Master of Strange Dao

"Yang, you don't mean to tell me that the lost Dadui is right here?" Yu Ziqing looked terrified.

"This is definitely Dadui, I'm not necessarily clear about other things, but there is very little information about Dadui.

Dinghai City, this way of naming cities, only Dadui has ever used.

I haven't seen any part about Silver Lake in the records of Dadui, but I have seen parts about Dadui in the records of Silver Lake."

"What does it record?"

"The origin of Silver Lake," Yang said gravely, pausing briefly to recall before typing.

"In the year Dingmao eighty-eight, Alien Fire fell from the sky, turning thousands of miles into scorched earth, killing countless.

The Alien Fire was unpredictable, it could not be extinguished by rain, nor blown out by the wind. A Divine Man, Ji Meng, came from the Southern Sea, throwing a strange treasure into the river valley.

Galaxy fell to the ground, blocked its path, extinguished its Fire Qi, and transformed it into Silver Lake, remaining in the world."

"So, what's the situation on your side now?" Yu Ziqing continued.

"Right now, I see thousands of miles of scorched earth, countless Evil Ghosts, resentment soaring to the sky, extremely tragic, and I also see the Silver Lake that is still forming.

It is the scene described in the records.

The water from Infinite Silver Lake is rushing down, forcibly suppressing the Fire Qi, causing thousands of miles of flames to be extinguished.

Right now, this place has not yet completely turned into the real appearance of Silver Lake."

Yu Ziqing pondered.

"Do you mean, you are currently experiencing a scene from the past, and you are very certain that this is Dadui, that this is real?"

Yu Ziqing didn't spell it out, but she essentially meant, "you're okay, right?"

In such a situation, anyone would think it was false, right?

"If it were something else, I might think it was an Illusion Realm, but this, about Dadui, it really might be real.

You are in Dinghai City, right? Wait there, I need to make sure.

If this place is indeed Dadui, then Dinghai City should be in the southeast direction from Dadui, not too far from Silver Lake.

You'll know soon."

Yang rushed offline, leaving Yu Ziqing puzzled.

They had come here for the Sealed Items and already found this place to be strange enough.

But Yang said this place was Dadui, and there was a high probability it wasn't an illusion; it was real.

He couldn't figure out how this had become Dadui, how this had become real.

Unable to understand, Yu Ziqing still chose to trust Yang.

Yang had always been pretty accurate with his words, he would clearly say if he was uncertain, and also admit when he didn't know, but when he was certain, he wouldn't hesitate.

Seeing Yang's demeanor, it was clear that he was very certain.

He stayed in Dinghai City, listening intently every day to the speeches on the streets, learning the local dialects.

Watching and learning, he had come to understand quite a bit of the daily conversations, but speaking was a bit troublesome for him, as some pronunciations felt very awkward.

Everything seemed peaceful here, and he hadn't noticed any trace of the thousand miles of scorched earth Yang mentioned, and nobody in the city ever spoke of it.

The coming and going of traders and passersby was still as frequent as ever.

After a few days of learning, when Yu Ziqing went downstairs and vaguely asked the Shopkeeper about the great fire, the Shopkeeper had no recollection of it, directly stating that Dadui had not experienced any major fires in a long time, and there had never been a scenario of scorched earth.

Because of Dadui's location, with intertwined waterways and plentiful rainfall, due to the excessive moisture, even several months each year were unusually damp.

Every year they needed to manage the water, and they never worried about droughts or major fires or anything like that.

The Shopkeeper, hearing Yu Ziqing's accent, sensed he was not a local and before asking anything, Yu Ziqing brushed it off, saying his homeland had once experienced a drought that scorched the ground.

Therefore, the Shopkeeper warmly introduced him to the culture and customs of Dadui for a good while.

Dadui... Dadui...

After Yu Ziqing began to roughly understand the local speech, the frequency of this word's occurrence was remarkably high.

It seemed that the people here had a very strong sense of identity with Dadui.

...

Yang walked on the charred ground, as the water from Silver Lake came from the sky and quenched the Fire Qi, signs of life began to emerge on the charred ground.

But the pervasive resentment, Evil Qi, murderous Qi, and Death Qi lingered, combined with ghosts everywhere, made this land of thousands of miles akin to the Ghost Domain.

Yang moved quickly with Silver Lake as a reference point.

Even if the former mountains and rivers had changed, they wouldn't change drastically, unrecognizably.

And with Dadui's characteristic way of naming, knowing the name of a city could roughly infer the city's approximate location.

Searching was not particularly difficult.

However, days later, when Yang finally stood under the city gate of Dinghai City, looking at the name above the gate and sighing deeply.

The surroundings were still in ruins, no mountains or forests in sight, everywhere were signs of being scorched.

Entering Dinghai City, the city was empty, resentment filled the sky, the entire city was shades of grey and black.

The charred black, the ash grey, after falling again, had covered everything with a layer of grey.

The city inside was as silent as death, silent enough to make one despair.

Yang closed his eyes and started contacting Yu Ziqing.

"I have entered Dinghai City, just standing at the west city gate, just inside the city gate."

"I'm also on the west side, not far from the west city gate, at an inn beside the main road."

"No need to come, you wouldn't see me anyway, let me show you what I'm seeing."

Tired of describing, Yang gestured with his hand, conjuring an image."