Chapter 1 The Tao is Merciless

　　The cold wind was like a knife and the snow was flying. 　　As soon as Lu Sheng opened his eyes, he saw himself sitting on a yellow and gray carriage, which was swaying a bit, and there was the sound of a little girl talking in a thin voice beside him. 　　Outside the carriage, there was a piece of noisy and boisterous people's voices. 　　There are hawking, yelling, cheering. There was also the laughter of small children. 　　Lu Sheng sighed deeply. 　　He knew he couldn't go back, it had been five days since he woke up in this world after a drunken stint as an old greaseball in a state-owned enterprise. 　　He sniffed his nose, the air smelled of wine, pancakes, and fried fruit. 　　"Aiya, the white cinnamon wine from Gui Hua Fang is getting more and more fragrant." 　　The personal maid in the carriage, Xiao Qiao, said in a milky voice. 　　Xiao Qiao was only twelve years old this year. Plus, she was born with a baby face and was small in size. She looked no different from a ten year old. Small face chubby, white and red, wearing a small green cotton dress, small hands are still rubbing the hair rope for Lu Sheng to get off the car to tie his hair. 　　This kind of hair rope is made of a very expensive kind of cross tree bark, will naturally emit a light fragrance, but the only bad thing is that when it is cold, it will be hard, and you need to soften it by rubbing it with a hot hand. 　　Lu Sheng smiled and didn't say anything. 　　The carriage soon stopped. 　　He lifted the curtain and stepped out of the car, the gray-white street, paved with a piece of green stone bricks, each piece is the size of a basin. 　　The street was filled with cars and vehicles, and there were people leading horses to and fro. 　　Hawkers and girls and women who came out to loiter had no qualms about showing their faces and giggling. 　　Lu Sheng tilted his head and looked at the wine shop in front of him. 　　The white plaque was rectangular in shape, with three big words written in the center in a dragon's flight: Gui Hua Fang. 　　"Grand Duke Lu is here! Please come inside! The A-size room is reserved for you!" A boy greeted him with a smile on his face. 　　Lu Sheng nodded his head, with a look of a rich man, and took the silver-edged white paper fan from the small hand beside him, and gently shook it, the fan surface unfolded, and on it was painted a picture of a mountainous landscape, with rising and falling landscapes, overlapping light and darkness, and an inscription that seemed to be in the style of a great man. 　　He lightly along with the boy into the wine shop. 　　Wine shop is divided into two floors, the first floor hall is sitting a lot of people listening to people singing. 　　A green-clothed girl stood crisply in the empty space, with a melodious voice, and there was a middle-aged woman playing a pipa on the side. 　　Singing is a three will pass, three will pass is about the expedition general and the mountain fox girl's poignant love. 　　Unfortunately, the drinkers present are some rough people, only a few literati gentlemen can still understand, the rest of the people are on the young girl two people ignored. The reward was even less. 　　Lu Sheng stopped his footsteps, looking at the first floor is so lively, he also simply on the first floor to find a vacant seat. 　　"Who here ordered the three club passes?" He casually asked the boy. 　　His status in this Gui Hua Fang was different, if this Gui Hua Fang was equivalent to a high-class entertainment club on Earth, then he was the supreme VIP customer here. A master who spent at least several hundred thousand dollars a year. 　　With this kind of expenses, in a small northern city like Jiu Lian City, it was already considered a top customer. 　　"It's Duke Zhou. Zhou Jiu Zhou Duke." The boy whispered back. 　　Lu Sheng didn't make things difficult for him, so he waved his hand and let him go. 　　After he pulled Xiao Qiao to sit down, his eyes swept around the crowd on the first floor, and he soon saw a pale, skinny male, dressed in all white, holding a tawdry golden ruffled folding fan in his hand, gently shaking it. 　　"Probably looking at that singing little girl again." Lu Sheng shook his head. 　　"Grand Duke only warned him last time, this guy is really bad!" Xiao Qiao beamed in dissatisfaction. 　　Lu Sheng smiled and stopped talking. He began to quietly listen to the song. 　　A table of wine and food was quickly served on the dark red wooden table, Lu Sheng clamped a clip of lettuce fried shredded pork and put it in his mouth. Then take a sip of white cinnamon wine that is similar to the drink. The light sweet floral aroma mixed together was similar to drinking fruit juice. 　　"Brocade clothes, no worries, and a little beauty maid to warm the bed, such a life is simply too corrupt." Lu Sheng sometimes wondered if he wanted to live like this for the rest of his life, and this kind of rice worm life was what he had been pursuing in his last life anyway. 　　Eat a mouthful of food, drink a mouthful of wine. 　　Open his mouth again and let Cozy stuff a peeled salt water ice shrimp. 　　This northern snow city, ice shrimp is the specialty of this place, in the thick ice holes randomly fishing, can hit a large number of body translucent small shrimp. 　　