?

There's also the legendary overseas healer Long Yu who said she looks a lot like someone.

Ban Kongshan then said that the tune she played had a connection to their ancestors, which was quite strange.

The old man said, "The piece you played that day has been lost for many years. I've only ever heard my parents play fragments of it."

"Do you know General Lan and the head of the Jing family?"

Chu Luo nodded.

"I guessed right, you can play that piece, so you must know at least a bit about those two people."

"The composer of that piece was General Lan, and it was right here that he composed it. At the time, the general had already completed the first half, but the second half of the piece was never finished."

"Through the introduction of the head of the Jing family, General Lan became friends with our ancestors. When he came here to learn how to make musical instruments in his spare time, he was inspired while wandering around the town and wrote the second half of the score."

“We’ve been making musical instruments here for generations, and many of the master instrument makers come from our area. Naturally, we have a collection of some instruments of great significance, but not everyone here is qualified to play them.”

"Not everyone understands the meaning of rites and music, but General Ke Lan understands it very well, as does Headmaster Jing."

“If a country’s rites and music have collapsed and there are no laws, it is a world of savages. They say that music can also educate the people to understand etiquette and manners, and can also influence people’s hearts.”

"These two were close friends of our ancestors. Back then, Bankong Mountain was at its peak, not only a place for making musical instruments, but also a place for passing down rituals and music."

"But later, after the Lan and Jing families were gone, the Great Zheng Dynasty was in turmoil, except for..."

"Later, General Lan and the head of the Jing family passed away. During this great upheaval, although our area was not directly affected by the war, we were among the first to suffer a major blow."

"The people's spirit must not be influenced by our place, nor by the great Confucian scholars. Any action that can enlighten the people is not allowed."

Chu Luo naturally understood what this meant. Once too many people develop their own thoughts and consciousness, they become less ignorant and more difficult to control.

The reason why General Lan and his group were able to overthrow the tyrannical rule and establish the Great Zheng Dynasty was because the people were well-educated, could distinguish right from wrong, knew good from bad, dared to resist, and knew how to resist.

If the people continue to live like this, then those in power must always remain clear-headed and ensure clean governance.

Otherwise, a slight misstep could lead to a change of dynasty and the rise of the most capable.

Therefore, once an emperor becomes incompetent, his thoughts shift from striving for good governance to figuring out how to make the people even more ignorant and devoid of thought, thus making them easier to enslave.

If anyone manages to wake these people, they must be eliminated.

Shao Sheng and his master belong to the same sect, and the people of Ban Kong Mountain are all people who are feared.

For Half-Sky Mountain to continue to exist, it must give up many things.

Presumably, it was around the time Wang Youshi and the others were stripped of their secret recipe that Bankong Mountain completely lost its ability to spread ritual music.

"Many years ago, in that calamity instigated by those in power, not much remained of Mount Bankong. Important musical scores were completely destroyed, and many of the older generation with certain abilities were also massacred."

“We are just people who have survived, living by passing on the skills of the older generation. We are waiting for an opportunity to revive them, waiting for someone destined to restore those ancient musical instruments that have long lost their pitch.”

Upon hearing this, Chu Luo realized that many of the instruments she had tuned and changed strings for were indeed old instruments.

"Can't you tune those instruments?" Chu Luo didn't understand why it was her; which of these craftsmen didn't know more about musical instruments than she did.

"Musical instruments don't just produce sound because they have strings. Good instruments are a unified whole, and every part is key to producing sound. These instruments only survived because they were silent at the time."

The old man introduced her to someone.

"What methods can be used to make them silent?"

Chu Luo was astonished. Musical instruments aren't people; what else could they do besides break?

Seeing that Chu Luo wanted to know the details, the old man was willing to teach her a thing or two.

"Use melodies to disrupt their original rhythms; even if they are intact, they are mute."

"Is that really possible?" Chu Luo was somewhat skeptical.

It wasn't until the old man handed her a perfectly intact guqin (a traditional Chinese stringed instrument) and let her try playing it.

Chu Luo considered herself to be fairly good at playing the zither.

But no matter how she played the guqin, she couldn't make a sound; it was as if she were mute.

"Is this zither bound to its owner, and can only be played by someone destined to be with it?" Chu Luo asked.