Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, but Thunderbolt Taoist Sect

Chapter 133 The End of the Yang Family

As mentioned before, many stories in Liaozhai span a long period of time. From the beginning to the end of a story, the time it takes may be only a few months, or it may be several years, more than ten years, or even more decades, covering the experiences of three generations of a family.

The story of Ma Jiepu and the Yang brothers spans more than a decade. He helped Yang Wanshi three times, leaving for several years in between. However, with the intervention of Yue Wuque and others, all the changes have been compressed into the last few months.

In the original story, every time Ma Jiepu left satisfied, the Yang family would soon return to its chaotic state, resulting in two deaths within a few years. Now, the first half has been compressed, and the child who was beaten and miscarried, as well as Yang Wanzhong who was about to jump into the well, have been saved, making the story less likely to cause high blood pressure.

No, it's just because the original tragedy was interfered with, and from their perspective, it seems like there's still something that can be salvaged. But if you look at it from another angle, in just a few months, Yang Wanshi was chased by Madam Yin without fighting back, his pregnant concubine was persecuted and ignored, he claimed that the monsters used to scare people were fake, and he didn't even get angry when his brother jumped into the well. Every time he was given a good hand, he managed to play it terribly.

Several things were compressed together, which seemed urgent, but also exposed Yang Wanshi's personality problems more clearly. Under repeated pressure, a normal person would have some extra reactions, but Yang Wanshi just wanted to endure for a while and keep things calm.

"Do you really think that cutting off a piece of Yin's flesh will make her obedient?"

Yue Wuque still maintained that seemingly relaxed but actually somewhat dangerous sitting posture. Shu Longqin had corrected him many times, but he relied on his excellent balance to maintain this boneless posture.

“A piece of meat is certainly not enough, but at least it has some deterrent effect. The Yin family is used to bullying the weak and fearing the strong. As long as Brother Yang can maintain this in the future…”

“When has he ever taken the initiative before? He can’t even take the first step; he can only stand still like a cripple.”

"..."

Ma Jiepu remained silent. Yue Wuque's words hit the nail on the head. Recalling everything that had happened before, it was always Ma Jiepu who was trying to help, and it was always him who was pushing Yang Wanshi forward.

Yang Wanshi used the "Husband Rejuvenation Powder" to stimulate his own blood and beat up Yin Shi. Ma Jiepu told him to start over from there. However, his so-called courage and fighting spirit, and the knife that Yin Shi feared, were all achieved with the little bit of medicine given by Ma Jiepu. Without the medicine, this man was still cowardly.

They said they wanted Yang Wanshi to do it himself and change himself, but from the beginning, every peaceful day the Yang family had was obtained with the help of outsiders. When Ma Jiepu, the "pillar of stability," left, the Yang family would go back to the chaos of the past. Yang Wanshi never had the ability to resist the Yin family on his own. Everything was done with the help of others. He had not accomplished anything on his own.

While both stories feature fox spirits helping scholars, Ma Jiepu's version feels far more agonizing than his contemporaries. Although the love story between the female fox spirit and the scholar is cliché, at least the scholar is genuinely helped. The scholars who are helped generally achieve great success in the end, and passing the imperial examinations is commonplace.

However, Ma Jiepu's help to Yang Wanshi was completely ineffective; he helped everyone without saying a word, and in the end, it had no effect whatsoever. Yang Wanshi ruined everything for him.

"This is the last time. If you continue to be stubborn, the Jade Maiden will not care anymore. We are very busy."

Yin's leg injury forced her to behave herself, but this was not something that could be suppressed. Ma Jiepu, the fox spirit, was here, as was Hu Sijie, the fox demon who had one foot in the immortal realm. Even Meng Danqing, who knew the Dream Painting Technique and the Guiding Sense Technique, was here. With the three of them working together, it would be very easy for them to create a "Yellow Millet Dream" illusion for the Yang family.

After all, they had other things to do and couldn't keep an eye on the Yang family all the time. The "dream of the Yellow Millet" was actually a way to compress future events and complete them directly in a dream.

There's not much to do. Just let the Yang family members all fall asleep and share a dream: a dream that Ma Jiepu has already left and that Madam Yin's leg injury is almost healed.

In this dream, no outside guidance is needed. All that is required is to provide them with a life scene no different from their daily lives. What happens next is entirely determined by their own personality.

In a sense, this is a preview of what will happen in the future. It may not be very accurate, but the decisions made under these circumstances will not deviate much from what will actually happen in the future.

As for Sister Hu, who was not related to the others, the reason why she not only stayed after watching the previous excitement but also agreed to help create the dream world was quite special: it was because of Meng Danqing.

