Edict of Peace 9
Chapter 9: Peerless Genius
In the thick night, a crimson dragon stretched its body, circling and humming in the void. Crimson flames flowed across the sky, illuminating the darkness. Within Guan Yi City, the Emperor of Chen Kingdom’s close ministers stared at the night sky; beneath the flames, their faces were pale.
They remained motionless, like stiff puppets.
Crimson scales scattered like maple leaves falling in the autumn sunset, fire flowing in the heavens.
Yue Qianfeng patted Li Guanyi on the head and laughed loudly:
“There, that’s what we call destroying all evidence.”
“It’s Grand Strategist Zhuge Ying’s favorite scene—murder, looting, destroying corpses, and eliminating evidence—make sure not a single one is left behind. He’s best at using a shovel to pile up the heads of the Tartars into a human pyramid (京观). There are too many fake death pills and cultivation methods in the Jianghu (the martial arts world); even if you stab them in the heart, they can still come back to life. Burning them is the most reliable way.”
“Right, these are for you.”
Yue Qianfeng took off a pouch and threw it to Li Guanyi.
Li Guanyi opened the pouch; inside were gold and silver spheres.
Yue Qianfeng said proudly: “The Ye Chi cavalry doesn’t carry gold and silver on missions, but to avoid certain special circumstances, there’s a tael of gold hidden inside the handle of their swords, and the silver ornaments on the scabbards are all made of silver.”
“This is your share, accomplice.”
Li Guanyi said: “But I didn’t do anything.”
Yue Qianfeng looked at him, grinned, and replied:
“It doesn’t matter whether you did or not. In my opinion, being an accomplice means we bear the same risks. Since that’s the case, we should share the spoils equally. We can’t bear the risk together and let me keep all the gold, can we? That wouldn’t be considered being accomplices, hahaha.”
“But this gold is mixed with cinnabar (赤精), making it more valuable; and the silver is too pure. Using it without a proper identity might cause trouble. Since the Ye Chi cavalry had an incident tonight, you’d better find a place to dig a hole and bury it. Dig it up in a few years, and it’ll be enough for you.”
“This wrist guard can only be fired once; throw it away too, to avoid trouble.”
“All traces of our presence here have been erased. I’ll lead those spies elsewhere; you should leave quickly.”
Yue Qianfeng turned, waved his hand, and strode away.
As soon as he finished speaking, Li Guanyi could no longer see Yue Qianfeng.
The place, which had just been bustling with activity, instantly became deathly silent.
Li Guanyi looked away, then at the pouch of gold.
Five taels of gold, compressed into a sphere using Yue Qianfeng’s internal energy. The exchange rate for gold is unstable, fluctuating from moment to moment. At its lowest, one tael of gold is worth eight taels of silver, and at its highest, twenty taels of silver, but it generally stays between ten and thirteen taels of silver.
Besides the gold, there were more than thirty taels of silver, heavy and weighty.
This was roughly equivalent to over sixty guan (貫, an ancient Chinese currency unit), enough for Li Guanyi to survive for about six years without eating or drinking.
A burning sensation, then a strange ache, flickered in the boy’s eyes.
Six years’ wages, received overnight!
“Suddenly rich, but I can’t use it.”
Li Guanyi rolled the bead in the mud until it was covered in dirt, and then threw it into a dry well next to the mountain god temple. The well was full of rubble; the bead was inconspicuous. Li Guanyi remembered Yue Qianfeng saying that the aura here had been dispelled; only here would it be safe.
If the whole city searched, wouldn’t they be caught red-handed if it was kept at home?
He’d retrieve it after the heat died down!
He could get a better house, and upgrade from one meat meal a week to three.
The rain had stopped. A silver moon hung in the sky, casting a silvery white light on the earth. Li Guanyi could see wisps of clouds drifting past the moon; the moving dark clouds resembled giant creatures. He looked away, took a step forward, removed his rain-soaked and mud-covered shoes, and used a branch to backtrack, carefully erasing his footprints so they blended in with the surrounding earth.
After painstakingly removing his tracks, he finally felt relieved upon reaching the main road.
He hurried through the night alleys, turned a few corners, and saw a dim yellow light in the distance. The small courtyard he rented still had a light on, and the wooden door was slightly ajar. Somehow, Li Guanyi, who had been tense the whole time, felt a sudden sense of calm upon seeing that small light in the darkness.
Li Guanyi carefully pushed the door open. His aunt’s room was still lit. Li Guanyi didn’t disturb her, but he made his footsteps a little louder to let his aunt know he was back.
Then he went to his own small room and saw a small, black iron pot on the table, containing warm ginger tea. A set of clean clothes was neatly folded on the bed.
Li Guanyi smiled slightly. He quickly removed his rain-soaked, bloodstained, and mud-caked clothes, washed himself with water from the basin, changed into clean clothes, and then drank the warm ginger tea in one gulp.
The warmth spread through his body, and Li Guanyi shivered.
The tension from the night of murder, martial arts practice, and the secret return was immediately dispelled.
Comfortable!
He bundled up his clothes and threw them into the stove. Watching as his clothes were consumed by the flames and transformed into warmth, Li Guanyi sighed in relief. He lay down on the bed, feeling a little fortunate that he had worn his oldest clothes today.
