The Setup

“Daring to run rampant in the palace in broad daylight—do you take the Great Liang court for a house with no one home? Hmph?” A rough voice sounded from Li Huowang’s left. He turned his head and saw an aged military veteran in heavy armor, mounted on a tall horse, galloping toward him.

The moment this man moved, Li Huowang felt the very air around him shift in his wake. This was a Military man—and not some middling sort like Peng Longteng! The aura alone suggested he might be the strongest Military cultivator in all of Great Liang!

Nor was he alone. A total of six men charged in from all directions on horseback. Clearly, the commotion within the palace had drawn others.

As they drew closer, Li Huowang began to hear auditory hallucinations—the clash of soldiers in battle, the stench of fresh blood, and even his own mood grew irritable.

When they gathered around the Dice, the murderous aura that surged upward was almost solid enough to touch. Li Huowang felt as if a wall had risen before his eyes. The smell of blood on these men was far heavier than even his own.

“When you reach King Yama’s hall, don’t forget to say that your Grandpa Zhang sent you!” An old general with three deep scars across his face raised a heavy mace that trembled with phantom images, ready to smash it down onto the immobile Dice.

“Wait!” The mace, about to strike the Dice, halted. The six veteran Military generals all turned with Li Huowang to look at the Grand Preceptor who had spoken.

“Let this old man ask him a few questions before we kill him. It won’t be too late.” Huangfu Tiangang walked over, hands clasped behind his back.

Hearing that the Grand Preceptor wanted to talk to the Dice, Li Huowang’s heart grew even more tense than before.

As a fellow Zuowandao, he knew their strengths and weaknesses all too well. Everyone knew Zuowandao were poor at direct combat, but they overlooked their greatest talent: corrupting minds. The moment the Dice got to speak, it would become his turf!

“Grand Preceptor, it would be best to kill the Dice immediately, before any trouble brews!”

“This old man has eaten more salt than you have eaten rice. Do I need your instruction on how to act?” Huangfu Tiangang shot Li Huowang a glare, then walked toward the trapped Dice.

As soon as he left, the hallucinatory Zuowandao sidled up to Li Huowang, winking and whispering: “Hey buddy, don’t you think there’s something weird about this? What if this old fossil really owes our boss a favor? Maybe he’s using this chance to pay it back.”

Li Huowang froze for a moment, then instantly reacted, glaring at him coldly. “Even now, you’re still trying to help the Dice trick me? Fine. With those words, you can look forward to having your tendons pulled and your bones broken tonight!”

“Hey! What’s wrong with you? I’m just trying to help you think it through! You treat good intentions like donkey liver!”

Li Huowang refused to even listen to his explanation. He turned to Zhuge Yuan. “Brother Zhuge, if I were to lend you a small piece of the technique for Cultivating the False into Reality, could you catch the Dice off guard and finish him?”

“Brother Li, we’re already at the doorstep. No need to rush. It’s not worth exposing your Heart-Element identity just for this. Come, let’s first see what the Grand Preceptor wants to ask the Dice.”

With that, Zhuge Yuan followed Huangfu Tiangang toward the scene. As the Grand Preceptor of Great Liang drew near, he seemed to sense something, glanced to his left, frowned, then continued walking.

Watching their backs, Li Huowang’s expression shifted rapidly.

“Boss Hongzhong, this kid’s definitely hiding something from you,” the hallucinatory Zuowandao came up beside him again.

“Shut up! Do I need you to tell me? Is pulling tendons and breaking bones not enough for you? Or do you want lingchi?” Li Huowang gripped his spine-sword and followed them.

By the time Li Huowang struggled to their side, the Grand Preceptor had already begun questioning. “Speak. What were you doing hiding in the palace? This old man has been watching you for a long time. I thought I could use you to lure out the rest of the Zuowandao, but you never made a move.”

“Heh heh heh.” Even nailed to the ground with only half a body left, the Dice remained utterly calm, even having the leisure to nod his chin toward Li Huowang.

“You thought you had your eye on me? But I wanted you to have your eye on me. That was to cover for the others. This time, I’m not the one doing the work. It’s someone else.” With that, the Dice gave Li Huowang a subtle wink.

“You’d better speak quickly! This old man has far more important business to attend to than this!” The Grand Preceptor’s tone grew heavier.

“Heh heh heh~ Why don’t you guess? How big a scheme did I set up this time?” The Dice showed no fear at all, surrounded by weapons on all sides.

“Hmph. This old man doesn’t guess.” The Grand Preceptor didn’t indulge him one bit. He drew his Constellation Sword and prepared to strike the Dice.

“Hey, don’t rush! You’re so impatient! Fine, fine, I’ll talk. I’ll talk! After all these years of hard work, this is the one moment it all pays off.”

“Heh heh heh. You all think that we Zuowandao can’t mess with the Dragon Vein, don’t you? Well, my brothers and I refused to believe it! This scheme was set for your Great Liang emperor!”

“Since we can’t touch the Dragon Vein itself, we’ll dig up its very root! Heh heh heh. Do you think that Ji Lin boy, the one you chose as emperor, is really what he seems?”

“Hmm?” At these words, the Grand Preceptor’s brow furrowed as something clicked.

“Ji Lin is not of the imperial bloodline? Absolutely impossible! You’re playing your shoddy tricks again! This old man and Xuanpin personally calculated his birth horoscope! He is of the Ji bloodline!”

“Hahaha!” Seeing Huangfu Tiangang say this, the Dice burst into laughter, laughing so hard he seemed nearly mad.

“That’s right~ hahaha, he is of the Ji bloodline! But Ji Lin’s manhood was secretly installed by me! He’s actually a woman! And a stone-woman at that! The Dragon Vein of Great Liang snaps right at her generation! Hahaha!”

The Dice laughed even harder, breathless, the delight in his eyes sheer ecstasy, as if this was the day he had lived for.

Li Huowang’s heart trembled at these words. So this was the madman’s angle in letting Ji Lin ascend the throne.

“Go on, someone go tell your emperor the good news! And while you’re at it, ask him how it feels to have lived as a man for over a decade, only to suddenly find out he’s a woman! Hahaha!” The Dice was practically crowing.

Huangfu Tiangang watched him laugh with cold indifference, showing no surprise at all. “So this is the Dice’s scheme? If you think the Dragon Vein of Great Liang is so easily severed, you’ve miscalculated. We prepared for this long ago. We deliberately left some bastards of the Dragon’s line among the common folk.”

“Heh heh heh~ No, you haven’t. They’re all gone. We cleaned them out~ Round white jade pendants were the markers, right? Heh heh heh~”

Round white jade pendant? Li Huowang felt that description of the pendant seemed oddly familiar.

The Dice was still talking. “These people didn’t even have guards around them. They were just ordinary folk. When we Zuowandao found them, we didn’t even have to do the work ourselves. We just had to stir things up nearby, and they went and got themselves killed. Am I right, Hongzhong?”