My cultivation disguise has been exposed by Xiao Sizi.

"Liyue, Qingxue, did you hear that? Chen'er will be alright."

Empress Zhangsun sincerely urged her to stay.

"Since you have just arrived in the Great Tang Dynasty, you are all alone and helpless. Please stay here in Taiji Palace. I will have someone arrange the best palace for you."

"We'll stay here together and wait for him to come home."

Faced with the royal family's overwhelmingly enthusiastic invitation to stay, it was impossible to refuse.

Jiang Liyue's eyes reddened slightly as she exchanged a glance with Jiang Qingxue.

They nodded emphatically.

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

……

At the same time.

Beyond the endless starry sky.

An unknown small world completely separated from the Origin Heaven Realm and the Tang Dynasty.

The sky was overcast, and a fierce wind was howling.

On a muddy, ancient loess road.

A down-on-his-luck scholar, wearing a faded long gown and carrying a tattered book box, was kneeling in the mud.

His face was ashen, and he closed his eyes, trembling all over, awaiting death.

In front of the scholar.

Standing there was a burly, vicious bandit with a face full of scars and a blind left eye.

The bandit held a rusty, blood-stained broadsword and was emitting a series of ferocious and cruel laughs.

"You poor, penniless scholar, you think you can fob me off with your few taels of silver?"

The bandit licked his thick lips, his eyes revealing murderous intent.

"Since you can't pay the money, then leave your life behind! Go to the underworld and keep your useless books of sages company!"

That's all.

The bandit roared, gripped his broadsword tightly with both hands, and with a sharp whistling sound, slashed down fiercely towards the down-on-his-luck scholar's neck!

The scholar closed his eyes in despair.

Throughout his life, he studied diligently, but was rejected by cultivation sects because he lacked spiritual roots; his childhood sweetheart was forcibly abducted by a cultivation family and given to an old monster as a cultivation vessel.

Now, they will die a horrible death at the hands of bandits.

"This absurd world, this..." The scholar sighed sadly in his heart.

however.

Just as the broadsword was about to sever the scholar's head...

"call--!"

Suddenly, a terrifying, piercing sound, like a falling meteor, came from the sky.

The bandit was stunned for a moment.

He subconsciously raised his head, his only remaining right eye looking up at the sky above.

I only glanced at it.

The bandit's pupils instantly contracted to the size of pinpoints.

He didn't even have time to let out a scream.

"Bang--!!!"

A deafening, terrifying roar, so deep it made your teeth ache and seemed to shake the earth, exploded on the ancient loess road!

Dust and mud billowed into the sky.

The violent impact sent the down-on-his-luck scholar, who was kneeling on the ground, flying through the mud and rolling several times before coming to a stop.

The scholar was so shocked that he was completely disoriented.

He lay trembling in the mud, his hands covering his head, waiting for the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea.

The imagined agony of being decapitated never came.

The surroundings were deathly silent.

The scholar swallowed hard, and with a surge of courage, slowly opened his eyes.

Through the dust that has not yet settled.

He witnessed a bizarre scene that he would never forget and that shocked his worldview.

The one-eyed bandit who had been so fierce and arrogant just moments before had vanished without a trace.

Instead.

A large, human-shaped crater appeared on what was originally a flat dirt road!

And at the bottom of that big pit.

The one-eyed thug was already spread out in a "T" shape, having been smashed flat.

His entire body was embedded deep in the mud, his bones were shattered, blood flowed from his seven orifices, and he died without leaving a trace.

And on the bandit's broad back.

A young man, dressed in a tattered blue shirt and covered in blood, was lying sprawled out on his back.

"Cough cough... cough cough cough..."

A violent coughing fit rang out.

The man in blue who had fallen from the sky moved his fingers with difficulty and slowly climbed up from the corpse.

He shook his somewhat dazed head and spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with mud and sand.

"This damn spatial turbulence...it almost broke my bones..."

The man in blue complained as he brushed the dust off his clothes.

He looked around.

Finally, his gaze slowly fell on the corpse he had smashed into a pulp at his feet.

The air seemed to freeze at that moment.

The man in blue stood there stunned for a full three breaths.

Then.

He slapped his thigh hard, his eyes widening like saucers, and let out a terrified scream.

"Oh my god! Someone's been killed!!!"

The man in blue had his features contorted, his face filled with terror and panic.

"Calm down! Li Chen, you must calm down!"

He stood in the pit, holding his head in his hands, and began to mutter incoherently.

He looked exactly like a modern hit-and-run driver who had just accidentally killed someone.

"Anyone who has committed murder knows what the first thing to do is in a situation of accidental killing."

Li Chen slapped his thigh, a resolute glint flashing in his eyes.

"Yes! Of course, it's to destroy the evidence!"

"The crime scene must not be discovered! We must dig a hole and bury it immediately!"

The down-on-his-luck scholar, lying in the mud not far away, stared blankly, bewildered, as if he had seen a ghost.

That muscular man who fell from the sky.

Incredibly, he pulled out a gleaming steel shovel from the void (the soul space)!

then.

Without saying a word, he jumped out of the pit, sticking his butt out.

Right next to the corpse, they were frantically digging at the dirt with all their might!

As he dug, he muttered nervously to himself.

"Bury it deeper...and cover it with some weeds on top..."

"As long as no one sees me, I, Li, am still a law-abiding citizen."

Looking at this utterly absurd scene.

The down-on-his-luck scholar Ning Xiu was completely dumbfounded.

But he quickly realized that no matter how strange the man's behavior was, he had ultimately saved his life.

Ning Xiu climbed out of the mud.

He straightened his disheveled clothes and walked behind Li Chen.

then.

He knelt down and bowed deeply.

"Thank you so much, benefactor, for descending from the heavens and slaying this scoundrel! I will never forget your life-saving grace!"

Ning Xiu's voice, filled with gratitude and even tinged with emotion, suddenly rang out on the silent ancient road.

"Whoosh."

Li Chen's digging motion froze instantly.

The shovel stopped in mid-air.

A layer of white sweat suddenly broke out on Li Chen's back.

His mind was racing, a whirlwind of thoughts flashing through his head.

"It's all over, it ...!"

"We were seen! We were caught at the crime scene! There's even an eyewitness!"

"How could there be anyone in this desolate wilderness? Now that this mud has fallen into my pants, even if it's not shit, it's still shit!"

Li Chen took a deep breath, forcing his wildly beating heart to calm down.

"Calm down! Stay calm!"

"As everyone knows."

Li Chen silently prepared himself mentally, a fierce glint flashing in his eyes.

"Those who have committed crimes (those watching) understand a fundamental truth: what do you do if you're accidentally caught by a witness while disposing of a body?"

"An explanation? That's a complete waste of breath!"

"The safest way, of course, is to kill all the eyewitnesses, then dig a bigger pit and bury them all together!"

Thinking of this.

Li Chen slowly straightened up.

He gripped the wooden handle of the shovel tightly with both hands and raised it high above his head.

It carried a fierce aura of wanting to kill and silence witnesses.

Li Chen turned around abruptly, his face contorted with rage!

"Go to hell..."

Li Chen hadn't even had a chance to fully utter his vicious line.

He held the shovel high, and his whole body seemed to be frozen in place as if he had been struck by a pressure point.

A cold wind blew by.

Li Chen, holding a shovel, was ready to silence him.

Looking at the down-on-his-luck scholar in front of him, who was prostrating himself before him, his face covered in snot and tears, frantically kowtowing and calling him "benefactor."

Two people.

Eyes wide open.

The atmosphere at that moment was so awkward that words could not describe it.