It didn’t hurt to burn them.
He had money now!
It didn’t hurt, it didn’t hurt! Just a hundred or so cash!
He had spent a lot of money to curry favor with Yue Qianfeng while working as an apprentice at the Hui Chun Hall (回春堂), and now he only had a few hundred cash left, barely enough to support himself for half a month. Though the burnt clothes were damaged, he could still get something for them.
He touched the Bronze Tripod on his chest. He saw the crimson light flowing on the tripod, seeming to nurture something, but he didn’t immediately activate it. Instead, he removed his hand, closed his eyes, and reviewed the events of the day.
The Eight Swords of Po Jun (破軍), the Breaking Formation Tune (破陣曲).
He had personally killed two Ye Chi cavalrymen.
The Bronze Tripod…
It all felt like a dream.
He clenched his fist, closed his eyes again to meditate, and felt a surge of warmth flowing through his body. The young man’s mind gradually calmed down. After a stick of incense’s worth of time circulating his energy, he felt a slight sense of stagnation, and then the speed of his energy circulation slowed down, eventually becoming almost nonexistent.
This meant that even if he practiced tirelessly for a whole day, the effect would be limited.
Li Guanyi opened his eyes.
He was certain that his aptitude was exceptionally poor.
Yue Qianfeng had a rough and ruthless personality but was clearly not good at comforting others. His face was similar to a teacher who tells a child, “Try harder, you can still pass the exam.” However, Li Guanyi, having constantly read medical books over the years, understood his current physical condition.
Children from prominent families had their bodies constantly nourished with medicine from birth, with adequate nutrition, much like the healthy physiques of millennials, whereas he was plagued by chronic poison from a young age. His constitution was three or four points lower than normal people’s, let alone compared to those from martial arts families.
However…
There was also this.
Li Guanyi’s eyes drooped slightly as he looked at the Bronze Tripod on his chest, gently stroking it. This time, instead of the usual icy coldness he felt during his many previous attempts, the tripod responded differently.
The Bronze Tripod seemed to tilt.
Crimson jade liquid poured out from inside, directly into Li Guanyi’s body.
BOOM!!!
It was intensely hot and agonizing! It felt like he had jumped into a pool of lava; boundless heat threatened to engulf him. But his years of enduring repeated poison outbreaks had given him a high tolerance for pain; he managed to maintain his composure, his eyes feeling a gentle warmth.
Unconsciously, Li Guanyi slowly opened his eyes, and the sight before him made his consciousness freeze for a moment.
A crimson dragon!
A crimson dragon was in his small, dilapidated room.
Its scales were like jade, its horns extended, its claws stepping on the void, and its tail stretched like a river, extending to the jade liquid pouring out of the Bronze Tripod. In the room, a young man in simple brown clothes sat on a stone bed, with one leg crossed over the other, his chest clothes slowly burning. The crimson dragon almost burst out of the room, circling and lowering its head, with a crimson light permeating the air.
“This…this is…”
“The dragon behind Yue Qianfeng?”
Li Guanyi murmured. He suddenly thought of the activation requirements of the Bronze Tripod; understanding dawned on him. The next moment, the crimson dragon let out a silent roar, shaking its head and body, and lunged directly at Li Guanyi. Li Guanyi’s pupils constricted.
The crimson dragon plunged into his body, and Li Guanyi felt as if he was hit and flew backward, falling into a vast ocean.
In an instant, a tremendous surge of warmth flowed into Li Guanyi’s body.
He seemed to see a series of images.
Vast battlefields, countless killings, people risking their lives to charge into battle with swords and blades, killing or being killed; suddenly there was a dragon’s roar, and a fierce general, clad in black heavy armor, reined in his dragon-like warhorse with one hand and swung a long-handled warblade with the other.
Dozens of heads flew into the air.
This general charged left and right, his long-handled warblade slashing, clearly using the Eight Swords of Po Jun.
For a moment, Li Guanyi felt like he was the invincible general on the battlefield, wielding the Eight Swords of Po Jun, while a hot current flowed wildly within him—extremely complex, but Li Guanyi could discern the path of the Breaking Formation Tune.
It was him, it was me.
At this moment, Li Guanyi, guided by intuition, maintained his spiritual clarity.
His body sat cross-legged, following the memories carried by the crimson dragon to practice his cultivation technique.
Previously, Li Guanyi could only circulate his energy three times in a stick of incense, but now it was like a shooting star, circulating hundreds of times in a breath. The first layer of the Breaking Formation Tune, instantly broken through!
The second layer of the Breaking Formation Tune, breakthrough!
The third layer of the Breaking Formation Tune, breakthrough!
The Breaking Formation Tune…
The jade liquid in the tripod eventually ran out, and the dream-like battle ended. When Li Guanyi opened his eyes, the morning light was just beginning to break, and the energy in his body was quite strong.
The twelfth layer of the Breaking Formation Tune.
A top-tier martial art.
Those with exceptional talent could achieve this in three years; those with decent aptitude could achieve it in eight years.
Li Guanyi.
Achieved it overnight!
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