Chapter 148 Refining the Seal Under the Moon! The Evergreen Realm Expands Again, Li Hanyi Accompanie
The night in Changqingjie was extremely quiet.
Unlike the brightly lit, bustling, and noisy atmosphere outside the Taiji Hall, where even the air seemed to be filled with the scent of banknotes and gossip, this place was different.
As night falls here, everything seems to have its sharp edges smoothed out by the moonlight.
The peach grove swayed gently in the wind.
The spring water flowed gently along the edge of the bluestone.
The lights of the distant buildings were warm, and a soft glow shone through the window paper.
Further away, you could hear the occasional snapping sound of Big White breaking a small piece of dry twig as it rolled over.
You can also vaguely hear Xiaohua mumbling in her sleep as she curls up on the shelf, as if she is still imitating people saying "buy tickets, pay more, VIP seats" in her dream.
Everything was so soft.
Right there in the courtyard, under the peach tree, stood something utterly out of place.
The Dharma Seal of the Border Patrol.
When Su Changqing pulled it down from the sky, it was majestic and imposing, making the entire city of Tianqi feel suffocated.
Now that it has fallen into the Evergreen Realm and been forcibly shrunk several times, it looks like an ancient white jade tablet taller than a person.
It is entirely pale, with square edges and corners, and its surface has countless intricate patterns that are dizzying to look at. Occasionally, a faint, cold white light will flow through it.
However, this faint light no longer seemed so lofty and unattainable in the Evergreen Realm.
Instead, it resembles a cold beast that, even with its claws bound, still instinctively struggles.
Su Changqing stood before the Dharma seal, a faint blue light rising from his palm.
The bluish light was not ostentatious; it was like spring water, like morning mist, like a drop of dew that had just slid down from the tip of a peach leaf.
But the moment it landed on the surface of the patrol seal, the latter visibly trembled.
It wasn't a big commotion.
Rather, it was a very subtle, extremely restrained tremor, even carrying a hint of instinctive retreat.
Li Hanyi sat by the stone table, her gaze quietly fixed on the method seal. After a moment, she said softly:
"It's afraid of you."
"Afraid of me?"
Su Changqing turned around and glanced at her, then smiled.
"It's not afraid of me, it's afraid of the Evergreen Realm."
"Or rather, it's afraid of this flavor that's not in its map."
Li Hanyi's eyes flickered slightly upon hearing this.
She now knows that the Evergreen Realm is neither an ordinary small world nor a simple blessed land.
It is a being that is truly moving towards the level of "boundaries".
There are peach groves, spiritual springs, taverns, spiritual energy channels, and a stable and complete internal order that is independent of external laws.
Now, with the addition of the World Origin Pearl stolen from the Abyss Farmer, this place is beginning to show signs of self-evolution.
The boundary patrol seal is precisely what excels at "measuring boundaries", "determining boundaries", and "locking boundaries".
Once it entered, it naturally sensed that something was wrong here more than anyone else.
"So, you want to use it to repair the skeleton of the Evergreen Realm?"
Li Hanyi asked.
"almost."
Su Changqing walked up to the seal and gently tapped its surface.
clang.
The sound was ethereal and clear, spreading in the moonlight, like striking some kind of extremely heavy gold and jade.
"The essence of this thing is not just about oppressing people."
"It contains a complete structure for locating various realms, defining boundaries, stabilizing space, sealing off energy flow, and anchoring coordinates."
"For the Border Patrol Hall, this is used to lasso ropes."
"But for me—"
He paused, a meaningful look appearing in his eyes.
"I took it apart and used it; it's quite convenient."
Li Hanyi looked at him and suddenly remembered how this man had casually said "use it to weigh down the vegetable jar" during the day, and she couldn't help but want to laugh.
It was clearly a powerful weapon that would make countless forces in the upper realm turn pale.
Once it falls into his hands, he either uses it to make cages, plaques, or dismantles it to repair the Evergreen Realm.
It was never treated as a serious magic weapon from beginning to end.
