Su Wan trembled all over, forced to stand up and stare at Ji Tongzhou’s expressionless face. The white jade oriole in her sleeve rolled onto the ground.
Ji Tongzhou glanced at it, slowly loosening his grip on her hand. He opened his palm, and the white jade oriole flew into it. He held it out to Su Wan, his voice calm but somewhat gentle: “It’s a gift for you. Take it.”
Su Wan glared at him angrily, shouting, “I don’t want it! You’re truly incomprehensible! Even willfulness should have its limits!”
Ji Tongzhou seemed not to hear. He placed the white jade oriole on her bosom. She didn’t avoid it, nor did she show fear. This frank and heartless gaze reminded him of Jiang Li Fei saying sorry to him. For a moment, the spirited young woman before him transformed into the girl in Taotie’s belly.
Su Wan was pulled by the arm, and forced to take two steps forward. Seeing the others trapped in the black fire cage, and Bai Li Changyue with all her spiritual energy sealed by the Dragon Imprisoning Lock, all in a miserable state, she couldn’t help but shout, “Just tie me up too! Or kill me!”
Ji Tongzhou laughed. Su Wan saw his expression as indecipherable, even carrying a hint of ambiguity, which left her quite shocked. She forcibly stopped, struggling hard: “Let me go!”
This person was looking at her, but it seemed he wasn’t seeing her at all. Who was he looking at through her? She knew the answer.
She suddenly let out a cold laugh, speaking with disdain: “You pushed the person you love into a fiery pit with your own hands, yet you keep a woman with a similar appearance at home to deceive yourself. You treat other girls gently as if they were the woman you like. This isn’t deep love, it’s selfishness!”
Ji Tongzhou suddenly stopped, staring at her with a gloomy expression. Su Wan continued to laugh coldly: “If you truly loved someone, how could you harm her? You hate Li Fei for not liking you, for not giving you a chance. This is nothing but selfish behavior!”
He suddenly raised his hand, as if wanting to slap her. Su Wan instinctively closed her eyes tightly. After a moment, she heard him say calmly, “You’re wrong.”
He had never truly hated Jiang Li Fei. He had simply chosen to give up – give up this woman he couldn’t have, give up that resentment with no beginning or end, choosing instead what was more important to him.
“I love her, but I’ve already given her up.”
Su Wan still laughed coldly: “Love her? I think you don’t know how to love at all. From beginning to end, all you’ve loved is your willfulness! You’re the most selfish person in the world, only knowing how to please yourself and indulge yourself. People like you will never come to a good end…”
Ji Tongzhou covered her mouth and nose. She struggled like a dying insect in his palm, gradually losing strength, and collapsing limply onto the ground. She was then lifted by the Dragon Imprisoning Lock, several chains binding her, completely sealing off her spiritual energy.
He slowly exhaled, surveying the courtyard. His former friends were all defeated by his hand. How they had looked at Qin Yangling in the East Sea, they now looked at him the same way. He no longer felt regret or heartache. So, the bonds of affection ended here.
As Ji Tongzhou walked into the room, Lu Li in the fire cage suddenly grabbed Bai Li Gelin’s hand, whispering, “He’s probably going to send a message to the immortals of Wu Yue Ting. With natural disasters and human calamities now, Jiang Li Fei is in hiding and not showing herself. They don’t have much energy to find her, so they must be using a strategy to lure the snake out of its hole. We’ve become the bait.”
Bai Li Gelin was anxious to the point of despair: “Do you have a way to escape?”
Lu Li looked down at her. Half of her clothes were burned, and half of her body was also burned, looking quite horrifying. He first set up a healing net for her, then took out the last talisman paper from his bosom, sighing lightly: “Fortunately, they didn’t put the Dragon Imprisoning Lock on us.”
Spiritual energy infused into this white talisman paper. It stuck to the gap in the fire cage and flew out lightly, silently transforming into a white-furred, golden-nosed rat demon. Its four claws were like hooks, quietly hanging on the spiritual energy net above, quickly gnawing at the dense spiritual energy lines. In the blink of an eye, it had already gnawed a sizeable hole in the spiritual energy net.
Seeing that the rat demon had such an effect, Bai Li Gelin’s heart immediately lightened. Just then, the closed door was opened again. Ji Tongzhou walked to the center of the courtyard holding a letter. He raised his palm, and a swiftly rotating light of black and white appeared suspended in mid-air.
The letter was thrown into the rotating black and white light, suddenly emitting a dazzling radiance – was this the Star Zheng Hall’s message-sending technique? Quite a grand gesture, no wonder he came out to use it.
At the peak of the light’s brilliance, Bai Li Gelin suddenly felt her body tighten, forcefully lifted by someone. Lu Li protected her head and face in his embrace, his back slamming hard against the fire cage. The snake spirit swiftly darted out from the shadows, supporting their bodies, flying like lightning towards the gap in the spiritual energy net above. With a “boom,” that gap was completely smashed open. Bai Li Gelin only felt countless black fires surging out from within the prince’s mansion, but they were ultimately a step too late. The snake spirit carried the two, flying for dear life. In the blink of an eye, when Ji Tongzhou flew up on his sword, they were nowhere to be seen.
He looked at the broken black fire cage, then at the remaining Ye Ye, Changyue, and Su Wan. They were smiling, each with a face full of joy. Ji Tongzhou indifferently moved his gaze away, putting the last Dragon Imprisoning Lock on Ye Ye, removing the fire cage, while loudly ordering: “Someone! Send them to the dungeon.”
The stewards and guards who had been cowering outside the courtyard, not daring to move, tremblingly came in to carry people and corpses. The bodies of the chief steward and a beheaded Long Ming Zuo disciple were still lying on the ground, blood everywhere. Everyone had witnessed the recent battle of magic. If they had any thoughts of escaping before, those thoughts were now completely dead.
