Great Zhou Martial Immortal

Chapter 75 Five Days and Five Nights (Please Subscribe)

The light in the courtyard of Taiping Prefecture went from night to morning, and then back to night, repeating this cycle five times.

At dawn on the sixth day.

The chill of late autumn seeped into the palace, but was kept out by the layers of brocade curtains and the warm fragrance of incense.

Lu Chenyuan, wearing only a thin robe, rolled out of bed and was about to fetch breakfast when a jade-like hand emerged from behind the brocade quilt and gently tugged at his clothes: "Chenyuan..."

The soft call made Lu Chenyuan smile, and he turned his head to look at her.

Li Lingyue half-propped herself up, the brocade quilt slipped down to her waist, and the lion-patterned nightgown hung loosely on her shoulders. A faint tooth mark was faintly visible on her right shoulder. The shyness on her face faded, replaced by warm and passionate feelings. Her pair of bright eyes made her face even more radiant.

"Your Highness should have some ginseng soup."

"What should you call me?"

Li Lingyue feigned displeasure, forcefully pulling Lu Chenyuan back onto the bed and pressing her long leg against his waist: "You didn't call me that yesterday." She leaned close to his ear, her breath sweet as orchids, "What did you call me then? Yue'er?"

"..."

Lu Chenyuan was both amused and exasperated.

I have a feeling that I've awakened a female lustful demon.

Having lived two lives, he had long passed the stage of indulging in the pleasures of life. He never intended to be so licentious. For five days and five nights in a row, he was unrestrained. He was indeed in control on the first night, but after that, he was the one attacking and defending against the alien. The peak of the fifth realm is indeed the peak of the fifth realm. He recovers very quickly. One moment he was as soft as mud, and the next he was full of energy again. He was also the one dominating on the bed!
Lu Chenyuan smiled and took her hand: "What should I say? That I'm overstepping my bounds?"

"Isn't it too late to say this now?" Li Lingyue straddled him, her gauze robe slipping down to reveal red marks on her shoulders, and whispered, "My Lord Lu..."

Five days of passionate intimacy had blurred the lines between ruler and subject.

Outside the hall, the autumn wind swept through the fallen leaves, rustling softly.

Lu Chenyuan's gaze was dangerous, and he was about to teach this little vixen another lesson when a light cough came from outside the hall, followed by Lin Hanyi's voice: "Your Highness, just as Chenshi (7-9 AM) arrived, the palace sent someone to deliver the Blood Bird's Nest Cup and the Deer Antler Cream, a tribute from the Western Regions."

She paused, her tone slightly somber, clearly indicating that she was also struggling to maintain composure, and continued, "Enclosed is another imperial edict from His Majesty, stating that autumn is deep and the dew is heavy, and requesting the princess to take good care of her health."

Inside the tent, Li Lingyue's fingertips paused.

Lu Chenyuan clearly felt the waist under his palm suddenly tighten – the person who was just as lazy as a cat had now unconsciously straightened his back.

it's over...

Lu Chenyuan almost laughed; even the palace had been alerted.

Wu Zetian wouldn't have disposed of him as some kind of evil concubine, would she?

"Leave the things behind. Report back to Mother..."

Li Lingyue leaned down to look at Lu Chenyuan, her face flushed with embarrassment, yet also with a hint of despair, and said, word by word, "I will say that I will... do what I am capable of."

puff!
Lu Chenyuan couldn't help but laugh out loud.

Li Lingyue was instantly enraged and embarrassed. She clenched her fist and punched him, lowering her voice: "You're still laughing! You're still laughing! It's all your fault!!"

A smile flashed in Lin Hanyi's eyes as she bowed and said, "This old woman obeys."

She turned and left.

Lu Chenyuan thought to himself, "We really can't afford to be any more absurd. There are only two days left until the Luoshui Grand Ceremony. Although we have been behaving ourselves these past few days and those twenty-four people have acted as if they never appeared, it is precisely because of this that it shows that the enemy is very patient and prepared. We must be extra careful."

With her mother's words, Li Lingyue finally restrained herself and reluctantly slid off Lu Chenyuan.

Lu Chenyuan tidied up the clothes scattered on the floor, dressed himself neatly again, and transformed back into the handsome and dashing leader of the Suiming Pavilion.

"and many more."

Li Lingyue suddenly called out to him, her slender fingers pressing against the hidden compartment with the gilded phoenix pattern on the headboard.

With a soft click, the mechanism released the pivot box.

The box contained thirty gold ingots, their luster deep and rich, clearly top-grade official minting. But what was even more eye-catching was the peach next to it—its entire body was as green as jade, except for a touch of crimson at the tip, like blood. As soon as it was taken out, the room was filled with a refreshing fruity fragrance, even suppressing the aroma of the agarwood.

