Golden Cicada Sheds Its Shell

After Yan Tianxing took actual control of Cangzhou, Yingzhou, and Mozhou, the contingencies he had left behind gradually began to reveal themselves. With a stable base of operations secured, more and more of his former subordinates emerged.

They continuously infiltrated their former headquarters in Zhuozhou.

The reason Yan Tianxing had decisively abandoned the Zhuozhou headquarters he had spent years building and instead chosen the newcomer Xiao Lingying was that he had been deliberately misleading his enemies all these years.

He had allowed his enemies to infiltrate his side.

His final move was the Golden Cicada Sheds Its Shell—rebirth through reincarnation.

During the period when he had disappeared, many had assumed he was in seclusion, breaking through to a higher realm so that his strength would be sufficient to intimidate the surrounding forces.

No one had expected that he had been making arrangements in secret all along, and that he would decisively cast everything aside and leave his headquarters.

Now, Yan Tianxing had returned with the momentum of victory from battle after battle.

Zhuozhou, meanwhile, had been left without a leader and seemed utterly incapable of resisting him. In any case, he no longer bore the surname Si, nor was he still a member of Yan King's Mansion.

He could now act without scruple, purging anyone and any force he did not trust.

Those who wished to pledge themselves to him again had to offer absolute sincerity.

They had to demonstrate their own value.

Just like the Zhang Family, they could stabilize his rear and provide talented people, resources, and other forms of support to aid him in his struggle for supremacy.

Yan Tianxing led the elite warriors he had reorganized, establishing firm rule in Yingzhou, Mozhou, and Cangzhou, and began turning his gaze toward Zhuozhou in the north.

Zhuozhou had