Chapter 1120: Chapter 1114: Yes
Perfected Qiuyue stood in the noisy royal court, his thoughts drifting.
Besides being a Void Refining Elder of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion, he was also a high-ranking official in the Military Inspectorate. Furthermore, his surname was Bai.
Hundreds of years ago, the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion had already paid close attention to the Azure Cloud Li Clan.
At that time, the Azure Cloud Li Clan was still a group of pathetic wretches struggling on death’s door under the Wu Tribe.
In the past, the Military Inspectorate had sent personnel to the Azure Cloud Region to supervise the battles, only to end up with everyone being wiped out by the Wu Tribe.
The commander among them was named Bai Yu.
Many years ago, Perfected Qiuyue had begun investigating the Azure Cloud Prefecture.
The deeper he dug, the more incredulous he felt.
Fortunately, many in the Imperial Dynasty knew someone was going to make a move against the Azure Cloud Prefecture.
At that time, since no Void Refining cultivators stepped forward, Perfected Qiuyue also left the Li Clan to die.
It was a pity that Tian Xing ultimately perished.
Their rapid growth hid a massive secret.
An ordinary once-in-a-century genius would need two to three hundred years to break through to the Nascent Soul realm, and at least a thousand years of effort to reach the Divinity Transformation realm.
Yet, after the Azure Cloud Li Clan plundered Tian Xing’s spoils of war back then, their rise became unstoppable.
Over these past few centuries of worldly chaos, Perfected Qiuyue had continued to investigate the Li Clan’s secrets, watching as their power grew ever greater and their relationships with various factions became increasingly complex.
However, everything was still somewhat within reason.
Through their maneuvering to annihilate Prince Qian and the Immortal Zhao Clan, the Li Clan produced two Void Refining cultivators, mostly thanks to the contributions of Tian Xing.
Afterwards, under Crown Prince Fei Heng and the Department of Immortal Suppression, the Li Clan did not stand out, and everything was left unsettled.
But this trip to Deston Prefecture was different.
One by one, members of the Li Clan broke through to the Void Refining realm.
Most crucially, their cultivation seemed to have no bottleneck.
Unlike other cultivators who required extensive planning from various factions, spending vast amounts of years comprehending laws and accumulating their foundations to break through to the Void Refining realm, they did it with ease.
Even more terrifying, every single Void Refining expert in their Immortal Clan was under a thousand years old!
“If you don’t die, who will?”
Perfected Qiuyue thought with cold indifference.
The trip to Deston Prefecture had completely brought the Li Clan into the limelight, but it also drew the wariness of the major figures from all sides.
Within this short month, aside from the younger generation’s worship and the widespread praise for the Li Clan’s geniuses within the Imperial Capital, there was mostly fear and apprehension.
The almighty experts of the Imperial Capital had only shown themselves recently due to the world’s great chaos, and they had begun to subtly mention the Li Clan.
At the very least, Perfected Qiuyue could sense that these almighty experts were transmitting certain messages—
They had captured Nun Dairou and possessed an opportunity for Body Integration; those surnamed Li had a massive secret for rapidly breaking through to the Void Refining realm; the Li Clan was incomparably wealthy…
A lamb waiting to be slaughtered was right within the Imperial Dynasty’s borders.
Perfected Qiuyue looked around the entire court.
He saw the dignitaries filling the hall—hailing from major prefectures and possessing long histories of power—whispering among themselves.
In reality, every single one of them was itching to devour the Li Clan clean, but they were also terrified that the Li Clan would go mad and drag them down with them.
Thus, only Perfected Qiuyue, Zishu Ling, and Gongyang Ju were pushed to the forefront.
It was almost laughable.
These ten deadly sins were actually listed by Qiu Xundao from the Northern Border, who knew absolutely nothing about the events in the Western Border.
Yet, all that was needed was a facade to serve as a butcher’s knife, regardless of whether the blade was sharp or not.
“Feng Tu, Her Majesty the Empress is right here on the Golden Throne, and all the civil and military officials are present. Speak everything you know!”
Perfected Qiuyue shouted sternly.
Both civil and military officials in the court fell silent.
At this moment, Feng Tu weakly propped his hands on the ground. His blurred eyes looked around until he saw Li Chang.
The resemblance… On Li Chang’s face, the faint outlines of those Li Clan members from the Western Border could be seen.
Li Chang looked at him, his brows slightly furrowed.
Only struggle remained in Feng Tu’s eyes.
He knew about the events in the Western Border.
Most of the evidence for the crimes Perfected Qiuyue listed was half-true and half-false, but the moment they were spoken aloud, everything would be set in stone.