This feeling is absurd.
Yet it suits Su Changqing perfectly.
She didn't ask any more questions, but simply got up and walked to his side.
"What can I do?"
Su Changqing turned his head and looked at her.
The moonlight fell on Li Hanyi's face, making her already exquisite features appear even softer and more serene.
Dressed in white as snow, with her long hair cascading down her shoulders, she stood amidst the peach blossoms and moonlight, appearing even more ethereal than a celestial swordsman.
But what she asked wasn't "Do you need my help?"
Instead, it's about "what can I do?"
This is neither a test nor a polite gesture.
It was just natural that I wanted to do something with him.
Su Changqing's smile softened slightly.
"Just keep an eye on it for me."
"This thing has some dirty marks inside. If something annoying pops out later, and I'm too lazy to do it myself, you can cut it for me."
Li Hanyi was slightly taken aback, then gave him a light glare.
"You just want an excuse to keep me company."
"Um."
Su Changqing answered without blushing at all.
"You figured it out."
Li Hanyi's ears felt slightly hot, but the corners of her lips curved up almost imperceptibly.
She didn't say anything more, but with a gentle flip of her hand, the Iron Horse and Ice River silently appeared in her palm.
The sword was not drawn.
Yet that cold, pure, and extremely sharp sword intent had quietly blended into the moonlit night.
She stood beside him, neither too close nor too far, neither taking over his business nor leaving his side for even a moment.
Just right.
……
Seeing that she had stopped, Su Changqing finally withdrew his gaze and focused his attention entirely on the patrol seal.
next moment.
He slowly pressed the wisp of blue light from his palm onto it.
hum-
The entire seal suddenly trembled slightly, and the previously dormant runes on its surface lit up one after another as if they had been awakened.
One, ten, a hundred.
Finally, the entire seal seemed to be bathed in moonlight, with dense, cold white lines rising on the surface, intertwining, extending, and rotating to form an extremely complex structural pattern layer upon layer.
If a master of formations or talismans were here, even a single glance would likely send chills down their spine.
Because this is not a simple rune at all.
Rather, it is a whole set of logic about "boundaries".
Which layer is responsible for locking the edge of a boundary, and which layer is responsible for recording world fluctuations?
Which layer is responsible for transmitting coordinates back? Which layer is responsible for suppressing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth? And which layer harbors hidden means of annihilation, reset, and sealing?
Layer upon layer, fitting together perfectly.
Cold, precise, and devoid of human emotion.
Like a machine specifically crafted to harvest and regulate all realms.
Li Hanyi only glanced at it for a moment before her heart skipped a beat.
She is not skilled in talismanic arts.
But sword cultivators have the sharpest intuition.
She could sense that what emanated from behind these runes was not "Tao," but rather a kind of extremely utilitarian and ruthless order.
This doesn't seem like a law established for the benefit of all beings.
It's more like a tool tailor-made to facilitate certain calculations, breeding, selection, and slaughter.
"It looks terrible."
She said softly.
Upon hearing this, Su Changqing smiled.
I think so too.
After he finished speaking, he slightly clenched his five fingers.
Click.
The outermost white chain of runes suddenly snapped.
The moment the chain broke, a very low and deep rumble came from inside the seal, like a gear that was originally closed suddenly missing a link, and the whole machine began to feel slightly stiff.
Next up was the second course.
The third way.
The fourth one.
Su Changqing was demolishing very slowly.
Don't rush, don't be impatient.
It's like dismantling a well-made but maliciously designed puzzle box.
Each layer was peeled off, and the texture was examined first. Then, the wisp of blue light from the fingertip was used to gently peel it away. What was usable was kept, and what was dirty was crushed.
Throughout the entire process, there were no earth-shattering noises, nor any overwhelming divine light.
Only the faint sounds of those runes lighting up, separating, and disintegrating could be heard.
It's as thin as ice cracks.
It's like very thin pieces of porcelain being peeled off one by one.
