Chapter 323: Wish Fulfillment, a Powerful Henchman

Translator: Transn Editor: Transn

The second year of Yongping of Great Jin.

It was the fourth year after the collapse of Northern Yuan, Jin’s great enemy for the last 10,000 years. The world, which had been gradually getting peaceful, was stirred up once again by a young man named Zhou Bao.

Breaking into the Mingyi School alone, he had challenged more than 20 experts and Elders one on one, including the Sect Leader of the Mingyi School and three Level Nine experts, and had won.

More than 20 Elders and experts of the Mingyi School were badly hurt, an Elder at Level Nine died, and the Leader, Wang Daohong was unconscious. This had created the most sensational murder case in 3,000 years.

And the name “Zhou Bao” once again spread out all over the world.

It was completely different from what had happened before. This time, he made a big splash with his boundless power. Because of the battle on Mingyi Lane, all the representatives of Jin’s strongest well-known families witnessed the birth of a legend, a peerless expert.

“His combat capability is far superior to that of experts at Level Nine!” This was what the mysterious expert at the Mysterious Realm of the Mingyi School thought of Zhou Bao.

The combat capability far superior to Level Nine? What did that mean?

That, of course, meant that he had reached the Mysterious Realm. Zhou Bao was a Mysterious Realm expert! Above all, he was not yet even 20 and had just turned 17 this year!

A Mysterious Realm expert at 17!

He challenged one of the world’s three major schools, the Mingyi School, and did not leave until the Old Weirdo at the Mysterious Realm who guarded the school had punished two Elders for their offense. What strength and prestige were these?

He already had such great strength and courage now. What would the future hold?

What would Zhou Bao achieve in the future?

Nobody knew!

Perhaps even the fabled Powerful Divines from the antiquity times could only achieve such a feat!

Perhaps he was the reincarnation of one of the Powerful Divines from antiquity times, thereby giving him such power at his age.

For a while, rumors were rife. All eyes were fixed on the northwest, on the unprecedented man who had made his name in the world.

To their disappointment, however, after returning to the northwest, Zhou Bao underwent closed-door training again and stopped showing up.

10 days after the battle on Mingyi Lane,

another piece of news about Zhou Bao spread throughout the world.

Since Wuyang County Governor, Zhou Bao, made great contributions to the country by opening up the commercial routes, taking in the refugees, and sharing the country’s worries in the northwest region, he was made Wuyang Earl and granted the title of the Crown Prince’s tutor, and his territory was extended by 150 km and would be guarded for generations. In addition, he would marry Princess Qingyang Yan Yunfei as his legal wife, build Wuyang Earl’s Mansion, and choose a lucky day to hold the wedding!

…

…

“Haha, the emperor really has the cardinal principles in mind! He’s actually giving me the little beauty. Haha…”

Taking the imperial edict and sending away Chi Hengxing, who sent the imperial edict for the second time, Zhou Bao laughed.

Wang Cheng, Jiang Xiao, and Zhu Ba, his three most trusted subordinates who were standing to the side with extremely strange expressions, alternately looked at Zhou Bao and the imperial edict in Zhou Bao’s hand and exchanged glances, not knowing what to say.

Their superior was so extraordinary that he had done so many big deals that had all amazed them. It had been more than 10 days since it happened, but they still seemed to be in a dream.

Originally, they thought that Zhou Bao was only a Level Eight expert with a bunch of friends who were experts, having the Tian Long Taoism as his backer, and therefore, was so arrogant and unscrupulous. Now they knew that, compared to Zhou Bao’s actual strength, his behavior was actually a little low-key.

It was the Mysterious Realm!

Those two words had always been associated with Old Weirdos, Patriarchs, and old Immortals. Even the Three Grandmasters of Northern Yuan, who had been confronted with the whole martial arts world of Great Jin for more than 200 years, had only reached the peak of Level Nine.

If the three experts at the peak of Level Nine intimidated the martial arts world of Jin for more than 200 years, then what about an expert in the Mysterious Realm?

