Emperor Daye! Using Rivers and Mountains as a Formation!

Chen Lingxi continued his meditation with his eyes closed until June arrived.

Time passes slowly in the mountains.

After inscribing his name on the Fated Star Stone that day, Chen Lingxi secluded himself in the Bridge Mechanism Mountain cave for more than two months.

The Clear-Mystery Pivot-Qi Formation operated day and night, and the Spirit Pool in his Qi Sea surged like boiling water, allowing his Qi Circulation Realm to make significant progress.

At this moment, he was carefully studying the Pure Marvel Qi-Pivot Formation when Chen Lingxi's ears suddenly twitched slightly.

After Qi Circulation Fifth Floor, his five senses became incredibly sharp.

Within a radius of a hundred feet, the swaying of every blade of grass and the chirping of every insect and bird could not escape his perception.

At that moment, he heard a very faint sound of footsteps.

The sound was so faint and subtle that it would have been almost impossible to detect unless he had been completely focused.

"This is..." Chen Lingxi raised an eyebrow slightly.

Chen Lingxi stood up and walked to the cave Xi Mu, who was guarding the entrance, sensed his master's movement, silently stepped aside, and followed behind Chen Lingxi.

The two figures quietly stepped onto the mountain path.

They moved very quickly and reached the mountainside in no time.

There was a grove of low pine trees, their dense needles completely concealing his figure.

Chen Lingxi hid behind a sturdy, short pine tree, parted a few pine needles, and looked down the mountain path.

Just then, the footsteps grew closer.

At the bend in the mountain path, several wooden poles as thick as a child's arm came into view.

Beneath the wooden pole was a coffin.

The coffin was enormous, more than three feet longer and more than two feet wider than an ordinary coffin.

But what concerned Chen Lingxi even more were the people who carried the coffin.

There were eight pallbearers, all of them strong and burly men.

They carried the heavy carrying poles, as thick as a child's arm, their steps so synchronized they seemed like one person.

Their breathing was extremely deep and long; each inhale filled their chests to bursting, and their exhales were like whales spewing water, leaving behind several very faint and fine white wisps of mist in the air.

As they walked, a faint silvery-white light emanated from the backs of their exposed hands and necks.

"Eight Silver Bones!"

"This coffin is rather strange."

Chen Lingxi was somewhat surprised.

Warriors at the Silver Bone Realm are qualified to hold positions such as centurion in the Great Li Army.

Back then, He Duan, the instructor of the West Courtyard of the Baosu Marquis Residence, was only a newcomer to the Silver Bones, yet he was already a prominent figure in the mansion.

And these eight men before us were merely laborers to carry the coffin?

His gaze passed over the eight Silver Bones warriors carrying the coffin and landed at the very front of the procession.

Two people on horseback led the way.

Both horses were tall and magnificent, entirely black, with manes as flowing as ink satin.

Each horse was carried by a man, both dressed in black close-fitting clothes, with swords at their waists, their auras deep and unfathomable.

Their faces were completely obscured by their straw hats, making them difficult to see clearly, but as they rode their horses, a faint golden light emanated from deep within their bones.

The golden light was not particularly intense; it was merely a very faint and thin layer, hanging almost imperceptibly on their bodies, yet its weight was startling.

"Golden Body!"

Two Golden Body figures led the way, while eight Silver Bones warriors carried the coffin.

Who was inside that coffin?

Chen Lingxi, filled with curiosity, quietly activated the Qi-Observation Technique from the Six-Qi True Method.

The spiritual energy emerges from the Qi Sea, travels upwards along the meridians, and flows into the eyes.

In an instant, the mountains and forests in front of him suddenly changed color.

But Chen Lingxi's gaze fell on the coffin.

Under the method of Qi Observation, two streams of spiritual Qi were circulating within the coffin!

The two wisps of spiritual energy were extremely faint, like a flickering candle flame, trembling slightly deep within the coffin.

Chen Lingxi's breath hitched slightly.

He was all too familiar with this way of circulating spiritual energy.

Monk!

Lying in this coffin are two cultivators!

He frowned slightly, withdrew his Qi-Observation Technique, and turned his gaze back to the coffin itself.

The coffin was covered with intricate patterns, which were layered and interconnected, forming a surprisingly exquisite magic array!

