"Court of Judicial Review is here for official work, and all people uninvolved stand to one side."
The low and serious tone gave the speaker an air of authority. Dozens of his men stood at the doors with sabers hanging by their waists. From their official dress, however, they were evidently from two different departments. Most of them were obviously bailiffs from the Luoyang Court of Judicial Review, while the rest strangely seemed to be important personnel from the military department.
Since the past, civilians never fought with officials. Even though they might have their own ideas, and might not be willing to give way, not many of them had the guts to protest to the bailiffs. A passageway wide enough for two people to pass through quickly emerged from the path from the entrance of the seminary up to the platform. Everyone's gaze was fixed outside the doors.
As the Right Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, He Fei actually did no
He Fei's patience was running thin in the face of Divine Sect Seminary's arrogance. The anger inside him was raging. How dare an insignificant seminary on the streets openly stop an officer of the Court of Judicial Review! How dare they insult high-ranking officers of the Ministry of War! They even wanted to verify their identities! Since when did some Jianghu hooligans have such authority? The authority behind the Divine Sect Seminary was Qian Shuxiao, the first wife's son of the Qian clan. He Fei had investigated the Seminary's background before coming here. But so what? What was so great about the first wife's son of some merchant family? Weren't the once-powerful General's Manor confiscated and the family exterminated as well? Their maids and manservants were struggling between life and death in the imperial prison. What good did it bring them? Of course, he had no idea about the relationship between the Qian
Thanks to Li Jianqi's interference, what was supposed to be the arrest of a serious criminal turned into a farce? However, a perceptive person would realize just how powerful Divine Sect Seminary was. No one would cause trouble for the Seminary from now on, at least not in Luoyang. Who would dare to provoke the so-called "brother" of the beloved Princess of the future Emperor? The brave ones were welcome to try; the Princess had promised not to beat the perpetrators to death, after all. Just the fright alone was enough to kill. The bailiffs of the Court of Judicial Review and the officers of the Ministry of War came in high spirits but left dispirited. Irrepressible sneers escaped from the apprentices of the Seminary. The laughter was quiet but landed like an intangible slap on the officers' faces. He Fei didn't know about the rest but he swore not to conduct business in the vicinity of the Divine Sect Seminary. He would be too
Huang Shan raced into the palace on horseback with a secret letter, a jade note, and a map marked with smoke signals rolled up in his hand. The message in the secret letter was short but the content was shocking enough to cause a chain reaction: "You Prefecture has declared itself an independent state with the City of You as its capital. Thousands of piles of dead bodies litter the land. The Devil Seeds are arriving." Before the Glorious Tang Empire could react, 200,000 soldiers of the Ye Army died in the City of You Prefecture and not a peep could be heard from the tens of thousands of households there. Did You Prefecture establish its own country without permission before the Imperial Commissioner of the Tang State had even stepped out of Qing Prefecture? Who had occupied You Prefecture? Was it truly the Devil Race's work? "Thousands of piles of dead bodies litter the land?" Were the piles made up of the bodies of the 200,000
Serenity Palace, the imperial palace of Tang State. Li Chunzhi sat upright on the wooden bench with Huang Shan standing beside him. The servants inside the hall had been excused. "Your Majesty, it's indeed a wise idea to have our citizens learn cultivation but a faraway well can't cure our current thirst. You Prefecture has declared itself a state without permission and created mountains of dead bodies everywhere. The Cultivation World is under attack and experiences a constant internal turmoil. The Immemorial Copper Gates have been opened, smoke signals have risen throughout the four thousand kilometers of the west border, and six states have declared war against us. We should prepare and plan ahead of time or our Tang State will fall to a state of peril," Huang Shan said in a deeply worried voice and a solemn expression. "Then do you have a plan in mind?" Li Chunzhi asked. "The incident in the You Prefecture is a known fact.
Grey bricks, red roof, and a thirty-feet-tall censer. Ye Que was overcome with deep surprise as he stared at the nearby hall. There was a faint voice calling for him. This voice once appeared in the underground cave at the ley lines of sovereignty in the Imperial Mausoleum, underneath the Divine Tool, River Soldier. He had found a page of the Divine Book after a search back then. Now, the same voice was coming from the imperial palace of the Glorious Tang Empire. To think that it was right under his nose all along. Ye Que ignored Li Jianqi and made a beeline for the hall. "Didn't you say you're leaving? Why are you so fixated on that hall? Did you discover a treasure? You're really a hypocrite! Leave, I dare you!" Li Jianqi mumbled to herself as she watched Ye Que walk away from her. Even an idiot could tell that he must have discovered something. Earlier, he looked utterly dumbfounded. "Hall of Incense Offerings?
The city of Luoyang was shrouded in fog. The entire sky darkened. Li Jianqi stayed in the palace while Ye Que returned to the Divine Sect Seminary with the censer that he handpicked. In his hand was also a box filled with keys to the General's Manor and some twenty shops facing the Yong'an Street. Li Chunzhi's support of the Seminary caught Ye Que by surprise. It was evident how much the Emperor thought of his people that he was able to see the purpose of a small seminary and its future development. Of course, it also indicated just how serious the country's crisis was that he was forced to depend on the force of the people. The soon-to-be Emperor must be worried about being besieged by enemies from all sides. Ye Que put the censer away in the Yin-and-Yang Pouch with plans of examining it later. He left the keys to the shops with Lin Dashu at the Seminary, ordering him to make the renovations as soon as possible. He wanted to k
It was depressing everywhere they looked. Every inch of the place appeared desolate. The once glorious General's Manor seemed to have collapsed in the blink of an eye and nearly disappeared in the dust of history. Ye Que slowly toured the manor, carefully taking in the strange environment. He looked into every building while Red Bean followed him in silence. Even though she didn't know the reason for it, she could tell that he was in very low spirits. "Shouldn't homecoming be a joyful thing, just like in the stories?" Red Bean looked curiously at everything inside the manor. Was this Ye Que's home? Neither the moon nor stars could be seen in the night sky. Everything had sunken into darkness. Ye Que carried a paper lantern with a hole in it. Inside, the flame flickered uncertainly. He lit the intact oil lamps he found in some rooms and bleak yellow glow began appearing in the General's
Inside the quiet General's Manor, a black-clothed man was shouting himself hoarse. Ye Que didn't think he would be ambushed on his first official return to the manor or that the assassins would be survivors of the Ye Army. These people must have mistaken him for being a Devil Seed after he used his Sword Qi to bind them. Perhaps the battle in You Prefecture left too deep a trauma in them that they would mistake anyone with supernatural powers as a cultivator, a devil, and the culprit behind their brothers' massacre. "Did all of you run from the city of You Prefecture?" Ye Que had released the bind his Sword Qi placed on them. The group of men remained deeply wary of him even after they were freed. However, they refused to let Ye Que distort the truth out of principle. "I'll repeat this again. We didn't flee from the battle. We broke out of the siege under Chief Wu's orders. We didn't run." The person repeated hims