Chapter 1382: My Justice (Part 2) [Requesting Monthly Tickets]
Luan Xin sensed Xiang Zhao's worry, and his eyes softened even more.
He said slowly, "Why are you worried about me? If you fall for such a low-class scheme, wouldn't you become a laughing stock?"
Luan Xin possessed a refined and scholarly demeanor, yet he also had an easy-going face, much like a dignified and serious teacher in a town's private school who, no matter how badly his students bullied him, would only stand there stamping his feet and lamenting. In reality, however, he was also the type to draw his sword and kill someone in a fit of rage.
Especially the two years after his right leg became completely disabled.
He was in a foul mood at the time, and his whole being was like a bedbug hiding in a damp, dark place, completely enveloped in a gloomy, twisted aura. If he removed his headdress and let his hair fall loose, he would look exactly like a dark male ghost who died with his eyes wide open in disbelief.
Xiang Zhao: "...It's better to be safe than sorry."
If Luan Xin's body and identity fell into the hands of the Central Branch, Kangguo would be thrown into chaos. The Minister of Personnel, as the head of the Six Ministries, wielded immense power and had countless ways to bring down a royal court from within. As long as he deliberately avoided acquaintances, it wouldn't be discovered for a short time that he had a different soul. Fortunately, Luan Xin didn't fall for it, and a crisis was averted.
"Come on, do you want to leave with me?" Even though Luan Xin had already guessed Xiang Zhao's answer, his selfishness still compelled him to ask the question. There were too many variables in the enemy camp, and if Xiang Zhao were to be discovered still alive, she would face a dead end.
It's better to get away sooner and have peace of mind.
As expected, Xiang Zhao shook his head and politely declined.
"It's not wise to create any more complications right now. Secondly, I need to stay. Only by knowing yourself and your enemy can you win every battle." These people are different from the enemies Kang Guo has encountered before, both in terms of their methods and strength. "Besides, we also need to find other people."
"Others?"
"Hmm, from what I've heard, the central branch has imprisoned a group of women who share the same ancestor as me." Male offspring cannot pass on this bloodline to the next generation; only women can. Women with this bloodline possess extraordinary vitality and are said to be the best vessels. The inner society of the Pantheon has a history of indiscriminate killing and capture, making them increasingly difficult to find now.
The high-ranking families of the central branch of the society came up with a wicked idea.
If you can't find "wild" ones, then you'll "domesticate" them yourself.
If a daughter is born, she is kept; if a son is born, he is drowned.
Xiang Zhao didn't know the scale of the "domesticated" operation, so he could only continue to lie low and wait for a good opportunity. At the same time, he could also be used as an informant planted in the enemy's territory, which might come in handy at a critical moment.
besides--
“The prisoners who are redeemed must also be carefully vetted.”
A group of spies will be planted among the prisoners.
Xiang Zhao didn't know exactly who it was.
However, she was certain that these spies would be well hidden, because there was a scholar in the enemy camp who was skilled in this art.
"And..." Xiang Zhao hesitated, then stopped.
Luan Xin waited patiently for what was to come, but the latter's reaction was even slower than his: "If it's inconvenient, you don't have to say it."
Xiang Zhao took a deep breath: "This concerns Shen Jun."
Xiang Zhao wasn't sure if it was just her imagination, but she felt that Luan Xin's reaction this time was faster than before: "Is it related to the Lord?"
Xiang Zhao said, "It was information I discovered by chance..."
Two flowers bloom, each representing a different branch.
Luo San and Gongyang Yongye took turns keeping watch at night, one keeping an eye on Luan Xin and the oil lamp, the other keeping watch on the surroundings, afraid that the enemy might sneak in again if they were not careful. Seeing that the oil in the lamp was dwindling and the wick was about to burn out, Luo San was prepared to forcibly wake Luan Xin at any moment. Fortunately, before Luo San could act, Luan Xin woke up on his own, his eyes lifeless.
Gongyang Yongye lowered his voice, as if afraid of disturbing someone.
"Isn't something wrong with him?"
Luo San waited anxiously, saying, "Don't rush, let's take another look."
He didn't look like he'd been possessed; rather, he seemed to be having a good nap, his drowsiness just beginning to wear off. Gongyang Yongye grabbed a teacup, his right hand scooping up a handful of ice-cold tea, and flicked the droplets at Luan Xin's face. Luan Xin jolted from the coolness.
The sleepiness completely dissipated, and my eyes gradually cleared.
He slowly raised his hand to wipe the water droplets from his face: "It's me."
Luo San breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this: "What's wrong with you, young man? You're so young, yet you're slower than an old man."
He almost thought Luan Xin had been framed.
