The court lackeys of the eight-hour workday

Chapter 613 Chess Pieces, Chess Players

Quiet and dark.

The main hall of Ise Grand Shrine is known as the "Iseijinmei-zukuri" style, which is the oldest and most sacred architectural style in Japan. The building has simple yet sharp lines, and the huge Senki and Kasugai wood on the roof extends from the main body of the building like a sword pointing to the sky.

The four layers of railings, named "Banyuan, Neiyuyuan, Waiyuyuan, and Ruiyuan," blocked all eyes from peeking into the interior of the main hall.

Ji Tianrui stood outside "Itagaki".

This was the closest she had ever come to the temple.

Long before the Battle of the Imperial Mausoleum ended, she had already set sail for Japan to make arrangements. It wasn't until the night An Qi died at Li Miao's hands that her identity was exposed because she had been away from Japan for too long, and she was forced to leave the Ise Grand Shrine.

She's been here before.

At that time, she replaced a priest and used that identity to try to get close to the main hall of Ise Grand Shrine to investigate the secrets of Amaterasu Omikami... But right here, just as she crossed the outermost "Itagaki", the high priest, who was clearly fast asleep, suddenly woke up without warning and rushed straight in front of her.

She was certain that the High Priest could not have noticed her actions, and there was no one around the temple that day.

So who discovered her and awakened the Grand Master in a way that even she couldn't detect?
There is only one possibility.

Amaterasu.

He never fell asleep.

He was inside the temple, watching over Ji Tianrui.

just now.

Ji Tianrui breathed a sigh of relief.

The habitual, mask-like fake smile on her face gradually faded, leaving behind an expression as cold and hard as ice.

She sacrificed countless lives, plunging the world into chaos and turning the world upside down. Zuo Lishan, Lan Lechuan, the Ming Cult, Emperor Jianwen, the Emperor, Yin Ruihua, the Yang family, Zheng Anqi, An Qisheng, Liu Jin, Ji Tianrui, the Miao King... She finally arrived here, paving her way with the blood of countless heroes, geniuses, nobles, and demons.

Many things... seem to be coming to an end today.

She suddenly spoke.

You're looking at me, aren't you?

No response.

But she didn't seem to care and continued talking.

“You know, everyone in the world, including Lord Li, thinks I’m crazy… Why am I so obsessed with following your trail? Why am I willing to risk everything to deal with someone I’ve never met and who is just a nobody?”

"They feel that you and I have no grudges against each other."

"But I think you should understand."

she said softly.

"You have been to the Central Plains."

“There are some things I don’t want to tell Li Miao… so he won’t understand me, but you should be able to. You know why I’m targeting you, and why I’m so certain of your existence.”

"After you handed over the Jizhao Technique to Emperor Jianwen, you did not leave the Central Plains. At least thirty years ago, you were still wandering around the Central Plains."

"Ji Tianrui, do you still remember this name?"

Ji Tianrui suddenly smiled.

"My father, my enemy."

“He imprisoned my freedom. The purpose of my birth was to become his tool to overcome the five signs of decay. He set up countless methods to prevent me from escaping... and at that time, I really had no way to resist him.”

"Fortunately, he's dead."

"After his death, I inherited everything from him, including all his research findings on certain things."

At this point, Ji Tianrui suddenly changed the subject.

"In fact, many people who have fought with me, including Lord Li, find it strange. Gu magic is a minor art, and it should be incompatible with martial arts. For thousands of years, no one has ever tried to combine them. This should be taken for granted."

"Why was it that my grandfather, Yang Lixuan, the leader of the Yang Cult, suddenly thought of this and secretly conceived a child with the Miao King, giving birth to my father?"

"I would believe my father could do that, but my grandfather... well, the Yang family's stone head. He might be useful in battle, but when it comes to finding alternative paths, he's not even as good as a piece of dog urine moss."

"How could he possibly combine Gu magic with martial arts, just because he's a Miao king who's been resurrected? If the Miao king had such abilities, why would he have only stayed in Miao territory when he was alive?"

Ji Tianrui paused for a moment.

"My father also found this very strange... so he did some research and came to some conclusions."

"With the backing of the Ming Cult, he uncovered the secrets of the Jianwen Emperor's era, and then followed the trail, discovering Yingzhou and Xu Fu, and finally... confirmed your existence."

"The combination of Gu techniques and martial arts is a strategic move you orchestrated for Yang Lixuan. You wanted to use Yang Lixuan to spread this heretical path throughout the world, leading martial arts astray and completely eliminating the possibility of someone like Sanfeng or Bodhidharma appearing."

