Chapter 63: The Overpowered Teyvat Fried Egg, and an Even More Overpowered Jiang Yuyan

The torment lasted until the sky began to grow pale.

Murong Fu felt as though he had lived through countless terrifying nightmares.

Over and over again, he lingered on the precipice of life and death. Time and time again, the moment he forced his eyes open, he would hear Zhu Jinzhen mutter a few words he could not quite make out, followed by total darkness. Either his head would go flying dozens of meters through the air, or his body would be violently imploded from within.

He had even experienced being split vertically, horizontally, and chopped clean into three segments at the waist.

It was the ferocious sword intent belonging to a Land of Heaven and Mortal grandmaster, combined with the "miraculous" experience of being sliced almost into minced meat.

Of course, what Murong Fu did not know was—

He was not the only one subjected to such treatment; his personal retainers, Bao Different and Feng Bo'e, shared the exact same fate.

Yet the truly brutal experiments were reserved for a few Clean-Garment Faction elders and protectors of the Beggars' Sect, who had been captured by Zhou Jingzhong of the Tianshen Manor. What they endured were tests that made the eighteen layers of hell look merciful.

"Use the Teyvat Fried Eggs that Xuemei and the others brought back from Jingzhou Prefecture on them."

"Didn't the Sun Moon Holy Cult once possess the Three-Corpse Brain-Spirit Pill? Help catalyze the potency for them."

"Wangqing, go to my personal armory and fetch the Thousand-Poison Ten-Thousand-Insect Pill we acquired when we exterminated the Demonic Cult back then. Let the elders of the Beggars' Sect try it, and see what happens when they are poisoned to death and then resurrected."

"The Evil-Warding Swordplay requires self-castration for rapid mastery. So, what happens if someone masters it through self-castration, gets killed, and is then resurrected? Can he still use the Evil-Warding Swordplay? Will his internal energy and blood reverse flow?"

To those elders and protector-beggars of the Beggars' Sect's Clean-Garment Faction, the voice of Zhu Jinzhen was a thousand times more terrifying than that of King Yama or the judges of the underworld. They had always believed that the most supreme tortures in this world were merely ones where death was preferable to life.

Yet Zhu Jinzhen demonstrated a reality to them that shattered their minds completely.

To die a death worse than life, only to be resurrected and forced to endure that agonizing death all over again in an endless, unceasing cycle—that was true, ultimate terror!

Not a single person could withstand such torment.

Forget about keeping state secrets; they confessed everything down to the smallest detail—when they wet their beds as toddlers, when they peeked at the neighbor widow bathing, and where they used to rob bird nests—things they had long since forgotten.

At first, they protested their innocence.

They cried out, begging for a quick death, shouting all sorts of stirring and heroic slogans.

By the end, they only begged Zhu Jinzhen to show mercy and let them pass on to reincarnation.

Even though none of them knew whether reincarnation truly existed.

To them at that moment, even being reborn as a pig, a dog, or a blade of grass in their next lives would be infinitely better than being subjected to such repeated, endless torture by the Yama sitting before them.

"Tch, even if one dies from lethal poison, upon being resurrected with a Teyvat Fried Egg, all poisons are instantly and completely eradicated."

"Aside from having a minuscule amount of health restored, they are physically completely intact."

"While there's no remedy for long-standing disabilities involving missing limbs, limbs severed within a short span of a few days will fully recover upon resurrection. Even if an arm or a leg is completely pulverized into a mist of blood, it will regenerate."

"This is the heaven-defying power of gaming mechanics!!"

Using the subjects before him—including Murong Fu and his retainers—Zhu Jinzhen had Changsun Wangqing and all the others execute various tests based on every wild idea they could conceive. Yet, the conclusion remained singular.

For gaming resurrection items to appear in a martial arts world was nothing short of a dimensional reduction strike.

It completely ignored the underlying logic, laws of nature, and world rules of the martial arts universe.

Aside from a two-minute cooldown,

The Teyvat Fried Eggs showed Zhu Jinzhen for the very first time what it meant when people said: there is nothing most heaven-defying, only things even more heaven-defying!

"Yuyan, come here."

