Meng Fuyao jumped up and down, passing over the heads of the soldiers. She saw that the number of imperial guards fighting in the center of Yan Jing was decreasing, and that the troops seemed to have regained a strong command after a period of chaos. They began to counterattack and retreat in an orderly fashion. Meng Fuyao found a deserted alley and rushed in. She had barely taken a few steps when she felt her vision blur. A silhouette slid past her like a fish, and she could vaguely make out a long, gray face. The person was extremely fast, and in a blink of an eye, he had rushed past her. Meng Fuyao shook her head and grabbed him. "Traitor, where do you think you're going?"
The person turned around in fear. It was indeed Yao Xun, who had abandoned Meng Fuyao two days ago at the rundown temple in the north of the city. His face was full of panic, and his body was bruised and trembling non-stop. When he saw Meng Fuyao, he jumped up in fright. Then, a look of joy appeared on his face, and he cried, "It's you, Madam … Save me, save me!"
"Save you?" Meng Fuyao cast him a sidelong glance. "Wait for you to betray me again?"
"That was a moment of foolishness." Yao Xun was so anxious that he bowed respectfully. "Miss Meng, please help me. I'll definitely work for you wholeheartedly in the future!"
"Pfft, I'd be an idiot to believe you!" Meng Fuyao shook him off and left. Before she could take a step, she heard a tinkling sound in front of her, followed by a dazzling ray of colorful light. From afar, she could hear the sound of crystal beads falling to the ground. It was filled with pride, arrogance, and a little anger.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Meng Fuyao kicked Yao Xun to the corner of an alley and blocked his way. Leaning against the wall, she smiled faintly. Sure enough, Ya Lanzhu flew over like a colorful cloud under the illumination of a Liuli Glaze Mirror.
"Where is he, where is he!"
Meng Fuyao said lazily, chewing on the grass in the crack of the wall. "You mean the long-faced man who just went over? There's a war ahead, and we don't have enough manpower."
"Really?" Ya Lanzhu's eyes widened in disbelief. Suddenly, she tilted her head to look at Meng Fuyao. "Hey, you look familiar."
She spat out the grass and laughed. "That's because I'm the teacher of your neighbor's aunt's cousin's aunt's sister's adulterer's mistress' sister."
Ya Lanzhu's eyes widened as she carefully calculated this complicated relationship with her fingers. After thinking for a moment, she suddenly flew into a rage and raised her knife-like eyebrows. "You're playing with me!" Before she finished speaking, she chopped down with her knife-like hand.
Meng Fuyao lifted her finger, three fingers like a halberd, and aimed at the acupoint on Ya Lanzhu's palm. Ya Lanzhu hurriedly retracted her hand, but Meng Fuyao had already changed her gesture. Like floating clouds and flowing water, the ninth style of the Cleaving Nine Heavens, Divine Fantasy, lightly pressed against Ya Lanzhu's meridian.
Laughing softly, Fuyao raised her hand and threw her in a 360-degree angle. Surprisingly, she did not fall when she landed, and her arm was still raised. Smiling, Fuyao stroked her nose and said, "Girl, I'm bullying the person under my protection. Go away."
Laughing heartily, Fuyao called out to Yao Xun, "Let's go!"
Yao Xun dashed out timidly. Seeing the noble princess of Windfall Nation held in place by a single hand, he sucked in a breath of cold air and hurriedly ran after Fuyao. Taking advantage of the chaos, the two of them ran out of the city. After running for some distance, Fuyao asked, "What did you do to offend her?"
Yao Xun's face was bitter. "I don't know how she found out that I'm good at stealing, but she wanted me to steal Zhan Beiye's undergarments."
Fuyao burst out laughing. Clutching her stomach for a long time, she finally asked, "Stole?"
"Did I want to die? I refused no matter what, so she chased after me. " Yao Xun answered bitterly. Suddenly, he smiled slyly and took out something from his robes, waving it in front of Fuyao. "But I didn't lose out. We're from the Godly Palm Sect, so how can we not pluck the goose's feathers?"
The light green jade token was embossed with a scepter representing wisdom and authority. The word 'Limitless' could only be seen when it was tilted to a certain angle against the sunlight.
It was a customs pass from Limitless Nation.
"Ha, this is good stuff!" Fuyao snatched it over and weighed it in her palm for a while before looking up in deep thought.
The sky had already begun to brighten. The distant battle cries had already reached here, and there was only a faint mournful moaning sound. The wind brought with it the smell of blood. It was austere and heavy, but when it brushed aside the young girl's hair, it was still as gentle as before. When the messy hair covering her face was pushed aside, even though her face had been disguised, the contours were still shockingly delicate. The wind became warmer and softer, as if it was dancing.
There was a kind of beauty that was favored by creation, and that was why all things were exceptionally kind to her.
At that moment, Fuyao's smile resembled Yuan Zhaoxu's, graceful and distant, as if she had everything under control.
"I say …" she suddenly opened her mouth and looked toward the southeast of the mainland.
"Taiyuan Nation is in such a mess, so it's better to leave. Xuanyuan Nation is in chaos, and I wanted to go to Tiansha Nation during the True Martial Arts Meet. Now that we have this customs pass, we …"
"Let's go to Limitless Nation."
