Urgent News From Da Shun’s Imperial Palace
What of it?
That’s right, what of it.
She was Xuan Tian Ming’s woman. Even if she destroyed the world, he would dote on her. So what if they attacked the small Qian Zhou?
Xuan Tian Ming’s arrival caused Ban Zou and Prince Lian to let out a sigh of relief. Qian Zhou’s ruler also finally understood why Feng Yu Heng had begun smiling despite not having anywhere else to run. To be able to get into Phoenix Pavilion under his nose and steal his opponent, Feng Zhao Yu’s heart began to feel cold. Just how good were Da Shun’s ninth prince’s martial abilities?
At this time, Xuan Tian Ming was pulling Feng Yu Heng along to inspect her all over. After ensuring that she did not suffer any injuries, he began to lecture her: “Really, if I take one eye off you, you run away to cause me trouble. If you want to kill someone, just say something. Why bother with doing it yourself? You’re only 14 years of age. You are still a young girl with small arms and legs. To go and fight with a grown man, don’t you feel any shame?”
Prince Lian rolled his eyes when he heard this and said to himself that this couple really knew how to speak nonsense. Ban Zou was accustomed to this and nodded in agreement.
Feng Yu Heng admitted her mistakes: “I won’t do it next time.”
“Un.” Xuan Tian Ming patted her head, “Good.” He then asked seriously: “How many times did he hit you earlier?”
Feng Yu Heng thought a bit, “At the start, neither held the upper hand, and I did not suffer much of a loss. Later on, I grew tired and was hit three times on the arms, twice on the shoulders, once on my left calf, twice on my right thigh, and my left wrist was the main target, being hit eleven times.”
“Alright.” Xuan Tian Ming nodded and pushed her over to Ban Zou’s side, “Massage your master’s shoulders.” He then exerted his internal strength to turn his whip straight, pointing at the ruler of Qian Zhou with the straightened whip, “A total of 19 times, Feng Zhao Yu, how do you want to die?”
Feng Zhao Yu was brooding over Xuan Tian Ming easily snatching Feng Yu Heng from his grasp. He had always been arrogant and never believed that there was anyone in the world that could defeat him. Even the master that taught him martial arts had been killed by him while he was training. He had investigated the ninth prince of Da Shun in the past. He knew martial arts, and he was not bad, but there was no way for him to have reached such a skill level. Xuan Tian Ming was best at leading troops into battle and deploying battle formations, not one-on-one fights.
Thinking like this, he felt that it had just been a coincidence earlier. It had been his own momentary carelessness. Facing Xuan Tian Ming’s question, he laughed and wanted to say, “How presumptuous.” Who knew that before he could say anything, he heard Xuan Tian Ming suddenly say something that he had said before: “So noisy!” He then began waving his whip around then aimed the whip at his arms and whipped both arms twice. This whipping left Feng Zhao Yu in a daze.
“Your arms should have been hit three times, but the extra time was this prince collecting interest.” He spoke in a relaxed tone, as though dealing with Feng Zhao Yu was the same as handling a dog that had fallen in a ditch. There was not the slightest bit of difficulty.
An aura of cold air surrounded Feng Zhao Yu’s body. The aura of a scholar that had once been there had completely disappeared. At this moment, he was like a ghoul that had come from the underworld. Even if he had to return, he had to drag someone down with him.
He rushed toward Xuan Tian Ming, the fingers on his left hand becoming like a claw, while he pulled out a sword with his right. Light reflected off of the frost on the sword, and even a layer of ice could be noticed.
Prince Lian inhaled sharply and said with difficulty: “That is a sword made from ten-thousand-year-old ice taken from the coldest and northernmost region in Qian Zhou. There’s only one in the world. It was handed down through the generations by his master’s family. Who knew that he would become a murderer that year and even end up taking this sword.”
Feng Yu Heng furrowed her brow: “Is thousand-year-old ice capable of being so flexible? It can be wrapped around the waist?” No matter what, she could not understand; however, she also knew that there were too many things in the 5000 years of history that could not be explained. For thousand-year-old ice, it was rather marvelous.
Feng Zhao Yu’s counterattack carried a determination to bring about mutual destruction. That sort of ruinous feeling could be felt by Xuan Tian Ming. Unfortunately, this degree of attack was not enough.
He said: “Ruler of a dead country, is this little bit all of your rage?”
Feng Zhao Yu’s entire face turned green. Xuan Tian Ming’s words increased the hatred in his attacks. In his entire life, he had never exerted as much as he had today, nor had he ever used his internal strength in such an unrestrained manner as he had today. Every attack carried a cold wind. That cold wind would blow along the floor, causing a patch of frost to form. When it blew past chairs and tables, they would crumble into many pieces. Ban Zou protected Feng Yu Heng from the front. Prince Lian also hid behind him; however, he could still feel the blowing of the wind. That feeling was enough to cause everyone to feel that Phoenix Pavilion would collapse from this ice sword.
Xuan Tian Ming, however, shook his head while fighting, “Ruler of Qian Zhou, this is not enough. There is not enough resentment. For someone that practices dark ice cultivation, anger is the most important part of your power. You are not angry enough. Of the 360 techniques in the dark ice style, you haven’t even brought out 60 percent of its power.”
Feng Zhao Yu’s heart went “thunk.” Xuan Tian Ming’s words had reached his heart by directly reading the source of his style. That sort of feeling from having someone see through his secrets caused his heart to freeze over.
