Chapter 55
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When Ling Buyan said the four words “Your Majesty the Emperor,” he used his usual tone and even had a smile on his face.
However, not only those who knew him, but even Lou Yuanwei himself felt a chill behind him.
In all these years, Lou Yuanwei had also encountered several people from his homeland and had heard the words “Your Majesty the Emperor” a few times. However, this time, he did not hear any respect in the tone of the person in front of him, only mockery.
Lou Yuanwei was wearing a bright yellow robe. Perhaps because Daiduo City was located on the border and the central royal family was too lazy to manage it, there was even a faint dragon pattern embroidered on this bright yellow robe.
“Who are you?” Lou Yuanwei lowered his voice and asked Ling Buyan.
Before Ling Buyan could answer, Li Fenglan, who had been silent, suddenly stepped forward half a step.
The wind in the desert was already strong, and the entire square had been completely emptied. The wind squeezed in from the narrow alley connecting the square, blowing up Li Fenglan’s clothes in an instant.
“Whoo…” Sand and wind blew, causing Cheng Huang’s eyes to squint and let out a soft moan.
At this moment, the sound itself sounded a bit desolate.
The white coarse cloth robe on Li Fenglan’s body was blown backward by the wind, and his hood was blown off as well.
His long eyebrows and exquisitely crafted eyes were revealed at this moment. This exquisitely crafted appearance and the endless yellow sand of Daiduo City, formed a strong contrast.
Everyone on the square who saw Li Fenglan’s appearance couldn’t help but be attracted to him.
Li Fenglan gently handed Cheng Huang over to Ling Buyan, then unexpectedly took two steps back, raised his hands flat, and smiled as he performed a grand gesture to the man before him.
“I am from the Li family of Xihou.”
Xihou City, Li Family.
“Xihou…Xihou?” Lou Yuanwei took two steps back as soon as he heard Li Fenglan’s words. At this moment, his face was full of incredulity.
Impossible, all the people of the Li family in Xihou City had already died.
Li Fenglan guessed what Lou Yuanwei was thinking and spoke, “You want to say that the people of the Li family should be dead, right?”
Lou Yuanwei didn’t speak. His gaze at Li Fenglan was full of fear. When he was in the lord’s mansion just now, Lou Yuanwei sensed a beast’s qi, but after he came out, the qi disappeared. Combined with the fact that the beast’s breath just now was slightly different from what he had encountered before, Lou Yuanwei thought that there might not be a beast here, and that the qi just now was just a little trick played by the person in front of him to lure him out.
The man gritted his teeth and lowered his voice, saying, “You deliberately lured me out.”
Lou Yuanwei glanced at Li Fenglan and sneered, “If you had come to me years ago and said that you were from the Li family, I might have believed your nonsense. But now…” He finished speaking and sneered again.
Ling Buyan saw that although Li Fenglan’s expression was still calm, his shoulders were trembling slightly—he was trying to suppress his anger.
Involuntarily, Ling Buyan slowly reached out and grabbed Li Fenglan’s wrist, his fingers touching Li Fenglan’s palm as a result.
All of these movements were hidden under his wide Daoist robe. Only Li Fenglan and Ling Buyan knew.
In fact, just now, Ling Buyan only wanted to lightly hold Li Fenglan’s wrist, but he did not expect… to actually touch the palm of the other’s hand.
…There was no way to let go now that he had already held it, so Ling Buyan naturally did not release Li Fenglan’s hand.
Although as a cultivator, he theoretically should not be affected by the heat and cold, Li Fenglan could not help but feel cold over and over again when talking to Lou Yuanwei just now.
It wasn’t until Ling Buyan gently held his hand.
“Why would you believe me if I came to you earlier and said I was from the Li family?” Li Fenglan finished his sentence and answered the question himself, “Of course, it’s because you knew all these years that there was a Li family member still alive.”
