Gnats Rise Against the Wind

Without much trouble, Li Shun smoothly persuaded Feng Guan.

Li Shun was not worried that Feng Guan would report him to the authorities or betray him.

For one thing, he held an heaven-defying trump card like [Three Reflections Upon Myself]; whether today's schemes succeeded or failed, they would all be like flowers in a mirror and the moon in water.

For another, after struggling through the mire of Cold Mountain County together for most of their lives, he had long understood Feng Guan's nature inside and out.

Though this man was timid and cowardly, soft-eared and easily swayed by temptation, he possessed a clumsy sincerity toward his friends.

Orphaned at a young age and left all alone, he had barely learned a few bottom-rung tricks of the School of Novelists to make a living in his early years. Yet he had been forcibly conscripted to serve in Cold Mountain County, and once he plunged in, he endured there for a lifetime.

In fact, during the previous reversions of [Threefold Self-Reflection], Li Shun had already subjected Feng Guan to many harsh tests. The facts proved that, at least under the present circumstances, Feng Guan was absolutely someone he could use.

The main reason he had assigned Feng Guan the task of placing the Image-Recording Coins was that this body of Li Shun's was lame, making travel truly inconvenient.

And Feng Guan indeed did not disappoint Li Shun.

Around noon, he came running back, panting heavily. Contrary to usual, there was not a trace of a thief's guilty fear on his old face. Instead, it was flushed with a sickly excitement.

"Lame Li, I hid all the Image-Recording Coins at the spots you specified and activated every one of them! It was fucking thrilling. The whole way, I was terrified someone would spot me..."

Li Shun neither confirmed nor denied it, saying nothing. He silently calculated the time in his heart. Estimating that the moment when those Xiang Kingdom remnants would make their move was drawing near, he grabbed Feng Guan and decisively slipped into that dark underground earthen cave.

Once the tunnel was sealed shut, Li Shun tapped his fingertips repeatedly and activated all ninety parent coins of the Image-Recording Coins in sequence.

In an instant, screen after screen glowing with a dim light leaped into the air like water mirrors. Though they did not cover the entire Cold Mountain County without a single blind spot, they captured its most vital areas in full.

Li Shun fixed his eyes on the images before him and waited patiently.

At around three in the afternoon, the unexpected suddenly struck.

A pitch-black figure raced in from the far end of the horizon like a meteor, finally stopping abruptly directly above the county yamen, where he stood brazenly in midair.

Such an undisguised provocation naturally drew the immediate attention of the constables standing guard outside the yamen.

They drew their sabers, and just as they were about to shout a stern warning, the phantom of an enormous eight-armed demon god, radiating chilling yin energy, condensed behind the newcomer without any warning!

Terrifying Killing Intent crashed down like towering waves. Before those constables could even scream, they collapsed in unison like straw swept by a gale, unable to summon the slightest strength to resist.

Clang! Clang! Clang...

Urgent, shrill alarm bells instantly rang through the county yamen. A heavy earthen-yellow barrier rose from the ground, tightly protecting the yamen within. At the same time, the garrisoned Black-Armored Army, having detected the disturbance, rushed in from all directions clad in armor and armed to the teeth.

Every turn of events was exactly the same as what Li Shun had experienced "yesterday," without the slightest discrepancy.

"Th-there really are rebels attacking! How did you know beforehand?!" In the cellar, Feng Guan's voice trembled from overwhelming shock. At this moment, he utterly believed Li Shun's earlier "persuasion."

Li Shun remained deaf to him, his gaze locked firmly upon the shifting light screens around them.

Everything unfolded like a script written long ago. The eight-armed demon god ran rampant, while the elite Black-Armored Army suffered defeat after defeat beneath its hands like chickens and dogs made of clay. Under the mad scorching of flames filling the sky, the yamen's once-heavy barrier visibly dimmed, teetering on the verge of collapse.

Boom!

With an earth-shaking blast that deafened the ears, the Image-Recording Coin screens suspended in the air flickered violently, and some of the images instantly shattered into darkness.

"Destroy Qian and restore Xiang—today is the day!"

The frenzied roar of the Xiang Kingdom remnant leader, brimming with violent fury, once again rang unobstructed across the skies of Cold Mountain County.

At the same time, hysterical cries of response erupted one after another throughout the county seat.

The surviving Image-Recording Coins naturally captured some of the Xiang Kingdom remnants' faces.

Li Shun narrowed his eyes and etched those faces deeply into his mind.

"There really are several familiar faces among them."

"I thought they were, like me, merely miserable laborers unable to control their own fates. Who would have thought they were spies of a fallen kingdom lurking here?"

As Li Shun rapidly calculated in his heart, Feng Guan beside him had already fallen as though into an ice cellar. The pitiful trace of excitement on his face had long vanished, replaced by uncontrollable terror and shrinking cowardice.

Even in his dreams, he could not have imagined that these rebels were so ferocious that they could forcibly trample apart even the county yamen, which represented the supreme majesty of the Great Qian Dynasty!

Li Shun understood Feng Guan's temperament far too well. At a glance, he saw that Feng Guan was already considering retreat, and immediately barked coldly, "Old Feng, it's your turn!"

Seeing Feng Guan's face full of struggle as he continued to hesitate, Li Shun added in a chilling, meaningful tone, "Once the bow is drawn, there is no arrow turning back..."

Feng Guan shuddered all over at those words. He bit down helplessly and could only nod stiffly.

