Chapter 1 The sweltering weather was hot and stuffy, but the air conditioning inside the room made it bearable.

With the sound of keyboard clicks, file after file was pulled up.

These files all recorded cases involving evil spirits. They had one thing in common: the cases began when a child or young person bought an antique from an old man. Zhu Hongmiao put these files into a table.

Then, through these files, he deduced several possible locations of the target.

Although Shenzhou is vast, and the ancients even left behind the狂言 (kuang yan, wild words) that the sky is high and the sea is wide, there is nowhere one cannot go.

But there is also this saying.

He caressed the police badge.

The net of heaven is vast, its mesh wide, yet nothing escapes.

He put down the hat with the police badge, changed into plain clothes, and set off with his colleagues.

…………………

The target's activities were basically near the most prosperous schools.

Zhu Hongmiao and his colleagues searched constantly. Finally, at six o'clock, the youngest of them found the target. The other colleagues couldn't see the target at all. This was consistent with the records of those evil spirit cases, where surveillance footage showed nothing.

"Don't alert the enemy. I'll go attract attention first. You surround the area to prevent ordinary people from coming in."

Zhu Hongmiao had just graduated and still had a surge of hot-blooded courage.

He loaded his gun and then checked his backup talismans.

Then he strode over.

The sky was already twilight, and the color of the sunset glow was a bit like dull blood. The weather was getting cooler. The closer Zhu Hongmiao got, the more nervous he felt. But when he saw several children gathered in front of the stall, the young policeman, who had graduated less than two years ago, straightened his expression and hurried over, shouting:

"What are you doing? You're not going home after school? Aren't you afraid of running into danger outside?"

"Or do you not have homework today?"

The children, who had been engrossed, snapped back to reality at his shout.

Zhu Hongmiao added the final blow, saying:

"Can you afford anything here with your little money?"

"Wouldn't it be better to buy some ice cream and snacks with that pocket money?"

"Besides, what are you doing here instead of going home? Have you finished your homework? Have you memorized your English vocabulary? Have you done well on your tests?"

The children were stunned, then scattered in a burst.

The hunched old man couldn't help but pause.

This is the generational ultimate skill.

The policeman's mouth curved up, and he squatted down, blocking the old man's view of the children, and said with a smile, "These little brats, still wandering around outside so late, aren't they afraid of their families getting worried? They can't afford anything here anyway, they're just messing up your business."

"I'm quite interested in your stuff here."

"How about it, boss, can you introduce me to some?"

Zhu Hongmiao stared at the things on the stall, seeing some ancient books, a bell, and a bronze disc with inscriptions and a *taotie* (饕餮) pattern. He smiled on his face, planning to stall for time so that his colleagues could surround the old man and take him down.

The old man glanced at him with his cloudy eyes and slowly said, "There is indeed something suitable for the guest."

He took out a geisha doll with black hair, a hair ornament on its head, and wearing a jūnihitoe kimono. Its expression was solemn, and he said:

"Please take a look."

Zhu Hongmiao looked at the geisha doll and felt a daze for a moment, but he didn't pay attention to it.

His left hand silently sent a message to his colleagues to surround them, while his right hand was already on the gun handle.

After silently counting seven numbers in his mind.

Zhu Hongmiao suddenly drew his gun and pointed it at the old man in front of him. With a wary expression, he said, "Police, hands up!" Almost at the same time, special combat personnel who had initially completed the popularization of extraordinary cultivation appeared, surrounding the old man, their weapons ready to fire at any time.

Among them were colleagues from the Taoist sect who had already activated talismans.

Zhu Hongmiao breathed a sigh of relief.

He had finally caught this slippery guy who had been doing evil for many years. He stared at him warily, planning to swarm him and take the old man down, but the old man just slowly puffed on his water pipe, as if he was the one surrounding the police officers, full of calm arrogance.

His eyes were cloudy, and the white smoke from the water pipe rose slowly.

Zhu Hongmiao gritted his teeth. This kind of dangerous person must not be allowed to escape. In the current situation, he would just shoot, aiming at the other party's thigh. With one shot, the old man was unharmed. Zhu Hongmiao was stunned. The white smoke from the water pipe rose slowly, like smoke and mist, making him feel dazed.