“You—” Lou Yuanwei’s face immediately became ugly after being hit by Li Fenglan’s words. He did not feel any spiritual power from the people in front of him, so after being frightened by Li Fenglan, he quickly looked at the guards behind him.
In the blink of an eye, Li Fenglan and his party were surrounded by guards in iron armor.
But Li Fenglan, as if he had not seen those guards, continued on his own, “Tianmian Palace’s Li Fuyue, you are afraid of him coming to find you, right?”
That person Lou Yuanwei mentioned earlier was indeed Li Fuyue.
As the number one person in the cultivation world, not only were cultivators familiar with his name, even people in the mortal world knew of him.
For the past few thousand years, Lou Yuanwei, who knew that Li Fuyue was still alive, had been cautious and did not dare to let the other party know that he was still alive.
Until the death of Li Fuyue, Lou Yuanwei, who had been on edge, finally breathed a sigh of relief. After wandering around in the mortal world for many years, he eventually found Daiduo City, a place without cultivators, and became its lord.
“So what?” Lou Yuanwei suddenly regained his confidence when the guards arrived. “Don’t use him to scare me. Who in the Three Realms doesn’t know that Li Fuyue is already dead and turned to dust?”
Hearing Lou Yuanwei’s words, the surrounding guards burst into laughter.
Meanwhile, Ling Buyan furrowed his brow.
“Goo goo goo!”
“Let me out!”
The nature of the Bi Fang clan was as fierce as their golden appearance. Upon hearing Lou Yuanwei’s words, Li Fenglan remained silent, but Du Qianli and Du Wannian were infuriated.
The two little golden birds hidden in the bamboo basket instinctively tried to break free but were pressed down by Mu Hantan, who had reached the half-step ascension stage and had extremely pure spiritual power.
In the midst of the conversation, Li Fenglan had already sensed that Lou Yuanwei, although still alive, had absolutely no spiritual power, which meant that he knew nothing about the mystical little spells of the cultivation world.
Being a sword cultivator, that didn’t mean Li Fenglan was ignorant of other things.
After saying those words, Li Fenglan suddenly looked straight into Lou Yuanwei’s eyes and then slowly smiled at him.
In an instant, for Lou Yuanwei, the world he was in went back from the open square to the dragon throne of the palace!
In his previous life, Li Fenglan had never been to the imperial palace. This grand hall was actually constructed according to Lou Yuanwei’s thoughts. However, as he did not understand magic spells, he was unaware of this fact.
Even though this was the place he most wanted to return to, Lou Yuanwei fell to the ground with a “thump” when he saw the resplendent golden hall.
“This place… this place!”
After a thousand years, Lou Yuanwei recognized where he was with just one look.
His gaze slowly moved from the high ceiling to the front of the hall.
Under his gaze, a man wearing a folded brocade long robe walked towards him step by step against the light. The man had a distinctive red mark on his forehead!
Although Lou Yuanwei had never seen the legendary cultivator, being in this space, he instinctively recognized him at first sight – he was Li Fuyue.
Just a moment ago, Lou Yuanwei was mocking Li Fuyue on the square, but now he struggled to stand up, trembling as he spoke words like “The Lord has a large heart” and “I greet the Immortal Lord” as he backed away.
Lou Yuanwei wanted to escape from here, but before he could take a few steps back, he suddenly bumped into the giant screen in the room. With no way to retreat, Li Fenglan took advantage of the opportunity to take a step forward and lightly grabbed his collar.
“Do you recognize me now?” Li Fenglan asked slowly.
“Yes, I recognize you now. It turns out that you, old sir, are not dead…” Lou Yuanwei blurted out this sentence out of nervousness, and then quickly added, “I mean, congratulations… congratulations to you.”
Li Fenglan had actually created an illusion and pulled Lou Yuanwei into it.
He wasn’t in the mood to waste time with the person in front of him. Li Fenglan coldly uttered a “hm” and said, “Shouldn’t I also congratulate you for being able to survive until today?”