But Xuan Tian Ming continued speaking while waving his whip around. It forced him to listen, “You spent your life chasing the throne. Stepping over the blood of your relatives, you succeeded in snatching it. In your heart is not resentment, it’s ruthlessness. What you have in your body is not resentment, it’s power. Even if you are a genius in martial arts, for you to be able to do so well with these techniques using brute power is not easy, but if you want to advance another step, it would be too difficult.”
He spoke one word at a time, leaving Feng Zhao Yu with no ability to dodge. All of his weaknesses were exposed by the enemy. What followed, however, was another wave of even fiercer attacks.
Xuan Tian Ming said: “Over the years, this prince very rarely fights like this in order to have people only remember this prince for my ability to lead and deploy formations while forgetting that this prince is quite powerful. Ruler of Qian Zhou, you hit my wife 19 times. This prince has whipped you 36 times to get repayment. Now, it’s time to send you to accompany this country in its grave.”
After saying this, the whip became even faster. While it moved, Feng Zhao Yu’s sword was thrown to the side, falling before Feng Yu Heng’s group. In the next moment, the whip rushed straight toward his neck. Wrapping around quickly, it was securely fastened around Feng Zhao Yu’s neck.
Xuan Tian Ming changed the way he exerted force and focused all of his internal strength into the whip. Feng Zhao Yu felt the whip around his neck begin to tighten. All of the blood began to flow up, and he was strangled until his eyes bulged out of his eyes. He opened his mouth as wide as possible to desperately try and breathe; however, he was getting more air out than in.
With the complete collapse of the dynasty, the bloody path from the past few decades quickly filled his mind. The relatives that he had killed all appeared before him. There were some that cried, some that laughed, some that were angry, and there were even some that wanted to strangle him to death. There was also Prince Lian. He still remembered that his there was a night many years ago when his father and Duan Mu An Guo had talked all through the night. His father said that the imperial grandson could not be killed, thus Duan Mu An Guo told his father to have the child be turned into an imperial granddaughter with no right to ascend the throne. Like this, his cousin, Feng Zhao Lian, was sent to a magician’s place and force-fed drugs every day, becoming a person that was neither man nor woman.
He had completed the path the throne by wading through blood; however, he had not been a ruler for many years before a collapse of the heavens ruined everything.
Feng Zhao Yu began to laugh. Looking at Xuan Tian Ming, he used the last of his strength to say to him: “Even if I die, you will need to accompany me to my grave.” After saying this, he stopped breathing; however, at the same moment that he stopped breathing, the entire Phoenix Pavilion began to collapse. It fell at an extremely fast rate. It was such that three stories had sunk beneath the ground before anyone could react.
Seeing that there was snow pouring in directly from the windows, Xuan Tian Ming quickly let go of the whip that was wrapped around Qian Zhou’s ruler then rushed straight toward Feng Yu Heng. Picking her up, he began to charge up. At the same time, the whip was pointed up and cut open a small opening in the roof. Immediately following this, he brought her straight into the air.
Ban Zou followed behind while using his qinggong. Before he could get up very high, something tightened around his ankles, and he was pulled back down to the floor.
He looked down and found that Prince Lian was holding his ankle desperately while shouting: “Don’t leave me behind!” His nose nearly became crooked from anger; however, he still went up and gave Prince Lian a hand, bringing him out through the opening.
With the collapse of the heavens, the last part of the imperial palace collapsed into the ground. When Prince Lian looked back, he told them: “This was a self-destruct mechanism activated earlier by Feng Zhao Yu. His original intention was to drag someone down with him.” While saying this, he patted his chest and said to Xuan Tian Ming: “It’s good that you came. If you didn’t come, Ya Ya’s third-rate skills would have left us as ground meat for Feng Zhao Yu’s dumplings.”
This time, Feng Yu Heng did not argue back. She admitted her own mistakes: “It was me that was too careless.” She then looked at Xuan Tian Ming with fear still filling her heart and said: “He aimed straight for my left wrist.”
Xuan Tian Ming gently pulled her into his embrace and patted her hair. While doing this, he said: “Don’t be scared, don’t be scared. I’m here.”
Prince Lian looked away, “Too sour.” He then looked up at the ruined imperial palace, his lips curling into a cold smile, “Feng family, Qian Zhou, all that you owed me has been repaid. Goodbye.”
Xuan Tian Ming’s army remained in Qian Zhou’s capital for another half of a month. They dug up as many of the corpses as they could and buried them in the location of the former imperial palace. The citizens of the capital automatically gave up their citizenship in Qian Zhou and turned to Da Shun.
Half a month later, tens of thousands of soldiers brought all of the citizens from the capital South in preparation to return to Da Shun.
Right before departing, Xuan Tian Ming formed a group of ten thousand soldiers and placed them under Qian Li’s command to continue North in order to save the citizens in the cities further North.
On the way back, he asked Feng Yu Heng: “Father Emperor promised that he would give you a betrothal gift after we conquered Qian Zhou, but given Qian Zhou’s current condition, how do you plan on handling it?”
Feng Yu Heng said: “Qian Zhou will be closed off with no citizens being left behind. Just leave some soldiers to keep an eye on it. I want to turn this place into Da Shun’s storage place to breed plants. The snowy mountains will become fields of medicine. There will come a day when it will prosper once more.”
The once melting Qian Zhou once again began freezing after a month. It was as though the avalanche never occurred. This territory became peaceful once more.
But the citizens had lost their confidence in living there. They followed the army South, passing through Luo City, Bin City and the Northern Pass to stand in Jiang Zhou, part of Da Shun’s territory.
Once the army entered Jiang Zhou, an official immediately rushed over on a horse. Meeting up with Xuan Tian Ming, he handed over a report and said: “Your Highness, an urgent report from the imperial palace in the capital.”
