Chapter 144

As the battle between Li Miao and the middle-aged man intensified, the sound spread out.

After about the time of one stick of incense, even the prefectural Prefectural Yamen could hear the thunderous sound.

The local police chief came out of the prefect's office, sighed, gathered his men, and rushed toward the An mansion.

About a hundred or two hundred feet away, he could see many people gathered at the gate of the An mansion, chattering and poking their heads to look inside.

"Official business! Bystanders keep away!"

He shouted, and the Prefectural Yamen runners under him understood, immediately stepped forward, hands on their sword hilts, forcing the onlookers back.

"Chief, are we really going in?" a confidant leaned over to him and whispered.

"This An family is involved in the Ordinary Jianghu; who knows if there's a fierce person from the Ordinary Jianghu inside, looking for revenge. Listening to this commotion, the scene is not small. If we get involved, we'll be in trouble."

The police chief sighed.

He also wished he could pretend he didn't hear it. But since the prefect had spoken, he had to go and clarify the situation.

At that time, he could only "be careful everywhere, enter slowly and retreat quickly, and kneel if it doesn't work."

The police chief picked a few confidants and was about to step into the An mansion.

"Stop!"

But he heard a sharp shout from the crowd behind him.

The police chief turned to look, and a person squeezed out of the crowd, covered in mud, and even with some undried bloodstains. His hair was disheveled, his eyes were bloodshot, and there were two huge dark circles under his eyes. At this moment, he was gasping for breath, sweating profusely, and in a sorry state.

"Who are you? How dare you block the official runners!"

A Prefectural Yamen runner stepped forward to stop him.

SLAP!

The man reached out and slapped him, spinning the runner around in place before he collapsed to the ground.

"You!"

The police runners drew their swords one after another, glaring at the man.

The man didn't care at all, walked forward a few steps, forced his way to the police chief, finally caught his breath, and reached into his bosom to take out a waist token, shaking it in front of the police chief.

The police chief's expression changed, his face instantly turning pale.

"My, my, my lord!"

"Get lost, let everyone disperse, and tell your prefect to go home and play with his balls," the man said weakly.

"Yes! Yes!"

The police chief immediately took the order, dispersed the surrounding people, and fled with the Prefectural Yamen runners as if running for their lives.

"What's the situation! The waist token of the Embroidered Uniform Guard Pacification Commissioner!?"

"What did the An family do!?"

The man scanned the surroundings, and seeing that everyone had dispersed, he sat down on the threshold, took a notebook from his bosom, and took out a pen.

He looked around, couldn't find ink, but spat on his sleeve, blurred the congealed bloodstains, and dipped the pen tip to write.

While writing, he sighed.

"Four days, over six hundred miles, three prefectural cities, six mountain strongholds. Over two hundred corpses, half without bodies, half without heads, and all have to be registered."

"Guard Commander, oh Guard Commander, open your eyes and take back the Pacification Commissioner! If I keep following him, I'm afraid I'll really die on the road!"

Hearing the thunderous sound from behind, he let out a long sigh.

"When gods fight, mortals suffer."

Let's not talk about the mortal sighing here, and return to the "gods."

At that time, Li Miao killed Lan Lechuan in just the time of one stick of incense.

And this middle-aged man, in terms of martial arts, was basically a copy of Lan Lechuan—the same "Sumeru," the same Great Nine Heavens Palm, the same direct lineage of the Ming Sect.

And now Li Miao kills Lan Lechuan in less than one stick of incense.

At this moment, the battle between the two had clearly exceeded this time, but it still hadn't stopped.

Li Miao threw down a severed arm and looked up at the person.

This person had fought with Li Miao for a long time and could no longer maintain the disguise technique, gradually revealing her original form.

She turned out to be a young and beautiful woman.

Li Miao stared at her face carefully, twisting his fingers, seemingly thinking about something.

"I deliberately fought with you for a while longer, and I've basically figured out your foundation."

Li Miao said.

"Your true energy wasn't cultivated by yourself either. Your bone structure couldn't cultivate 'Sumeru' at all."

"Wedding Dress Divine Art; you Ming Sect really have the inheritance of this technique."

"Back then, Ji Tianrui didn't know he was going to die and pass his power to Lan Lechuan. He wanted to use the characteristic of the Wedding Dress Divine Art to break and then stand, to go a step further, and fight to the death."

The woman didn't answer, taking advantage of Li Miao's speaking to fully recover from her injuries.

Li Miao didn't care.

After a battle, Li Miao had long used the miraculousness of "Jiezi" to figure this person out completely. No matter what, she wouldn't be able to make any waves today.

Compared to slaughtering her, Li Miao wanted to verify some of his conjectures.

He said unhurriedly.

"I only had a remnant copy of the Wedding Dress Divine Art before, and there were some bottlenecks I didn't understand very well. But I saw the original in the Miao King's tomb, which confirmed some of my speculations."

"The Wedding Dress Divine Art can only transmit power once."

Li Miao looked into the woman's eyes and said slowly.

"Ji Tianrui fifteen years ago had already transmitted his power to Lan Lechuan, and Lan Lechuan died at my hands. Now you have been transmitted power again, creating another 'Sumeru'."

"The Ji Tianrui of that year definitely died; he was ground into ashes, and there was no whole body left. The Guard Commander led the team personally, and the imperial court sent three or four Heaven-Man experts, and hundreds of experts saw it with their own eyes. The imperial court attached such importance to it and was so certain; it's definitely not something your Ming Sect could fool."

"Therefore, the current Ji Tianrui... is not the Ji Tianrui of that year."

Speaking of this, Li Miao laughed dumbly.

"Did you Ming Sect grow up reading storybooks? Fake deaths, substitutes, you never die clean."

Li Miao reached out and pointed at the woman's face.

"I slowly scattered your Zhou Tian and damaged your meridians just to break your disguise technique and see what you really look like."

"Sure enough, seeing your face, many things make sense."

Li Miao slowly stated his questions.

"First, the collusion between the Ming Sect and the Miao people back then was too suspicious. The Miao people lived in a corner; how much friendship did your Ming Sect have with them to persuade them to follow you in rebellion?"

"Second, how could Ji Tianrui master witchcraft and create the method of transforming Zuo Lishan into a Gu and transforming people into Gu soldiers? Why are these Gu soldiers of the same origin as the beasts driven by the Great Witch of the Miao King's tomb?"

"Third, it's the Miao King's tomb trip."

Li Miao smiled.

"The Miao King's tomb was the Miao people's plan, but there are two points worth mentioning."

"The first point, the Miao people probably knew the imperial court was about to take action against them because of what you did in Tai'an City. So they wanted to hold the southern Ordinary Jianghu sects hostage as meat shields."

"But the means used were too 'gentle.' Even without me, those experts who went in could have survived. It didn't look like a life-and-death struggle, but rather hinted at some kind of—half-pushing, half-accepting warning."

"The second point, the Wedding Dress Divine Art has been lost for a long time and was carved on the stone wall of the Miao people's ancestral tomb. Looking at the decay of the stone wall, it has been at least nearly a hundred years."

"How did your Ming Sect get the Wedding Dress Divine Art from the Miao people's ancestral tomb?"

Li Miao looked into the woman's eyes and said slowly.

"That Ji Tianrui No. 2 is not here, but his true energy was transmitted to you; you should be his confidant."

"The answers to these questions are all on your face."

"You are a Miao person."

(End of chapter)