Li Fenglan didn’t directly ask Lou Yuanwei how he managed to survive until today. Although he had never had any dealings with Lou Yuanwei before, he had heard from his family that Lou Yuanwei was a very suspicious person who liked to make up stories.
His tone just now was full of sarcasm.
Sure enough, when Lou Yuanwei heard the word “congratulations,” his facial expression immediately changed.
Li Fenglan noticed this and smiled at him again.
As an ordinary person without any cultivation, Lou Yuanwei had only encountered scattered cultivators who were not even at the Foundation Establishment stage in the mortal realm before. Now that he was frightened by being pulled into an illusion by Li Fenglan, his mind was completely in chaos.
“I, I… I, I didn’t mean to.”
Don’t want to achieve immortality? Hearing this, Li Fenglan couldn’t help but frown. Was Lou Yuanwei teasing him?
In an instant, Li Fenglan had many thoughts in his mind on how to get Lou Yuanwei to reveal his true intentions. However, in a panic, Lou Yuanwei added another sentence, “I didn’t know, didn’t know… that my soul would be affected.”
Under normal circumstances, Lou Yuanwei would speak very carefully. However, today, in his fear, he blurted out the most important thing to him.
Soul affected?
Although Lou Yuanwei immediately shut his mouth after speaking, Li Fenglan immediately used his divine sense to probe his soul.
Lou Yuanwei was just a mortal, and for Li Fenglan, it was really easy to check his soul’s condition. Therefore, in just a few moments, Li Fenglan discovered something – Lou Yuanwei’s soul was indeed as he said, it had a problem!
His soul was similar to Cheng Huang’s.
In short, their souls were different from ordinary people’s and could not be reincarnated.
For ancient ferocious beasts like Cheng Huang, whether or not they could be reincarnated was not an important matter. After all, there was no ferocious beast that died of old age in ancient times, so no one could say how long these ferocious beasts could live.
Even the cultivation world, based on previous signs, claimed that they could live as long as heaven and earth.
In addition, with no natural enemies left in this world, it doesn’t matter whether or not Cheng Huang reincarnates for an infinite period of time.
However, it’s different for Lou Yuanwei. Not to mention how long his “longevity” actually is, as someone without any cultivation, he can be killed by just about anyone.
Lou Yuanwei is a meticulous person, but anyone who harbors greed is a person with weaknesses.
Li Fenglan quickly seized upon Lou Yuanwei’s weakness.
“To help you re-enter reincarnation is just a small matter for me.” Li Fenglan pretended to be profound.
In fact, what he was thinking was: That’s ridiculous. This kind of thing is even more impossible than my own rebirth!
Li Fenglan couldn’t figure out who or what caused Lou Yuanwei’s soul to be unable to reincarnate.
“Really, really?” Lou Yuanwei asked unconsciously, then shook his head abruptly, saying, “No, that’s not right. I killed people from the Li family, so if you are Li Fuyue, how could you help me–“
As he was speaking, Li Fenglan lightly placed his hand on Lou Yuanwei’s shoulder.
He said, “Our Li family shouldn’t have ended up like this. Who knew it would be you who killed us. Now that the people involved in this matter are all having messed up destinies, and many people still can’t reincarnate, only when you die and go to the underworld can we finally understand what happened back then.”
After finishing his sentence, Li Fenglan suddenly realized that he had become quite skilled at making up lies…
If this was the previous life, he would have dealt with the matter “honestly and openly” and would not have bothered with creating illusions, let alone deceiving Luo Yuanwei.
Luo Yuanwei obviously didn’t understand much about the world of cultivation. In addition, the temptation of “reincarnation” mentioned by Li Fenglan was too great, so his greed once again kicked his rationality to the curb, controlling his whole being.
“Is what you said true?” asked Luo Yuanwei, although in his heart he already believed it to be true.