"Take these; you'll need to make arrangements when you're traveling outside the manor."

"..."

Lu Chenyuan looked at the gold, his expression incredibly interesting: "Put the money aside for now. This peach... it's a Jade Spirit Peach, isn't it? It blooms once every two hundred years and bears fruit once every two hundred years. It's a fifth-grade spiritual item, with the effect of replenishing qi and nourishing the body. What does Your Highness mean by this? Have I failed to serve you properly, and you're using this to provoke me? Do I need to nourish my body?"

As he spoke, he reached his hand under the covers: "Shouldn't I prove myself...?"

"Stop it, stop it!"

Li Lingyue blushed and retreated hastily while trying to keep a straight face. "I was afraid that you..." She suddenly stopped, and the "take care of yourself" she was about to say turned into a different word, "...afraid that you would fall asleep while on duty."

She regretted it as soon as the words left her mouth—this excuse was worse than not saying it at all.

Lu Chenyuan chuckled softly.

"you!"

Li Lingyue was both ashamed and angry. She grabbed a soft pillow and threw it at him, yelling, "You ungrateful wretch!"

Lu Chenyuan strode forward, embraced her and gave her a deep kiss, then raised an eyebrow at the box, clicked his tongue and said, "Then this humble servant will accept it without hesitation. I'll make up for the extra parts tonight."

Li Lingyue threw another cushion to support her back: "Get lost!!"

Lu Chenyuan laughed heartily, carrying the box in one hand, and strode away from the bedchamber.

Once Li Lingyue was certain Lu Chenyuan was gone, she became incredibly embarrassed. She shrank into the blankets, her face burning red. She dared not recall how crazy the past five days and nights had been. It was all Lu Chenyuan's fault. That lousy cultivation technique he practiced made people lose their minds, and what else did he learn from...? It was utterly shameful!

She kicked the bed in embarrassment and anger: "You bastard Lu Chenyuan!"

Lu Chenyuan walked out of his bedchamber and headed straight for the Lingni Palace. Along the way, everyone in the mansion looked at him with increasing strangeness.

The men exclaimed in admiration and envy, and a few even boldly gave a thumbs up, while the women lowered their heads and covered their faces, blushing.

Lu Chenyuan didn't take it seriously and went to the front of the Lingni Palace.

Zen Master Yunhe was having his meal when he looked up and saw him, clicking his tongue and saying, "You haven't left the house in five days, you're really something."

Lu Chenyuan paused, but remained calm. He tossed the box containing the jade peaches onto the table and said, "If Master is envious, I'll find you a companion too."

"Pooh!"

Zen Master Yunhe nearly spat out his porridge, his sleeves flapping wildly. "You disrespectful brat!"

Lu Chenyuan looked around: "Where is Lingxi?"

Zen Master Yunhe gave him a meaningful look: "It's really hard for you to still remember her, lad. Do you really think of her as a machine? Ordering her around and not taking her seriously at all?"

Lu Chenyuan felt a little guilty, but he had no intention of doing so. He said helplessly, "If it were anything else, I definitely wouldn't leave her alone, but... what should I do? I should apologize first. Where is she? Did Steward Yuan take her out? That shouldn't be the case..."

"elder brother!"

Before he finished speaking, cheers erupted from behind him, and the goddess descended from the sky, covered in dew, and threw herself into his arms.

They held each other tightly.

Behind her followed Yuan Qingshuang, who was also covered in dew. Seeing the Empress's many drops of dew and her icy body, Lu Chenyuan felt even more guilty and stroked her hair: "Did you stay up there all night?"

Yuan Qingshuang said, "It wasn't just one night. I tried to persuade her, but she wouldn't listen, so I could only stay with her."

Lu Chenyuan felt increasingly uncomfortable. His expression turned serious, and he bowed respectfully, saying, "Thank you, Steward!"

Yuan Qingshuang smiled and said, "Lord Lu, there's no need for that. Miss Lingxi is so pitiful, and I'm doing this willingly. I'll take my leave now. Lingxi, I'll come to visit you again next time."

The Empress held Lu Chenyuan in one arm and gently lifted her skirt with the other, bowing slightly: "Sister, please take care."

After Yuan Qingshuang left, Lu Chenyuan held her in his arms and said with pity, "I asked you to help keep an eye on things, not for you to work day and night without rest! The sacrificial artifacts were completed three days ago, so there's no need to worry anymore. As for the remaining twenty-four people, most of them are there for the Luoshui Festival. Didn't I tell you? They can't change frequently. Just keep an eye on their movements from time to time, or even every other day! Why were you so foolish?"

"..."