When he came to his senses, he found that he was still squatting, and his hand had not yet reached the gun handle.

The sunset slowly dimmed, the evening glow was like blood, the weather was sultry and real, and the cicadas chirped listlessly.

He hurriedly looked up. He found that the other colleagues within sight were stiff, as if trapped in a nightmare. Zhu Hongmiao felt a tingling sensation on his back and subconsciously lowered his head, just in time to see the exquisite and dignified geisha doll. He saw her smiling slightly, her long hair falling down to her waist, wearing a jūnihitoe kimono, looking at him.

Zhu Hongmiao had the illusion that even though he was in a high position, the other party was looking at him with a condescending attitude.

Then, he lost control of his body.

Zhu Hongmiao's heart turned cold.

What is this… a demon? Or a spirit?

The old man tapped his water pipe and said leisurely, "You've found me again. It seems I can't stay here anymore. It seems Shenzhou has started to popularize cultivation. This time the speed is much faster than before. Unfortunately, I can't kill you, otherwise it will really cause big trouble…"

He respectfully said to the geisha doll:

"Lord God, please erase their memories."

Erase their memories?

Zhu Hongmiao was stunned, and then anger rose.

He finally knew why the other party was able to walk around at will without being noticed. The other party's caution was one thing. On the other hand, the popularization of stable cultivation methods in the military and police was also a recent development. The older generation before could only rely on experience in solving cases and relentless tenacity, spending a lot of time checking bit by bit to find the other party.

Then have their memories of this period erased.

This was almost a dimensionality reduction strike, contemptuous and arrogant.

Moreover, gods…

So it was a god. No wonder they could do such a large-scale control-type illusion. No wonder they could control memories. Zhu Hongmiao was both enlightened and unwilling. He gritted his teeth, glaring at the rising white light and the silk threads pouring into his orifices, hoping to at least remember the word "gods" so that he could have some clues later.

Just at this moment.

Ding-dong, ding-dong.

The crisp sound of a bell rang.

Another person appeared in this alley.

The old man paused, even the white light stagnated for a moment, and Zhu Hongmiao was able to turn his pupils and look to the side.

A blue shared bicycle slowly rode in.

Then it stopped in front of the stall.

It was an ordinary person.

……………………

The young man in the light-colored shirt got off the bike. To avoid exceeding the free single-use time of the monthly pass, he locked the shared bike first.

He smiled politely at Zhu Hongmiao next to him before squatting down.

Zhu Hongmiao stared at him with wide eyes, anxiously trying to signal, hoping that the other party would notice the unusual atmosphere here and leave quickly. After all, he had an identity, and the other party only dared to mess with his memory, but for this ordinary person, there might not be so many scruples.

But this young man obviously didn't understand his gaze.

He turned his head and smiled politely at the boss, saying, "I'm just looking around, old man."

Zhu Hongmiao was anxious, but he also realized that there was a god here, as well as an old man of unknown depth. It might be too late for an ordinary person to leave now. For a moment, he felt powerless and annoyed. The young man reached out and flipped through the bronze disc on the stall, his fingers sweeping across the *taotie* pattern.

At this moment.

The white silk emitted by the geisha doll had already spread out like a spider web, passing through the air and spreading to Zhu Hongmiao's brow. But at this moment, the young man reached out and held the bronze disc in his hand, smiling, "I've decided, I want this bronze disc, and this…"

The young man reached out and directly blocked the many silk threads.

He pointed to the geisha doll and said, "I also want this thing."

Thing?

Zhu Hongmiao was stunned. Sure enough, a trace of anger overflowed from the old man's eyes, but he was still able to restrain himself.

However, he didn't expect that this young man would actually show off his knowledge, saying casually to Zhu Hongmiao:

"Did you know that the jūnihitoe is considered the most solemn dress in Fusang? Noble women and priests often wear it during ceremonies. Actually, another name for it is *itsutsuginu karaginu* (五衣唐衣), which is improved from *shōzoku karaginu* (裳唐衣). Just from the name, you can tell that it was made by imitating Tang Dynasty ceremonial dress. I just didn't expect it to be worn until now."

"And they even changed the name."

