Lightning Strike

Chen Shi's face flushed bright red, and stammering, he was about to answer when Prince Xiao coughed as a reminder. "Before you answer, mind the place. This is Wuwang City, so watch out for having your tongue pulled out."

A chill struck Chen Shi's heart, and he cast a wary glance at the woman in red, mentally filing her away as a dangerous entity.

If I had played coy just now and answered that I didn't want to, I definitely would have lost my tongue. You can't say one thing and mean another here! he thought to himself.

Prince Xiao said, "Jin Hongying, why must you make things difficult for a junior?"

The woman in red rolled her eyes at him, pressed her elbows onto the tea table with her breasts resting against it as well, and said with a smile, "Prince Xiao, you've got quite some nerve to steal my Divine Machine Battalion's property. Hand the item over, and I can let bygones be bygones."

Chen Shi blinked. The Divine Machine Battalion?

He had heard of the Divine Machine Battalion before. A scholar from Yandang Village had once attained high honors and exceptional talent, and it was said he later joined the Divine Machine Battalion, becoming a soldier of the Divine Machine Battalion.

After that man returned to the village, the matchmakers coming to propose marriages wore out the threshold.

Word was that the Divine Machine Battalion served the emperor, enjoying high stipends and high status; to become a soldier of the Divine Machine Battalion, one's ancestral graves had to be smoking with good fortune.

Prince Xiao turned a blind eye to the red-clad woman's beauty, saying coolly, "Stolen is stolen. What, do you expect me to return it to you?"

Jin Hongying dipped a finger in her tea, drawing circles on the table, and smiled faintly, "Isn't this appointment precisely to discuss how to return it? Otherwise, why even make the appointment? Prince Xiao, I'll give you two paths. First path: you return it voluntarily, and the Divine Machine Battalion lets bygones be bygones. Second path: after our Divine Machine Battalion kills you, we'll search your corpse to take it back."

She raised her eyes with a smile, "The injuries you sustained last time probably haven't healed yet. This time won't be as simple as just getting hurt. We might even send you off on your final journey, old man!"

Prince Xiao is injured?

A ripple stirred in Chen Shi's heart as he recalled his first encounter with Prince Xiao.

Back then, Prince Xiao and he were both heading to the coffin in the mountain manor to recuperate.

Yet wasn't that place an extremely Yin corpse-cultivating ground?

Since Prince Xiao was not a corpse, why did he also need to go there for recuperation?

What baffled him even more was, I'm not a corpse either, so why did Grandpa send me there to recuperate?

Prince Xiao's expression remained tranquil as he said, "My injuries are healed."

A chill struck Jin Hongying's heart. She leaned back, her chest trembling slightly, and smiled, "So there's nothing to discuss, then?"

Prince Xiao gave a slight nod.

A smile played on Jin Hongying's lips as she said leisurely, "I've heard that Prince Xiao is peerlessly talented and extraordinarily graceful. I was born too late and missed the chance to see it with my own eyes. But tonight, I just might get the chance. If you manage to survive tonight, I'll let bygones be bygones regarding you stealing my Divine Machine Battalion's treasure."

She stood up, glanced at Chen Shi, and smiled, "Little brother, don't follow him. You'll die."

With that, she swayed her hips and left.

Chen Shi withdrew his gaze, and Prince Xiao asked, "Pretty?"

Chen Shi wanted to answer, but quickly clamped his mouth shut, thinking, Prince Xiao is very dangerous, too—he almost got my tongue pulled out!

Prince Xiao sipped his tea and watched as Jin Hongying walked out of Wuwang City. After a moment, he stood up and said, "Stay here, I shall return shortly. If I do not return, leave Wuwang City before dawn and do not linger."

Chen Shi asked hastily, "What if I haven't left Wuwang City?"

"You will vanish along with Wuwang City."

Prince Xiao walked downstairs, his voice drifting up: "Those who vanished with Wuwang City in the past never appeared again. Whether they live or die, no one knows."

Chen Shi shuddered.

Prince Xiao did not take a carriage, instead walking out of the city on foot, quickly vanishing into the moonlight.

Chen Shi sipped his tea, ate the dried fruits and dried meat, and waited quietly.

After a long while, he blinked and let out a soft laugh.

"What are you laughing at?" a voice asked beside him.

"I'm laughing at how bizarre my experiences tonight are. I was settling a grudge and killing on the post road, suddenly fell ill on the way home, was chased and hunted by evil spirits, and then ran into Prince Xiao by chance."