Luan Xin slowly said, "It's just the drawback of the power of words."
Upon learning that Luan Xin's condition was normal, the two men finally breathed a sigh of relief. With more than an hour until dawn, the three, exhausted from a night of activity, had no energy to care about anything else. After exchanging a few words, they all went back to sleep, completely unaware that a major incident had occurred in the enemy camp—or rather, a murder.
In another part of the camp, several people were gathered inside a tent.
A corpse with a ferocious expression lay on the ground of the tent.
Judging from the still-warm skin of the corpse, he had died recently. The group gathered there certainly weren't discussing how he died or who the killer was. They didn't care about those questions; they were more concerned with something else.
"I warned him long ago that Luan Gongyi was a senior figure in Kangguo, and the possibility of him being possessed was extremely small. He could even lose his life if he was not careful." The young scholar dressed in black broke the silence first, his tone cheerful, with a hint of schadenfreude. "Now look what happened, he's lost his life. But at this age, dying can be considered a happy death."
He enjoyed a life of luxury and wealth during his lifetime.
He deserved to suffer a little when he died.
No one can have all the advantages.
"...This move is dangerous, but the odds of success are high. Luan Gongyi is Shen Youli's confidant, one of the few people who can get close to her without being on guard, and he is also the Minister of Personnel of Kang State..." Once the plan succeeds, they can slowly replace their people with their own, completely undermining and replacing Kang State without anyone noticing. Even if they can't do that, they can still divide them from within.
As a result, they ran into a brick wall right from the first step.
The person tasked with possessing Luan Xin's body today, though not a veteran of the central branch, still holds some status. Suffering from a strange illness and confined to his bed for years, he has become emaciated, skeletal, and afraid of bright light. Seeing that he is nearing death, his strong will to live has driven him to repeatedly urge the branch to prepare a new body for him. However, there is currently no suitable vessel, and the possession ritual requires certain stringent conditions to be met. Therefore, they have no choice but to seek another method…
The central branch has long been developing in this direction.
A precious vessel and a rigorous ritual are both indispensable, making the threshold for "body possession for eternal life" incredibly high. Most importantly, there are far more applicants than available options. To prevent internal discord and chaos, the branch has been actively searching for lower-threshold alternatives in recent years—must the new body vessel be of a specific bloodline? Can't ordinary people use one? Can the stringent ritual be replaced with other abilities to achieve the same effect? Countless efforts have been invested, and a breakthrough has indeed been made, but there are no successful examples yet.
Today's risky move against Luan Xin is like being forced into a corner.
This elder statesman could no longer hold on.
He had only managed to survive until now thanks to the continuous flow of spiritual energy into his heart and dantian. But as time went on, his meridians became like a tattered rag patched up beyond repair; even a god couldn't save him. He had to either take a gamble or lie there and wait to die. He chose the gamble, and he chose Luan Xin instead of the pre-prepared vessel, and so he died.
This result did not surprise Lin Su at all.
The information revealed in his dream was enough to shock him.
He boasted that he had seen many strange and unusual ways of the literati, but he had never seen anyone whose ability was as almost unsolvable as Luan Xin's.
It should be said that Luan Xin and Xiang Zhao are teacher and student.
The scholarly paths of the master and disciple were remarkably similar.
Lin Su interrupted the man's rambling impatiently: "Everyone knows how valuable Luan Gongyi is, you don't need to emphasize it, but you also need to know what it means to accept the consequences of a gamble. Possession always carries risks."
"How can you be sure it's not that you're unwilling to give it your all?"
Lin Su's background is not a secret in the Chinese community.
He broke with the Lin family and was kicked out, but blood ties are unbreakable. Whether it's the Lin family members struggling in the central region or the branch of the Lin family that Lin Feng established in Kangguo, they can theoretically be Lin Su's way out.
“Listen to what you’re saying. Do you even believe it yourself? I, Lin, want this method to work more than anyone else here.”
Otherwise, Lin Su wouldn't have agreed to help.
"It's his own fault for being so useless."
The greatest risk of possession lies not in anything else, but in the struggle for control of the body—the original owner has lived in this body since birth, and in every way, they are perfectly compatible. An outsider soul, without a physical body to rely on, forcibly barges in to take over the body; wouldn't that lead to a fight? Look at how weak this old man is! Even with Lin Su's help, temporarily tricking Luan Xin into "leaving" to make it easier for the old man to break in, he still couldn't control himself.
When Luan Xin returned home, he found his house had been burgled. A normal person's first reaction would naturally be to draw their sword and kill the thief. The old man was extremely weak, and Luan Xin killed him with just two punches.
Yes, that's why they don't possess martial artists' bodies.
