Five consecutive days passed, and it was the city's commoners who noticed the anomaly. The usually arrogant lackeys had recently become quiet. Although they still patrolled the streets, they had lost interest in bullying the civilians. Even when they walked past, people could feel an unusually cold and gloomy aura.
"Are we still continuing? You know that if this goes on, people will go mad. What good does this do for you?" Little Hei asked in confusion.
Fang Zhiyi threw the dagger in his hand onto the table, landing it squarely on a valley on the map: "Making them go mad is exactly what I want!"
Little Hei sighed. It didn't really mind, but making so many people dream at the same time took a lot of energy.
Sure enough, that night, a sudden wail rang out in the silent camp, followed by a second, then a third. Eventually, the wails echoed everywhere, mixed with frantic laughter.
A regimental commander rushed over to find Fang Zhiyi: "Bad news, Brigade Commander!"
"What is it?" Fang Zhiyi played with his dagger, his eyes scanning the map.
"Our, our brothers have all gone mad! They've been having nightmares these past few days, and now they've lost their minds! You need to go take a look!" The commander's face was also haggard.
Fang Zhiyi curled his lips: "Assemble everyone."
This ragtag army was already sloppy when assembling, let alone now when their mental states were unstable.
Some cried, some laughed, and others yelled at the empty air with faces full of terror.
Fang Zhiyi looked at the chaos below, calmly drew his sidearm, and fired three shots into the air.
The gunshots drowned out all other noises and helped focus the men's attention a little.
"Do you want to be free of your guilt? Do you want to be rid of the nightmares?" Fang Zhiyi's voice rang clearly in everyone's ears.
Everyone stared at him intently. Over the past few days, they had tried everything, burning paper money, praying to gods, hiring Feng Shui masters, and bringing in shamans, but nothing worked. The twisted faces in their dreams drew closer and became more terrifying, the nightmares constantly assaulting their nerves.
"Believing in the deity will free you from all these sins." Fang Zhiyi suddenly opened his arms.
Everyone was bewildered. Deity? What deity?
"Brigade Commander, you..." Huang Dali could not help but speak up.
A single glance from Fang Zhiyi made him swallow his words.
"We are all sinners... We betrayed our country, betrayed the people, and our hands are stained with blood they shouldn't be... The disappointment of our families, the hatred of our neighbors, the curses of the civilians... Do you really want to live the rest of your lives like this?"
The minds of these ragtag soldiers buzzed. They looked at Fang Zhiyi as if he were their savior; at this very moment, he looked exactly like their only hope.
"Break free from the entanglement of nightmares and recognize yourselves. Do you want glory? Do you want power? Do you... want to be rid of the self that everyone despises?"
Strangely enough, after Fang Zhiyi's speech, everyone had the exact same dream. The twisted, hateful faces were gone, replaced by a massive, faceless monster. It called itself a deity and demanded their faith. Under the oppressive weight of that giant dark shadow, they saw their past, their present, and their unbearable future once again, leaving each of them in immense agony.
When an exhausted Little Hei returned to Fang Zhiyi's side, Fang Zhiyi simply patted its head: "You've worked hard."
"Not hard work, just a hard life."
The gunshots from the previous night prompted Tian Yue to send someone to investigate. Upon hearing it was an accidental discharge, the messenger did not suspect much; after all, it wouldn't be surprising for this ragtag army to do anything.
However, the messenger also delivered Tian Yue's orders.
"Fang Zhiyi, General Tian Yue orders you to immediately fulfill your promise and seek out the Han State guerrillas. After all..." the messenger's gaze held a hint of disdain, "you are taking military pay, so you can't just sit around doing nothing, right?"
"We will do it. We'll start our operation today!" Fang Zhiyi agreed exceptionally readily.
Learning that Fang Zhiyi's ragtag army had left the city, Tian Yue didn't pay it much mind. He never expected these guys to achieve any real merits anyway. Instead, with them gone, the city was much more peaceful, making it the perfect time for him to show his affinity with the people.
"Form up into two columns! Those in the back, hurry up and keep pace!" Fang Zhiyi's shouting was somewhat effective. Having experienced the same dream, most of the men inexplicably trusted him, believing he must be the messenger of that deity.
Yet, there were still some who muttered deliriously and fell behind. In the past, this wouldn't have been an issue, but following a gunshot, a man lagging far behind had his head blown off by Fang Zhiyi. The marching column fell silent. They looked at Fang Zhiyi in surprise, while even more wore numb expressions, some even showing a hint of envy.
That guy was dead, so he wouldn't have to be tortured by the nightmares anymore, right?
"I'll say it again. You are all the same as me, we are all sinners. The deity is watching us at all times. Do you still want that endless torture?"
"Keep up! Hurry!" Huang Dali scolded. He was somewhat startled by Fang Zhiyi's ruthlessness, but thinking of the deity that had appeared out of nowhere, he felt that everything was perfectly justified.
The Han State guerrillas hiding in the valley were planning their next attack.
"We have few men, so a frontal assault is out of the question. We can only use a small group to draw their fire while the rest take the opportunity to flank around this side. According to reliable intelligence, their armory should be in this area, but it's guarded by Tian Yue's direct troops."
"Whatever, whether we can beat them or not, we have to try!"
"Don't rush. The combat power of those lackeys is poor, but..."
"Bad news! The sentries report that a large group of lackeys is heading our way!"
"How did they find our stronghold? Pass the word down, prepare to relocate!"
"They're moving fast, I'm afraid we might not have enough time!"
"Then we fight!"
"Don't be reckless! Leave some men behind to hold them off, and the rest retreat immediately!"
"I'll stay!" someone volunteered, patting his chest.
Someone patted his shoulder: "You take the men and go. I'll stay."
"Stop arguing now, we're running out of time!"
Fang Zhiyi's tactical deployment was flawless. Even the usually lazy ragtag army displayed a much faster operational capacity than before. However, just as the encirclement was completed, the enemy launched a counterattack.
Hearing the gunfire, the cowardly ragtag soldiers still couldn't shake off their habit of valuing their own lives. One by one, they shrank their heads down and waited for Fang Zhiyi's orders.
"Brigade Commander! Do we open fire?" Huang Dali asked.
Fang Zhiyi shook his head: "No, just keep them surrounded like this."
"Surrounded? But..." Huang Dali was about to say that doing so would be a waste of effort, but a sudden murmur echoed in his ear.
"Who is it?" Startled, Huang Dali drew his gun.
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 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.
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.
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!"
