The note I wrote yesterday was about the Turing Test, but I couldn't find a suitable topic for it after a long time, so I had no choice but to omit the process.
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To do it again.
To cultivate amid the sparse energy of heaven and earth.
To be a prince.
Jing Jiu had experienced all these things.
As such, it wasn't difficult for him to adapt to the Illusionary Realm in the Green Sky Mirror.
Yet, he still found something out of place.
One day, when he was in a daze in the royal garden, he saw two palace servant girls playing chess, so he helped them put down a chess piece.
It was not because he was interested in the game, nor was it because he intended to show off his intelligence; it was an instinctive action of his.
He was a regular person now. It was a long time since he had had such an experience. It reminded him of the time when he was in Zhaoge City a long time ago. He ran around in the Royal Palace because he was afraid that his brother would catch him and take him back to school. Then, he saw two palace servant girls playing the finger-guessing game in the royal garden.
After he put down the chess piece, he remembered that he was not in Zhaoge City.
This Royal Palace was not the same Royal Palace.
His brother had passed away in the Guocheng Temple many years ago.
Was this the effect of the Illusionary Realm of Cloud-Dream?
Jing Jiu had figured something out.
From that day on, he hadn't played chess again.
It wasn't until one winter many years later that Crown Prince Jing came to the capital in the wind and snow.
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Though Crown Prince Jing was very smart and intelligent, he was only four years old at the moment, so he couldn't predict that he would go to the capital many years later. There were many things he couldn't do either, like making the King listen to his advice, or establishing his own spy organization to find those participants as soon as possible.
His teacher had already left. He sat by the window, writing while facing the falling snow.
His handwriting was excellent. To say nothing of the children of the same age, even the counselors in the King Manor couldn't write better than him. His teacher was very satisfied and proud of him. He told him many times that he didn't need to practice so hard, but he didn't listen to him. He still wrote many characters in the study room every day.
Those seemingly unrelated words were some information that he had memorized. No one but him could understand them.
It was not difficult to find the other participants, because they were all born on the same date, and he could remember all the small movements, expressions and habits of the participants. His only worry was that living in the illusion for a long time would have some kind of influence on his mind and cause him to gradually forget some things.
Therefore, he memorized all the information. Of course, he did not forget to note down the most important things.
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Who am I?
Where do I come from?
What am I going to do here.
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After writing those words on the paper, he casually stacked them at the corner of the table. Crown Prince Jing moved to the window with some difficulty and looked at the snowflakes.
Cangzhou was located in the northernmost part of the Chu Kingdom, bordering the Luo Kingdom and the Qin Kingdom. The climate there was rather cold, and it began to snow very early.
Many participants of the Dao Competition should have noticed him by now.
In a few more years, someone might come to Cangzhou, and there were tens of thousands of troops led by Master Jing Of Silla inside and outside Cangzhou.
Silence, he stood in the middle of the net, waiting for those people to come, either to kill or to form an alliance.
Some participants of the Dao Competition were like him, not caring about being discovered by others. They must have the same idea as him.
For example, the Ninth Prince who was said to be an idiot.
The cold wind gushed in through the window.
Jing Jiu coughed twice and took a blanket to cover his legs. Looking at his own face in the mirror, he let out a contented smile.
The little boy in the mirror had thick eyebrows that were as sharp as swords.
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The Luo Kingdom was the weakest among the five kingdoms, and the populace lived the poorest lives.
The villages near the Zhang River didn't benefit from the water. On the contrary, their properties were destroyed by the floods a few years ago, and they hadn't recovered yet.
There was a ditch in the field, which happened to be between two neighboring villages. During the drought years, this ditch would be an important piece of land that the two villages fought over. Men guarding the ditch with hoes on their shoulders could be seen everywhere. But there was no one by the ditch at the moment, save for two children standing on both sides of the ditch.
The two children were about four or five years old, wearing ragged clothes. They seemed to be from a poor family.
They looked at the sun in the ditch with their hands clasped behind their backs. They didn't talk to each other, nor did they throw stones at each other.
"Do you think the sun in the ditch is real or fake?" the child in the east village suddenly asked.
The child from the west village said, "Do you think the sun in the sky is real or fake?"
The child from the east village looked up at the sky and said with squinted eyes, "I think it's just a bead."
The child from the west village said, "The Retrieved Heavenly Bead?"
