Am I going to be controlled by the players too?

Li Xianyu looked at Sylvia, who was being controlled by Cheng Cheng, and fell into deep thought.

Actually, she was quite distressed when the two countries went to war.

As a citizen of the Empire, she naturally longed to be close to her homeland and did not want to be an exception; but as a subject of the Queen and a teammate of Sylvia, she could not betray her friend and switch sides to the Empire... How could she not be blessed to be served by two great powers?

I can only devote my limited energy to the endless service of the undead.

After thinking for a long time, Li Xianyu decided to share some information that everyone already knew and that was easy to find online: "Sylvia, you should have heard that the Empire has the so-called upper nine classes, middle nine classes, and lower nine classes, right?"

"Tell me in detail." Cheng Cheng listened attentively.

“In the empire, everyone was born with a ‘destiny’ that could not be changed throughout their lives. Based on the quality of their destiny, some people ranked people into nine classes, from the highest to the lowest.” Li Xianyu counted on his fingers, “The highest nine classes are: first-class Buddha, second-class immortals, third-class emperors, fourth-class officials, fifth-class wealthy landowners, sixth-class guests, seventh-class burners, eighth-class pawnbrokers, and ninth-class farm owners.”

"The nine ranks are: first-class scholars, second-class doctors, third-class feng shui masters, fourth-class fortune tellers, fifth-class painters, sixth-class physiognomists, seventh-class monks, eighth-class Taoist priests, and ninth-class musicians and chess players."

"The nine lowest classes are: first-class sorcerers, second-class prostitutes, third-class shamans, fourth-class gangsters, fifth-class barbers, sixth-class musicians, seventh-class actors, eighth-class beggars, and ninth-class candy sellers."

"So which category do you fall under in the Empire?" Cheng Cheng asked curiously.

“My family has been in the funeral industry for generations. We have shares in a well-known funeral home in the capital that has been around for a thousand years. The store is called ‘Wangshengtang’.” Li Xianyu said, gradually falling into memories. “Back then, the concept of destiny was still very popular. I was born to be a funeral home worker, which is naturally the lowest of the low. No matter how much money my family made, we were still looked down upon.”

"Fortunately, Master Hu is kind-hearted and sent me to Qingfeng Temple to become an apprentice and cultivate immortality, hoping to change my fate... But how difficult is it to defy fate? Now it seems that although I have achieved the Gold level, I am still a low-class necromancer, and my fate has not been changed in the end."

As she spoke, Li Xianyu began to recount her past—

…………

After joining Qingfeng Temple, she learned alchemy from a Taoist priest who called himself Danyangzi. However, she soon discovered that Danyangzi was an evil cultivator who liked to use people to make elixirs.

Led by their fellow disciple Li Huowang, the disciples conspired to kill Danyangzi. Afterwards, Li led his fellow disciples on a journey, eventually sending them back to their hometown. Along the way, they befriended renowned sects of the empire, such as Zhengde Temple, the Jingjiao Cult, and Cixin Nunnery, accumulating considerable prestige in the martial arts world.

On the way, they encountered an imperial general who had massacred a village and fought a great battle with him; the man called himself Peng Longteng, who later became the legend of the "Chariot".

After bidding farewell to Senior Brother Li and Senior Sister Bai, Li Xianyu returned to her hometown, only to find that Master Hu had sacrificed himself in the ceremony to maintain the boundary between life and death, causing the Rebirth Hall to fall into ruin, her parents to incur huge debts, and ultimately being driven to suicide.

She has no home anymore.

After Li Xianyu collected the souls of his parents and ancestors into the Emperor's Banner, he felt he had nowhere to go, so he joined a sect called "Luoyun Sect" and was assigned to manage the medicine garden with a senior brother named Li Feiyu.

This senior brother is quite interesting. Spirit herbs that usually take hundreds or thousands of years to grow can be grown in just a few days under his cultivation.

Li Xianyu felt that this senior brother was a biological expert in the field of hybrid spiritual herbs, so he studied cultivation with him.

After breaking through to the Foundation Establishment Realm, also known as the Silver Rank, Li Xianyu felt that staying in the sect was meaningless, so he chose to leave the sect and venture out into the world. Later, he heard that the Luoyun Sect had added another Nascent Soul cultivator, also known as a Gold Rank expert, who came from the Medicine Garden. He didn't know who it was.

Li Xianyu only heard after leaving the sect that the previous emperor had been overthrown and the new emperor's surname was Gao, who seemed to be the junior brother Gao from Qingyun Temple when he was wandering with his senior brother Li Huowang.

This man looked simple-minded and even stuttered, but unexpectedly he became emperor.

