knife

Chapter 286 I'm Going to Kill

"Of course, my real intention is not what I'm looking for!" Li Dachui said to Fang Xiaomao, lying on the bed with his hands behind his head.

Sitting at the table, Fang Xiaomao carefully rubbed his tiger-winged knife with a piece of leather. Hearing Li Dachui's words, he looked up at Li Dachui and said, "Young master, do you intend to kill someone?"

Li Dachui nodded.

“He Zudao certainly deserves to die!” Fang Xiaomao said, “However, his martial arts cultivation is very strong. Linghu Ye said that he is at the peak of the ninth rank or even possibly has entered the innate realm. He is just pretending to be a ninth-rank Xuan Yuan. I’m afraid he will not be easy to kill!”

"Who said I was going to kill He Zudao?" Li Dachui sneered. "He Zudao, that troublemaker, is being used by people with ulterior motives, and I am one of them. But since he still has some use, I'll let him live a few more days. His future fate will be extremely tragic. Whether I kill him or not is not important."

The betrayal of He Qiku and his son back then can be said to be the direct culprit behind the failure of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess.

Back then, the Crown Prince promoted He Qiku all the way to the position of Commander of the Left Army of the Imperial Guards in Chang'an, commanding nearly 100,000 troops. When the Chang'an Incident occurred, He Qiku only needed to march into Chang'an, and all the rebellions would vanish like smoke.

The Crown Prince and Crown Princess had considered everything, but they never expected that He Qiku, a general from a poor background who had suffered humiliation at the hands of the powerful, would actually defect to the person he hated most at the most crucial moment.

He committed suicide out of sheer despair.

He Zudao is now beginning his revenge on the world.

Once his usefulness has been completely exploited, his miserable days will begin.

Whether you are a celestial being or a ninth-rank Xuan Yuan, when abandoned by this era, you have little room to struggle.

"Whom does the young master intend to kill?"

Fang Xiaomao was a little surprised to hear that it wasn't He Zudao.

"I want to try and see if I can kill Kou Zhong!" Li Dachui sat up straight.

Fang Xiaomao shuddered, her hand slipped, and with a tearing sound, the fine leather was immediately ripped open by the tiger-wing knife.

"Kou Zhong?" he exclaimed in surprise.

“Back then, when four top masters surrounded and killed my mother, he was the only one who survived!” Li Dachui gritted his teeth and said, “He has lived for twenty-seven or twenty-eight years longer than expected, and he should have lived enough.”

“Young Master, Kou Zhong was once incredibly close to achieving the Divine Travel Realm. Even though he has fallen to the Innate Realm now, he has still seen the scenery there,” Fang Xiaomao said. “I can’t let you take that risk.”

"Have you forgotten that I'm also a Xiantian (innate) cultivator?" Li Dachui roared. "Do you look down on me that much?"

“Young master, there are also differences in strength based on innate ability. For example, can you beat City Lord Zhou right now?” Fang Xiaomao asked.

"I'm afraid not!"

Where are Chang Jian? Where is Linghu Ye?

"We should be able to have a match, it's hard to say who will win or lose. But in a contest between people with innate abilities, it's not difficult to determine a winner, but it's difficult to kill the other!" Li Dachui said.

"If that's the case, why do you still want to kill Kou Zhong? When Kou Zhong entered the Innate Realm, the City Lord was only a Profound Origin Eighth Grade cultivator." Fang Xiaomao said.

"Although Kou Zhong harmed my mother back then, he himself didn't get any good out of it. For the past few decades, he has been busy recuperating from his injuries. The Phoenix Fire has penetrated deep into his bones, making him wish he were dead!"

“Even so, he still has considerable resources, young master. There’s no need for us to take this risk. Let’s take it one step at a time, and proceed cautiously. We’ll either wait until he loses power or he’s isolated before we gather our forces and launch a full-scale attack!” Fang Xiaomao said.

"Do you know the Kou family?" Li Dachui asked.

"Is the Kou family very powerful?"

"The Kou family of Pengcheng has been a powerful and influential family for hundreds of years. Thirty years ago, they chose Li Anmin and successfully helped him rise to power, and they were rewarded for it. Little Cat, let me tell you, if we want to kill Kou Zhong, Luoyang is our best opportunity. If He Zudao manages to capture Luoyang and Chang'an, and Kou Zhong just leaves, it will be much harder for us to kill him!" Li Dachui said, "If we want to kill him, we have to do it when he least expects it."

"Luoyang was an unexpected time? That's a battlefield; it must be heavily fortified."

“So he won’t leave easily.” Li Dachui smiled and said, “And have you forgotten the intelligence sent back from Chang’an? The Yang Clan of Hongnong secretly sent a master of the Innate Realm to assist He Zudao. The reason Kou Zhong went to Luoyang was to deal with this person. Obviously, Kou Zhong knows who this person is and believes that only he can stop him!”

Fang Xiaomao pondered for a long time, "So this time when we go to Luoyang, we're going to hide in the shadows, find an opportunity, and deliver a fatal blow?" "Yes! In a one-on-one fight, I'm definitely no match for Kou Zhong right now, but I can still resort to underhanded tactics!" Li Dachui took a deep breath: "And at this point, just as you said, I'm also worried that this old codger might suddenly have an epiphany at some point and jump into the Divine Travel Realm in a flash. If that happens, killing him will be as difficult as ascending to heaven."

"Is that even possible?" Fang Xiaomao laughed. "If it's this difficult to reach the Innate Realm, I've never heard of a martial arts cultivator at the Divine Travel Realm in all these years."