Chen Lingxi has been studying the formation diagram of the Clear-Mystery Pivot-Qi Formation day and night for some time now, and his understanding of formations is already different from before.

He immediately recognized that the patterns on the coffin were not ordinary coffin decorations, but a magic array used to seal spiritual energy.

"That's interesting."

The coffin-carrying procession wound its way up the mountain path, and was about to bypass the grove of low pine trees where Chen Lingxi was hiding.

Chen Lingxi lowered his body even further, the Concealed Edge Method flowing silently within his body, making him blend into the forest like a piece of moss growing at the base of a dwarf pine.

The footsteps of eight Silver Bones warriors echoed in unison as they passed by him on the mountain path less than ten feet away.

The two Golden Body figures rode past on horseback, the snorting of the horses and the crisp sound of their iron hooves striking the rocks were so clear they seemed to be right next to my ears.

But no one noticed him.

The group gradually moved further and further away, heading down the mountain.

Chen Lingxi emerged from behind the dwarf pine tree, watching the dark blue coffin disappear into the dense forest at the end of the mountain path, surrounded by a group of people, and her brows furrowed slightly.

He hesitated for a few moments, then finally followed.

With the Concealed Edge Method circulating to its fullest extent within his body, his figure became like an invisible shadow, trailing far behind the group, maintaining a distance of approximately several miles.

The group descended Bridge Mechanism Mountain but did not enter Yuan River Prefectural City. Instead, they headed west along the official road outside the city.

The procession moved extremely fast. The two Golden Body figures rode ahead on horseback, followed closely by eight Silver Bones warriors carrying the coffin, their steps swift and uninterrupted.

Passersby occasionally passed by, but upon seeing the coffin-carrying procession, they all made way, not daring to glance at it.

After traveling for several hours, the sun had already moved to the west, and the afterglow of the setting sun dyed the clouds on the horizon a dark gold.

The group finally stopped at a riverbank.

It was a Long River, narrower than the Yuan River but much wider than an ordinary stream, its water a jade-green hue, shimmering in the twilight.

"This is... Summer River?"

Chen Lingxi in the reeds on a high slope by the river, gazing at the river from afar.

For the past six months, he has been traveling back and forth between Yuan River Prefecture and the surrounding mountains, and has become quite familiar with the mountains and rivers of this area.

The Summer River originates from the Nanju Twelve Mountains of Southern Lu Prefecture, meanders for over a hundred miles from west to east, and eventually flows into the Yuan River.

The group stopped on a riverbank along the Summer River.

Chen Lingxi turned her gaze away from the river bend, her pupils contracting slightly.

There were people on the riverbank again.

He was a eunuch.

The eunuch was about forty years old, with a fair complexion and no beard.

But what truly startled Chen Lingxi was the aura emanating from the eunuch.

This person stood there, his aura chaotic yet brimming with the Jade Qi Realm, extremely powerful.

"A person of the Jade Qi Realm?"

Chen Lingxi became increasingly curious.

A person with the Jade Qi Realm, rarely seen in ordinary times, has suddenly appeared here?

At this moment, the coffin-carrying procession reached the eunuch.

The eunuch gently raised the whisk in his hand, and the two Golden Body figures dismounted and bowed to him.

Eight Silver Bones warriors slowly lowered the dark blue coffin from their shoulders and placed it on several round logs that had been prepared on the riverbank.

The eunuch glanced at the giant coffin, pointed towards the river bend, and whispered, "... The time has come. Sink it."

The two Golden Body figures responded and waved to the eight Silver Bones warriors, who then lifted the giant coffin again and walked step by step toward the river bend.

They carried the giant coffin, inch by inch, closer and closer to the deep, dark water in the very center of the river bend.

The eunuch stood on the riverbank, watching the giant coffin being carried to the depths of the river bend. Suddenly, he reached into his robe and took out a compass.

The compass was about the size of a palm and was covered with intricate patterns.

In the center of the plate, there were extremely fine and faint rays of light flowing around, like countless tiny fish swimming across the surface.

Chen Lingxi felt a jolt in her heart, sensing something amiss.

