Lu Qian held a standard imperial Tiger-Headed gilt spear of the Feathered Forest Troops, squeezed tightly from left and right by Yin Yuan and Yin Xing, his face twitching with frustration and helplessness.
These two cowards who were so afraid to die looked nothing like an emperor and a prince at all.
Xianyu Pavilion was also soaked under a storm of arrows from the Imperial Guards and Feathered Forest Troops.
Dense arrows, smeared with black dog’s blood and boy’s urine, whistled sharply as they kept falling, tearing the blood mist surrounding Xianyu Pavilion into tatters.
Within the mist, the green sparrow and other strange figures all retreated step by step.
Inside Xianyu Pavilion, Qi Shen, Liu Wu, He Jun, and others cheered out loud together.
Yet amid the cheers, some cursed fiercely—it wasn’t just the enemies who had arrows raining down on them; the pavilion’s pillars and tiles also clattered nonstop under the assault.
Fortunately, the tiles of Xianyu Pavilion were all cast from fine copper and painted to look like tiles.
When the armor-piercing arrows struck, the pure copper tiles were dented and battered, but they wouldn't be pierced through in a short time.
Yet it was easy to imagine that if the arrow storm lasted long enough and the tiles were broken, the people inside would be riddled with arrows before the female ghost could even kill them.
But at this critical moment, who cared about the lives of these ‘bait fish’?
The Empress Dowager’s crisp laughter echoed everywhere. “Sister Consort Qi, if you have any tricks left, just show them now.”
Suddenly, Lu Qian felt a cold chill creeping up his neck.
As soon as the Empress Dowager finished speaking, a strange sense of impending danger flooded his heart.
He grabbed Yin Yuan and Yin Xing and quickly retreated several steps back toward some large objects hidden behind the curtain.
Yu Changle hurried to follow, standing beside the Empress Dowager.
Yu Sandou opened his eyes wide in surprise and glanced at Lu Qian—only a few people knew what those large objects behind the curtain truly were.
Lu Qian surely didn’t know their secrets, yet he was retreating with Yin Yuan and Yin Xing toward that direction.
Yu Sandou muttered to himself, “This little fellow’s clever after all.”
No sooner had the Empress Dowager’s words left her mouth than Sister Consort Qi’s sharp laughter spread through more than half of the imperial city. “As you wish.”
A vast red light, as blood-like as if spilled from the heavens, poured down.
A dozen or so red lanterns abruptly appeared in the sky, blood-colored flames swirling inside as if real blood were spraying down.
The light pierced through the void, and one could faintly hear a ‘whoosh’ sound of something breaking through the air.
Outside the northwest corner of the imperial city wall, at the homes of bottom-tier servants and common folk, great pillars of blood-red light rose into the sky, accompanied by deafening shouts and the glare of flames shooting upward.
Countless blood-red lights surged into the red lanterns, transforming into a dozen thick columns of blood-colored light, falling straight onto the green sparrow shrouded by the blood mist.
In an instant, the originally semi-transparent figure of the green sparrow solidified, becoming tangible as flesh and blood.
Countless arrows tainted with black dog’s blood and boy’s urine fell.
The now-solid green sparrow clapped her hands lightly, and a white gas explosion dozens of zhang wide erupted before her, the terrifying blast shattering tens of thousands of arrows midair.
Her body rocked, and with ease, she darted inside Xianyu Pavilion.
Qi Shen screamed in terror.
He Jun fell to his knees, wildly kowtowing to the green sparrow. “I merely bought a stake in that dental guild… I never meddled in its day-to-day affairs!”
Liu Wu was even more decisive.
Having been drained to skin and bones by the use of secret treasures, he leapt with all his might, leaping straight toward the frozen Great Lake outside.
The green sparrow laughed oddly, and the blood mist completely covered Xianyu Pavilion.
Qi Shen, He Jun, Liu Wu, along with Liu Wu’s seven elder sisters, seven brothers-in-law, and all the clan elders of the Liu family village—everyone stiffened simultaneously, turning into dried corpses with a ‘whoosh’ within the blood mist.
“Ha!”
The green sparrow’s satisfied sigh echoed throughout the imperial city.
Even in the nearby Wuyin Ward and Kunpeng Ward, some people heard her long sigh.
Lu Qian’s eyes snapped wide open.
He saw that within the green sparrow’s solidified body, a flickering ghostly light identical to the original green sparrow suddenly vanished.
From a place beyond measurement in the void, a changeable, mysterious ghostly glow shot down sharply, plunging straight into the green sparrow’s ‘body.’
The green sparrow’s body transformed into a blood-red cocoon.
The cocoon writhed and seemed to be gestating something.
An enormous surge of blood energy, murderous aura, and unfathomable sinister energy spewed forth.
To Lu Qian’s eyes, this chaotic evil energy resembled a reversed Milky Way rushing skyward from the cocoon with a roaring sound.
Countless streams of blood energy poured out from the red lanterns, continuously feeding the cocoon.
It was impossible to know how many lives had been lost to fuel such a massive infusion of essence-blood and souls into the cocoon.
The cocoon writhed fiercely.
In the span of just three breaths, it suddenly exploded.
The green sparrow reappeared before everyone’s eyes.
But this time, the green sparrow...
In the past, even after turning into a vengeful ghost, the original green sparrow still carried a trace of innocent girlhood.
Even as a ghost who hunted souls and killed for revenge, there lingered a hint of naïveté in her expression and demeanor.
That’s a rather obscure way of putting it.
What it means is that before, when Lu Qian saw the green sparrow, he could feel that she was a ‘once living human girl’ transformed into a ghost.
But now, the green sparrow who reappeared—
Lu Qian felt her essence was no longer human.
Majestic above all, cold and detached, as if a god standing on the clouds looking down upon the mortal world...