Hu Sijie was originally going to leave, but after learning about Meng Danqing's abilities, she stayed on her own initiative, wanting to ask Meng Danqing to paint a portrait for her.

According to her, he was her savior, but he was just a mortal. If Sister Hu had focused on cultivating immortality, a single seclusion might have taken more than ten or even several decades. A mortal's lifespan is only a few decades, and by the time she achieved enlightenment, she would probably be long gone.

Therefore, she wanted to leave a portrait while she still remembered what the other person looked like. Hu Sijie herself did not know much about calligraphy and painting, and she was afraid that other painters would not be able to paint it because she could only describe it verbally. Meng Danqing's ability was exactly what she wanted.

Meng Danqing is extremely skilled at simply drawing a picture for someone else. Thus, the wonderful dream-drawing duo of fox spirits and fox demons made their debut. With the three of them, the dream would be incredibly realistic, without any flaws.

As expected, after her leg injury healed, Madam Yin felt that Yang Wanshi was just bluffing. She knew Ma Jiepu's power and influence and his help to Yang Wanshi. That sudden, swift counterattack was clearly something Ma Jiepu had done again.

In the dream, Ma Jiepu had already left, and the only person he feared was gone. Yin began to test him little by little, and as expected, Yang Wanshi did not resist. Without Ma Jiepu and his "Husband Rejuvenation Powder," Yang Wanshi could not muster any resistance.

Thus, in this illusory dream world, the Yin family returned to their fierce nature, and the Yang family's daily life of chaos and running around was no different from reality. At a certain moment, the viewers seemed to truly feel that they were seeing the future.

"What else do you want to say?"

Seeing that Old Man Yang could no longer bear it and was considering leaving home, Yue Wuque knew that it was about time. He looked at Yang Wanzhong and Ma Jiepu, who had been silent since Madam Yin returned to her fierce self.

"My older brother...sigh..."

As brothers, Yang Wanzhong always respected and loved his elder brother. Although the two brothers were slightly apart in age, he always upheld the concept that the eldest brother was like a father. Yang Wanshi dared not say anything in front of Madam Yin, and no matter how dissatisfied he was as the younger brother, he could not show it.

It's obvious that someone who realizes he has accidentally killed someone and would resolutely throw himself into a well to save his family must have courage and guts. If they really fought against Madam Yin, both Yang Wanshi and Yang Wanzhong could have won, but as the older brother, Yang Wanshi chose to back down, and the younger brother could not overstep his bounds.

Was his elder brother like this before? Yang Wanzhong didn't remember. He didn't know when it started, but his impression of his brother was only of him being obsequious in front of Madam Yin. When he mentioned his elder brother Yang Wanshi, the first thing he thought of was not the brotherly affection between the two of them when they were young, but the image of Yang Wanshi being chased by Madam Yin with a whip and a knife after he got married.

“I have a property in Henan, which is usually uninhabited.”

Ma Jiepu closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and seemed to have figured it out. He then turned to look at Yang Wanzhong, whose expression was complicated.

"Brother Yang, would you be willing to come with me with your family? Xi'er is a promising student, and the fate of your Yang family should not end here."

Given Yang Wanshi's character, he is utterly hopeless. If he truly wants to protect the Yang family for the sake of their sworn brotherhood, he can no longer rely solely on Yang Wanshi.

Yang Wanzhong was also a good man, and compared to his brother, he had more courage and boldness. Xi'er was intelligent and had the potential to study and become an official. Although Wang's child was not yet born, he was also of Yang family blood. Wang's personality was also good, and she was more suitable to be a mother than Yin.

If we really want to preserve the Yang family, we should protect Yang Wanzhong's branch and the Wang family. As for Yang Wanshi and the Yin family, let them decide their own fate. Ma Jiepu is truly exhausted.

After wandering around for so many years, this was the first time he felt so powerless. Just as Yue Wuque had said, no matter how much he tried to help Yang Wanshi, his cowardice was beyond redemption.

"If I had known this, why did I do it in the first place?"

"You should say less."

Shu Longqin tried to block Yue Wuque's mouth with her folding fan, but he dodged it by tilting his head and then retaliated by pressing the fan down with his pipe.

“The beauty was not wrong.”

It's best to face the facts sooner rather than later. Just leave Yang Wanshi and Yin Shi to torment each other, and keep other normal people as far away as possible.

Now that they've come to their senses, everything else is much easier to handle. First, they need to take the people they want to take with them. Old Man Yang woke up when he was thinking of leaving home to become a Taoist priest. Ma Jiepu and Yang Wanzhong went to talk to him personally. Wang Shi was taken by Sister Hu. As for Xi'er, it was simple; her parents could just take her away directly.