He has been studying the Clear-Mystery Pivot-Qi Formation recorded on the bamboo slip day and night for some time now. From the initial understanding of array formations to being able to barely set up the first layer of the array, he has already exhausted countless efforts.

Even so, he had already gained some basic understanding of formations.

At that moment, he immediately recognized the extraordinary nature of the compass.

"That is... a treasure for setting up and controlling formations, the core of the formation!"

The eunuch tucked his whisk into his waistband, then placed one hand on the compass and made a light, almost imperceptible, gesture towards the depths of the river bend.

The compass suddenly lit up.

Chen Lingxi held her breath.

They saw many Law Seals and hand seals fly out of the Void and fall into the river.

Until the light on the compass gradually dimmed.

The eunuch put the compass back into his robes, turned around, nodded slightly to the two Golden Body statues, and whispered something.

The two men mounted their horses and, leading the eight Silver Bones warriors, returned along the official road in the direction they had come from.

The eunuch himself mounted a black horse that had appeared on the riverbank at some unknown time. He flicked the reins, and the horse's hooves clattered as it soon disappeared into the twilight at the end of the official road.

The riverbank returned to silence.

After a long while, Chen Lingxi emerged from the reeds.

Night had fallen, and the surface of the Summer River shimmered under the cold moonlight.

He walked to the river bend and stood on the pebble beach.

A moment later, he quietly activated the Qi-Observation Technique.

As the spiritual energy entered his eyes, the river bend before him suddenly changed its appearance.

From the depths of the river where the coffin had sunk, a dense spiritual aura was rising!

The spiritual energy was mixed with the river water, and ordinary people could not detect anything unusual with the naked eye.

However, under the Qi-Observation Technique, the river water resembled a boiling Pill Furnace, with swirling spiritual Qi within it.

The spiritual energy surged from the depths of the riverbed, coiling, condensing, and spreading in the water. Finally, it rose to a height of about ten feet above the river surface, where it transformed into a very thin layer of mist that slowly swirled in the night breeze and lingered for a long time.

Chen Lingxi's gaze was immediately fixed on him.

He stood on the pebble beach, staring blankly at the surging spiritual energy.

After a long while, he suddenly frowned.

"No..." he muttered to himself.

After obtaining the bamboo slips, although he only studied them for a few months and his skill in setting up formations was not very high, he had already barely entered the realm of formations.

At this moment, as he stood on the banks of the Summer River, using the Qi-Observation Technique to carefully examine the flow of spiritual energy in the surrounding world, he vaguely sensed an extremely hidden array node!

The more he looked, the more horrified he became.

He sensed that the terrain and river course within an unknown radius had been reorganized by an extremely sophisticated method.

Those seemingly ordinary river curves, bends, and undulating mountains on both sides all subtly correspond to some extremely profound principles of divination.

Emperor Daye extensively constructed canals, which crisscrossed like the lines on a chessboard.

The newly opened Summer River waterway, the giant coffin sunk to the bottom of the river...

Chen Lingxi turned her gaze away from the river bend and suddenly recalled a sentence from that manifesto.

"An imperial edict was issued to all the prefectures, ordering the construction of the Grand Canal. Iron shackles and chains bound the flesh and blood of the common people; the whistling of leather whips drove the people to their deaths."

"In two years, forty-nine canals were built! Mountains were dug and valleys filled, the graves of countless people were destroyed; dikes were breached and rivers were cut off, the fields and houses of thousands of villages were ruined."

Chen Lingxi's breathing suddenly became heavier.

"Canals, eunuchs, battle formations..."

Suddenly, an extremely absurd yet vaguely explainable conjecture came to his mind.

Emperor Daye.

Emperor Daye ascended the throne more than 30 years ago, before Xiao Changlü raised an army and before the country was in chaos.

Until he began to expand the canals.

He ignored even the dying remonstrances of senior court officials.

Even after rebellions broke out, this Great Ye Emperor continued to dig new waterways at any cost, emptying the national treasury, undermining the foundation of the state, and driving tens of millions of people to their deaths.

Why?

"Are these canals, mountains, rivers, and seas part of a formation?"

Chen Lingxi took a deep breath, forcefully suppressing the turbid air that surged to her chest.

"Who... is this Emperor Daye?"

P. S.: An extra chapter was added yesterday when the monthly votes reached 100.