My cultivation disguise has been exposed by Xiao Sizi.

Inside the Liangyi Hall, heavy breathing could be heard everywhere.

"His Majesty!"

A piercing shout suddenly rang out from the end of the civil official's line.

The Imperial Censor Cui Hongdu suddenly stepped out of the ranks, raised his court tablet high with both hands, and knelt heavily on the bluestone bricks with a "thud." The crisp sound of his kneecaps hitting the ground echoed in the silent hall.

Cui Hongdu trembled all over, the two wings on his official hat shook violently, and his forehead was pressed tightly against the ground.

"The Yellow River has breached its banks, flooding the Central Plains—a calamity sent down by Heaven! The court should issue an edict of self-reproach, open the granaries to distribute grain, and conscript a million laborers to repair the dikes day and night! How can Your Majesty... how can you entrust the fate of the nation and the lives of millions of people to a few sheets of scrap paper from a wandering sorcerer!"

His voice was hoarse, carrying the resolute determination of a civil official who would rather die than submit to a remonstrance.

"This heretical Taoist priest is ruining the country! He is ruining the country! I beg Your Majesty to execute this heretical Taoist priest and set things right!"

The air in the hall froze instantly.

Fang Xuanling abruptly closed his eyes, his Adam's apple bobbing with difficulty. Wei Zheng's knuckles, gripping the imperial tablet, turned white instantly; he clenched his teeth tightly, remaining silent.

Li Shimin's hand, which had been hovering in mid-air, stopped.

He slowly raised his head, his bloodshot eyes, swollen from days of staying up late, narrowing into dangerous slits. He turned around, strode down the steps, and drew the horizontal sword from the waist of a nearby guard.

"You're saying this is toilet paper?"

Li Shimin's voice was so deep it seemed to rub against his chest, "You're saying the immortal who saved the Empress's life is a sorcerer?"

The cold blade pressed directly against Choi Hong-do's neck. The sharp edge instantly sliced ​​through his skin, and a trickle of blood flowed down the groove of the blade.

Choi Hong-do trembled like a withered leaf swirling in a gale, his teeth chattering, but he stubbornly held his neck, closed his eyes, and waited for death.

"Alright."

The old man's hoarse voice came from the corner of the hall, filled with a strong sense of annoyance.

Li Chen leaned against a pillar in the hall, not even bothering to straighten up. He stretched out his withered fingers and pulled out another "Stopping Waves and Calming Water Talisman" with water ripples drawn on it from his sleeve.

"Why bother arguing with a bunch of frogs in a well who've never seen the world? Even if you try to chop them up with a knife, will it stop the Yellow River from flowing?"

Li Chen flicked his finger casually.

The light talisman transformed into a streak of yellow light, grazing past Li Shimin's ear before flying straight towards the gate of the Liangyi Hall.

"Go to that vat outside the door, send someone with a long spear to stir up the water inside." Li Chen raised his eyelids slightly and pointed to the square outside the hall.

Outside the gate, a huge bronze vat, as tall as three people and used for water supply and fire prevention, was filled with green well water.

One of the guards on duty hesitated for a moment, but after receiving Li Shimin's fierce glare, he immediately drew the fine steel spear from his back and rushed to the vat. He gripped the butt of the spear with both hands, plunged the spearhead into the water, and stirred it wildly with all his might.

"Splash! Splash!"

Inside the enormous bronze vat, which was as tall as three people, the water flowed into a rapid whirlpool, and green water splashed several feet high.

Just when the water was churning most violently.

The light, yellow talisman fell silently into the center of the vortex.

There was no fire, no explosion.

There wasn't even a sound.

The instant the talisman touched the water's surface, an extremely eerie, dark blue aura spread across the water's surface at a speed imperceptible to the naked eye.

"Bang!"

The steel spear in the hands of the Thousand Bull Guard seemed to have suddenly plunged into a solid anvil, stopping abruptly in mid-air. The enormous recoil force swept back along the shaft, causing the Thousand Bull Guard's hand to split open, and blood splattered directly onto the edge of the bronze vat.