It was known that in the battle on Mingyi Lane, Zhou Bao defeated three Level Nine experts. Although the three were not as powerful as the Three Grandmasters, together with the more than 20 experts and Elders and their formation, their combat capability should have been equal to that of the union of the Three Grandmasters.

Such a strong lineup, however, was defeated by this indecent teenager who was laughing and saying “l(fā)ittle beauty”. And it was a head-on confrontation, not a sneak attack. What kind of monster was this teen in front of them?

Monster?

No, he could not be called a monster, but a demon.

Seeing that Zhou Bao had seemed to have been dizzy with his achievements for a long time, Jiang Xiao finally coughed twice to interrupt his delusion.

“Your Excellency Jiang, do you have a sore throat? Why are you coughing?” Zhou Bao was dissatisfied with Jiang Xiao’s interruption of his delusion and squinted at Jiang Xiao. “What, I’m getting married. Aren’t you happy?”

“Hehe, yes, of course, we’re happy that you’re getting married!” Jiang Xiao forced a smile. He was not afraid of Zhou Bao’s dissatisfaction because after staying with him for so many years, he knew Zhou Bao’s temper. He was not a meticulous person; on the contrary, he was very easy-going. Although he was sometimes childish and audacious, in general, he was a good boss. He had the courage to assign rights to his subordinates, which was good for them.

Of course, this was related to the strength of Zhou Bao. By virtue of his strength, even if he divided up all his rights, no one would dare to seize power but would only do things better for him with the rights that he had given them.

“Your Excellency, the imperial edict has been received. And the princess is going to marry you. What is the procedure of the marriage? Your Excellency, please make a decision!”

“Make a decision? For what?” Zhou Bao winked, thinking that he had indeed been a bit carried away just now. The marriage was settled, but marrying a princess was no small thing. He did not like Jin Emperor Yan Yuntian, but he was about to marry his daughter and should not hold a grudge against him. Therefore, he had to arrange the procedures and etiquette of the marriage. Thinking about that, he felt that it was very complicated and he became annoyed.

“Didn’t Chi Hengxing say that? Soon, the Ministry of Rites of the Imperial Court will send someone here and build an Earl Mansion. So you will have direct contact with the people of the Ministry of Rites. Besides, although it’s my wedding, it’s definitely not something that I can decide. Holding the wedding in Yunzhou, well, in Qingyang Market, you and Excellency Wang can go there and prepare it now, just tell me the time. I’m going to do closed-door training! Zhu Ba, follow me!”

“Yes!”

The three men exchanged glances. Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao smiled bitterly, while Zhu Ba beamed with delight.

…

…

“Zhu Ba, what are you laughing about? After all this time, you still haven’t made any progress in your cultivation. Have you spent the last few months visiting prostitutes?”

After Wang Cheng and Jiang Xiao had left, Zhou Bao took Zhu Ba into the back courtyard, gave him a stern look, and scolded him.

“Uh, Your Excellency, I wouldn’t dare!” Zhu Ba’s smile instantly turned into a grimace. “You can’t compare your progress with common people like me! In your eyes, I’m not making progress, but I am indeed. My cultivation is now at Level Six. If I go any further, it will be at Level Seven. Level Seven, Your Excellency! This is what I have been dreaming of. But it’s not that easy!”

“What’s hard about it?” Zhou Bao threw a small white porcelain bottle into Zhu Ba’s hand. “You possess the Bloodline Power from the antiquity times. With your current cultivation, you should already have felt it. It’s only because your cultivation is not high that this power is not fully aroused. As long as you work hard to break through to Level Seven, you will naturally understand it. Then your strength is bound to advance quickly. At that time, any ordinary Level Seven expert will be no match for you, and you will be a deterrent everywhere you go. Inside this bottle are nine Bone-Forging Pills, whose effect is much greater than that of the Bone-Forging Soup. I’ll teach you some punching skills. As long as you practice earnestly, within three years, you will be able to break through to Level Seven and become an expert. Understand?”

