Chapter 312: Terrible News and Murder Plot
Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
Nie Wushang was someone who worked for the imperial court, his main purpose here was to announce the imperial edict. Remember, the troubles Zhou Bao had stirred up in the northwest had already garnered into the imperial court’s notice. In addition, he had robbed Xining King’s Eldest Son, Yan Fei, of his Pure Yang Celestial Device, which indirectly humiliated the imperial court. Of course, the imperial court would not pass these incidents over in total silence. However, none of those things were embodied in the imperial edict. The main idea of the edict was to soothe Zhou Bao with compliments about how good a lord he had been and what an excellent example he had set for other newly enfeoffed lords, as well as to encourage him to make persistent efforts for the flourishing of the Great Jin. In the end, it even awarded 1,000 taels of gold to Zhou Bao, as well as a nominal title of General.
As for other matters, naturally, they were discussed in private between Zhou Bao and Nie Wushang.
“Your Excellency Zhou, General Zhou, His Majesty and the imperial court think very highly of you!”
In contrast with the Yun Peng’s business style, this Nie Wushang was a typical old con of the officialdom. The type that always put on a false smile. He was, in Zhou Bao’s mind, the most troublesome kind of person.
He was not hard to deal with, but quite troublesome.
Zhou Bao had met loads of these kind of guys before. They were really base people, who would seek revenge for the smallest grievance. They could hold grudge against you for 100 years over something quite trivial. Moreover, when they wanted to seek vengeance, they would employ insidious means and act with zero humanity. But the most important part, as well as the most troublesome part in the eyes of Zhou Bao, was that for this kind of guy, harming others without benefiting themselves was their favorite thing to do.
If someone wanted to do things that would harm others but it would benefit himself, that meant he had some scruples in mind, because he was at least thinking about himself. However, doing something that would harm others but without benefiting oneself, that was thoroughly a matter of mentality. Undoubtedly, Nie Wushang was one of the latter kind. Although he would walk on you with a smile and his voice was always mellow and sweet, even sweeter than those eunuchs, all of this would only make Zhou Bao more vigilant.
“I’m flattered. Zhou Bao is merely a rustic man who accidentally obtained some luck. How can I be qualified to enjoy such generous favor of the emperor and the imperial court?”
“Your Excellency is being too modest. Actually, the emperor and the ministers are all hoping that Your Excellency will return and work for the imperial court. After all, in today’s court, there are few who are as young and strong as Your Excellency!”
“Bullshit!” Zhou Bao cursed secretly. Those minsters wanting him to go back and work for the imperial court? No way! It could only be the idea of the emperor himself. As for those ministers, they would never hope that someone who had a powerful background and solid strength like Zhou Bao would chime in, especially given the stable governance at present.
Therefore, Zhou Bao only took those words as nonsense. He also put on a false smile and cupped his hands in salute, “Your Excellency is joking with me. I’m utterly illiterate. How can I ever work in the imperial court? Even for those annoying things that happened in this damn place where birds will not defecate, I will always assign someone else to deal with them. I won’t bother to handle any bit of them. Even if I want to handle a bit, I don’t how to do it. Now, the only role I’m playing here is just to keep up the appearance.”
“Your Excellency is truly too modest!” Hearing such a self-degradation from Zhou Bao, Nie Wushang’s eyes flashed, and his assessment for Zhou Bao grew even higher. However, he didn’t pay too much mind to this and just smiled flatly. “The world has already heard about and witnessed the strength of Your Excellency. You are more than competent enough to take the position of a provincial governor in the Great Jin, let alone governing in this remote northwest!”
“Haha, Your Excellency Nie, if you continue to compliment me like this, I’d be too embarrassed to eat my meals!” Zhou Bao waved his hands with a beaming smile, but his mind was racing . “What provincial governor? Even if you want me to be the governor of 10 provinces, I won’t give my consent! Those provinces belong to the imperial court of the Jin , while the northwest region, though a bit bleak and desolate, is owned by myself!”
“Zhou Bao, I’m just telling the truth. But there is one thing Your Excellency did that has put His Majesty in an awkward situation!” The smile on Nie Wushang’s face shrank a bit, revealing a trace of mockery. Then, he weighed his tone and said, “That Yan Fei is Xining King’s Eldest Son, a member of the royal family. His Pure Yang Celestial Device was also granted by the imperial court. But Your Excellency took it away so blatantly. I’m afraid that’s a bit inappropriate!”
