CHAPTER 466: CHAPTER 466: THE TRUE SPIRIT OF THE MORTAL WORLD

Yu Sheng walked out from the gate, and looked back towards the direction of the Spirit Mountain’s main peak with a hint of confusion, slightly furrowing his brows.

Hu Li immediately came over curiously, "Savior, what’s wrong?"

"Nothing much, just felt like someone called my name just now," Yu Sheng thought for a moment and waved casually, "It’s no big deal, maybe I heard wrong."

"Oh, oh."

Hu Li nodded excitedly, then began eagerly looking around.

At the foot of the Qianfeng Ling Mountain lies a large city. Yu Sheng had been here once before to set a "coordinate" around the mountain, but he only passed by hurriedly—afterwards, a series of incidents occurred, leaving everyone without the time to explore. Now that they finally had some free time, they finally had the chance to understand what the "city" on the Taixu Spirit Hub was like.

In sight are pavilions and towers, grand halls and great houses, with rows upon rows of ornate establishments, bustling markets, and towering buildings with a classical style rising in the distance. Long bridging corridors and horizontal ladders connect the buildings, the whole city exudes a peculiar ancient charm, yet everywhere can be seen structures so incredible that they seem to defy the "rules of architecture," leaving people in awe.

Among the large buildings and bridges that resemble some majestic giant beast, you can see numerous Immortal Boats and sweeping shuttles constantly flowing, as well as various spiritual colors and illusions appearing on the carved high walls and rooftops. There are even "buildings" as small as little towers that, driven by mechanism devices, stride through purposely left "tracks" between buildings, moving steadily from one district to another.

The sounds of bustling streets filled with vehicles and people are in the ears, and before the eyes is a large city driven by massive constructions and Immortal Spirit Power, an entirely different style from Mo City on Shuji, yet similarly surrounded by an aura both ancient and advanced, realistic yet dreamily bizarre.

The group of doll-headed children, who ran down the mountain with Yu Sheng, excitedly shouted, and a few older kids took out phone watches and started snapping photos of the surrounding streets. Some began tugging at Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White, asking questions everywhere. A little girl closest to Yu Sheng jumped up pointing at a building that was slowly flying overhead like a divine temple: "Ah—this building can fly!"

Yu Sheng was also dazzled at this time; as it was during the festival, the entire city was adorned with lanterns and decorations, with a strong festive atmosphere. Various celebratory words and giant holographic projections covered nearly every building in sight. There were local and out-of-town tourists crowding the streets, and when he looked up, he even saw two Cultivators in standard Daoist robes chasing a local fox streaked with yellow light across the sky, and only learned from the surrounding discussions that it was about catching speeding...

At this moment, Erin had already climbed onto Yu Sheng’s shoulders, her two small hands tightly gripping his head as if afraid that she would be knocked down by the surrounding people: "Wow... I knew it would be lively down here, but I didn’t expect it to be this lively."

"This is entirely different from the calm and quiet Qianfeng Ling Mountain’s art style," Yu Sheng also sighed, "It has to be said, it’s pretty humanistic."

Hu Li next to him nodded excitedly again, then tugged on Yu Sheng’s sleeve: "Savior, I want to eat this!"

Yu Sheng looked up and saw a stall not far away with a large pot, the bottom of the pot flickering with blue light, and cakes in the pot emitting bursts of cool air, with many people lining up there.

He also went over to line up, and then saw next to the stall a large sign with a bunch of words, mainly saying that during a certain era, a dejected Loose Cultivator who was unsuccessful in life, after failing the Spirit Mountain election, wandered here. And an old lady whose name was bolded and underlined saw he was starving and gave him a piece of pastry. The Loose Cultivator ate it and was enlightened, his meridians were opened, and he rushed to the Spirit Mountain, passed numerous hurdles, and successfully enrolled in the Beast Taming Peak’s 56th Animal Postpartum Care Specialty...

Yu Sheng immediately found it amusing, daring that the Taixu Spirit Hub’s folk also played this game...

While he was amused, Erin started poking at his head: "Hey stop laughing, you got money with you? They seem to be using something called Spirit Stones or whatever..."

Then Yu Sheng pointed to a small mirror placed next to the stall with a note underneath: This shop supports payment via Starry Pay/Ling Stone Pass/Unified Payment/Terra Quick Pay channels.

"Are you kidding? The Capital Planet of a star civilization, are you afraid you can’t spend money?" Yu Sheng rolled his eyes, "Moreover, the Yuanling has been open to the outside world at the Taixu Spirit Hub for decades, probably even beggars might support you using a Boundary Land mobile phone to scan the QR code..."

Erin listened stunned, scratching Yu Sheng’s head: "Could there still be beggars here?"

Yu Sheng was covered in cold sweat: "A metaphor, I was just using a metaphor."