“Thank you, Your Excellency!” Taking the bottle, Zhu Ba bowed to the ground, and the delight on his face turned into profound gratitude. Perhaps because he was too excited, he stuttered and buried his head on the ground. His body was trembling with emotion and he was breathing with a lump in his throat.

“Well, don’t be too grateful to me. You’re my subordinate, and the stronger you are, the more helpful you will be. Don’t think I’m really so kind!” Zhou Bao smiled and held his finger to the back of Zhu Ba’s head. An abstruse thought came out and some punching skills that Zhou Bao had learned from the Stranger standing in the thunder were implanted into Zhu Ba’s mind.

This was the way that knowledge was directly implanted with Spiritual Strength, and it was not difficult. Zhou Bao had practiced the Carefree Skill so that his spirit was mighty. In addition, he had been in spiritual communication with Green Spirit. Thus, he was already familiar with this way of communicating through his divine thoughts and could manage it with ease. But it still made Zhu Ba, a Level Six Junior Master, feel mysterious. Even though his cultivation had reached Level Six, and he could vaguely feel the power of divine thoughts due to his Bloodline Power, he was terrified by the direct knowledge infusion through spirit because he had never had such an experience and had never even heard of this technique.

“Well, don’t be nervous. By the time your cultivation gets to Level Nine, and you entirely understand the power of divine thoughts, you’ll understand that it’s just a common technique!” Zhou Bao patted him on the shoulder and said softly, “I left you here just to force you to practice hard. If you have time, go to the courtyard. Golden Rooster and the other people are all experts. You can ask them about your confusions or obstacles. They’re older than me, are more knowledgeable than I am, and have an understanding of martial arts skills. My cultivation is growing too fast, so the foundation is weaker. They can explain it better than I did. Understand?”

“Yes, Your Excellency!”

“Okay, you can go!”

“You’re very attentive to him. If you want to get his eyes, I advise you to forget it!” After Zhu Ba had left, Green Spirit said quietly, as if he had felt the thought fluctuations of Zhou Bao.

“Since when can you read my mind?” Zhou Bao asked in a cold voice, and his face suddenly darkened.

“I didn’t read your mind, I just guessed. When you spoke to him just now, your eyes produced an abnormal fluctuation. Hehe, I’m very familiar with that kind of fluctuation!”

“You’re very familiar with it?”

“Those damn necromancers have put the bloodline power of the Blood Freezing Demonic Pupils in your eyes too. There’s no special power in the Blood Freezing Demonic Pupils, its only function is to absorb other people’s gifted powers. But it can only absorb the gifted powers in the pupils, and can only absorb one power at a time. When another is absorbed, the former will disappear. The more that you use it, the less effective it’ll become, and it’ll cause damage to your vision. For you now, there is no need to take such a risk!”

“If that’s so, then it’s a real risk, and not worth it!” Zhou Bao did not think that Green Spirit was lying because he did not have to lie about it. “However, possessing the heaven-sent bloodline, this guy is promising. With such a strong thug, there are many things that I don’t need to do myself!” Zhou Bao thought about it and felt that it would not be a loss for him to cultivate Zhu Ba even if he did not deprive him of his Divine Sense. During his years of cultivation, Zhu Ba showed not only a prodigious talent for martial arts skills but also loyalty to him. Such a devoted subordinate would be of great use.

“By the way, aren’t you going to be married? What about that girl’s aptitude?” Green Spirit suddenly asked, dismissing Zhou Bao’s secret thoughts.

“Why, do you want to accept a disciple?”

“No, but I know a way of refining a dual-cultivation puppet. If her aptitude is good, you can turn her into your dual-cultivation puppet. Then you definitely…”

“Stop, stop!” Zhou Bao repeatedly waved his hand, feeling a chill in his heart. “You’re really an Old Demon and not a good thing! I’m getting married. What’s this dual-cultivation puppet? Go to hell!”

