The Spirit Hall Main Hall in Skyfrost City.
Long Yue burst into Tong Yu's room like a whirlwind. "I found out, I found out! We're going to Heaven Dou City first."
After returning from the little village, Long Yue had gone straight to Sima Lanxiao and confirmed their next destination for Tong Yu.
"Phew-that's good." Qilin Douluo Tong Yu breathed a sigh of relief.
Long Yue sat down beside Tong Yu, picked up a cup, and gulped water like a whale swallowing the sea. "Senior Brother, I won't lie to you. The foreign minister seemed to have decided on Heaven Dou City ages ago. Whether I asked or offered any suggestions made no difference."
Tong Yu understood. It was the emperor's order.
Since Emperor Dai Tianling had thought of sending Tong Yu to guard the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, he would naturally have thought of having Sima Lanxiao visit Heaven Dou City first.
Following the delegation into the Spirit Hall Main Hall hadn't really been a mistake. They were going to Heaven Dou City anyway.
Still, seeing Long Yue run around on his behalf made Tong Yu rather embarrassed. "Thanks for your efforts, Junior Brother."
Tong Yu had noticed that Long Yue preferred calling them Senior Brother and junior brother to addressing each other by name.
He didn't dislike that.
After all, Tong Yu had been En Ci's eldest disciple. He had simply committed a crime and all but been expelled from his master's tutelage.
"Hey! There's no need for that between us!"
Long Yue clapped Tong Yu on the shoulder, treating the Super Douluo as a brother.
"But, Senior Brother Tong Yu, if I ever ask you for help, don't turn me down."
"Of course I won't."
Tong Yu smiled, revealing sharp fangs in his terrifying face.
In his seventy years of life, only his mother, his teacher En Ci, and his youngest junior brother Long Yue had treated him sincerely.
"But I'll probably spend the rest of my life at the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well. As for matters in the Star Luo Empire... on the Spirit Ice Continent, I'm afraid I won't be much help."
At that, Tong Yu's heart grew heavy.
"Relax, relax." Long Yue patted Tong Yu. "Senior Brother, don't forget that I'm going to restore your reputation."
"How?" Tong Yu asked. He had wanted to ask back on the ship, but Long Yue had never told him.
Now Long Yue could no longer dodge the question. "Reconstruct the truth and write out exactly what happened back then."
Tong Yu breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought you were going to use some crooked trick, like flat-out denying that I tortured someone to death."
If Long Yue really did that, Tong Yu might rather spend the rest of his life imprisoned at the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
"How could I scrub you clean? That's not how public relations works." Long Yue picked up two apples from the table. "Simply put, we compare who's worse."
Tong Yu had a bad feeling.
"You're a murderer, but that girl wasn't a good person either.
"School bullying, gold-digging, cheating, intentional bodily harm... what you did was merely revenge.
"Never mind whether it's true. Dump the bucket of shit over her head first.
"Qilin Douluo avenged his mother. Even if his methods were brutal, it was a momentary outburst of rage.
"That's the angle that'll make public opinion sympathize with you."
Long Yue spread his hands, looking as though human lives meant little to him.
"A Super Douluo, especially a living Super Douluo like you, is definitely worth more than she was. With Teacher throwing his weight behind it too, there won't be a problem.
"As for public opinion and talking points, I'll just go to Su Mu.
"Su Mu's family or Ye Zhi's family can both lend a hand. Their families control some of the news outlets in the imperial capital. They have enough reach."
Tong Yu found this approach rather distasteful. "Isn't that abusing power for private gain? And doing that to her reputation..."
"Didn't she break your mother's legs?"
Long Yue stared at Qilin Douluo in shock, genuinely feeling that cultivation had turned the man's brain to mush.
"Senior Brother, if we were really to have a fair trial under imperial law, you should kill yourself right now.
"But you haven't.
"When the old man saved you back then, you didn't choose to kill yourself either... there's something you can't let go of, isn't there? Heh."
