Prince Min chuckled darkly. Though he was a lovesick fool, he still had brains.
Once Wei An was done for, wouldn't that mean one less competitor for him?
But the emperor's next words left Prince Min bewildered: "If Fang Zhiyi isn't dead..."
"Your Majesty, Fang Zhiyi has fewer than a hundred riders with him. From what I know, the Marquis of Ding'an led six thousand men out of the city to intercept him. Even if he had three heads and six arms, he couldn't possibly survive." Prince Min's tone turned cold. "Fang Zhiyi went too far this time—smashing Miss He's shop, of all things. Never mind the Marquis of Ding'an, even I would want his head!"
That logic made sense, yet the emperor still felt a knot of unease in his chest.
Fang Zhiyi and his small band of fewer than a hundred men were ambling along the road when one of his men suddenly reined in his horse. "Hoofbeats."
His ears twitched again and again, until one of the men beside him couldn't take it anymore and reached over to thump him. "Would it kill you to just look back?"
They all turned to see a dense, dark mass of soldiers bearing down on them.
"Fang Zhiyi! You harbor treasonous intentions, you disrespect the throne, you bully the court officials, and—and you deliberately damaged another man's property! You're nothing short of a rebel and a traitor!" Wei An shouted.
The moment Fang Zhiyi saw him, he broke into a grin.
"Well, well, if it isn't the Marquis of Ding'an?" His tone was teasing.
Wei An suddenly remembered the time Fang Zhiyi had pretended not to know him, and his fury boiled over. "Fang Zhiyi! You've humiliated me time and time again! You won't be able to bear the consequences of insulting the House of the Marquis of Ding'an!"
As he spoke, the thousands of men he'd brought had already taken their positions.
Fang Zhiyi just smiled. He looked around, and the several officers beside him wore faces of pure contempt.
Wei An was smug. "Fang Zhiyi, if you get off your horse right now, kowtow in surrender, and come with me to beg the emperor for mercy, I might spare your life. Otherwise, don't blame me for what happens next."
Fang Zhiyi looked at him, then at the soldier holding his horse's reins. "I mean, really—you can't even ride a horse properly, and you think you can lead troops?"
The men around Fang Zhiyi burst into laughter.
"General, this pretty boy's got a thick layer of powder on his face. It might even stop a couple of sword blows!" one officer joked.
Wei An's face twisted with rage, and because of it, the powder on his face flaked off in clouds, making Fang Zhiyi's officers laugh even harder.
"Kill them!" he roared, raising his saber and pointing it straight at Fang Zhiyi. At least he had some presence.
Fang Zhiyi spread his hands. "Alright, everyone here's my witness—he struck first! Give me a spear!"
One of his officers tossed him a long spear, and Fang Zhiyi caught it smoothly.
"Form up!" The command was terse. In an instant, the dozens of soldiers who'd been laughing a moment before turned serious. They spurred their horses and took formation behind Fang Zhiyi.
"Fang Zhiyi, do you think you're some kind of god? A few dozen men trying to fight your way out? Take them! Take them all!" Wei An shouted, and the soldiers on both flanks surged into motion.
As Fang Zhiyi's warhorse began to accelerate, the patrol camp soldiers braced themselves. To everyone's eyes, six thousand against eighty—this was basically a guaranteed victory.
But the front-rank soldiers hadn't expected the sheer terrifying momentum of these few dozen men charging in formation.
Their shields were struck by something with tremendous force, sending both man and shield flying. One spearman's weapon had barely gotten close to Fang Zhiyi when a swing of Fang Zhiyi's spear sent him spitting blood. Another soldier tried to strike from the side and suddenly found a second spear—it pierced straight through his body and carried him several meters before it stopped.
Someone realized, perhaps, that this encirclement had been a mistake from the very start.
Fang Zhiyi was the tip of the spear, and wherever he aimed, his soldiers followed. Though they were merely several dozen riders, they tore through like a thousand-strong cavalry charge! The archers hadn't even drawn their bows before Fang Zhiyi was already at their throats.
What followed was an outright slaughter. The screams never stopped.
"You bastards! How do you train on normal days?! Surround them! Surround them!" Wei An yelled.