Chen Shi chuckled. "And then I ended up in this strange city, meeting people from the Divine Machine Battalion. Now, I'm drinking tea in a ghost city, eating dried fruit, and waiting for Prince Xiao and the Divine Machine Battalion to return from battle. This experience is simply too absurd! So ridiculous I want to laugh..."

Mid-sentence, he suddenly snapped to his senses. Prince Xiao was gone, so who was talking to him?

He hurriedly turned his head to look. The four-armed waiter from earlier was nowhere to be seen, replaced by a bizarre fellow with a toad's head. Its head was four or five times the size of a normal person's, marked with blue and white stripes, and it had an enormous mouth. Clenched in the corner of its mouth was a pipe, stuck with three thick and short incense sticks, puffing away as it smoked.

Its legs were exceptionally slender, supporting its fat, bulky body, and in its hand, it carried a tea kettle that was bizarrely large.

It must have been the teahouse's tea doctor, coming to refill Chen Shi's tea.

"What are you looking at?" that voice asked again.

Only then did Chen Shi notice that the speaker wasn't this toad, but the large tea kettle it was carrying.

The kettle lid bobbed up and down as it questioned him, and two eyes were actually growing beneath the lid.

"Don't speak."

That toad tea doctor whispered to Chen Shi, "It likes to ask questions; don't you answer. This fellow got several guests' tongues pulled out today."

Chen Shi grew vigilant and instantly clamped his mouth shut, uttering not a single word.

The large tea kettle asked him a few questions, and seeing that he didn't reply, it lost interest in him.

The toad tea doctor refilled Chen Shi's tea and carried the large kettle off to other tea tables.

The large kettle questioned a table of guests: "Got something on your mind?"

"No... Ah—"

A miserable scream rang out. Chen Shi watched as the tea guests at that table had their tongues yanked out by a strange force, clutching their mouths and whimpering speechlessly.

"Were you secretly peeking at that red-clothed woman's breasts just now?" The large kettle asked another table of guests.

"I didn't... Ah—"

A streak of fresh blood shot through the air, and another tongue flew out.

Chen Shi shuddered, mentally filing the large kettle under the dangerous category as well.

That's right, this Wuwang City must also be a Ghost and God Domain!

Chen Shi suddenly realized that Ghost and God Domains came in many varieties—some could turn people into porcelain like the brick kiln, some could transform tomb-guarding beasts into gods and devils, some scrambled time, and then there was places like Wuwang City, where one could not lie.

Anyone who lied would suffer an undeserved catastrophe and the agony of having their tongue pulled out, which was why it was called Wuwang City.

Wuwang means truth! The so-called Wuwang City is a city of truth, one that does not tolerate lies.

Having figured this out, Chen Shi felt joy in his heart, and his fear of Wuwang City vanished as a result.

He was a person who lived near the mountains and understood the importance of following rules.

Whether it was a Ghost and God Domain or an evil spirit, as long as one followed certain rules, they could live in peace.

Suddenly, lightning flashed and thunder rolled across the sky outside the city. Chen Shi hurried to look, only to see streaks of lightning rising from the ground, cutting a rapid red arc through the air and crashing into a mountain peak beneath the moonlight!

Balls of fire burst open, illuminating that mountain as bright as day!

Chen Shi hastily stood up and looked toward the mountain peak outside the city, only to see bolts of thunder coming one after another in a fan shape, rising from the ground into midair and slamming into that mountain peak. In a mere moment, several hundred bolts of lightning had struck that mountaintop.

By the light of the lightning, Chen Shi saw more and more clearly. It seemed as though a figure stood tall upon that mountain, looking exceptionally small as they stood at the very pinnacle of the mountaintop.

A hair-thin flash of cold light was spinning rapidly around them at an astonishing speed!

Despite the great distance, its speed remained too fast for the naked eye to catch!

"What is that?"

Chen Shi froze, utterly unable to see that ray of light clearly.

The cold light was infinitely minuscule, yet it always managed to arrive in a flash the very moment before the lightning struck the mountaintop, piercing right through the lightning.

When the lightning was pierced, it would shatter, sending fire and electricity dancing in all directions, and a moment later, a deafening crash of thunder would arrive.

Those bolts of lightning hadn't hit the mountain at all!

The thunder striking the mountain that he had just witnessed was merely a visual illusion.

