The court session proceeded in a bizarre atmosphere. The officials were already accustomed to being oppressed by the trio led by Gao Qiu, so now that they were replaced by Fang Zhiyi, whose methods were even more ruthless, they naturally accepted it.
"Then I shall present today's affairs to His Majesty shortly..." Liang Nian'en looked toward Fang Zhiyi.
Fang Zhiyi suddenly stood up and coughed gently. The officials, who had been preparing to finish their shifts and go home, all fell silent, their eyes uniformly fixing on this living King of Hell.
"Um... I have an important matter to report."
The courtiers were dumbfounded. What the hell do you have to report? Couldn't you just go tell the emperor directly after court is dismissed?
Fang Zhiyi's gaze swept over these people, and he suddenly began calling out names.
"Is Li Gang present?"
The civil and military officials looked at each other in dismay.
After a moment, a minor official stepped out from the end of the ranks. Although trembling slightly, he still said, "Reporting to Your Excellency, Li Gang was transferred out of Bianjing by Cai Jing... He is currently in Lingnan..."
Fang Zhiyi was taken aback for a moment, but wild joy surged in his heart. Sure enough, this world where fiction and reality overlapped really had this person!
"Is Hu Shunzhi present?"
It was still that minor official, who had stabilized his emotions a bit by now: "Hu Shunzhi should be serving as a county magistrate in the northwest... He offended Tong Guan..."
"Is Chong Shidao present?"
"Chong Shidao claimed illness and returned home for retirement..."
"Wang Bing and She Kecun?"
"Reporting to Your Excellency, Wang Bing and She Kecun are currently serving in the army... I wonder what Your Excellency intends?" The minor official's eyes darted around quickly.
Fang Zhiyi became interested in him. "What is your name?"
"Reporting to Your Excellency! This humble official is named Qin Hui!"
Fang Zhiyi almost tripped. How could he have forgotten about this guy? But if Qin Hui was here, then that person... Wait. Fang Zhiyi looked at the obviously young Qin Hui; Yue Fei was probably still playing in the mud right now.
However, holding onto a sliver of hope, he asked again, "Do you know of Yue Fei?"
Qin Hui looked bewildered.
Fang Zhiyi sighed.
"Drag him down and behead him."
"Ah?" The entire court of civil and military officials was shocked. Even Liang Nian'en, standing above, was dumbfounded. Sir, do you just chop people's heads off like this?
"Your Excellency! What has this humble official done wrong?" Qin Hui's legs gave out instantly. He had previously tried to cling to Cai Jing and the others but never found a way in. Fortunately, a blessing in disguise occurred when Fang Zhiyi directly purged those three parasites. Thus, he had wanted to find an opportunity to approach Fang Zhiyi, but...
Fang Zhiyi scratched his head. "It is a bit against the rules, right? Then let's keep your head for now. I will arrange a task for you. If you do it well, you keep your head. If you fail, I will hang your dog head on the Bianjing city gate tower as a public warning!"
"Your Excellency, Your Excellency, just give the order!"
"Take a trip to the Liangshan Marsh... There is a group of bandits there who have claimed the mountain as kings. I do not care what method you use, but you must deliver a secret order of mine into their hands. Someone will tell you the details shortly."
"Yes, yes!"
Fang Zhiyi glanced at the officials. Very good. Not a single one of them dared to step forward and criticize his arrogance and domineering behavior. This was exactly the scene he wanted.
"Dismissed."
The officials retreated one after another, leaving only Qin Hui kneeling on the ground, shivering. He still could not figure out how he had offended this big shot.
"This is a bit crazy... If I do not take action and wait for Qin Hui to develop, then Cai Jing, Tong Guan, Gao Qiu, and Qin Hui will be competing on the same stage. The Northern Song Dynasty would definitely be doomed."
"This is just the beginning. You cannot even imagine the complexity of the macro world... I cannot either." Little Hei lowered his voice for the latter half of the sentence.
That very day, dozens of fast horses from the Imperial City Department galloped out from the four city gates of Bianjing, carrying the emperor's decree stamped with the imperial seal toward their destinations.
Among them, Qin Hui's face was full of despair, but looking at the several Imperial City Department hounds closely following him, he could only close his eyes in pain. "I have to risk it all!"
