Still stunned from fright, Gu Linshu slowly raised his head. Seeing her outstretched hand before him, his fingers tightened.
In the next instant, he reached out and placed his hand in Wen Li's.
“This disciple thanks Master for the teaching,” he said via voice transmission.
“Rest assured, Master. I am not someone who harbors grand ambitions for the common people; I only want to save those I care about. From the moment you began teaching me talismans, you became my benefactor. No matter how you instruct or discipline me, I will never regret this, nor will I back down.”
This was undeniably a pledge of loyalty.
Wen Li nodded, taking him with her as she flew on her sword. “What we are changing is heavenly fate, which means defying the heavens themselves. Even if you were to regret it, there is no turning back.”
Gu Linshu was still young and did not yet understand the profound weight behind those words.
【Host, you just laid it out like that to Gu Linshu? Aren't you worried about driving him crazy at such a tender age?】
“Gu Linshu is different from Yao Dai and Xie Tinglan. From the moment I first saw him cleanly killing his enemies, I knew he didn't need much lecturing from me. A bit of guidance is all it takes to steel his resolve.”
“All right, point the way. I'm actually looking forward to meeting my dear disciple who was born rotten to the core.”
...
Like the Northern Province, the Eastern Province had three Fourth-Grade Cultivation Kingdoms.
However, unlike other provinces where sect masters held sway over nations, the three Fourth-Grade Cultivation Kingdoms in the Eastern Province were ruled by imperial authority: the Lou clan of Shengyang Kingdom, the Wangquan clan of Beiqiong Kingdom, and the Zongzheng clan of Houchi Kingdom.
Their supreme ruler was the Sacred Emperor.
Legend had it that tens of thousands of years ago, ancestors from these three cultivation kingdoms had successfully ascended. Upon their ascension, all clan cultivators sharing their bloodline experienced a tremendous surge in power, leaving behind an inherited bloodline legacy within them.
Consequently, the three kingdoms revered whoever possessed the highest bloodline purity of those ancestors as their Sacred Emperor and established an imperial monarchy. Regardless of whether other cultivators held higher cultivation realms, they were all bound to honor the Sacred Emperor as supreme.
That being said, as the individual with the purest bloodline inheriting the legacy of the ascended ancestor, the Sacred Emperor was almost always the most powerful cultivator in the clan anyway.
And this fourth disciple resided within the Zongzheng clan of Houchi Kingdom.
Wen Li's next step was to bring Gu Linshu to the nearest Teleportation Pavilion to travel from Beiqiong Kingdom to Houchi Kingdom.
Even though she now had a substantial fortune from Gu Linshu, the Teleportation Pavilion was still outrageously expensive.
After paying the fee, Wen Li looked as if her soul had departed. Like a walking corpse, she led Gu Linshu into the array.
This time, they once again had to wait until fifteen people had gathered. When they entered, Wen Li and Gu Linshu stood right at the very front.
Gu Linshu had already grown accustomed to her money-grubbing nature. As he was studying the talisman diagram in his hand, another group of cultivators walked in. The two of them casually glanced over.
Gu Linshu did not recognize them and lowered his head to continue reading.
Wen Li, however, took a look at the robes worn by those eight cultivators and found them somewhat familiar.
Her gaze caught the attention of the man leading them, who was dressed in opulent deep-purple robes. He glanced back at her with a sidelong stare, but seeing that she was merely at Foundation Establishment and bore no provocation in her eyes, he looked away and paid her no further heed.
Gu Linshu sent a divine sense transmission: “Master, are you planning to rob them?”
Lost in thought and racking her brain to recall memories from ten thousand years ago, Wen Li was abruptly interrupted. When his words registered, she immediately raised a hand.
“Ow!” Gu Linshu took a solid smack to the back of his head, lurching forward violently.
The sudden noise drew the eyes of every man, woman, old, and young within the array.
Wen Li, disguised with an ordinary face, offered a faint smile. “Just disciplining my disciple. Pardon the spectacle.”
Since one does not strike a smiling face, the cultivators paid it no more mind.
The array activated.
They were teleported to the imperial capital of Houchi Kingdom. Only after the crowd had gradually dispersed did Wen Li and Gu Linshu exit last.
“I remember now,” Wen Li murmured, her eyes narrowing slightly.
Gu Linshu rubbed the back of his head in pain. “W-What?”
“I remember what those robes on the eight cultivators were.” A dark gleam flickered in the depths of Wen Li's eyes, and her lips curled into a smirk—an expression Gu Linshu had never seen on her before, laced with danger and malice.
