Chapter 61: An Earth-Shaking Endeavor, Murong Fu Reduced to a Guinea Pig

"Wait, did I almost miss something?"

"Teyvat, a fried egg?"

Zhu Jinzhen muttered to himself, and suddenly, inspiration struck. With a wave of his hand, the Gourmet's Tablecloth appeared out of thin air before him.

He waved his hand, decisively placing a Teyvat Fried Egg onto the Gourmet's Tablecloth. At that moment, his body trembled uncontrollably with excitement, his heart and mind filled with anticipation.

"Come on, Gourmet's Tablecloth, let me see your limits!"

Whether it would actually work or not, Zhu Jinzhen had no certainty.

However, although the Teyvat Fried Egg was a resurrection item in the game—

Who said a game fried egg wasn't food?

The Gourmet's Tablecloth claimed to be able to materialize all kinds of food. Zhu Jinzhen thought that perhaps, very likely, it might actually work?

Ding—

Imagining the chime sound effect himself, Zhu Jinzhen swallowed hard and said to the Gourmet's Tablecloth, "I want to eat a freshly materialized Teyvat Fried Egg that possesses resurrection effects."

Swish!

Accompanied by a flash of brilliant light, a radiance swept across the Gourmet's Tablecloth spread out flat before Zhu Jinzhen. Surrounding the single [Teyvat Fried Egg] he had placed there, an identical second fried egg materialized.

Gazing at the one-to-one perfectly replicated 'Teyvat Fried Egg,' Zhu Jinzhen learned for the first time what black technology was—oh no, this was black sci-fi so extreme it completely defied all logic and reason!

"It... it can really be materialized?" Zhu Jinzhen gasped, his face flushed red with excitement. Fortunately, a shred of lingering sanity remained in his mind, or else he would have shouted out on the spot.

One Teyvat Fried Egg + Gourmet's Tablecloth.

Equaled = Infinite Lives!!!

"Someone come here!"

Zhu Jinzhen's voice was even louder than when he had previously summoned the Tiance and Cangyun generals.

"What are your orders, Your Highness?"

"Go and bring me a death row inmate."

Hearing this, the Tiance guards waiting in the hall did not move. Instead, they replied with troubled expressions, "Uh, has Your Highness forgotten? You said that those heinous criminals condemned to death are just a waste of rice to keep alive; as long as they are guilty and not innocent, none of them survive past the next day, with very few exceptions."

Other places might have death row inmates.

Within the entire Shaanxi territory, not a single one existed.

When Zhu Jinzhen carried out a massive purge across the entire Shaanxi region, he had already established an ironclad rule: anyone who was heinous, burdened with murder cases, and confirmed to have suffered no wrongful accusations or miscarriages of justice would be executed without exception.

Those death row inmates were never given any chance to miraculously survive through an imperial amnesty.

Nor would any natural or man-made disasters, or prison breaks, ever happen to save them.

Reminded of this, Zhu Jinzhen clearly remembered as well. In his momentary excitement just now, he had almost forgotten about this rule.

"No death row inmates..."

Several thoughts flashed through Zhu Jinzhen's mind, but he quickly dismissed them. The Tiance and Cangyun soldiers were utterly loyal to him; even for trial-and-error experiments, he would never use them. The people of Shaanxi were all his subjects, and the same applied to them.

Suddenly, a person came to Zhu Jinzhen's mind.

"Where is Murong Fu?"

"Replying to Your Highness, he has already been released."

"Send a Heaven-Realm master to kill him and bring him back," Zhu Jinzhen said, as if remembering something. "Doesn't he have a few attendants? Kill them as well."

"Understood." The Tiance guard bowed and accepted the order.

"Wait."

Zhu Jinzhen called out to stop them, pondering for a moment, "By the way, have the Secret Guards check if there are any flower-pickers or human traffickers who have recently fled near Jiayuguan or within Shaanxi territory, and bring them back—they don't need to be in one piece."