Fang Zhiyi stood on the city tower with his hands behind his back, watching the direction where Qin Hui disappeared. A trusted aide beside him said, "Your Excellency, he is but an unranked minor official. Letting him handle such a major matter... isn't it too rash?"
Fang Zhiyi did not look at him, but said leisurely, "You do not understand him. This kind of person has no bottom line. For high position and generous salary, if you told him to kill his own father, he would dare to do it... Sometimes, it is exactly this kind of person who can get things done."
The trusted aide nodded.
"Notify the hidden spies planted in various regions to fully cooperate with this operation, regardless of the cost."
"Yes!"
Shao Jiang had finally achieved his wish and sat in that position. Song Jiang's faction had ultimately lost in this struggle, but he could not simply slaughter them all. He merely forced them down the mountain. Now, he was only one step away from raising an army, and that was to absorb the neutral factions.
However, people like Lu Junyi refused to yield to either the carrot or the stick, which was quite troublesome.
Shao Jiang flipped through the items provided by the system but delayed making a selection. The road ahead was still long. If he exchanged items now... it might not be appropriate. Thinking of this, his eyes turned cold.
No matter what, he was now the lord of Liangshan. If Lu Junyi and the others refused to obey his military orders, the worst-case scenario would just be another bloody internal clash!
Meanwhile, Song Jiang and the others, who had been forced to leave Liangshan, were still feeling indignant when they were suddenly surrounded by strongmen lying in ambush on both sides of the road.
Song Jiang even wanted to announce his name. After all, he had taken quite a bit of advantage of his title as the Timely Rain, and had even managed to become a bandit king... It was just that his dream shattered a bit too quickly. Thinking of that guy Shao Jiang, his face was full of resentment.
"I am Song Jiang of Yuncheng! Song Sanlang!"
"Song Jiang is exactly who we are catching! Brothers! Pin him down!"
Song Jiang was somewhat surprised. There was actually someone specially waiting to capture him so close to Liangshan? Could it be people arranged by Shao Jiang? He was about to call his brothers to resist when he suddenly saw the leader opposite him flash a gold medal in his hand.
That was someone from the imperial court?
"Stop! Everyone stop!" Song Jiang stepped forward with a face full of flattery, "Sirs, big brothers, I have already agreed with the officials on the amnesty matters... Look..."
"Cut the crap! Save your words for the Imperial City Department!" The man showed absolutely no respect, waving his hand for his subordinates to tie up the entire group and take them away.
This conflict came quickly and ended quickly, not even alarming the scouts of Liangshan.
A few days later, a pale-faced man claimed he wanted to join Liangshan. Seeing how pitiful he was, constantly kneeling and begging, the minor bandit in charge of reception softened his heart and let him into Liangshan.
Fang Zhiyi was currently draped in a coat, his finger sliding across names one by one.
"Guan Sheng... pull this person out... let him be restored to his original post."
"Dong Ping... the same goes for this guy."
"Thunderbolt Qin Ming and Huyan Zhuo did not go down the mountain?"
"Reporting to Your Excellency, they were not among those who followed Song Jiang down the mountain."
"Then we will have to see if that bastard Qin Hui can handle his task properly."
"Your Excellency, is the plan to let Guan Sheng and the others lead troops to attack Liangshan?"
"Attack my ass. Have them serve under Chong Shidao's command! Tell them that this time, it is to resist the Jin!"
"Yes!"
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?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
ine. During your journey, you save an abandoned baby girl and become her elder brother】 【You rely on each other, becoming each other's support】 【At the end of the simulation, you shield the now-grown girl with your life, sacrificing yourself to block numerous demonic cultivators. You die, and the light in the girl's eyes fades】 …… 【Second Simulation: You are transported to a world where steam and magic coexist】 【You immerse yourself in the study of magic, obsessed with its research. One day, while out, you encounter a half-blooded demon girl wandering the streets. You take her in as your student】 【You teach the demoness what it means to be human, show her the beauty of the world, and nurture her into a miracle that surpasses even the gods】 【At the end of the simulation, you die of old age in front of the nearly immortal demoness due to your mortal lifespan】 …… One simulation after another, one encounter after another. Xu Xi suddenly felt something was off: "Wait, you said you're coming to the real world to find me?"