"My father came into being because of a seemingly insignificant move. His birth was merely a casual move by you."

"So he went mad."

"He could not accept the truth about his origins, could not accept that he could not escape the barriers set up by someone at will throughout his life, and could not accept that he was just one of countless mediocre people over the past thousand years."

"Isn't it ridiculous? He treats me the same way, but he can't stand it when it happens to him."

"With his talent, even if he uses all his methods, he can only barely avoid the five signs of decay of heaven and man by relying on Gu magic. He cannot deduce the sexual cultivation. In his life, he can only be an incomplete three-way unity."

"He couldn't accept this, so he had to seize Jizhao from the emperor, then Xuanlan from Yingzhou, and Zhenchang from Xu Fu, finally achieving the unification of the six paths... to personally overturn your chessboard and kill you, this self-righteous chess player."

"But unfortunately... he overestimated himself. He died before he could even take the first step, at the hands of the emperor."

"Died silently."

"This is his story."

Ji Tianrui's words slowly fell to the ground.

The story of Ji Tianrui, the leader of the Ming Cult and Li Miao's hypothetical enemy before he emerged from seclusion thirty years ago, has finally been fully revealed.

The truth about him has finally come to light.

The story of the dead ends here.

No matter how brilliant or cunning he was, he was ultimately a dead man.

Now... it's time to talk about the stories of the living.

Ji Tianrui said calmly.

“I am not as clever as Lord Li thinks. It has only been a little over ten years since I escaped from the Miao King. If it weren’t for Ji Tianrui’s legacy, I would probably never be able to compare with you in this lifetime, let alone catch up to you.”

“But he has his talent, and I have my background. I do not belittle myself, nor am I jealous of other people’s opportunities.”

"So... let's talk about what's going on now."

Her voice was completely devoid of emotion.

"Although I am reluctant to admit it, I am indeed very similar to Ji Tianrui, and I do not want anyone to manipulate my life."

“Ji Tianrui is a tool that you instructed Yang Lixuan to create.”

“And I am a tool created by Ji Tianrui to deal with you.”

“I will erase this, I will kill everyone involved, I will get rid of it all completely. Only then… can ‘I’ truly be ‘me’.”

"I am the only one in heaven and under heaven."

Ji Tianrui slowly raised her palm, her true energy surging around her, violently shaking the fine dust and gravel on the ground.

"I am who I am."

"Ji Tianrui, it can only be Ji Tianrui." "Anyone who dares to try to manipulate me, I'll tear their throat; anyone who dares to use me as a pawn—"

The immense true energy of the Five Paths United Realm was suddenly unleashed, and a true energy handprint several meters wide swept forward, shattering the four fences in front of it, and crashing into the main beam of the temple like a meteorite.

"I'll smash his head with the chessboard!"

boom! ! !
The main hall of Ise Grand Shrine, which had stood since the Age of Gods and survived attacks by three celestial demons—Bodhidharma, Zhang Sanfeng, and Jianzhen—collapsed with a deafening roar.

Dust and smoke billowed.

Ji Tianrui did not stop, nor would she wait for the enemy to emerge from the dust and smoke. True energy shot out from her palms, transforming into a long dragon that swept across fiercely!

Woo!
With the five paths combined, Ji Tianrui is only one step away from achieving martial arts perfection. The only difference between her and Li Miao now is the additional Xuanlan path, and Li Miao's injuries have eliminated this gap.

The dragon of true energy rolled across the ruins from the side, instantly crushing the broken wood in its path into dust. In just a moment, it swept to the very center of the temple.

Just then—Bang!

A very faint muffled sound.

Without any preamble, the overwhelming dragon of true energy was abruptly severed, as if it had struck tofu with an iron nail!

Ji Tianrui remained expressionless and struck out with her palm again!
At the same time, a dense, ear-piercing buzzing sound of flapping wings rapidly approached from not far away, as swarms of Gu worms, like black clouds, came in, blotting out the sun.

The Gu worms, which had multiplied hundreds of times after being cultivated and reproduced through the bodies of Shinto followers, suddenly pounced on the location that had severed the dragon of true energy.

Bang!
Another muffled sound.

Ji Tianrui's true energy hand seals collapsed once again.

Countless Gu worms squeezed in through the gaps in the disintegrating handprint, opening their mouthparts powerful enough to bite through refined iron, and rushed into the dust and smoke.

