When Nanling Yaohua was very young, her Grandpa told her that ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ guarding Yun Pass was the mission of their Yun Sand Sea lineage.
As long as Yun Pass existed for one day, one of them would eventually find their final resting place in that vast, boundless Gobi Desert.
Her Grandpa also told her that White Shishu and Land Master would not be coming back, so she was the only one left to guard Yun Pass.
The so-called Yun Pass was not the existing Yun Pass ruins, that small earth fort built from ramd earth, covering an area of just over six hundred square ters.
Everyone knew that the Yun Pass recorded in historical records was as famous as Yangguan Pass, with an endless stream of envoys and rchant caravans passing through. That small earth fort certainly could not match the na of a grand pass.
However, Nanling Yaohua knew that the real Yun Pass only appeared when the annual massive sandstorm arrived on the Gobi Desert.
When the strong winds carried tens of thousands of tons of yellow sand into the sky, blurring the boundary between the firmant and the Gobi Desert in the sandstorm, the city walls stretching for several miles would erge in the impenetrable wind and sand.
Accompanied by the sound of decaying war drums resonating, evil spirits clad in decaying armor would charge out from the city, leaving no trace of life in their wake.
Every year at that ti, her Grandpa would disappear for a period, and when he returned, he would be covered in wounds.
From then on, Nanling Yaohua knew that the "Yun Pass" that her Grandpa and her Shishus guarded on the Gobi Desert was, like this fake Hua City, a special space constructed by a high-level urban legend using its Power as a dium, consuming a large amount of Spiritual Energy and Alchemy materials.
Therefore, on the second day Nanling Yaohua arrived in this special space, she saw through what this place was, and then spent a little over a week to regain her self from the fabricated mories.
However, in her understanding, a special space constructed by a high-level urban legend could absolutely not achieve sothing like this fake Hua City, which relies on pulling projections from the real world to create two closely related yet relatively independent individuals.
This was already nearing the realm of creating life.
----
Nanling Yaohua ca to this fake city a little over three months ago.
That day, the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons in Hua City had just ended, and it was Christmas Eve.
Although she didn't particularly like this foreign festival, being bored, she still went out onto the streets to feel the festive atmosphere.
When she was very young, she heard about the existence of Christmas Eve from a group of travelers who crossed the Gobi Desert, and after asking Land Master, she learned about the urban legend legends related to Christmas Eve.
According to legend, every Christmas Eve, an old man wearing a crimson robe with snow-white hair and beard, riding a sleigh pulled by a monster with a face like a horse, horns like a deer, a neck like a cal, and a tail like a donkey, would set off from the perpetually frozen land and begin a hunt across the world.
He would pick out the obedient children, and his eerie figure would enter the children's hos through chimneys or attic windows late at night, leaving them "gifts" made of unknown substances that emitted an ominous aura.
Those ominous "gifts" would be mixed among many normal gifts, waiting for the unfortunate children who were chosen to open them the next morning.
The Black Night Alliance, which is the foreign equivalent of the Night Watch, a special organization that handles urban legend incidents, spends a lot of manpower and resources every year chasing Santa Claus, trying to intercept it in that perpetually frozen land. Sotis they succeed, sotis they fail.
This is sowhat similar to the Nian Beast. Every year, the Night Watch also spends a lot of manpower and resources to deal with the Nian Beast that might appear in any city across the country.
...
Nanling Yaohua asked her Land Master, "What exactly are the ominous gifts?"
Land Master pondered for a mont and replied, "Probably 'Five Years of Practice, Three Years of Mock Exams'."
Nanling Yaohua asked again, "What is 'Five Years of Practice, Three Years of Mock Exams'?"
Land Master beca a little impatient with the question and pointed to the classics and Spell scrolls on the desk that Nanling Old Man made Nanling Yaohua study every day, saying seriously, "Super multiplied howork!"
...
After hearing Land Master tell this urban legend story, the young Nanling Yaohua was so scared that she tucked her little feet into the sheepskin blanket, firmly stated that she didn't want any gifts, and secretly rejoiced that her ho was a cave dwelling with no chimney, and she wasn't an obedient child anyway.
To prove to that ethereal Christmas Eve urban legend that she was not an obedient child, she put an Oriental Sand Python in White Shishu's bed that night.
And then...
She was severely beaten by White Shishu, who had a snake hanging from his backside.
----
On Christmas Eve, it was snowing lightly in Hua City, which was warr than the winter on the Gobi Desert, but the weather was exceptionally cold, and the daylight was as gloomy as dusk.
Although it was a foreign festival, various businesses, in order to make money, spared no effort in using the na of the festival to hold various "discount" events.