“Of course,” said Li Fenglan, looking mysterious. “Since I can live up until today, helping you reincarnate is a simple task.”
Yes, Li Fuyue had already been killed by the entire cultivation world, yet he was able to resurrect himself so helping himself reincarnate naturally shouldn’t be a problem, right?
Thinking this, Luo Yuanwei was already caught up in the game.
He pretended to stand straight and asked Li Fenglan, “So, you came to find me just to do this?”
Li Fenglan nodded, then shook his head and said, “Of course not. I came to find you to resolve what happened back then. For example, I want to know why you killed our Li family members.”
Before Li Fenglan spoke, he was worried that his question might arouse suspicion from Lou Yuanwei. After all, his current image in front of Lou Yuanwei was that of a mysterious figure in control of everything.
But to his surprise, when Lou Yuanwei heard Li Fenglan’s question, there was a hint of fear in his eyes. He bit his teeth and said, “Actually…I’m not sure. At that time, a consciousness suddenly appeared in my mind, repeatedly telling me to kill the members of the Li family. The existence of the Li family would absorb the fortune of the royal family and my fortune, preventing me from becoming the emperor. Later, after I killed them, I realized that I had been deceived.”
“Oh, right!” After saying the previous sentence, Lou Yuanwei quickly added, “At the same time, that consciousness also told me that as long as I could kill the Li family, I could…I could achieve eternal life.”
So that’s how it was. That eerie consciousness directly captured Lou Yuanwei’s two biggest desires and kept tempting him. In fact, Lou Yuanwei wasn’t very keen on killing the Li family at the time. After all, as Mu Hantao had previously thought, the Li family not only had a deep foundation, but also had many loyal and virtuous members. If Lou Yuanwei wanted to be a good emperor, he had no reason to kill the Li family. But the eerie thought in his mind repeatedly told him, brainwashing him, that he had to kill the members of the Li family.
After struggling for some time, Lou Yuanwei finally took action. According to him, after he acted, he suddenly lost consciousness. When he woke up, he was in a “terrifying place that didn’t seem human.” There, the “consciousness” told Lou Yuanwei that he had achieved immortality and no longer needed food to sustain his life. He only needed to consume human souls or the spiritual energy in the bodies of ferocious beasts.
Lou Yuanwei spoke stutteringly, but based on the steady state of this illusion, Li Fenglan could judge that he was not deceiving himself.
After hearing what Lou Yuanwei said, Li Fenglan suddenly had a thought: Lou Yuanwei’s state was somewhat similar to the situation where a cultivator went berserk, just like Li Fenglan himself did in the past.
“So that’s how it is…” Li Fenglan finished speaking, and Lou Yuanwei suddenly found that the scene in front of him had changed from the magnificent hall to the empty square just now.
As the cold wind blew, Lou Yuanwei realized that Li Fenglan had just deceived him when he saw the coldness in Li Fenglan’s eyes.
“You…you…” Lou Yuanwei pointed his finger at Li Fenglan, but before he could finish his sentence, the black-clothed man standing beside Li Fenglan raised his hand, and Lou Yuanwei was instantly frozen in place and unable to move.
Outsiders didn’t know that Li Fenglan and Lou Yuanwei had just entered an illusion. In their view, the two of them had just been silent for a while without saying anything.
Therefore, even Mu Hantao couldn’t understand why Lou Yuanwei suddenly became so agitated.
After hearing what Lou Yuanwei said, Ling Buyan turned around and said to Li Fenglan, “He looked a bit like he was possessed.”
Li Fenglan nodded and paused for a moment before saying, “And he can indeed absorb the aura of low-level ferocious beasts. The ferocious beasts near Daiduo City were probably not killed by him, but rather had their aura absorbed, which temporarily made them have no effect on ordinary people.”
Ling Buyan had been holding Li Fenglan’s wrist the whole time, so even though he didn’t enter the illusion, he saw what happened inside clearly. His feelings and thoughts were the same as Li Fenglan’s.