Countless strange thoughts dashed through Lu Qian’s mind.
Possession and resurrection? Doesn’t seem so.
Where would she have a physical body?
Body snatching and rebirth? Doesn’t fit either.
To snatch a body, there has to be a host first...
The green sparrow looked down at her solidified, fair, delicate, jade-like hands.
She let out a light giggle and transformed into a wisp of green smoke.
In the snap of a finger, she crossed the Xianyu Pavilion and the lake, arriving among the arranged Imperial Guards by the shore.
The Imperial Guards under Le Wu’s command still had some fighting strength.
As soon as the green sparrow charged over, a dozen long spears, stained with blood and urine, thrust sharply toward her body.
She clapped her hands, and with a loud clash, the dozen fine steel spears shattered into pieces flying every which way, instantly killing hundreds of heavily armored Imperial Guards nearby.
The blood mist rolled down like a dark storm.
The green sparrow stretched her hands toward the blood mist and pulled.
Cold light flickered within the mist, condensing into 108 blood-colored flying swords about a foot long, each gleaming with a chilling radiance.
With a long roar, these flying swords soared high, spinning as they split into countless beams of cold light, falling in all directions.
The ‘puchi’ sound of slicing filled the air nonstop.
The three thousand Imperial Guards arrayed along the lake’s edge were swept away in an instant by the sword light raining from the sky.
Three thousand heads flew up, blood spurting out from necks, then sucked dry by the green sparrow with a single breath.
These Imperial Guards were all towering men, each the weakest at Foundation Establishment stage, with abundant vitality.
Both their blood energy and souls were much stronger than average people.
With the essence-blood and souls of these three thousand sturdy guards drained dry in one breath by the green sparrow, her murderous aura grew even mightier.
A triumphant howl escaped her lips as she strode on the embankment path, surrounded by flying swords, charging straight toward the Empress Dowager’s tent.
Once again, three thousand Imperial Guards rushed up to block her.
Sword light flashed once—blood spattered and three thousand fell.
The green sparrow advanced several dozen zhang more.
The lakeside battalion hadn’t even fired an arrow when they were all cut down by the thunderous sword light.
The snapping of severed heads was incessant as battalion after battalion collapsed.
Tens of thousands of Imperial Guards and over ten thousand Feathered Forest Troops brought in by Yin Yuan twisted their faces in sheer terror and lost all color.
The green sparrow’s ferocity was such—three thousand warriors wiped out in a blink; how could so many more withstand her blades?
Yin Xing screamed hoarsely, “My holy water for subduing demons!”
In front of the tent, dozens of muscular and burly Imperial Guard warriors shouted together.
They grabbed long-handled mucking ladles, scooping up tubs of unnamable mixed liquid, charging toward the green sparrow while shouting.
With less than ten zhang distance left, they fiercely flung the mixed liquid all over the green sparrow’s body.
She giggled—a pair of hands waved—and the heavy shields of the slain Imperial Guards flew up from the ground, acting as a shield against the liquid.
Not a single drop touched her.
Before the warriors could retreat, sword light flashed, severing dozens waist-high.
The screams and howls of pain left them writhing on the ground, desperate and hopeless, as if trapped in hell.
Nearby Imperial Guards and Feathered Forest Troops immediately lost the last shred of morale.
A yell—unclear who led it—caused five Imperial Guard formations blocking the green sparrow to instantly scatter, fleeing wildly in all directions.
But the blood mist had already encircled them.
No matter which way they ran, within two hundred zhang they crashed right back into the mist.
Inside the blood mist, countless women’s shrill cries rang out.
Bloody hands reached out from the mist, grabbing the Imperial Guards who collided headlong and dragging them back in.
Weird sucking sounds followed, then large piles of withered bones spilled out of the mist.
The fleeing Imperial Guards and Feathered Forest Troops froze.
They couldn’t win, couldn’t escape—they were already trapped in a dead end.
Inside the tent, the Empress Dowager, originally flushed and excited, now stiffened, her face pale as death.
She slapped Le Wu’s shaved head and hissed, “Awu, look at these useless underlings of yours!”
Le Wu, with some general’s sense of responsibility, quickly defended his soldiers. “Sister, the boys are good at fighting and killing, but when it comes to battling ghosts... In over eighteen hundred years since the founding of Great Yin, who has ever fought ghosts? Who?”
“It’s not that the boys are useless, it’s just... just... this enemy is too tough!”
A ripple inside the blood mist—a fierce chill roared through.
Underneath dozens of large water tubs, the small charcoal stoves simultaneously died out.
The cold radiated out, and the mixed liquid inside the tubs quickly froze into solid chunks of ice.
Crackling sounds rang as the tubs shattered, and the frozen chunks tumbled to the ground, utterly losing all effect.
The blood mist stopped about a hundred zhang from the tent.
On the shore, monks and Taoists lay wounded and scattered; only a few hundred fortunate masters trembled as they gathered near the tent.
“Sister Empress Dowager, now we can get close and personal,”
Qi Fei slowly emerged from the blood mist.
She looked at the people inside the tent and smiled sweetly. “Oh yes, and there’s the Lancang King. Haven’t you always admired me? Well then, tonight your life belongs to me, alright?”
The Lancang King grabbed Lu Qian, trembling so badly his face was ashen. “Make a deal. Just let me leave alive tonight and whatever you want, I’ll give it to you!”
Yin Yuan also seized Lu Qian’s arm, shaking like a leaf. “Lu Qian, if you keep me safe tonight, I will make you a marquis, a marquis… Your uncle Lu Tai is the Marquis of Tian’en, I will make you... make you... Marquis of Tianyang!”
Marquis of Tian ‘Yang’?
Lu Qian’s face darkened ever so slightly.
(End of Chapter)