Chapter 38: No Escape

In the evening, after Gu Huaizheng returned from a meeting, he took the siblings out to dinner at Quanjude. At this time, a roast duck cost about eight to ten yuan. They ordered a few side dishes—fried duck cubes in oil, spicy chicken, and a Sichuan duck liver soup—plus some staple food. The total for the three of them came to just over fifteen yuan.

(To be honest, that’s truly not cheap. Considering that at this time, the average worker’s monthly wage...)

Looking up at Lianxiang, he noticed that at some point she had turned her gaze toward him, her eyes fixed on the purse in his hand, only blinking after a long while.

Mu Yunzhi set down his teacup. Seeing that the man had fallen silent, he quietly watched the performance on stage for a while, then tugged at Chu Mo, signaling for him to follow as he made his way out to the side.

Earlier, Bao Feichen had calculated that Second Master’s temperament would never allow him to tolerate anyone placing bets after him. That’s why he and the dealer had colluded: after Second Master placed his bet, the dealer would rig the dice to land on the opposite number to Second Master’s wager.

The air was thick with the steam of hot water. Gao Yucheng lay comfortably in a tub filled with floating petals. The heat quickened his blood—he felt wholly refreshed.

“What’s wrong? Feeling sorry for it? If you care so much, why not just bring it back to your own tent?” Feng Xingying teased Huang Duola, smiling mischievously.

Lin Su had originally wanted to stay somewhere alone, but at the thought of still having Qiao Lili tagging along—riding together was one thing, but sharing lodgings with her at night was just too much to bear.

She seemed to know nothing, seemed to truly believe that the other party’s intention in buying her sweet potatoes was sincere. Her smile became even more affable.

On the Shang side, troops were being secretly drilled, while over in Xiqi, fierce debate raged over whether or not to oppose Shang.

Though it was only fifty meters, for those present, it felt even longer than the fifty li they had just walked. After such a long journey without exhaustion, now, in this short moment, cold sweat broke out on all of them.

When Wang Yuetian heard the Blood Monk’s description reach this point, an inexplicable chill swept over him: wasn’t this precisely the scene he had just experienced?

A celestial artifact, already refined—how could it possibly be unusable? If even a Luotian Immortal couldn’t wield it, could Tang Jin really manage it?

Li Yan said nothing. With Wei Ba absent, he certainly wouldn’t take the initiative to attack Bingzhou. But his passivity didn’t mean Zhuge Liang would let him idle in Guanzhong. If the Emperor ordered an assault, what then? As Wei Ba had warned, once on the battlefield, anything could happen.

Rather than territorial conquest, they were far more enamored with exploring the myriad perils of the Astral Spirit Realm, or challenging those powerful astral spirit beasts or spirits lurking in the shadows, all to make themselves stronger.

With the theft of the Sea-Calming Pearl, the force that pacified the ocean vanished. Suddenly, submarine volcanoes that had lain dormant for tens of thousands of years erupted. Something that had been suppressed by the earth’s core fire broke free from its seal and entered the world.

The golden swords hovered in the air, spinning rapidly like a whirling wheel, instantly forming an impenetrable barrier of blades.

But then, something even more terrifying happened. Jinlin, the remnant fish, discovered that its soul power was pouring rapidly into the opponent, who absorbed it at once. In the time it took to finish a cup of tea, its once-mighty spirit had dwindled to less than a tenth of its former strength.

The first wave went remarkably well. Not a single player fell in the massacre! The only blemish was that the castle gates had lost half their health, now at only 520,000.

Meanwhile, Nan Jifeng, being very much alive, was bound, kneeling in the county hall. He knew exactly what was coming, so he simply kept his face expressionless.

At that moment, Chen Yu watched as Xia Jian intermittently regained consciousness, howling at the sky in seeming defiance, only for the black light to flash again and again, suppressing his mind and turning him into something neither human nor ghost—sometimes serpentine, sometimes human in form.