Volume One, Chapter 21: The Opportunity to Change Fate

The Great Wind Hall and the Black Lotus Demon Mountain were sworn enemies. Since Yan Song had already spoken, the other grandmasters naturally had no objections and nodded in agreement one after another.

“So you’re aware that we are both branches of the Western Realm?” Shirley sneered coldly. “Even so, your Church and the Assembly still seek to destroy our Association… Now you come to me speaking of kinship?” By the end, her voice had become faintly unsteady.

The Jade Emperor shook his head helplessly. “Come, accompany me in a duet once more.” He handed the bamboo flute to Yun Mo, and with a sweep of his sleeve, a guqin appeared on the table. For a moment, flute and zither sang together, their melody piercing every cloud and soaring straight to the heavens.

“Hey, you old fool, why are you so detestable!” He Wenyue shouted sharply. She pointed at the old Taoist with her right hand, and instantly a streak of blood-red light shot from her fingertip, like a crimson serpent slashing through the night.

At that moment, a figure cloaked in purple, swift as a startled swan, darted across the wilds, leaping over the heads of the gathered crowd and heading straight for the city gate.

Though the Turbid Zhang River, after joining with the Clear Zhang River, would ultimately flow into the Wei River and from there into the Southern Canal across the Hebei plain, it was a rather unremarkable river among China’s famous waterways. Yet within the water-scarce Shangdang Basin, it was the largest river of all.

When more than two hundred grenades exploded overhead, their shrapnel rained down on the Japanese puppet army’s encampment with no place to hide. Those still lost in sleep were torn apart, the carnage immense.

But in matters such as these—domestic affairs between husband and wife—He Sanliang, as an outsider, felt ill at ease commenting. All he could do was sigh at how overly accommodating his old comrade was toward his wife; some lines had been crossed, some boundaries blurred.

Yuuko Shiina snorted coldly, tossed a handful of kelp into the pot, and tried to explain, though her words were clumsy.

Even from such a distance, he could sense the sharpness of that sword’s gleam.

As expected, not long after his brother-in-law went missing, the Thunder lineage began suppressing his forces within the sect.

During the slaughter, at least five hundred officers and soldiers fell by their hands; the rest, in their panic, trampled one another or turned on their own, bringing total casualties to nearly three thousand.

She deftly turned the wheel, sped up, turned again—zigzagging in bizarre fashion—yet somehow returned to the original route.

At this, Gao He’s face lit up with excitement. Steelmaking was, after all, a secret long kept by powerful clans.

In the recent “Horsehead Mountain Incident,” more than twenty rebellious monks had been devoured as sacrifices by the Horsehead King, their severed heads now hanging as a grisly necklace at its throat.

“I, Hu Quan, have always been reasonable and upright. There’s no other meaning in bringing you here today.”

Thus, they set out to assassinate Chen Changyan, the evil cultist known among the transmigrators as the “Universal Elixir.”

Hearing this, the crowd, still shaking off the terror of near-death, burst into hearty laughter.

The will to survive is the strongest instinct in humankind, but the complexity of the heart—its capacity for corruption, surrender, and other negative emotions—means that at critical moments, the desire to give up can always arise. Every difficult task, in being truly accomplished, must first overcome the temptation to abandon it.

I was puzzled as to why the formation was only now being activated—they had all reached its center some time ago, and I had already studied every line of the pattern before it finally began to operate.

Lin Chong had already asked Prototype One, whose energy level was about the same as Neo-Magus energy. Any craft powered by Neo-Magus energy would be immune to interference, and weapons using this energy could easily destroy the device that created the interference—unlike when the Drakk Cannon was blocked.

The enemy’s position was far too strategic; if they did not split their forces, Bao Xin’s troops would be exposed on the flank and rear, leaving the enemy free to choose their point of attack.

With these words, the man in white darted another dozen yards, vanishing into the roadside wild grass, some withered, some not. The wind swept through the weeds like surging waves.

When the missile struck the monster, an orange fireball erupted instantly, unleashing temperatures of millions of degrees and destructive force; Battsis was obliterated in the first instant, leaving behind only a few charred scraps as evidence he had ever existed.

“Damn it, where’s his weakness? If I keep running like this, I’ll lose my stamina!” Chu Feng knew this well—his skills and marksmanship were as sharp as ever, but stamina was the one thing that no longer matched his younger self. He could maintain such intensity for a short burst, but if it dragged on, the outcome would be uncertain.

“Grandpa, didn’t I just call you now? I’ve been busy, haven’t had time to chat properly.” Qing He, indeed, seldom kept in touch with family, so when his grandfather spoke, he could only make excuses.

So I went openly to the Shen family with Jiajia, but on the way, I stopped a nanny, held Jiajia up to her, and asked whom the child resembled. I saw Jiajia every day, but couldn’t tell, and wanted the nanny’s confirmation just to be sure.

Yet the route was no longer toward the airport; instead, it twisted and turned, heading deliberately for deserted areas.

Kang Fanny was busy stir-frying in the kitchen, her phone ringing incessantly on the living room coffee table.

It was only after I went over that I understood what Big Head meant. In the middle of the hall stood that towering stone Buddha we’d just encountered, still wearing its eerie smile; beside the breach we’d opened was a heap of corpses, each pile two meters wide and the height of a man.

Hearing the other’s words, Huo Yanbin couldn’t help but laugh aloud. He was, after all, only a guide.

“I…” Yun Mando’s face flushed, turning scarlet; she stammered, unable to retort. As Qinghe prepared to press further, Jiang Yunyao spoke up to stop her.