How to explain their departure? It's simple. The Yang family is still in a dream. They can integrate the departure of these people into their dream and mix it with their real memories. When they wake up the next day, the Yang family won't find it strange that a few people are suddenly missing. They will just think that these people left a long time ago, and it's normal that they can't see them at home.

The illusion transforms into reality, dreams merge with reality—that's how illusion works. When the false becomes real, the real becomes false. As long as no one exposes it, they will never remember the truth.

The farce involving the Yang family finally came to an end. Ma Jiepu took Yang Wanzhong's family, along with Yang Wanshi's concubine, Wang, to Henan. Given this development, it would likely be more than ten years before the Yang brothers met again.

Next comes the struggle against the illegal transmigrators. Yue Wuque wants to see how they plan to cut off the spiritual veins.

……

"...Is Ying still alive? If she's dead, couldn't she at least let us know?"

Yi Yang felt a headache coming on. There were only four people left on their side, and the one with the best abilities was still missing. What was going on with his teammates? At least send a message, right? Even in a game, there's usually a kill announcement when someone dies.

"The system hasn't notified me, so I must be alive."

Lan Ying flipped through the Taoist classics in her hand. Qing Yangzi's professional skills were indeed outstanding. After he said that he wanted to find spiritual veins, he was like a cheat code. He directly followed the veins of mountains and rivers and found some places that seemed to have spiritual veins. He was fast and efficient. Moreover, he didn't speak in a strange and sarcastic way like Shou Wanjie. In short, he was steady.

However, the problem is that this person speaks with a lot of Taoist jargon. Yi Yang and Lan Ying's abilities were obtained through system cheating, and they have never seriously cultivated Taoism. Even if they had studied it before, after staying here for so many years, they have nothing left in their minds.

"These two guys..."

Yi Yang glanced at the two red figures in the distance and silently complained.

"The symbol of being in the same camp isn't just color, it's also about having chuunibyou (middle school syndrome), right?"

One kept talking about eternal damnation, while the other said something about "the three religions originally having the Tao as the foremost," spewing out Taoist maxims at them. Even their search for spiritual veins and expansion of the formation were done in the same way. If it weren't for the circumstances, Yi Yang suspected that the other party would have tried to persuade them to follow the Tao.

"There's news about the film."

A plume of black smoke emerged from the corner, bringing news of his companions.

"What news? The Three Treasures Sect's things have been found?"

Lan Ying was the first to ask a question. She closed the book in her hand, hoping the smoke would bring good news. Unfortunately, her hopes were ultimately dashed.

"The items were taken away by the Golden Horn and Silver Horn who were chasing him. Also, it's incredible that those two were able to injure a Shadow."

"...How much damage can it cause?"

Upon hearing this news, Lan Ying remained silent for a moment before asking a serious question. It's important to understand that while it's difficult to determine the exact strength of the four of them in terms of pure combat ability, if asked who currently possesses the highest defense, the answer would undoubtedly be Ying.

Because the opponent's form is entirely dependent on the shadow, it is neither human nor monster nor ghost, a completely untouchable form. Even if the smoke is powerful, it will still get hurt, but the shadow is conceptually immune to attacks.

The power of a fully conceptual god cannot be broken; if you cannot break through the concept, you cannot harm him.

"He didn't know either. There was something wrong with that golden guy; he couldn't be hurt before."

This is the strangest and most terrifying aspect. On the bright side, it might be that the enemy happens to have a territory they can control and reveals it in desperation. On the dark side, it might be that the other side can study their abilities and modify their own attack methods accordingly.

Either possibility is troublesome, especially the latter. Think about it carefully, the same thing happened in the capital. At first, when Jian Feidao attacked Yan, the damage was very light and could not break through his special defense. But when it came to the mural, the impact of Jian Feidao and Shou Wanjie's clash alone interrupted Hua Yan's escape process and caused him to fall down.

This is completely illogical. A proper system has a bunch of rigid rules, and no matter how flexibly it is used, it is impossible to change capabilities so quickly. Even if it could, where would the other side get so much energy to use?

"Please be careful."

While the illegal transmigrators were discussing, Qingyangzi and Shou Wanjie were also observing them, albeit more discreetly, so the people being observed were unaware of it.

Qingyangzi looked at Lanying. Yi Yang was doing most of the work, such as setting up the array to cut off the spiritual veins and utilizing the spiritual energy of the demons. However, Qingyangzi paid more attention to Lanying, who was focused on intelligence work.

“She can understand.”

The inclusion of a large number of Taoist terms was intentional; Qingyangzi even used some classical Chinese. Yi Yang was completely confused at the time, but Lan Ying actually understood, but pretended not to, and together they went to look up Taoist classics.

She was pretending, pretending that she didn't understand.