Hearing the casualness in his tone, the old man finally became angry. The white silk threads emitted from the geisha doll entered the young man's palm. The old man chanted in a low voice, "Life is fifty years, a dream, an illusion, all are dream bubbles…"

The divinity on the geisha doll specializes in illusions, dream bubbles, and uses memories and the past as restraints. It considers itself to be the first-class illusion. Wei Yuan smiled and looked down at the geisha doll, allowing the strands of divinity to overflow into the surface of his true spirit.

The core is protected by the imperial decree he wrote earlier.

The old man was indifferent, and Zhu Hongmiao was unwilling, but in everyone's sight, the white silk threads suddenly stiffened and stagnated, as if frozen. Wei Yuan slightly lowered his eyes, and the memories of the past, like the rapids deep in the water, were stirred up again. The divinity on the geisha doll saw the scene that Wei Yuan deliberately showed at this moment.

That was the Fusang tree.

The young warrior looked at the giant tree growing on the earth, which was the collection of the divinity of an archipelago.

Beside him, the man known as the number one *fangshi* (方士, Taoist alchemist) in Shenzhou said:

"To forge the elixir of immortality, one must use the immortal as the material."

So the young man slowly drew the Qin war sword from his back. In the storm, thunder, and howling waves, the sword in his hand pointed forward. The rain washed the sword, and the iron eagle on the hilt flapped its wings, shuttling through the wind and thunder. One by one, Qin warriors in black armor rushed onto the land.

Divinity is extremely powerful.

But it cannot be more powerful than the Six Kingdoms.

The divinity of a mere overseas archipelago.

It cannot be stronger than the romantic Chu, the unparalleled archery of Zhao, or the brave Wei.

And these countries all fell under the Qin war sword.

Finally, they paid considerable effort and cost, and finally cut off this original divinity. When the huge divine tree was cut down under the Qin war sword, the sound was like thunder in the sky, rumbling across the earth and the sky, but in the ears of the Qin warriors, this was just another enemy, another defeat, another wail.

From the result, there was no difference.

Who the enemy is is the least important thing.

This didn't even make their expressions change.

Just like when cutting down trees, there will inevitably be sawdust flying out. Scattered fragments of divinity fled in panic, because they had to avoid one by one Qin warriors, they fled in all directions, and even dared not gather again.

The Qin warriors sought to collect those slightly larger divinities to ensure the maximum effect of refining the elixir.

So they had to flee in a hurry, no matter what was in front of them, they rushed in with one breath, and combined with those mortal things, exhausted their spirituality, and lost their original nobility, so as to avoid being wiped out.

Therefore, the divinity that should have gathered naturally was completely scattered into a mess, and there was no possibility of re-aggregation. A slightly larger point of divinity ran far away, flew past the leading youth, blood and injuries made his face pale, but black hair tied with a red cloth strip, danced in the wind.

The divinity saw his cold and narrow eyes, like a drawn blade, indifferently sweeping over itself.

Then, his five fingers opened, grabbing towards himself.

At this time, the sunset glow in the sky suddenly dimmed, and then the street lights lit up, illuminating the memory.

Those eyes, like a soaring eagle striking down the sky, then became softer. The original black armor suddenly collapsed, turning into a light-colored shirt, and the boots turned into sneakers. Only those eyes and the jade pendant on his waist did not change.

The divinity trembled slightly.

The young man looked at it, the corner of his mouth slightly hooked.

Just like the nightmare of that year, like the barbaric battlefield that only existed in mythology, reappeared.

That was the last glorious era of the Age of Gods. The Qin warriors of the Great Qin sang the Qin wind, covering the Six Kingdoms, and the distant Rome conquered the entire Sicily. The gods gradually dissipated in history. The young warrior of the Great Qin's Black Ice Terrace held a sword and came with majesty.

In this modern twenty-first century, the young man with slightly longer, fluffy, and messy short hair, with a hint of sunshine on the ends of his hair, smiled and stretched out his hand, his five fingers slightly open, reaching towards the geisha doll, the coldness in his eyes being exactly the same as that year.

The action of reaching out appeared simultaneously in reality and in the nightmare that the divinity could not forget.

The ancient warrior, the modern youth, the actions of the two were the same, one real and one virtual, gradually overlapping, and finally merging into one.

"Long time no see…"

He smiled and said:

"Ah, let me ask a question for now."

"Do you think I'm dead?"