“Well, it turns out to be this thing!” Zhou Bao smiled, “But I don’t find it inappropriate!”
Nie Wushang’s look darkened. If it were another guy who said so in front of him, he would already fall into a great rage. But facing Zhou Bao, whose notoriety was well-known by the masses and by himself, he didn’t dare to. Even millennium families like the Wang clan, who had provoked Zhou Bao, ended up disgracing themselves under his attack, not to mention that he was merely a small officer at sixth rank. This guy was not like those scholars in the imperial court that you could reason with.
This guy was, just as he had described, a rustic man. Apart from his brute force, he believed in nothing. His means were also extremely cruel. If he really got his temper up here, he might be killed on the spot. Even if it weren’t that bad, getting partially paralyzed would not be worthwhile either, would it?
Anyway, he only came here to announce the imperial edict and to investigate Zhou Bao’s attitude toward the imperial court, so there was no need to push hard on him!
Thinking of this, the corner of his mouth twitched. He then said carefully, “Oh, it’s not inappropriate. Beg your wise opinion on this!”
“I don’t have any wise opinion. I just don’t find it inappropriate.” Zhou Bao gave a lukewarm smile and continued, “That Yan Fei didn’t put anyone in his eyes, since he is one of the royal family. He hunted Li Xiu over thousands of miles to kill him. When I came forward to talk him out of it, he not only didn’t listen to me, but initiated his Octupole Exquisite Pagoda and tried to kill me altogether. How bossy was he?! How outrageous he behaved! If I hadn’t broken his momentum, he would become a danger to the imperial court in the future. Your Excellency, what’s your say?”
“Fair point! Fair point!”
Nie Wushang softly wiped away the cold sweat all over his forehead and gasped for breath. “That he should frame up others in front of me without missing a beat, today’s youngsters truly outperform their predecessors!” He thought to himself.
The reason why Yan Fei wanted to hunt down Li Xiu was already known by the world, but when it came out from Zhou Bao’s mouth, Yan Fei became the unreasonable one. In addition, arrogant as Yan Fei was, no one had ever heard him do anything unjustified to others. As to his arrogance, he was after all, young and sucessful, he also came from a strong family with extraordinary strength. Thus, it was normal for him to be a little arrogant. If he turned out to be this sleek, and as good at playing tricks as Zhou Bao, it would be abnormal.
Anyway, since their conversation already came to this point, no words would work anymore.
Therefore, he merely smiled in an awkward way and ended this talk between them.
Seeing Nie Wushang’s back disappear out of sight, Zhou Bao looked over his shoulder to look at Jiang Xiao, “Something is going on!”
“Something is going on?” Jiang Xiao seemed confounded for a moment. “Your Excellency, do you mean…”
“Don’t you find this odd? He came here with no other good reason except for announcing a meaningless imperial edict?” As Zhou Bao turned around and went back to the inside of the room, he continued, “This imperial edict contains no substantial things at all!”
“In addition to the imperial edict, isn’t there any other issues you’ve discussed?”
Zhou Bao and Nie Wushang’s talk inside the room was had in secret. Except for the two of them, no one else was there. Thus, Jiang Xiao naturally reckoned that this talk was the big drama, but unexpectedly, it was not even a prologue.
“That’s weird. He toiled himself all the way down here, but only wanted to talk some crap with you and give you a nominal title of General, and that’s it?”
At Zhou Bao’s words, Jiang Xiao started to find this odd too. “Can there be any plot in this?”
“Plot? What plot? The most powerful subordinate he brought here was merely at Level Five. I can crush all his 200 guards with a single finger.”
“Then, what did he come here for?” Jiang Xiao tilted his head in contemplation. “Did he want to test Your Excellency?”
“Test me? For what?” Zhou Bao still shook his head at this assumption. “I’m not some big number. Although I’ve done something famous in the northwest, compared to the big picture of the imperial court, those things can’t even count as pinpricks. Plus, the northwest is really barren and remote. Even if I truly have some competence, I won’t be able to grow into a threat for the imperial court in the next 30 years. Why did he want to test me?”
Jiang Xiao gave a dry smile and said, “I think I have a way to figure this out!”
“What way?”
“Kidnap him and torture him into a confession!”
“Haaaaa!” Zhou Bao tapped Jiang Xiao’s shoulder with great force. “Dude, good idea! But we’d better not do this kind of stuff at the moment!”
