Great Li Martial God

From Zhao Kuang's perspective, the only condition Li Musheng had stated was Daoist Qingyu, and everything about his reaction since confirmed that he had not been lying. Otherwise, after Zhao Kuang had used the Earth Vault Mystery Hall to test him, Li Musheng would not have been so easy to deal with.

It was obvious enough that Li Musheng needed him to help locate his father. And Zhao Kuang needed someone with Li Musheng's formidable martial power as a partner if he was to have any chance of standing against his father the emperor. More importantly, Li Musheng's martial cultivation had far exceeded Zhao Kuang's expectations. The Earth Vault Mystery Hall, a trap capable of holding a Martial Saint, had been sliced open with a single blow. An expert of such terrifying power was something none of the Great Xuan martial world experts had ever encountered, and even he as the Crown Prince of Great Xuan had never heard of or seen the like.

"Rest assured, if my father is not here, then he will certainly be in the other location."

Zhao Kuang spoke with conviction, his eyes burning with intensity, "I will deal with you in complete good faith. Once the matter is settled, everything I have promised, I will not go back on."

At those words, Li Musheng said nothing, only gestured for Zhao Kuang to lead on, appearing too indifferent to bother with further conversation.

Zhao Kuang did not mind. His heart was already brimming with barely contained excitement. His gaze swept toward the palace gates beyond the courtyard, and he stepped forward to leave.

His father wanted to reign for two hundred years. How could he, who had always longed to inherit the throne, accept that? Then the two hundred years on the throne would simply have to be his.

Seeing Zhao Kuang head off to lead the way, Li Musheng glanced sideways at Zhao Muning, "Think carefully about what I asked you earlier. The time for you to make a choice is coming soon."

With that, Li Musheng strolled leisurely after him.

Zhao Muning stood where she was, her eyes shifting through a succession of thoughts as she watched Li Musheng's retreating figure, her expression deeply complicated.

In any dynasty under heaven, the throne had always passed to the eldest son, or at least to a prince. Never in history had a princess inherited the supreme rule of an imperial house. Zhao Muning could not fathom how Li Musheng had arrived at such an idea, one that flew in the face of all proper order, that she, the Seventh Princess of Great Xuan, should compete for the throne.

She had lost her mother as a young child and learned to be self-reliant from an early age. Whether in martial cultivation or in classical learning, she had never fallen behind anyone. But she had never harbored any ambition for the Great Xuan throne, because she had always known clearly that it was not something that belonged to her.

With that thought, Zhao Muning drew a slow breath, pressed down the strange feeling that had risen in her heart, and stepped forward to catch up with the others ahead.

...

This time, Zhao Kuang evidently had no further schemes in mind.

He genuinely wanted to bring Li Musheng to the Great Xuan emperor at once, force his father to abdicate on the spot, then take hold of the Longevity Scripture, ascend the throne, and become the third emperor of Great Xuan's Zhao dynasty.

After that, he would become the first ruler in all of history to reign for two hundred years. He believed that under his own diligent governance Great Xuan would one day swallow the other four kingdoms and unify all under heaven, and he, Zhao Kuang, would without question become a true emperor for the ages, surpassing even the legendary Tianqi Emperor.

Driven by an ambition that had swelled beyond all restraint, Zhao Kuang led the way to an entirely unremarkable courtyard deep within the palace. The place looked completely ordinary, even appearing to have gone unrepaired for years, with its bronze rings green with rust and its door lacquer cracked and peeling, like the quarters of the lowest-ranked palace servants and eunuchs.

But the moment Zhao Kuang arrived before the tightly shut courtyard gates, an invisible gaze fell on him from somewhere hidden, and in an instant the hairs all over his body stood on end.

"Why has His Highness the Crown Prince come to this place at such an hour?"

A soft, sinister voice suddenly rang out from the surrounding darkness, and a figure stepped out from the shadows, appearing at Zhao Kuang's side in what seemed like an instant.

Zhao Kuang felt the bone-cutting chill emanating from beside him and strained to suppress the alarm rising in his heart, immediately snapping his head back to look at Li Musheng behind him.

At the same moment, the figure that had appeared beside Zhao Kuang naturally noticed Li Musheng and the others as well. The figure slowly turned its head toward them.

But Li Musheng did not so much as glance at the person. He simply waved a hand, gesturing for Zhao Kuang to push the gate open and keep leading the way.

Zhao Kuang's expression shifted with surprise. But in the next instant, as his gaze swept past the figure at his side, he found the elderly eunuch's pallid face had gone completely blank, rigid and motionless as a clay figurine.

"Impressive, sir."