Since he had already chosen a test subject, he might as well test whether a Teyvat Fried Egg materialized from the Gourmet's Tablecloth could still resurrect someone whose body was left in pieces.

"As you command."

Several Tiance guards bowed, exited the room, and went down to transmit the orders.

...

Inside Jiayuguan, at a certain inn.

Murong Fu, having narrowly escaped death, was pacing back and forth in his room with an uncertain expression.

He was pondering whether he should leave the Ming Empire directly, or venture deeper to find the Ming branch of the Murong family and forge an alliance.

"Young Master, if Miss Murong is willing to lend her aid, it would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." Bao Butong had half his teeth knocked out by the Cangyun soldiers, causing him to lisp through the gaps, making it difficult for the others to understand him.

Feng Bo'e held a different opinion: "That eldest miss is not someone easy to get along with."

"Although the two branches of the Murong family share the same ancestry, they have been separated for nearly two hundred years. While the Ming branch of the Murong family has the gifted Young Master Mingzhu in this generation, who in the entire Ming Empire doesn't know that the one truly holding the power is the eldest miss of the Murong family, Murong Qiudi?"

"That crazy woman!" Deep within Murong Fu's eyes, memories resurfaced of the first time he saw the eldest miss of the Murong family from the Ming Empire at Swallow塢 six years ago.

At that time, his martial arts and talents, which he considered peerless, had been ruthlessly trampled into the mud by that woman with a single kick.

If not for the grand ambition of restoring his country, Murong Fu would never have made this trip to the Ming Empire.

However, his encounters in Jiayuguan made Murong Fu understand even more deeply the importance of power and authority. Even knowing that heading to the Murong family this time would bring humiliation, he was determined to make this journey.

While the group was talking, the candle flame in the room suddenly flickered.

"No, murderous intent..."

As a Profound-Pointing Grandmaster, Murong Fu's perception of danger far exceeded that of ordinary people.

Suddenly, his pupils constricted sharply.

A cold gleam cut through the darkness, impossibly fast. Murong Fu only felt a chill at his neck; he didn't even have time to circulate his inner Qi, nor could he make any reaction at all.

"This..." He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His vision began to blur, and right before dying, he only saw the headless bodies of himself, Bao Butong, Feng Bo'e, and the others slowly collapsing to the ground at the same time.

Murong Fu's consciousness began to scatter. He remembered his painstaking efforts to restore his country, traveling across the realm; he remembered his proud Profound-Pointing realm and ancestral martial arts. Now, everything had become a joke.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A series of severed heads rolled onto the floor, Murong Fu's face still lingering with an expression of sheer disbelief. Until his dying breath, he could not understand how there could be such a fast blade and such a terrifying person in this world.

Nor did he understand why the attacker wanted to kill him.

In the darkness, three figures appeared simultaneously.

"The reverse blade claims souls, the true blade demands lives."

"Cangyun's reverse blade sword... no matter how many times I see it, it is always so astonishing."

In the shadows, two of them looked at the reverse blade sword in the blade-wielding man's hand. It was smooth as jade, unstained by blood, which spoke volumes about the speed of that strike just now.

"The one who is formidable is not me, but His Highness."

"If His Highness hadn't annihilated the Demonic Cult and added this 'Divine Saber Technique' to the Cangyun Scripture Pavilion, even if I had pushed the Mountain-Dividing Strength, the Azure Snow Saber, and the Flash Blade to the state of absolute mastery, I could never have achieved such proficiency."

"Let's go, let's return to report our mission first."

Hearing this, the other two stopped wasting words and swiftly began to collect the bodies of Murong Fu and his men.

After they left, the innkeeper and the waiter, accompanied by a few others, quickly cleared away all the tables, chairs, and decorations in the room. At top speed, they threw everything that had been splashed with blood—or might have been splashed with blood—into the backyard and burned it all to ashes in a massive fire.

In the distance, the sound of the night watchman echoed. It was the third watch of the night.