Volume 1, Chapter 196 – Great Turmoil

The assembled ministers stared at the blue-clad woman on the scroll painting, looking at one another in confusion.

She was only a woman. Why make such a huge fuss over her?

“Your Majesty, General Meng outside the hall has urgent matters to report!” The eunuch in charge of conveying edicts hurried in from outside.

“Meng Ming?”

His Majesty Zhao Yi, seated upon the dragon throne, frowned slightly. Just as he was about to summon the man into the hall, a burly middle-aged man in armor was already striding in.

“This humble general has urgent military intelligence to report. In my haste I have broken protocol—I beg Your Majesty’s forgiveness.”

Zhao Yi gave a slight shake of his head and waved his hand. “You are forgiven. Report at once.”

“Reporting to Your Majesty: in Lin’an Commandery, the Prince of Linxiang has rebelled. In just three days, the rebel forces have already seized twenty-eight cities in Lin’an.” Meng Ming’s expression was grave.

The moment his voice fell, the hall erupted in an uproar.

“Hmph, the Prince of Linxiang does not know the immensity of heaven and earth. Lin’an Commandery is ringed on all sides by heavy garrisons. With but one imperial decree from Your Majesty, he can be crushed as easily as turning a hand!”

“Such a traitor should have his entire clan executed!”

“This humble general is willing to lead troops to put down the rebellion!”

“This humble general is willing to go as well.”

Several elder ministers were livid, while the martial officials were all cracking their knuckles, murderous intent boiling over as they all rushed to volunteer.

Zhao Yi’s eyelids lowered slightly, hiding the surging waves in his eyes. His expression remained calm, but the hand resting on the jade desk slowly clenched.

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“Your Majesty, please issue orders at once to dispatch troops and quell the rebellion! Otherwise, the consequences will be unimaginable!” Meng Ming said in a deep voice.

“Issue my decree. Order the Governor of Yuanshan Commandery to…”

“Report—”

Zhao Yi had been silent for a long moment before finally opening his mouth to give the order, but before he could finish, a loud shout rang out. A young officer in dark armor, face deathly pale, stumbled and staggered his way in.

“An… urgent dispatch… over one thousand three hundred li… The Prince of Yuanping has raised troops in rebellion. I beg Your Majesty… to dispatch troops at once to put down the uprising!”

Bang—

The jade desk before Zhao Yi flew up into the air, then crashed down the jade steps and shattered into pieces.

Inside the throne hall, the officials fell silent once more.

Zhao Yi straightened his back. Bloodshot veins crept into his eyes as he roared, “Issue my decree! Mobilize fifty thousand Tiger and Leopard Guards and march on Yuanping!”

With that, Zhao Yi forced out a few more words through clenched teeth. “I… will personally lead the campaign!”

At this moment, none of the officials in the hall dared risk provoking Zhao Yi’s fury. They all lowered their heads and shouted in unison:

“Your Majesty is wise and brilliant.”

Zhao Yi swept his gaze over the officials standing below the steps, then suddenly frowned. “Where is the Left Chancellor? Why has he not come to court today?”

The civil and military officials all looked at one another, faces full of puzzlement.

Just then, a eunuch hurried into the great hall. He knelt at the foot of the jade steps and said in a trembling voice,

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“Reporting to Your Majesty, word has just been sent from the Left Chancellor’s residence… The Left Chancellor, he…”

“Why are you hemming and hawing? Speak plainly!” Zhao Yi barked.

“Last night, the Left Chancellor was assassinated and killed in his own residence.”

Zhao Yi’s expression froze. His legs went weak beneath him and he sank back down onto the dragon throne.

The atmosphere instantly grew oppressively heavy.

It felt as though the entire throne hall was shuddering in a storm.

…

Shi Lan went deeper and deeper into the mountain forests. The two horses could not move through such rough terrain and were simply abandoned by her as she continued on foot, climbing her way forward.

After a long time, the three of them finally stopped in a secluded, remote valley.

The injuries of Shi Lan and A Qi had reached the point where they had no choice but to stop and recuperate.

Shi Lan’s wounds were all skin-deep and had not touched bone, but she had lost a great deal of blood and qi, her vitality heavily depleted. A Qi’s internal organs had been shaken and he likewise needed urgent rest.