This is the ice shrimp. 　　Ice shrimp body length is half of the ordinary shrimp, but the taste is delicious. Shrimp meat melts in the mouth, the end is the supreme flavor. 　　Of course, the price is also very expensive. Normally, it was already considered a luxury for people to eat once a month, where could they have it all the time like he did. 　　While Lu Sheng ate the food, drank the wine, and listened to the little song, his heart was thinking about other things. 　　He had come to this world similar to ancient China for so many days already. However, according to his observation, there were many oddities in this world. 　　At first he thought that he had returned to ancient times, but then he realized that it wasn't. The customs and habits here, the festivals and climate, were all far different from any dynastic region he knew. 　　While Lu Sheng was thinking about things in his mind, the door in the wine shop opened once again. 　　A line of strong men in short beatings walked in one after another, and found a table near the corner and sat down on their asses. 　　These few strong men knew at a glance that they were not locals, their dress was more like they came from the Central Plains, their clothes and temperament did not have the roughness of the Northlands side. 　　"Alas." 　　The head of a strong man is a bald head, with copper earrings, full of flesh, but at this time but sighed: "This day is impossible to live." 　　"What is big brother worrying about, if we can't get through Li's village, we can take the second road, a detour from Zhang's village side is also possible." Another han frowned. 　　"What do you know, when I came over to rendezvous I went from the Zhang Village side. The situation is pretty much the same as Li's Village, a lot of people have died." The horizontal flesh on the bald man's face trembled, his expression becoming even more sorrowful. 　　"What exactly happened, big brother, tell the brothers, and also let us gain insight." A hanyou urged. 　　The bald burly man sighed again, "Specifically how, I'm not sure, I only know that several fishing villages by Suiyang Lake, something has happened, it seems like there are water ghosts haunting them." 　　"Water ghosts! It's not?" 　　Lu Sheng's table was not far from them, and he could also hear their undisguised chatter. Originally, he was just playing along as a listener, but he didn't expect these few people to actually chat about divine and divine things. 　　His Lu family in this life, in this Northland Ice City is one of the largest households, the family wealth of tens of thousands of Guan that is still said to be less. To put it on Earth in comparison, it was at least a rich man with assets of over a hundred million dollars. 　　In the past few days out to drink, he also heard a lot of rumors about monsters, gods and ghosts in the wine shop, but most of them were legendary stories. This time, it was the first time that he had a personal experience like these people. 　　So Lu Sheng perked up his ears and listened carefully. The good thing was that those people didn't hide it either. They continued to chat loudly about the strange events in the fishing village. 　　"That water ghost, I saw it with my own eyes, more than ten feet tall, green face and fangs, covered with a lot of water plants, boy, if it wasn't for your big brother I ran fast, now you guys don't want to see my people." The bald head still had palpitations now. 　　"Big brother, is there really such a thing as a water ghost?" A hanyou didn't believe it. 　　"I'm afraid it's not a story you made up, big brother?" Another hanyou hemmed and hawed. 　　Lu Sheng also felt funny when he heard this, it was probably just another reckless man bragging that came out from somewhere. 　　He had seen plenty of such people during this period of time. 　　After eating and drinking, he let the boy bring over the songstress's song list and casually browsed through it. 　　Although the Three Clubs Biography was good, it didn't fit the scene, he planned to change it to a more cheerful one. 　　Pah! 　　But right at this moment, that bald man was red in the face and slapped the table. 　　"Still really think I, Boss Hu, only brag! Look, look at what this is! A piece of bone that water ghost fell on the ground! This is what I secretly picked up afterward!" In one go, he carefully took out a jade-like green stone from his arms and slapped it on the tabletop. 　　"Isn't this just a piece of miscellaneous jade!" A hanyou laughed. 　　"Miscellaneous Jade? This is miscellaneous jade? Put your mother's ass on the table!" 　　The bald man's face turned red. 　　"This brother. Can you show me this thing." 　　Suddenly a gentle voice came from the side. 　　Lu Sheng stood beside the table of several people with a smile on his face, his eyes sweeping over the green jade on the tabletop. 　　"This thing, you dare to take it? This is something left behind by the Water Ghost." That bald man said in amazement. He was just taking it out now to show it off, planning to throw it away in a while. After all, this was not a contraption left behind by a human. If the water ghosts that were really attracted were looking for trouble, then it would really be more trouble than it was worth. 　　