Unlike kingdoms with an unbroken imperial line, the throne of an empire is held by the virtuous, a system known in the imperial language as "the Mandate of Heaven." If the Mandate of Heaven recognizes the imperial family, the throne is inherited within the imperial family; if the Mandate of Heaven shifts and no longer recognizes the imperial family, the "Emperor" card and the imperial essence will be seized by the person who overthrows the old dynasty.

Li Xianyu naturally went to seek refuge with the emperor. Senior Brother Li and Senior Sister Bai had served the emperor and had become high-ranking officials. Even their daughter was said to have become the Director of the Observatory. Naturally, they took good care of Li Xianyu, who came to seek refuge with them, and soon appointed her as a diplomat to serve as the ambassador of the Elf Empire in a relatively wealthy small country.

After Li Xianyu took office, he heard that a low-level demon had appeared in this small country, calling himself the "Demon King." The entire country only had a few silver-level officials, and they were helpless against it.

So Li Xianyu, under the alias "Fu Lilian," formed a team with a fellow silver-level hero, a priest, and a dwarf warrior, and went to the Demon King's castle to defeat the demon.

During the demon-slaying expedition, after witnessing the civilians slaughtered by the Demon King's army along the way, Li Xianyu had a sudden realization of the true meaning of the necromancy faction. Therefore, instead of returning to the capital with his teammates to become heroes after the demon-slaying, he found a place to live in seclusion and quietly study necromancy.

During his seclusion, Li Xianyu heard that the small country had launched a witch hunt, and many witches born with magical abilities were burned at the stake as witches. As a result, Li Xianyu hid even more closely, only occasionally going out to gather information. He heard that a prince in the small country named "Roland" had taken in and protected many witches, and even started an industrial revolution.

But this had nothing to do with Li Xianyu, so she didn't care. She simply took in a disciple named Wei Wuxian, taught him necromancy, and passed on her magical artifacts, the "Chenqing Flute" and the "Yin Tiger Seal," to ensure that her skills would not be lost.

Later, I heard that his disciple Wei Wuxian overthrew the most powerful clan in a small country and proclaimed himself the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, but that's another story.

When she reached the peak of the Silver Realm, she finally emerged from seclusion.

But his old friends were gone. The heroes who once fought demons together were old and frail, and the priest and dwarf were no longer young. After losing his former companions, Li Xianyu embarked on his journey home.

Unexpectedly, the Elf Empire has also undergone a great change. Senior Sister Bai is dead, Senior Brother Li has gone mad, and Junior Brother Gao's dynasty has been overthrown by the Ji family.

The newly enthroned Emperor Ji Yushen promulgated new laws, abolishing the imperial examination system, eliminating the nine classes of people (upper, middle, and lower), and establishing ten senior colonels, thirty-six junior colonels, and countless colleges and universities, thus ushering in the era of national college entrance examinations and civil service examinations.

However, the old hierarchy of social classes, which was deeply ingrained in people's minds, has not completely disappeared. Instead, it has evolved into a hierarchy of contempt among university majors.

For example, finance, alchemy, weapon crafting, and weapon spirits are considered the upper nine classes; teacher training, art, landscaping, and logistics are considered the middle nine classes; while the lower nine classes include civil engineering, food delivery, and security guards, which are not considered popular professions.

Li Xianyu was extremely uncomfortable with it.

Not only was he uncomfortable with the new system, but he was also unaccustomed to the modern life in the empire, so he gave up the idea of ​​continuing to serve as an official.

But she still had to work to make a living. After losing her senior brother Li and mourning her junior sister Bai and junior brother Gao, she joined the Silver Adventurer Team composed of Kong Wenbin, Yang Chen, Tie Dan and others to go on adventures in the dungeon.

This was the happiest time of her life, as she encountered fresh corpses in the dungeon every day.

However, they also frequently clash with other squads, or team up to explore dungeons, such as the Rudeus Squad, Kazuma Squad, Bell Squad, Haruhiro Squad, and so on...

As a result, all of this came to a halt with a decree issued by the Elf Empress.

The imperial army took full control of the underground city, leaving Li Xianyu's team without work. On Yang Chen's advice, they went to the Kingdom of Konoma and met Sylvia...

Then, Sylvia betrayed Loo and left the team. Kong Wenbin decided that the four of them should explore the dungeon directly without anyone else—but they were wiped out by Chicken, Tiger, Bear, Wolf, and Dog, leaving only Li Xianyu alive. To seek revenge, he joined the Primal God Cult and was sponsored by Sylvia to refine a Nascent Soul Pill, thus achieving the Gold Saint status...

…………

(Li Xianyu on her trip:)

…………

After listening to Li Xianyu's story, Cheng Cheng felt that her life was too turbulent and magnificent. She had met countless geniuses and chosen ones from different planes, but they all passed her by, and in the end, she ended up in his hands.

