Dragon Veins

[Environment simulation complete, character simulation complete. Begin battle?]

Shi Lan raised her hand, and the Ziwei Seven-Star Halberd appeared in her grasp. She drove her true qi to its utmost, while the Moonlight Skirt amplified it to maximum strength. On full alert, she said:

"Begin!"

Whoosh...

Shi Lan heard a faint sound by her ear. Before she could listen more closely, the world spun around her, and a headless corpse appeared in her vision.

Is that... me?

The thought had barely surfaced before it was snuffed out like a candle flame, vanishing into darkness.

Shi Lan sat on a patch of grass, watching the battle recording again and again. Yet each time, the result seemed to be the same: Emperor Guiyun raised a finger, and she died.

She slowed the replay countless times, but still couldn't find a trace of what had happened. At last, she closed it and straightened up.

"Simulated character: Emperor Guiyun. Simulation fidelity: one ten-millionth."

She hadn't entered this virtual space to study how to defeat Emperor Guiyun in the first place.

Deep in the mountains, more than seventy li south of Qingzhou City.

"Haah—hup—"

"Haah—hup—"

Dozens of burly, muscular men worked bare-chested beneath the blazing sun, sweating as they dug in a pit nearly five zhang across. Their shovels rose and fell in a steady rhythm.

A young man in a pale-gold python robe stood at the edge of the pit, intently watching the work below. Shen Mingyi stood beside him.

"Your Highness, why did True Person Wuxu suddenly order such a large well to be dug? And why did he ask you to keep watch over it?"

"Master said this is where the dragon vein of my Qianyuan Dynasty passes. If we dig a well here, we can draw out