Unable to find any clues based on the intelligence, Zheng Ya could only remain inactive and observe the situation.
The external situation is already in chaos.
The first to bear the brunt was Emperor Chengping, who was caught in the flames of war between foreign invasion and internal strife, and had to help Xie Ming clean up the mess.
Chief Eunuch Dai Quan seized the opportunity to speak: "Your Majesty, with Protector Xie leaving the capital, this is the perfect time for Your Majesty to regain control of the realm..."
"Shut up, you dog slave! Others don't know that I'm striving for immortality, which is why I joined forces with Protector Xie Ming to scheme against the people of the world. Don't you know that, you dog slave?" Emperor Chengping angrily threw a handful of memorials, which hit Dai Quan, who was kneeling on the ground, and scattered them all over the ground.
The path to immortality was Emperor Chengping's lifelong pursuit.
For this reason, he was willing to humble himself before Xie Ming and spare no effort to obtain the methods and techniques for achieving immortality that Xie Ming possessed.
Unfortunately, Xie Ming never trusted Emperor Chengping's family from beginning to end.
Xie Ming gradually gave Emperor Chengping a taste of the benefits, allowing him to cultivate supernatural abilities, while also misleading him into believing that refining spiritual treasures was the only shortcut to immortality.
This misleading information is partly true and partly false.
Even if one refines spiritual treasures, it cannot help one become an immortal or attain enlightenment. Ultimately, one must rely on one's own cultivation.
Indeed, the presence of extraordinary treasures is a shortcut to the rise of those with supernatural abilities.
Moreover, it is an indispensable treasure.
Without a special treasure by their side, even if a person has a high-level talent or ability, they will find it difficult to break through to the seventh rank in their lifetime.
A seventh-tier ability user in the Qian Yuan Continent is equivalent to the level of the Primordial Era's Three Corpses Severing Realm.
When a rare treasure evolves to the seventh rank, it can grow into an avatar of the original being, replacing the original being's source of good and evil, reaching the true self of the soul, and touching a higher realm.
Therefore, the accompanying rare treasures are very important.
Even Zheng Ya was unaware of this fact, so Xie Ming naturally couldn't tell Emperor Chengping the truth. He merely used this as an excuse to deceive Emperor Chengping into working for him.
Dai Quan, an observer with a clearer perspective, knelt down with heavy heart and pleaded, "Your Majesty, this servant would rather believe Fu Ya than Xie Ming..."
"You bastard, how dare you say that?"
Don't you know that Fu Ya is Zheng Ya, who once tried to overthrow the Da Li Dynasty and has now helped the Prince of Donglin to divide my Jiangnan region? He is a complete traitor.
"You old fool, you dare to advise me to trust him?" Emperor Chengping grabbed a memorial from the table and threw it at someone for the second time, venting his frustration.
There's no going back in life; one wrong step leads to another.
Unfortunately, it was too late to regret it.
Several times in the dead of night, Emperor Chengping would wake up in his dreams, regretting that he should not have believed Xie Ming's lies and that he had boarded a pirate ship from which there was no way to get off.
The turning point came when Zheng Ya disrupted the capital, but unfortunately, he failed to seize it and instead trusted Xie Ming while rejecting Zheng Ya, leading to the current situation.
Xie Ming was an extremely patient man. Emperor Chengping was afraid that Xie Ming would expose their cooperation and plot against the retired emperor and the entire Zheng imperial family. Coupled with the emperor's suspicious nature, Emperor Chengping distrusted Zheng Ya, a man who could create tens of thousands of invincible troops with a wave of his hand.
Zheng Ya is in too much danger.
How can I tolerate someone else snoring beside my bed?
Dai Quan understood his master's predicament: "Your Majesty is wise. Now is the perfect opportunity to destroy the Xie and form an alliance with the Zheng!"
"Hmm, continue?" Emperor Chengping raised the memorial three times, but did not throw it. He slowly put down the memorial in his hand, showing interest.
Dai Quan wiped his sweat with his sleeve and smiled obsequiously: "Your Majesty, the Yanlong Iron Cavalry invaded Lingtian Pass. They seemed fierce and repeatedly inflicted heavy losses on the soldiers guarding the pass, but they always sounded the retreat just as they were about to break through Lingtian Pass."
There must be something fishy about this.
Considering Xie Ming's departure from Beijing, his struggle for the Dragon Palace Secret Realm treasure map, and the transfer of a portion of the Flame Dragon Iron Cavalry, there seems to be some connection.
