Until news arrived: Fang Fengqi had declared himself emperor in the south, keeping the state title of Li. Because they had a new monarch, the people of the Li state fought so fiercely.
Teng Shuchang was both shocked and furious. Fang Fengqi? Wasn't he in the capital?
He couldn't figure it out no matter how hard he tried. He immediately sent someone back to the capital to inquire about the situation. The news he received astonished him: shortly after Grand Commandant Yi took over, Fang Zhiyi got drunk again, ran into Fang Fengqi, beat him up in the street, and threatened to drive him out of the capital. And Grand Commandant Yi actually agreed to it!
He had heard about Fang Zhiyi severing ties with his son earlier and considered it a trivial matter, so he immediately had Fang Fengqi driven out. Consequently, Fang Fengqi vanished.
"Bastard!" Teng Shuchang slammed the table and cursed. "This jerk has ruined everything!"
Previously, although he allowed Fang Zhiyi a certain degree of freedom, many matters still had to pass through his own hands. Frankly, he never trusted Fang Zhiyi. But as soon as his nemesis, Grand Commandant Yi, arrived, he actually hooked up with Fang Zhiyi, that stray dog?
"I'm going to impeach him!" Teng Shuchang's roar echoed out of the tent. "Fooling around with that puppet every day—is he trying to get my southern expeditionary army killed?"
Outside the tent, two deputy generals suddenly exchanged a glance, their eyes holding a profound meaning.
But Fang Zhiyi was still useful. Teng Shuchang immediately ordered his subordinates to bring Fang Zhiyi over. He wanted to see if the Li dynasty's army dared to strike their former emperor!
To his surprise, however, the men he sent returned very quickly.
Empty-handed.
"Where is Fang Zhiyi?" Teng Shuchang's eyes blazed with fury.
"Well, Grand Commandant Yi said that Emperor Fang cannot leave right now; he has too many affairs to handle." The subordinate looked uncomfortably at the ground.
"Bastard! What time is it now? What affairs does he still need to handle? Have they forgotten that Fang Zhiyi is just a puppet emperor?" Furious, he immediately dispatched more men.
But this time, not only did Fang Zhiyi not show up, but the men sent were also detained.
"Are they trying to rebel?" Teng Shuchang's eyes widened in anger.
"To answer the general... because he entered the palace wearing a sword, Grand Commandant Yi ordered his men to apprehend Deputy General Guo."
"Good, very good!" Teng Shuchang laughed out of extreme anger. "I will go personally. I want to see just how capable this Fang Zhiyi is. A sovereign of a fallen nation actually managed to have a general under my command detained!"
He admitted that Fang Zhiyi had some skills, but he hadn't forgotten the fact that Fang Zhiyi was merely a pawn.
Teng Shuchang temporarily left the encampment and rushed toward the capital. He barged straight into the imperial palace. Fang Zhiyi wasn't there, so he stormed over to the bank. Sure enough, he found Fang Zhiyi there, looking at him with a bewildered expression.
"Fang Zhiyi, come with me, won't you?"
Fang Zhiyi paused for a moment, then nodded. "Sure."
Teng Shuchang hadn't expected Fang Zhiyi to be so compliant and was momentarily taken aback.
But just as he was about to leave with Fang Zhiyi, his horse was blocked.
Grand Commandant Yi stood ahead, smiling alongside several officials of the Mang dynasty. Teng Shuchang's anger surged. "Get out of the way! If you delay military matters, I will submit a memorial to impeach you!"
He was already at odds with this Grand Commandant Yi; seeing him now, he felt like eating him alive.
Grand Commandant Yi, however, was unhurried. He slowly raised the imperial edict in his hand. "General Teng, receive the edict, will you?"
Although extremely reluctant, Teng Shuchang had no choice but to dismount and listen obediently.
"Teng Shuchang, you have nurtured the enemy to elevate your own status, refusing to engage the rebels in a decisive battle. You even attempted to interfere in local government affairs and intercept tax revenues, living a life of extravagance and dissipation. You are hereby ordered to be stripped of your command immediately, demoted to a garrison commander, and the southern expeditionary army shall be handed over to someone else!"
Teng Shuchang sprang up at once. "Nonsense!"
Grand Commandant Yi glared at him. "Teng Shuchang! You are disrespecting the ruler!"
"I... when have I ever nurtured the enemy or intercepted taxes?"
Grand Commandant Yi chuckled. "You can submit a memorial to prove your innocence." He paused. "However... I think you should just accept it, General."
Teng Shuchang left, grinding his teeth in fury.