After fleeing all the way here, Old Hongtou had nearly lost half his life. His face was waxen. Only after swallowing a single drop of juice from a spirit fruit did he recover a bit of vitality.

There were many thickets around the valley. After calming her breathing for a moment, Shi Lan cut some branches and grasses, and in passing hunted a few wild rabbits and brought them back to the valley.

Old Hongtou, practiced and familiar, skinned the rabbits and set them on the fire.

After they had finished eating the rabbits and filled their stomachs, Shi Lan used the branches and grasses to build a thatched shelter with a roof but no walls on any side, as a temporary place to stay. In this way they were just barely settled.

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Once they had settled in, Shi Lan could not help thinking of that young Daoist priest’s strange behavior, but no matter how she turned it over in her mind, she still could not make sense of it.

Because her injuries were not too serious, and with Flesh-Regrowing Powder to aid her, Shi Lan recovered completely in just two days and began helping A Qi treat his wounds.

During the days of treating A Qi, Shi Lan noticed that her luck had become strangely good.

Whenever she wandered around a bit, she would stumble across lingzhi, ginseng—medicinal herbs that ordinary people might never see in their entire lives.

When she accidentally found the third set of remains belonging to a renowned expert of the martial world, Shi Lan finally came to her senses.

This had to be the influence of that golden light of fortune.

Yet from what Shi Lan knew, although the golden light of fortune could affect a person’s luck, it should not have caused such a dramatic change.

After turning it over in her mind, Shi Lan could only conclude that that strand of golden fortune light might have been condensed from this entire world itself, and that was why it had such miraculous effects.

Once she left this world, it might not have such an effect anymore.

The three sets of expert remains Shi Lan had chanced upon all had divine weapons buried alongside them that could slice iron like mud, or else the martial manuals those experts had cultivated in life.

One set of internal arts, a broad cold-iron saber, and a fist manual—that was the full extent of her gains.

None of these three corpses had belonged to someone who had reached the Innate Realm in life.

Stepping into the Innate Realm meant remolding the body from the ground up. Even after death, the bones would differ from those of ordinary people, but these three sets of bones fell far short.

A Qi lay unconscious for nearly five days before finally waking. After waking, he became rather withdrawn and taciturn.

At first, Shi Lan was somewhat worried—had he been beaten stupid? But later, when she saw that A Qi’s speed at learning characters had actually improved greatly, she stopped dwelling on it.

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In this way, after more than half a month, A Qi finally had most of the commonly used characters more or less down.

Seeing this, Shi Lan officially began teaching him martial arts.

Vajra Divine Fist was a first-rate method for the Body Tempering Realm, so naturally Shi Lan passed this fist art on to A Qi.

However, this world was not the Lingyang Realm after all. To prevent A Qi’s development from being limited, Shi Lan tossed him the three cultivation arts she had obtained from those skeletons as well.

After explaining some basic questions about cultivation clearly, Shi Lan hunted some game, then left the valley alone. She needed to go out and find out what was happening in the outside world.

After leaving the deep mountains and traveling for almost half a month, Shi Lan was left stunned for a long time by the almost earth-shaking changes beyond.

The continent, which had been peaceful for a thousand years, had once more gone up in flames. Princes and nobles rebelled, chaos broke out everywhere, and some cities changed hands several times over like a wheel of fortune turning, left covered in scars.

Everywhere her eyes fell was scorched earth. Countless commoners were displaced, their families destroyed and scattered. Some, driven to desperation, could only turn to banditry. For a time, bandits ran rampant and the realm was in utter chaos.

At this time of great turmoil, the Qianyuan Dynasty not only failed to act cautiously, but even dispatched heavy forces to carry out a purge of the martial world.

One major sect of the martial world after another was swept flat.

In this calamity, the martial experts who managed to survive launched a counterattack against the Qianyuan Dynasty. Several high-ranking officials were assassinated in quick succession.

This, without a doubt, further inflamed the situation.

With the exception of the practitioners of Xuanshi Dao, almost all people of the martial world now stood on the opposite side of the Qianyuan Dynasty.