The moment Li Xiangping looked up toward the distant mountains, the neigh of a horse rang out from the mountain summit. A steed of pure, unbroken black galloped merrily across the heights, its hooves not even touching the ground as it trod across the rugged terrain—a demonic creature possessing Qi Refinement cultivation.
Its dark hooves lightly tapped the muddy water, soaring straight through the air. The rider was clad in leather armor, unadorned by beast bones or jade ornaments, looking almost like a lowlander from the plains.
Jianixi gently patted his old companion's head, squeezed with his legs, and turned sideways to look down upon the village at the foot of the mountain.
The Shanyue of the Northern Foothills all claimed that Jianixi had four eyes and eight arms, but in truth, his appearance was utterly ordinary. His eyes were even on the smaller side, his eyebrows sparse. If he closed his eyes and stood akimbo in the middle of a field, no one would ever suspect he was someone of note.
Only when those yellowish-brown eyes opened to stare silently at a person would a bone-chilling dread take hold.
"Great King, just ahead lies the demonic sect's territory."
Hearing the attendant with the long braid speak from behind him, Jianixi raised an eyebrow. His yellowish-brown gaze swept across the battle formation below, and he nodded.
"Breaking them would take a quarter of an hour."
His voice was light, pitched high, and utterly flat in tone, as though he were reading aloud from a text.
The braided man bowed his head slightly and listened in silence. Behind him, not a single soldier was in sight. As the king who had unified the Shanyue of the Northern Foothills, he had boldly stepped into Qingchi Sect's domain accompanied by only a single follower, scarcely three hundred zhang from Li Xiangping's command tent.
After a few glances, Jianixi lost interest in the clan soldiers below. He nudged with his thighs, and the horse obediently turned back toward the path they had come, traversing the craggy mountain path as though walking on level ground.
"Our time is short. There is no need to wait any longer."
The braided follower urged his mount to keep pace and hesitated before saying, "Yet the lowlanders are treacherous, and who knows how many human shamans reside within this demonic sect's army. Great King must not underestimate the enemy."
Jianixi let out a low laugh, lifted the long saber in his hand, and looked up at the moon veiled by dark clouds, his lips twitching.
"Who said I was going to fight him?"
***
When Chen Sanshui groggily awoke, a Shanyue warrior in leather armor stood before him, clutching his collar in a massive hand so tightly that he could hardly breathe.
Thud!
He was hurled violently out of the courtyard, crashing to the ground until gold stars danced before his eyes. Two of his teeth were knocked loose, and everything spun around him. Catching sight of the Shanyue warriors standing rigid on either side, Chen Sanshui wiped the blood from his face and fumbled about in the dirt, searching for his teeth.
Then a foot came down upon his hand. Looking up into those yellowish-brown eyes, Chen Sanshui was forced to confront the brutal reality—in the brief quarter of an hour he had been asleep, Lichuankou had fallen without offering the slightest resistance.
How could it be so fast?!
What about the clan soldiers Li Xiangping commanded, stationed right across the river? Had they been wiped out without making a sound?
Where was Li Tongya, who could soar high through the heavens? Where were the Li family's other immortals? How had these people seized control of Lichuankou so silently? A suffocating dread gripped Chen Sanshui's chest. He no longer cared about the throbbing ache in his mouth as countless questions surged through his mind.
"Where is the Li family's old nest?"
The man stepping on his hand spoke calmly. Chen Sanshui stared at his sparse eyebrows and those terrifying eyes, only one question remaining in his head.
If Father were here, what would he do?
Before Chen Sanshui could finish that thought, Jianixi casually ripped off his left arm, tearing loose a shower of blood, sinew, and flesh. Chen Sanshui's eyes rolled back, and frothing spittle burst uncontrollably from his mouth as agony drowned every shred of thought.
"Hurts... It hurts so much..."
Jianixi tapped a finger against his head, casting an incantation to shock his mind back into clarity, forcing him to experience every ounce of that suffocating torment while preserving his vital breath so he would not bleed to death on the spot.
"Li... Mount... Lijing..."
The notion of playing the hero had flickered in his mind for only a struggling instant before the mess of filth beneath him reminded him: he was merely an ordinary man. He was no pain-defying martyr, no Chen Erniu, no Li Xiangping—and even if Li Xiangping were placed in this predicament, he might not fare any better.
"Take us there."
Chen Sanshui was hoisted into the air. Hanging upside down, he watched the shifting feet of the surrounding Shanyue warriors. A lethal instinct, drilled into him through more than twenty years of Chen Erniu's painstaking scoldings, finally awakened within him. Chen Sanshui knew beyond all doubt that he was a dead man. Remembering all the absurd, foolish things he had done in his life, a profound desolation filled his heart.
The Shanyue warriors around them moved out. Simple talismans were inscribed upon their ankles, allowing them to walk without making a sound. Two columns of Shanyue soldiers followed Jianixi out of Lichuankou, heading straight for Mount Lijing.
Chen Sanshui caught sight of the Shanyue man behind Jianixi, who was also carrying someone—a leading elder from the village. He knew then that lying about the route would only bring him pointless agony. He thought bitterly to himself, What cunning bastards.
Since childhood, he had lived beneath the shadow of the Li brothers, just as his father, Chen Erniu, had lived beneath the shadow of Li Mutian. He had constantly heard his father say:
"Among the four Li brothers, Li Changhu is gentle and pitiful as a meek deer; Li Tongya is calm and cautious like a coiled serpent; Li Xiangping is treacherous and ruthlessly vicious as a ravenous wolf; and Li Chijing is clever and dashing like a white fox."
"Then what about me?! What am I!"
Back then, Chen Sanshui had asked eagerly, staring up at his father with wide, expectant eyes.
"A good-for-nothing."
Crushed with disappointment, Chen Sanshui had truly become a good-for-nothing ever since, muddling his way through marriage and fatherhood, leaning on his father's prestige and influence to indulge in reckless pleasures.
It was only when Jianixi ripped off his left arm that he seemed to awaken entirely, everything before him suddenly snapping into crystal clarity. He even found himself resenting Jianixi for not tearing off his arm ten years earlier, which would have spared his father so many years of wasted worry.
"How often do you communicate with those troops?"
Jianixi spoke softly. He had already seen that the man in his grip had been frightened out of his wits and would never dare deceive him. Little did he know that the man had shaken off his muddled past. The captive he held was no longer the thirty-year-old Chen Sanshui, but rather seemed like the sixty-year-old Chen Erniu.
"Every three shichen."
Chen Sanshui's heart was as still as water, yet he made his voice tremble as he spoke. In his chest, there was finally a trace of peace—at last, he had not failed the master clan that had sustained him in fine clothes and rich food for twenty years.
Mount Lijing gradually came into view ahead. Jianixi reined in his mount and casually twisted Chen Sanshui's head off. Looking down at the headless corpse crumpled in a tangle of bone and gore, and the crimson blood staining the earth, he let out a cold laugh.
"Useless trash!"
As the world spun violently, Chen Sanshui's head landed lightly by the roadside, eyes staring fixedly into the night sky veiled in dark clouds. A single thought surfaced in his mind:
Li Xiangping, this was the best your grandfather Chen could do for you. You think you're so damn mighty, but this time, you've kicked straight into an iron plate!
Chapter 88