Of course, one cannot be expected to work for free without some sweet rewards. Fang Zhiyi was promoted to the position of Governor, overseeing several surrounding small cities. This was also a gesture of goodwill from those people towards him.
This was within Fang Zhiyi's expectations; it was already not easy for Western Shu to hold out until now.
Yan Yiliu of the Double Blade Sect had stayed behind closed doors ever since he learned that the Demonic Cult had been wiped out. He even dreamed about the scene of offending Fang Zhiyi that day, feeling terrified just thinking about it.
However, whatever you fear will come to find you. The very next day, a guest arrived at the Double Blade Sect—a cocky petty official wearing a slightly loose official robe, looking somewhat comical.
"Well then, our Lord asked me to pass a message to you all!"
Yan Yiliu and his several disciples pricked up their ears.
"I [bleep] your [bleep] your mother's [bleep]!"
Yan Yiliu's hand gripping the armrest of his chair suddenly tightened, causing cracks to appear on the wood.
"Do you want to die?" His tone was full of intimidation.
Unexpectedly, although the petty official's face was a bit pale, he did not back down at all: "Come on! Kill me then? Come on!" He even stretched his neck out.
His name was Fei Li. His family was poor, with three younger siblings and an elderly mother. Originally, his father was still alive, but a madman broke into their home and killed him. Fei Li filed complaints everywhere, but the madman's family was wealthy, so he repeatedly hit a wall. Those people all told him not to argue with a madman, as it wasn't the first time the madman had hurt someone. He didn't understand—does a madman not break the law when he kills someone?
It wasn't until he heard that the county magistrate of Yang City had been promoted to Governor, and that this Governor liked to wander around, that he knelt at the entrance of the county office to beg for an audience with Fang Zhiyi, hoping to try his luck.
Someone took his petition and told him to go home. He thought Fang Zhiyi was just a hypocrite fishing for fame, but just as the sky turned dark, a group of fierce runners kicked open the door of the madman's house and arrested him. The madman's family members were also taken away.
The next day, the madman was escorted to the execution ground. It was then that everyone realized that this madman also knew fear and would cry and beg for mercy before dying.
His parents were directly exiled to the frontier for the crime of failing to discipline him.
From that day on, Fei Li thought about how to repay Fang Zhiyi. Although he had no special skills, he was willing to repay this kindness with his life. Fang Zhiyi was so pestered by him that he asked if he would take on a life-threatening errand.
After that day, he transformed from a commoner into an envoy.
Lord Fang had said that if he died, countless people would be buried with him, and his elderly mother and younger siblings would be provided for by Lord Fang. He wouldn't believe it if anyone else said it, but he believed Lord Fang.
Having thrown caution to the wind, Fei Li became incredibly bold. He knew that the people in front of him could easily kill him, so he simply stretched his neck out and spun in circles.
"Come on! You bunch of cowards! Kill me!" Fei Li completely let himself go.
Yan Yiliu stood up abruptly, veins popping on his forehead. The disciples on his left and right immediately spoke up, "Master, you must not!"
"Hmm?"
The eldest disciple moved his mouth without making a sound, forming the shape of the words "Demonic Cult." Yan Yiliu's anger was instantly extinguished.
This person came here today looking like he was seeking death, could it be...
Unknowingly, the cold sweat on Yan Yiliu's back soaked through his undershirt. These damn officials were too sinister!
Meanwhile, seeing that they were hesitating to make a move, Fei Li actually felt a bit anxious.
"You're too damn cowardly, aren't you? I deliver myself to your door and you still won't kill me?"
"Are you... hungry?" Yan Yiliu forcibly swallowed his curses and squeezed out a smile. "Take this... friend to get something to eat."
Fei Li was somewhat bewildered. That was it? Didn't they say these martial arts experts killed people as easily as slaughtering chickens?
But he still kept trying, either kicking stools or flipping tables. Yet even with all this, these martial artists didn't utter a single peep. He left feeling somewhat depressed.
Seeing Fei Li return, Fang Zhiyi smiled. He had guessed as much; with the precedent of the Demonic Cult, most of these people wouldn't dare lay a hand on someone wearing an official uniform.
At this moment, Zuo Qianqiu was staring blankly at the flag hanging on the wall behind him.
The three glittering gold characters "Heaven-Shrouding Guard" made him inexplicably nervous.
After Fang Zhiyi schemed against the Heaven-Shrouding Cult, he turned around and incorporated all the panicked cultists of the branch under the guise of protecting them. In just a few short months, they went from being a Demonic Cult branch to being scum of the Demonic Cult who colluded with the imperial court, and now they had become remnants of the Demonic Cult who had defected to the imperial court.
However, facing Fang Zhiyi's proposal, he had no reason to refuse, let alone any bargaining chips to do so.
Fang Zhiyi had decided early on that no one was more suitable for the position of Heaven-Shrouding Guard than these people from the former Heaven-Shrouding Cult branch. They had few independent thoughts, obeyed orders, and had a certain foundation in martial arts, though not too exceptional. As long as they were mixed with the existing city guards and given a little training, they could achieve good cooperative results.
They might not be enough on a large battlefield, but in small-scale skirmishes, they were absolute killing machines. Dispersing into groups of five for attack and defense, Fang Zhiyi had referenced the tactics of a general from his previous world, which proved to be highly effective.
Their current function was only one: to govern the martial world.
Zuo Qianqiu felt that Fang Zhiyi was playing him, but he didn't dare say it.
Who knew what other tricks this wicked man had yet to use.
He soon found out.
Fei Li couldn't write himself, but the scholar he brought along took a booklet filled with dense small writing from his bag and handed it to him. It detailed the number of people in the Double Blade Sect, its main composition, its land properties, where its shops were located, and what kind of businesses it operated.
"What is this?" Zuo Qianqiu looked at Fei Li, who didn't look like an official even while wearing the official robe.
Fei Li smiled foolishly, "The Lord sent me to give them trouble. There's just one requirement: if they want to establish a sect, they have to register with us. The Lord said this is called..." He thought hard for a moment and only remembered with the scholar's reminder, "A business license."
Zuo Qianqiu took a deep breath.
Well, he had indeed thought too simply.
Fang Zhiyi had his own way of dealing with these martial sects: he would win over those with good reputations, suppress the stubborn ones, and directly dispatch the Heaven-Shrouding Guards against those who refused to submit.
Of course, it wasn't a direct frontal conflict; after all, the martial world needed harmony.
It was just that without a business license, your land would be confiscated. As for your shops, how could they be your shops? They were the government's shops!
Fei Li continued to pay visits everywhere—the Zhongshan Sect, the Five Mountains Sect, the Qingfeng Gate, the Fali Temple. Fei Li had never been to so many places. The process was also very simple: he would walk in, sit down, and at the slightest disagreement, he would point at their noses and start cursing. The Lord had said this was called overwhelming the opponent with an imposing aura.
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.
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
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."
ver to a world of cultivation and returned invincible. Modern medicine is child's play compared to elixirs; technological might crumbles before true cultivation. My name is Qin Ning, Earth's sole cultivator!
