The night breeze came from the gigantic black wings. It scattered all the holiness and light, blocked all sight and perception. It represented the purest darkness and power.
"The young phoenix is clearer than the old phoenix ….. that's in the future."
The Divine Queen looked at Xu You Rong in her hand and said expressionlessly.
No one could enter this darkness except for the people she allowed, like that red.
Mo Yu kneeled outside the palace with her head down. She didn't dare to look inside.
"Send her back to the Holy Maiden Peak. Let her go after confirming Chen Chang Sheng's death."
Hearing the Divine Queen's voice, Mo Yu finally dared to raise her head. She wanted to say something, but she didn't.
The green bamboo carriage was ready. The Black Goat came back from somewhere.
The Divine Queen looked at the Black Goat. After a moment of silence, she nodded.
The carriage wheels rolled over the green stone and slowly moved towards the darkness outside the Royal Palace.
Mo Yu sat on the seat and looked at the sleeping Xu You Rong. She suddenly felt sad.
She felt sad for Xu You Rong and sad for Chen Chang Sheng.
Chen Chang Sheng was dead for sure.
Actually, she also felt sad.
She hadn't been to the Tradition Academy for a long time. She hadn't seen Chen Chang Sheng. She had no reason to go. Even if Chen Chang Sheng died, she had no reason to feel sad. Thinking of this, she felt even sadder.
The bamboo carriage seemed slow, but it was actually extremely fast. Moreover, it had an indescribable strangeness to it. Although there weren't many pedestrians on the street at night, there were many cavalrymen and experts who were searching for Chen Chang Sheng and wanted to protect him. Yet, none of them noticed this carriage.
It didn't take long before the bamboo carriage left the capital through the South Gate and went on the official road to the Holy Maiden Peak.
Almost at the same time they left the capital, Xu You Rong opened her eyes.
It wasn't because she had hidden something, but because it was the Divine Queen's will.
She opened her eyes, but she couldn't do anything. She couldn't even move a finger.
Because in her waterfall-like black hair, there was a hairpin that seemed to be casually stuck in a slanted angle.
Or it could be said that it was a wooden hairpin.
Ranked third on the Tier of Legendary Weapons, Wooden Sword Little Phoenix.
Xu You Rong couldn't move, but she could talk.
However, she clearly wasn't in the mood to talk at this time. She just quietly looked at the roof of the carriage. No one knew where her gaze would land in the starry sky.
"Everyone has their own fate. If his fate isn't good, what can we do about it?" Mo Yu looked at her and said with pity.
Xu Yourong withdrew her gaze and said to her, "I don't think he will die."
Mo Yu naturally knew of Chen Changsheng's current condition. She thought to herself, even if the Pope can protect him from being killed by the Empress, how many more days can he live?
Xu Yourong seemed to have figured out a very important matter. She calmly said, "In the end, that is his own fate, so it should operate according to his thoughts. I wanted to separate him from this world, but he insisted on going back. The Heavenly Dao wants him to die, so he prefers to live where death is."
"Living toward death?"
"Do you still remember Divine General Han Qing?"
"I remember."
"His Majesty Taizong once said that those who face death to live will find it very difficult to die."
…
…
Chen Chang Sheng didn't consider the issue of life and death. He had already disregarded life and death.
He left the palace and came to a very secret place, or rather, a very ordinary place.
The Plum Garden Inn outside the Mausoleum of Books.
He had lived here for quite a period of time, and it was here that he truly became acquainted with Tang Thirty-Six.
This inn was very meaningful to him. It was the beginning of his life in the capital. Now that he had returned to this place, he first considered that no one would expect him to come here, and secondly, he wanted the last part of his life in the capital to begin here.
He did not know that not long after he left the Imperial Palace, a small bamboo carriage drove out of the Imperial Palace. Xu Yourong was in that carriage.
He also did not know that his senior brother Yu Ren was currently reading under the starlight in the Mausoleum of Books across the river.
On this night, the two most important people in his life were once very close to him. However, he didn't know at that time. His mind and spirit were all on his own body, the medicinal pills and magic tools that he carried with him, the various cultivation methods in his sea of consciousness, and the countless swords in his scabbard.
He sat under a tree in the small courtyard, beginning to sort out his cultivation situation under the starlight.
Because his meridians had been completely shattered, his output of true essence was even weaker than it was two years ago, even weaker than a normal Meditation Realm cultivator. However, the star radiance scattered through his flesh and blood was like the snow on the mountains and rivers. It seemed to be scattered here and there, but in reality, it was an enormous amount. Moreover, although he had encountered a problem in breaking into Star Condensation in Mount Han, it could not be said to have been a complete failure. On the surface, his cultivation was still at the peak of Ethereal Opening, but if he did not care about his meridians being shattered once more and endangering his life, he could condense starlight into a domain in a very short amount of time.
In other words, if he did not care about his life, he could be an initial level Star Condensation expert with an enormous amount of true essence for a short amount of time.
He also knew countless sword styles, movement techniques, and Daoist techniques.
After entering the upper level of Ethereal Opening, the vast majority of the opponents he encountered were already Star Condensation experts. The simplified Yeshi Step that had helped him many times before was no longer of much use. The increase in speed brought about by the footwork was very small compared to his own speed. Similarly, ordinary sword styles like the Hundred Flowers Sword and the Big Dipper Sword might occasionally be of some use in battles of the same level, but in tonight's battle, they were useless and could be removed.
