Chapter 13070 — Or to Put It Another Way — Even Xue Wanqian, once he truly reached the stage of the finals, was still an unknown quantity as to whether he could hold out.

In the end, Wei Zhao could only rely on himself.

But how could one man alone—and a fifth-position player at that—possibly withstand the ferocious onslaught of the Huan family's squad?

The corner of Jin Beichen's mouth quirked upward. "You underestimate him far too much."

"Huh?"

Li Jinwang was utterly baffled.

He had been the first man to go all in on Wei Zhao, staking his entire fortune on the fellow—and this was still underestimating him?

Jin Beichen smacked his lips. "Or to put it another way, you overestimate—"

"Loose!" Twenty crossbows took aim at the foe and loosed volley after volley. Wherever the bolts flew, the defending soldiers screamed and dropped to the ground, utterly incapable of resistance. The onlookers felt their hearts go cold at the sight. Truly worthy of the realm's foremost weapon for suppressing the martial world—against second- and third-rate fighters, there was simply no standing up to it head-on.

Today he had returned to this place under the banner of "redistributing Wuwei City." In his train came over a thousand cavalry from the various villages. Such a force was enough to make any powerful player guild in Wuwei City tremble and collapse.

From the moment he learned Qi Lang had fallen into the water to the rescue and revival, the hot bath and the change into dry clothes and a thick robe—barely a quarter of an hour in all, yet it felt like passing between the two extremes of life and death.

Her words brimmed with boundless trust in Chen Wanrong. If not for Qing E, that great glaring lantern, standing right there, Chen Wanrong would dearly have loved to pull Zheng Qing into an embrace and nuzzle her in thanks. He smiled. "Think on it a while longer, and it will come to you." That it was Zhu Yuanzhang's innovation was naturally not something he could tell them—a kind deception is its own device.

Amid the surging swell of the sea, for a moment we could not make out what was going on with that ship. But now that a lifeline had finally come, never mind whether the vessel was a funerary "mingqi" boat—had it been a ghost ship, the only course was to clamber aboard first and talk later, lest the slightest hesitation cost them everything: once the swells grew any larger, the whole lot of them would be scattered by the waves in an instant.

In truth, she had known all along how dangerous this journey would be, hadn't she? Then why go? Merely because Sun Nan was her partner?

Looking at how the Sovereign had been these past few years—neither close nor distant with the Crown Prince, keeping him at arm's length with a wary guard—how could these shrewdest of the shrewd fail to have quietly noted it and laid it away in their hearts?

Hearing that the weapons in everyone's hands were sufficient, Shangguan Wenfei's brows smoothed gently. Even in the planetary ground wars of a thousand years hence, flying zerg were a rarity.

At those words, a chorus of sharp indrawn breaths echoed through the great hall. Who did not know that Murong Sheng's most beloved possession was his thousand-year-old zither? Even when his favored consorts had courted his every pleasure, he had never let them have the Chaofeng Zither. And now, of all things, he meant to give that very Chaofeng Zither to Princess Yizhu?

The Old Heavenly Master watched Xinghe Daoli with knitted brows; even he could not discern the source of that wisp of black qi. Gu Shaoyu's appearance had been mysterious from the start, and afterward he had brought forth several strange powers that did not seem to belong to heaven and earth. From that thread of starlit black qi he could sense an incomparably mighty aura—as though a single touch would annihilate it utterly.

But Mi Qian and Ye Huang had waited for this wedding for hundreds of thousands of years. The elders clapped their hands in agreement, quibbling over nothing further, and so the date was finally set.

"So what if we are arrogant? What can you do about it?" A cold, clear voice issued from Di Yehuang's lips, carrying an air of domineering force and the noble bearing of one long accustomed to standing above all others.

Their gazes fixed straight upon Yi Shuihan, filled with every kind of emotion—complex, friendly, curious, wary, contemptuous, envious—the list went on and on.

"Nonsense! The sect's Fayuan Bell itself has measured you—you possess a thousand-year divine body. How could you possibly be unable to cultivate?" Shi Mengjie stared at Chen Haoyue, speaking with agitation, her voice much louder for the strength of her emotion.

Watching Gu Weilin and Hou Daguang head into the prison, chatting and laughing as they went, Lou Huaming followed the prison guards inside to collect his people.

So they clamped their feet against the stirrups, and their four hooves caught the wind as they gave chase without letup. Sure enough, on they rode for more than twenty li. The road beneath them grew harder and harder, the dust ever sparser, until they had ridden clear of the region where the dense fog lay scattered. But at this hour the evening mist was thick, and the sunlight was screened by cloud and vapor, leaving but one corner to spare, the light slanting from west to east.