Surrounded

Mo Yunxuan leaned close to her ear and whispered, "How could Zhirou be at ease letting you come here?"

Feeling the warmth of his breath against her ear, Meng Qianxue replied softly, "Don't worry. I added a little Slumber Pill powder to her medicine. There's no way she'll wake up tonight."

Hearing that, Mo Yunxuan was so shocked by what she'd done that his hands stopped moving.

Meng Qianxue felt the change and thought to herself, What a rascal! When he's with me, he only thinks about things that have nothing to do with me.

Growing angrier by the second, she reached out and gave him a gentle pinch...

As the saying went, staying up late was bad for one's health, so Mo Yunxuan decided to pull an all-nighter.

Of course, he had his reasons.

As a standard college student in his previous life, getting him up before dawn to prepare for the encirclement operation was asking a bit too much.

Now that his cultivation had reached the early stage of the Body Integration Realm, he barely needed sleep anyway, so he might as well stay up.

It absolutely wasn't because some wildcat was too alluring, leaving him no time to sleep all night.

Absolutely not!

After climbing into the carriage, Mo Yunxuan subconsciously rubbed his lower back.

"Uncle Wang, let's go. Let's see how many people at Taihua Academy are determined to fight the Wei State Duke Mansion to the bitter end."

"Yes, my lord."

Wang Yuan flicked the reins, and the carriage began rolling toward Taihua Academy.

Seated inside, Mo Yunxuan peered through a crack in the window at the streets outside. The entire Imperial City was shrouded in darkness, enough to make anyone uneasy.

Yet that darkness filled Mo Yunxuan with an incomparable sense of peace.

At the quietest hour of the night, heavy footsteps and the clatter of armor rang out along several streets.

When the spies from the various lineages heard the noise and looked outside, the marching Imperial City Imperial Guard immediately warned them:

"Don't look where you're not supposed to. If you don't want to die, stay put!"

It sounded like a warning, but the soldiers made no move to stop them.

Once the troops had marched out of the spies' sight, the spies immediately reported what they'd seen to their respective lineages.

Every force in the Imperial City received word that large numbers of the Imperial City Imperial Guard were on the move.

"Has the Duke of Wei gone mad? He really mobilized the army!"

"I don't know if he's mad, but Her Majesty the Empress is definitely going to lose her mind."

"It's all that idiot Lü Qingjian's fault. Why did he have to go flaunting his power in front of the Wei State Duke Mansion?"

"Forget it. It's too late to say that now. All we can do is wait and see what Her Majesty plans to do."

"Exactly! If the two sides clash, and the other two deans and vice deans don't intervene, then even if the Imperial City Imperial Guard wins, it'll suffer heavy losses."

"If a fight really breaks out, it'll probably spread far and wide. We'd better gather the young members of our lineages now so we can protect them."

"Ah, I hope His Majesty and those lineages with Void Refinement Realm cultivators can step in and mediate soon."

As the various lineages scrambled to make preparations, dawn broke.

Mo Yunxuan's carriage arrived at the entrance to Taihua Academy at that very moment.

When he stepped down from the carriage, the first thing he saw was the Left and Right Wei Guard, arranged around commanders at the peak of the Nascent Soul Realm.

They had formed thirty small military formations and surrounded Taihua Academy on all sides.

A group of people who looked like teachers had gathered at the academy gates, facing off against the Left and Right Wei Guard in fear and trepidation.

Mo Yunxuan's spiritual energy surged. He teleported between the military formations and the academy, then looked over the people gathered there.

His gaze swept across them with amused interest.

"Well, well! There are quite a few of you. Why are you all teachers? There are barely a handful of students."

"I thought teachers sent by the imperial family would raise students with real backbone!"

"So not everyone is as proud and unyielding as Lin Fan!"

"Who's in charge here?"

As soon as he finished speaking, a middle-aged man stepped forward and cupped his hands in greeting.

"This humble man is Yun Congnan, Dean of Taihua Academy. Due to some complications, I missed the time to evacuate with Vice Dean Qiu. Might the Duke of Wei be willing to grant me an exception?"

In truth, when he received the Empress's message yesterday, he'd considered leaving the powder keg that was Taihua Academy at once.

But he'd devoted half his life to the academy. How could he simply abandon it?

And even if the Duke of Wei wanted to go to war with Taihua Academy, Yun Congnan had the strength to retreat with ease, thanks to his Late Void Refinement Realm cultivation.

Vice Dean Qiu Ziqin felt the same way. She'd just taken on a student named Ye Chen, whose talent was exceptional.

He and Lin Fan seemed to be natural rivals, having competed openly and behind the scenes several times.

But since the academy was usually managed by Lin Fan's master, Lü Qingjian, Ye Chen had received only an ordinary share of the academy's resources.

Many of those resources had to be allocated by her. She'd planned to use Lü Qingjian's recent blunder to put him in his place and secure more resources for his disciple.

But in just two days, things had escalated to the point where troops were at Taihua Academy's gates. She was utterly stunned!

She'd also received the Empress's message yesterday. But like Yun Congnan, she'd chosen to stay and observe.

She was confident that with her Void Refinement Realm cultivation, she could take Ye Chen in and out of the army as she pleased.

Besides, she still held out a sliver of hope for Dean Yun. What if the dean really managed to persuade Mo Yunxuan to back down?

But who could have guessed that the first thing the dean said was that he wanted to leave?

She couldn't understand it. What had happened to his Late Void Refinement Realm cultivation?

With cultivation that high, how could he cave so quickly?

And that deferential attitude—was this really the dean she knew?

What she didn't know was that the instant Yun Congnan stepped out of the crowd, two undisguised divine senses locked onto him.

It seemed that even the slightest movement on his part would bring down a crushing strike from both sides.

Though he couldn't find the people who had locked onto him, he understood that the Duke of Wei had backing stronger than his own—and enough strength to gang up on him.

As the saying went, a great man could bend or stretch. The dignity of the strong was nothing but a fleeting cloud.

Only staying alive mattered!

A little dignity was nothing. He could do without it!

Mo Yunxuan looked at Yun Congnan, who stood perfectly still before him. A mocking smile played at his lips, but there wasn't a trace of feeling deep in his eyes.

"I remember the Empress had already sent you the order to evacuate yesterday. Now that you're surrounded, who can you blame?"

"Or did Dean Yun never take the Wei State Duke Mansion seriously, which is why you kept refusing to leave?"

"Or perhaps you intended all along to make an enemy of the Wei State Duke Mansion, but now that you've realized you can't win, you want to back down?"

Cold sweat streamed down Yun Congnan's forehead. He knew Mo Yunxuan had backed him into a corner.

And from Mo Yunxuan's words, it seemed he had no intention of making peace.

The fact that he was still willing to exchange a few words was merely the idle amusement of a cat toying with a mouse.

Once Mo Yunxuan tired of playing, Yun Congnan's head would roll.

What should he do? What should he do? What should he do...

Yun Congnan asked himself over and over again.

Then, suddenly, he realized that the academy was surrounded entirely by the Left and Right Wei Guard. Nearly the full strength of both guards had arrived.

That meant the Empress's side must have received the news too. If he could stall long enough, the Empress would have time to intervene—and he might just survive.