The officials in the hall craned their necks to look out the door.

Cui Hongdu forgot about the blade on his neck and stared intently at the bronze vat.

The well water, which had been churning wildly, came to a complete stop at that moment.

It's not frozen.

The water surface remained in a swirling, churning pattern, with even a splash of water suspended eerily in mid-air. The entire water in the bronze vat seemed to be held tightly by an unseen, colossal hand, transforming into a single, seamless piece of blue glass.

The guard gritted his teeth, gripped the spear shaft tightly with both hands, and braced his feet against the edge of the bronze vat, pulling with all his might.

"Snap!"

The steel barrel was actually broken in two from the middle!

The section of the spearhead stuck in the water remained completely still.

"Gulp."

Inside the main hall, someone swallowed hard. The sound was so clear in the deathly silence that it sent chills down one's spine.

Li Shimin's hand, which was holding the sword, trembled uncontrollably.

"Within a radius of one li, three hours."

Li Chen slowly straightened up and patted the dust off his robe.

"If you go too late, all the fertile fields in the Central Plains will be soaked and ruined."

Li Shimin suddenly turned around and threw his sword on the ground with a clang.

"Li Jing! Cheng Yaojin! Yuchi Jingde!"

Li Shimin's voice almost roared as it smashed through the roof of the Liangyi Hall.

Three towering warriors strode out of the ranks with a deafening crash of armor plates clashing together.

"Your subject is here!"

"You three, take eight hundred heavily armored cavalry, three horses each! Send these talismans to the breaches in Bozhou and Dizhou by express courier, and deliver them to the governors in charge of flood control!"

Li Shimin strode up the imperial steps, carefully picked up the stacks of talismans with both hands, put them into a waterproof leather bag, and tied it tightly to Li Jing's belt.

His eyes were bloodshot, like a tiger ready to devour its prey.

"Travel day and night, without fail! Even if the horses die and the riders are exhausted, you must deliver the goods to me! If even a single talisman is missing, or if even a moment's delay is incurred..."

Li Shimin surveyed the entire hall. "I will exterminate your entire clan!"

"Here you go!!"

The three dukes, their eyes wide open, took the leather bag and ran wildly out of the hall.

Li Chen yawned as he watched their hurried figures disappear into the distance.

"Prepare the spiritual materials and medicinal herbs and send them to the side room of the Lizheng Hall. I will go and fetch them myself."

Before he finished speaking, he tapped his toes on the blue bricks and activated the "Wind Control Technique." His greyish-white robe left a trail of afterimages in the air, and amidst the awe-inspiring gazes of the assembled civil and military officials, who looked upon him as if he were a deity, he vanished directly from the eaves of the Liangyi Hall.

……

Li Chen switched back to his identity as a prince and continued to stay in the side hall every day, playing with the little ox that would occasionally come to visit.

He would go to the side room of the Lizheng Hall to "purchase" the medicinal herbs and spirit stone embryos every night at midnight, sweeping them all into his storage bag without any hesitation. Li Shimin was indeed efficient, and the Tang Dynasty's treasury was truly well-funded. Just the wild ginseng that was over a hundred years old had piled up into a small mountain in Li Chen's storage bag.

Seven days passed in the blink of an eye.

That night, at midnight.

The sky over Chang'an was obscured by thick, dark clouds, not a single star in sight. The oppressive heat even silenced the cicadas in the trees.

Li Chen sat cross-legged beside the dry well in the side hall, his eyes closed, circulating the liquid true essence within his body to smooth out the meridians he had cultivated with medicinal herbs over the past few days.

Sudden.

His heart skipped a beat without warning.

This wasn't palpitations, but rather a disorientation as if some enormous thing had struck the depths of my soul.

Li Chen suddenly opened his eyes.

The world around us has changed.

In his naked eye's view, the blue bricks, withered trees, and broken wooden doors of the side hall were all covered with an extremely rich dark golden light.

The dark clouds in the night sky did not disperse, but in his eyes, a golden beam of light, ten feet thick, pierced through the clouds, ignoring the palace buildings, and slammed into his head like a celestial river pouring down.