He calmed his heart and cleared his mind, removing those miscellaneous and imperfect sword styles and Daoist techniques, leaving only the hardest, sharpest, and most powerful techniques in his sea of consciousness. The Wind and Rain Sword of Mount Zhong, the True Sword of the Orthodoxy, the Toppling Mountain Staff, the Sword of Hithering Light, the Three Forms of Wenshui, the Burning Heaven Sword, the Army Shattering Sword … and the three swords that Su Li had taught him.
The Blazing Sword, the Intellectual Sword, and the Stupid Sword.
These were Chen Changsheng's most powerful techniques at the moment.
To a true expert of the path of the sword, a sword style might not be high or low, but there was definitely a difference in size.
The sword styles that Chen Changsheng was most skilled in were all large swords, especially the three swords that Su Li had taught him. No matter how flexible they were, their auras were enormous.
Large swords, or in other words, great techniques, consumed a great deal of spiritual sense and true essence. Chen Changsheng's spiritual sense was extremely stable and powerful, and he also had a large amount of true essence, but output had always been a problem. As a result, he could not endure prolonged battles. In many of his past battles, he would strive to end them in the shortest amount of time possible. Only in the last battle of the Grand Examination and in the chaotic battle around Xunyang City would he be forced into a bitter battle, and in reality, he had fought extremely bitterly. Quite a few times, he had almost lost to his opponent's sword.
Tonight, he had not yet recovered from his heavy injuries and had to forcefully mobilize his true essence to attack. He could not fall into this sort of situation, so he had to succeed in one strike.
He opened his eyes and gazed up at the numerous stars in the night sky, beginning to calculate.
That person did not come from a poor background. His birth mother was the concubine of the previous Assistant Minister of Rites, and his childhood did not have any unbearably painful experiences. He did not lack food and clothing, nor was he humiliated by his first mother. Although the imperial examinations could not be said to have gone particularly smoothly, they were also not special. That person's personality was extremely callous and cruel, his strength extremely terrifying, and his spiritual sense exceptionally powerful. It was as if he had gathered the resentment and boundless pain of millions of people. He had experienced it before, and it truly was not something that an ordinary person could resist …
Countless materials and information appeared in his sea of consciousness. They were like the stars in the night sky, too numerous to be counted. They seemed to be put together in a disorderly manner, and it was impossible to analyze anything useful from them. However, there was a connection between the stars. Countless invisible lines formed a star map, and there was naturally a hidden meaning in it.
After some time, he stood up and walked out of the Plum Garden Inn.
The Stainless Sword still quietly rested in the Vault Sheath, but he had already unsheathed it.
… …
… …
The bamboo carriage followed the official road south. The Black Goat in front of the carriage was probably unaware of the turbulence in the capital. It was just that it had stayed in the Imperial Palace for too long and wanted to go out for a stroll. It did not find the autumn trees on the side of the road fresh, but it was rather interested in the dewdrops that had just formed on the grass. Walking and stopping like this did not seem fast, but in the time it took to make a cup of tea, the carriage had already passed Mount Xiao. Based on the time, it should be able to reach Holy Maiden Peak by noon.
The Tianhai Divine Empress's gaze followed Mount Xiao eastward, arriving at the plain at the end of the mountain. In the center of the plain was a large city, its walls extremely thick and lofty. Just from looking at it, it was even more majestic and magnificent than the capital. It was the famous capital of the world: Luoyang.
In the Eternal Joy Square, the best location in Luoyang, there was a princely estate that occupied an extremely exaggerated area and was unimaginably extravagant. The Prince of Xiang, the Prince of Tai … quite a few of her nominal sons and a few of her grandsons were currently embracing singers and indulging in their desires. She did not know if they were doing this for her or her subordinates to see, but she did not care.
She drew back her gaze to the capital. She saw the old man watering the plants in the Li Palace, saw her relatives in the estate, saw the candles in the Little Orange Garden that had not yet burned out, saw the snow under New North Bridge, saw the crabapple tree in the alley of the Northern Military Department, and saw the young man holding an umbrella as he walked in that direction.
She stood on the Dew Platform, the entire world beneath her feet. In her eyes, she did not see that person.
Ten-some years ago, she believed that person to be dead, but she did not expect that person to survive. From the day this fact was confirmed, a crack appeared between her and the Pope. Other than the two of them, the entire world was completely unaware of it. The storm in the capital was as docile as it had been in the past ten-some years, but it was still not the same as it was in the past.
She was keenly aware that the reason that person had Chen Changsheng come to the capital was to intentionally leak the news, to make her and the Pope wary of each other. However, she could only accept it, because time could not be reversed. After all, the incident in the Orthodox Academy had occurred, and the Pope could not possibly believe that she had no objections to it.
From the first time they met in the Hundred Herb Garden, she had disliked that person, even loathed him, and did not think much of him. Only when she knew that he was not only Shang Xingzhou, but also Daoist Ji did she begin to view him seriously. There were some things that she could not understand at the time, but she finally had an answer.
The name Shang Xingzhou represented the orthodoxy of the Orthodoxy and those old friends who opposed her.
The name Daoist Ji represented Emperor Taizong's will, or perhaps his dying will.
This was the true reason for her wariness.
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