"The situation is turning grim," one said.
"Hasn't it always been like this?" came the reply.
...
Eagles soar through the sky, fish dart in the shallow waters,...
On the second day of the Lunar New Year, in the south of the capital city, there was an empty courtyard.
“It just so happens to be the Five Heavenly Lords. If we let Qianxia go, this matter won’t be a big deal.” Yaochi said as she removed her veil, adding even more color to the already bright room.
"That Shao Yuanjie and Tao something are so annoying! Pfft!" Li Qianxia spat out the sunflower seed shells in her mouth, her little mouth never stopping.
“I can make a fake one for Jiajing,” suggested Linglan, one of Yaochi’s subordinates. She was petite and delicate, wearing a green dress embroidered with butterflies.
“I can help too,” one of Bi’s men said.
Both of them possess the skill or instinct to change their appearance.
“That’s an idea,” Yaochi said, picking up the tea Violet had poured for her. “It’s a pity the other four can’t be together. If we impersonate them, they’ll just show up on their own.”
"Brother?" Li Qianxia cracked sunflower seeds, turned her gaze to Li Changzhou, and asked for his opinion.
Li Changzhou leaned back on the couch, holding Zhang Sanfeng's "Direct Guide to Mysteries," constantly focused, occasionally entering a state of deep concentration.
From time to time, I would recall the Taoist teachings I had memorized, or a passage or two of scripture, and compare them to analyze them, deepen my understanding, and explore their essence.
Seeing his serious expression, Li Qianxia spat out the sunflower seed shells in her mouth and asked curiously, "Can you understand sentences like this that don't have commas or periods and are written in a rather nonsensical way?"
“Where can you find a lawyer who can’t reconcile accounts or understand audit reports? What liberal arts student can’t understand these?” Li Changzhou sighed at his sister’s foolishness and put “The Profound Secrets” into his sleeve.
Yang Qinglan smiled slightly, her eyes gazing at him clear and bright like autumn water.
"What are your plans for the future?" she asked.
Li Changzhou looked out the window. The snow that started last night hadn't stopped, and a layer of white had piled up on the window like a city wall.
"No player will place their hopes on someone else. I don't need, nor can I expect, the Jiajing Emperor's mercy."
"Why don't we just teleport him there, grab him, and kill him?" Bi said, eating candy.
Li Changzhou chuckled and said, "Kill him? I'd rather capture him and use him to suppress those so-called Heavenly Lords, Celestial Masters, and Sect Leaders, and slaughter all the cultivators like chickens and ducks."
"Hmm, cough! That's a good idea!" Li Qianxia said hurriedly, choking on a sunflower seed, but her eyes were bright.
"What's wrong with that!" Yaochi handed her a cup of water.
Li Qianxia drank her water as she listened to her continue, "What's the point of killing them? They've been dead for hundreds of years. Jiajing is the key to this mission; we can't easily touch him."
“I agree with this view,” Yang Qinglan said slowly to Li Changzhou. “The fact that he asked you to capture the Five Heavenly Lords, but didn’t attack you directly, proves that he hasn’t given up on his dream of obtaining immortality from you. On the contrary, just as Yaochi said, those Five Heavenly Lords are people who have been dead for hundreds of years—”
"Hello, hello!" Li Qianxia protested.
Yang Qinglan ignored her: "—And besides, he had committed many evils, so killing him is fine."
"Be careful," Yaochi added, "When you're undergoing tribulation to become an immortal, these people might be your tribulations."
“It could also be ours,” Yang Qinglan said.
"What do you mean 'his' and 'ours'?" Bi was annoyed.
“What I mean is,” Li Qianxia put down her cup and grabbed a handful of watermelon seeds, “that is, the Five Heavenly Kings, pui, the Four Heavenly Kings are not just four people, there will be many people ambushing my brother, and we will be unlucky too.”
“I understand,” Bi nodded. “There’s going to be some excitement, right?”
"...You can understand it that way too."
Princess Bi's five Russian female subordinates laughed and giggled.
That's what they say, but they'll still have to lend a hand when the time comes.
Bi obtained some magical spells from Li Changzhou and also received a number of residential slots at the lunar base. In exchange, they gave up this mission and instead helped Li Changzhou.
"With so many of us, six plus six plus three, that's fifteen people. We're not afraid of any number of them coming, right?" Li Qianxia said confidently.
“We need to allocate some resources to protect Jiajing.” Li Changzhou tapped his fingers on the small table on the couch, his mind actually filled with Taoist scriptures. “The zombie fungus has been eradicated, but there’s still a problem with that Consort Cao.”
"And the Empress." Yang Qinglan and Yaochi said in unison.
Li Changzhou couldn't help but come back to his senses and looked at the two of them with a hint of surprise.
Yang Qinglan was dressed in white, her skin as white as snow, and her expression serene.
Yaochi smiled sweetly, her smile as beautiful as a blooming red flower, captivating and enchanting—she must have activated some effect of being a favored concubine.
"What's wrong with the Empress?" Li Changzhou still didn't know that the person who touched his hand that night was not Yaochi, but the Jade Hand Beauty, Empress Fang.
"Her problem is the biggest." That was all Yaochi said.
Li Changzhou didn't ask any more questions: "Capturing the Four Heavenly Kings is quite dangerous. Qinglan, Qianxia, Yaochi, and Bi will go. The other ten people will use their instincts and skills to go to the palace to protect and monitor Emperor Jiajing. If necessary, they can be taken away directly."
Yaochi's five beautiful subordinates all looked at Yaochi. Although Li Changzhou would most likely become their boss, he wasn't at the moment.
"Let's listen to him," Yaochi said with a smile.
This is also to protect them.
“Princess, we cannot let you act alone,” Misha said to Bi with a serious expression.
"You want to rebel?" Bi pointed at her with the candy in her hand, her little face extremely stern.
Misha's lips moved, but in the end she didn't say anything. She could only turn to Li Changzhou and say, "Mr. Li, please be sure to protect the princess."
"Don't worry," Li Changzhou said with a smile, "If anything happens, I'll teleport away immediately, making me safer than you all."
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