Ji Tongzhou turned around, taking off his outer robe that was stained with some dust. Miao Qing, who had been hiding in the room, hurriedly brought clean clothes for him. Ji Tongzhou saw her face full of admiration and longing, looking at him with a gaze full of desire. This expression made it impossible to find any trace of Jiang Li Fei in her.
He suddenly felt very disgusted, raising his hand to cover her face, pushing her away, coldly saying: “Get out.”
Miao Qing fearfully retreated several steps and bowed, already accustomed to this prince’s unpredictable moods these days. What he wanted was not her adoration and worship. She didn’t know what he wanted, as if he was peering through her body at another impossibility.
Urgent footsteps came from behind, along with the stewards’ repeated urgent calls: “Princess! Princess! Please wait for the announcement…”
Ji Tongzhou had just pulled the exhausted emperor up from the ground when he heard the long-absent Lan Ya sob at the courtyard gate: “Your Highness! Is it true about Elder Xuan Shanzi?!”
He closed his eyes in annoyance, not wanting to turn his head, coldly saying: “Yes, it’s true.”
Lan Ya stood unsteadily, flustered, and at a loss. She had flown overnight from the feudal lord Zhao Yang to Duantu, her heart still holding a glimmer of hope. Now that hope was completely shattered. She stared blankly at Ji Tongzhou’s back. Since she had known him, she had been completely obedient to him, admiring and longing for him. But now, for some reason, this once lofty prince suddenly seemed to have lost his luster.
His posture was still straight, his attitude still proud, showing no fear or distress. But she just felt he was different from the young prince of before. Suddenly, the thing about him that had attracted her and made her fanatical seemed to be gone. She couldn’t even remember how she had felt about him. Had she liked him? If she had liked him, why had she forgotten those feelings overnight?
Ji Tongzhou turned around, still with that cold gaze identical to when he was in Lu Gong Town. She remembered he had said what a woman’s eyes would look like when she truly fell in love with someone. She didn’t understand his heart and still didn’t understand now. She had once wanted to understand, but now she didn’t want to waste any energy on it.
The emperor sat in the chair like a dead person, muttering to himself. This once glorious Son of Heaven now looked like nothing more than an ordinary middle-aged man. The State of Yue was finished, disappearing like a bubble in the long river of history. Those dreams of brilliance and glory would never be realized.
Lan Ya suddenly stood straight, straightening her back in front of the prince for the first time. She took several steps back, bowing her head respectfully yet coldly: “Wu Gou has been in private contact with many feudal states, promising the feudal lords that if they don’t send troops, they will be granted more territory after conquering the State of Yue. Your Highness… take care.”
She backed out of the courtyard gate and left without looking back. Ji Tongzhou silently watched her retreating figure, saying nothing.
Li Fei pinched the small, jade-like horn in front of her with her fingers. In the end, she followed Ri Yan’s advice and refined the arm bone of the Jian Mu fruit with the rhinoceros horn. The appearance of the rhinoceros horn had hardly changed, but its essence had completely transformed. She felt it was more handy, like a part of her own body.
In one breath, it could completely absorb the thick spiritual energy in the Gan Hua realm, and in another breath, it could release it all – and this was far from its limit.
Ri Yan was wrong. This was not just a defensive weapon, it was a trump card.
Li Fei played with the new rhinoceros horn for a while, then turned back to see Lei Xiuyuan still sitting by the cave lake, flipping through Master’s black booklet. He had been reading it for several days.
“Have you discovered any secrets?” She walked over and sat beside him, leaning in to look at the black booklet. He was reading about riding the north wind to Jian Mu.
Lei Xiuyuan casually said while reading, “The Qingcheng Immortal mentioned that picking unripe Jian Mu fruits would bring down heavenly thunder and a sea of fire. The Sea Catastrophe happens once every five hundred years, and it takes about five hundred years for a Jian Mu fruit to fully mature. I’m wondering if the heavenly thunder and sea of fire of the Sea Catastrophe are related to the Jian Mu fruits. The Sea Sect’s beast-taming techniques came from overseas, and various rumors are well-founded. It seems that long ago, the Central Plains and overseas had contact. Later, for some unknown reason, they were separated by the heavenly thunder and sea of fire, gradually becoming the Sea Catastrophe that occurs once every five hundred years. There must have been some changes in between.”
Li Fei smiled, “We can investigate these things thoroughly when we go overseas.”
She was probably the most ignorant Jian Mu fruit in history. As soon as she hatched, Master raised her as an ordinary person. She knew less about her background than Lei Xiuyuan did.
“You mentioned the Fire-Hating Island overseas last time. Can the people there really spit fire from their mouths?” Li Fei looked at him with interest. These days, she has heard a lot about overseas customs and practices from Lei Xiuyuan, like listening to stories. It was quite interesting, and she couldn’t help but pester him to say more whenever she had the chance.
Lei Xiuyuan was about to speak when suddenly a clear bell sound rang out beside both of them, followed by several lines of golden light forming words appearing before their eyes. They were both startled. This kind of high-level elder’s announcement had only appeared in the disciple’s rules before. Generally, it was only used when encountering major disasters. Everyone recorded in Wu Yue Ting’s register would receive this announcement at the same time.
Li Fei read the summons word by word, her expression growing increasingly gloomy. This was less of an announcement and more of an expulsion order aimed at her alone. Qin Yangling’s death was attributed to her, True Person Chong Yi was also confined for lax supervision, and Su Wan was imprisoned for “assisting in evil deeds.”
Expel the renegade disciple Jiang Li Fei from Wu Yue Ting, never to return – Li Fei let out a cold laugh and stood up abruptly. What a good expulsion order to force her to show herself!