"Alright, let's leave it at that." The man at the head of the table spoke up, setting the tone for the matter and stopping a pointless argument. "Write a letter to his family to inform them of the death, and remember to be thorough."
The overlap between the Central Family and the Central Branch's founding members is extremely high.
Leveraging their platform, they accumulated wealth unimaginable to ordinary people over two centuries. Regardless of the changes in the central continent, they always maintained control of the situation. While the deceased's family wasn't among the giants, they held a significant position, controlling a considerable portion of the food supply. With the patriarch's failed attempt to possess someone and his death, this family might well harbor resentment…
At the same time, it is also necessary to spend time appeasing other members.
Specifically, these are members waiting in line for immortality and a chance to extend their lives.
If the "equivalent possession" plan fails, everyone will focus on the most promising "expensive possession," which, with too many applicants for too few opportunities, could easily lead to internal strife and infighting. Ultimately, the key to the peaceful coexistence and uncompromising military cooperation within the central branch is that "everyone can obtain possession and extend their lives!"
If these needs cannot be met, if the balance of interests is disrupted...
Trouble will follow.
After everyone had left, Lin Su did not leave.
"Could the Alliance Leader please enlighten me?"
"Why are you being so polite with me, Anzhi? I'll tell you everything I know."
"Possession and resurrection, immortality... do they really exist?"
"Didn't An Zhi see it with his own eyes?" The man referred to as the alliance leader spoke with a hidden meaning; the owner of Xiang Zhao's body was not Xiang Zhao. Besides Xiang Zhao, Lin Su had met several others before.
These are irrefutable pieces of evidence.
Lin Su said, "...but I still find it unbelievable."
"Greed is more expansive than heaven and earth," the alliance leader said. "As long as greed exists, anything is possible. Just as I cannot understand why, given the beautiful world described in ancient texts, humans would destroy it with their own hands? After much thought, it seems only the phrase 'insatiable greed' can explain it..."
Lin Su: "..."
He couldn't understand it either.
From the leader of the alliance, Lin Su learned that thousands of years ago, there was a group of people who multiplied on this land, numbering in the hundreds of millions. It was said to be a place where doors were left unlocked at night, lost items were not picked up on the road, and everyone was well-fed and clothed. Ordinary people among them could easily travel thousands of miles a day, and knowledge was something they could pick up with a simple bend of their waist... Much of this was beyond Lin Su's imagination.
However, that world was also destroyed.
The alliance leader's original words were: "If they weren't destroyed, how could we exist?"
The reason the alliance leader sought out Lin Su was quite simple—
"Since insatiable greed leads to self-destruction, let's do the opposite. Humans are inherently base, especially the ignorant masses. If we want peace here, there's only one way—" the leader sneered, "You must make them suffer, but not to the point of death! Make them forever toil on the road to sustenance, hovering between being full and starving. Let their minds be filled with how to survive, leaving them no time to think about anything else. Only a few wise men are needed."
This is similar to hunting.
The stronger the prey, the more stamina it requires.
But with only running forward on their minds, they had no energy to think about how to escape by trickery until they were exhausted.
Lin Su asked him: "A wise man?"
Alliance Leader: [The wise need immortality! Since not every generation produces wise men, let the wise be granted immortality.]
The wise will keep everything firmly in control.
This will prevent these ignorant people from having the energy to start another war.
In this way, the world can be at peace.
The central factions are all secretly practicing this method, and this place is relatively peaceful throughout the continent, which proves that this path is correct. What he needs to do is expand its scope to the entire continent!
Lin Su neither agreed nor disagreed with the leader's words.
The collaboration between the two was purely coincidental; they each got what they needed.
"If Anzhi still doesn't believe it, wait until I live forever, and everything will be clear." The leader was very confident in his plan.
Lin Su's lips twitched slightly. He tried to ease the atmosphere and jokingly asked in a lighthearted tone, "Do you really want to be a delicate maiden?"
For a stable possession to occur, the vessel can only be a woman with special bloodlines. Having been a man for most of his life, would he be willing to become a woman overnight? The Alliance Leader laughed, "Shouldn't we thank Shen Youli for setting a precedent? A beautiful woman it is..."
After saying that, he raised his pinky finger and gave a flirtatious wink.
Lin Su: "..."
|ω`)
I absolutely have to work hard to catch up on the writing today! Type as fast as I can!
P.S.: I never imagined that Western media hegemony would be breached in such a dramatic way. A small leak can sink a great ship; who knows when this breach will widen...? The content these past few days has truly left me stunned. The American people really do have an iron will! _(:з」∠)_ *knocks a wooden fish, adding one to my merits*
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