The two children looked at each other and knew each other's identity. They were a little excited and a little wary.
"Do you drink?" the child from the west village asked.
"I can drink a lot," the child from the east village replied.
The child from the west village's eyes lit up and asked, "What's your favorite dish to go with wine?"
The child from the east village said, "I like to eat tofu and preserved eggs mixed with fried soybeans. What about you?"
The child from the west village said, "Bean curd with chili oil and steamed buns."
The two children looked at each other and reached out to shake hands across the ditch.
The child from the east village was a little confused and said, "My luck has always been bad, but where's your luck? You actually landed in such a desolate place. "
The child from the west village sighed and said, "Don't mention it. But I'm lucky to have met you."
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The child from the west village who liked to eat bean curd with chili oil and was famous for his good luck was naturally He Zhan.
The child from the east village was called Jiang Rui, a rogue cultivator friend of He Zhan.
Jiang Rui had seen He Zhan before he entered the Huiyin Valley, but he didn't expect that he would be the first one he met in the Illusionary Realm.
He Zhan looked at the sun in the sky and said, "Thinking that those people might be looking at us like this, I feel a little embarrassed."
Jiang Rui knew that he was reminding him not to reveal his identity, so he asked in a low voice, "How did you become a monk of the Guocheng Temple?"
"Let's talk about it outside," He Zhan said, "What's your situation now?"
Jiang Rui revealed a bitter smile and said, "I'm a little miserable. I have to endure for a few more years. I have to kill that man first."
He Zhan noticed the wounds on his body through the holes in his clothes and said, "I'll help you then."
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Jiang Rui returned to his own house in the east village. Before he could do anything after entering the house, he was slapped to the ground.
A man reeking of alcohol cursed, "Why didn't you stay at home to look after your little sister? Why did you go out?!"
This man was his father in this world. He liked to drink and gamble. No matter how much he drank or how much he lost, he liked to beat and scold his family to vent his anger.
His family was poor to begin with, and the only valuable thing they had was sold by this drunkard.
The free-traveling practitioners were still Cultivation practitioners. When Jiang Rui traveled in Chaotian, he was regarded as an immortal by the mortals, so he had never been treated like this. Of course, he wanted to recover his Cultivation as soon as possible and kill this drunkard and then leave this damned place. However, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth in the Illusionary Realm was too sparse, and it would take him a few more years to recover. Would he have to endure such a life for a few more years? However, if he left with He Zhan now, he would be sold by the human traffickers or eaten by the wild animals before he could go far.
Thinking of the name He Zhan, an idea suddenly came to Jiang Rui's mind, and then he couldn't get rid of it.
Countless ideas flashed through his mind, and in the end, he blurted out a sentence.
"I met a friend in the neighboring village on the other side of the ditch."
In response to Jiang Rui, his drunkard father slapped him again and said, "Even a little bastard like you knows what a friend is?"
Jiang Rui said with tears in his eyes, "He fed me white rice cakes and fruits; of course we are friends."
The drunkard father was taken aback for a moment before asking, "White rice cakes? I haven't eaten them for a long time. He … Is your friend very rich? "
Jiang Rui said while sobbing, "He said that a good thing had washed out from the river and was picked up by his mother when she was washing clothes by the river. He said that the good thing could be exchanged for many things, such as white rice cakes, yellow rice cakes …"
After a moment of silence, the drunkard father asked, "What does that good thing look like?"
Jiang Rui glanced at him gingerly and said, "I don't know. He said it looked like dried shit; but how could it be a good thing?"
The drunkard father asked while scratching his head, "Dried shit … is it yellow?"
"No. He said it looked like … like the color of that."
Jiang Rui said this while pointing at the sky.
There was a golden sun in the sky.
The drunkard father looked at the sun and squinted, wondering if it was the Dog Head Gold.
It was said that the Wang family in the neighboring village made a fortune by picking up a Dog Head Gold in the river more than thirty years ago.
Did such a good thing finally happen to him?
"It's just a pile of dried shit!"
The drunkard father pretended to be angry and slapped Jiang Rui's head, but he just touched it.
That night, the drunkard father left after dinner.
Jiang Rui knew that he wasn't going to gamble, because he didn't drink.
The poor family didn't have enough money to light a lamp, so it was dark at night.
His mother had fallen asleep on the other side of the Kang while coaxing his younger sister.
Jiang Rui sat on the other side of the Kang wrapped in a ragged quilt, with only his face exposed.