Gu Linshu was curious, but having just been smacked, he did not dare pry further.
Wen Li raised her hand and struck him upside the head again.
“Ow!” Gu Linshu winced in pain. “M-Master, why did you hit... hit me again?”
“You didn't follow up and ask me what they were. That shows you don't care about me. You deserved it,” Wen Li replied matter-of-factly, rubbing her palm.
With that, she walked ahead.
“...”
Gu Linshu's eyes went wide, and his mouth fell open, on the verge of tears. “Master, y-you... I... just now... you...”
In his fluster, his stutter only worsened, rendering him entirely tongue-tied. He could only gesticulate wildly with his hands like a fool, earning bizarre, pitying glances from the next wave of cultivators filing out of the teleportation passage.
His face flushed hot at their stares, and Gu Linshu quickly hung his head and scurried after Wen Li.
No, he definitely needed to meet his other fellow disciples to divert some of Master's firepower. Even if one of them was a snake, he could endure it.
Once inside the imperial capital of Houchi Kingdom, the architecture appeared no different from other places. The sole distinction was that all the buildings radiated outward with the imperial palace as their focal center. Viewed from high above, the entire capital formed a circle, carrying a distinct sense of deference and protection.
Worn out from half a month of traveling, Wen Li bought the latest map of Houchi Kingdom, took Gu Linshu to a restaurant to feast to their hearts' content, and then found a hot spring bathhouse to soak in.
Indulgence truly was the greatest pleasure.
Wen Li leaned comfortably against the edge of the pool. Hot spring water trickled out from beneath bamboo pipes set into an artificial rockery. Gu Linshu was on the second floor in the men's baths by himself.
Cultivators rarely set foot in mortal entertainment establishments, as they were always busy cultivating.
Thus, even though each bath chamber was private and soundproofed, to a cultivator like Wen Li, it was practically a hub of rampant gossip.
She listened to tales of whose husband had taken an outside concubine, which young master couldn't perform in bed, and on and on. Eventually, the chatter shifted to something Wen Li actually wanted to hear.
“Hey, did you hear? Rumor has it the Zongzheng imperial clan recently tested a princess whose bloodline purity reached ninety percent. Is that true or fake?”
“You mean Her Highness Zongzheng Huangyue? The wife of the eldest nephew of the son of the third uncle of my daughter-in-law's younger brother-in-law works in the imperial palace, so she knows the inside scoop!”
“Oh, tell us! Hurry up, we promise we won't tell a soul.”
“Really? All right, I'll only tell you folks, so don't go spreading it around. Princess Zongzheng Huangyue was originally just the illegitimate daughter of a direct-line Zongzheng prince three generations removed from the Sacred Emperor. Back then, nobody knew her bloodline purity was so high. It was only recently, when that prince brought her into the palace to pay respects to the Sacred Emperor, that His Majesty noticed something extraordinary about her. They went to the Sacred Temple to test her bloodline, and only then did they discover her purity was actually ninety percent—higher even than the Sacred Emperor's!”
“In his delight, the Sacred Emperor bestowed upon her the title of Princess 'Huangyue' and officially changed her name to Zongzheng Huangyue. He clearly intends for her to succeed him as the next Sacred Emperor!”
“Heavens, ninety percent! Across nineteen generations of Sacred Emperors, the bloodline purity has steadily declined; even the current Sacred Emperor is only at sixty-five percent. Doesn't that mean Princess Zongzheng Huangyue is practically guaranteed to become the next Sacred Emperor? She'd be the very first female Sacred Emperor!”
“Who knows? Princess Zongzheng Huangyue is only fifteen right now. Who can say what misfortunes might crop up later? After all, over the years, it's not like there haven't been imperial royals with high bloodline purity who died young before even reaching twenty.”
“Then wouldn't Princess Zongzheng Huangyue currently hold a status even higher than her prince father?”
“Naturally! The imperial clan cares most about bloodline purity. She went straight from commandery princess to imperial princess and was reportedly welcomed to reside directly in the imperial palace! Her treatment is even better than that of the Sacred Emperor's own biological children! It's just...”
“Just what?”
“It's just that, according to my distant relative, Princess Huangyue is exceedingly domineering and arrogant. She treats her servants with extreme cruelty, and her temper is violent and eccentric. She's despised by many within the imperial clan, yet due to the Sacred Emperor's doting favor, they have no choice but to swallow their resentment and yield to her at every turn.”
After that, they gossiped a bit more about other imperial figures. Having heard enough, Wen Li rose from the water, put on her clothes, took a Disguise Pill, and departed.
Rate on N.U.
