Chapter 477: All Along, We Thought It Ordinary

The Qin Wang's voice was calm and condescending.

No one had expected that this Qin Wang would agree outright.

Yes, yes, it matters.

And then what?!

Military power and the edge of the sword are the foundation that sustains any scheme.

All strategies, all methods, their most basic and essential reliance, is strength.

The Qin Wang stepped into the scheme, yet there was no force capable of punishing him.

This was the greatest problem.

Must the Qin Wang, surrounded by fierce generals like clouds and strategists like rain, be forced to take his own life for the sake of some so-called righteous cause?

Impossible!

Only now was the surface veneer of the "rules of the game" torn away, revealing the most fundamental and effective order of the world, naked before all eyes. The many civil officials fell silent, a nameless oppression, a condescending weight pressing down, making their breaths stall—they realized all their tactics, all their scheming, were merely brawling within a room, bound by order and rules.

But the Qin Wang was the one who made the rules.

The Qin Wang walked calmly, descending step by step from the shattered jade steps.

Behind him lay the collapsed, ruined grand hall of the Red Emperor, a bottomless chasm, ten thousand weapons driven into the earth; before him surged a sea of civil and military officials—and now, as the Qin Wang paced forward, that flood of officials could not help but recoil, splitting open a chasm and a path before him.

The old order either collapsed or retreated.

The new king stood between heaven and earth.

The Qin Wang's footsteps were clear.

His ink-black sleeves fluttered, his voice calm: "The tide of the world rests with me, with the Red Emperor—but not with you."

"Maggots. Rats."

"How dare you chatter here?"

The eight-hundred-year-old civil and military officials, thus insulted, dared not utter a single word in return. The Qin Wang gazed ahead, drew a slow breath, and roared:

"GET OUT!!!"

The roar silenced the officials for a moment. Faced with such public humiliation, one man with a hard spine finally spoke: "Even Your Highness the Qin Wang cannot treat us thus! A scholar may be killed, but not humiliated!"

"To defend our honor, death is but a matter!"

"Then die."

With a calm voice, the Qin Wang swept his sleeve.

The weapons hoarded by the overlord behind him all rang out in unison, their murderous aura surging skyward; a blade of qi slashed through, its thunderous roar echoing through the air—the official's face turned deathly pale, dazed for long moments, then collapsed backward onto the ground. The blade's force tore through the void, shaking it—but had he not lost his composure, that strike would have cleaved him apart.

That martial aura of slaughter and grimness lingered long before fading.

He sat there, his legs trembling.

His sapphire-blue scholar's robe, meticulously crafted.

Between his legs, a damp patch, reeking of urine.

The Qin Wang sneered: "If you're not afraid, why hide?"

Seeing the Qin Wang truly wielded ruthless slaughter,

the many officials who had moments before seemed upright and fierce, willing to die for justice, now fell silent, their faces pale, avoiding eye contact, stammering:

"This… the Qin Wang has issued his order, so we shall take our leave."

The Qin Wang said coolly: "I said 'get out.'"

The civil and military officials fell silent. Then, without anyone knowing who started it, they bowed their heads in shame, hugged their knees, and truly rolled down the high platform—once-glorious robes and official garments now caked in dust, utterly disheveled, yet they heard the Qin Wang's loud, unrestrained laughter, wild and free. The officials felt no hatred, no intent to kill—only terror.

The Confucian masters said: "Act as one pleases, without transgressing the rules."

But there was still a 【rule】.

The Qin Wang? He is the true embodiment of acting as one pleases.

The old foundations and standards of the world could not bind him.

The accusations of the masses could not stop him.

Founding monarchs have always blended kingship and dominance, acting with unrestrained ease—how could they be confined by a single Confucian scholar?

Sitting there, Ji Zichang watched the once-proud, lofty civil and military officials tumble down like rolling gourds, the palace collapsing behind them, the officials tumbling before him. For some reason, this absurd scene left him stunned—as if the chains he bore as monarch had here shattered and vanished.

