A golden stream of light illuminated Pingkang Ward, plunging straight down. With a loud thud, it pinned into the ground before Zhang Yuanqing. Blue paving bricks fractured, and tiny chips of stone sprayed outward, stinging his face with a burning prickle. The golden light faded, revealing a half-arm-length brass pestle before their eyes. The shaft was intricately crafted, etched with incantations and carvings, and its three-edged head was razor-sharp.
It was none other than the Demon-Subduing Pestle, which he had not seen in years—no, which he had not seen in several months.
A faint golden radiance drifted up from within the Demon-Subduing Pestle, condensing into a tall goddess clad in colorful robes. Her features were exquisitely beautiful and refined, her temperament aloof and otherworldly, and her lips full and luscious.
Floating above the Demon-Subduing Pestle, her embroidered shoes resting lightly upon its tip, she looked down at Zhang Yuanqing and furrowed her brows.
"I said I would not save you in an instance."
*Empress, aren't you being a bit tsundere? Your mouth says no, but your actions are quite honest.* Overjoyed and touched, Zhang Yuanqing called out loudly, "Empress, a single day apart feels like three autumns! We have not met in three months, and to this junior, it feels like three lifetimes! I only wished to see you once more before I died!"
Commandery Princess Yinyao quietly patted the Elvis speaker, instructing it to record this shameless scene so she could use it to humiliate Yuanshi Tianzun in the future.
Empress Sandao gave a cold snort. "Glib-tongued... Huh? How has your cultivation level risen so quickly?"
A look of astonishment showed in the Empress's beautiful eyes.
Zhang Yuanqing said at once, "This junior naturally cannot bring shame upon you, Empress. I miss you day and night, which motivates my cultivation all the more."
Empress Sandao nodded in satisfaction, then raised her gaze to look around Pingkang Ward. Her delicate brows knitted together. "This instance indeed does not match your cultivation. How did you enter?"
Although she had learned about the Spirit Realm's mechanisms, she was not, after all, a Spirit Realm walker. Many hidden mechanisms could only be known by Spirit Realm walkers.
Zhang Yuanqing explained the Spirit Realm's matchmaking mechanism to her.
After listening, Empress Sandao slanted her wondrous eyes at him, looking at him with a gaze that said, *This child is utterly foolish, rotten wood that cannot be carved.*
Zhang Yuanqing hastened to explain, "Empress, hear me out! There is a reason for this..."
He immediately burst into a tearful, sobbing lament. "It's all that old crone Pure Yang Sect Master's fault! To eliminate that great threat to you, Empress, this junior actively pursued Pure Yang Sect Master in the mortal world, pitting wits and courage against him several times, narrowly escaping death each time. Recently, this junior's divine skills reached great success—oh, modest success—and that Pure Yang Sect Master knew full well that if he let me be, he would be doomed. So he colluded with evil scoundrels to ambush me..."
He recounted the ambush in great detail, heavily emphasizing that he had been "resolving a grave threat on the Empress's behalf" and that "Pure Yang Sect Master bore a grudge against the Empress, and thus regarded me, Her Ladyship's loyal dog, as a thorn in his side."
In any case, Day Wanderers did not possess the Insight technique, so he had no fear of his lies being seen through.
Hearing this, Empress Sandao's cool face turned solemn, and her beautiful eyes shone with a glistening light. She sneered, "Good, very good! I have waited for this opportunity for a long time. Eradicating Master shall be done today!"
She looked at Zhang Yuanqing, her expression softening as she nodded. "You have been considerate. My true body is still on the other side of the Spirit Realm, currently rushing over. I will arrive in a quarter of an hour. Use the Demon-Subduing Pestle to protect yourself first. Once I arrive, we shall discuss our strategy."
Seeing this, Commandery Princess Yinyao hastily "spoke," "Master, why did you turn a blind eye when I called for you?"
Empress Sandao was startled for a moment, as though she had only just noticed her, before realization dawned. "This seat wondered who was being so noisy. So it was you calling me."
*My calling was noise, but Yuanshi Tianzun's crummy voice is heavenly music?* Heavily crushed, Commandery Princess Yinyao stood dumbfounded, the red light in her pupils dimming.
"Master, I..." Commandery Princess Yinyao protested indignantly. "I am your only disciple!"
Empress Sandao seemed not to hear her at all, saying placidly, "Wait here diligently. I shall withdraw this divine sense first."
Zhang Yuanqing bowed his head to the ground at once, calling out loudly, "Respectfully sending off Her Ladyship!"
Empress Sandao cast a meaningful glance at her disciple standing nearby, then transformed into golden light and returned into the Demon-Subduing Pestle.