Ding ding ding ding! ——

The dense clanging of metal and sparks flew out together, and the insect corpses, bodily fluids and dust mixed together to form a blurry black cloud, but it did not dissipate. Instead, it kept swirling in place, eventually forming a perfectly round hemisphere.

Ji Tianrui suddenly stopped.

"Tai Chi?"

"how come!"

As she exclaimed in amazement, the hemisphere that was constantly rotating in the center of the temple suddenly stopped for a moment, as if time had frozen.

Ji Tianrui suddenly retreated!
At the same time, the hemispherical shape suddenly resumed rotation.

Then—BOOM!!!

It suddenly exploded!
Just by hearing the deafening roar, one could tell that its power was no less than the combined attack of Li Miao and Ji Tianrui. Everything within the blast radius should instantly transform into a sonic boom, destroying everything around it.

Ji Tianrui was even prepared to receive these "hidden weapons".

But the next moment, her pupils shrank.

Because the dense sonic boom cloud that she had expected, covering every corner of her field of vision, did not appear... The debris disappeared without warning, vanishing from her sight.

scoff.

A soft sound suddenly came from the bluestone ground not far from her. She immediately looked in the direction of the sound, but found nothing at first. Only after looking closely did she discover an extremely tiny, yet bottomless, hole.

Before she could look back...

Swish, swish, swish!

A dense sound, like a sudden downpour, suddenly appeared in her ears, accompanied by excruciating pain.

Ji Tianrui instantly understood.

The debris did not disappear.

They were distorted by the immense force, scattered into countless invisible dust particles, with only a very small portion of them being ejected.

It saw through everything with ease.

Hua la la la——

The sound of rain lasted only a moment.

Ji Tianrui suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood, her knees buckled and she staggered. Her left foot moved slightly, but with a crack, it shattered the bluestone slab.

This was not her doing, but rather the result of that "rain." The bluestone slab appeared intact, but in reality, it had already been riddled with thousands of tiny fragments, turning it into a pile of rubble that would crumble at the slightest step.

If the bluestone slabs were like this, Ji Tianrui would naturally be even worse off... Fortunately, she was no ordinary person.

"Cough-cough-"

She coughed a few times, spitting out a mouthful of pus and blood full of dead Gu worms, while at the same time countless Gu worms fell out of her sleeve with a rustling sound.

These worms are all dead.

The methods she had prepared for today were almost entirely wasted in an instant... but fortunately, she also used this opportunity to recover from her injuries, which did not affect her combat power.

At this point, the semicircle in the center of the temple finally lost its color and revealed its true form.

Ji Tianrui looked up.

After seeing everything clearly, he suddenly sighed.

"really."

"I read that right."

"What brought my palm print to a close was the Tai Chi Cloud Hands."

"Master Sanfeng".

Rescuing Master Sanfeng should have been one of her biggest goals in coming to the Ise Grand Shrine, and she should have been overjoyed to have met him.

But there was no joy in Ji Tianrui's tone.

Following her gaze, the viewpoint shifted to the center of the temple.

The smoke and dust on the ground had dissipated, but the dust that had floated into the air was slowly falling. When it reached the center of the temple, it suddenly began to spin rapidly around a hemispherical surface.

The hemisphere did not disappear.

It has been running continuously.

It has been two hundred years since then.

Through the hazy dust, one could see a gaunt, tall figure dressed in a Taoist robe. His hair and beard were all white, obscuring his face. His white hair was loosely tied into a Taoist bun on top of his head, and his three-foot-long white beard hung down to his chest, swaying slightly with his movements.

His left and right hands were clasped together in front of him, forming a yin-yang symbol that interlocked and moved slowly in a circular motion. As a result, an immense and indescribable pure energy emanated from his joined palms, outlining a perfect, ever-rotating sphere in a form that all martial artists would remember.

Tai Chi energy.

Tai Chi.

The foundation of the Wudang School is also recognized by almost everyone in the martial arts world today as the most advanced fist technique in the world.

And it is obvious who is the figure exerting their strength.

The only master who opened his own path after Bodhidharma; the undisputed pinnacle of martial arts recognized by all martial arts practitioners a thousand years ago; an abandoned monk of Shaolin and the founder of the Wudang School; a martial arts master who dominated the martial arts world for sixty years with just one sword, killing all the demonic people in the world so that they dared not show themselves, a martial arts master who was revered as one of the founders by the Taoists of his time despite bearing a sea of ​​blood and killing karma.

He was also the strongest Heavenly Demon in history who crossed the river alone and forced the old man on the river to leave for the Central Plains.

Master Sanfeng.

Zhang Sanfeng.

(End of this chapter)