Who taught him to practice swordsmanship like this?

Under the influence of the "Darkness Spell," Empress He's breathing gradually deepened, and she slept even more soundly.

Su Baichen was somewhat bewildered; something seemed off.

Yu Renxiu asked curiously, "This 'dark magic' doesn't seem to be working?"

Su Baichen shook his head: "No, let's try someone else."

As he spoke, he also cast a 'dark spell' on the little palace maid standing beside him.

Good heavens, the little palace maid who was already dozing off fell asleep immediately.

The result was different from what he expected!

Su Baichen refused to believe it and tried it on others...

As a result, every single one they tried failed.

Until a eunuch guarding the palace gates suddenly went mad and started screaming after being afflicted by the "dark spell," as if he had encountered something extremely terrifying.

Fortunately, Su Baichen used illusion magic to block out the surroundings in time, preventing anyone from hearing his shouts.

In other words, it was as if the whole world had turned out to consist of only him.

"How could this happen? I don't want to go back! I don't want to go back!"

He shouted words that were incomprehensible, but Yu Renxiu and Su Baichen, who were watching from the side, felt a chill run down their spines.

Without a doubt, this is an extraordinary person.

The Dark Magic is effective, and its effect is surprisingly good.

To ordinary people, "dark magic" is just "hypnosis." Its principle is very simple: illusion magic obscures the spiritual consciousness of ordinary people, slows down their thinking, and causes their thinking to stop.

However, for those with supernatural abilities, this is like a "fear spell," revealing their deepest fears.

A soul from a realm of nothingness fears nothing more than returning to nothingness...

"I see."

Su Baichen understood, then asked, "Can this person be killed directly?"

As he spoke, he took out the Soul-Controlling Banner, clearly preparing to make a move.

Yu Renxiu pondered for a moment and said, "It's best if there are no obvious external wounds. I want to make it look like he died of illness."

Su Baichen nodded upon hearing this: "That's easy."

As soon as he finished speaking, he pointed his finger and a silent stream of Xuan Yin sword energy shot out.

The sword energy pierced directly into the eunuch's heart. At first, there was nothing wrong, but soon his face turned bluish-black, looking like he had been staying up all night.

Then, he convulsed twice and lay motionless on the ground.

As a wisp of a dead soul rose up, Su Baichen waved the Soul Banner and pulled the strange soul into the Soul Banner.

Compared to the previous struggle with the Soul-Summoning Banner, this time the souls were easily collected using only the banner's own power.

Clearly, the more and higher the quality of the souls collected by this Soul Banner, the greater its power.

After doing all this, Su Baichen said, "Even the most skilled doctor would say that he died suddenly because he was too exhausted and his blood and qi were depleted, causing cardiac arrest."

This is medically known as "sudden cardiac death".

Yu Renxiu nodded slightly upon seeing this, but inwardly she couldn't help but complain: Why is Su Baichen's style of doing things so similar to that of the demonic path?

If it weren't for the fact that he was a disciple of the righteous Changchun Palace, such professional methods of creating death would be highly suspicious.

"Alright, in that case, let's go somewhere else."

"Leave the body here for now, I'll have someone come and clean it up later."

Su Baichen nodded, indicating that the Hidden Dragon Manor would naturally take care of the cleanup.

In fact, his intuition already sensed a group of people rapidly approaching... it seemed they were preparing to stage the scene.

Seeing this, he thought for a moment and said, "In that case, why don't we hurry up and let everyone in this palace 'get a good night's sleep'?"

Yu Renxiu immediately understood his thinking and said, "Good idea, this way we can calmly arrange the scene."

"How wide can your illusions cover?"

Su Baichen said, "It must be as big as a palace... Let's call over those who are finishing up too."

Yu Renxiu understood that Su Baichen also distrusted those people.

That is a problem.

She readily agreed, and then the vast palace gradually began to change.

Many people slept better than ever before, but some went insane as a result.

Overnight, hundreds of people died in the palace. Their bodies were piled up in one place, and it was determined that the plague from outside had entered the palace, causing widespread panic.

It's not that no one noticed the problem, but they could only deal with things around them and couldn't know the whole picture.

So they just thought that a plague had already broken out in the palace, but they only realized how serious it was today.

As for those who unexpectedly slept through the night, they didn't notice anything unusual, because the people finishing up didn't let them lie down on the ground to sleep, and everyone just thought they had dozed off against the wall.

This palace was originally Yu Renxiu's lair. Her operation was so smooth that she managed to screen out all the strange people in the palace overnight.

Su Baichen returned to the Hidden Dragon Manor's office in the capital before dawn.

He didn't need to worry about what happened next; Yu Renxiu's people would handle it.

The next morning, Su Baichen received a message from the palace that the emperor was going hunting and wanted him to accompany him.

He knew perfectly well that this was not a hunting trip at all; it was simply that so many people had "died of illness" in the palace overnight, and the emperor was afraid and wanted to go into hiding.

"You go with Dezhao, I'll take care of things in the capital."

Yu Renxiu made a decision after learning about it.

Su Baichen asked, "What about those ministers? They haven't been screened yet."

Yu Renxiu said, "It's alright. I will conduct the screening slowly. After all, the palace is closed, and we can deal with it all at once. But if we make too much of a move outside and arouse their suspicion, then the work afterward will be more difficult."

"Perfect, with you and Dezhao together, I won't need to allocate manpower to protect him."

Su Baichen was relieved; as long as Yu Renxiu had a plan, that was fine.

He did not go directly to the palace as instructed, but waited at a side gate outside the palace.

A moment later, a procession slowly emerged, and the young emperor's voice came from a carriage: "Is it Teacher Xiaobai? Quickly, get in the carriage and sit with me."

Those accompanying the emperor were filled with envy and confusion, wondering how this suddenly appearing person had gained imperial favor.

Su Baichen didn't stand on ceremony at all, and immediately went inside after responding.

"Teacher Xiaobai, do you know how to hunt?"

Before he could even sit down, the young emperor asked a question.

Su Baichen shook his head: "I've never hunted before, so we'll have to see how skilled Your Majesty is."

The young emperor suddenly looked bored again: "Forget it, hunting is boring, I'd rather practice my swordsmanship."

"Teacher Xiaobai, I have several powerful sword techniques here that only have form but no substance. It's up to you now!"

Su Baichen also understood what was wrong with these sword techniques collected by the royal family.

It's really just having the techniques but lacking the luck factor.

Normally, these sword techniques with only moves are not very valuable to martial artists, but for Su Baichen... he only needs the sword moves, and he can handle the core of luck himself!

"No problem, teach me the moves first, and then I'll figure out how to match the luck path to you."

The young emperor laughed heartily: "That's right, that's exactly it! This is called helping each other!"

It's clear that he enjoys this equal interpersonal relationship.

PS: It will be available for purchase tomorrow. It seems the plot wasn't quite right... but it doesn't matter. Anyway, I'll just keep writing five chapters of 10,000 words each until I run out of drafts.