Zhang Yuanqing immediately pulled out the Demon-Subduing Pestle and held it cupped in both palms, his gaze as tender as if he were gazing upon a long-lost lover.
Commandery Princess Yinyao was indeed lucid in her Dao heart. Seeing through to the crux of the matter, she said wistfully, "To think that an eminent figure like Master would also indulge in flattery and bootlicking. I am truly utterly disappointed."
Zhang Yuanqing quietly put away the Demon-Subduing Pestle, stepped forward, took Commandery Princess Yinyao's small hand, and said gently, "Princess, not only are you devastatingly gorgeous, but you also possess an upright and unyielding character. You disdain flattery and scoff at worldly silver and gold! Ah, what noble qualities! I have seen countless women, but none can compare to you."
Commandery Princess Yinyao's icy heart felt as though it gave two wild thumps. She withdrew her hand, held up her mini megaphone, and said, "Humph. Master was right—you really are a glib-tongued brat. Still, it was quite pleasant to hear. Fine, I'm not mad at you anymore."
The voice coming from the megaphone sounded rather delighted.
Zhang Yuanqing gave her a sidelong glance. "See? Don't you enjoy flattery too? Who in this world doesn't like hearing nice things? Even gods and immortals require mortals to kneel and burn incense! Princess, you've lived for hundreds of years—how have you not grasped this truth?"
The commandery princess was stunned once again.
The Elvis speaker crackled with static, emitting a deep male voice: "On this day, it felt as though a door to a new world had opened before me."
While the two spoke, Fu Xin'ou and Xi Zhe, who had been hiding to the side, crept over cautiously and probed with pleasant surprise, "Li Jun, that Golden Crow just now—did the Buliang Commander have you summon her?"
Zhang Yuanqing gave a slight nod.
Having received an affirmative answer, the two Buliangren grew even more thrilled. "Which sect is she from? Strange... Among the twelve Golden Crows of the Eastern Territory's 'Purple Qi from the East' Sect, there is no such person. The South Sea's Golden Wheel Divine Cult rarely sets foot in the Central Plains. The imperial court's Nine Suns have bad blood with the Buliang Commander..."
As he muttered to himself, Zhang Yuanqing's head buzzed. In just that short sentence, between the imperial court and the 'Purple Qi from the East' Sect alone, there were twenty-one Golden Crows!
Were ancient Day Wanderers really so astonishingly numerous? What about the other classes?
The ancient era really was on Hell difficulty. Ancient people had it rough.
Zhang Yuanqing cleared his throat and asked seriously, "I suppose only the Buliang Commander could answer that. Well, between this Golden Crow and the Buliang Commander, who do you two think is stronger?"
Xi Zhe shook his head, while the triangle-eyed Fu Xin'ou said, "The Buliang Commander has already returned to simplicity, said to be only half a step from becoming a Human Immortal. Meanwhile, this Golden Crow, with merely an avatar, made me feel as if I were peering into an abyss, trembling with dread. The two should be evenly matched."
*The Buliang Commander is at the peak Dominator level right now. Right, in the future, he should take another step forward and step into the legendary demigod realm, before somehow freezing himself in the abyss of the Secrets of the Five Elements instance...*
*The Buliang Commander cultivates the power of the five elements, and the source of the five elements' power is Qin Shi Huang. Is there a connection between the two?*
Growing increasingly curious, Zhang Yuanqing continued patrolling with the two men while digging for information on the Buliang Commander.
He casually brought up the Buliang Commander under the guise of idle chatter, subtly steering the conversation to glean a wealth of information from the pair.
Hearing it astonished him: according to the two Buliangren, the Buliang Commander, despite being one of the Tang Dynasty's six peak experts, was quite young—only twenty-six years old.
From his rise to looking down on the world, a mere six years had passed.
The Buliang Commander hailed from an official lineage; his father had been the Minister of the Court of Judicature and Revision, but had his estate confiscated and was exiled after becoming entangled in imperial power struggles. At the time, the Buliang Commander had still been a child in his early studies, and his father's old friends in the court, remembering past ties, had shielded him.
After growing to adulthood, the Buliang Commander inherited his father's ambitions, serving as an official in the Court of Judicature and Revision and cracking several earth-shattering cases.
Later, because of an affair with Princess Changping, who was already married, and secret trysts with female officials serving the Sovereign, he was impeached by the censorate. The Sovereign stripped him of his rank and demoted him to a Buliangren.
*He slept with a princess, slept with the female officials around the emperor, and yet he wasn't sliced to pieces by a thousand cuts? What emperor in history could be so magnanimous? Absurd...* Zhang Yuanqing was thoroughly flabbergasted.