The Li Clan killed Bi Shihu, killed the Crown Prince, and used Huan Gui for their own purposes…
He didn’t want to speak, but he also knew that in this court, there were far too many major figures who could easily pinch him to death and make his Feng name completely disappear.
“I ask you, is the Li Clan in the Azure Cloud Prefecture colluding with the Huan Gui of the Mountain of Esoteric Stratagems?”
Perfected Qiuyue asked angrily.
Feng Tu’s expression was numb.
He clenched his fists tightly and squeezed out a single word through his gritted teeth: “Yes.”
This single response caused the entire court to erupt like churning, stormy seas!
“The Mountain of Esoteric Stratagems uses living people to refine corpses; this is known to all under the heavens. The Li Clan is so foolish!”
“Perhaps the Li Clan’s trip to Deston Prefecture this time for revenge was fake, and their true purpose was to help Huan Gui absorb human vitality to break through to the Body Integration realm.”
“Do you think the Li Clan has also cultivated the Corpse-Stitching Art? Investigate! We must investigate!”
“…”
Amidst the incessant whispering.
Perfected Qiuyue let out a cold sneer.
Taking advantage of Feng Tu’s resignation to fate, he continued to question loudly:
“Did the Li Clan kill the Undefeated Marshal Bi Shihu?”
“Yes.”
“Are there members in the Li Clan who cultivate demonic Daoist arts?”
“Yes.”
“Did the Li Clan…”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!!!”
Under Perfected Qiuyue’s coercion, Feng Tu, drained of all color, responded hoarsely.
For each of the ten deadly sins, he answered “Yes,” until the civil and military officials of the entire court fell silent.
These extravagantly dressed individuals, backed by monstrously powerful factions, stared at Li Chang like starving wild dogs, stopping just short of actually drooling.
A sense of profound gratification welled up in Perfected Qiuyue’s heart.
He turned around briskly, dropped to his knees before Empress Wenren Xianyi, and cried out mournfully,
“Your Majesty, the Azure Cloud Li Clan’s crimes are unpardonable! They are a disastrous scourge upon our Imperial Dynasty. I implore Your Majesty to issue an edict!”
“Order the Department of Immortal Suppression, the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion, and the Emberwing Guards to conduct a thorough investigation!”
When one maggot caught the scent of meat, the rest naturally followed.
In an instant, the rustling of robes echoed through the court, leaving only a scant few people still standing.
Li Chang glanced around; most of them were old acquaintances.
General Wang Jinhu of the Heavenly Light Cave, several Prefecture Lords who had quite a few ties to his family, several imperial logistics departments that didn’t dare to fall out with the Merchant Lineage, and the subordinates of Dongfang Liancheng of the Eastern Border.
What surprised Li Chang somewhat was that A’hei, the Emberwing Guards’ lapdog who monitored the court for Min Youguo, and Wu Neng, the Commander of the Department of Immortal Suppression, did not join the crowd.
“We implore Your Majesty, the Empress, to issue an edict and thoroughly investigate the Azure Cloud Li Clan!”
The civil and military officials in the court shouted loudly, fully displaying their imposing authority.
Empress Wenren Xianyi lost her languid posture at this moment.
She took a deep look at Li Chang, her elegant brows furrowed tightly, originally intending to say something.
However, another hoarse voice suddenly rang out in the court.
“Your father here fucking loves telling the truth! Everything I said is the damn truth!”
Such vulgar language caused the officials’ expressions to change.
The one speaking was none other than Feng Tu, who had seemingly just yielded.
“Insolent!” Perfected Qiuyue turned his head and shouted fiercely.
But whether Feng Tu had truly yielded or not was something only he himself knew.
The City Lord of Highsun City—who had led his entire city to resist Venerable Yuanliang and had dared to battle Nun Dairou—abruptly shot to his feet.
He stood perfectly straight, his eyes bloodshot as if he wanted to devour people alive.
Even Li Chang was taken aback.
“You all want my life, yet you won’t even let me spout some nonsense. Where in the world is there such logic?”
Spit flew from Feng Tu’s mouth.
“What the hell do you know? You stand here in this court pontificating, convicting whoever you please.
Where were you when the Wu Tribe invaded the Western Border?
When an army of three hundred thousand Wu Tribe soldiers marched upon my Highsun City, where were you?”
“Do you have any idea what Bi Shihu was trying to do?
He trapped us in Highsun City! I watched with my own eyes as my soldiers were slaughtered!
