Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Wu Qi told everyone blatantly that he wanted to bring the emperors and subjects of the five dynasties under his control.
Dead silence reigned the great hall. Except for the totally unconcerned Ao Buzun and the heartless Catfish, the emperor and the courtiers of Great Yan all stared fixedly at Wu Qi, wondering what he meant by that. What about them from Great Yan, whose overall strength was about the same as those from the other five dynasties? Since he had the strength to bring those under control, didn’t it mean that he could easily take Great Yan as his own as well?
What was he hinting? Or was he trying to send them some message through those words?
Yan Dan and Yan Qijun knitted their brows into tight knots. The father’s expression was slightly better, but the son’s whole face puckered as he stared at Wu Qi, his eyes full of suspicion and hesitation. He made no secret of his doubts about some of Wu Qi’s intention. He was asking frankly with both his expression and eyes, ‘Are you, my son-in-law, having some thoughts about Great Yan’s throne? Your father-in-law, I, is still in the prime of life, so don’t you think you are a little too greedy and early to cast your eyes on the throne?”
Qin Wuyang rose to his feet, pointed at Wu Qi and shouted, “Wu Qi, who are you to bring the emperors and subjects of the other five dynasties under control?!”
Looking at Qin Wuyang, whose hair all standing up, and at the other courtiers of Great Yan, Wu Qi could not help but laugh.
After taking a sip of tea, Wu Qi said softly, “In the last two years, I’ve done something for Great Yu’s Human Emperor. Now my title is Great Yu’s King of Dong Hai, and I have thirty provinces as my fief. Besides, the Prefecture Overseer of Zhong Province, Bo Zhongfu, has pledged his allegiance to me, and his whole clan is now my vassal clan. As a result, the three hundred provinces under Zhong Province’s jurisdiction are also my territory now.”
Wu Qi lightly patted the ground beside him and said coldly, “If truth be told, An Le County and An Yi County are my territories now. So, General Qin, can you tell me who I am to bring the emperors and subjects of the other dive dynasties under control?”
The atmosphere in the great hall became increasingly bizarre. When Wu Qi said that his present title was Great Yu’s King of Dong Hai, that his direct fief now included thirty provinces, and that Bo Zhongfu who ruled three hundred provinces had submitted to him, the faces of the emperor and courtiers of Great Yan immediately painted with all kinds of expressions.
Yan Dan’s face lit up.
Yan Qijun’s expression was shifting rapidly.
Mo Di and Xun Kuang looked the same.
Han Fei stared stupidly up at the ceiling, as if he had not figured out what Wu Qi was talking about.
Su Qin squinted, his eyes darting left and right. He looked like an old fox at the moment.
Among other Great Yan’s courtiers, Gao Jianli was stroking an ancient musical instrument on his lap, his eyes bleary as if he was immersed in the tune; Tian Guang straightened his back, his gazes lingered on Yan Dan’s face and his expression remained the same; Jing Ke squinted at Ao Buzun and Catfish sitting next to Wu Qi—he was not interested in state affairs but just wondered why these two were bringing him so much pressure.
Yue Yi sat cross-legged with his hands on his knees. The veins on the back of his hands bulged, and a faint murderous aura reverberated around him. It was unknown as to what had come to his mind, his hair was moving though there was no wind, and there was a faint noise of metal clashing on metal mixed with the clattering of horse hooves echoed out from his hair, which was quivering rapidly.
Of all the people present, Qin Wuyang’s reaction was the strongest. Almost as soon as Wu Qi mentioned his title in Great Yu and the fief he now owned, the man jumped up to a height of thirty feet. “Wu Qi,” he snapped, pointing to Wu Qi, “do you remember that you are a subject of Great Yan?”
His rebuke made the expressions of the people in the great hall changed once again. All eyes were on Wu Qi except Ao Buzun, whose mind had wandered off to somewhere else, and Catfish, who looked as stupid as she always did. Wu Qi looked at Qin Wuyang as if nothing had happened, nodded slowly and said, “Yes, of course I do. I am not only a subject of Great Yan, but also the grandson-in-law of His Majesty, the son-in-law of the Crown Prince, and the husband of Princess Zhang Le. Well, we haven’t had a formal wedding ceremony yet, but we can do it any time if need be.”
Qin Wuyang laughed. “Since you still acknowledge that you are a subject of Great Yan, whether you are now Great Yu’s King of Dong Hai or some other senior officials or dignitaries,” he said with an evil smile on his lips, “should the territory under your rule belong to Great Yan?”
Almost simultaneously, everyone in the hall took a deep breath. Yan Dan and Yan Qijun narrowed their eyes, and others moved their bodies. Even Han Fei, who had always been the calmest and even a little stiff, could not help but turn his head to Wu Qi.
Wu Qi spread his arms indifferently and said with a faint smile, “If General Qin said so… I don’t mind to offer the fief of thirty provinces to Great Yan.” As soon as he said that, everyone took a deep breath once more, except Ao Buzun and Catfish, who had taken out an immortal’s thigh and stuffed it into her mouth to chew slowly as a snack.
A crisp crunch rang out as Catfish crushed the bone and chewed on a few sinews on the thigh, with half of the foot hanging from the corner of her mouth. The grimness of the scene made Yan Dan and everyone else looked at her as if they were seeing things. It suddenly dawned on them that Wu Qi did not seem to have a tall man like Ao Buzun or a petite little woman like Catfish who took human legs as a snack followed him in the past.
