Chapter 382 Princess: My subordinates are willing to be loyal to you (5,000 words)
See you again...
Zhao Duan was in the shape of a "big", lying on his back in the barren mountains in winter, with piles of dead branches and leaves beneath him, and giant trees in his field of vision reaching straight into the gray sky.
The cold wind blew, and scattered leaves swirled and fell from the branches.
He smiled and stared at Princess Lu, who was pointing the sword at him, with extremely strange eyes.
When he caught a glimpse of the silver mask, he understood where the indescribable "familiarity" came from when the two met that day.
It's about temperament.
Princess Lu had a unique temperament that he had only seen in Pei Niannu. It was difficult to describe, but it existed.
Recalling a little bit, when I met the shadow guard named "Hongye" on Linfeng Road in the past, there were vague similarities, but not as close as Lu Yan'er and Pei Niannu.
Prince Jing’s concubine is a powerful sorcerer? Not too surprising.
But he was actually surprised that he was Pei Niannu's successor.
"I'm asking you questions, not listening to your nonsense."
Wenrun Princess, who was wearing a blue dress and a silver faceplate, had a cold voice, and the tip of the sword in her hand dropped an inch:
"How do you recognize me? If you don't answer, I don't mind letting you taste Lingchi before you die."
What a cruel woman... Pei Niannu lifted my skull, and you tried to bully me again. As expected... Zhao Duan cursed, and the smile spread on his lips:
"When I first met the princess, she seemed to be a familiar old friend of mine, so she made a deeper impression. I asked the princess if she practiced spiritual practice that day, and it turned out that she was deceiving me."
Princess Lu looked angry, feeling that she had been tricked:
"When he was about to die, he still had the thought to make fun of her. He really deserves to be killed."
As soon as the words fell, he would raise his sword and kill the Zhao thief.
"Pei Niannu... Princess, what you practice must be the inheritance of this lineage." Zhao Duan said calmly.
The long sword stopped again!
Behind Princess Lu's visor, a sharp light suddenly flashed across her eyes: "How do you know?"
Zhao Duan smiled and said:
"I once came into contact with a shadow guard of the imperial court, who also wore a visor like you. Do you know her?"
Shadow Guard? Lu Yan'er was stunned for a moment, a little confused.
Six hundred years have passed, and the former Pei family has long since spread out. I don’t know how many blood lines have branched out, let alone inherited the method. Anyone with a strong foundation can practice it.
Therefore, it is not surprising if you think about it carefully, there are also people who practice the same method in the imperial court.
Lu Yan'er is not even sure whether the other party is a relative of hers. Even if he is a relative, he is probably already on the fifth server.
"It seems that I am not familiar with it," Zhao Duan sighed regretfully, "Princess, can you please clarify my doubts, where did your mask inheritance come from? How did you get involved with Prince Jing?"
Princess Lu pressed her sword down again, directly touching Zhao Duan's chest, and said coldly:
"Are you interrogating me? Tell me everything you know about Pei Niannu. If you say another random word, I will remove one of your arms!"
Zhao Duan felt helpless and sighed softly, thinking that it was really difficult to communicate with a cold-tempered woman.
He closed his eyes, visualized the "Six Chapters Sutra" in his mind, and whispered softly:
"Senior, please come."
In an instant, deep in the sea of consciousness, in a looming ruined ancient temple, the married sorceress sitting boredly on the roof raised her head, her sight seemed to penetrate the boundary between the picture and reality.
Zhao Duan clearly felt that a majestic, feminine power suddenly descended on his sea of consciousness and quickly spread to his body.
In the realm of divine chapters, you can summon the gods you have cultivated to come to the world.
At this moment, Pei Niannu was possessed by a ghost, wrapped in surging magic power and becoming one with Zhao Duan.
In the woods.
Princess Lu suddenly felt a strong sense of uneasiness. Without any hesitation, she pressed the hilt of the sword with her white and tender palm and stabbed downward fiercely!
However, Zhao Duan's right hand, covered with a faint red light, quietly grasped the tip of the sword.
Calmly...
Hold tight.
Hold on?
Princess Lu was stunned, her expression suddenly changed, and she looked at Zhao Duan's face.
He suddenly opened his eyes, with plasma-like redness surging in his pupils. He seemed to have lost all human emotions, like an offended god.
"You've offended me." Zhao Duan uttered these words and stood up straight.
Princess Lu was shocked, and she saw in horror that the long sword in her hand was dissolved by the hot crimson breath and turned into drops of iron juice.
In her haste, she only had time to put on three layers of magic armor around her body, and then she saw Zhao Duan punch out.
"Bang!"
Surging mana surged out with the power of the fist. In an instant, the three layers of armor were torn apart like paper, and Princess Lu's figure flew backwards like a cannonball.