What exactly had happened?
After pondering for an entire night, he suddenly recalled a scene from that day. When he had left and glanced back, he saw Fang Zhiyi and Grand Commandant Yi walking away with their arms around each other's shoulders.
Fang Zhiyi! He suddenly realized the crux of the issue. Could he have been wrong? Had Fang Zhiyi never surrendered at all?
Going from a streak of victories to a sudden demotion, Teng Shuchang began to seriously reflect on the series of events that had occurred.
He arrived at a shocking conclusion: Fang Zhiyi hadn't surrendered! He was faking it!
Teng Shuchang took immediate action. He had to prove his innocence! Everything was a scheme cooked up by Fang Zhiyi and that guy surnamed Yi! He prepared to mobilize the troops, but the city's garrison commander stopped him.
"General Teng, troops cannot be mobilized lightly right now. It would be bad if the rebels attacked," the commander said, neither obsequious nor supercilious, though a hint of arrogance laced his tone.
Looking at his former subordinate, Teng Shuchang realized something in his heart.
Sure enough, when he sent someone to the front lines to deploy troops, the succeeding general turned a deaf ear. Teng Shuchang's heart went half cold.
His memorial of self-defense couldn't be delivered either. Teng Shuchang didn't know this; after sending it out, he tried to investigate privately. He first sought out his hidden informants, only to find that they had long forgotten about keeping an eye on Fang Zhiyi and were spending their days gambling with local thugs.
Furious, he drew his sword and killed two of the thugs on the spot. But what greeted him next was his arrest by his own people.
It took less than a month for Teng Shuchang to fall from a grand general to a prisoner.
At this moment, he finally understood. The current Li capital was no longer the Li capital of the past. That puppet emperor had woven a web of interests, tying all the officials of the Mang dynasty together. Even many of his own military subordinates had accepted bribes from Fang Zhiyi, and some officials and generals even held shares in Fang Zhiyi's businesses.
No wonder—making a move against him was tantamount to touching everyone else's money bags!
Teng Shuchang also finally realized that Grand Commandant Yi alone couldn't have impeached him. But what if his deputy generals were included?
He laughed aloud in his cell. They were wrong, all of them were wrong!
Fang Zhiyi wasn't some sovereign of a fallen nation; he was out to bring down their nation!
But no one listened to him, and no one even paid him any mind.
Even a few old fogeys within the Mang dynasty had received silver notes presented by Grand Commandant Yi and others. To them, war was war, but factional struggles still had to be fought. Although this Fang Zhiyi was good at making money, he had no power, no reputation, and no troops otherwise, so he was hardly a threat. What they truly feared was Teng Shuchang achieving the great merit of destroying the Li state.
Thus, the battle-hardened Teng Shuchang was inexplicably locked up.
Meanwhile, in Fang Zhiyi's tavern, several full tables of people were drinking and conversing merrily.
"Brother Fang's method is effective! Too effective."
"It'll be even easier to make money in the future, won't it? Now that our own people are guarding the checkpoints, doing business with the south will be much smoother."
e school belle recognized by the whole school, a genius girl from the kendo club. She also has a hidden identity, the youngest legendary demon hunter. Chen Shuo just transmigrated and found himself turned into a weak, helpless little vampire. He was caught by Su Xiyen and taken home at the very beginning. Since then, Chen Shuo's life creed only had two items. "First, classmate Su Xiyen is always right." "Second, if classmate Su Xiyen is wrong, please refer back to item one." Many years later, Chen Shuo, who had turned back into a human, led a pair of twins to appear in front of all the vampires to share the secret of how he turned back into a human. "It's simple, I tricked a female demon hunter into becoming my wife!"
for mindless slaughter, this isn't for you.] My name is Ye Shu, and I'm a transmigrator. It seems I'm supposed to be the protagonist, but that feels pretty unlikely. This world has been invaded by a system. The antagonists on the other side have suddenly become pure, flawless saints. The female leads have been force-fed the so-called "original plot," making them think they've been reborn. Now, everyone thinks I'm scum. Including the old lady in my ring. And here I am, in the Monster Beast Mountain Range, braising pork. To put my situation in perspective— It's as if, the moment Xiao Yan stepped into the Monster Beast Mountain Range, the Soul Emperor already knew he would become the Flame Emperor, and Yao Lao had been turned to the enemy's side. I have nothing right now. Oh wait, that's not true. I do have a white-haired loli child-bride who's the Heavenly Dao, and her only skill is acting cute. So, tell me guys... what are my chances of making it to the end?
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.