We all thought we were going to become nothing more than stepping stones for Bi Shihu to establish his peerless military merit.
It was a tunnel and an array formation set up by the Li Clan that allowed us to see the sun the next day!”
“I wanted nothing more than to tear Bi Shihu into ten thousand pieces! Even now, everyone in Highsun City is cursing him to descend into the eighteen levels of hell.
Yet here you all stand, singing his praises and using his name to crusade against the Li Clan.”
“And do you know that if the Nirvana Sage Elder hadn’t intervened, Huan Gui would never have revealed itself!
It was precisely because the Li Clan had Huan Gui on their side that the Nirvana Sage Elder was severely injured, granting us victory in the Western Border!”
“The three cities of Deston Prefecture rejoiced because of this! The casualties of our Western Border soldiers were reduced.
Do you know how many soldiers survived because of them?”
“And then there’s your Crown Prince. Laughable!”
“I should have ground his bones to dust and scattered his ashes! He is a corpse…”
Before the City Lord of Highsun City could finish his sentence, his angry expression remained frozen on his face, but his complexion visibly turned deathly pale.
His bloodshot eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets, and blood began to slowly seep from his facial orifices.
His soul was visibly extracted from his body, causing his limbs to stiffen until he collapsed back to his knees on the ground.
Feng Tu’s appearance was hideously contorted, veins bulging all over his body.
Looking up, a figure dressed in a golden feathered gown blocked out the bright light of the entire court.
Everyone in the entire court lowered their heads.
Only Li Chang frowned, looking at the person standing before the kneeling Feng Tu—Wenren Xianyi.
Her Spiritual power was immense, her oppressive aura leaving the court officials nearly breathless.
With a single outstretched hand, she seized Feng Tu’s soul.
The soul struggled, but beneath Wenren Xianyi’s jade-like hand, it was entirely futile.
At this moment, Li Chang still maintained his composure, though faint traces of bloodshot veins gradually crept into his eyes.
In the court where one could hear a pin drop, the man who had just spoken such indignant, unrestrained words had been reduced to a corpse.
Highsun City lost a City Lord who had brought prosperity to its lands.
The Imperial Dynasty lost a great general who dared to risk his life fighting foreign races.
The Zishu family avoided a scandal.
And the Li Clan lost a straightforward, honest friend.
Li Chang felt a numbness spread throughout his body.
He stared unblinkingly at the Empress as she returned to sit upon her Dragon Throne.
Perfected Qiuyue pressed his forehead against the floor and shouted once more, “I implore Your Majesty the Empress to thoroughly investigate the Azure Cloud Li Clan!”
“Investigate!”
Wenren Xianyi waved her hand casually, as if nothing had just happened.
Before long, a squad of immortal soldiers marched into the court and plastered talismans on Li Chang’s body.
Perfected Qiuyue stood up and led the soldiers as they dragged Li Chang out of the hall.
Li Chang kept his neck stiff, ignoring his disheveled clothes, his bloodshot eyes locked onto Feng Tu’s corpse.
Dead. Just like that, he was dead.
Meanwhile, the people in the court were all sneering coldly, waiting to devour the Azure Cloud Li Clan.
It was as if they had already anticipated the massive profits they could reap from the Li Clan, or foresee forcing the Li Clan to hide away from the light of day, just like the Mountain of Esoteric Stratagems.
“Li Chang, with the ten deadly sins established, the Li Clan’s crimes are unpardonable. You all…” Perfected Qiuyue’s expression was sinister and cold.
However, Li Chang did not display the panic Perfected Qiuyue had imagined.
With nothing but numbness left in his eyes, he interrupted Perfected Qiuyue’s words. “Do me a favor, my lord.”
“What?”
Perfected Qiuyue froze.
“Please help me collect City Lord Feng’s corpse properly. I will personally deliver it back to Highsun City.”
“You still want his corpse? You’re going into the Heavenly Prison; you won’t even be able to keep your own life!”
Perfected Qiuyue’s mocking laughter abruptly ceased.
He saw that Li Chang still maintained that same demeanor—an indifference laced with a raging inferno of anger that caused Perfected Qiuyue’s heart to skip a beat, leaving him stunned in place.
“I told you to keep his corpse. Because very soon, you will deliver it to me personally, kneeling on the ground and presenting it with both hands.
Otherwise, I will make sure you die a miserable death.”
His cold glare pierced straight into the soul.
Li Chang was taken away to the Heavenly Prison, leaving behind only his loud, skyward laughter echoing outside the court.
“I have spent centuries in this court! I am no mere pawn; you are! Hahahaha!”
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