Nanling Yaohua ca to the main street, and every corner she walked through made her feel the festive atmosphere.
Upbeat songs drifted through the streets, and almost all shopping malls were decorated with Christmas trees, hung with bells, stars, or colorful lights.
Nanling Yaohua knew about those Christmas trees. Land Master said that it was a custom, similar to driving away the Nian Beast with fireworks and firecrackers, which had the effect of warding off evil.
Putting many gifts under the tree could confuse Santa Claus, making him think he had already left gifts once, so he wouldn't leave any ominous gifts again.
She saw people dressed as Santa Claus giving gifts to children. She couldn't quite understand what kind of twisted sense of humor would make those adults disguise themselves as urban legend on a festival day and run around the streets to scare children.
Two words: Perverts!
Later, she went to a restaurant to try the long-awaited roasted turkey.
The roasted turkey at was dry, and the large pieces of at weren't very flavorful. It was far from as delicious as she had imagined, truly a case of arriving with high hopes and leaving disappointed.
But for so reason, a young couple at the next table, who seed like students, were eating very happily.
Throughout their al, they had sickeningly sweet smiles on their faces, which made Nanling Yaohua montarily think that their turkey was different from hers.
After the young couple left, taking advantage of the interval before the waiter cleared the table, she secretly tasted the more than half-eaten turkey they left behind, only to find that their turkey was just as difficult to eat.
In the restaurant, chewing the dry turkey at, Nanling Yaohua couldn't figure out for a long ti why the young couple could eat sothing even worse than roasted Long-clawed Sand Rats so happily. She just vaguely felt sothing was blocking her chest, making her very uncomfortable.
Evening.
Nanling Yaohua lay on the bed Lu Yibei used to sleep in, staring blankly at the ceiling, carefully recalling her experiences after leaving the Gobi Desert, her heart filled with all sorts of troubles.
The note she left for her Grandpa when she left said she was coming to find Lu Yibei. At first, she did indeed embark on the journey with a young girl's yearning for love.
But in fact, after leaving the Gobi Desert, she hadn't really seriously looked for Lu Yibei.
The outside world had so many more things to do, interesting and attractive things, than the Gobi Desert, which was covered in yellow sand all day long and full of poisonous insects, fierce beasts, and evil spirits.
In the past few months, she had seen many landscapes she had never seen before, t kind people who gave her rides, and also encountered villains controlled by urban legend, hunting people at gas stations in remote areas.
After arriving in Hua City, she only searched for Lu Yibei for less than two weeks before her attention was drawn away by other things.
It was like the elentary school female teacher who was a Psychic she t by chance. They hit it off and beca best friends, and then she spent nearly a month crossing dozens of cities to help her find a student who had been abducted by a urban legend, even breaking up a criminal gang that controlled urban legend to abduct people as a result.
And then, through her best friend's introduction, she ca into contact with the urban legend bounty Website.
From then on, Nanling Yaohua had more and more things to do, and she even forgot why she had left the Gobi Desert.
Until that Christmas Eve, when she returned to the Lu Family Old House, tossing and turning in bed unable to sleep, she unconsciously rembered a day many years ago...
----
Many years ago, when Lu Ming and Bai Kai returned to the dilapidated cave dwelling for the first ti after leaving the Gobi Desert, they instilled in the then less than four-year-old Nanling Yaohua a longing for the outside world.
At that ti, facing her Grandpa's earnest teachings, she didn't understand what a mission was at all. She just looked at her Grandpa with wide, watery eyes and asked eagerly, "Then why doesn't Land Master have to stay on the Gobi Desert to guard?"
"Because he's a rebellious disciple! I'll expel him from the sect tomorrow!"
Nanling Yaohua looked at her Grandpa, who was gnashing his teeth, thought for a while, took her Grandpa's hand, and said very seriously, "Then Grandpa, expel from the sect too, okay? Please?"
And then...
She was beaten by her Grandpa and then punished to copy the 'Yun Spell Sutra Annotation' ten tis. She wasn't allowed to sleep until she finished copying.
The 'Yun Spell Sutra Annotation', as the introductory classic of the Yun Sand Sea lineage, has a total of six thousand five hundred and seventy-two characters. Copying it ten tis doesn't seem like much.
But on the Gobi Desert, paper, brushes, and water for grinding ink are luxuries. It was naturally impossible for Nanling Yaohua to use real brush, ink, paper, and inkstone for her punishnt of copying the 'Yun Spell Sutra Annotation'.
The "paper" she used was the ubiquitous hardened salt-alkali soil blocks on the Gobi Desert. Those soil blocks were hard and heavy, like stone slabs.
