Peace Order Chapter 9: Peerless Genius
In the dense night, a crimson divine dragon stretched its body, coiling in the void, lowly humming. The crimson firelight flowed across the sky, illuminating the darkness. In Guan Yi City, the trusted ministers of the Chen Kingdom's emperor stared at the night, their faces pale under the flames.
They remained motionless, like lifeless puppets.
The crimson scales scattered like maple leaves falling under the autumn sunset, flowing like fire in the sky.
Yue Qianfeng patted Li Guanyi's head, laughing heartily:
"See, this is what we call destroying the evidence."
"It's the favorite tactic of Strategist Zhuge Yinggong—kill, loot, and destroy the evidence, leaving none behind. He's best at using a shovel to pile up the heads of the Tartars. There are too many fake death pills and techniques in the martial world; even stabbing the heart might not kill. Burning is more reliable."
"By the way, these are for you."
Yue Qianfeng took off a pouch and tossed it to Li Guanyi.
Li Guanyi opened the pouch to find gold and silver spheres inside.
Yue Qianfeng boasted, "The Night Rider Cavalry doesn't carry gold or silver on missions, but to avoid certain situations, there's a tael of gold hidden in the hilt, and the silver decorations on the scabbard are all pure silver."
"This is your share, accomplice."
Li Guanyi said, "But I didn't do anything."
Yue Qianfeng looked at him, grinning, and replied:
"It's not about doing or not doing. To me, being an accomplice means we share the same risks. Since that's the case, we should split the gains equally. We can't share the risk, but all the gold goes to me, right? That wouldn't be fair, hahaha."
"However, this gold is mixed with Crimson Essence, making it more valuable; the silver is too pure. Without the right identity, using it might cause trouble. Since the Night Rider Cavalry had an incident tonight, you'd better find a place to bury it. Dig it up in a few years, and it'll be enough for you."
"This wrist guard can only be triggered once, so discard it to avoid trouble."
"The residual aura here has been completely erased. I'll lead those spies elsewhere. You should leave quickly too."
Yue Qianfeng turned and waved, striding away.
As his words faded, Li Guanyi could no longer see Yue Qianfeng's figure.
The once bustling and lively scene suddenly fell silent and still.
Li Guanyi withdrew his gaze and looked at the gold in the pouch.
Five taels of gold, transformed into a sphere by Yue Qianfeng's inner strength. The exchange rate for gold was inconsistent, fluctuating between eight taels of silver per tael of gold at its lowest and twenty taels at its highest, but generally maintained between ten to thirteen taels of silver.
Besides the gold, there were over thirty taels of silver, heavy in weight.
It could be exchanged for over sixty strings of coins, which would take Li Guanyi about six years of work without spending a penny to save up.
The youth's eyes burned with excitement, followed by a pang of inexplicable heartache.
Six years' wages, received overnight!
"Sudden wealth, but unfortunately can't be used."
Li Guanyi rolled the spheres in the mud, turning them into dirt-covered beads, then tossed them into the dry well beside the Mountain God Temple. The well was filled with rubble, making the spheres inconspicuous. Li Guanyi remembered Yue Qianfeng saying the aura here had been dispersed, making it safer to leave them here.
Taking them home would be risky if the entire city was searched.
Wait for the situation to calm down, then retrieve them!
He could get a better house, change from eating meat once a ten-day period to three times.
The rain had stopped, and a silver moon hung in the sky, casting a pale light over the earth. Looking up, he could see wisps of cloud drifting past the moon, black clouds swirling like a giant creature. Li Guanyi withdrew his gaze, stepping forward. He removed his rain-soaked, muddy shoes, holding a branch to erase his footprints as he walked backward, making it indistinguishable from the surrounding mud.
After painstakingly erasing his tracks, he finally felt at ease upon reaching the main road.
He quickly traversed the night alleys, turning several corners, and from afar, he saw a dim light. The rented courtyard still had a lamp lit, the wooden door half-open. Somehow, the tension in Li Guanyi's heart eased upon seeing this light in the darkness.
Li Guanyi carefully pushed the door open. The lamp was still lit in his aunt's room, but he didn't disturb her. He made his footsteps slightly louder to let her know he was back.
Then he went to his small room, finding a black iron pot on the table with hot ginger soup inside, and a set of clean clothes laid out on the bed.
Li Guanyi grinned, quickly stripping off his rain-soaked, blood-stained, and mud-covered clothes. He washed himself with water from a nearby basin, changed into clean clothes, then picked up the small iron pot and drank the hot ginger tea in one gulp.
A warm current swept through his body, and Li Guanyi shivered.
The tension from killing and practicing martial arts on a rainy night and then sneaking back home was instantly dispelled.
Comfortable!
He bundled up his clothes and threw them into the stove, watching them burn in the flames, turning into warmth. Li Guanyi sighed in relief, lying on the bed, grateful that he had worn his most worn-out clothes today.
Burning them didn't hurt.
I'm rich now!
No pain, no pain! Just a few hundred coins!
