Hit!

"Hit! Oh! He's been poisoned!"

That was Liu Bian's roar of wild delight at the time. His excitement overflowed so completely that he even climbed onto the table, looking like he'd gone stark raving mad. He was brimming with swagger, eager to watch this traitorous demon puke blood and die a miserable death!

The imperial secret drug, Qianji Powder.

A poison specially used by emperors to grant death to ministers and consorts. Its effects were extremely violent. Once swallowed, it made the entire body convulse with unbearable pain, forcing a person to curl into a ball as though their head could touch their feet. That was how it got the name Qianji Powder.

Poisoning the demon, Lan Yi!

Liu Bian felt that even dying for this would be worth it.

His patriotic heart had finally found its purpose, relieving His Majesty's worries and solving his problems.

His emotions reached such a pitch that he burst into tears!

And then...

Liu Bian, skinny as a starved monkey, was grabbed by the neck and lifted into the air by the towering Fierce Heavenly General Zhao Jian, who stood like an iron pagoda and wore a ferocious grin. The difference in their builds was like a brawny adult beating an undernourished old man. Those fan-sized palms came down in a crackling flurry!

Slaps were incredibly effective at curing hysteria!

Liu Bian regained his senses in an instant.

The price was that most of his teeth had been slapped out, his nose had been knocked crooked, his jaw had been dislocated, and his eyes had been beaten bloodshot.

And that was Zhao Jian showing restraint.

Otherwise, if he had swung his palm with the strength of that muscular iron tower, forget Liu Bian, a middle-aged man in poor health—even a Qi Cultivation Practitioner would probably have had his brains shaken smooth by such a beating.

Plotting to poison and murder an Immortal Master.

Clearly, neither Zhao Jian nor Zhao Sikong would let Liu Bian die too easily. That would be far too kind to this Manchu's stubborn bones. They had none of the Immortal Master's good temper and were preparing to entertain this Governor with the Qing Imperial Court's favorite tortures.

Awakening from his beautiful fantasy, Liu Bian was filled with terror and despair.

Old Demon Lan had not been poisoned at all.

Even without Cang Hua and Psionic physical sterilization,

Lan Yi's current physique was no longer something the crude poisons of this era could bring down. It would take chemical molecular toxins, heavy-metal poisoning, or radiation poisoning.

The Jinling officials who had harbored evil intentions were immediately purged.

Led by Liu Bian and supplemented by those Imperial Court troops putting up a desperate resistance, the entire group received the same treatment as the foreigners in the Pu'hai concession.

Spirit Cultivation Practitioners opened the way, the pressure of their mental landscapes broke the formations, and Qi Cultivation Practitioners provided support. They vaulted over eaves and walked across walls, impervious to blades and bullets, and launched a direct attack at the Qing Imperial Court troops who had tried to catch them like turtles in a jar—blossoming right through the center.

The entire process went incomparably smoothly and easily.

At least, that was how it looked to the martial artists.

Foreign armies had resilience. The Qing Imperial Court's army did not.

Foreign soldiers could endure casualties and fire back. Even when martial artists had charged within twenty meters, they could still suppress their fear, form firing lines under their officers' commands, protect their heavy weapons, and avoid collapse. As for Qing soldiers, forget forming lines to protect their heavy weapons—the officers led the retreat, and when faced with martial artists as fierce as wolves and tigers, they threw away their helmets and armor, each scrambling to become a "transportation captain"!

And so.

What looked like a Hongmen Banquet was actually a joke. Jinling, the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties and a strategic stronghold, was seized by the martial artists under Lan Yi in less than half a day.

After that, they spent another day.

The martial artists and revolutionaries who had followed Lan Yi north directly reproduced the method they had used to reorganize Pu'hai. With thunderous measures, they purged the filth-ridden, dark, and sordid elements hidden in this ancient city, striking hard against corrupt merchants, venal officials, gangs, and foreigners, while swiftly taking control of the telegraph stations, power plants, newspapers, factories, and other organizations that produced goods and generated vitality.