"A chaotic era is approaching, and heroes will emerge!" Li Dachui sighed. "I used to hear this saying and thought it meant something else entirely, but now it seems it's not what I thought. A chaotic era is approaching, the secrets of heaven are in disarray, and the ways of heaven are unpredictable, so heroes will emerge. Little Cat, didn't you notice? In just one short year, Chang Jian, Linghu Ye, and I have all suddenly achieved the Innate Realm, while in the previous nearly twenty years, only the old man had achieved it. If it's like this outside the pass, then what about the whole world? Haven't many more unknown masters emerged like this?"

Fang Xiaomao blinked: "Young Master, why didn't this heavenly secret fall upon me, allowing me to instantly leap to the ninth rank of the Profound Origin Realm?"

"You're probably not a hero!" Li Dachui chuckled.

Fang Xiaomao's face immediately fell. She shoved the knife back into its sheath with a clatter, leaped onto the small couch opposite her, and lay down embracing the knife.

Li Dachui was too lazy to pay attention to him, knowing that Fang Xiaomao was just pretending to be angry.

Sure enough, after only a short while, Fang Xiaomao turned over again and asked, "Young Master, are you really confident? If there's even the slightest risk, I would have stopped you from going. The City Lord and Protector Xiao gave me special instructions before we left."

"You've been with me for so long, when have you ever seen me take a risk for no reason?"

“I’ve seen it!” Fang Xiaomao said bluntly, “As long as the profit is big enough, you’ll take risks. You’ve been like that ever since our first job in the wilderness.”

Li Dachui glared at him, raised a finger, and a blue spark shone at his fingertip. After a moment, the blue spark disappeared, and a faint white mist lingered between his fingers. The white mist peeked out, flashed in front of Fang Xiaomao, and then disappeared. Fang Xiaomao shivered.

"Kou Zhong has been suffering from the poison of the Phoenix Fire for years. I'll go up and add fuel to the fire for him!" Li Dachui said with a smile. "Then, with a whoosh, the Phoenix Fire will turn into Moonlight Weak Water, one yin and one yang, one hard and one soft. I guarantee that this old codger will go to see the King of Hell right away."

"So, young master had already planned this all along."

“Over the years, Kou Zhong has kept a low profile, and outsiders have no idea what he’s capable of, let alone how he’s doing. But since Wu De started cooperating with us, we’ve learned what Kou Zhong is really like. And now that he’s left Chang’an and the Black Ice Guard, and is in Luoyang, and is even going to personally deal with the experts from the Yang family of Hongnong, how could I not seize such an opportunity?” Li Dachui stopped, and the chilling atmosphere in the room vanished.

In Fang Xiaomao's perception, Li Dachui standing in front of him seemed no different from an ordinary person who knew nothing about martial arts.

"The realm of a master of innate cultivation is truly wondrous!" Fang Xiaomao looked at Li Dachui with envy: "I'm not even at the ninth rank of the Profound Origin Realm, I wonder when I'll be able to reach the level of a master like you!"

"Take your time, no rush!" Li Dachui laughed. "Look at your Brother Wolf, didn't he suddenly advance to the ninth rank of the Profound Origin Realm just when he was being brutally beaten by Xiao Changche?"

"Senior Brother's cultivation is far superior to mine; we're just a tiny bit short," Fang Xiaomao shook her head and said, "Even if Protector Xiao beats me to a pulp, I still won't advance!"

Looking at the dejected Fang Xiaomao, Li Dachui couldn't help but burst into laughter.

Gu Xiaoman advanced to the ninth rank of Xuan Yuan at the same time as Li Dachui left the pass, and Chen Liang from Zhenwu City also advanced to the ninth rank at the same time, bringing the total number of Xuan Yuan ninth rank experts outside the pass to three. This was also the reason why Li Dachui felt at ease leaving. With top-tier martial arts experts like Zhou Zhi and Chang Jian, and core forces like Xiao Changche, Gu Xiaoman, and Chen Liang, and below them a group of Xuan Yuan seventh and eighth rank experts like Xia Zhi, Xiao Dongwei, and Xiao Chenggong, as well as countless Qi Control fifth and sixth rank basic forces, even if something happened, they would be able to handle it, and he could take the time to plan his next big move.

The area outside the Great Wall has entered a period of stable development.

If we just follow the steps and move forward steadily, we will surely be able to make rapid progress on the fast track.

With this shift in power, the three Northern Yuan brothers, who had been wreaking havoc in battle, were no longer a threat. When he returned, his focus would be on how to completely annihilate them and seize their vast territories and people, making them his own base of operations.

The next day, just as the sun peeked over the mountaintop, Li Dachui and Fang Xiaomao set off.

Watching the two figures depart, Li Guohua said to Linghu Ye beside him with some reluctance, "General, are you really not going to do anything? If Li Dachui dies, the area outside the Great Wall might fall apart, and then you can take it back."

"Even if Li Dachui is gone, there's still Xiao Changche!" Linghuye glanced at Li Guohua: "Chang Jian wrote me a letter, telling me that Xiao Changche is a woman!"

Li Guohua almost fell off his horse, feeling dizzy and his vision blurred.

"This, this, this..."

"Just like you, I almost couldn't catch my breath!" Linghu Ye laughed heartily, "This little woman has been fooling us for so many years, her eyes must be blind. Li Dachui and Xiao Changche have gotten together! Don't even mention that Li Dachui is now a master of the Innate Realm and hard to kill. Even if we did kill him, we would have made a blood feud with Xiao Changche. Do you believe that Xiao Changche would dare to lead a large army into the pass to settle accounts with us right away?"

It took Li Guohua a long while to catch his breath, and he could only manage a wry smile.

(End of this chapter)