The goddess tilted her head and looked at his worried face. Suddenly, she felt that keeping watch upstairs wasn't so tiring. Without explaining, she simply buried her head in his chest and hugged him tightly.

Lu Chenyuan sighed, picked her up and sat her down at the table, broke open the peach and handed her half of it.

The goddess shook her head and said, "I won't—"

Lu Chenyuan roughly put it to her lips.

The Empress's power is already limited, and the Qi Furnace's reserves are fixed at the early stage of the fourth realm. This is due to the limitation of rare and precious materials. Unless Lu Chenyuan can find higher-grade rare and precious materials to help her reshape the Qi Furnace, the true Qi in her body will remain constant. Even if she consumes rare and precious materials, she can only replenish what she has consumed and cannot improve herself.

Such rare and precious materials are extremely rare in the world.

Even the reclusive immortal Gu Yunsheng could not possibly be perfect in every aspect and create twelve fully-featured mechanical puppets.

The Queen's spiritual core and eyes are already the best in the world, but other aspects must be compromised.

The legacy left by the Hidden Immortal is not limited to one copy, and the need for mechanical puppets is not limited to the "Heavenly Craft Scroll".

Looking at her pure and innocent eyes, Lu Chenyuan secretly set finding better materials for the Qi furnace as his main goal.

The goddess held half a peach and chewed it slowly, her internal energy quickly recovering.

Lu Chenyuan felt a little better and ate the other half of the peach. The cultivation of the third realm is mainly reflected in the divine sense. Before the realm is broken, the true qi in the dantian has not undergone a qualitative change. It is actually similar to the Qi furnace. It cannot retain excess true qi. Eating too much at once may even cause it to burst. However, the human body is more magical than the Qi furnace in that the three treasures of essence, qi and spirit can be transformed into each other.

—Qi can generate essence, and essence can transform into qi. When essence and qi are abundant, the spirit will naturally be active.

The Three Jewels are not independent, but rather influence each other.

Lu Chenyuan formed hand seals and used the "Forging Gold Chapter" refining technique to transform all the dissipated primordial energy into nourishment for his divine sense, which he then guided into his upper dantian, the Niwan Palace.

Within his sea of ​​consciousness, the "golden essence" was nourished and became brighter, his divine sense grew stronger, and his five senses became more acute.

Lu Chenyuan felt refreshed and invigorated.

"The first level of the 'Forging Gold Chapter' is 'Condensing Gold Essence.' Now that the gold essence has been formed, the second level should be 'Weaving the Heavenly Net,' which allows the gold essence to take shape and form a net. From then on, one can touch the spirit of iron and communicate with the spirituality of divine weapons... I wonder if the Goddess Empress counts as a divine weapon? I can try it once I've mastered it. For now, I should honestly nurture my divine consciousness."

After not showing his face for five days, Lu Chenyuan first took the Empress to the Suiming Pavilion to check on the sacrificial vessels, and Wang Yizhi couldn't help but make fun of him. Logically speaking, the Princess's residence shouldn't be so riddled with holes, the problem lies with Wu Youji. In the past, he didn't manage his residence strictly. Just his own household as the consort had many servants who were outwardly respectful but secretly enjoyed the joke and used his cuckoldry as gossip.

Furthermore, Li Lingyue didn't care about other people's opinions—if she did, she wouldn't have brought her "male concubine" Lu Chenyuan into her bedchamber in the first place. This could be considered a form of indulgence, and it gradually spread.

Lu Chenyuan didn't take it seriously. He carefully checked the sacrificial vessels. All four jades had been prepared as promised and were under strict guard. They were just waiting for the Ministry of Rites to come and collect them for use in the grand ceremony to worship Heaven and Earth. There was no need to worry.

Then I went home.

When Lu Ke'er saw the Empress call him "brother," she flew into a rage and lost her temper. However, she was kind-hearted and quite clever. She quickly realized that the Empress was as pure as a young girl and not as cunning as her eight-year-old self. So she couldn't bear to bully her. Instead, she joined in to criticize Lu Chenyuan for valuing women over his sister.

After finishing his daily affairs, Lu Chenyuan sat with the Empress in the Lingni Palace, where they worked on mechanisms to improve their skills while keeping an eye on the Luo River to see if there was any movement from the twenty-four people.

The "Tiangong Scroll" is divided into four levels: weapons, war tools, divine machines, and mechanical puppets.

"Weapons" are simply traps and hidden weapons, such as repeating crossbows, hidden arrows, ground nets, and folding umbrellas, which are all very easy to use.

The "weapons of war" are slightly more complex, such as wooden oxen and flowing horses, mechanical bamboo magpies, iron kites, and the Yellow River cart with its nine bends. They are meant to assist in logistics, but they are not intelligent and cannot fight.

