Chapter 532
Chapter 532
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 532
>Chapter Title: Zhuge Yuan
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Chapter 532: Zhuge Yuan
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> Li Huowang understood that whatever could make Zhuge Yuan show such an expression was likely even more serious than everything that had happened before!
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> What could possibly be more serious than the Fighting Matron descending to earth?
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> Seeing Zhuge Yuan’s such unusual demeanor, Li Huowang quickly tried to comfort him. “Brother Zhuge, don’t panic. Tell me what exactly happened first. I don’t know what’s going on, so of course I can’t help you.”
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> Zhuge Yuan’s slightly reddened eyes closed briefly. After taking a deep breath and opening them again, he pointed his folding fan at the dead human-faced ox on the ground. “Brother Li, do you know what that thing is?”
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> “Uh... the son that Zhengde Temple gave to the eunuchs for carrying on their line? No idea if those lecherous monks couldn’t manage it or what, but they actually planned to pass off something like this to the eunuchs.”
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> The Sitting Oblivion Dao hallucination suddenly chimed in from the side. “Exactly, handling things so dishonorably.”
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> “Wrong! Utterly wrong! Didn’t you hear what it sang just now? That thing is an omen! Great Qi’s dragon vein is about to snap!!”
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> Zhuge Yuan’s words made Li Huowang’s heart jolt violently. Though he still had no clue what the human-faced ox was, a breaking dragon vein made him sense that something terrible was afoot.
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> “Brother Li, no time to linger here! Let’s go! Get out of this place first! Can’t maneuver properly here!”
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> Without further hesitation, Li Huowang lifted his right foot and charged toward the outside of this desolate cold palace.
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> “Dragon vein?” Li Huowang instinctively recalled the stack of Great Liang emperors he’d seen back in the Great Liang imperial temple.
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> Seeing Li Huowang start moving, Zhuge Yuan swiftly explained at his side. “Whenever great chaos looms, omens are born. This thing—half-human, half-beast—speaks human words the moment it’s born, then dies immediately. Omens’ words are mostly ill omens, foretelling events that are about to happen right away!”
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> “So that omen’s words mean Great Qi’s dragon vein is about to snap? Brother Zhuge, what happens if the dragon vein breaks?” Li Huowang stomped hard on the ground, flipping over a city wall with ease thanks to Li Sui’s tentacles.
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> “It should only affect Great Qi—there’d be no Great Liang at all. You know why Great Liang appeared back then? Because a millennium ago, Great Qi’s dragon vein snapped once! If it snaps again now, the entire Great Qi might cease to exist!”
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> These words sent chills through Li Huowang’s entire body. So in this mad world, the dragon vein’s role was actually an anchor for a stretch of history!
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> He instantly grasped why Great Liang always had to have an emperor, and how, in this deranged world, the emperor’s authority could endure for so long.
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> “But did Great Liang really come about that way? Could Zhuge Yuan be mistaken?”
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> Yet Li Huowang’s mind remained a whirlwind. He seemed to grasp the surface of things, but something else lurked deeper beneath.
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> “Brother Li! Stop! This is far enough!!”
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> When Li Huowang halted and realized he’d exited the cold palace into Great Qi’s capital Youdu, the night made the endless rooftops before him pitch-black and deathly silent, like a haunt of ghosts.
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> Compared to the Great Qi from before, Li Huowang felt something was off, though he couldn’t say just what.
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> “Brother Zhuge, what do I do next?”
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> “Use false cultivation on me! I need a physical body for a while!”
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> Li Huowang complied without hesitation. As he clamped both hands hard on his temples, Zhuge Yuan’s body beside him began flickering in and out of sight.
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> Veins bulged across Li Huowang’s flushed-red forehead, his bloodshot eyeballs even starting to bulge outward.
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> “This feels off! It wasn’t this taxing to give bodies to the monk or Peng Longteng!” As Li Huowang trembled and dropped to one knee, scarlet nosebleed dripped from his nose tip to the ground.
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> “Brother Li! Hold on—this concerns the fate of all the realm’s people!” Zhuge Yuan clenched his fists, urging Li Huowang onward.
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> “I’m fine! I can take it!” As Li Huowang’s head suddenly ballooned to the size of the longevity star’s noggin from a New Year scroll, Zhuge Yuan’s body solidified from the ethereal.
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> Seeing Li Huowang swaying on the verge of collapse, Zhuge Yuan wasted no time and yanked the spine bone sword from Li Huowang’s back.
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> Once he peeled off the talisman from the spine bone sword’s hilt, the entire blade sprang back to life.
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> The two identical-looking Zhuge Yuans locked eyes, then Zhuge Yuan addressed the sword-version of himself before him. “Omen of calamity! Dragon vein severed!”
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> “What! Is that true?”
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> It sounded like a question, but Sword Zhuge showed no hesitation, raising his skeletal arm and slashing hard down the center of the flesh beneath him. Dark-red blood trickled along the peachwood talisman and organs, slowly toward the tip at the end.
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> Zhuge Yuan gripped the sword, tapped lightly off the tiles with his feet, and leaped airborne, using the blade as a brush to scribble furiously on the ground below.
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> The blood ink dripping from the sword seemed to come alive upon hitting the earth, burrowing straight down.
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> Thus, though the inverted, sword-wielding Zhuge Yuan wrote reams, the ground bore no trace.
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> “Hurry! Dad can’t hold much longer!” Li Sui shouted at Zhuge Yuan, propping Li Huowang up with her tentacles.
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> “Brother Li! Almost there!” Midair, Zhuge Yuan jabbed the spine bone sword’s tip hard at the ground, his white robes billowing upward.
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> As his body faded to transparency, Zhuge Yuan released the sword, executed a backflip, and tapped the hilt with his left foot. The spine bone sword whistled back, threading precisely through the gaps in Li Sui’s tentacles to reinsert into Li Huowang’s back.
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> Riding the recoil, Zhuge Yuan plummeted toward a rooftop to the left. With a flick of his right white sleeve, distant tiles flew up, exposing the four treasures of the study within.
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> Zhuge Yuan pinched the air, and the brush flew into his grasp. He seized it and the incoming rice paper, first sketching a full circle with a deliberate gap on the edge, then writing swiftly across the sheet.
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> The instant his brush hand dissolved into nothingness, the word-packed paper burst into spontaneous flame.
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> As the airborne tiles settled neatly back into place overhead, Zhuge Yuan’s form vanished entirely.
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> Seeing the papers burn fully to ash, those ashes scattering on the wind, Zhuge Yuan finally exhaled in relief. “It’s come to this—hope it works. May the Three Bodies Buddha Above keep Great Qi’s dragon vein intact.”
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> Zhuge Yuan passed through the green tiles overhead, rematerializing on the rooftop, and walked toward Li Huowang.
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> “Brother Li, thank—” The “you” died unspoken as Zhuge Yuan saw Li Huowang, blood streaming from all seven orifices, collapsed unconscious in his daughter’s arms.
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> (End of chapter)