Hearing Ling Buyan’s words, Duan Qianli, who was forcibly suppressed in the bamboo basket by Mu Hantao, was itching with anger. Ling Buyan was once again playing dumb games with Li Fenglan!
He was angry, really angry.
After Ling Buyan finished speaking, he waved his hand slightly, and Lou Yuanwei, who was standing in front of him, suddenly regained his mobility. However, this time, Ling Buyan did not intend to let him go.
The black-clad man looked at Li Fenglan and Mu Hantao, and said, “There’s no use keeping him, it’s better for Li Fenglan and Mu Hantao to kill him.”
Mu Hantao sighed and shook her head gently, saying, “Although I don’t understand what you all just saw, it seems that the person hiding behind Lou Yuanwei has still not been found.”
“Yes…” Even Li Fenglan looked a bit disappointed.
But he had an idea in his mind now: the person who lured Lou Yuanwei and the one who made him lose control and turn evil all those years ago must be the same person!
That person lured Lou Yuanwei to use him to eliminate the Li family. But if that person could make him lose control and turn evil, why bother with just a single family in the mortal world? Why go to such great lengths?
Li Fenglan seemed to have solved one problem but a bigger one emerged in his mind.
“Right,” Ling Buyan nodded.
Meanwhile, Duan Qianli, who was still clueless about what was happening, spoke softly, “It’s a shame that Li Fenglan trusted you. I suggest that he and I go back to the demon realm. I will use all my power to investigate this matter and seek revenge.”
Although Duan Qianli had finished speaking, no one responded to him. It wasn’t until a few moments later that Duan Wannian, who was also in the bamboo basket, suddenly spoke up, “This is so awkward…”
Duan Qianli remained silent.
Shut up!
Mu Hantao shook her head slightly and said, “In that case, my worldly attachments are still hard to break. Ah… everything still needs to wait for the truth to come out.”
After speaking, Mu Hantao turned to Li Fenglan and said, “The matter of killing Lou Yuanwei is not my concern. He is your enemy, so you should take care of it yourself.”
Meanwhile, the guards of Lou Yuanwei had already noticed that something was amiss with these people. The leader of the guards gestured several times, asking Lou Yuanwei if he should take action, but he had no response. Now, the armored guards were becoming increasingly anxious, despite holding weapons and surrounding Li Fenglan and the others.
Not a single one dared to step forward.
Lou Yuanwei had not been immobilized by Ling Buyan for long. Now, upon hearing the words of Mu Hantao and the others, he eagerly commanded his guards to attack.
“Go! Take them down!”
However, even with Lou Yuanwei’s orders, the guards still hesitated and did not move from their positions.
At the same time, the cold fingertips of Li Fenglan had already slowly pointed at Lou Yuanwei’s forehead.
He was about to crush this man’s soul.
There was no such thing as a soul-searching technique in the cultivation world. Only when one crushed an opponent’s soul could they see the most memorable moments of their life. Li Fenglan had not forgotten what Lou Yuanwei had said earlier, after he regained his senses, that he had been to a “terrifying place, unlike the mortal world.”
Li Fenglan wanted to know exactly where that was.
However, Lou Yuanwei was just an ordinary mortal, and his soul was incredibly fragile.
With just a light tap of his index finger, a bone-deep pain instantly shot through Lou Yuanwei’s brain, while every nerve in his body screamed in agony.
It was at this moment, as his soul began to dissipate, that Li Fenglan saw the place that Lou Yuanwei had mentioned.
A towering fire tornado that reached into the sky, with a strange dark green light emanating from its core…
Li Fenglan had seen this place once before.
And that time, he had seen it in Ling Buyan’s memories.
That place was none other than the legendary Endless Purgatory!
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A bits of informations and more secrets…
Thank You for the new chapter (⋈◍＞◡＜◍)。✧♡