"Ugh—!"

Li Chen's legs buckled, and he fell straight off the edge of the dry well, kneeling heavily on one knee. Spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the blue bricks from the impact of his knee.

huge!

It's enormous!

The imperial fortune gained from saving Empress Zhangsun last time is thousands of times greater!

The Yellow River has calmed down.

The lives of millions were saved. This immense merit, enough to rewrite the fate of a dynasty, directly transformed into the purest spiritual energy, surging wildly into his eight extraordinary meridians.

Li Chen clenched his teeth tightly, letting out a low growl like a wild beast.

His coarse cloth clothes were torn apart inch by inch in an instant by the violent true energy within his body. A layer of fine blood beads seeped from the surface of his skin, but as soon as these blood beads appeared, they were evaporated into blood mist by the high temperature of the almost solidified dark golden true energy on the surface of his body.

Within his dantian, the viscous, liquid true essence lake began to expand at a frenzied pace.

double.

Five times.

ten times!

"Click-clack click-clack..."

Bones are breaking and reforming. Meridians are being forcibly widened several times over by this brute force.

The once calm liquid true essence formed a rapidly spinning, enormous vortex at the center of the dantian. At the center of the vortex, a faint, chilling pure white light emanated. This was a sign that the true essence had been compressed to its limit and was about to undergo a qualitative change.

"break!"

Li Chen managed to squeeze out a single word.

"boom--"

Centered on him, an invisible, terrifying shockwave exploded along the ground.

The weeds in the side hall courtyard were instantly uprooted, and the thick branches of the withered tree snapped with a crisp sound. If he hadn't just placed a soundproof talisman on the ground, the commotion would have attracted the entire Imperial Guards of the palace.

The shockwave gradually subsided.

Li Chen knelt on the ground, panting heavily.

His skin was no longer a sickly pale white, but rather radiated a warm, lustrous sheen like mutton-fat jade. Every inch of his muscle seemed to contain a terrifying power capable of tearing through heavy armor with bare hands.

Late foundation building!

No, the amount and refinement of this true essence are only one step away from the legendary Golden Core stage.

Li Chen slowly stood up.

He ignored the fact that his clothes had turned into strips of cloth, and instead closed his eyes, sinking his mind into his spiritual space.

The compass at the center of the space has slowed down its rotation.

But directly below the compass, no more low-level herbs and broken flying swords fell.

A broken jade slip floated silently in mid-air. The surface of the jade slip was covered with fine cracks, exuding an ancient and desolate aura.

Li Chen probed the jade slip with his divine sense.

The three ancient characters immediately struck his mind.

Nine Revolutions Thunder Seal.

It's neither a basic spell nor a low-level formation. This is a true killing technique, drawing heavenly lightning into the body to condense a lightning seal. This is something that shouldn't even be accessible to a Foundation Establishment cultivator.

"This social welfare system has finally been upgraded?"

Li Chen smirked and put the jade slip into his storage bag.

He opened his eyes, feeling the seemingly endless liquid true essence within his body, and his brow twitched slightly.

"Let's see how far my divine sense can reach."

Li Chen formed a hand seal.

The divine sense, which was originally limited to a radius of three miles, now spread out wildly in all directions at a terrifying speed, like a dragon breaking free of its chains.

Five li.

Bali.

Ten miles!

The outline of the entire imperial city, along with half of Chang'an's wards and markets, was instantly captured in his mind.

Inside the Lizheng Hall, Li Shimin was wearing a robe, anxiously looking at the victory report that had been delivered;

Inside the Eastern Palace, Li Chengqian was kneeling before the ancestral tablets, muttering something under his breath.

At the bottom of the moat outside Chang'an City, several large carp, about half the length of a person, were rolling around in the mud and sand.

The fluttering of every fly's wings, the drifting of every fallen leaf.

Everything was under his absolute control.

This illusion, like a god looking down upon the human world, made Li Chen's lips involuntarily curl upwards.

"This is the power of a late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator..."