“Then…”
“Forget it. No matter what comes up, a certain measure should be there. No matter whether they have some secret agenda or not, we’ve been at leisure for a long time, and it’s not bad for us to get a little exercise anyway!” Zhou Bao smiled, stretching out his arm as if intending to do some sort of workout. But all of a sudden, he scowled, and then swiveled his eyes towards the outside of the courtyard in confusion.
“Your Excellency, what’s wrong?”
“Why is Zhu Ba all in a fluster?” said Zhou Bao with dissatisfaction.
Not long after his words faded away, Zhu Ba forced the door open and rushed into the yard.
“Your Excellency! Your Excellency! Something is wrong! Terribly wrong!”
“What’s the matter now?” Zhou Bao glared at Zhu Ba in discontent, almost giving him a deadly kick.
“Your Excellency! Your Excellency! Truly terrible news, Your Excellency!” Zhu Ba bustled in front of Zhou Bao, unable to speak coherently while swinging a letter in his hand. “Your Excellency, Elderly Master is acutely ill, in critical condition!”
“What?” Zhou Bao grabbed that letter right away and unfolded it to read.
This Elderly Master was Zhou Bao’s father, the Old Zhou living down the Misty Mountain in the past. Ever since his son Zhou Bao made something of himself, this Old Zhou also upgraded to become the Old Master, and then, the current Elderly Master.
Zhou Bao did not have such a close relationship with his new family in this life. But by all accounts, this couple were the biological parents of his new body, and the basic filial duty was still necessary for him to perform.
Additionally, the Zhou’s did raise him up with great care, at least they didn’t let him starve to death before he grew to 10 years old.
For this reason, Zhou Bao had treated the Zhou’s with quite generous support. He made very proper arrangements for his parents and several brothers. He was also thinking about moving the Zhou’s to the northwest as soon as he completely built up his residence here.
He never expected that, at this point, the bad news about Elderly Master getting ill would come to his ear.
Right at this moment, someone came running from the outside of the courtyard, panting, “Your Excellency! Your Excellency! Terrible news! Elderly Master, Elderly Master, he’s a-acutely ill!”
Maybe he was too nervous, too exhausted from the running, while his strength was not that strong, so his body was worn out after galloping all the way down here, which made him directly slump onto the ground and fall into a coma.
“Your Excellency, he is the messenger. I’m an impatient person and I also didn’t want to cause delay to your business, so I hurried here first to hand you the letter!”
“I hear you.” Zhou Bao nodded, pointed at the man lying on the ground and said, “Hoist him into the room, let him have a good rest. I’m going to pack up and go back to Yunzhou at once!”
“Your Excellency, should we go with you?”
“You? How can you keep pace with me?” Zhou Bao shot a look at Jiang Xiao. Pursuant to the letter, his father was really seriously ill. Moreover, based on the date in the letter, more than two months had passed since this letter was sent out.
Given that the Zhou’s didn’t have any Level Seven experts other than Zhou Bao, nor could they command any Level Seven expert to deliver the message, this letter could only be passed to Zhou Bao’s hand through the primitive horse-riding delivery. In fact, in this world with no telephone or email, it would take three or four months to communicate a message between the northwest and the Central Plains. But this time, the letter was delayed for just two months, which was somewhat beyond Zhou Bao’s expectation.
No wonder this messenger fainted instantly when he arrived here. He fainted due to tiredness.
That was why Zhou Bao decided to take off immediately. Otherwise, maybe when he got to Yunzhou, the corpse of Old Zhou would already stink.
Since this point could occur to Zhou Bao, Jiang Xiao and the fellows could also consider it. Therefore, when they saw Zhou Bao turn into a jet of gold light and disappear from the air, they merely heaved a sigh.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Nie Wushang and his fellows had been keeping track of Zhou Bao after they had returned to their place. Catching a sight of the gold light shooting toward the sky from Zhou Bao’s yard, a trace of glee flitted across Nie Wushang’s eyes. He took out a small cyan block looking like a wooden plate from his sleeve, which, with a sudden squeeze, was crushed into ashes, and then vanished in the wind.
Zhou Bao was hurriedly flying to the southeast with his Gang Qi covering his body. His speed was amazing, as if a gold meteor was streaking across the sky.
At this speed, even if he flew straight to his home in Yunzhou, it would take nearly 16 hours, almost half a day. And that still depended on whether his stamina could allow him to keep flying like this!