Ji Zichang opened his mouth, suddenly finding all those once-sacred, solemn things absurd.

So absurd he wanted to laugh.

The palaces behind him collapsed too, and so he laughed.

A soft laugh. A loud laugh.

In the end, that wild laughter held no clear target—only pure, unburdened release.

Only exhilaration! Only joy!

The palace collapsed, the officials rolled away, the golden ropes broken, the jade locks snapped.

The last Red Emperor sat there, legs spread like a roadside farmer, laughing wildly, utterly free—there was a freedom he had never known before. He saw the overlord, saw the world, saw the heroes, saw these officials as mere insects, and sat cross-legged, disrespectfully bellowing:

"Roll faster!"

"Hahaha, so slow? Are you racing turtles?!"

"Hahaha."

The officials stared in shock—before them, the last Red Emperor seemed to become the first Red Emperor of history, bold and haughty.

At this moment, the last Red Emperor finally bore the spirit of his ancestors.

The Qin Wang and the Red Emperor watched as the officials rolled away in the most humiliating posture.

Ji Zichang had just lived through his most exhilarating day. He ordered wine brought, and drank beside the ruins of the Red Emperor's founding palace from eight hundred years past, with Li Guanyi. Li Guanyi gazed at the distant stars and said: "Today's spectacle should have broken these officials' resistance—for now. But once subdued, they won't stay quiet long."

"In essence, they will always be your enemies."

This is a matter of class conflict, a clash of interests.

It cannot be resolved once and for all by suppressing them once or twice.

Emperor Ji Zichang said: "I know, but we cannot simply slaughter them all."

Li Guanyi sighed: "Too bad Wen He isn't here."

"He's exceptionally skilled at dealing with these aristocratic families and nobles."

Emperor Ji Zichang said: "It's not necessary to summon Master Yan Daiqing from the northwest."

Li Guanyi said: "You actually know of him?"

Emperor Ji Zichang sighed: "The man who burned cities to ash—the most poisonous strategist of this generation. Master Yan Daiqing's name is one I've heard time and again."

Li Guanyi: "…………"

As Emperor Ji Zichang sighed and drank, chatting idly with Li Guanyi, he suddenly remembered something, holding his cup half-drunk, half-awake: "But how did you know I was in danger? You've already sent my daughter a gift once, using the same excuse, and came all the way from the south."

"Hahaha, when you arrived, I was truly surprised."

Li Guanyi said: "After all, your daughter was born—I had to come see her…"

His voice paused, suspicious: "But you said I already sent a gift?"

Emperor Ji Zichang also froze: "Yes, didn't you send it not long after my child was born?"

"You sent quite a generous one too."

Li Guanyi stared blankly: "When? How could I not know?"

Could my money possibly have grown legs and traveled this far on its own?

"Didn't you?"

"Of course not!"

"But the money was already there."

"Huh?!"

In the night, under the evening breeze, before the ruins, two men stared at each other, stunned.

Emperor Ji Zichang insisted his memory was correct, so he pulled Li Guanyi to the Juan Sect's archive storage—every gift received by the Princess at her birth had been carefully preserved. He took the key and entered, rummaging for a long while before finally pulling out an item and saying:

"Look, isn't this it?!"

In Emperor Ji Zichang's hand was a scroll, which he unrolled to reveal clear writing inside.

【Gift Presentation Note from Qin Wang Li Hui Guanyi】

Below it listed all the gifts bestowed.

Every object and ceremonial detail perfectly conformed to the protocol of a Wang Hou.

Yet as Emperor Ji Zichang gazed upon it, the Qin Wang—once so haughty, domineering, and fierce in battle, who had laughed and ordered his ministers to flee—suddenly froze. The fierce, deadly aura seemed to vanish from the young man before him. Li Guanyi reached out, took the scroll, and a look of "I knew it" appeared on his face.