Starting from the third-level "divine mechanism", the essence of the "Heavenly Crafts Scroll" is revealed.

This part is highly integrated with talisman arrays and rare and precious materials. The items created from it are all earth-shattering and incredibly powerful. The slightly less powerful ones include the [Spirit Pivot Arm], [Heaven and Earth Hand], and [Four Symbols Revolving Heart Wheel]. The slightly better ones are various mechanical beasts, such as the Tiger Dragon and the Zhu Yan. The most top-tier one is the [Yuanrong Divine Crossbow]!
At the level of the [Yuanrong Divine Crossbow], it can kill five realms with a single arrow, which is astonishing!
Last but not least, there was the mechanical puppet.

In terms of sheer power, the mechanical puppet might not be stronger than the Yuanrong Divine Crossbow, but it has become sentient and possesses its own intelligence.

They are real weapons. Taiyi Yuanchen is based on the [Minghui] and can enter the earth's veins to attack cities and seize strongholds. Shenhou Yuanchen is based on the [Duobaoshu] and can identify treasure light and search for rare treasures all over the world.

In addition, each of the Ten Yuan Chen possesses unique skills, and each of their appearances could potentially unleash a bloodbath.

The "Heavenly Craftsmanship Scroll" details the forging method of mechanical puppets, but the difficulty is already extremely high. Even with Lu Chenyuan's discerning eye, he still needs to carefully study every word and sentence. Using mechanical puppets to increase proficiency is wishful thinking, and the Divine Machine is too taxing on divine sense and rare materials. Therefore, Lu Chenyuan decided to start with "battle tools".

Create wooden oxen and flowing horses!
The creation of the wooden ox and flowing horse is significantly more difficult than that of the [Lü Lü Yi].

The Lü Lü Yi only needs three or four runes to draw the Qing Shang talisman array, making the timbre more beautiful and farther-reaching.

The simplest load-bearing rune array for the wooden ox and flowing horse requires sixteen strokes, which must be engraved on the back and limb joints to increase load-bearing capacity. In addition, there are wind rune arrays for speed, water-avoidance rune arrays for water access, night-illumination rune arrays for lighting, and self-healing rune arrays located in the central part to repair minor damage. With his current spiritual consciousness, it would take him at least four or five days to complete this intermittently.

Most importantly, the wooden ox and flowing horse have started to require energy, and the simple gathering energy array is no longer sufficient to meet their needs.

Buddhist monks can produce relics after cremation, and Taoist masters occasionally have remains. All of these are transformed from the essence of a martial artist, possessing their own powerful true energy. Among the rare and precious materials, there is also a type of strange stone that can absorb and store the essence of heaven and earth. If it is further nurtured by a gathering energy talisman array, it becomes the so-called "talisman stone," which can be used to activate the talisman array for a long time.

This type of energy is much easier and more convenient than drawing energy from the earth or water veins into the formation.

However, directing the energy to the mechanism is quite difficult.

Lu Chenyuan quickly learned how to inscribe runes, but he struggled with drawing in vital energy. He experimented extensively, and his proficiency increased rapidly. His mastery of mechanisms began to improve quickly.

The first day passed smoothly without any issues.

The second day passed peacefully without any abnormalities.

The third day was the Luoshui Festival, and the twenty-four people remained motionless, with no precious light in sight.

Lu Chenyuan felt a vague unease.

The altar and surrounding scenery for the Luoshui Festival were overseen by Li Lingyue. Li Dan was also present as the "final offering" of the ceremony. If the festival went smoothly, not only would Li Lingyue's power be consolidated, but the political status of the Li family would also be subtly elevated. This was definitely not what Wu Chengsi wanted to see.

Wu Huagu had the money to hire twenty-four outlaws, which must have been orchestrated by Wu Chengsi.

Wu Chengsi could never be at peace, but why...?

Not only was Lu Chenyuan worried, but Li Lingyue also began to prepare for any unexpected events.

As a member of the royal family, she had to participate in the sacrificial ceremony in person. Without time to make any last-minute adjustments, she issued a [Kite Head Order], handing over the authority to deploy Yuan Qingshuang, Xie Tingyun, and all the Kite Guards to Lu Chenyuan!

This is an immense trust.

If Yuan Qingshuang and Xie Tingyun hadn't already witnessed Lu Chenyuan's methods, they would probably have easily thought of her as a "femme fatale" and would likely have advised her that "lust is a knife that cuts to the bone."

Lu Chenyuan thought to himself, "There's someone else who's lustful. You've wronged me!"
It was exactly 7:00 AM on the 26th of October.

The imperial carriage departs, and the ceremony begins.

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(End of this chapter)