Chapter 7: Seizing Opportunity in Chaos
"AAAHH——!!"
Feng Guan's wretched, harrowing screams ricocheted off the damp stone walls of the underground prison, raising the hairs on the back of the neck. On that grotesque net of black and crimson, countless bloodthirsty threads bored into his body from every conceivable angle. Under the overwhelming agony, Feng Guan wept and howled without restraint, his shriveled body convulsing like a fish torn from water, shrieking out everything he knew — the whole of it, from beginning to end, without a single word held back.
In truth, Li Shun need not have wasted his breath with any instructions. Under torture this savage — this thoroughly flaying — Feng Guan's depleted constitution and threadbare willpower left him no room to fabricate lies, let alone conceal a single thing. He could only give what he had. Even the most fleeting and trivial thoughts skimming the surface of his mind were wrung out by the blood-net without mercy.
Beside him, Li Shun looked, outwardly, every bit as wretched. His body was drenched in blood, his flesh spasming involuntarily under the threads' invasion, his throat producing ragged, broken gasps.
But in truth...
The very instant the punishment had been applied, Li Shun's primary consciousness had made its move, slipping free like a cicada shedding its shell, retreating into the Fangcun Realm within.
What remained in the outside world was only his physical body, enduring the pain on animal instinct alone. The suffering registered by his spirit had already been reduced to a fraction, not even a tenth of what was actually being inflicted upon his flesh.
The Li Shun of the physical world mechanically, word by word, recited the "testimony" he had polished and refined in his mind a thousand times over.
While his true consciousness stood quietly within the Fangcun space, gazing at the half-ruined, crumbling stone statue.
"I miscalculated after all.
"I hadn't expected the Great Qian authorities to be so meticulous. Even when the informants were two of the lowest-ranked corvée laborers imaginable, they still subject them to this kind of brutal interrogation, making absolutely certain nothing slips through.
"I can only hope Old Feng holds together."
He let out a silent sigh. The two of them had known each other for decades, after all. There was at least some thread of feeling there.
As for the torture being visited upon his physical body, Li Shun was not particularly worried.
What truly weighed on him was the danger bearing down on Lengshan County's Magistrate’s office with every passing moment, the destruction that drew closer with the turning of the hours.
"At the third hour of the afternoon, Xiong Jin will lead his attack.
"Originally, the Magistrate’s office's garrison would have been wiped out entirely, and the entire compound consumed by raging fire. And I, right now am inside the Magistrate’s office.
"Thanks to my informing, the Magistrate’s office has surely made preparations in advance. But whether those preparations can actually stop Xiong Jin..."
Li Shun had no confidence in that whatsoever.
He fixed his eyes on the half-damaged statue before him and pushed his will against it, trying desperately to trigger [Daily Reflection] regardless of the cost.
But it was like a stone sinking into the sea — swallowed without a trace. The mottled, pale ruin of a statue gave him nothing. Not even the faintest flicker of a response.
Li Shun felt his heart plunge. "As I feared. Based on past experience, [Self-Reflection] — despite the name three reflections, really only offers the first two as opportunities to probe and course-correct.
"Everything that unfolds in the third run is fixed. Absolute. There is no going back.
"If I remain trapped in this prison when Xiong Jin attacks, I will likely be reduced to ashes together with the Magistrate’s office of Lengshan County."
As for the possibility that the Magistrate’s office might successfully repel or even capture Xiong Jin, or that the stone statue might passively activate [Self-Reflection] after his death, those were gambles Li Shun neither dared nor wished to make.
A flash of ruthless resolve crossed his eyes. His consciousness stirred, and in an instant he crossed the pale mist to the third region, the side where the complete stone statue stood.
"If it truly comes to an inescapable dead end, I will have no choice but to release it."
Li Shun would not take this step until the very last moment before life and death. Because he knew all too well: merely projecting a powerless, ordinary-mortal puppet version of [Li Shun] into the world had already nearly shattered his soul from the strain. He could scarcely imagine what kind of terrifying backlash would result from forcibly summoning this complete statue, this entity of unknown depth and unfathomable nature, into the living world.
"Moreover, the two statues within the Fangcun space each harbor some profound secret. Once either emerges into the world, the consequences will be beyond estimation.
"But... for the sake of preserving my life, I can no longer afford to be selective about such things.
Just as Li Shun was turning this over in his mind, the stone statue, silent for who knew how many ages, seemed to stir with some inexplicable, almost mystical awareness, as though it had sensed Li Shun's intent to release it into the world.
In that instant, it was as if it had come alive.
Its face remained blurred and indistinct, without discernible features — yet in that moment, a gaze seemed to pierce through the vast gulf of countless ages and lock, unblinking, directly onto Li Shun.
