Inheriting a Taoist temple, the story begins with Wu Zetian offering incense.

Chapter 159 Xue Chongjian, do you dare to overthrow Japan? [Seeking monthly votes]

Zhou Yi led Uncle Ming to a nearby clinic to bandage his head wound, and then treated him to a meal of mutton noodles... After all that commotion, it was time to replenish his strength.

Uncle Ming has been dragged around by two tattoo artists for the past few days, and he has lost several pounds and almost lost his life.

He was eating the steaming bowl of noodles with great relish, adding several spoonfuls of mutton fat and chili oil to the bowl with practiced ease, clearly a seasoned traveler who had been around the world.

Zhou Yi ordered a cold lamb salad and a vegetarian platter, and slowly ate them while sitting beside him.

Uncle Ming shoveled down a couple of mouthfuls of he luo noodles, looked around, and asked in a low voice:

"Master Yi, how do you know the Golden Eagle Guest?"

The Book of Changes says:

"He is the new director of the Feng Shui Folk Association. That association is full of evil practitioners. One of the tattoo artists we took down today was an evil practitioner we were trying to eradicate."

Speaking of which, the blind man still wanted to find out information about the association, but Uncle Ming has already taken care of everything. I wonder how the blind man will be able to investigate. I'll have to ask him later.

Uncle Ming was very puzzled:

"Everyone in the martial arts world says your grandfather is his mortal enemy, but now... it seems the rumors are wrong!"

Zhou Yi was also confused about the grudges between his grandfather and the blind man, so he simply changed the subject and inquired about the grudges between Uncle Ming and Old Lady Ji:
"You asked me to yell at her last time, but she seemed really concerned about you. What's going on? Did she trick you into buying financial products?"

Uncle Ming was also puzzled:

"I don't know. When I first started out, she kept stealing my business. If I charged 8,000, she would charge 5,000. If I charged 5,000, she would charge 3,000. She stole a lot of my customers. If it weren't for your grandfather helping me out, I would have switched to something else a long time ago."

The two finished their noodles with gusto and returned to the tattoo shop. They noticed police officers coming and going, and a blind man standing to the side with his cane, seemingly explaining something.

Just as Zhou Yi was about to walk over, his phone suddenly rang. He took it out and saw that the blind man had sent him a voice message via text message:
"I handed over the human tissues upstairs to the police and took care of the final cleanup. You don't need to worry about anything. Go back to Yunwu Mountain."

After listening, Zhou Yi led Uncle Ming past the tattoo shop entrance and walked out with the crowd of shoppers.
"Uncle Ming, what are your plans? Are you staying in Yiyang for the night, or should I take you to the airport tonight?"

While I was eating, Zhou Yi checked and found there's a direct flight to Quanzhou at 9:50 PM. If we leave now, we can definitely make it.

Uncle Ming didn't want to stay outside for another second:
"Go home, go home, nowhere is safer than home."

Zhou Yi glanced back at the fortune-telling tattoo shop and asked curiously:

"Can you call the police in this kind of situation?"

Uncle Ming said:

"Of course. Golden Eagle is a well-established figure, so it's normal for him to know a few officials. But don't get involved. Just talk to him if you need anything. I think he's quite afraid of your grandfather, so you can use your grandfather to bully him."

When they arrived at the parking spot, Uncle Ming stared at Zhou Yi's van for a long time in a daze:
"No, your grandfather is so famous, and you're only allowed to drive a Wuling? Why not buy him a better car?"

Zhou Yi took out his car keys from his bag:
“When I first took over Hunyuan Palace, I didn’t have much money, and I didn’t drive long distances, so I didn’t drive a very nice car. Now that I have the money to change cars, I feel it’s unnecessary.”

In just over a month since taking over Hunyuan Palace, the cash in my hands has skyrocketed from a few thousand yuan to more than 600,000 yuan... No wonder everyone likes to make money through metaphysics; this industry is really lucrative.

Uncle Ming patted the door of the Wuling car and said:

"You saved my life, so of course I have to repay you. How about this, I'll give you a car. Do you prefer a domestic car or an imported one? Do you have any requirements?"

The more expensive the better… Zhou Yi muttered to himself, but then, remembering his status, he smiled and said:

"Let's go with domestically produced cars, as long as they're not too flashy."

He hadn't planned to change cars, but if he didn't take them, someone like Uncle Ming would definitely overthink it, so he reluctantly accepted them to avoid the old man thinking he had some grand scheme in mind and being too scared to do business in the Central Plains.

Uncle Ming gave an OK sign:
“I’ll take care of this when I get back. You can pick up the car at the designated 4S store then… Lend me two thousand yuan first, and I’ll pay you back right away.”

I just found Uncle Ming's ID card upstairs; his phone and other belongings are nowhere to be found.

But Uncle Ming wasn't in a hurry. He took the two thousand yuan he had borrowed to a nearby mobile phone store, bought a phone, and skillfully installed WeChat, Alipay, and several wallet apps. Then he entered his account and password and started transferring money to Zhou Yi.

He said as he operated the machine:
"If you have a shrew in the house, you have to hide your secret stash of money very carefully."

Hearing the bitter tone in his voice, Zhou Yi really wanted to say, "Here's the two thousand yuan from earlier," but seeing the nearly one million yuan balance in Uncle Ming's account, Abbot Zhou wisely swallowed the words he was about to say.

This is all the money he has hidden away, and it's only in one of his accounts. I have no right to sympathize with such a big shot.

Uncle Ming transferred three thousand yuan to Zhou Yi:
"Two thousand is the principal, one thousand is the interest... Master Yi, you should go back first. Wait for my call in the next few days. After I've settled things at home, I'll get you the car." With that, he left the mobile phone store, hailed a taxi, and headed straight for the airport.

