The monster from Puhai stood atop the walls of Jinling City.
An illustrated comic showed a blue-faced, fanged monster eating a person as it stood on the city wall, surrounded by Qing Imperial Court soldiers bravely firing back. Farther away stood the Emperor's imperial carriage and the guns of the foreign powers, as if they could unleash a barrage of arrows at any moment and shoot the monster dead on the spot.
This was the front-page headline in newspapers across many northern regions.
It was also the hottest topic in Xinghan.
Such exaggerated journalism, such horrifying stories, such explosive news—once the newspapers went on sale in the major cities, they were instantly sold out.
By comparison,
the Martial Artists' Group had only just begun. Its popular explanations of Innate Qi, psychic energy, and technology were too boring, and the subject matter was too dangerous. They could be sold smoothly within its territory, but the moment they were sent north, they were immediately subjected to a joint ban by the Imperial Court and the foreigners.
They denounced them as demonic writings that bewitched the people and stirred up chaos.
What Innate Qi? What psychic energy? They were all fake.
Only the foreigners' powerful ships and cannons were real.
Descriptions of psychic energy were erased by force with the strictest possible measures. Even the words "psychic energy" were forbidden from appearing; anyone caught mentioning them would implicate their entire family. Erasing all traces of psychic energy and then spreading edited descriptions of martial artists' cultivation did indeed have a highly effective deceptive effect.
At least for a short while.
So long as the psychic-energy radiation spreading from the south could not reach the north, this crudely woven lie could continue—until the martial artists came laughing viciously to their doorstep.
This kind of stubbornly isolationist performance
was truly breathtaking. Even Lan Yi could not help shaking his head and chuckling when he heard the news.
"Sure enough, no matter what world or era it is, whenever psychic-energy cultivators appear, there are always such clueless clowns spouting lunacy and doing absurd things, convinced that the inside of a tortoise shell is comfortable and safe."
Lan Yi was overjoyed.
He had seen this performance more than once, and he never grew tired of it. There were always fools changing their methods and adapting to the circumstances as they sought their own deaths. They would insist that the laws of their ancestors could never be changed, but once a martial artist's fist smashed their mouths full of dog teeth, those seemingly old-fashioned and rigid things were often the quickest to kneel.
And once they knelt, they would completely repudiate everything they had shouted before, practically wagging their tails as they accepted it all.
"Immortal Master! These people have shown you the greatest disrespect. They deserve death! Their whole clans should be exterminated!" Zhao Sikong, who was usually even-tempered, was bristling with murderous intent. He genuinely cared about the reputation of Immortal Master Lan Yi.
Seeing Lan Yi hold the newspaper without a care,
Zhao Sikong nearly acted on his own impulse. He wanted to head north alone and wipe out the households of those ants in the major cities who spouted such nonsense and showed disrespect to the Immortal Master, cleansing them all!
"What are you so anxious about? I'm not even anxious. If verbal abuse and written denunciations were useful, they would have cursed me to death long ago."
Lan Yi seemed remarkably detached.
To be honest, the newspapers circulating from the north stirred very little emotion in him.
Even their insults were so refined and flowery.
And they dared call themselves trolls? On the Xinghan Internet of the main world, people with that level of verbal abuse could not even protect their own chrysanthemums, let alone their parents. Compared with the cyberbullying he had endured—the overwhelming malice, incessant harassing calls, all kinds of fabrications, distortions of fact, and insults that threw facts aside entirely—this was child's play.
Then again,
it was no wonder that after Lan Yi returned to the main world,
he had not wasted a single word. He had simply taken advantage of the enormous chaos sweeping across the world and launched a massacre. At the time, an honest man had truly been driven to the limit. No matter what kind of dog-bred fate you had, you only had one life—so just start killing and be done with it. Lan Yi had been incredibly happy then, experiencing the joy of becoming a new person.
What was even happier
was that he had been reborn, and he could enjoy such a wonderful thing all over again!
