Ze Tian Ji

Chapter 818 – Singing in the Night Inside and Outside the Daoist Church

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

Luo Bu stood by the zither player and listened for a while, then suddenly began to sing along with the music.

The zither player played an obscure tune, but he sang an extremely famous song.

He also had a very forthright voice, which produced a unique flavor when it intersected with the willow trees and leftover snow of Wenshui City. As a result, he instantly attracted the attention of many people.

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”My sword comes from the west

Your dress gracefully moves

Such petite cuteness

Flowing past the courtyard

I copy scriptures in the temple

But tomorrow I will practice punches and change muscles…

The spring mountain loves to smile

Tomorrow my journey will be even farther

Horse hooves turn into butterflies

The bow bends, an arrow flies, walking past the green forest

I am that scholar who goes to the capital to take the exam but does not study

I have come to Luoyang to see your reflection

The final words in the water, your lost visage in the sky

Lamenting your petite thinness

Drinking down in a single ladle your petite fullness.”

(TN: This is an excerpt from the song ”Yellow River”, which is a song from the romance novel ”偶然” by wuxia author Wen Ruian.)

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The blind zither player played for a very long time, and Luo Bu also sang for a long time. More and more people gathered around them, and copper and silver pieces piled up in front of the zither player, glistening with a pleasing luster in the last smear of twilight.

The twilight gradually deepened until it turned into night. The shops and inns on both banks of the Wenshui began to light lanterns which twinkled like stars in the water.

Suddenly, the crowd began to buzz with shocked discussion. Everyone’s gazes were drawn away from Luo Bu and the blind zither player, and focused on the opposite shore.

Over there was the back garden of the Daoist church.

Luo Bu slightly arched his brow and also turned to look over.

The Daoist church was bursting with light, clouds drifting around the peak of the church while ritualistic music with lofty and upright tones slowly rose up.

This was an announcement.

His Holiness the Pope had come to Wenshui.

The people along the river once more stopped moving, quietly standing and looking in the same manner as the crowd on the main street in the daytime.

The seven peddlers ceased their hollering, the six government laborers put down the chains in their hands, the three fortune-tellers opened their eyes, the paper that the two elders used to wrap sesame seed candy lightly trembled in the wind, and the girl buying cosmetic powder went snow-white, as if she had already put five layers of powder on her face.

I didn’t expect for him to be smart.

Seeing the boundless light from the opposite shore and hearing the ritualistic music coming from the church, Luo Bu thought to himself, Or perhaps he has a smart person at his side.

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Wenshui City had an incredibly long history, and the Tang clan was even older than the Chen Imperial clan and the Liang clan.

As the head of the Four Great Clans and the richest clan in the world, the Wenshui Tangs led in countless industries: logistics, military armaments, foodstuffs, mining… as long as it was a truly important industry, one would always be able to see the Tang clan’s subdued yet unignorable figure. It was this that established the Tang clan’s status in the entire continent.

Up until today, no one knew just how much strength the Tang clan was concealing, as up until today, not a single faction had ever forced the Tang clan to use its full power. As a result, when discussing the Tang clan, people could only use a most ambiguous term to describe them: ’foundational resources’.

Foundational resources were at the foundation, just like the uncountable water grass at the bottom of the Wenshui. The common people only knew that it was there, but they had never personally seen it, leaving them only to imagine and speculate. As a result, the Tang clan became more and more mysterious, more and more terrifying.

But there was always some circumstantial evidence. For example, no one ever dared to swim or fish in the Wenshui, and both Emperor Taizong and the monstrously powerful Tianhai Divine Empress had always attempted to placate or appease the Tang clan. It was easy to drown in the Wenshui and moving against the Tang clan was certain to throw the whole country into rebellion.