Zhou Yi watched him leave and then drove back to Hunyuan Palace.

For the next two days, Zhou Yi's life became peaceful. Neither the blind man nor Uncle Ming called. Instead, a brief news report appeared in Yiyang City, saying that the police had busted a den that trafficked human tissues, but no details were mentioned and no footage of the scene was shown.

It's likely that the case is too bizarre to report, and going into too much detail would only cause public panic.

With nothing else to do, Zhou Yi started paying attention to news about the nationwide rainstorms. Recently, many places have experienced short-term extreme weather, which seems very abnormal.

Unfortunately, Zhou Yi didn't study celestial observation and couldn't understand these macroscopic things, so he could only continue to bury himself in manual labor.

During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty, Huo Qubing led his troops northward, using drones to search for traces of the Xiongnu army. Their marching speed was not fast because they had added a new main combat weapon and needed to train together on the road, covering only a few dozen miles each day.

Now the auxiliary troops have been fitted with replicas of the Takahashi saddles and double stirrups, and can now train in battle formations together with the main force.

Along the way, they killed several Xiongnu hundred-man squads for practice. Every time they annihilated a group of Xiongnu, the auxiliary soldiers would strip off their armor.

Some Xiongnu officers were equipped with stolen lamellar armor, which the auxiliary soldiers readily stripped off, washed, and woven into their own armor.

Through this gradual accumulation, half of the auxiliary soldiers were upgraded to full armor, which provided good protection, but they didn't look good. They were all colorful and looked like a hodgepodge of different countries' designs.

Wherever they went, Zhang Qian would start drawing maps. Sima Qian, never one to sit still, would come and help, and ended up learning a lot of professional military knowledge and basic Xiongnu language from Zhang Qian.

Huo Qubing's army numbered only about a thousand men, which wasn't large, but they were well-fed and had a good atmosphere, fulfilling Sima Qian's longing and imagination for conquering battlefields to the greatest extent possible.

Zhao Ponu calculated the number of enemies killed and said:
"Now our troops have eliminated twelve Xiongnu hundred-man squads, totaling more than 1,400 men, which exceeds the number of our troops."

From the perspective of large-scale military operations, eliminating more enemies than one's own forces is a great victory, but it is still far from Huo Qubing's goal of 5,000 men.

However, the entire army was not intimidated by this goal; on the contrary, everyone was eager to try.

Killing more enemies means greater military merit, and the greater the military merit, the higher the reward and the faster the promotion. Everyone is eager to find the main force of the Xiongnu and wreak havoc on them.

"There are suspected signs of a Xiongnu camp at a distance of 1.4 li to the north. We request permission to investigate."

The scout's voice came through the walkie-talkie. Upon hearing this, Huo Qubing immediately ordered the entire army to advance towards the one o'clock direction. He needed to confirm the direction of the Xiongnu and formulate the next battle plan.

In the Kaiyuan era of the Tang Dynasty, Prime Minister Zhang Yue arrived from Luoyang and took over the court.

Zhang Shuo, Song Jing, and Yao Chong are all staunch supporters of Li Longji. At the beginning of the year, they were transferred out of Chang'an by Princess Taiping and exiled to various places. Now they are all rushing towards Chang'an.

On his first day taking over the court, Zhang Shuo wanted to impeach Xue Chongjian, who had changed his surname to Li, but Li Longji stopped him.

Historically, although Xue Chongjian was pardoned, similar impeachments continued to occur. As the son of Princess Taiping, he was born with original sin, and officials who had been punished by Taiping would often take their anger out on Xue Chongjian.

Xue Chongjian was very depressed and wrote letters to apologize for several days in a row. Gao Lishi couldn't bear to see him like this, so he secretly instructed him to go to Yiyuan Temple to offer incense, where he met his mother, Princess Taiping.

"Mother, you...you're still alive?"

Just as Xue Chongjian finished offering incense, Princess Taiping came out, startling her good son so much that he tripped and fell on his bottom.

Princess Taiping helped her son up, wiped away his tears, and said:
"You've had a tough time these past few days."

Xue Chongjian had to impeach his mother, apologize, endure the scorn of his colleagues, and collect the remains of his brothers, leaving him physically and mentally exhausted.

Upon suddenly seeing his mother, he burst into tears, overwhelmed with grievance.

After she finished crying, Princess Taiping analyzed the current situation for her son:
"You can't stay in Chang'an or even within the Tang Dynasty anymore, but there are plenty of achievements waiting for you outside the Tang Dynasty."

Xue Chongjian was somewhat bewildered:

"Does my mother mean for me to join the army?"

Princess Taiping shook her head:

"It doesn't necessarily have to be military service. For example, you can go to Japan, form alliances, organize people who are friendly to the Tang Dynasty, overthrow the regime there, and turn Japan into a prefecture of the Tang Dynasty... Once you do that, you can change your surname back to Xue, and the world will no longer dare to look down on you."

What mother would want her son to waste his time? So Princess Taiping chose a path for her son that had both high risks and high rewards. Once it worked out, Xue Chongjian would no longer have to live in fear and uncertainty.

As the mother and son were chatting, Aunt Gongsun walked over with a backpack and said:
"Little Taiping, I've gone to see the Immortal Master. If Grandson Xue really goes to Japan to expand his territory, the Immortal Master will personally pray for him in the Sanqing Hall. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so seize it!"

After saying that, the girl vanished in a flash and left this world to go back to Hunyuan Palace for some delicious food!
(End of this chapter)