Zhao Kuang naturally guessed what had just happened and felt a quiet wave of relief. He wasted no more time standing there, reached out, and pushed open the courtyard gates.

A low, hoarse creak split the silent night air, cutting and unpleasant.

Zhao Kuang swept the courtyard beyond the gate with a glance and hesitated briefly at the threshold, but the moment he thought of Li Musheng standing behind him, he hesitated no longer and stepped directly inside.

"Father Emperor..."

Zhao Kuang called out softly into the courtyard, then pushed open the doors of the rooms one by one. But every room was empty, without a single person inside.

Zhao Kuang did not seem at all surprised by this. He turned to look at Li Musheng and the assembled Great Xuan martial world experts behind him and explained, "I discovered this place by chance a long time ago. After observing it for a while, I noticed that my father almost invariably heads in this direction before going into retreat."

As he said this, Zhao Kuang glanced at the motionless elderly eunuch outside the gate, "And though the place looks dilapidated from the outside, it has a skilled expert secretly standing guard. It is clearly far from ordinary, and this must without question be where my father retreats."

At those words, one of the lean, gaunt elders among the martial world experts swept the empty courtyard with his eyes, then narrowed them at Zhao Kuang and asked, "Since you are so confident, how exactly do you plan to draw the Great Xuan emperor out?"

Zhao Kuang did not answer the elder's question. Instead, his eyes shifted and he began searching methodically through every part of the courtyard.

Li Musheng simply stood and watched without interfering, letting Zhao Kuang do as he pleased.

Zhao Muning, seeing this, watched her Crown Prince brother with a somewhat cold expression in her eyes.

There was a common saying that the imperial family had no true feeling. This was the first time she had felt it so immediately and plainly for herself.

Watching Crown Prince Zhao Kuang spare nothing in his efforts to move against their own father, Zhao Muning's feelings at this moment were undeniably deeply complicated.

It was true that her mother had never been favored in the palace, and with the Great Xuan emperor having so many children, she had rarely received any attention from her father growing up. The feeling between father and daughter had always been thin as water. After she joined a martial sect, the two of them had gone years without seeing each other at all. By the time she returned from her training, her father had already stepped back from most of his duties and handed everything in court to the Crown Prince, almost never appearing himself.

So in truth, Zhao Muning had not seen her father in years. In her memory, even his face had grown somewhat blurred.

But none of that meant she could condone Zhao Kuang doing something so utterly contrary to all proper order.

Only, with Li Musheng here, she had no way to stop him.

With that thought, Zhao Muning let out a quiet inward sigh, reflecting on just how faint the bond between herself and her father truly was.

If they had truly been close, she would have spoken out to stop Zhao Kuang even at the risk of offending Li Musheng.

But reason told her to do nothing. And what was worse, when Li Musheng had asked her that question earlier, she had found herself hesitating, actually turning it over in her mind.

"I am only a princess of Great Xuan. I am only a woman. How could I have ambitions like that? And what would that mean for my father?"

Zhao Muning pressed the question inward, her thoughts tangled and unresolved. And just at that moment, Zhao Kuang's voice rang out from somewhere in the courtyard, clearly pleased, "Found it."

Inside one of the rooms in the courtyard, Zhao Kuang had finally located the mechanism that opened the way to the hidden retreat.

"This palace is full of mechanisms, but the methods for opening them all follow the same general logic."

After all, Zhao Kuang was the Crown Prince of Great Xuan, and his familiarity with the palace was in a different class from Zhao Muning's or any of the martial world experts'. He circulated his true qi and struck the green bricks of the wall several times in sequence, and in the corner of the room a passageway slowly opened, just wide enough for one person.

"Sir, my father is extremely cautious. From here on we must be very careful not to disturb anything that might tip him off and send him fleeing."

Zhao Kuang had not yet stepped into the passageway. He looked at Li Musheng with a completely serious expression.

At those words, Li Musheng's eyelid gave a slight twitch.

He had to admit, this Great Xuan Crown Prince was really something in the way of filial devotion.

At this point, Zhao Kuang swept a look over the assembled martial world experts and offered another suggestion, "We should bring as few people as possible. Not only does that make for a smaller target and less noise, but even if my father notices us, I will have an easier time explaining our presence, which prevents him from sensing something is wrong and running."

At those words, the surrounding martial world experts all shot Zhao Kuang cold looks. But none of them said anything, clearly leaving the decision entirely to Li Musheng.

Li Musheng gave a slight nod. He then pointed out the Grand Manager of the Treasure Assembly Trading House, the Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit, and Zhao Muning, and had them follow along into the passageway.

"Young hero... why do you want me to come along?"