Then after a few more minutes, the people queueing at the small stall dispersed noisily, Yu Sheng and the others emerged from the crowd, Hu Li walking and grabbing cakes from his tail to eat, while behind them was the stall owner looking somewhat dazed—the pot on the stall was empty, even the few condiment bottles were empty...

Then after walking a few more steps, Hu Li started tugging on Yu Sheng’s sleeve again, "Savior, I want to eat that!!"

From then on the same few phrases started to repeat: "Savior, I want to eat this! Savior, I want to eat that! Savior, is this delicious! Savior, try this... you also try that!"

Luckily, Yu Sheng doesn’t lack money now; otherwise, he definitely wouldn’t dare to stroll with his household fox on a street full of delicious food—back then, taking Hu Li for a walk along the riverbank was already the limit, as at most, you could refresh a couple of sausage and cotton candy stalls there...

The prices at the foot of Qianfeng Ling Mountain are really high.

But on second thoughts, since the travel agency’s number one firepower unit is refueling ammo, he suddenly felt it was all worth it, so he raised his hand and stuffed ten more drawers of buns into the fox’s tail...

As for the fairy tale study group led by Little Red Riding Hood and the long-haired princess, they vanished by the time Hu Li started his third meal. Before leaving, the long-haired princess mentioned she was taking the kids to watch a street performance next door—rumor had it that a loose cultivator was performing the act of smashing stones with his chest and a muscle regeneration and bone-healing technique on the street...

Honestly, Yu Sheng found this kind of performance somewhat suspicious and doubted whether it was suitable for children, but on second thought, given the fierce dream realms the "Fairy Tales" kids faced from childhood, watching stones smashing on chests may indeed seem like a refreshing way to cleanse their eyes...

So, leading Hu Li and Luna, carrying a puppet on his shoulder (with an Omen Wandering Star hovering beside the puppet’s head), the group of four (plus one ball) wandered the street aimlessly.

During this, he fed Hu Li a bunch of strange and bizarre things, many of which he doubted whether ordinary people could even eat, and also bought Erin a heap of odd little trinkets like hair clips, buttons, and glowing beads—frankly speaking, many of these things were utterly unusable for Erin, given her current height of 66.6 centimeters, but she just loved collecting those pretty little trinkets.

Yu Sheng’s nightstand was already crammed with such "collections" by the little puppet, and she usually didn’t allow anyone to touch them.

Finally, Yu Sheng’s attention shifted to Luna, who had been silently following alongside the whole time.

"It’s rare to come out; aren’t you buying anything?" he asked out of curiosity, looking at the always quiet Artificial Saintess.

Luna thought for a moment, then slowly shook her head: "I haven’t seen anything I want."

"Well, C-Type Buckle usually either stands staring blankly at home or goes farming in the valley," Erin chimed in, shaking her head, "Doesn’t look like there are any tools for sale here."

Yu Sheng stroked his chin: "Well, let’s keep strolling; it’s rare to get such an opportunity—Luna, look around more; maybe you’ll find something that interests you. Don’t always confine yourself to the Soul Wilderness; spare a bit for the real world too..."

Luna slowly nodded, then continued strolling the streets alongside Yu Sheng. After only a few steps, she actually found something, raising a hand and tugging Yu Sheng’s arm: "I found something interesting."

As she spoke, she started walking forward proactively, like she had indeed discovered some treasure.

The enthusiastic demeanor of the Holy Lady was seldom seen; Yu Sheng froze for a moment at the sight, then quickly raised his head to look in Luna’s direction, only to see a crowd gathered ahead—he pushed forward a few steps and finally saw a stall selling what appeared to be various souvenirs and decorative items.

Yu Sheng was somewhat surprised; he didn’t expect Luna to be interested in such things. After all, the bunch of stuff on the stall seemed obviously designed to swindle outsiders; he had seen plenty in tourist areas. But in the next second, he spotted the "treasure of the stall" in the middle of the souvenirs—a well-crafted twenty-plus centimeters tall figure that looked incredibly familiar. Taking a closer look, the base had a small plaque with a line of golden characters:

Savior of Mercy, Sage of Great Virtue, Yu Sheng True Monarch.

Yu Sheng: "...?"

Stunned for barely two seconds, Erin was already pulling at Yu Sheng’s hair: "Hey, hey, this little figure looks a lot like you! Just, it’s made a bit too handsome; your face isn’t that good-looking..."

Yu Sheng finally snapped back to reality, blurting out a "What the heck."

As soon as he spoke, the surrounding crowd remained motionless, but the vendor across, who had been busy sorting things with his back turned, suddenly flinched, then stood up, turned around, and locked eyes with Yu Sheng.

It was TM Yuan Hao.

He had dyed his signature white hair black and was wearing an outfit resembling uniform from a tourist area, not sure from where he got it, setting up a stall here—selling enchanted souvenirs, along with figurines of Yu Sheng...