Under the moonlight, the scene possesses a strange and beautiful quality.
Li Hanyi gripped her sword, looking at his profile, and suddenly felt that this scene was exactly like how he usually prepared ingredients in the kitchen.
Pick, sift, cut, keep.
He could tell at a glance which ingredients should be stewed, which should be stir-fried, which were too tough, and which were too chewy.
This time, however, he wasn't dealing with fish, shrimp, meat, or vegetables.
Rather, it is the Dharma seal of heaven.
Thinking about this, she felt it was somewhat absurd, yet somehow it felt natural.
Not far away, Big White seemed to be awakened by the commotion. He groggily raised his head, looked into the distance for a while, yawned, turned over, and continued to sleep.
Little Flower, however, opened one eye from the shelf at some point and peered tentatively into the yard.
It saw the white light flashing on the patrol seal and immediately perked up. It fluttered twice and flew to the eaves, muttering to itself.
"It's shiny and expensive! The boss is rich again! The boss is rich again..."
Li Hanyi: "..."
She glanced at the parrot.
Little Flower immediately shut up, shrank her neck, and turned to peck at her own wings, looking as if to say, "I didn't say anything."
Su Changqing ignored it and continued to unseal the seal.
As the outermost layers of recording, transmission, and location-related runes were peeled away one by one, the true core structure of the Border Patrol Seal was finally revealed little by little.
It was a white-gold round core suspended at the deepest part of the Dharma Seal.
The core is small, only about the size of a fist, but it is densely covered with countless tiny engravings.
If you look closely, you'll find that there are faint, star-like lights flowing within the engravings, like a star map that has been extremely compressed.
When Su Changqing saw it, his expression finally became slightly more serious.
"So that's where it is."
Li Hanyi also looked over.
"What is that?"
"Boundary anchor".
Su Changqing said.
"The real value of the border patrol seal."
"It can not only anchor a coordinate system, but also record many traces of the world that it has come into contact with, suppressed, and blocked."
"in other words--"
He raised his hand and held out the platinum core from a distance, his tone remaining calm.
"There's a likely path inside."
There is a road.
As soon as those two words were uttered, Li Hanyi immediately understood.
The road we're talking about isn't a road in the ordinary sense.
Instead, it is the path leading to the Palace of the Border Patrol, the Thirty-Three Heavenly Palaces, and even higher up in that net.
If it were someone else, their first reaction upon receiving something like this would probably be fear, avoidance, or immediate sealing.
But when Su Changqing talked about it, it was as if he were saying—
We finally found the house number.
Just then.
The platinum nucleus suddenly began to vibrate violently.
A cold and sharp aura suddenly pierced out from the depths of the core, as if something, having been stripped to its core, could no longer restrain itself and wanted to retaliate.
"careful."
Li Hanyi's eyes turned cold, and the Iron Horse Ice River in her hand was instantly drawn half an inch from its sheath.
A glint of cold light flashed.
But Su Changqing merely raised his eyes.
"You've come at the perfect time."
As soon as the words were spoken, countless engravings on the surface of the platinum core lit up simultaneously, and an extremely thin yet extremely sharp white figure suddenly emerged from it!
That's not a complete person.
It's more like a brand created by runes and willpower.
It has no face, no eyebrows, and no details of its clothing; there is only a rough outline.
But the moment that outline appeared, the wind in the peach grove in the courtyard seemed to stop for a moment.
A sense of oppression, higher, colder, and closer to the "upper order" than Zhao Xuance and Gu Changxuan, suddenly spread out.
As soon as the white figure appeared, it looked down at Su Changqing, its voice hollow and cold, like countless tiny stones rubbing against each other.
"Illegally stripping the core of the boundary patrol seal."
"Violation of boundary laws."
"Mark for execution —"
It didn't finish its sentence.
Li Hanyi has already drawn her sword.
Clang!
The iron horse and icy river were fully unsheathed.
A streak of pure white sword light, like moonlight suddenly condensed into a single line, cleanly slashed across the courtyard.