Her "pen" was not a brush, but a small sword made of a special tal, which was surprisingly heavy.
Using stone as paper and a sword as a pen, just copying the 'Yun Spell Sutra Annotation' once would make an ordinary adult's wrist sore and fingers go on strike.
Even with a certain degree of Spiritual Energy enhancent, copying it ten tis was a difficult and arduous project for the young Nanling Yaohua.
Her Grandpa, who usually "didn't keep his word," was exceptionally strict that ti and showed no intention of going easy on her.
So, Nanling Yaohua could only cry while copying.
When she copied it for the third ti, White Shishu appeared and comforted her, saying, "It's okay, don't cry. Copying sutras is also practicing swordsmanship!"
"When I was little, White Shishu, I often copied sutras. I not only copied the 'Yun Spell Sutra Annotation' but also the'Sand Sea Spell Mountain' and the 'Yun Spell Sutra Source', which have even more characters. That's why my swordsmanship is so amazing now!"
"If you copy it diligently, you will definitely beco like ! Keep it up!"
Nanling Yaohua stared at Bai Kai with her wide, watery eyes, thinking that she might beco as dull and foolish as him in the future, only knowing how to practice swordsmanship all day long. She imdiately cried even harder.
Looking at the little loli crying like a teary ss, Bai Kai was at a loss for words for a long ti and ran away sheepishly.
When Nanling Yaohua copied it for the fifth ti, Land Master was drawn over by the continuous crying. He stroked her head and asked her very seriously, "Xiao Hua, do you not want to copy anymore? Do you want to leave here?"
Nanling Yaohua sobbed as she looked at Lu Ming, nodding her head like a chick pecking rice.
At that mont, she believed in her Land Master implicitly, because among all her "family," only Land Master always had a way to convince her Grandpa with his eccentric temper.
"Okay! Then we won't copy anymore!" Lu Ming smiled. "I'll go tell your Grandpa now."
With that, he left the cave dwelling illuminated by the dim candlelight and walked towards the bonfire in the twisted and eerie Poplar Forest.
Driven by curiosity, Nanling Yaohua secretly followed Lu Ming into the Poplar Forest, watched him walk towards her Grandpa by the bonfire, and then heard a conversation that she would never forget.
It was late at night, and a few wild wolf howls faintly echoed from behind the distant Mound. In the Poplar Forest, by the bonfire, the flickering firelight illuminated the figure of the thin old man. He was wearing a sheepskin coat that seed to have not been changed for many years.
Lu Ming stopped in front of Nanling Old Man and respectfully cupped his hands, "Master, I have co to pay my respects."
Nanling Old Man lifted his eyelids and gave Lu Ming a glare, "Get lost!"
Lu Ming pondered for two seconds, ford a Spell in his hand without chanting, and cupped his hands towards Nanling Old Man again, "Master, I have co to pay my respects."
Nanling Old Man glanced out of the corner of his eye at the ball of light on Lu Ming's fingertip, which was conservatively estimated to be a forbidden Spell, and nodded, "Okay, just say whatever it is! No need to mind the etiquette."
Seeing this, Nanling Yaohua, who was hiding in the distance, pursed her small lips and excitedly clenched her pink fists.
Hearing this, Lu Ming cast a counter-Spell, dispelling the ball of light in his hand, and sat down beside Nanling Old Man, smiling, "Master, do you really plan to let Xiao Hua stay in the Gobi Desert for her entire life?"
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"..."
Nanling Old Man remained silent, took off the pipe from his waist, filled it with tobacco, lit it, took a deep puff, and while exhaling the smoke, he said faintly, "Of course I don't want to, but this is not sothing I can decide."
"What if I said I have a way?" Lu Ming asked.
Nanling Old Man glared fiercely at Lu Ming, saying with slight anger, "Don't use your crooked thods to harm my granddaughter, or be careful I break your legs!"
"Master, you've misunderstood, this ti it's really not a crooked thod!" Lu Ming said seriously, "How could I joke about my dearest son and niece?"
Hearing Lu Ming ntion Lu Yibei, Nanling Old Man frowned, "What do you an?"
Lu Ming smiled, cupped his hands and said, "Master, what I an is, seeing how close we are, how about letting the two children form a marriage and beco even closer relatives?"
Nanling Yaohua, who was hiding behind a crooked poplar tree in the distance, heard this and suddenly blushed. Although she didn't understand what becoming even closer relatives ant, she vaguely felt that it was sothing that made her shy.
Perhaps, it was like when the shepherdess Sister Anar Guli got married, she had to kiss the boy!