"Ah? Yes, Your Highness." Jiang Yuyan's delicate body trembled violently, a timid expression washing over her face as she walked falteringly toward Zhu Jinzhen. She had been sleeping soundly earlier that night, preparing to set out the next day to execute Zhu Jinzhen's orders.

Instead, she had been summoned in the dead of night to witness this 'eighteen layers of hell'.

She had always considered herself ruthless enough.

Yet standing before her lord and master, she realized she was merely practicing parlor tricks in the presence of a grandmaster.

Deep within Zhu Jinzhen's eyes flashed a hint of amusement, though his face remained stern as he reprimanded, "What are you afraid of? Could it be that you think I'll eat you?"

"Ah, Your Highness."

Jiang Yuyan was startled at first, but then strange and bizarre images flooded her mind. "If you wish to eat me, Y-Yuyan naturally wouldn't dare disobey. But... once you eat me and I'm resurrected, would that still count as being intertwined with you—"

As she spoke, a morbid, bashful flush bloomed across Jiang Yuyan's cheeks, accompanied by a faint, budding anticipation that breached both physiological and taboo boundaries.

Zhu Jinzhen: "..."

What was up with that inexplicable, blush-inducing expression on Jiang Yuyan's face?

Surely she meant 'eating' in the literal sense, not that kind of 'eating', right?

With a scalp tingling with dread, Zhu Jinzhen glanced over at the completely broken human lab rats on the other side, and then back at Jiang Yuyan. He had a lingering suspicion that his attempt to discipline Jiang Yuyan tonight might backfire spectacularly.

Would Jiang Yuyan, already renowned as a ruthless female empress, evolve into an ultra-ruthless—oh no, an ultra-yandere, perverted maniac instead?

Fortunately, Zhu Jinzhen soon caught sight of the fleeting smile at the corner of Jiang Yuyan's lips.

"Fine then, I'll grant your wish."

Zhu Jinzhen reached out, pulled Jiang Yuyan toward him, hooked her chin with his finger, and teased, "Would you prefer to be steamed, or braised in soy sauce?"

"Uh, hehe, Your Highness, I, I didn't mean..." Jiang Yuyan swallowed hard, unable to tell whether her lord was being serious or joking as beads of sweat the size of soybeans rolled down her face.

"Hmph, you certainly have a flair for drama."

Zhu Jinzhen shot her a sideways glance and released her chin. The latter immediately sprang back a full Zhang away like a startled rabbit.

Having not yet experienced the harsh twists and turns of fate—with her mother still waiting for her back home—Jiang Yuyan had not yet blackened into the cold, ruthless empress who would eventually turn her back on all blood relatives and slaughter everyone until only the title characters remained.

"Alright, enough joking around."

Zhu Jinzhen waved his hand, causing an entire stack of Teyvat Fried Eggs to materialize before him. "With your missions imminent and the martial arts world fraught with peril, I have prepared two resurrection-capable fried eggs for each of you. You've already seen how they're used just now; take them back and distribute them among your sisters."

Eighteen Teyvat Fried Eggs actually weighed very little.

Yet when they landed in Jiang Yuyan's hands, they felt as heavy as carrying the Five Sacred Mountains.

"Y-Your Highness, are these really for us?" Jiang Yuyan looked at Zhu Jinzhen in sheer disbelief. These were divine items capable of bringing the dead back to life! True, she had personally used them a few times earlier to assist her lord with testing, but those belonged to him.

Right now, however, she was essentially holding two lives of her own in her hands.

Along with another sixteen lives belonging to her sisters like Huang Xuemei!

Most importantly, this represented Zhu Jinzhen's absolute trust in her.

Even a fool would understand the value of such miraculous items of resurrection, yet Zhu Jinzhen had handed them over to her without the slightest hesitation. It was impossible for Jiang Yuyan not to be deeply moved.

After a brief, intense internal struggle, Jiang Yuyan accepted the Teyvat Fried Eggs, her face flushing crimson as she quickly leaned in close to Zhu Jinzhen, pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, and left behind a single sentence: "Your Highness, what I said earlier doesn't have to be a joke, you know."

With that, she turned and darted away as swiftly as fleeing hare.

Normally, having a beauty throw herself into one's arms would be a joyous occasion, but Zhu Jinzhen's smile froze on his face. After a long moment, he could only squeeze out a sigh: "As expected of you, Jiang Yuyan."