No nonsense, no probing.
Since Su Changqing said that she would cut down anything that stood in her way, then she would cut it down.
This sword strike was astonishingly fast and astonishingly cold.
The white-branded figure didn't even have time to finish uttering the last few words before his entire body was cleaved in two by the sword!
laugh--
The sword flashed, and the white figure paused.
Then, like smoke frozen by frost and snow, it crumbled away inch by inch.
Fragments of white light fell into the night, and just as they were about to coalesce again, Su Changqing reached out and wiped them away.
A blue light swept across his palm.
Before those shards of light could even struggle, they were completely smoothed out, turning into the purest wisp of white vapor that slowly dissipated.
The courtyard fell silent again.
Only the moonlight, the fragrance of peach blossoms, and the lingering chill on Li Hanyi's sword remained.
She slowly sheathed her sword, her white robes swaying gently in the wind, her expression as calm as if she had merely brushed away a leaf.
Is this considered an eyesore?
She asked.
Su Changqing looked at her, a smile gradually appearing in his eyes.
"Calculate."
"Well done."
Li Hanyi pursed her lips slightly, and although she didn't say anything, her ears felt a little warm.
She herself couldn't explain it.
It was just a simple branding, but his praise of "very well done" sounded more pleasant than any of the "peerless swordsman" or "world-shaking sword" she had heard over the years.
Xiao Hua stared in disbelief under the eaves, and after a long while, she finally uttered a soft remark.
"The boss lady is fierce, the boss lady is formidable..."
Li Hanyi glanced at it from the side.
Little Flower immediately flapped its wings and flew away.
"I was asleep! I didn't see anything!"
Su Changqing chuckled, then looked down at the round core again.
The light on the surface of the platinum core dimmed noticeably after being branded, and many deeply hidden patterns were forced to come to light.
This actually saved him a lot of trouble.
"As expected, a backdoor was left."
He lightly touched the newly emerged lines with his fingertip, and a cold glint slowly rose in his eyes.
"Return, mark, reset, self-destruct..."
"They've really done everything perfectly."
Li Hanyi frowned: "What would have happened if we hadn't forced that thing out?"
"When I finally reach the deepest coordinates, it will bite back along this boundary anchor."
"At best, it will destroy the Dharma Seal; at worst, it will reverse the flow and locate the Evergreen Realm."
Li Hanyi's eyes turned cold.
"Then my sword strike just now was too light."
Upon hearing this, Su Changqing couldn't help but laugh out loud.
"You're starting to sound more and more like me."
Li Hanyi glared at him, but did not refute him.
Su Changqing didn't delay any longer and raised his hand to hold the platinum core in mid-air.
The next moment, he gently flipped his other hand.
A bead, round and smooth like a pearl, yet containing boundless spiritual meaning and a vast, boundless aura, slowly emerged.
The World's Origin Pearl.
It was that high-purity essence that he had taken from the Abyss Farmer.
The moment the two items appeared, the atmosphere in the courtyard changed instantly.
A cold, orderly, and precise system.
A gentle, magnificent, and vibrant life force, like the dawn of creation.
As they drew nearer to each other, the surrounding air began to subtly distort, the peach grove rustled, the surface of the spirit spring rippled without wind, and even the lights of the distant building swayed gently.
Seeing this, Li Hanyi subconsciously softened her breathing.
She knew—
The truly crucial moment has arrived.
Su Changqing's gaze was calm as he raised both hands simultaneously.
"Since you're here, don't just sit around."
"The things used to lock people up will be used to support the realm from now on."
The words fell.
With a burst of azure light from his palm, he directly enveloped both the platinum core and the World Origin Pearl.
boom!
There was no dazzling explosion.
There was only one extremely deep and vast resonance, as if it came from the deepest part of the Evergreen Realm.
The next moment—
Li Hanyi clearly felt that the ground beneath her feet seemed to have gently expanded outward by an inch.
It's only an inch.
But it truly exists.
