Chapter 3009 - 22: Refreshed Cleansing

Chapter 3009: Chapter 22: Refreshed Cleansing

After all the guests had left.

Zheng Qing finally put down the flower cat in his arms, clasped his hands behind his back, and began to circle around this long-abandoned garden. The Colt Silver Python and the Order Book hung on his belt, swaying slightly, leaving shimmering halos on the leaf-covered ground. The Yellow Flowered Cat stepped on the shadows of those lights, following the young dean happily.

"—This place needs a serious makeover."

The Yellow Flowered Cat raised its tail, glanced around, and shook its head repeatedly: "Not to mention major repairs or construction, at least the pond should have water, the stone statues buried in the ground should be excavated, the broken plaque on the archway should be replaced... And that old locust tree, it’s full of yin energy, nothing like our Order’s disposition! More importantly, it dares to stretch its branches outside the wall? Typical treachery from within! This cannot be tolerated! Chop it down! All the branches that stretch out must be cut off!"

The old tree in the distance seemed to understand the threat from the flower cat, trembling fearfully, the densely packed leaves brushing against each other, sounding like a sudden light rain.

As they spoke, the man and cat had already made a round trip, returning to the entrance of the deserted garden.

Zheng Qing looked up at the crooked plaque on the archway, stared at it for a moment, and then nodded slightly, muttering: "—Indeed, it should be replaced."

Turning back.

Walking again towards the depths of the garden.

The flower cat shook its whiskers joyfully, the decayed door creaked as it closed laboriously behind it. Outside the door, the crooked plaque on the archway finally gave way, falling to the ground with a thud. As the breeze blew, the blurred words ’Ziwei Palace’ seemed to have undergone millennia of erosion in an instant, turning silently into a handful of dust along with the plaque.

Under the old locust tree.

Zheng Qing first opened the Law book titled "Order."

Then he reached into his hood and pulled out a Black Gemstone Cat, placing it between the pages. The originally lively kitten quickly lost its vitality, first turning into a statue, then its shape gradually blurred, becoming a translucent black gemstone. Fine cracks bloomed across the gemstone, and finally, with a crisp sound, it turned into a gray stone.

Zheng Qing casually slipped the stone into the Grey Cloth Bag.

Meanwhile, a drop the size of a bean of ink appeared on the blank pages, trembling and hovering in mid-air, as if it might fall at any moment.

"—This is our destiny!"

Another Black Gemstone Cat had unknowingly climbed onto the warlock’s left shoulder, watching the drop of ink with a penetrating aura: "Come from where we came, go where we go, all phenomena are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows, like dew and lightning, thus should we observe them."

A third Black Gemstone Cat peeked from Zheng Qing’s right shoulder, looking at the Law book, earnestly pawing at Zheng Qing’s ear: "Wow! Is this the taste of truth? I also feel the call of truth! Next time, can I go instead?"

Thump!

Its tail was tugged by a paw, dragged back into the hood.

Then another Black Gemstone Cat emerged, grunting in annoyance: "Honestly, yet another fool deceived, the world is so wonderful, isn’t it better to live? Constantly thinking about merging with the Dao, that’s severe self-destructive behavior, that’s madness!"

"I’ve already told him that having too many clones will make one go crazy, yet he always brushes my advice aside."

The Yellow Flowered Cat leisurely jumped onto a half-buried stone tablet, tilted its head, glanced at Zheng Qing, and shook its head: "The emotions a person generates over time have limits. You distribute too much emotion to those clones, and the original body becomes increasingly indifferent. This is not a good thing."

"Too many distractions aren’t good either."

Zheng Qing wiped his right index finger, his expression solemn: "Clones take away distractions, the original body focuses on cultivation, isn’t that a good thing? Besides, compared to being seen as a lunatic by a bunch of cats, having the ability to resist external threats is more important to me now. After all, being alive means you can become a lunatic, dead, no madness is possible."

Before he finished speaking.

His fingertip dropped onto the small blob of ink.

The fingertip was like a pen, swiftly sketching out a spell.

"Occupy the four directions, Clearly Visible!"

This was a very ordinary supervisory spell, but with the essence qi ink from the cat aboard of Black Gemstone and the reinforcement of "Order," it immediately underwent a transformation.

The clouds in the sky rolled to the sides, revealing a crack.

An abyss-like deep eye appeared in the fissure, golluming, carefully inspecting the deserted garden—from the hanging architraves under the corridor roof, to every leaf on the old locust tree, and the mottled moss in the dried pool to the ant nests being excavated by the stone statues—the eyeball missed not a single detail within the garden. The vision as thick as a curtain isolated the connection between the deserted garden and the Silent Forest, as if the entire world transitioned from day to dusk in an instant.

The Yellow Flowered Cat crouching next to Zheng Qing also felt itself swept over several times by that gaze. This sweeping came from the rules level, even a legendary being could not avoid being affected.

"Terrible feeling." The flower cat shook the fur on its body, muttering, its head turning with the movements of the eye above.

A moment later.

The clouds rolled inward again, engulfing the eye.

The chirping of birds and beasts in the Silent Forest, along with the rustling of branches and leaves, returned to the deserted garden.

Without a trace of abnormality.

Zheng Qing shot a glance at the Yellow Flowered Cat, the flower cat straightened its ears and shook its head.

"—Indeed quite clean, nothing dirty was found."

It spoke with a hint of confusion, yet also with a hint of relief: "To be fair, the relevant departments handled this rather transparently... Of course, maybe they don’t know if the old man is still around, so they care not to make any petty moves."

Zheng Qing had no interest in speculating on the thoughts of those elders.

Clean garden, that’s good.

He glanced at the ink on the Law Book, just a bit left, enough to write half a spell.

Then he thought about it, raised his hand, and wrote down the second spell.

"Clean Sweep!"

This was a spell that even many Northern District Wizards could roughly handle. The pale spell light spread from Zheng Qing’s fingertip, sweeping across the entire deserted garden in an instant.

Leaves rolled into balls, piled under the old locust tree; each leaf of the old tree shimmered waxed bright under the sunlight; in the corridor of the manor, dust and cobwebs were swept outside by the wind; the owners of the cobwebs and ant nests hurriedly relocated; the stone statues slowly crawled out of the ground, using their coarse hands to wipe each other’s bodies, then picking appropriate positions to stand firmly again; and the decayed wooden gate shed its damp wooden remnants, growing a new hard, beautiful shell.

"I never knew this spell had such an effect."

The Yellow Flowered Cat crouched on the freshly upright stone tablet, looked around, amazed.

"Maybe it’s because legends scorn to use such low-level spells." The young dean complimented subtly, lifted his emerald-ringed hand, and lightly sliced through the air.

Rip!

The space seemed like silk fabric being smoothly cut along the emerald’s trail, unfurling on both sides. Behind the cut space, rolling spiritual energy surged forth, a spirit tree larger than the old locust tree in the garden stood in the center of this Small World, capturing everyone’s attention immediately.

"Is this the Xuanhuang Wood cultivated by ’Eden’?" The Yellow Flowered Cat lay on the threshold of the space, looking in: "—It is definitely a bit small, far inferior to the one in the Black Prison!"