"It's fine. I'll just take a look." Lu Sheng didn't believe in water ghosts, he just looked at the jade and saw that it looked good, not like ordinary miscellaneous jade. 　　To know the general miscellaneous jade, stores and stalls can be bought everywhere, is the jade corners randomly polished out, the price is extremely cheap. But somehow, as soon as he saw this piece of jade, he felt that something was wrong. 　　Boss Hu, the bald and burly man, looked at Lu Sheng and saw that he had an extraordinary temperament and was dressed in an expensive manner. 　　He was wearing a green coat with white fox fur, his head was wearing a green jade officer's hat, and he was wearing cloud patterned black-soled boots embroidered with silver threads. A dress can be in this Gui Hua Fang consumption for several months, even enough for ordinary people to live for more than a year. 　　"Gongzi wants, it is not impossible, er ...... one or two silver on the line!" The strong man hesitated and tried to open his mouth. 　　"OK." Lu Sheng let Tiny pull out one or two tael of broken silver and put it on the table. 　　"This is yours." The bald man decisively picked up the jade and shoved it into Lu Sheng's hand. A few people exchanged glances, got up and left. 　　Lu Sheng didn't say anything and watched the few people leave, cupping the jade in his hand and picking it up to look at it carefully. 　　"One tael of silver, if converted to Earth China, the purchasing power is equivalent to one thousand RMB. That's how wealthy you can be in this lifetime." 　　He shook his head, one tael of silver was nothing to him, according to this body's memories, on weekdays, his monthly expenses were at least a hundred taels of silver or more. Occasionally more, he might even spend a thousand taels. That's millions of dollars! 　　When he thought of this, he mentally said that he was a loser. Taking the jade, he didn't care about the sight of the guests watching around him, but left the wine shop with his feet small and walked towards the carriage waiting outside. 　　But just out of the wine shop, did not walk to halfway, he was suddenly stunned, picked up the jade in the palm of his hand. 　　That jade stone in his palm, right in the palm of his right hand, actually melted. 　　The original hard stone quality, in just a few seconds, turned into a ball of dark green mucus, and a miserable scream was faintly heard in the mucus. 　　Poof! 　　The entire slime suddenly exploded, turning into a cloud of green smoke that slowly drifted away from in front of Lu Sheng. 　　Lu Sheng stood in place stunned, shaking his eyes to see that the jade was actually still in his hand, only that the green color inside had already disappeared silently at an unknown time. 　　"Just now that was ......" He stood in a daze, for a while constantly recalling the previous image. 　　"Gongzi? Gongzi??" Xiao Qiao kept calling him from the side. 　　Lu Sheng came back to his senses and then looked at the jade stone in his hand, it was simply an ordinary pebble, it wasn't even a jade stone anymore. 　　His heart was a little hairy, but he vaguely understood something. 　　"Let's go, back to the house!" 　　Xiao Qiao blinked her eyes, a bit unresponsive, "Oh ......" 　　The two of them got into the carriage, the driver picked up the whip and gave it a few empty strokes, and the two black horses with long hair all over their bodies slowly walked. 　　In the carriage, Lu Sheng did not say a word, constantly looking at the pebbles in his hand. 　　Xiao Qiao also discovered the stone's abnormality at this time. 　　"Fooled again!" She mentally muttered, and didn't say much, the Grand Duke was quite good this time, the biggest time he was cheated in the past was for a so-called antique wine pot, he spent thousands of taels of silver, and almost pissed off his lordship to death. 　　This time it was only one or two silver, the young master sometimes eats a meal for more than this amount of money. 　　The carriage traveled all the way back to the mansion. When passing the city gates, Lu Sheng heard someone yelling outside. 　　"...... I heard before that the water ghost was removed! A traveling Taoist man stepped in to save the fishing village from danger!" 　　"Did the court come from above?" 　　"Early, I heard that even the city governor's office of the Ouyang constable was almost trapped. Fortunately met a cloud traveler Taoist, it is said that when that Taoist struck, it was a flash of golden light, that water ghost screamed on the spot, turned into green slime, and then exploded into smoke and scattered." 　　"It wasn't an expert from the imperial court that did it, huh?" 　　"Of course not!" 　　Lu Sheng heard that this was the officers of the city gate guard chatting. 　　From time to time, he would purposely pass by this side of the city gate, the officers guarding the soldiers here were well-informed, and they all liked to go around bragging and bullshitting about rare things. 　　"This is coincidental ......" Lu Sheng's face did not move. His heart sank as he recalled the piece of jade from earlier. 　　The carriage slowly headed towards the city's busiest Kurenai Street.