When he inquired further—oh, it turned out the reigning Sovereign was the eternal empress, Wu Zhao!
Now that was interesting. Perhaps the Buliang Commander had even had a fling with the Empress Regnant herself, cheated behind her back by bedding her confidante and daughter, and ended up crashing and burning.
For Zhang Yuanqing to think this way was by no means due to a dirty mind; rather, the "filthy Tang" was simply like that.
Ethics and morality were virtually nonexistent in the Tang Dynasty; this was an era where sister-in-law tropes, stepmother tropes, daughter-in-law tropes, and male paramour tropes ran rampant.
Oh, and right—there were also the Daoist abbey scandals that had once made Zhang Yuanqing perk up slightly in respectful salute when reading history.
*From the current intelligence, the Buliang Commander has no connection with the First Emperor. If the First Emperor had possessed the Buliang Commander, the Tang Dynasty probably wouldn't belong to the Li clan anymore. Given that peerless emperor's style, renaming the Tang to Qin wouldn't be difficult—unless he didn't want to be emperor, or perhaps he's quietly biding his time to grow stronger...*
Amid his thoughts, chaotic, shrill screams suddenly erupted from a building ahead.
Right after, the latticed doors of an exquisite two-story pavilion burst open, and disheveled men and women tumbled out in complete disarray.
Their faces were pale with terror as they screamed repeatedly, fleeing frantically as if pursued by fierce ghosts. Some men weren't even wearing clothes, clutching long robes to cover their chests while their pale, perky buttocks swayed as they bolted out.
They ran as swift as arrows of time.
Zhang Yuanqing and his two companions rushed over at once, while a large squad of armored soldiers carrying weapons arrived upon hearing the commotion.
*Snap!*
Zhang Yuanqing snapped his fingers and used an escape technique to slip into the pavilion. Inside, the hall was in total shambles. On the dual staircases laid with costly carpeting, a female zombie with a green face and protruding fangs had pinned a patron to the floor, torn open his carotid artery, and was gulping down mouthfuls of blood.
Yet another Dominator-grade yin corpse!
On the day the Ghost Gates opened wide, yin creatures had crept silently into every corner of Chang'an. As an area crowded with dignitaries yet relatively weakly defended, Pingkang Ward seemed to have been targeted by the Ghost King Sect.
Sensing the scent of living humans, the yin corpse raised her fang-studded face. Pushing off with both hands, she sprang straight over like a giant flea, accompanied by heavy rushing wind.
Zhang Yuanqing had no desire to engage in hand-to-hand combat with a yin corpse. With the strength of a Dominator-grade yin corpse, she could probably pin him to the floor and pummel him mercilessly in a single round.
He retreated repeatedly, bringing out the Demon-Subduing Pestle bestowed by the Empress and launching it at the yin corpse, propelled by a violent gust of wind.
Seemingly sensing danger, the airborne yin corpse defied the laws of physics with a sharp twist, dodging the oncoming pestle.
*Thud!*
The Demon-Subduing Pestle pinned itself into the staircase.
Upon landing, the yin corpse sprang up again, pouncing toward him with lightning speed.
*Snap!*
Zhang Yuanqing snapped his fingers, turning into starlight to escape and reappearing beside the corridor.
The yin corpse struck empty air, turning her gaze toward the front door to fixate on the fleeing patrons.
Zhang Yuanqing hastily produced the Yata no Kagami, conjured a clone, and swung his hand clad in the azure glove. With a howl, a wind blade swept forth. Capable of cleaving iron like clay, the wind blade slashed against the back of the yin corpse's head with a metallic clink, severing merely a tuft of withered black hair.
Even a Dominator-grade yin corpse could not escape the nature of low intelligence. Having taken an attack, she twisted around ferociously, spitting foul corpse qi as she leaped toward him.
"Tsk, tsk. Cannon fodder again. I'm the great Yuanshi Tianzun, I shouldn't have to suffer such indignity!" Wearing an annoyed expression, the clone was tackled by the yin corpse, who tore brutally into his neck.
Meanwhile, Zhang Yuanqing's true self turned invisible, retrieved the Demon-Subduing Pestle, crept behind the yin corpse, and thrust straight into the back of her heart.
A blazing ring of golden light exploded, outshining the bright candlelight. Before the yin corpse could even resist, her flesh melted within the golden brilliance, collapsing into a scattered pile of white bones.
Dealing with a low-intelligence yin corpse presented no difficulty whatsoever to Zhang Yuanqing, who held a divine weapon capable of one-hit kills.
"Damn it, are Dominator-grade yin corpses really this strong? It felt like being tackled by a ferocious tiger—that terrifying power isn't something human strength can contend with," the clone, whose neck had been bitten through, grumbled intermittently while clinging to his final breath.