Fortunately, Zhou Bao’s Internal Qi was pretty adequate, and his Gang Qi was also of a higher grade. Therefore, after flying for six or eight hours consecutively, he still didn’t feel a bit tired.
Halfway through his flight, he suddenly felt something was wrong. His speed seemed to grow slower, and in the blink of an eye, the whole world went all grey and misty.
“What?” Zhou Bao was startled. But before he could react, a chilling wisp of the killing intent stole over him from behind.
“Crap!” Subconsciously, he tried to launch the Three Realms Division. But to his surprise, the surrounding air was stagnant, as if being locked in by some invisible force. Even with his strength, it would be really hard to mobilize the space.
Previously when he launched the Three Realms Division, the surrounding space would become as fragile as a piece of paper, but now it was as solid as a wall. Although he might be able to mobilize this wall if he employed more strength, sadly, he didn’t have time to make it happen.
Launching the Three Realms Division would only cost a second, but after all, this would delay him for a second.
Exactly at this time, that wisp of killing intent had invaded and instantly punctured his Gang Qi, his Nine Dragons Heavenly Kylin Gang!
The Poison Cold Shield was launched at this second. A layer of faint cyan light enveloped Zhou Bao, shielding him from that murderous intent, which finally allowed Zhou Bao to have some leeway to react.
“Now that the Three Realms Division is constrained … I’ll simply give it up for the moment.”
That killing intent penetrated through the Poison Cold Shield and hit Zhou Bao. However, he was not badly injured. He just got a shallow cut in the waist, where a sense of numbness was spreading out. But soon, it was replaced by the cooling Qi of the Poison Cold Shield.
The Poison Cold Shield wasn’t completely able to block out this killing intent, but it was sufficiently capable of absorbing all the poison contained in it.
In the meantime, Zhou Bao also caught a clear sight of the man who had launched this attack against him.
He was a black-robed masked man with a pitch-dark dagger!
But he only got a glimpse of him. After that, the black-clothed man suddenly disappeared together with his black dagger, just like Zhou Bao launching his Three Realms Division.
“This is a trap!”
All of this happened in a split second, from the emergence of that black-clothed man, to the launch of the Poison Cold Shield, and then to Zhou Bao getting injured and that man disappearing. When Zhou Bao steadied his figure, his Gang Qi covered all parts of him once again, that black-clothed man was already gone. The environment was a vast expanse of whiteness, putting Zhou Bao under the impression that he was caught in the Yin and Yang Dust Formation.
Of course, this was not the Yin and Yang Dust Formation!
“Interesting. Seems that someone wants to set me up and murder me!” Suspending in the air, Zhou Bao looked around, and an extremely freezing smile flashed across his face. He jerked his body and was ready to descend, but unexpectedly, a whiff of vigorous Sword Qi appeared out of thin air and even condensed into a shadow of a sword at his foot, thrusting directly at him.
“Go to hell!” Zhou Bao waved his hand, and the Golden-Scaled Cudgel appeared in it, which gave a fierce pound downwards.
“Bump!” The Sword Qi which already took shape was smashed into pieces by this pounding.
However, smashing the Sword Qi did not mean the trouble was over. On the contrary, it seemed that his move, this pounding, was so fierce that numerous whiffs of Sword Qi were produced after that one strike. All the Sword Qi tightly surrounded him, piercing at him together from all directions.
“Break!” Zhou Bao let out a low bark. The Golden-Scaled Cudgel in his hand swept out, making the movement of sweeping in all directions. This strike was incomparably harsh, which crushed all the thousands of jets of Sword Qi that were coming from all directions.
However, after being smashed into pieces, that broken Sword Qi combined once again, and even produced more of them out of nowhere, attacking straightforwardly at Zhou Bao.
The cudgel in Zhou Bao’s froze for a second, but this time, he didn’t strike as brutally as he did previously. Instead, he used the cudgel to protect his body, warding off all the surrounding Sword Qi.
“That Sword Qi is launched according to my movements. The more violent I move, the stronger that Sword Qi will be!”
As he kept all of the Sword Qi away from him, Zhou Bao said to himself in his head.
Compared to the Sword Qi that caught him off guard at the beginning, this Sword Qi emerged out of the void and was much easier to deal with, because except for some of them that were very powerful, the rest couldn’t even break through his Protective Gang Qi.
“Don’t move fiercely. I just need to crumble this powerful Sword Qi. No need to care too much!”
