Chapter 558
Chapter 558
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 558
>Chapter Title: Emperor
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Chapter 558: Emperor
The rain poured down in torrents. Li Huowang knelt on one knee on the ground, his body twitching from time to time as he gasped for breath in great heaves.
Not only had the wounds on his body that had just healed split open again, but even more had been added. They were severe injuries.
The one who killed Anping was no pushover. The Daoist that Ji Lin had found from who-knows-where was incredibly strong, nearly on par with Danyangzi.
In particular, his mysterious and unfathomable thunder arts were shockingly powerful. Fortunately, the current Li Huowang was no longer the old Li Huowang.
A blood-drenched rockery was hoisted high by Peng Longteng before she smashed it down with all her might onto the beggar Daoist lying weakly on the ground.
Amid the violent trembling of the earth, the Daoist's entire body burst apart like a watermelon pulverized by a massive hammer, spraying in all directions.
Yet this still wasn't enough to quench her rage. In the deluge of rain, Peng Longteng slammed the blood-smeared rockery down onto the remains once more.
After several blows, nothing remained before her but a massive sunken pit—the flesh and blood had all been flung away.
“Enough! I said enough!”
The instant Li Huowang spoke, the rockery Peng Longteng had raised came crashing down onto her, passing straight through her headless body to strike the ground. She reverted to her ethereal form.
Once his breathing had steadied, Li Huowang rose to his feet, opened his mouth, and spat out Li Sui.
“Sui Sui, do Daddy a favor.”
Li Huowang walked over beside the Jingguan and reached out to lift down Princess Anping's head, passing it to Li Sui.
“Black Tai Sui excels at parasitism, right? Can you control this head?”
“Daddy, I'll give it a try.”
Li Sui's tentacles stretched over to take the head and draw it into her own body.
Before long, when Princess Anping's head emerged once more from within Li Sui, it was already blinking its eyes.
“Daddy? Like this?”
The stunning woman's head, propped up by a dense cluster of tentacles, smiled as it asked Li Huowang.
Li Huowang had figured that if Li Sui couldn't manage it, he'd have no choice but to flay the skin and pull off a skin-painting ploy with the Sitting Oblivion Dao's methods. But it seemed every trade had its master—Black Tai Sui was indeed adept at this sort of thing.
Seeing that natural flicker of a smile in her eyes, Li Huowang nodded approvingly.
“Very good. That's perfect. You just need to show your face. To everyone else, Princess Anping will still seem alive.”
“Since Princess Anping couldn't evade her pursuers, I'll help her keep hiding. Li Sui, I know you're exhausted too, but we won't have to hold out long—just until Sitianjian returns.”
With that, Li Huowang led Li Sui toward the interior of the palace. He quickly located Princess Anping's corpse, and after Li Sui had gutted out the five viscera and six bowels, she slipped inside. Now she resembled Princess Anping even more.
Li Sui rinsed the blood from her body and donned a light-colored Luo skirt adorned with gold-trimmed twisted-silk edges. The expansive skirt hem provided ample cover for her tentacles.
A pale pink satin bustier served as the inner lining. Light blue tassel earrings dangled from her lobes, her raven hair coiled into an exquisite willow-leaf hairpin. Aside from the white silk ribbon concealing the neck's severance, she looked just like the Princess Anping Li Huowang had seen before.
“Alright, let's go! We'll circle far around those hidden sentries so they know Princess Anping is still alive.”
Li Huowang grabbed Li Sui's hand and plunged into the downpour.
Many things happened that night, but when Shangjing City awoke the next morning after a night of rain, it was as though nothing had occurred at all. The air's reek of blood had been thoroughly scoured away. The city's denizens went off to work as usual, bought their vegetables as usual.
By now, Gao Zhijian had driven his carriage into Shangjing City. He stared blankly at the dense thicket of shop signs and archways lining both sides of the grand avenue.
Logically, as the emperor of this place, he ought to feel intimately familiar with it. So why did he have absolutely no recollection whatsoever?
“Did I never leave the palace often back then?”
Gao Zhijian pondered this silently to himself.
After mulling it over for a bit, Gao Zhijian urged his carriage onward along the avenue toward its innermost reaches. A short while later, upon sighting those familiar vermilion walls, a flicker of memory stirred in his eyes.
He remembered this place. As a child, he'd often been carried past walls of this very color.
Dismounting from the carriage, Gao Zhijian worked to steady his surging emotions before clenching his fists and striding toward the imperial guards at the gate.
The guards' brows furrowed at the sight of Gao Zhijian's massive frame, while glints of steel gleamed atop the walls above.
When he reached a distance of two zhang from the guards, Gao Zhijian halted, locking eyes with them in a staring contest.
After several breaths, a hint of puzzlement crossed Gao Zhijian's face.
“Strange. They don't recognize me? I'm the emperor! Even the former emperor—they should know me.”
Gao Zhijian took two steps forward and pointed at his own face, about to speak—
“Imperial sanctum! How dare you act so brazen!”
A sharp-tipped halberd thrust toward Gao Zhijian. He instantly felt a numbing prickle at his brow's center.
As a fellow clansman, he could sense the towering murderous intent from the walls—their cultivation far surpassed his own. This wasn't mere posturing; one more step, and he'd likely meet his end.
Gao Zhijian hastily retreated to his carriage and gazed from afar at the soaring palace walls. For the moment, he was at a loss. This wasn't quite how he'd pictured it.
“I am the emperor... right?”
As Gao Zhijian mulled this over, a figure brushed past him and dashed toward the gate's side door.
Unlike with Gao Zhijian, the guards didn't spare the man a glance, letting him slip through the half-open side entrance.
Once inside the palace, the man's legs churned furiously beneath his robes, as though he were gliding, as he hurtled toward the emperor's bedchamber.
Arriving outside the bedchamber, he deliberately slowed his pace before entering.
Even so, a flying inkstone struck him, splitting his scalp and drawing blood.
Yet he didn't dare show the slightest offense—for it was the reigning sovereign who'd hurled it.
He dropped prone to the floor, his voice quavering with terror.
“Your Majesty, Princess Anping has still not been found.”
“Drag him out and execute him!”
Ji Lin's thunderous bellow sealed a man's fate in an instant.
“Your Majesty!! Your Majesty!! Mercy!!”
The bedchamber's eunuchs and maids fell utterly silent, each terrified of being next.
Yet amid them, one eunuch remained utterly composed. An elderly eunuch cradling a golden-handled horsetail whisk approached the furious Ji Lin to soothe him.
“Your Majesty, pray do not worry. This old servant cast the divining stalks—from the hexagram, Princess Anping has already wilted like a fallen bloom. The One-Lamp Supplicant divined the same.”
The pearl tassels crowning Ji Lin's head swayed wildly with his words.
“I want no divinations! I want the person! What if that Anping knows eye-bewitching arts? See the living in the flesh, the dead in the corpse! I want her head! A pack of rice-barrel idiots!!”