"You an..." Nanling Old Man pondered for a few seconds, then ca back to his senses, his face suddenly sinking, and he waved his hand, "No, absolutely not! They are three and a half years apart!"
"A woman older by three years brings a golden brick!" Lu Ming said slyly, "This is practically a huge profit!"
"Shut up! That useless son of yours, do you think I don't know him? That unlucky fellow, any Miss who forms a marriage with him is sure to have a bad end!"
"Furthermore..." Nanling Old Man tapped his pipe stem, and slowly exhaled smoke, "If we do that, perhaps Xiao Hua can leave here, but that child, I'm afraid, still cannot change her fate."
"I know this!" Lu Ming said with a bitter smile, and as he spoke, he secretly glanced in the direction where Nanling Yaohua was, leaned closer to Nanling Old Man, and whispered a few words.
Nanling Yaohua didn't hear what Land Master said, only rembering that Grandpa was very angry after hearing it, his face was ashen, his eyebrows were furrowed, and he picked up his pipe and hit Land Master on the head.
"You scoundrel, with this, you actually still have the nerve to say that what you're doing isn't a crooked thod?"
"It infuriates , it infuriates ! I taught you the art of harmony back then, was it for you to use it for this?"
"I've lived for almost a lifeti, and this is simply the most crooked of crooked thods I've ever seen!"
The scorching hot pipe hit Lu Ming's head exactly three hundred and sixty tis, each hit clear and loud, the strong wind it stirred up rustling the branches of the poplar tree.
But Lu Ming just leaned forward, like a solid rock, not dodging or avoiding, quietly receiving his Master's "teachings."
After the three hundred and sixty hits were finished, Lu Ming, with bumps all over his head, his lips slightly curled upwards, knelt before Nanling Old Man, and perford a grand bow with a solemn posture he had never shown since the discipleship ceremony.
"Thank you for your guidance, Master. So, about Xiao Hua and Xiao Bei forming a marriage...?"
Facing Lu Ming's question, Nanling Old Man neither agreed nor refused, but just squeezed a single word out from between his teeth.
"Scram—!"
Lu Ming stood up and bowed again, "Thank you, Master."
After speaking, he stumbled out of the poplar forest, walked towards Nanling Yaohua who was hiding behind the crooked old poplar, gently picked her up, and walked towards the cave dwelling.
"Xiao Hua."
"Hmm?"
Nanling Yaohua, who was carefully rubbing the large bumps on Lu Ming's head, tilted her head.
"You don't need to copy scriptures anymore, and you don't need to fulfill that troubleso mission either," Lu Ming said with a smile.
"Really?"
Nanling Yaohua's eyes widened with excitent.
"Really, when has Land Master ever lied to you?"
"Last week!" Nanling Yaohua pouted, rubbed her little belly, and said very seriously, "You lied to that the waterlon in the desert was edible, and then my tummy hurt!"
Lu Ming frowned, "Besides last week, when else did I lie to you?"
"Also, last month you said that rams also have sheep's milk, and I kept asking Grandpa for it and got beaten up. And the month before last, you said..."
Nanling Yaohua ticulously listed every single incident since she started rembering things at the age of three and a half where Lu Ming had tricked her. Lu Ming's mouth twitched, and he fell silent.
He really couldn't be blad for this, who doesn't like to bully little lolis?
Lu Ming sotis thought that if his child were a daughter, her childhood would definitely be particularly "miserable."
Not long after Lu Ming took Nanling Yaohua away from the poplar forest and coaxed her to sleep, Bai Kai also arrived at the poplar forest.
As soon as he saw his Master, Bai Kai foolishly asked, "Master, why did you beat Senior Brother for no reason? You beat him so badly he had internal injuries. Just now, as soon as he returned to the room, he vomited blood all over ."
"You blockhead, what could you possibly understand!" Nanling Old Man glared fiercely at Bai Kai.
"If you don't tell , how will you know I don't understand?" Bai Kai mumbled, scratching the back of his head.
Nanling Old Man looked at Bai Kai sideways and said in a deep voice, "Then lean your ear over, and I'll enlighten you."
Bai Kai foolishly leaned closer, and was imdiately subjected to a painful beating with the pipe wrapped in surging Spiritual Energy, which left him unable to get out of bed for three days.
However, Nanling Old Man didn't know if that ti he had enlightened Bai Kai a bit too much.
Not long after he briefly stayed in the Gobi Desert with Lu Ming and returned to Hua City, he was tricked by the woman he thought was his destined one and lost his mind, then embarked on a dissolute path that was unbearable to witness...
————
Nanling Old Man did not reject Lu Ming's proposal, so Lu Ming took it as his tacit approval.
