My cultivation disguise has been exposed by Xiao Sizi.

The next day, in the courtyard of the Prince's Mansion.

A gentle breeze rustled through the branches of the weeping willows, casting dappled, swaying light across the bluestone slabs.

Li Chen was completely immersed in the softly cushioned bamboo rocking chair, his legs swinging idly in mid-air as the chair creaked softly.

He was in a very good mood at the moment.

It was arguably the most pleasant day since I traveled to the Tang Dynasty.

He finally removed the cold, hard stone that had been pressing down on his memories across two lifetimes with his own hands.

That island nation, which would later produce countless mountains of corpses and seas of blood, was thoroughly ravaged from south to north by him and the five killing gods of the Tang Dynasty.

They severed the Yin Sha earth veins, destroyed the so-called divine toilet, and crushed those evil seeds that had not yet taken shape.

Having avenged his great grudge, his mind became clear and enlightened.

However, I don't know why, despite all the troubles I've caused lately, my cultivation hasn't improved at all. Could it be due to some limitation imposed by heaven and earth? Is my current upper limit just the early Golden Core stage?

Forget it, let nature take its course!

Since returning from the island nation, he now finds even the few clumps of weeds in the yard much more pleasing to the eye, and even the air he breathes in has a sweet smell.

On the small square table next to it, there was a plate of sliced, crisp, chilled melon.

Qin Wan'er sat on a small stool to the side, holding a round fan in her hand, and rhythmically fanned him.

A cool breeze was blowing, and Li Chen squinted comfortably, picked up a piece of melon and stuffed it into his mouth. Juice overflowed, and the sweetness warmed his heart.

"Sixteenth Brother! Sixteenth Brother!"

A clear and cheerful child's voice suddenly broke the tranquility of the backyard.

Little Sizi was wearing a pale yellow, high-waisted ruqun (a type of traditional Chinese dress), and her hair was styled in two cute double buns.

She came fluttering in through the moon gate like a little sparrow just released from its cage.

She was running too fast, and the threshold was a bit high for her. Her short legs tripped her, and she fell straight forward.

Li Chen slightly raised his eyelids and gently hooked his finger in mid-air.

A gentle, invisible stream of true energy instantly lifted the little girl along the ground and gently placed her next to the rocking chair.

"Run slowly, or you'll chip your front teeth and have a lisp, and then you won't be able to get married when you grow up."

Li Chen smiled and reached out to pinch her chubby, soft cheeks. He then picked up the sweetest melon core from the fruit plate and put it into her open mouth.

Little Sizi held the melon in both hands and took two bites like a little squirrel, his mouth full of juice.

She chewed and swallowed, wiped her mouth haphazardly with the back of her hand, blinked her big, dark grape-like eyes, leaned on the armrest of the rocking chair, and looked up at Li Chen with a face full of curiosity.

"Sixteenth Brother, Mother said you went to sea to a very, very far place to fight bad guys." Little Si blinked his eyes.

"Is that island nation fun?"

Upon hearing this, Li Chen immediately perked up.

"Fun? That's so much fun!"

Li Chen suddenly sat up straight, threw the melon rind in his hand into the slop bucket next to him, grabbed a silk handkerchief to wipe his hands, sat cross-legged on the rocking chair, cleared his throat, and struck a pose like a storyteller under a bridge.

"Sizi, let me tell you, your sixteenth brother's voyage this time was incredibly impressive, like a divine army descending from the heavens."

"At that time, the island was teeming with bad guys with fangs and bowlegs. They were preparing to build big ships to bully the people of our Great Tang Dynasty."

Little Sizi nervously covered her mouth, her eyes wide: "Ah? What should we do?"

"Don't be afraid, your sixteenth brother is here."

Li Chen stood up, picked up two small knives that Qin Wan'er used to peel fruit from the table next to him, weighed them in his hand, and treated them as weapons.

"Your sixteenth brother didn't bring any magical artifacts. I just grabbed two watermelon knives and walked ashore in a very casual manner. A thousand bad guys rushed towards us from the front, each one of them brandishing a knife with a fierce look on their face."

As Li Chen spoke, he paced back and forth in the middle of the courtyard, wildly gesturing with a small knife in both hands, his movements extremely exaggerated.

"I didn't even lift my eyelids; I just walked right into them!"

"With swift strokes, the knife falls! With swift strokes, the knife falls! Swish, swish, swish!"

He slashed left and right on the open ground, his feet moving in a disorderly manner, while he made vivid sounds.

"I chopped down ten with one slash and kicked eight away with one kick. The blood flowed so much that it stained the fish in the sea red!"

Qin Wan'er sat on a stool, rolling her eyes as she listened.

She thought to herself, "Your Highness, when you went to sea, you brought a lot of jade slips and array plates with you, and you even brought the Dengzhou fleet with you. How come you're all alone with just two watermelon knives now?"

But she cleverly didn't expose her, instead keeping her head down and trying hard to suppress her laughter while fanning herself, her shoulders shrugging.

Li Chen became more and more excited as he spoke, completely immersed in the heroic and bloody scenes he had created, shamelessly embellishing his own image.

"I just kept hacking away! I hacked away for a whole month!"

Li Chen raised the fruit knife in his hand and swung it down in a heavy chopping motion, as if he were actually smashing the head of an enemy in front of him.

"I fought my way from the beaches of the East China Sea all the way to their inland stronghold."

"After flattening their stronghold, I fought my way back to the coast from the inland. Those bad guys were hacked to pieces by me, screaming and begging for mercy on their knees in the mud."

Li Chen stopped and casually tossed the two small fruit knives onto the stone table.

He put his hands behind his back, looked up at the sky at a 45-degree angle, and struck a pose of a lonely, decisive, and aloof master.

"I completely ignored them and just started hacking and slashing wildly!"

"For a whole month, I've been cutting and slashing without even blinking!"

Little Sizi sat on the brocade stool, listening with great enthusiasm, her rosy face flushed red.

She clapped her hands frantically, leaving red marks on her fair palms.

"Wow! Sixteenth Brother is amazing! Sixteenth Brother is a great hero!"