He chuckled softly: "So it was like this…"

Li Guanyi sat against the wall, tracing the brushstrokes with his fingers: "It's the Young Lady's handwriting."

Emperor Ji Zichang frowned: "The Young Lady?"

Li Guanyi nodded.

He unrolled the scroll and saw it expressed congratulations to the Red Emperor in his own voice and style—so perfectly mimicked that even Emperor Ji Zichang, who knew Li Guanyi well, had noticed nothing amiss. Upon receiving the gift, he had merely remarked to the nearby Lady Wen: "This Qin Wang, though born of the wilderness, is not only formidable in Wu Gong, but also astonishingly adept in ritual and protocol."

Could such a perfect man truly exist?

Yet at that time, Li Guanyi was still on the battlefield, fighting for his life against Jiang Su—how could he have had time for this?

It was the Young Lady, still in the Southern Chen, who handled all matters beyond the battlefield for him.

After hearing Li Guanyi's explanation, Emperor Ji Zichang laughed drunkenly:

"Hahaha, she must know you better than anyone—she copied your writing so well, I couldn't spot a single flaw!"

"You—you only know how to fight for this world…"

"Truly, a perfect helpmate."

After drinking awhile, Emperor Ji Zichang suddenly asked: "When will you marry?"

Li Guanyi said: "Not yet."

"Not the right time."

"The realm is in chaos, the four corners remain ununified. The Turkic cavalry still gather at the border, waiting to strike. I cannot stop now."

Emperor Ji Zichang laughed loudly, pointing at the Qin Wang before him as if he'd just discovered something, grinning triumphantly:

"Hahaha, you didn't object!"

"I never imagined you had someone like this."

Li Guanyi drank deeply and replied softly: "A beauty's grace is heavy."

Along this journey, the Young Lady has never stood beside him—but she has never left, like the ever-present Changfeng Lady, often unnoticed.

Yet when he turns back, she is always there.

Emperor Ji Zichang murmured in wonder, then added: "Yet by common standards, that Miss, though heir to the Xue Marquis line, is merely the granddaughter of a merchant lord—the Xue Marquis title is now hollow, reduced to a merchant guild. Though respectable, she hardly seems a match for a king who carved ten thousand li of territory with his own arms."

Li Guanyi said: "These are worldly things."

"They cannot be imposed upon me."

He held the letter.

Five years had slipped by like flowing water.

At the very beginning of all this, it was that girl who found him—the Young Lady of the Xue family and the apprentice of Huichun Hall; the Cloud Dream Princess of Chen and the Jinwu Guard; the wandering martial artist and the chancellor's granddaughter. But in Li Guanyi's eyes, the Young Lady was only Xue Shuangtao—and nothing else.

In Xue Shuangtao's eyes, Li Guanyi was only that fourteen-year-old guest minister.

That was all.

Emperor Ji Zichang gazed at the Qin Wang before him, the lethal fury gone, as if he had returned to his youthful self.

Yet he couldn't help thinking of his childhood sweetheart, who had supposedly died of illness.

Emperor Ji Zichang drank himself into a stupor, flung his arm over Qin Wang's shoulder, slung it around him, and roared with laughter, slurring: "Hahahaha, no matter what, you two are definitely going to marry, right? With us being like this, when you have a child, why not betroth it to my daughter by pressing fingers on her belly?"

Emperor Ji Zichang extended a finger: "If it's a boy and a girl, they'll be wed."

"If you also have a daughter, make them sisters."

"What do you say?!"

"True kin upon kin."

Qin Wang rolled his eyes violently, kicked away the drunken Red Emperor with his foot, and laughed while scolding: "Ancient relic."

Huh????

The Red Emperor stared, dumbfounded.