During this process,

many whose interests had been damaged tried to incite riots or gather crowds to stir up trouble.

Without exception, they were ruthlessly suppressed by Zhao Jian, that iron tower. Who was friend and who was foe became crystal clear, and a group of Qi Cultivation Practitioners was quickly promoted, extending direct control all the way down to the level of streets and household registries.

It was during this process

that Lan Yi planted the second Lei Chi Immortal Lotus at Jinling Power Plant.

The pillar of light from the Lei Chi Immortal Lotus shot into the sky, transforming into invisible psionic rain that drifted in all directions. It resonated perfectly with the Lei Chi Immortal Lotus in Pu'hai, finally covering the entire southern coast.

There was no need to deliberately cultivate anything.

With the enormous population base, in an environment suited to martial training, psionic power subtly influenced and transformed people. Lan Yi did not need to deliberately nurture or seek them out; geniuses with extraordinary talent in martial arts would always emerge.

Like Liu Baiyuan and Guo Decheng, who had accompanied him this time.

Back in Pu'hai, the two martial artists who had cultivated according to the true transmission of martial arts had completed the awakening of their Innate Qi on their own, without Lan Yi modifying them. Even without Psionic Vision, relying only on sensation and talent, they had rapidly spread their Innate Qi throughout their bodies, connecting the upper brain and lower yin, and directly achieved Qi Cultivation Grand Completion!

To reach such a level in merely one week

truly deserved to be called genius.

At least Lan Yi, before his rebirth, had not achieved such progress when he had explored psionic cultivation entirely on his own in the first Artificial Divine Realm.

After finishing all this,

Lan Yi plunged headfirst into the Governor's mansion.

Unlike Pu'hai, Jinling was the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties, and the local gazetteers throughout the region had recorded its history in great detail from ancient times to the present. There were no shortage of accounts of strange people and unusual happenings.

Although ninety-nine percent of them were most likely rumors repeated until they became truth or the tricks of frauds, when examined from the perspective of a psionic cultivator, in this era of backward information transmission and record-keeping, perhaps he really could find some sort of encounter related to the Artificial Divine Realm. In any case, it would be something to do while trying his luck.

During the days he was stationed in Jinling,

if he did not amuse himself this way,

was Immortal Master Lan Yi supposed to stroll along the Qinhuai River and experience the charms of the flower queens?

If Lan Yi truly had such needs,

Philia, Scathach, Uesugi Yuriko, and the other reporters who had accompanied him north would have been more than happy to conduct interviews all night. Amid their envious and jealous gazes, the competitor who won the chance for an all-night interview was Yun Huaqi.

Yun Huaqi, an intern reporter at a Pu'hai newspaper, as well as a female university student and a Star-Han native.

She was, just as her name suggested, a breathtaking beauty straight out of a painting.

Although she was a traditional refined lady, she was also learned and sensible. She had received a modern education, possessed a temperament as gentle as water, and was the dream lover of many university students in Pu'hai.

She was also a strong candidate, in the eyes of outsiders, to become the woman at Immortal Master Lan Yi's side.

The reason she was able to obtain the chance for an all-night interview was simple.

Lan Yi needed her to translate the local gazetteers of the various regions of Liangjiang.

Without an Auxiliary Brain, without AI, and without time to study, Lan Yi directly had this refined lady—who was proficient in classical Chinese, skilled at drawing analogies, and dignified and graceful—serve as his translator.

Yun Huaqi found this somewhat devastating.

Any wage earner who saw a stack of documents on their desk so tall they had to crane their neck to see the top would have a mental breakdown. The fact that this could drive such a refined lady to believe that serving in bed would be easier, while cursing herself for being shameless, showed that Old Demon Lan's personality really did have a somewhat wicked sense of humor in certain areas.

Still, these past few days of translation

had genuinely brought Lan Yi an unexpected harvest.