The violent magic power stirred up the wind, and countless fallen leaves in the entire forest were lifted up like tiles and scattered into the air.
The silver armor on the face of Princess Lu, who had just gained a strong aura and was in control of everything, flickered and flickered, almost cracking.
A mouthful of blood spurted out from the corner of his mouth, rolling like a sandbag and hitting the rocks in the distance. The bones in his body were almost broken, but his eyes were full of indescribable horror!
In her perception, Zhao Duan's magic power was not much stronger than hers, and it was still at the "worldly" level.
It stands to reason that a confrontation between magic powers at the same level would definitely not leave her powerless to fight back.
But unexpectedly, when Zhao Duan took action, Princess Lu was horrified to find that her entire body seemed to be suppressed by some kind of blood-like force.
Just like a mortal encountering a fierce tiger in the mountains, the two branches are fighting and it is difficult to move.
At this moment, she saw Zhao Duan fearing a tiger.
He was unable to exert even 10% of his cultivation. He was completely restrained and weakened to an almost mortal level.
"How could...you..."
Before Princess Lu came to her senses, she saw Zhao Duan standing up in the distance, raising his right hand and making a false grab at her.
Princess Lu's expression changed drastically and she was about to run away.
Immediately, the fallen leaves flying in the sky condensed into two long "chains", tied her up, and dragged her along the way back to Zhao Duan's feet!
There is no way to fight back!
Lu Yaner felt strong fear and confusion in her heart. She wanted to say something, but Zhao Duan raised his hand and grasped her fair neck.
Her feet were kicking in the air, and her hands were trying to break open the iron hand that restrained her neck. Her face turned pale, like a weak woman in the world.
"No……"
"No……"
Princess Lu tried her best to widen her eyes, and she realized something. A burst of magic energy rushed into her pupils, opening her heavenly eyes.
As the "Sky Eye" opened, Lu Yan'er saw a scene that horrified her.
I saw that behind Zhao Duan, illusory red lines formed by condensed mana extended towards the sky.
One end of the red threads was connected to Zhao Duan's body, like a puppet on strings, and the other end was all caught in the slender white hands of an illusory figure in mid-air.
It was a woman in ancient costume, wearing a simple red wedding dress, with a dark golden mysterious mask covering her face, only half of her delicate white chin was exposed.
Holding the thin red thread in one hand, he gave the magic power to Zhao Duan.
The other hand held a strange scale beam wrapped in gold and red.
At this moment, she was suspended in mid-air, as majestic as a god.
Six hundred years ago, Pei Niannu, the best female sorcerer in the world, came to the world!
The moment the two people's eyes touched, Lu Yan'er, who was struggling fiercely, felt as if she was struck by lightning. She widened her eyes and stared at the dark golden mask and the appearance of the married sorceress. There was a bright light in her eyes, mixed with endless emotions. Shock and surprise.
At the same time, after Pei Niannu saw the almost cracked silver visor on the opponent's face clearly, he frowned and suddenly retracted half of the red lines.
The plasma-like red color in Zhao Duan's eyes suddenly faded away, and he felt his body suddenly become empty. His magic power was drained away. Unable to restrain the opponent with his right hand, he threw the Tsing Yi Princess to the ground.
"Cough! Cough cough cough!"
Lu Yan'er knelt on the ground. As soon as she was freed, she held her throat and gasped for air, followed by coughing.
Extremely embarrassed.
Zhao Duan, who had lost the blessing of the red buff, sensed the energy that was constantly being consumed in the sea of qi. He turned to look at Pei Niannu and raised his eyebrows.
Conveying a thought: "Senior, this is..."
Pei Niannu ignored him and frowned.
But the princess on the ground quickly raised her head, opened her eyes, looked at the sorceress standing in the sky with excitement and disbelief, and asked tentatively: "Ancestor...?!"
Ancestor?
Zhao Duan's eyes became even weirder.
"For me...ask her...identity..." Pei Niannu's voice came to her ears.
The way she descended into the world was almost like that of a god, and she could not talk directly to outsiders. She had to use the "believer" Zhao Duan as a medium.
Zhao Duan looked down at the kneeling princess and half-smiled:
"Senior Pei asked me to interrogate you. Princess, can you tell me now? What is your origin?"
Lu Yan'er was still immersed in huge shock. She came to her senses only after being questioned. She also realized that she could not talk to her ancestors directly, and her mind was in chaos. She couldn't understand at all why the ancestor whose family had been searching for hundreds of years to no avail would end up in Zhao Duan, a pretty boy.
The first thought was suspicion, but it was dismissed in an instant. The rest could be disguised, but the real repressive power based on inheritance coming from Pei Niannu could not be faked.