This time, the vessel to which he would attach his consciousness through the technique was not the ant from yesterday, but a tiny flying insect Li Shun had painstakingly caught in advance—a gnat.

These things were exceedingly rampant around Cold Mountain County, no larger than specks of ash. They were ordinarily difficult to notice, and if they blended into the chaotic battlefield now filled with smoke, flying sand, and rolling stones, they would be practically invisible.

Feng Guan was not entirely a spineless coward. Since there was no road left for retreat, he simply stopped dithering.

With a savage expression, he tore out a stalk of Cold Mountain Grass and stuffed it carelessly into his mouth, chewing and swallowing it together with its extreme bitterness and his fear.

Then he formed hand seals, and the secret art appeared once more. "Listening to the Wind, Skimming Shadows..."

In an instant, Feng Guan's clouded eyes were once more filled with strange deathly white. The aura around him also became chaotic and insubstantial. The tiny gnat on his fingertip beat its wings unsteadily, ready to fly.

In that lightning-flash moment...

"Spirit-splitting life-creation." Li Shun's voice sounded faintly.

After a lifetime of sitting in solitude and cultivating deeply, coupled with the tireless puppet within the [Square Inch] space carrying out extreme training day after day for twenty-six years, Li Shun's mastery of the [Spirit-Splitting Life-Creation Technique] had already reached perfection. In this art alone, looking across the entire Great Qian Dynasty, there was likely no one left who could rival him.

The instant the technique was cast, Li Shun felt as though an invisible blade had severed a portion of the most fundamental essence-blood within his body. A powerful wave of weakness immediately swept over him.

Yet in stark contrast to his wan appearance, the gnat hovering unsteadily in the air immediately stabilized itself. Its body even visibly grew much sturdier.

At the same time, a mysterious and unfathomable bond quietly formed between Li Shun and that gnat.

"It can leave now."

At Li Shun's murmur, Feng Guan manipulated the gnat like a puppet on strings, silently sending it through a crack in the tunnel and straight toward the county yamen.

Sustained by that thread of essence-blood, every scene witnessed by the gnat also manifested in Li Shun's mind like rippling water.

Feng Guan was indeed worthy of trust.

But since they were plotting for a treasure like the Cold Mountain Venerable, it was still more reliable to see things with his own eyes!

The gnat sped through the wild wind and smoke. Before long, it neared the county yamen, now reduced to ruins.

It did not rashly approach. Instead, it found a swarm of gnats whirling chaotically around the outskirts, silently merged among them, and looked down from above at the chaos below.

By this time, every Great Qian force of resistance within the Cold Mountain County yamen had been slaughtered. Several dozen Xiang Kingdom remnants had completely taken over the area, spreading out and frantically searching for the whereabouts of the [Cold Mountain Venerable].

Meanwhile, the brawny remnant leader hovered in the air with his hands behind his back, his expression cold as he surveyed the entire situation.

Because of Li Shun's stern warning before the technique began, Feng Guan suppressed the curiosity in his heart and did not spare even half a glance to deliberately observe that leader. The gnat merely followed the swarm in irregular circles, keeping all its attention fixed upon the search routes of the remnants below.

The better part of a day flashed past. They had nearly dug through the entire county yamen three feet deep, yet still found nothing.

Left with no choice, they could only try expanding their search outward.

Finally, at sunset, when the lingering sun was red as blood, an extremely excited howl came from afar. "Jin! We found it!"

The remnants leaped through the air, gathering in an instant.

The remnants scattered around the area also leaped into motion, converging into a group there in the blink of an eye.

"Something so precious wasn't placed in the county yamen. Instead, it was just openly kept at some concubine's house..."

This absurd result clearly greatly exceeded his expectations. The man called "Jin" raised a brow slightly, then casually flicked out a scarlet spark that instantly burned the trembling woman beside him into a pile of calamity ash.

"Great Qian will perish!"

The remnants around him seemed to be encouraged by something as well. Raising their arms, they echoed in unison.

"Great Qian will perish!"

"Hm?"

Just as emotions ran high, Jin's expression changed slightly, as though he had sensed something.

He suddenly turned around and spread his five fingers, making a fierce grasp toward the empty air outside the house. A flying insect mixed among the swarm, moving suspiciously, instantly fell uncontrollably into his palm.

"Interesting..."

Gently pinching with two fingers, Jin crushed the gnat to death. His hawk-like gaze pierced directly through the twilight, locking onto a location within Cold Mountain County.

The next instant, his body transformed into a streak of light with a thunderous burst and vanished from where he stood.

At the same time.

The roof of the underground earthen cave where Li Shun and Feng Guan hid was completely blown away amid a tremendous roar.

"Cowards hiding your heads and showing your tails, sneaky vermin." Jin descended like a demon god, looking down as he snorted coldly.

Under the terrifying pressure of the eight-armed demon god, Feng Guan's entire body stiffened without suspense, and he instantly lost the ability to speak.

Yet Li Shun, facing death for the second time, actually endured that shuddering terror by relying on the lingering adaptation from "yesterday," barely forcing his throat to move.

He raised his head to meet that annihilating gaze and deliberately sneered with mockery, "Aren't you also someone who hides his head and shows his tail?"

Jin was clearly stunned for a moment. Then his eyes narrowed, and his voice became so cold it seemed capable of freezing souls. "Listen well—your killer is a descendant of Great Xiang, lone blood of the imperial house, Xiong Jin!"

As soon as he spoke, towering flames poured down like heavenly punishment.

Completely swallowing Li Shun.