Zhang Yuanqing looked at him. "Let me tell you some good news: once we reach the Dominator realm, we will possess close-combat prowess on par with an Ancient God of War. Even with all the five elements gathered into one body, someone could only suppress us at best."
The clone smiled. "That really is good news. I look forward to making my appearance at the end of the year, boasting close-combat ability that can obliterate heaven and earth."
Zhang Yuanqing added, "Let me tell you some bad news, too: on the outside, I'm being fountain-camped by three Dominators. If I can't get past this hurdle, you won't exist anymore."
The clone's smile froze, and he snapped furiously, "I'm about to die anyway, why can't you let me die happy? I'm just a clone! Why treat me like this, you sneaky bastard?"
"Watch your language. Don't poison my mind with vulgar, tired memes." Flipping the mirror over, Zhang Yuanqing recalled the clone.
At that moment, Fu Xin'ou and Xi Zhe, who had finished evacuating the crowd, rushed inside leading a large group of armored soldiers.
Fu Xin'ou's triangular eyes scanned the room as he asked in a deep voice, "Where is the yin creature?"
Zhang Yuanqing pointed to the pile of white bones on the floor. "Dealt with."
*Dealt with...* Fu Xin'ou and Xi Zhe looked at each other in speechlessness, unable to utter a word for a long time.
Over the next while, relying on the Demon-Subduing Pestle, Zhang Yuanqing disposed of two vengeful spirits and one yin corpse in succession. After that, he slowed his pace, coordinating with the soldiers and his two companions to tangle with the yin creatures and stall for time.
He could not eliminate the yin creatures too quickly. If he completed the quest too fast, the Spirit Realm would send him back to reality.
At that point, with two Dominators sharpening their knives, all he could do besides screaming a few "yametes" would be spreading his legs and waiting to die.
When he had finished off the seventh yin creature, suddenly, a faint golden sun bloomed in the pitch-black night sky. Then the sun expanded, spreading along the glass-dome-like high-altitude barrier to blanket the entire sky.
In an instant, Pingkang Ward was turned into daytime.
Overjoyed, Zhang Yuanqing lifted his head. The piercing golden light made him squint as he watched an immortal maiden in fluttering colorful robes descend slowly.
Her eyes were like drops of black lacquer, her lips richly colored, her delicate brows graceful, and her pale, fair face aloof and breathtakingly gorgeous.
She was a rare immortal maiden whose aura could hold its own against someone from the Lust class.
Zhang Yuanqing bowed his head to the ground at once. "Respectfully welcoming Her Ladyship!"
Commandery Princess Yinyao copied him immediately, bowing her head to the ground: "Respectfully welcoming Master!"
The Elvis speaker: "Recording successful."
Zhang Yuanqing and Commandery Princess Yinyao glared at the speaker simultaneously.
After a few seconds of standoff, the Elvis speaker proved adaptable to the circumstances: "Audio deleted."
Zhang Yuanqing and the commandery princess looked away in satisfaction.
The patrons, courtesans, and armored soldiers of Pingkang Ward stared blankly at the immortal maiden descending from the heavens, filled with both reverence and infatuation.
Zhang Yuanqing rose and instructed his two companions, "You two and the soldiers remain on guard outside. I shall enter the building with the Empress to discuss matters."
Respectfully leading Empress Sandao into the pavilion and shutting the door, Zhang Yuanqing repeated the situation as quickly as he could speak, concluding:
"I have been in this instance for two quarters of an hour. If Pure Yang Sect Master and the others changed the flight path, the Five Elements Alliance should have noticed that something happened to me. The site of my ambush was one hour away from Songhai. If those scoundrels want to fly the plane back to their headquarters, the most likely destination is the Northwest, followed by the Southern Sect headquarters—both of which require over three hours of flight time."
The enemies were certain to change the flight path, because the duration of a Dominator-grade instance was impossible to predict; even Saint-grade instances could take up to a week, and at the time, the plane had been only an hour away from Songhai.
Pure Yang Sect Master would never let the Gulfstream return to Songhai.
Once the plane veered off course, it was bound to be detected, and the Five Elements Alliance would know that something had happened to him.
With Yuanshi Tianzun mysteriously missing, an Alliance Leader might even be mobilized. Therefore, flying the plane back to the evil faction's headquarters was the safest option.
Among all the evil organizations, the Soldier Master sect in the Northwest was the only place Orderly demigods dared not venture alone, unless they formed a team.
"If it takes more than three hours, I'll end up in the thieves' den, and even gods won't be able to save me. Empress, what should we do?"
Chapter 602