Qin Wang seemed drunk too—not from wine, but from that scroll. He unhesitatingly flipped his middle finger, lacking justification but brimming with audacity: "When my old man was half-dead from hunger, my mother gave him snacks; when I was at the Spring Recovery Clinic, earning only one tael of silver a month and getting kicked out, I met Young Lady."

"It's the Li family tradition."

"Poverty brings you your match!"

"Sacrifice your fortune to see the Matchmaker's red thread."

"You've got to go out and find it yourself!"

Qin Wang boasted: "When I have a son, I'll kick him out at fifteen or sixteen—maybe he'll meet her then."

"Yeah, withhold his money."

"Just don't let him starve."

Emperor Ji Zichang roared with laughter: "Fine for your son, but you might not even have a son—what if you have a daughter? What if she goes out and meets some wandering hero riding a divine steed?"

The Third Divine General of this era paused mid-drink and retorted:

"What if it's yours?"

"Isn't my daughter your daughter?"

Both the Red Emperor and Qin Wang pictured their own daughters returning home to find a wandering hero on a golden-maned steed waiting at their gate.

Silence.

Qin Wang and the Red Emperor stared at each other without speaking.

Then Qin Wang laughed calmly: "I'd like to see who dares rein in at my gate!"

"Just let him take one of my blows."

"Disgraceful!"

The two drank openly in the Red Emperor's treasure vault, chatted idly, shedding their worldly titles and duties, returning to themselves, unburdened—only then could they drink with full abandon. Li Guanyi's physique was so formidable that even the Thousand-Day Drunk of the Whale Fisher couldn't get him truly drunk—but Emperor Ji Zichang was drunk, finally waving his arms wildly, slurring:

"I don't know when you'll marry, so forget it—just pick any item from my vault and take it."

"Consider it my wedding gift to you two!"

"Anything!"

"Take whatever!"

Li Guanyi said: "This is the ancestral secret treasure of the Red Emperor line—aren't you afraid I'll take something priceless?"

Emperor Ji Zichang heard something hilarious and doubled over laughing, "mocking": "Hahahaha! The treasures stored here are usually items whose value is nearly impossible to discern. With your fortune? You'll never take the most valuable thing—impossible, absolutely impossible!"

Li Guanyi felt a slight drunkenness and resented it.

Yet despite his resentment, he had no intention of extorting his friend.

So he casually, idly picked up a worn, shabby, utterly plain wooden box that looked worthless, and shoved it into his bosom.

"Alright, this one."

"Hahahaha! That thing? Obviously worthless!"

Emperor Ji Zichang lay sprawled, drunk, feeling the whole world spinning, murmuring: "Your fortune is truly terrible."

"You say the world isn't settled—but when it finally is, where will I be?!"

"I truly don't want to be a monarch again, old friend—let's make a pact."

He raised his cup and whispered: "If the world becomes peaceful, I only wish to be a schoolteacher, or perhaps a village physician, earning my keep."

"Either teach men in times of order, or heal them in times of need."

"I must do something."

"If I can't do either…"

"Then let me become a wandering hero—ride free across heaven and earth, reins loose, letting my steed choose its path, chasing the wind to the ends of the earth, to see how people live there."

"See the world you've pacified."

"This peaceful age."

"To grow old here would be best!"

Li Guanyi whispered: "It will come true." He raised his cup and clinked it against Emperor Ji Zichang's. Emperor Ji Zichang smiled, raised his cup to drink—but accidentally knocked it over. The cup fell, shattered, spilling wine across the floor.

Emperor Ji Zichang lay sprawled, already asleep.

Li Guanyi didn't mind—he drank alone, gazing at the familiar handwriting on the scroll, his expression calm.

A beauty's grace is heavy; the world is in chaos—what can one do?

Yet this three-hundred-year-old era of chaos finally showed signs of ending.

The vow of long ago must be kept.

Lead ten thousand troops to Chen State!