That is a characteristic that only this lineage has. Gold armor is the most respected, followed by silver armor, and bronze armor is at the bottom.
Clear hierarchy.
Not only can one level up completely suppress them, but they can also punish their subordinates from thousands of miles away.
As for the dark gold face armor, according to historical records, only Pei Niannu completed it.
"Yes...yes..." Lu Yan'er replied subconsciously.
As expected, he was indeed a descendant of the first Pei Niannu family. Because Pei Niannu offended too many people, after his death, the entire Pei family dispersed incognito in order to avoid being hunted.
Lu Yan'er's branch was changed to "Lu". She had been extremely talented in spiritual practice since she was a child. Later, she lost her relatives due to a vendetta and became the only remaining bloodline of this branch.
Whether it is to inherit the family mission, to find the inheritance of the ancestors, to complete the promotion, or to go one step further.
In short, Lu Yan'er has been searching for Pei Niannu's traces for many years. Later, because the clues pointed to the royal family, and she was obviously unable to enter the palace to investigate, she unexpectedly got a promise from Prince Jing to work for him.
The whole process is not complicated.
After hearing this, Zhao Duan also felt that fate was strange. Who would have thought that there could be such a coincidence...
Moreover, the rules of this mask's suppression sound so evil... It doesn't look like the righteous way, but rather a bit like an evil sorcerer.
Is it possible that the god Pei Niannu cultivated is considered an evil god? hiss……
"Ancestor!"
Kneeling on the ground, her green clothes stained with blood, Lu Yaner looked excited:
"We have been searching for you for hundreds of years. The elders in the family have always said that you are not dead. We can see you today. We implore our ancestors to return to gather the clansmen who were scattered in the past..."
Pei Niannu listened quietly. Although he was separated by a mask, he still showed a look of vicissitudes of life and loneliness.
She looked at Zhao Duan and said calmly:
"Tell...her...that I am...dead, so there is no need to obsess..."
After saying that, without waiting for Zhao Duan to respond, he took the initiative to cut off all the red threads of mana, disappeared from the world, and returned to the Six Chapters Sutra.
Hang up... Zhao Duan's eyelids twitched and he called "Senior" a few more times in his heart, but Pei Niannu seemed to be touched by something sad and didn't respond to him at all.
"Ancestor? Ancestor?!"
Lu Yan'er saw the wedding sorceress turn around and disappear. She looked around blankly and called out sadly.
Zhao Duan smacked his lips, feeling that the remaining energy in his body was consumed in order to maintain Pei Niannu's arrival, and he took the initiative to cut off the visualization. In this way, Pei Niannu could no longer feel what was happening outside.
He looked down at Princess Lu and said in a mocking voice: "Stop shouting, Princess, Senior Pei has gone back."
Lu Yan'er looked at him blankly, expecting an explanation.
Zhao Duan said without changing his expression:
"Senior Pei said that she is very disappointed in you. She only wants to participate in secular court disputes. Instead, she is willing to serve rebels like Prince Jing and become a lackey of the worldly rich and powerful. It has insulted her and this inheritance. So. Descendants actually have the nerve to invite her back? "
Lu Yan'er's face turned pale as if struck by lightning. She slumped on the ground and murmured:
"I...I..."
As he spoke, there were tears rolling down behind the silver armor, and he felt ashamed and ashamed.
Yes.
How graceful were our ancestors six hundred years ago? That person was on par with Emperor Taizu of Dayu and ranked among the strongest people in the world.
Using secret techniques, he almost became a god and could live for six hundred years, which was unheard of.
How proud should such ancestors be?
And what about yourself?
So, the ancestor who just attacked him must have been angry at him for not fighting, and punished him angrily, right?
Zhao Duan saw her soul lost and her faith collapsed, so he changed the subject:
"But...Senior Pei also said that he wants me to tell you that you will come to see her again one day when you are truly worthy of her status as a descendant."
Lu Yaner's eyes, which were already as gray as ashes, lit up again. She got up and looked at Zhao Duan impatiently, speaking in an excited tone:
"What should I do before my ancestors are willing to see me again?"
Zhao Duan looked like a fool and said:
"You still don't understand? It's natural to abandon the darkness and turn to the light. Senior Pei is standing with me, but you are with rebels like King Jing. If you are an enemy of me, you are an enemy of your ancestors."
Lu Yan'er suddenly woke up as if she had been slapped. She looked happy at first, and then realized something was wrong:
"But you just said that my ancestors resented me for being a lackey for the powerful, but didn't you do the same..."
Zhao Duan had no expression on his face and scolded:
"Did you know that I studied under Emperor Taizu and cultivated the Martial God Path? Can I be the same as you?
If we put aside the ordinary emperors and generals, and look at the inheritance of monks, I am from the same sect as the current empress, and I am from the same sect as Haishi.
