Sure enough, upon returning to his manor, a shadow guard informed him that someone had been waiting for him for quite some time and had brought a message.
Prince Xuan opened the letter with a bitter expression, looking at the nine names written on it, each representing a different faction.
He felt like crying. He had originally thought Fang Zhiyi was loyal and honest, but it seems people ultimately change. How he regretted his past decisions!
It was fortunate Fang Zhiyi wasn't there, or else he would have told him that the original host never revealed him, even unto death.
The capital was seething with undercurrents. Emperor Tianyan had always been deeply suspicious of Prince Xuan, and the Prince knew he couldn't clear his name. But how could he explain? By saying he cultivated a pawn to draw attention for a future rebellion? That would be just as bad.
After pondering for a long time, he seemed to have only one choice left: send someone to eliminate this Fang Zhiyi who had suddenly undergone such a drastic change in temperament.
But strangely, his secret orders sank without a trace once they left the capital.
"The higher-ups have suddenly suspended our operations, Commander. What should we do?" a masked man asked his superior.
The superior took a sip of wine. "Wait for the Prince's command."
"Could it be that Fang has noticed something..." the subordinate's voice lowered.
The superior sneered. "So what if he has? Without the Prince, could a commoner like him have built such a large business? Could it have provided cover for us? Even if he knows, he can only obey obediently."
He paused and sighed. "Originally, he just needed to keep playing his part as Lord Fang honestly. But now... hmph."
Suddenly, two coughs came from outside the door.
Then the door was pushed open, and two faces peered in. "Good evening."
"Ghost Reaper! Wine Sword Immortal! What are you doing here?"
"Here to... silence you."
"What?"
At the same time, hidden strongholds everywhere were being bloodily purged. Courtyards, taverns, backrooms of gambling dens—the leaders of assassin organizations, intelligence networks, and smuggling caravans all died mysteriously overnight.
Fang Zhiyi rubbed his hands together, looking at Golden Abacus reporting the progress before him, and asked out of the blue, "Do you play chess?"
Golden Abacus was taken aback, then nodded.
"Let's have a game."
Golden Abacus looked at his lord, puzzled. After orchestrating such a major event, his lord wasn't the least bit flustered? Little did he know that for Fang Zhiyi, a purge was merely the most conventional means.
Prince Xuan, having received no response for a long time, wilted. He wasn't stupid and immediately guessed that all his moles planted within the Treasure Pavilion were finished.
Realizing the problem, Prince Xuan was both anxious and furious, yet he could do nothing. In a way, Fang Zhiyi and he were now in the same boat; if things blew up, neither would come out unscathed.
Especially now, with Emperor Tianyan watching him so closely.
With no other choice, Prince Xuan simply threw caution to the wind. He emerged from the shadows and began frequently interacting with various sects and noble families.
These were the four words Fang Zhiyi had someone relay to him.
"Borrow a knife to kill."
Sure enough, wherever the closely watched Prince Xuan went, that sect or family would be promptly investigated and reported to Emperor Tianyan. Seeing the several families his younger brother had visited most recently, the Emperor's suspicions grew heavier and heavier.
"My lord, I truly don't understand this move of yours," Golden Abacus said respectfully as he placed a piece.
Fang Zhiyi glanced casually and dropped a white piece. "You don't need to understand. Sometimes, doing the opposite yields better results."
"My lord is profound and unfathomable..." Golden Abacus placed another piece.
"Less flattery. One, two, three, four, five—I win!" Fang Zhiyi threw down his last piece.
Golden Abacus's face twisted like a bitter gourd. "My lord, this game of Gomoku is too..."
"What? Going back on your word?" Fang Zhiyi raised an eyebrow.
Golden Abacus pursed his lips. "Fine."
Fang Zhiyi put an arm around his shoulders. "That's right. You're just testing it out, just a little bit."
Golden Abacus gave Fang Zhiyi a resentful look, thinking to himself, "Test my foot! Wine Sword Immortal dodged this, and Blind Man and Ghost Reaper are still laid up..."
But he had no choice.
"One, two, three!" Fang Zhiyi counted.
Golden Abacus circulated his spiritual energy to protect himself.
"Ready?"
Golden Abacus closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and nodded.
"Fire!"
With a loud bang, Golden Abacus felt a heavy blow to his chest, taking two steps back. Then he slowly opened his eyes to look at his chest—unharmed! Hahaha.
He nearly jumped for joy.
Fang Zhiyi nodded with understanding and gestured to the several subordinates holding the gunpowder guns.
Still immersed in the joy of a narrow escape, Golden Abacus watched as those fellows across from him picked up another gun.
Fang Zhiyi watched intently.
According to the manufacturing principle, spiritual energy could be used as kinetic energy. Ordinary gunpowder guns couldn't break through high-level cultivators' defenses, but what about spiritual energy guns? He had researched for a long time to find a way to seal spiritual energy into bullets.
Only when he saw Golden Abacus, a third-grade cultivator, vomit blood and fly backward did Fang Zhiyi clap his hands hard.
Success!
Of course, he still had to quickly bring the man back to calm him down.
The Nine Youths of Qingyun had been having a very hard time lately. Wherever they went, they were expelled, because warrants related to them had been issued everywhere.
This left these hidden second-generation youths deeply dissatisfied. How could they, as talented young wandering heroes, receive such treatment?
Thus, in their youthful impetuosity, conflicts with the authorities were constant. Interestingly enough, they had originally wanted to cause trouble for the Treasure Pavilion, but the Pavilion now simply reported them to the officials. So, in the end, it was the government troops they clashed with. For repeatedly injuring soldiers, they were now barred from even entering cities.
But even so, the Nine Youths of Qingyun hadn't forgotten their original purpose: to champion justice and act on behalf of heaven.
So, when they saw a group of prisoners being escorted looking pitiful, they rescued the prisoners, setting all of them free.
Watching the prisoners express their gratitude, the nine youths finally regained a sense of accomplishment.
But this act quickly made them "major criminals."
As cultivators, you could behave a little outrageously, but frequently slapping the court in the face was asking for death.
When he realized things had spiraled out of control, the leader, Li Wenyan, finally let go of his pride.
Facing the encirclement by local cultivators and seeing his sworn brothers injured, Li Wenyan shouted those words: "Stop! I am Li Wenyan, eldest son of the Li family of the capital!"
There was a hint of helplessness in his voice, as if he were forced to rely on his family's influence.
Even if a scion of a noble family killed someone, they would merely be taken back home for a reprimand. It was embarrassing, but for the sake of his companions, he threw caution to the wind!
But the third-grade cultivator leading the opposition was taken aback for a moment, then scoffed. "The Li family of the capital? You mean the Li family that was imprisoned by the Imperial family? I didn't expect there are still fish that slipped through the net!"
Li Wenyan was stunned.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
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."
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.
