dmims Chapter 38 I Avoid His Edge?
Chapter 38 I Avoid His Edge?
Hu Haiwang kept his word and sent an envelope that very evening.
The envelope contained a plane ticket for a direct flight from Chongqing to Shanghai three days later, and a note.
The note read: "Shu Zi Men, Hu Haiwang."
If you encounter any trouble in Shanghai, you can find the third incense and candle shop on the west side of the City God Temple. Just mention my name and someone will come to your aid.
Zhuge Yan folded the note and put it in his pocket.
Putting aside the subsequent Jia Shen Rebellion, just based on this encounter alone, Hu Haiwang is a man worth befriending!
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Three days later, at Chongqing Baishiyi Airport.
Zhuge Yan got up before dawn, carrying his luggage, and walked from the cheap inn where he was staying to the outskirts of the city.
The airport was twenty miles west of the city. He walked quickly and arrived before the morning mist had completely dissipated.
The runway was made of rammed earth, and the waiting hall was a row of gray brick bungalows with several military green trucks parked at the entrance.
The roar of the propellers came from the direction of the tarmac, and the ground crew was busy doing the final checks on the aircraft before takeoff.
Zhuge Yan stopped at the entrance of the waiting hall, preparing to go in and find the aircraft maintenance officer Liu that Hu Haiwang had mentioned.
But the next second, he suddenly stopped in his tracks.
A very subtle tremor welled up from the bottom of his heart; it was not fear, nor tension, but the sorcerer's instinct.
It is a kind of keen perception of the deviation of the cause-and-effect line between heaven and earth that naturally arises after being immersed in countless deductions and hexagrams for a long time.
There's a problem...
Zhuge Yan narrowed his eyes, slowly put down his baggage, and made a hand seal with one hand.
Three feet beneath my feet, a faint golden light shone, and the eight directions silently unfolded in the morning mist.
He used his own experience as a starting point to deduce the auspiciousness or inauspiciousness of his trip today.
The star Tianrui, one of the nine stars in the celestial sphere, suddenly became dazzlingly bright. Tianrui governs illness, disaster, and death.
At the same time, the Tengshe (螣蛇) in the Eight Gods of the Human Plate began to move violently.
The Tengshe (螣蛇) signifies false alarms, strange occurrences, and endless entanglements.
The gate of rest is dim, while the gate of death is wide open.
He opened his eyes, looked down at the flickering hexagram at his feet, and remained silent for a long while.
The divination indicates a very unfavorable outcome, but there is a risk of bloodshed on this journey, and the hexagram points directly to the plane that is about to take off.
Something awaits him, and it's deadly!
Thinking of this, a glint of light flashed in Zhuge Yan's eyes.
He did not immediately close the Qimen Dunjia chart, but instead continued to explore it further.
Since the danger occurred on the plane, the enemy's methods are nothing more than two: planting explosives on the plane or planting assassins among the passengers.
If it's explosives, detonating them during the flight is the most discreet way to destroy the plane in mid-air, leaving even the most powerful sorcerer with no chance of escape.
If he were an assassin, he could blend in with the passengers, approach them, and suddenly attack in the enclosed cabin, making it difficult to deal with if caught off guard.
In either case, the other party is hiding in the shadows.
The most troublesome thing is that he still doesn't know who the other party is!
An accomplice of Gu Yan? That's possible.
Gu Yan is a member of the Quanxing sect, a powerful and well-informed group. It's possible that they could track him down from Qixia Town all the way to Chongqing.
But besides Quanxing, he also offended other people during the months he was down the mountain.
A rival of the "Art of Techniques" sect? A local tyrant at the docks? Or some other force he hadn't yet noticed?
Without clues or a specific direction, the divination could only tell him "there is misfortune," but it could not tell him "where the misfortune comes from."
Zhuge Yan put away the Qimen formation and stood still.
Go ahead, the divination clearly indicates the worst possible outcome.