Long Yue gave him the smile of a little devil who had peered into the secrets of the human heart, then waggled his eyebrows at Tong Yu.
"Still thinking about your Senior Female Student? Figures. Even now, you're still a cuck... a man who hopes her reputation won't suffer."
Long Yue had almost let his true thoughts slip out.
"..." Tong Yu was silent.
Back then, his Senior Female Student had told Tong Yu that she hoped to see the day he stood at the pinnacle. For those words, Tong Yu had kept striving toward the cultivation level of a Limit Douluo.
He really had been doing it for his Senior Female Student.
In the end, Sima Lanxiao still decided to go to Heaven Dou City.
His reason was perfectly sound: they would visit the Douluo Continent from north to south in order, without having to retrace their steps.
After politely declining Bishop He Mian's invitation, the imperial delegation departed Skyfrost City, crossed the Lower Hekem Plain, and reached Longxing City, which was under the Star Luo Empire's effective control.
For days, the sky had been cloudless for ten thousand miles, and plains surrounded them... the route ahead was still plains. The delegation would also have to cross the Lingdou Plain to reach Heaven Dou City.
However, after so much time on the road, the imperial delegation decided to rest in Longxing City for a day.
Longxing City lay in the northern Star Luo Empire, less than two hundred li from the border between the two great empires. It was a true frontier city.
The city had originally belonged to the Gulei Kingdom. The Star Luo Empire had seized it during a war more than fifty years ago and had never returned it.
"If the Star Luo Empire loves fighting wars so much, isn't there any war-weariness at home?" Long Yue leaned against the carriage, holding a handful of melon seeds and cracking them as he spoke.
Their guide doubled as their carriage driver and was an envoy found by the Heaven Frost Grand Duke. He had been timid at first, but relaxed once he saw how approachable Long Yue was.
"How could there be? The people of the Star Luo Empire are rotten to the core. How could they not love war?"
The guide launched into political commentary on the Star Luo Empire's autocratic dictatorship, calling it a war machine.
"I heard the Gulei Kingdom has already sided with the Star Luo Empire. Is that true?" Joander asked.
Long Yue couldn't sit still. Wherever they went, he would find a guide to chat with and listen to gossip-Joander also followed him around, though he did so purely to gather intelligence.
"Yes..."
The guide furtively glanced around and only dared to speak once he saw that no one was paying attention. "It's a rumor. The Gulei Kingdom plans to throw its lot in with the Star Luo Empire completely. Its condition is that the Longxing City region be handed back to them."
Long Yue grew animated. "Huh? Then didn't the Star Luo Empire fight for nothing? A bunch of people died, and they didn't even get the land."
"That, I don't know."
The guide thought, These people from the Divine Realm Empire really are stupid. What could an ordinary little commoner like me know? You're heading to Heaven Dou City on a diplomatic mission anyway. Why not just ask the emperor directly?
As they chatted, the imperial delegation soon entered Longxing City. Star Luo Empire soldiers were everywhere, and the gate tax was outrageous.
Once Sima Lanxiao stepped forward to intervene, the Star Luo Empire's men didn't dare collect the tax and let the delegation straight into the city.
The Divine Realm Empire's delegation included a Titled Douluo. That fact alone meant the Star Luo Empire's men had to respectfully prepare a residence for them.
The people from the city lord's residence soon made all the arrangements.
Joander and the others scattered again, ostensibly to buy local specialties and experience local life, but in reality to gather intelligence.
Only firsthand inspections and observations could provide the most accurate intelligence.
That was why the delegation would rather travel by such an ancient, backward means of transport as a carriage and personally measure the lands of the Douluo Continent.
Otherwise, couldn't Sima Lanxiao simply pilot a Mecha to Heaven Dou City and be done with it?
"Whose residence is that?" Long Yue suddenly pointed at a mansion next door.
The residence occupied an enormous area. Its thick, towering perimeter walls stood more than four meters high, while the gatehouse rose more than six meters-it looked even grander than the city lord's residence.
A plaque bearing the single character "Defense" hung above the gatehouse.
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