*****
On the 23rd day of the ninth month in the 18th year of the Taiyuan Dynasty's Sheng De Year, the "Yan Capital Rebellion" broke out after a failed assassination attempt, plunging the entire Taiyuan capital city into a sea of blood and fire. The capital army, the imperial guards, and the imperial guards — the three main armed forces that guarded the capital city and the imperial city — engaged in a chaotic battle. In just a few days, tens of thousands of corpses were added to the gold-bricked Imperial Street. The blood that sprayed out from the bodies dyed the imperial river and the Taiye Pool red, and the corpses that fell into the river continued to float to the surface even after many days.
It was a strange civil war. Qi Wang, who had been confident of victory, was suddenly attacked by the crown prince, while Fang Minghe's imperial guards surrounded the palace city. The crown prince's imperial guards went on a killing spree against the capital army, turning the situation around almost instantly. However, just as the crown prince was about to win, the capital army suddenly received a powerful command, and a group of martial arts experts joined in to assassinate the commander of the imperial guards, turning the situation around once again.
In the blink of an eye, there were thousands of changes. Because of the participation of the intentional forces and the occurrence of some unexpected factors, what should have been a simple change in the palace unexpectedly turned from an ambush into a battle of attrition. The battlefield moved from the palace to the entire Yan Jing. The brilliant capital city was plunged into misery and suffering.
Because of the paralysis and blockage of information, news of the battle in the capital city never reached the local troops stationed in the cities near Yan Capital. This allowed Qi Xunyi's army to retreat to the north in time after fighting the crown prince to a draw. The crown prince wanted to protect the capital and didn't dare to pursue. Qi Xunyi led his army all the way to the north, conquering several provinces. Two months later, Qi Xunyi proclaimed himself emperor in the Gan Province to the north of Taiyuan, establishing the Shangyuan Kingdom with the name Chang 'an. He ruled over the five provinces of Qian, An, Huang, Gan, and Ding. Thus, Taiyuan was divided.
The changes in the situation alarmed the seven nations, and the higher-ups of the seven nations all focused their attention on Taiyuan, which was shrouded in blood and fire. After a long time, people with discerning eyes analyzed the situation and determined that the one who benefited the most was not Qi Xunyi, nor was it Crown Prince Qi, who had been unlucky enough to lose a piece of his country, but the crown prince of Wuji, who always made people speechless.
Because Qi Xunyi's territory was at the border between Wuji and Taiyuan, it was close to the Xuanyuan Kingdom. If the Xuanyuan Kingdom planned to launch a sneak attack on Wuji, they would have to use this route. Now that the owner of this territory had changed, and Qi Xunyi had a grudge with the Prince Regent of Xuanyuan, it was impossible to use this route.
Therefore, some people guessed that the civil war in Taiyuan was inexplicably caused by someone's deliberate instigation. Those who made such guesses all looked towards the center of the continent, revealing expressions of shock and fear.
The gazes of the seven nations shrouded the fertile land in the center of the continent. Crown Prince Zhangsun, who had been the subject of many people's guesses, displayed reasonable calmness and response to this matter. In the winter of the fifteenth year of Wuji's reign, Crown Prince Wuji announced to the world that he congratulated the new emperor of Shangyuan, Qi Xunyi, on his ascension to the throne. He also generously gifted the Nanqiang tribe, which was at the border between the two countries, to the new emperor.
Qi Xunyi was overjoyed and respectfully accepted the gift. Behind his back, some discerning people scolded him for being an idiot. The reason was, how could he accept something given by Zhangsun Wuji?
On the morning of the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, the unfortunate old emperor of Taiyuan died in a moment of panic when he heard the news of the internal strife between the crown prince and King Qi. After his death, the emperor's corpse was left unattended in the Qianan Palace. All the princes and ministers were busy choosing sides, and all the eunuchs and palace maids were busy stealing and escaping. Two months later, when the Taiyuan court officials remembered the old emperor and sent people to collect the corpse, it had long since decomposed into a pile of rotten flesh. The entire Qianan Palace was crawling with maggots. The old emperor's rotting eyes stared blankly at the sky. His rotting mouth seemed to be smiling, eternally smiling at the greed and strife of the world, as well as the destruction of a prosperous dynasty.
After the incident, some people lamented that King Qi had been fully prepared and confident, but in the end, he failed to conquer the world in one fell swoop. Instead, he ended up living in seclusion and eventually became the heir emperor of Wuji. Some people attributed it to bad luck and tried to find evidence. "Look at that fire. If it weren't for the inexplicable fire and chaos in the Xin Palace, the crown prince would have died long ago. How could there be the chaos in Yan Jing?
Yes, that critical fire that burned the palace and determined the direction of the entire Taiyuan Kingdom.
No one knew that the fire and the reason for the division of Taiyuan Kingdom was because of a woman's sudden idea. Her boldness, fearlessness, and audacity shone brilliantly for the first time on the night of the 23rd of September in the 18th year of Sheng De, illuminating the bleak future of a nation.
Just like Meng Fuyao did not know at that time, even though she was still an insignificant person who could be crushed to death by others if she was not careful, every step she took led her to the center of the political whirlpool of the Seven Nations. The annals of history belonging to the Seven Nations would eventually be left empty for her to write. Those legends that were destined to be filled with conspiracies, power struggles, and bloodshed would always be written by her. No one else could replace her.
In the winter of the 18th year of Sheng De, Meng Fuyao fled into Wuji, the neighboring country of Taiyuan.
Not long after she entered the borders of Wuji Kingdom, the Grand Tutor of Wuji Kingdom and his entourage returned to the country.
The starlight would rise in the center of the five continents. The story that belonged to them and her had finally begun.
And the longer journey had just begun.
End of the first volume
*****
The next volume, "Wuji Heart"
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