Daqian Night Emperor

Chapter 185: Zhao Qi'an's First Battle with the Imperial Master

The so-called Jianghu, in the eyes of others, is a place of fine clothes and fast horses, where people take revenge and repay kindness.

But in Zhao Qi'an's view, the martial arts world in the eyes of the world is a place where a group of warriors seek survival.

Warriors also need to eat.

A group of people stay on a certain mountain, set up their own sect, and then they can focus on their practice without paying any attention to anything else?
There is no such good thing.

To practice martial arts, one must throw down mountains of gold and silver.

For example, Chu Xuan is the master of Jian Gu, but Jian Gu relies on businesses such as bodyguards and escorts to support its own sect.

Later, after the establishment of the Sky Patrol, most of the sects in Jiangu became peripheral members of the Sky Patrol, relying on the bounty missions of the Sky Patrol to support themselves.

This is a reputable and upright family, and all their money is earned through hard work.

There are even more sects and schools that either use force to monopolize certain businesses in a city, or simply engage in smuggling salt and iron, or even robbery and robbery, and they are all targets of government crackdowns.

In addition, there are warriors from various aristocratic families.

These noble families accumulated wealth from generation to generation, owned land, started businesses, and became wealthy. Not only would they train their own clan members to practice martial arts, they would also hire some martial arts priests at large salaries to protect their businesses.

This is the world of martial arts. It has never been so beautiful. Behind the seemingly bloody fighting, it is not for the pleasure of revenge, but is ultimately just about interests.

However, this was the situation in the martial arts world before the establishment of the Heavenly Book Pavilion. After the establishment of the Heavenly Book Pavilion, many sects had been destroyed.

Zhao Qi'an had always felt that the main purpose of Emperor Tianwu establishing the Heavenly Book Pavilion was not to collect methods of martial arts practice from all over the world, but in fact to clear out the forces of warriors in the Nine Provinces of Daqian who violated the law with force.

Even the branches of the Patrol Observatory established in various places in the Nine Provinces of Daqian were all for the purpose of supervising these warriors who did not belong to the imperial court.

The results achieved can be said to be quite remarkable.

At least nowadays, the situation of traveling merchants encountering bandits robbing their caravans is much better than it was twenty years ago.

Zhao Qi'an remembered that Jiang Liu'er, who was rescued by Zhao Guanxiang some time ago, was the second daughter of the Jizhou horse bandit "Jiang Lin" who was recruited.

The reason why he knew this was because the person who recruited the group of horse bandits in "Huangsha Village" was the Weiwu Marquis who guarded the border of Jizhou.

Even the horse bandits were mostly incorporated into the Iron Wolf Guards after being recruited.

Jiang Lin and the "Huangfengzhai" behind him were not isolated cases of being recruited.

Back then, the Daqian court incorporated many martial arts forces, the most famous of which was the Xuan Dao Sect.

Guan Yunzi, the leader of Xuan Dao Sect, is one of the pillars of the Daqian nation today!

He is also one of the few clearly known Yangxian powerhouses in the Nine Provinces of Daqian.

He lived to be over 200 years old. He had been famous since the time of Emperor Gaozu and served four emperors. It was not until the period of "Tianwu's Suppression of Buddhism" that he came down from Tianjiao Peak and entered the secular world. He killed a golden living Buddha of the Buddhist sect with one sword, completely defeating the power of Buddhism and forcing it to withdraw from the borders of Daqian and establish the Southern Buddhist Kingdom in the wild and alien land.

It was for this reason that Guan Yunzi was personally conferred the title of "Leader of Taoism" by Emperor Tianwu, granted the rank of first-class military officer, and the title of "Pillar of the Country", and was allowed to "obey orders but not announcements".

If the Daqian martial arts world were to choose a "Martial Arts Leader", then "Guan Yunzi" would be the undisputed candidate.

Zhao Qi'an had never seen Guan Yunzi. This Taoist always stayed on Tianjiao Peak, the southernmost part of Liangzhou. He never came down the mountain after "Tianwu Destroyed Buddhism".

It is precisely because of this that he cannot measure how strong Guan Yunzi is, and where he ranks among the "pillars of the country" of Daqian.

However, regarding the deeds of Daoxuan Zong and Guan Yunzi, there are only a few records in the "Miscellaneous Talks of Jianghu" included in the Heavenly Book Pavilion.

Zhao Qi'an just glanced at it and turned the page.

He did not think that the mysterious force that attacked Jian Gu would provoke the "National Pillar". Guan Yunzi was not made of clay, and the overall strength of Xuan Dao Sect was not comparable to Jian Gu.

In the end, Zhao Qian'an targeted several sects and families that had been destroyed for a long time: "Liangzhou Chu Family, Changgu Fist Sect, Shadow Knife Sect..."

The sects and families he selected all had powerful people in the realm of supernatural powers, and they were quite famous between forty and twenty years ago, and they have not disappeared from the world in recent years.

Zhao Qi'an silently memorized the names of nearly a dozen sects and forces, and planned to ask Xiao Wei to investigate how these sects and families "disappeared" after he returned, and whether there were any survivors now.

Just as he was about to put the book back into the bookcase and take out the next one...

Suddenly, something strange happened!

Zhao Qi'an felt as if his heart was suddenly clenched by a big hand, and his hair stood on end.

An indescribable sense of crisis enveloped his heart.

"Tap...tap..."

The entire first floor of the Heavenly Book Pavilion seemed to become quiet, with only the sound of footsteps.

A graceful figure walked past those who were borrowing books on the first floor, but no one seemed to notice and they all went about their business as if nothing had happened.

Finally, the beautiful figure appeared in front of Zhao Qi'an, stroked the hem of her skirt with both hands behind her back, and squatted down.

Silver-white hair spread out like a waterfall, and on the girlish face, a two-finger-wide piece of silk covered the eyes.

She was squatting barefoot in front of Zhao Qi'an who was sitting on the ground, with her chin supported by her hands. Although her eyes were covered by silk, Zhao Qi'an could feel that she was "observing" him.

The distance between the two people was only half a foot.

She just held her chin up and quietly "observed" Zhao Qian'an.

Zhao Qi'an seemed unaware of her presence and continued reading the book without even raising his eyebrows to look at her.

After a long while, a ethereal and pleasant voice sounded:

"You, can see me."

She did not use a questioning tone when she said this, but used an affirmative tone.

But Zhao Qi'an pretended not to hear and continued to flip through the pages of the book in his hand.

And that ethereal and pleasant voice sounded again:

"Qianlong...it turns out that it's not Zhao Wanjin, so it's you?"

After she said this confusing sentence, she didn't speak for a long time, as if she was waiting for Zhao Qi'an's reply.

But after waiting for a while, Zhao Qi'an still didn't respond, so she spoke again:
"You stole my disciple, so you have to give me a disciple back! I know you can hear me."

After she finished speaking, she stood up and walked out.

It was not until the silver light disappeared from sight that the surrounding sounds gradually "surged" over again.

"Snapped!"

Zhao Qian'an put away the books and gradually came out of his "no thought" state. After a long while, he gradually regained his ability to think.

He looked in the direction where the beautiful figure left, and his expression turned grim.

(End of this chapter)