Yet he was still scheming when trouble arose ahead in Youzhou. The plea for help from the Governor of Youzhou arrived on his desk in the morning, and the very next day, while he was still hesitating whether to send troops, news of the governor's surrender followed closely behind.
The reason for attacking Youzhou was the same as before—a merchant convoy of the Taiping Dao had gone missing there.
However, after the battle, it turned out they had simply gotten lost.
Prince Xiang flew into a rage, hurling the report to the ground. "Does Fang Zhiyi want to incite the wrath of the entire realm? No matter how powerful the Taiping Dao is, can they really stand against so many warlords at once?"
The spy standing nearby kept his head bowed, silently answering in his heart: My lord, the Taiping Dao might truly be capable of facing all the warlords. But he dared not say it aloud. In any case, it didn’t matter—he had already decided to take his parents to Youzhou after today and register under the Taiping Dao’s household.
Prince Xiang rallied every warlord he could, their blades now pointed squarely at the Taiping Dao. They even gave their alliance a grand name: The Coalition to Suppress the Traitorous Taiping Dao.
On the day of their assembly, they gathered what they boasted to be a million-strong army. Each had their own schemes, believing that no matter how formidable the Taiping Dao was, they were still just peasants at heart. Crushing them under the weight of a million soldiers was only a matter of time. The real challenge, however, was ensuring their allies didn’t snatch the spoils first.
But before they could finalize their plans, a soldier rushed in with urgent news.
"The Taiping Army is at the pass!"
"What?" someone exclaimed in shock. "They dare come to us? How many are there?"
"A few thousand, roughly."
Laughter erupted. "Do they truly believe themselves to be invincible golden-armored warriors? Fitting for a charlatan like Fang Zhiyi."
"They also said..." the soldier hesitated.
"Said what?" A warlord took a swig of wine, unbothered.
"That one of their merchant convoys went missing here."
Pfft! The wine sprayed from his mouth. An eerie silence fell over the assembly.
"A missing convoy..." The reason seemed to awaken a long-dormant fear in those present.
Prince Xiang stood abruptly. "Lawless villains! The Taiping Dao are nothing but bandits!" He appeared to have forgotten his own plan to disguise raiders as merchants to ambush them.
Before morale could be bolstered, a series of deafening booms shook the ground, followed by screams and the sound of collapsing stone.
"What’s happening?!" Panic spread.
Faint cries echoed from outside: "The Taiping Army is attacking! They’re using sorcery again!"
The warlords paled. "Sorcery? The rumors were true?" Due to poor communication and vast distances, many had only heard tales but never witnessed the Taiping Army’s firearms firsthand.
Prince Xiang raised a hand. "It’s not sorcery. They merely wield weapons called cannons."
The others exchanged glances. Cannons? Merely? Wasn’t that just as terrifying as sorcery?
At the pass, Wang Erxi admired the crumbled walls with satisfaction. The gunpowder had been his invention—no, the Great Celestial Master’s, but he had crafted it himself! No matter what the future held, he was certain his name would be recorded in history.
Suddenly, the enemy gates swung open, and a disheveled force charged out, fanning into formation.
"Scoundrel! Face me in single combat!" The vanguard general of Bingzhou bellowed.
Wang Erxi gave him an odd look, then glanced behind him. The general, unsettled, turned—only to see that aside from the gate itself, the walls on either side had been obliterated.
"Is this man an idiot? With only one gate left, he insists on marching through it?" Wang Erxi muttered to his lieutenant.
The lieutenant nodded emphatically.
"How dare you mock me!" The general’s face flushed with rage. Digging his heels into his horse, he charged—just as Wang Erxi hefted an iron tube. With a jerk of his chin, his lieutenant lit the fuse.
Boom! A dull thud. The general shuddered, then slowly toppled from his saddle.
From their distant vantage, the warlords’ expressions darkened.
Only Prince Xiang remained defiant. "Now! If all our forces attack at once, how can we fail to crush a mere few thousand?"
Some were swayed. A hot-tempered warlord mounted his steed, ready to lead his troops forward.
But then—a new cloud of dust rose in the distance. A hundred horses galloped in unison, pulling strange contraptions before halting beside Wang Erxi’s lines. More cannons!
"The Eagle Cannons," the deliveryman announced. "Not as powerful as your siege artillery, but devastating against cavalry."
As Wang Erxi set up the new weapons, standing with haughty confidence, the warlords exchanged bewildered glances. They didn’t understand, but they knew—their enemy had just grown stronger.
They craned their necks for a better look.
"What’s the point of fighting now?" one warlord groaned.
Even Prince Xiang felt a chill. If the earlier cannons could shatter walls, what could these new ones do? No, I must return and consult Chu Zhaoning. If she knows of these weapons, she must know how to replicate them!
An uneasy stalemate settled. The Taiping Army made no move to attack—so long as the warlords didn’t provoke them. It was as if Wang Erxi had come solely to demolish walls.
By dusk, a merchant convoy meandered down a side road, heading straight for Wang Erxi’s position. After a brief exchange, Wang Erxi waved, and his soldiers packed up, escorting the wagons away.
"They’re just... leaving?" someone gaped.
"They really were here for a missing convoy?"
Another warlord stared at the ruined walls. "What kind of people are the Taiping Dao?"
In that single encounter, the Taiping Dao shattered the coalition’s resolve. In the days that followed, the warlords abandoned plans of conquest and division of spoils. Instead, they secretly sent envoys to the Taiping Dao, offering goodwill.
Yet the tide of unification could not be stemmed. While the rulers stood high upon their walls, the common folk listened, enraptured, to the sermons of wandering Taiping preachers.
Bingzhou and Haozhou fell—not because of missing convoys, but to rebellion. The garrisons, swayed by the teachings, overthrew their warlords in unison with the people.
In Xuzhou, Prince Xiang watched his wife emerge from her workshop, his face eager. "Zhaoning, any progress?"
Chu Zhaoning’s expression was grim. In her past life, she had been an ordinary college student who liked reading novels—how could she recall the exact formula for gunpowder? She vaguely remembered her ex-boyfriend mentioning "one part saltpeter, two parts sulfur," but the third ingredient eluded her.
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.
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."
orn and Humiliation】【Forced Love】 In his past life, Lin Ran was betrayed and murdered by his girlfriend and family, while the yandere female aristocrat, who had treated him as a mere plaything, avenged him by doing in his enemies. Upon seeing the yandere female aristocrat lying in the same coffin, ready to die with him, Lin Ran realized how profoundly mistaken he had been. Reborn, he abandoned the fickle campus beauty and wholeheartedly embraced the yandere female aristocrat's arms. "Ran! If I dig out your eyes and turn them into a specimen, you'll only be able to look at me!" Lin Ran: "Darling, kiss me!" "Ran! If I break your legs, you won't run away anymore, right?" Lin Ran: "Love, hold me tight!" "Ran! If..." Lin Ran: "Hush now! Love me more!" Luo Yao: ... Seeing his scumbag dad: "Take him out!" Seeing his stepmother: "Get rid of her!" Seeing his brother: "Eliminate him!" Seeing his white moonlight: "Send that to Southeast Asia!"
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