After one round of attack, Zhou Bao got a hang of the working principle and the function of the surrounding sword formation. Thus, he started to strike in a more prudent way.
He was now caught up in a well-prepared trap. Although he had absolute faith in himself, he still needed to be necessarily cautious. After all, this happened too fast, so he couldn’t immediately start a massive killing spree. He needed to observe the situation first. He needed time.
After the seemingly endless attack of Sword Qi, Zhou Bao finally spotted the dirty trick in this trap. Among this Sword Qi that looked unable to break his Gang Qi, occasionally there were one or two jets of sharp Gang Qi that was more than enough to break his Gang Qi, his Poison Cold Shield, and even his body. By far, only this insidious Gang Qi was the true trump card of this formation.
“Though interesting enough, we might as well not continue to play the same boring trick anymore. Just reveal yourself!” yelled Zhou Bao. He quickly flung up his Golden-Scaled Cudgel to attack the place under his feet and simply formed a clearing there. He rapidly plunged toward the ground, but within the blurring formation, he couldn’t see where the ground was. Nevertheless, it was sufficient for him to know that he was falling downwards. He was originally flying at the height of no more than 10,000 feet. Now in the process of descending, if he considered the height and his falling speed together, it was easy for him to predicate when he would land on the ground.
However, the man who had set up this trap could never allow him to do what he wanted so easily.
Just when Zhou Bao started falling, that familiar killing intent appeared once more.
“Hmph!” sneered Zhou Bao. He threw a dozen gold flames at it, reserving almost no time for the other side to take a break.
With a swish, that figure vanished in the air. That Sword Qi, after being crumbled, also disappeared without a trace.
“Hiding the head but showing the tail. That’s not brave at all!” Missing the strike, Zhou Bao felt very angry and cursed in an undertone. He suddenly accelerated the movement of his Golden-Scaled Cudgel to completely shield his body with the moving shadows of the cudgel and began falling down more rapidly.
This time the opponent didn’t seem to impede him. Apart from the flowing Sword Qi appearing frequently around him, Zhou Bao didn’t notice anything abnormal.
Another round of violent attacks didn’t surface until the moment Zhou Bao stepped onto the sold ground. This time, it was not only Sword Qi attacking, but also three Flying Swords blended amongst it!
The three Flying Swords were giving off peerlessly sharp Sword Qi. They forced the Golden-Scaled Cudgel in Zhou Bao’s hand to deal with them, while the rest of the Sword Qi headed directly for Zhou Bao himself.
“Still not revealing yourself?”
Zhou Bao had unleashed his fire in the fight. Now, he could not consider anything else. With a flash of the golden light shining on the backside of his head, Zhou Bao initiated the Golden Flame Mirror. After which, a straight beam of golden light flew right at the three Flying Swords to shroud them.
The Level of these three Flying Swords was pretty high, but they were no better than a celestial device at the Mysterious Level. Thus, how could they contend against a Pure Yang Celestial Device like the Golden Flame Mirror?
The instant the three Flying Swords touched on the Golden Flame Mirror, three shrilling hootings sounded, and then they disappeared into nowhere.
The Golden Flame Mirror was blazing, covering Zhou Bao in its golden light. Three Green Lotuses were floating around Zhou Bao, which took hold of every jet of the attacking Sword Qi. Sharp and numerous as the Sword Qi was, none of them were able to hurt Zhou Bao.
Meanwhile, Zhou Bao grabbed the incantation in one hand, and a forbidding light flashed through his eyes. “This is just a sword formation. Do you really believe this thing can trap me inside?”
Clusters of lotus-shaped golden flame were shooting out from the Golden Flame Mirror in all directions. Along with the squirting of these lotus-shaped flames, the white surroundings also began to change color.
A wave of sizzling noise spread into Zhou Bao’s ear, which just like grilling meat over fierce fire. The space of the formation was torrenting violently as if being stimulated to a great extent.
“Sun Colored Glaze Flame? Damn! How can he have collected the Sun Colored Glaze Flame?”
At the sight of those clusters of golden light ejecting from the Golden Flame Mirror, a deep voice came down, but it turned out to be someone who couldn’t stifle their shock and let out a queer bawl.
“Got you!” Although Zhou Bao set out his Golden Flame Mirror, his spiritual mind was as sharp as usual. Once the voice came out, he immediately identified the opponent’s location and lengthened his Golden-Scaled Cudgel to give a hard pound at the source of that sound.