Wu Qi smiled. “Your Majesty, Crown Prince, my fellow courtiers,” he said, pointing to Catfish, “this is your old acquaintance, Catfish, the head of all the aquatic demons in the Lake of Four Waters. Her cultivation base has improved a little recently, so she has taken on a human form. It’s just that she won’t be able to break her cannibal habit for a while. You can just ignore it!”
After calming the somewhat surprised Yan Dan and others, Wu Qi turned back to Qin Wuyang and said with a chuckle, “I can give the thirty provinces under Dong Hai Province and the three hundred provinces under Zhong Province to Great Yan. But if I do, Great Yan will have to help me deal with those enemies of mine. After all, the Human Emperor of Great Yu will not, for no reason at all, make me a senior official or a dignitary. I have offended many people for the sake of the title of King of Dong Hai!”
Qin Wuyang’s lips parted in a brief smile. “Please tell us in detail, Prince Tianyun, so that we can learn how many people you’ve offended,” he said calmly.
With a smile that was as brief and a voice that was as calm, Wu Qi said, “Oh, I just slaughtered three Primordial Immortals from the Heaven some time ago, slain three Buddhas from the Buddhism League, killed a Primordial expert from the Fiend Realm, and along the way I’ve seriously wounded and robbed Buddha Futu, whose true form is Lord Buddha, Amitabha’s personal treasure. Well, I’ve also destroyed an outpost belongs to the Heaven and killed tens of thousands of their Gold Immortals…”
He spoke slowly of all the things he had done in the past two years and all the people he had offended, including those he had killed, wounded, robbed, and provoked. Yan Dan and others’ faces changed color as they heard that, and they simply ignored Catfish, who was sitting there eating a human leg as a snack, and turned to stare blankly at Wu Qi, unable to digest the information contained in his words for a long time.
Qin Wuyang’s face turned deathly pale as he fixed his eyes on Wu Qi, his head rumbling. When he heard Wu Qi had got such a large fief, he just wanted to get something out of this lucky punk’s hand. But what the ‘punk’ said was simply too incredible—he actually had the ability to kill Primordial experts?!
Primordial Immortals, what kind of existences were they?
The present Great Yan did not even have a Gold Immortal, and the people with the strongest cultivation bases were several members of the imperial clan who had changed into cultivating the cultivation technique of the human race. Of all the courtiers who were cultivating the cultivation technique of the immortals, Su Qin’s cultivation base was the strongest, but it was actually the credit of Princess Zhang Le’s blood sacrifices. When there were not even a Gold Immortal in Great Yan, and Wu Qi suddenly told them that he had killed several Primordial Immortals, it sounded so ridiculous but at the same time, extremely frightening.
Qin Wuyang pointed at Wu Qi with a trembling finger, laughed dryly and said, “You are good at joking, Prince Tianyun!”
Wu Qi looked at him with a faint smile on his face and said, “The Human Emperor never joke with titles and lands!”
Even as he said that, he flicked his sleeve. A plume of purple smoke came spraying out, and suddenly the black stone table in front of him transformed into a chunk of pork, dripping with blood as if it had just been cut from a pig. However, no one had ever seen a chunk of pork that looked exactly like a table, with both ends carved into clouds and four legs!
Just as the hunchback old man Wu Qi met on the grassland years ago, who had transformed the grass all around him into cabbages, Wu Qi had transformed the stone table into a chunk of fresh pork. The ability to convert stone into gold was something that Gold Immortals could have, but this ability to fundamentally transform matter was the ability of Primordial Immortals.
Qin Wuyang’s mouth grew wide, and then everyone heard a sharp click from his jaw, which had dislocated due to dropping too fast and too hard.
Yan Dan and others fixed their eyes on the chunk of pork in front of Wu Qi and sucked in a cold breath at the same time. After coming to Pangu Continent for so long, and through the contact the scouts and spies had made with those itinerant cultivators who were hiding and fleeing here and there, everyone present had heard stories of Gold Immortals and Primordial Immortals. Wu Qi’s ability to transform a stone table into a chunk of pork did seem to be the means of Primordial Immortals.
Staring at the table-shaped pork, Mo Di pulled a polished metal instrument from his sleeve and handed it to Wu Qi. Wu Qi smiled and nodded, and then he casually gave it a slap. Just like that, the instrument made of an alloy of thirty-six rare metals was transformed into a turnip, dripping with juice.
Dead silence reigned the great hall once more as everyone stared in awe at the turnip that shaped like the metal instrument in Mo Di’s hands. A few moments later, Yan Qijun raised a trembling hand and pointed to a beautiful maid standing in the corner.
Wu Qi gave the maid a glance. He pondered for a while, then held out a finger. A beam of light shot out of it, landed on the maid, and suddenly all her clothes fell off. The crowd stared and watched as some strange transformation took place across her body, while she herself looked down blankly at the terrible changes. After a full ten minutes, the former maid, who had now become a real man, touched the strange object between her legs, rolled her eyes and fainted.
Yan Dan opened his mouth, swallowed hard and then issued a decree.
“Send my invitations to the emperors and subjects of the other five dynasties and ask them to get together in An He City.”
After a pause, he said with a dry smile, “I am now passing Great Yan’s imperial throne to Princess Zhang Le, and I will assume the title of Grand Imperial Sire together with Qijun!”
The great hall was quiet. No one objected Yan Dan’s decree.