With Tianrui (天芮) and Tengshe (螣蛇) in the sky, and the Gate of Death (死门) wide open, this is a configuration that sorcerers fear most.
The instinct of a sorcerer is to seek good fortune and avoid misfortune. If the divination indicates that there will be bloodshed on this journey, the most rational course of action is to turn around and leave, and find another way to go to Shanghai.
Maybe I shouldn't go...
Zhuge Yan took the plane ticket out of his pocket. The paper was folded neatly, and the edges were still warm from his body.
Hu Haiwang earned this plane ticket through a real competition; if he doesn't go, the ticket will be wasted.
It would be a lie to say I wasn't heartbroken, after all, it took several days of hard work to finally get this plane ticket.
He put the ticket back and stood in the morning breeze outside the waiting area for a while.
Zhuge Yan hesitated, not out of fear of death, but because he was weighing whether or not to avoid the danger.
Some things you can hide from for a while, but you can't hide from forever.
If he backs down today, the other party will definitely continue to pursue this line of inquiry.
If you can chase someone to Chongqing, you can chase them to Shanghai; if you can chase them to Shanghai, you can chase them anywhere.
If I get a refund this time, I'll get a refund next time too.
In the end, there was nowhere left to retreat.
Just then, Zhuge Yan suddenly remembered the ancestral hall of the Wuhou School.
Every Lunar New Year's Eve, the elders of the clan would lead all the disciples to the ancestral hall to kowtow to the ancestral tablet.
On the altar is the memorial tablet of our ancestor, Zhuge Liang, the Prime Minister of the Han Dynasty, with a couplet inscribed on either side.
He died before achieving his goal, leaving heroes to weep with sorrow.
I remember when I was a child, a disciple of the clan asked the elders this question.
Did Zhuge Liang (the legendary general) foresee that his northern expedition would fail?
"He is Zhuge Liang, the greatest diviner of all time, so of course he could calculate it."
"Then why did he still come out of seclusion?"
"Because some things are more important than life itself."
Some things are more important than life itself.
It is instinctive for sorcerers to seek good fortune and avoid misfortune, but if they only seek good fortune and avoid misfortune, why did our ancestor Zhuge Liang have to go to Qishan and launch six expeditions and nine campaigns?
Couldn't he have foreseen the outcome of the Northern Expedition? Of course he could, but he still went!
Because some things are more important than one's own fortune or misfortune, such as the world, the common people, and one's loyalty to the path one has chosen.
The inner demons are still there.
The shadow of that crimson eye still lingered deep within his inner world, waiting for him to provide an answer.
If he turns away today because of the "very unlucky" divination result, then this answer will never be given.
Since that's the case, let's go and see for ourselves!
They're just a bunch of demons and monsters; why should I avoid their sharp edge?
With this in mind, Zhuge Yan immediately made a decision.
He wanted to see what kind of insidious "tricks" this rabble had secretly devised!
Zhuge Yan pushed open the peeling wooden door of the waiting hall, and the hinges made a dry creak.
The hall was empty, the cement floor was polished to a shine, and two rows of hardwood benches were placed against the wall, with several expired newspapers draped over the backs of the benches.
There was a dry smell in the air, a mixture of engine oil and dust.
Instead of going deeper into the waiting area, he went around the low wall on the side of the bungalow and walked along a row of rusty iron railings to the back.
The note from Hu Haiwang clearly stated: When you arrive at the airport, find a maintenance worker surnamed Liu and give him the name Hu Haiwang.
At the end of the runway, next to the hangar, a middle-aged man in dark blue overalls was squatting in front of a flat tire, turning a wrench rapidly in his hand.
He wore a greasy canvas hat with the brim pulled low over his head, revealing the lower half of his face, which was smeared with engine oil.
"Master Liu?"
Zhuge Yan stopped two steps away, clutching the note in his hand.
"Hu Haiwang asked me to come find you."