"All right, stop rambling at me like a resentful wife. The more gleefully they curse me now, the more they'll suffer when the reckoning comes. As for this newspaper, keep it for me. Once we reach Yanjing, we might even be able to put together a joke about the Immortal Master."
Lan Yi gestured for Zhao Sikong to withdraw.
Zhao Sikong clearly still had more to say, but faced with Lan Yi's order, he still chose to obey the command from above.
Since the Immortal Master had said there would be a reckoning after the autumn harvest, he would wait for that reckoning.
Compared with the swine, dogs, and white-skins farther north who deserved to die, Zhao Sikong now had more important matters to handle.
On the second day after the Punishment Fleet had been completely annihilated,
Lan Yi had already brought the two Spirit Cultivation Practitioners, Shadow Heavenly General and Fierce Heavenly General, along with many embedded military reporters, a number of party members like Chen Qimei, and a troop of three hundred armed Qi Cultivation Practitioners northward.
His first stop on the journey north was Jinling.
Jinling was the ancient capital of six dynasties.
It was a place of outstanding people and abundant spiritual energy, a blessed land of feng shui. Although it lacked the north's bold ruggedness, the gentle charm along the Qinhuai River was exceptionally intoxicating.
Such an important strategic location
naturally had heavy troops stationed there, with a senior minister in command.
Unfortunately for this minister, he had already fallen into the hands of the Martial Artists' Group. He was Zhang Ji, Governor-General of Liangjiang. Although the Governor-General had been captured, the heavy troops guarding the area still had a commander: Liu Bian, Jiangsu Governor and Nanyang Commander, who had been rapidly promoted to clean up the mess. He held a second-rank official position and controlled both military and government affairs, making him a heavyweight minister.
This also reflected, from another angle, how the Imperial Court's official posts were being sold off in a wholesale clearance.
Liu Bian was indeed fiercely loyal to the Qing Imperial Court.
When he learned that Lan Yi had dealt with the Punishment Fleet and was preparing to head north, the Han minister immediately faced north and wailed. He had learned how Lan Yi had dealt with the Punishment Fleet in the Yellow Sea, and he knew full well that with his few thousand new troops and barely any cannons, it was impossible to stop the man-eating monster from Puhai.
Since holding the city to the death would not work, he would use a softer approach.
Governor Liu did two things.
First, he sent people carrying explosives to the railway—the route Lan Yi had to take—to prepare something spectacular, attempting to blow up Lan Yi, the marked demonic cultivator, along with his minions.
Second, he ordered the city gates thrown wide open and withdrew all the defenders, putting on a full show of awaiting Immortal Master Lan Yi's grand arrival. He planned to fake a surrender and lay a Hongmen Banquet.
Clearly, Governor Liu had never read the newspapers from the rebel party in the south.
He had never seen Madame Philia's reports on how Lan Yi had allowed all kinds of methods to be used against him that day.
The explosives planted in ambush failed to detonate.
They were dealt with in advance by Liu Baiyuan and Guo Decheng, two Qi Cultivation Grand Completion practitioners, who had sensed that something was wrong. In the process, they also dealt with a squad of assassins whose identities were unknown but whose bodies bore obvious signs of military training.
Although these two martial artists were still only at the Qi Cultivation level, they were far from powerless.
One possessed the ability to hear sounds at a distance, with extremely sharp senses. The other was proficient in all kinds of assassination techniques and had seen through many sinister tricks before they could reach Lan Yi.
The Hongmen Banquet was a feast Xiang Yu had hosted for Liu Bang.
Clearly, Governor Liu had neither the strength of King Xiang nor a reliable army. And Lan Yi, who attended the banquet willingly, possessed methods far beyond the imagination of this Qing Imperial Court loyalist.
Once Lan Yi had eaten the poisoned food and drunk the poisoned wine,
Liu Bian, so excited that tears and mucus streamed down his face, dropped the act completely and laid all his cards on the table!