"This servant suspects this is a grand scheme, subtly reminiscent of the Immortal Dynasty, heading straight for the secret realm of ascension to the upper realm?"
This is not Dequan exaggerating the facts.
If we're talking about collecting the surviving books and artifacts of the Immortal Dynasty, the Great Li royal family is undoubtedly the best at it.
The chaos of the celestial dynasties may have been a battle for the secret realm of ascension to the upper realm, unknown to the world. But the Zheng royal family knew perfectly well that it was a world-destroying war aimed at obtaining the secret realm of ascension to immortality.
The Immortal Dynasties were locked in a chaotic war that led to the world being torn apart and the people suffering.
This led to a chaotic war among the feudal lords, and the beneficiaries of the Great War of the Immortal Dynasty were forgotten.
However, the Zheng royal family knew some of these secrets, and many of those who ultimately benefited ascended to the upper realm.
These kinds of messages would not normally have reached the eyes and mouths of ordinary people.
However, those people were unwilling to give up and took the initiative to inform the Zheng family ancestors that after the collapse of the Immortal Dynasty, there were scattered secret realms for ascending to the upper realm, which were left for the Zheng family to develop and inherit.
It seems like a well-intentioned reminder.
Even a fool could tell that the other party had ill intentions.
They're afraid that if the Ascension Inheritance Secret Realm doesn't emerge, the spiritual treasures hidden within it will be buried in this world!
The reason people told the Zheng family about the secret realm of ascension was that they hoped one of the Zheng family's disciples would obtain the spiritual treasures within the secret realm, cultivate immortality, and ascend to immortality. They were essentially using the treasures to deliver wealth to others, acting as money-giving boys or tools.
Even so, anyone would do it!
In order to become an immortal and gain eternal life, they are willing to do so even if they know they are falling into someone else's conspiracy!
Emperor Chengping was previously agitated because of this matter, fearing that Xie Ming had entered the secret realm of ascension inheritance and taken away the longevity opportunity that originally belonged to the Zheng royal family: "I am fully aware of this matter, there is no need to say more."
"I'd like to know what your plan is, you old codger?"
"Your Majesty, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth is becoming increasingly scarce, which is seriously affecting the progress of cultivation to ascend to immortality."
"Then it would be reasonable to set up a scheme to kill all the cultivators in the world!" Dai Quan gave him a wake-up call, pointing out the obvious without revealing it, which is the way of a lackey.
Emperor Chengping's mind raced through a series of thoughts in an instant, and he slammed his fist on the table in shock: "Good, what a brilliant scheme! A scheme to kill with a borrowed knife and plunder the spiritual energy of heaven and earth!"
This is someone using a convenient tool to kill other cultivators while plotting to seize the secret realm of ascension, thus providing them with the spiritual energy to achieve immortality!
"Your Majesty is wise and powerful; it's time to invest!" Dai Quan reminded him once again. Emperor Chengping fell into deep thought, then frowned and analyzed, "It seems I have the advantage of timing, location, and popular support!"
First of all, Wu Wei is my seventh princess. Regardless of whether she is a transmigrator or not, even though she took over my seventh princess's body, she still shares a blood relationship with me.
Secondly, I never broke ties with Zheng Ya. Even if we became enemies, I could find an opportunity to shift the blame onto Xie Ming. It wouldn't be a problem to be on good terms with him.
Finally, if Xie Mingruo is the ultimate beneficiary, he owes me a debt of gratitude for saving his life and for protecting and supporting him. There is no reason for him to abandon me and ascend to immortality alone!
If that's the case, it seems that my only opponent is Shengxiang?
"Then should I issue an edict to hunt down Sheng Xiang, secretly support Wu Wei, Zheng Ya, and Xie Ming, and invest in them from multiple directions, advancing together?"
“Your Majesty, the Tianyan Mountains cannot be ignored. There may be a great secret hidden there, perhaps another secret realm for ascension inheritance?” Dai Quan stood up and whispered in his ear.
This made Emperor Chengping gasp: "Hiss, if that's the case, wouldn't that mean..."
A fierce battle of overt and covert struggles has begun.
Wu Wei, one of the parties involved, rode his Thundercloud Eagle, circling above the clouds, peering down at the place where carrier pigeons, peregrine falcons, and gyrfalcons gathered—Linjiang Tower—and locked onto a certain person: "Hmph, I've finally found your hiding place, Zheng Ya. Don't even think about staying out of this and playing the victim, hehehe."
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