At the edge of the peach grove, the mist that had been lingering there quietly retreated a little.
Beside the spring, the stream that was originally just big enough to go around three blue stones has silently extended into a small section of waterway.
Even the once empty lawn outside the courtyard seemed to have had its outline redrawn with an invisible pen.
Evergreen realm, in the long.
It's not a hallucination.
It's true, it's growing.
Li Hanyi's eyelashes trembled slightly, and for the first time, a clear tremor appeared in her eyes.
She knew that the Evergreen Realm would become stronger and more stable, and that Su Changqing would gradually complete it.
But the feeling of actually seeing a world expand outwards before your eyes is still hard to describe.
It was like witnessing spring sprouting from a seed.
Su Changqing merely glanced around, like a farmer carefully checking if two more plots of land had appeared in his yard, and nodded after a moment.
"good."
"Let's start with a longer one, and take it slowly."
Li Hanyi: "..."
This is considered "okay"?
But then she thought about it again and realized it made perfect sense.
After all, he is Su Changqing.
If one day he were to mend the entire world into a complete one, he would probably just say "so-so" indifferently.
Under the moonlight, the platinum core began to melt little by little, and the cold white orderly patterns on its surface were gradually swallowed and rewritten by the warm luster of the World Origin Pearl.
Su Changqing preserved some of the positioning, boundary, and fixed-space structures.
The other part, which was transmitted back, marked, and suppressed the original source, was ruthlessly crushed by him.
With each layer that crumbles, the mist at the edge of the Evergreen Realm recedes a little further outward.
The wind in the courtyard was more stable, and the moonlight was clearer.
Even the spiritual energy in the air seemed to linger longer than before.
Li Hanyi watched all of this quietly, then suddenly spoke:
"If one day you really do make it up there."
Su Changqing didn't stop what he was doing, but turned his head to look at her.
"Um?"
"After that, we also dragged down those so-called pastors."
She paused, her tone soft but earnest.
"Would you also do what you did today, tear them down, and use the proceeds to repair the Evergreen Zone?"
Su Changqing was taken aback at first.
Then he smiled.
"You really shouldn't say that."
"That's a good idea."
Li Hanyi: "..."
She had only asked casually, but she didn't expect that this person would actually take it seriously.
Su Changqing looked at her with a smile in his eyes.
"If they are truly useful, why not use them?"
"We can't have come all this way for nothing."
"Besides—"
He raised his chin, gesturing towards the peach grove and small building under the moonlight.
"This place needs to be bigger in the future."
"We need to make some more room for you and Nuonuo."
The wind blew by.
Li Hanyi's grip on the sword tightened slightly.
For some reason, she suddenly felt as if something had gently bumped into her chest.
It didn't hurt when I hit it.
Yet it felt warm.
She didn't speak, but just looked at Su Changqing quietly.
Moonlight fell on him, his green robe, peach blossom shadows, and radiant light intertwining. His face, which always carried a lazy smile, was now more worthy of her attention than any celestial being.
Meanwhile, the refining process continued in the courtyard.
The platinum core melted away little by little.
The light of the World Origin Pearl is becoming increasingly stable.
The fog at the edge of Changqing Boundary retreated inch by inch.
Not far away, the big white dog, who was sleeping soundly, seemed to be dreaming about something. Suddenly, it raised its paw and made a muffled hum.
Inside the small building, Su Xiaonuo turned over, hugged her blanket tightly, and mumbled something in her sleep that no one could hear.
At this moment, the evergreen world's moonlit night seemed to have truly begun to take a step towards "completeness".
But nobody knew.
Deep within this peach grove under the moonlight, the extremely fine coordinate fragments that Su Changqing had extracted from the platinum core, which had not yet completely dissolved, were silently piecing together a corner of a more distant star map.
One corner points to the Thirty-Three Heavens Palace.
In another corner, it faintly falls into a place darker than the abyss and higher and farther than the heavens.
Like a real door, which has already revealed a very thin crack in the darkness.