Recently, he had spent a lot of the money he saved as an apprentice at the Rejuvenation Hall to get closer to Yue Qianfeng. Now, he only had a few hundred coins left, barely enough to last half a month. Although the burnt clothes were tattered, they could still be exchanged for some money.
He touched the bronze cauldron at his chest, seeing the crimson light flowing on it, seemingly nurturing something. However, he didn't activate the bronze cauldron immediately but moved his hand away, closing his eyes to review the day's events.
The Eight Blades of the Breaking Army, the Breaking Formation Melody.
Personally killed two Night Rider Cavalry.
The bronze cauldron...
Everything felt like a dream.
Clenching his fist, he closed his eyes again, meditating to feel the warm current circulating within. The young man's mind gradually calmed down. After circulating his qi for a stick of incense's time, he could clearly feel a slight obstruction, and then the circulation speed slowed until it nearly stopped.
This indicated that even if he practiced tirelessly all day, the effectiveness would be limited.
Li Guanyi opened his eyes.
He could confirm that his innate talent was likely extremely poor.
Yue Qianfeng was rough and ruthless, but clearly not good at comforting others. His face earlier was no different from a teacher telling a child to work hard to get good grades. However, after years of reading medical books, Li Guanyi knew his current talent situation.
Children from noble families were nourished with medicine from birth, with ample nutrition, just like the robust physique of children from his previous life. In contrast, he had been plagued by poison since childhood, suffering frequent outbreaks, making him weaker than normal people, let alone martial arts families.
However...
There's still this.
Li Guanyi's eyes lowered slightly, looking at the bronze cauldron at his chest, his hand gently caressing it. At this moment, his consciousness fell upon the bronze cauldron. No matter how many times he had tried before, he could only feel a slight chill, but this time, the cauldron responded differently.
The bronze cauldron seemed to tilt.
Crimson jade liquid poured out, directly entering Li Guanyi's body.
Boom!!!
Blazing like fire, excruciating pain!
It felt like being plunged into magma, an endless heat flow threatening to engulf Li Guanyi. However, after enduring countless poison outbreaks over the past ten years, Li Guanyi had developed significant tolerance to such pain, forcibly maintaining his sanity. The gentle aura fell into his eyes, and even with his eyes closed, he could sense a crystalline crimson.
Li Guanyi's consciousness slowly opened his eyes, and the scene before him momentarily froze his awareness.
Crimson dragon!
A crimson azure dragon was right inside this small, dilapidated room.
Its scales were like jade, dragon horns extending outward, dragon claws stepping on the void, and its tail stretching like a river, reaching the jade liquid pouring from the bronze cauldron. In this room, the young man in simple brown clothes sat on the stone bed with one leg bent, the other hanging down, his chest slowly burning, the crimson dragon almost breaking through the room, coiling and gazing down, the void filled with a bright crimson aura.
"This, this is..."
"The dragon behind Yue Qianfeng?"
Li Guanyi murmured, suddenly recalling the activation requirement of the bronze cauldron, a realization dawning in his mind. The next moment, the crimson dragon silently roared, shaking its head, and directly charged at Li Guanyi. His pupils contracted.
The crimson dragon had already entered his body, and Li Guanyi felt as if he were struck, flying backward into an ocean.
In an instant, torrents of majestic heat flowed into Li Guanyi's body.
He seemed to see scenes unfold before his eyes.
A battlefield of chaos, countless battles, people staking their lives on swords and spears, killing or being killed. Suddenly, a long azure dragon roared, a fierce general clad in black heavy armor reining in a dragon-like warhorse with one hand, wielding a long-handled war blade with the other, sweeping fiercely.
His sleeves rolled like waves, several heads soaring into the sky.
This war general charged left and right, wielding the long-handled war blade, unmistakably executing the Eight Blades of the Breaking Army.
In a daze, Li Guanyi almost felt like he was the invincible war general on the battlefield, performing the Eight Blades of the Breaking Army, while the heat flow within him surged wildly, extremely complex, yet Li Guanyi could only discern the path of the Breaking Formation Melody.
As he is, so am I.
At this moment, Li Guanyi was inspired, maintaining his clarity of mind.
His physical body also sat cross-legged, following the memories carried by the crimson dragon to operate the technique.
Previously, it took Li Guanyi a stick of incense's time to circulate three cycles, but now it was like a shooting star, completing over a hundred cycles in a single breath. The first layer of the Breaking Formation Melody was instantly broken through!
The second layer of the Breaking Formation Melody, breakthrough!
The third layer of the Breaking Formation Melody, breakthrough!
The Breaking Formation Melody...
The jade liquid within the cauldron eventually ran out, like that dreamlike battle. The crimson divine dragon slowly disappeared, and when Li Guanyi opened his eyes, the morning light was faint on the horizon, the qi flow within him already quite vigorous.
The twelfth layer of the Breaking Formation Melody.
A top-tier martial art of the military.
A genius could master it in three years, while those with decent talent might achieve it in eight.
Li Guanyi.
Mastered it in one night!