Despite the web of hairline fractures that covered the statue's entire surface, cracked and riddled as a drought-parched riverbed, looking as though a single breeze could crumble it to powder — in this moment, Li Shun felt it with absolute clarity: a ferocious battle-will so scorching it could boil the seas and incinerate the sky, and beneath it...
A killing intent that soared straight into the heavens.
"Kill."
Within the Fangcun space, that killing intent became as a million invisible blades — howling, screaming, tearing toward Li Shun like a sudden storm. An agony like flesh being scraped from bone swept through his entire being in an instant, savagely battering his consciousness backward, step by forced step.
Only when he stumbled back to the very edge of the region where the statue stood did that world-destroying tempest abruptly cease.
Not far away, the hundred-odd stalks of Lengshan Grass cultivated within the Fangcun space had been spared by the barrier of the regions — yet they reacted as though they had grown minds of their own. Every one of their upright blue-violet blades drooped at once, trembling, prostrated, bowing low.
The tempest raged in the air for a long while before it gradually withdrew and stilled.
Li Shun stared at the statue, now once again sunk into dead silence, his heart still hammering. "Even suppressed as it is within the Fangcun space, it commands this kind of power..."
"It seems that simply unleashing this statue would guarantee my life, at the very minimum."
"In that case..." The coldness and clarity returned to Li Shun's gaze.
"The Lengshan Vessel."
He had not forgotten. Not for a single moment. What the true goal of all his scheming had been from the very beginning.
...
At that moment, the surface of Lengshan County's streets remained deceptively calm — yet beneath the stillness, undercurrents surged and killing intent lay coiled in every shadow.
The third hour of the afternoon.
A streak of crimson light tore across the sky, and Xiong Jin's towering figure descended, exactly on schedule, hovering in the air directly above Lengshan County's Magistrate’s office.
"Hmm?"
He looked down from above. The main gates were sealed shut. The space before the entrance was utterly deserted, not even the guards who normally stood watch were visible. The silence was profoundly, unnaturally wrong.
In an instant, Xiong Jin, a man forged by countless battles caught the scent of it in the air. That particular stillness that preceded slaughter.
"So they were tipped off..."
Yet rather than fear, a wild, unhinged ferocity erupted in his eyes. He threw his head back and loosed a roar toward the heavens, a sound like the wrath of thunder from the ninth sky that reverberated instantly throughout the entire city:
"Destroy Qian and restore Xiang! Today is the day!"
With that battle cry, an enormous phantom materialized at Xiong Jin's back: a demon-god of eight arms, towering and terrible, radiating a bone-deep, ominous darkness. Wreathed in a torrent of raging crimson fire, it raised a colossal fist and brought it crashing down onto the Magistrate’s office with devastating force.
BOOM.
The earth shook beneath a deafening, world-splitting impact. But when the dust and smoke cleared, the Magistrate’s office had not crumbled to ruin as it had "yesterday." It stood mnmoved and intact. A heavy, earth-yellow formation barrier, solid as a mountain, clung fast around the entire compound, having only dimmed slightly in color from the force of the blow.
"So you were ready and waiting? Hahaha! To think the vaunted Great Qian would resort to hiding in their shell like a turtle!"
Xiong Jin's composure cracked into open, unrestrained mockery but his assault did not slow for even a moment. Like a howling storm, he rained blow after blow upon the formation.
Simultaneously, from every corner of Lengshan County, battle cries of "Destroy the Qian, restore the Xiang!" erupted in rolling waves. The Great Xiang remnants concealed throughout the city revealed themselves all at once, setting fires, cutting down lives, transforming the entire county in moments into a scene of pure and absolute carnage.
And amid this world-upending chaos—
A lone figure moved through the streets and alleyways, finally coming to a quiet stop outside the gate of a private residence somewhere within the city.
It was the substitute puppet that Li Shun had pulled into the mortal world.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
He raised his hand and rapped on the heavy brass ring in a steady, measured rhythm.
No answer came. Only the distant sounds of battle and the faint, flickering glow of fires.
The puppet Li Shun's face was expressionless. Without impatience, without fatigue, he continued to knock.
After a long while, a voice finally filtered through from behind the tightly shut gate — a soft, feminine voice straining for composure but barely concealing its extreme vigilance: "Who is it?"
Li Shun brought his face close to the gap in the door and spoke in a quick, hushed tone: "Madam, the enemy force is overwhelming and the city is far too dangerous. His Lordship the Magistrate, fearing the worst, has sent this servant ahead to escort you to somewhere safe."
Before the last word left his mouth, there came a soft click from within.
The door eased open just a crack.
Through it appeared a face, strikingly beautiful but drained to an unnatural pallor. The woman's eyes held a flicker of relief breaking through her fear, and she murmured in a low, half-scolding tone: "That wretched man, so he still has some conscience. At least he hasn't forgotten me at a time like this."
Li Shun lowered his eyes, veiling the faint gleam within them, and slipped inside without a sound.