This is really...

"Speaking of which, after experiencing so much, how old are you..."

"Sixteen years old!" Li Xianyu suddenly came to her senses. "For us elves, especially pure-blooded elves like me, I'm only sixteen! I'm not even an adult yet, I'm younger than you, Sylvia!"

"No, no matter how you look at it, you've outlived countless emperors..."

Saying you're 160 years old would be considered young...

"That's because the emperor of the empire bears the source essence, so he's not meant to live long!"

Li Xianyu was fuming, seemingly very concerned about her age.

"In short, that's all I know and can say," Li Xianyu said seriously. "Even if Freya asked me, it would be the same... I really don't have any secret information about the Empire. As for the future war, I will only protect Freya and will not go to the battlefield to kill the Empire's elves."

“I know we won’t force you to fight your own kind.”

"Thank you, thank you."

After Li Xianyu finished speaking, she gave Cheng Cheng a deep look, sighed, and left Sylvia's room.

The room quieted down.

"If I could, I'd really like to experience the Empire..."

Cheng Cheng sighed, but that was all he could do—nowadays, both Sylvia and Freya held high positions and could no longer travel to the Empire like tourists.

Moreover, there are more important things to solve than this.

That's a relationship issue.

His relationship with Freya and Bugu, as well as his own soul... After Freya ascended the throne, everyone was too busy to talk about these things, and he hadn't told Sylvia about them yet.

Sylvia hesitated several times, clearly wanting to confront him...

Thinking about it, Cheng Cheng felt a little sorry for Sylvia, so he clicked on the Thousand Star Odds and Evens and sketched out a soul form in front of Sylvia.

"Ah, Cheng Cheng..."

Sylvia's eyes widened, then she looked away dejectedly: "Am I the last one to know?"

"Actually, there's a reason..."

Cheng Cheng stepped forward, wanting to hug the girl in front of him, but Sylvia took a half step back to avoid him, leaving him frozen in place, at a loss.

Regardless, it's normal to be disliked for what I did before.

But there's still plenty of time today, I must explain things clearly to Sylvia... Hmm?

In the room, Cheng Cheng and Sylvia were suddenly stunned, as an indescribable and intense "presence" appeared out of nowhere.

The two turned around and saw that the spot where Li Xianyu had just been sitting had been occupied by another figure.

The figure looked to be no more than eleven or twelve years old, dressed in an extremely luxurious Han-style black court dress. His skin was so white it was almost transparent, like the first snow on a mountain peak in the dead of winter, untouched by dust. His hair, however, was darker and thicker than ink.

The two extreme colors, black and white, swirl, intertwine, and collide on her body, like a perfect tai chi symbol, finally broken by a captivating red in her eyes.

More than a person or a living being, she was an inanimate object, a perfectly crafted Japanese doll.

"You are……"

Cheng Cheng was about to use the fire when the girl spoke softly: "I am a member of the Witch's Guild, codenamed Witch C. I grant you permission to know my real name—Chu Youyou."

Witch C?

Cheng Cheng was slightly taken aback.

As she spoke, the girl tilted her head slightly: "You should remember my colleagues, Witch A and Witch R."

indeed.

Cheng Cheng had indeed dealt with witches quite a bit, and each time he had gained a lot.

Witch A, Elef Medici, put herself and Freya through trials and then rewarded them; Witch R went even further, issuing a quest to defeat the Jingguan Bodhisattva directly through the game system and rewarding Cheng Cheng with his current soul form.

Therefore, in Cheng Cheng's mind, witches are beings who transcend the game and reality and can perceive and influence their own systems, but their true identities remain a mystery.

Now, a third witch has suddenly appeared; she intends to...

“Of course I’m here for the witch’s trial.” Witch C stretched out her hand, idly playing with a ring. “Freya has already ascended the throne. Your game progress is too fast. Time can’t wait for you to trigger the next trial, so I’ve come.”

"A trial?" Sylvia's eyes lit up. "Is it the same trial as Freya's, entering an illusion? Is it me and Cheng Cheng together this time?"

Very good!

I've been struggling to find my home turf, with Freya and Bugu, those two sly foxes, overtaking me. Is it finally my turn now?

“No, the trial is in the Empire.” Witch C looked up at Cheng Cheng and said with a wicked smile, “Weren’t you just regretting not having the chance to go to the Empire? Now, your chance has come.”

At the same time, a notification popped up in the system's main quest list, something that hadn't happened in a long time:

"Chapter Two of the game, Death and Fire, is now open."

Chapter 103, Don't underestimate a young girl's poverty!