The Grand Manager of the Treasure Assembly Trading House, who had been carried along by the martial world experts the whole time, looked distinctly baffled and pressed the question despite his discomfort.

Li Musheng only glanced at him and said plainly, "Because I would not recognize the Great Xuan emperor."

With that, Li Musheng said no more, letting Zhao Kuang go ahead to lead the way, then stepped into the passageway.

The Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit did not trouble himself over whatever was going through the Grand Manager's head. He grabbed the man by the collar, glanced at Zhao Muning, and immediately followed.

Zhao Muning's expression gave nothing away. She only stepped silently into the passageway.

Shortly after Li Musheng and the others entered, the passageway entrance closed noiselessly behind them.

The remaining martial world experts settled in to keep watch in the courtyard, waiting for Li Musheng's return.

But at that very moment, wisps of colorless, odorless vapor began drifting slowly up from within the room. In an instant, every one of the martial world experts still inside felt an overwhelming and irresistible wave of drowsiness crash over them.

"Something is wrong..."

One of the experts was the first to react, immediately moving to get out of the room. But the drowsiness came on both fast and hard. Several of the martial world experts had barely made it to the doorway before they collapsed where they stood, dropping one after another like dumplings into a pot, each of them instantly unconscious.

Once every last martial world expert had fallen, a woman with a willowy figure and strikingly beautiful face, who had been completely still inside the room, slowly opened her eyes.

This strikingly beautiful woman was none other than the consort the lean, gaunt elder had enthusiastically recommended to Li Musheng earlier.

Somehow, without anyone noticing, this consort had already quietly broken the seal on her own acupoints and was now free to move.

The beautiful woman rose to her feet and swept the entire room with her gaze. Her eyes finally settled on the white-robed woman and the white-haired Daoist woman, the only ones remaining besides the unconscious martial world experts.

Just at that moment, as though sensing the woman's gaze, the white-haired Daoist woman who had appeared to be fast asleep suddenly snapped her eyes open and in an instant drew back sharply, putting distance between herself and the beautiful woman in the blink of an eye.

"Who are you?"

The white-haired Daoist woman asked with open wariness, while the beautiful woman said nothing at all and instead struck out directly with a palm aimed at the white-robed woman lying unconscious on the ground.

But at that moment, one of the figures collapsed near the room's entrance suddenly exploded upward, launching a palm straight at the beautiful woman's back.

The woman sensed the killing intent and her expression changed at once. She immediately withdrew her palm and met the attacker's strike head-on through the air.

The next instant, her attacker was sent flying, and the woman pressed the advantage, chasing out of the room, launching several more palms in quick succession in an attempt to subdue whoever had struck her.

But very quickly she found, to her surprise, that no matter how she attacked, no matter how many times she sent her opponent flying, she could not inflict the slightest injury.

The one who had sprung up to strike at her was naturally the Black Moon Yin Elder.

"Save your energy. Aside from the young hero, even the Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit cannot kill this old man."

The Black Moon Yin Elder let out a pleased, cold laugh and with a flash appeared on top of the courtyard wall, looking down at the woman below with an expression of open amusement.

"Who exactly are you? In all the martial world, no one has ever been unaffected after taking this Palace Mistress's Thousand Fragrance Sinew-Softening Powder."

The beautiful woman stopped and stared up at the Black Moon Yin Elder with an expression of startled uncertainty.

At those words, the Black Moon Yin Elder's heart gave a quiet lurch, and he narrowed his eyes instinctively.

The Thousand Fragrance Sinew-Softening Powder was something he had heard of, as any seasoned figure of the martial world would have. The more widely known varieties were the Ten Fragrance and Hundred Fragrance versions, the latter potent enough to render even a Heaven-Human expert unconscious. The Thousand Fragrance variety existed mostly in rumor, said to leave even sect and cult leaders completely helpless against it, able only to keep well clear of it, and mastered solely by the two Palace Mistresses of the Inviting Moon Palace.

Honestly, even the Black Moon Yin Elder had not expected that the trace of martial aura Li Musheng had left within his body could block even something like this. It was absolutely extraordinary.

"Are you the First or Second Palace Mistress of the Inviting Moon Palace? How did you end up as one of the Great Xuan emperor's consorts?"

The Black Moon Yin Elder looked at the beautiful woman with a puzzled expression.

At those words, the white-haired Daoist woman retreating into the corner of the room showed a rapidly shifting expression, her eyes fixed on the beautiful woman as she frowned, "That cannot be right. If it truly was the Thousand Fragrance Sinew-Softening Powder, how am I unaffected?"

At those words, the beautiful woman did not reply. She only knitted her brows slightly and looked the Black Moon Yin Elder over with careful attention.

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