But by then, the patrol camp soldiers had lost their wits. Who could have imagined that less than a hundred men could shred their defensive line so completely? And then carve straight into their rear?!
The killing intent radiating from those men was almost tangible. Their techniques were clean and ruthless—no fancy forms, no elegant moves. Just simple thrusts, stabs, and chops, and yet they'd already punched a hole through their eastern flank!
Watching Fang Zhiyi and his men break through the encirclement, Wei An was furious: "What are you all standing there for?! Get—"
The word "chase" never left his lips. A sight stopped him cold: the riders who'd broken out formed up again, still with Fang Zhiyi at the tip, and charged right back in!
His proud square formation shattered under that second assault. The shield-bearers, hit by that massive impact, were sent flying. Especially Fang Zhiyi, racing at the front—no one could stop him! In the space of a few blinks, he'd stabbed through seven or eight soldiers who'd tried to block his way.
Wei An panicked. How was this Fang Zhiyi so brutally ferocious?
The same terror rippled through the remaining patrol camp soldiers. Were these border troops even human?!
The only answer to their fear was the repeated, relentless charges of Fang Zhiyi and his men.
After they tore open yet another gap, they should have been scared themselves—but Fang Zhiyi seemed nowhere near done. He turned his horse once more, and just that one gesture made someone on Wei An's side scream and turn to flee.
One man running dragged three with him. Three running dragged nine.
In an instant, the fearsome patrol camp collapsed.
Fang Zhiyi frowned. That was it? That fragile?
He instinctively looked for Wei An, only to realize that the man, unable to ride a horse properly, had tossed his mount aside long ago and joined the fleeing troops. Hard to pick him out in a crowd.
Fang Zhiyi suddenly yanked his reins and let out a loud cry: "Ah! A hidden arrow! Fall back! Fall back fast!"
Wei An, who'd just been running for his life, glanced back and saw the officers crowding protectively around Fang Zhiyi as they hurried away. He was confused for a moment, but the truth dawned quickly.
"Fang Zhiyi's been hit! Don't run! After them!"
But the patrol camp by then was chaos, and no amount of shouting could piece it back together.
"What a shame—there were so many horses and so much gear and weaponry. We can't just leave it all for nothing!" one officer grumbled quietly.
Fang Zhiyi slumped over his horse, a little exasperated. These fellows were good at everything except one thing—they'd picked up his own mercenary streak. They were the sort who'd count it as a loss if they walked out without picking up something on the way.
Still, it was fine. They had a lot of people to feed, and being thrifty never hurt.
"Remember this: get back to the border at top speed, and no matter who asks, tell them I was hit by a stray arrow—wounded badly!"
"Yes, sir!" These men had all been picked by Fang Zhiyi himself, and their loyalty was beyond question.
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
e, Immortal Body, Transmigration, System, Progression Fantasy, Academy Setting, Third-Person Perspective. Alternate Title: Transmigrating into a High Martial World and Reading Live Comments. Bad news: I transmigrated. This is a terrifying high-martial world, and my original, pathetically weak body fell into a coma and never woke up. Good news: I got a Popularity Points system upon arrival. I can see live comments and even create an unkillable alternate identity. Starting out, the alternate identity has all stats at 1. The system tells me that to grow stronger, I must participate in the plot, gain popularity points to allocate stats and grow stronger, and ultimately awaken my original body. And so, carrying my original body on my back, I officially entered Huaqing Academy, where the story's protagonist resides. From that moment on, Chen Guan kicked the original plot to pieces. Live Comments: [Doesn't anyone find this mysterious coffin guy creepy? He can summon indescribable grey misty hands.] [Is this guy a hero or a villain? What kind of onion became a spirit?] [By the way, does anyone know who's in the coffin? Shouldn't the debt for saving his life be repaid by now?] [According to unofficial histories, the person in the coffin was Chen Guan's first love. Their love was once passionate and earth-shattering, but they were separated by life and death due to worldly circumstances. What a star-crossed pair.] ... Years later, the world knew of a demon god born from a coffin, shrouded in grey mist, impossible to gaze upon directly. His foremost divine emissary often wielded a scythe, reaping lives like the god of death. As war approached, facing former friends and a boundless sea of enemies, Chen Guan merely raised his scythe. "Would you like to dance as well?"
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