From then on, Nanling Yaohua knew that she had a fiancé, who was Land Master's child, nad Lu Yibei, and lived very, very far away.
One day in the future, Lu Yibei would co to the Gobi Desert, take her away, and end the mission of their Yun Sand Sea lineage, which was to guard Yun Pass for generations, as well as her endless life of practicing swordsmanship and doing howork every day.
However, she waited for a very, very long ti, but Lu Yibei never ca.
Sotis she even wondered if Land Master had forgotten to tell Lu Yibei that there was soone waiting for him in the Gobi Desert.
So, she ran away from ho and went to Hua City.
However, what she didn't know was that even though she had cultivated skills far exceeding those of her peers, if her Grandpa didn't want her to leave, she wouldn't be able to walk out of that Gobi Desert at all.
On the day Nanling Yaohua left the Gobi Desert, Nanling Old Man stood on a dirt mound, watching his granddaughter's departing back, and rembered what Lu Ming had said to him more than ten years ago.
Lu Ming said, "Who stipulated that a person is only allowed to form one marriage?"
"Master, Xiao Hua doesn't really have to marry Xiao Bei. In the future..."
"When she leaves here, everything will start to change."
————
On Christmas Eve that night, Nanling Yaohua recalled her original intention for leaving the Gobi Desert.
She suddenly decided that she wanted to seriously find Lu Yibei and take him to eat roasted turkey together to see what was so different about it when eaten by a couple.
So, that night, she looked through the things Land Master had left behind, and then, for so unknown reason, she ca here and found "Lu Yibei."
After entering this city, with the influx of a massive amount of mories that didn't exist before, Nanling Yaohua suddenly understood why she hadn't found Lu Yibei in Hua City.
She never expected that Lu Yibei's mother, in order to protect him, had constructed a nearly completely real "city" for him!
Allowing Lu Yibei to grow up completely unhard in this city.
What made her even happier was that she had already t Lu Yibei, and the Lu Yibei she had t was not only not the ugly person she had once imagined, but was even the young man who had appeared on the high tower and shared her interests.
She had once been troubled for quite so ti because she had developed a slight liking for the young man.
So...
She decided to stay, empty herself, let her original mories fall into silence, let new mories take over, and accept her new identity.
The "dream" that Qinan Bamboo wove for Lu Yibei was too beautiful, with "the boy rides a bamboo horse, playing with green plums around the bed," and "the thatched eaves are low and small, with green grass by the stream. In a drunken state, the Wu dialect is charming, who are the white-haired old couple?"...
Life might have so bitterness, but after the bitterness, there is always endless sweetness.
Even she, a "supporting character," unconsciously imrsed herself in the story, imrsed in the back of the silly young man who was beaten for her, imrsed in the spring, sumr, autumn, and winter on the back seat of the bicycle, imrsed in the past, present, and the visible future.
Now, Nanling Yaohua no longer needs to drag Lu Yibei to eat roasted turkey; she already knows what that roasted turkey tasted like in the mouths of that young couple that day.
Although she had always known that everything she saw here was fake, what did it matter if it was fake?
The world is so big, not everything is real, and certainly not everything fake is bad.
Moreover, if a beautiful dream can last a lifeti, what's the difference between that and reality?
When a person identifies with certain values and living environnt, they will not care about the problems that exist in that environnt.
But now...
Sothing has happened to this city, and urban legend have appeared!
And these are clearly coming with great force and malicious intent.
Such a change is very likely to cause devastating damage to this special space, and to the blueprint of this special space - Hua City, and may even turn Hua City into a wasteland where humans can hardly survive.
Just like the area within a radius of several hundred miles around Yun Pass.
According to legend, the thirty-six kingdoms passed through after leaving Yun Pass, including Kucha, Ruoqiang, Loulan, and Jingjue, were all exceptionally wealthy.
The most important factor in their seemingly overnight destruction was the destruction of the special space nad "Yun Pass."
The only difference is that the fragnts of Yun Pass after its destruction turned into vast stretches of yellow sand falling from the sky, while the manner in which the fragnts of this false Hua City will appear in Hua City is yet unknown.
Nanling Yaohua could hardly imagine what Lu Yibei would beco if he woke up from this "beautiful dream" one day and faced a devastated Hua City.
So, Nanling Yaohua remained silent for a long ti, and slightly tightened her grip on the long sword in her hand.
"This kind of thing must never happen!"
She had to find a way to find the source of the trouble and deal with it.
She absolutely could not let this city, at least the city that Lu Yibei saw, be destroyed. Nanling Yaohua thought.
She wanted to maintain this "beautiful dream" for Lu Yibei, and for herself.
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