Now that the weapons and armor from the Bai Hu Da Zong's secret vault have all been secured, taken to Jiangnan, and reforged, Li Guanyi's personal guard, the Fire Qilin Guard, can be fully armed from head to toe. Then he must re-enter Xiyicheng to complete the alliance, and then enter the grasslands.

Time is running short—he must retrieve the gu from the grasslands.

He has already reunited with Marshal Yue.

With Marshal Yue, one of the top ten divine generals of the realm, guarding the rear, Li Guanyi was fully freed up.

Li Guanyi drank wine, contemplating the next strategy.

Thinking about what to do next.

The unique martial aura of a Overlord flowed within his body.

The martial power of an Overlord.

The martial legends of the Wolf King.

And the path Li Guanyi himself had forged.

Combined, how would they compare to the Second Divine General of the realm, the Khan of the Turkic steppes? And how to Jiang Su, the Military God?

Li Guanyi thought of the man who, within the Mystical Realm, stood supreme in martial might and deep foundation, leading four hundred thousand troops to charge recklessly—the undisputed first in military formation, whose overwhelming pressure towered above Jiang Su, and for a moment, he felt longing.

If one possessed the Overlord's realm, if one possessed the Overlord's might, defeating Jiang Su and unifying the realm would be no difficult feat!

Restore the old Shanhe!

Li Guanyi drank wine, clenched his fist, his heart as iron, yet he could only sigh in frustration.

"Peace throughout the realm!"

………………

Ji Zichang, who had finally let his guard down and gotten thoroughly, blissfully drunk, was carried back by Li Guanyi.

Lady Wen, watching the Emperor's brows finally relax in drunken slumber, softly thanked him.

Li Guanyi said: "Brother Ji drank too much today, Lady, please take good care of him."

Lady Wen said: "Thank you, Prince Qin. The Emperor has long been bound by court affairs and the weight of the realm… but I wonder, what did he say?"

Li Guanyi recounted Ji Zichang's longing for peace after the realm was settled.

Lady Wen softly said: "So that's how the Emperor thinks."

Li Guanyi asked: "Will you accompany him?"

Lady Wen smiled, her white fingers gently touching the Emperor's forehead, and said: "But I am willing to accompany him—will he take me with him?"

"We are together only because of court politics, because of the entanglements of the great clans—this so-called marriage and exchange of power."

"I am a daughter of the Wen family."

"In the Emperor's dream, there should be no place for me."

Lady Wen murmured something, gazing at Ji Zichang with gentle, tranquil eyes, carrying an unspeakable sorrow.

Personal feelings and will, beneath the fierce contradictions and conflicts of this age, were so weak and powerless; the struggle for power between imperial authority and the great clans was an unsolvable sorrow for a noblewoman of a high official family who had fallen in love with the Emperor.

Amidst wind and rain, under a shattered nest, no egg remains whole.

Li Guanyi gazed deeply at Lady Wen and smiled: "When Brother Ji walks the world, Lady, you must keep watch over him."

Lady Wen froze.

Li Guanyi turned and waved his hand: "Don't let him get this drunk again."

"He cannot do without you."

"Not as the noblewoman of the Wen family—but as yourself."

Prince Qin earnestly made this distinction; Lady Wen's heart was pierced. After Prince Qin left, she gazed at the deeply sleeping Emperor, paused, raised her hand, and gently brushed his temple. Because of Prince Qin's equal and tender treatment, deep within her, beneath boundless darkness and oppression, a rare, once-impossible luxury of hope finally stirred.

Perhaps…

Li Guanyi left, drunk with wine, originally planning to find a place to sleep.

But he felt as if he had forgotten something.

What was it?

Only when he reached his lodging and lay down, closed his eyes, then suddenly opened them and slapped his forehead.

Damn it!

Where are the little Fire Qilin and the Iron-Eating Beast, Tuanzi?!

Li Guanyi hurried to the Academy.

He heard two "screams."

"Eeeeyaaaaaahhhhh!!!"

"I'll never eat good fruit again!!!!"

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