Looking at the stars outside the window, he was lost in thought.
Allying with He Zhan was certainly a good thing. He believed in He Zhan's ability and character; but the problem was, even if he and He Zhan could be together in the end, who would the Tripod belong to?
He didn't have any confidence that he could defeat He Zhan.
Well, it didn't matter. It didn't matter how many years he had to wait. He was just jealous.
In the real world, he had always been jealous of He Zhan's good luck. He was jealous that He Zhan had so many friends from big sects, but he didn't introduce any of them to him.
This was the Dreamland of Cloud-Dream. Would he still have such good luck?
If your luck is really that good, then you will survive tonight.
Thinking about these things, Jiang Rui felt that the night was getting colder, so he tightened the quilt on his body.
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In a remote mud house in the West Village.
A woman was lying on the ground, no longer breathing.
She had struggled to survive for more than thirty years by doing laundry and cooking. She couldn't understand why she would die so carelessly because of a pile of Dog Head Gold that didn't exist.
He Zhan's hands and feet were tied, and he was lying on the ground. His face was covered with blood.
His sight moved from his foster mother to the man who was rummaging through the chests and cabinets. He was a bit numb — the things that happened in the real world had made him disheartened. After entering the Dreamland, he was even more desperate. He had planned to go with the flow and endure in this village until the end of the trial, rarely cultivating. Tonight, he realized that he was wrong.
In the end, the man didn't find the Dog Head Gold. He was extremely disappointed. He turned around and punched and kicked He Zhan again, completely ignoring that He Zhan was only a four or five-year-old kid.
He Zhan didn't cry out in pain, nor did he call for help, because he was afraid that the man would kill him.
As long as he could survive, it was fine.
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Sometimes, living was more painful than dying.
In the following days, He Zhan understood this more and more.
That man didn't want to go back empty-handed, so he sold him to a human trafficker.
That human trafficker sold him to another human trafficker. He didn't know how many times the trafficker had changed hands. Finally, he was sold to Zhao.
He was homeless and miserable all the way. The luck in the real world seemed to be reversed in the Dreamland.
When he was in a broker's house in the capital of Zhao, the rope that tied his hands was finally untied. The wound on his wrists was so deep that his bones could be seen.
The people in the broker's house brought him some food, treated his wounds, bathed him, and even gave him some clean clothes.
However, He Zhan's bad luck didn't end there. The most painful moment was yet to come.
A carriage took several boys to the depth of the capital. Gradually, they could see the majestic Imperial Palace in front of them.
He Zhan looked forward with a pale face. For the first time, he tried to escape. When the manager of the broker's house didn't notice him, he gritted his teeth and jumped out of the carriage.
But he was only a five-year-old boy. It was impossible for him to run too far. Soon, he was caught and brought back.
After being beaten with sticks, he was still taken to the Imperial Palace.
In a dark and gloomy room, he was tied to a chair. His body was extremely weak after being forced to drink medicine, and he didn't have any strength left.
He could do nothing but watch the old eunuch walk over with a small knife with a deerskin handle.
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The Chu Kingdom welcomed the diplomatic mission of the Qin Kingdom in the north.
It was actually not accurate to call it a diplomatic mission, because it was the Qin Emperor who came to visit in person. It had never happened that an emperor went to another kingdom. It was said that the Qin Emperor's decision was criticized greatly in his kingdom. But he still insisted on doing so, and he brought his favorite princess with him.
The little princess was only five years old this year. It was unclear why the Qin Emperor was willing to let her go on a long journey with him.
Except for the two of them, nobody knew what the Qin Emperor was going to discuss with the Chu Emperor.
A prince of course had to attend the welcoming banquet. Sitting on the bed, Jing Jiu looked at the little princess, who was about the same age as him, wondering who she was.
After the little princess of the Qin Kingdom saw Jing Jiu, her gaze had never left his face. She had been staring at his face, her eyes full of delight.
The servant girls and old maidservants of the Royal Palace of the Chu Kingdom couldn't help but laugh while covering their mouths, thinking that it was said that the people of the Qin Kingdom were straightforward. It seemed that it was true that such a little girl knew what was good to look at, and she looked at it unscrupulously.
The Qin Emperor and the Chu Emperor started a secret discussion. They drove all the servants out of the palace, leaving Jing Jiu and the little princess of the Qin Kingdom alone on the bed.
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