Chen Shi watched with a pounding heart as the lightning grew increasingly dense. That flash of cold light also seemed somewhat overtaxed, and gradually, bolts of thunder landed on the mountaintop, exploding with a crash.

Every time that happened, the earth itself trembled!

More and more lightning broke through the defense of the cold light and slammed into the mountaintop. Soon, that peak looked as though it had been roasted red, growing increasingly dazzling.

Inside Wuwang City, whether human or ghost or monster, everyone watched with bated breath.

If those bolts of lightning were to land on Wuwang City, this Ghost and God Domain would likely be reduced to a sea of fire in an instant, leaving none alive!

Everyone in the city stretched their necks to look. Some people even cupped their heads in their hands, pulled their heads right off their necks, and lifted them high to watch.

Inadvertently, Chen Shi even noticed someone in the crowd whose neck suddenly grew long and slender like a bamboo pole, pushing their head up a zhang or two high so they could watch with rapt attention.

"Want to grab a pair of scissors and make a cut on his neck?" The large kettle was questioning others again.

"Don't want to..."

"Plop!"

Chen Shi grew cautious, keeping his mouth tightly sealed and resolving that no matter who questioned him, he must not speak.

This lightning bombardment lasted for over an hour. Under the thunder and fire, that mountaintop shrank at a speed visible to the naked eye, likely caused by the rock being blasted apart and melted!

Suddenly, someone let out a loud cry: "Dawn is coming, run—if we don't go now, it'll be too late!"

Instantly, the crowd in the city stirred, surging out toward the city gates in a stampede.

Chen Shi hurried downstairs as well, only to find the city packed with people, ghosts, and monsters pressing shoulder to shoulder.

"Patron, your carriage has been prepared," the four-armed waiter popped out from somewhere to remind him.

Chen Shi followed him to the courtyard, and Prince Xiao's carriage was indeed still there. This time, with Prince Xiao absent, the driver and the four fine steeds surprisingly did not turn to stone.

Chen Shi boarded the carriage, and the driver gently flicked his whip. The four fine steeds immediately pulled the carriage and charged straight out of the city!

The four horses ran faster and faster. Ahead, the crowd of people, ghosts, and monsters grew denser and denser, and just as it looked like countless beings were about to be trampled and crushed to death, clouds suddenly sprouted from the hooves of the four horses. Treading upon the clouds, they drove this carriage right over the heads of the humans, ghosts, and monsters, bolting straight for the city gate.

Chen Shi was astonished to see the horses pulling the carriage through the gate at a gallop, landing on the ground outside the city with crisp da-da-da hoofbeats, driving the carriage into the pre-dawn night.

"The carriage is heading toward that mountain!"

A jolt went through Chen Shi's heart as he watched the driver flick the whip. The carriage sped up continuously, and a smell of gunpowder gradually permeated the air.

Suspicious, Chen Shi watched as the carriage traveled another two miles. By the roadside appeared a few corpses and a massive metal creation.

It was a cannon, with a barrel over a zhang long and weighing two to three thousand catties.

"The legendary Hongyi Cannon of the Divine Machine Battalion!" Chen Shi stared wide-eyed.

He had heard people in Yandang Village speak of this firearm. It was said to possess peerlessly tyrannical might, capable of unleashing the power of heavenly thunder; with a single cannon shot, it was like a heavenly tribulation descending!

Yet, the thick barrel of that Hongyi Cannon had been cleanly severed, the cut extremely sharp, and even the talisman patterns engraved inside the bore had been slashed through!

In a fleeting glance, Chen Shi saw that the cannon barrel was red, likely soaked in cinnabar ground with black dog's blood, though he didn't know what method the Divine Machine Battalion used to carve talismans inside the bore.

Beside the Hongyi Cannon was a cart of cannonballs, larger than a child's head. The balls were cast from black iron, with talismans engraved on the surface and traced in cinnabar and black dog's blood to increase their power.

Great Five Thunder Talisman!

With a hasty glance, Chen Shi recognized the talismans on those cannonballs, and a shock ran through his heart.

The Great Five Thunder Talisman was an immensely powerful thunder-path talisman; paired with black powder, its might increased severalfold!

He suddenly understood that the lightning strikes they saw last night were not spells of the Divine Machine Battalion, but cannon fire bombarding the mountain!

That scene should have been dozens, or even hundreds, of Hongyi Cannons firing in unison, bombarding Prince Xiao under the enhancement of the Great Five Thunder Talismans!