People from the same sect are essentially one body. Do you know why Senior Pei was summoned by me? That's why Senior Pei also joined Emperor Taizu's sect. Don't you understand? "
Lu Yaner suddenly realized.
Yes, she ignored this aspect. The world of monks is different from that of ordinary people. What matters is the inheritance of masters.
As soon as she figured it out, she immediately said:
"I am willing to abandon the darkness and join the lineage of the Martial Gods. I just ask Mr. Zhao to help me explain to my ancestors..."
Zhao Duan shook his head with a teasing smile:
"Princess Lu, you are still assassinating me, and you still have the identity of a princess. How can you teach me to trust you?"
Lu Yan'er stood up, with a cold look behind her cracked visor:
"I will go back to Huting right now and kill Prince Jing and his son. How about making a declaration of surrender?"
The appearance of Pei Niannu made her change her stance on the spot. Compared to Prince Jing's empty promise, Zhao Duan seemed to be more trustworthy.
"...Wait a minute!"
Zhao Duan was startled, but stopped the other party and started thinking.
Kill Prince Jing directly? He must admit that this was an extremely tempting offer, and he was indeed tempted.
But when Zhao Duan thought about it again, he felt it was inappropriate.
First, killing King Jing will inevitably lead to unpredictable changes in the political structure of the entire Yu Dynasty.
The current situation, which is still relatively stable, will be broken in an instant, which may not be a good thing from an overall perspective.
After all, there are still seven of the Eight Kings. Apart from King Jing, King Mu of Yunfu also has the potential to be a dragon chair. The existence of the Eight Kings can check and balance each other. If they break, it is impossible to clearly judge whether it is good or bad. of.
Secondly, as an inspector, he cannot make such a big decision.
He was just a minister and had not reported it to the empress. He did not have the authority to do such a big thing privately.
In the officialdom, doing things beyond the authority is dangerous even in wartime, let alone non-wartime?
Third, and most importantly, Zhao Duan suspected that Prince Jing was not that easy to kill.
Otherwise, why didn’t the empress, who possesses the combat power of a human being, just go down to Jiangnan alone and kill all the eight kings?
Whether it is because he is worried about being infamy for thousands of years, or because the pattern cannot be easily broken, or because Prince Jing, an old yinbi, must have hidden ways to save his life.
In short, there must be a reason why the empress didn't do this, and Zhao Duan couldn't do it either.
"Are you sure you killed him? He had no means to save his life?" Zhao Duan asked calmly.
Lu Yan'er was silent for a moment, shook her head and said:
"It's impossible to be sure. Xu Wen is... a very scheming person, and the guards around him are definitely not the same as me. Moreover, when he asked me to join him, I tried to show my murderous intention, and I felt that there was something in him that made me afraid."
This is only reasonable... If you have the courage to fight against the empress, how can you not have the foundation? Zhao Duan asked:
"Do you know what trump cards he has?"
Lu Yaner shook her head and said:
"I know very little. Although I work as a guard for him, I don't participate in his affairs. He is also very wary of me. Not only me, but also his son Xu Jinglong only knows a less important part.
I only know that there is some secret connection between Prince Jing and Emperor Wu's city. They also secretly trained troops in Jiancheng Road and hollowed out a mountain to build a firearms factory. "
Then, as if to express her feelings, she told all the information she knew in one breath.
Zhao Duan gained a lot, but there were very few core things.
It's not surprising that King Jing was crazy and would confess to the princess who said betrayal without any hesitation.
"Let's do this." Zhao Duan thought for a moment and then said with his hands behind his back:
"I need you to continue to lurk in Prince Jing's Mansion. When you go back today, just say that I have a trump card and summoned the gods to injure you. Don't say anything else.
Don't intentionally collect any information in the future, just continue as usual and wait for my orders.
Don't worry, as long as you turn from darkness to light and work for me, Senior Pei, I will speak for you. Of course, the choice is always in your hands. You can trust me or King Jing. "
Lu Yan'er did not hesitate, and suddenly knelt down on one knee, like a subordinate in the army, and said seriously:
"I obey my orders."
She knows very well how to deal with officials.
Since she could serve Prince Jing in pursuit of her ancestors, it would be natural for her to serve Zhao Duan instead.
Zhao Duan raised the corners of his mouth slightly, waved his hand and said, "Go."
"yes!"
Lu Yan'er picked up the only half of the long sword left on the ground, with injuries all over her body, and the formation slowly appeared under her feet and disappeared.
Large leaves fell one after another, and only Zhao Duan was left. He looked at the direction where she disappeared with his hands behind his hands, and the corner of his mouth twitched:
"Wait, you haven't told me how to go back."
…
Correct typos first and then correct them
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(End of chapter)