“I’m serious. Turning a person into…”

“Shut up!” Not wanting to listen to his crap again, Zhou Bao directly cut off the spiritual connection.

…

…

At the same time, in Western Capital of Jin, the Princes’ Study, the center of Royal Capital, was already a mess. Yan Yuntian’s face was blue, and everything in the Princes’ Study, including desks, chairs, bookcases, books, cups, and bowls had been smashed and scattered on the ground.

There were several corpses on the ground, all dressed as eunuchs, and some of them stunk. These corpses were the ones beaten to death with rods in the Princes’ Study by his order recently, and he had not asked anyone to carry the bodies away. In fact, there was not a eunuch or maid who dared to approach the Princes’ Study during these days unless something urgent happened.

“The emperor is crazy!”

This piece of absurd gossip was whispered in the Imperial Palace.

Of course, everyone who knew the truth knew that the emperor was not crazy, but angry.

“It doesn’t do you any good, and it doesn’t work!” A soft voice was heard outside the Princes’ Study. A beautiful, elegant young woman with a gallant garment slowly came in. “Fei-er is also my daughter. Marrying her off to Zhou Bao also worries me. But what can we do? Zhou Bao’s strength is not something that we can suppress. This time, you were too hasty and have misjudged his strength, so we’re forced to this step. There’s nothing we can do!”

“He is just a boy with some lucky chances, but now he is so arrogant. Who knows what he will do in the future?” Yan Yuntian growled, bristled, and stamped on a corpse. Suddenly, there was flesh and blood flying. Then, he trampled twice again, as if it was Zhou Bao’s corpse.

The woman gently frowned, raised her hand, and covered her nose. “The future will only be known in the future. Maybe Zhou Bao is a genius and will be an immortal. But if Your Majesty succeeds in the future, even if he does become an immortal, he will be at the mercy of you. It won’t be too late for you to reckon with him at that time!”

“Do you think that I haven’t already thought of that?” Yan Yuntian jerked his head up with his eyes full of violence. “But Zhou Bao’s aptitude is too high. He’s only 17, but he has a combat capability over Level Nine. If he really reaches the Mysterious Realm, that will be so awful! Even if I do succeed in the future, I’m afraid that I still won’t be able to control him.”

“Do you mean that you will continue to deal with him?” The woman’s expression changed and she asked tentatively.

“Humph! Deal with him? How can I deal with him now?” After hearing her words, the Jin Emperor sat down in the only chair in the Princes’ Study like a deflated rubber ball.

“His strength is powerful. I can only appease him now so he won’t get me into trouble. It’s crunch time. If he were to hold me back, it would be very troublesome. Last time, I mobilized so many forces to kill him, but they failed just as they were on the verge of success, which has given him a foothold!”

“In that case, we can only make Fei-er go through with all of this. So, about Fei-er…”

“Forget it. Don’t let Fei-er even find out about it. She can accept it as a noble princess marrying a humble man. Maybe it’s good for Fei-er to marry an expert like Zhou Bao. Even if I fail in the future, she will not be involved!”

“Your Majesty, what are you talking about? How can you fail?” The woman’s expression changed slightly, and in a flash, she had come to Yan Yuntian’s side and her white hand had covered his mouth.

“Hehe, it’s no big deal to fail!” Yan Yuntian shook his head, holding the woman’s hand tightly in his, with his other arm around her waist. “The thing to do is yet to be done. Unfortunately, last time, my only mistake was that I misjudged his strength and offended him. Otherwise, I could pull him over to my side and have a better chance of success!”

“Is there really no chance?” asked the woman gently, frowning.

“No, not anymore. He was decisive and ruthless, and his backer is powerful. How can he possibly help me when I tried to kill him and offended him so badly? I’ll be thankful if he doesn’t hinder me in the future for the sake of Fei-er.”

“Fei-er is young. I’m worried about her…”

“Fei-er is sensible and gentle. I have investigated Zhou Bao. Although he is cruel to his enemies and is aggressive in his actions, he is always polite to others, and even very flexible. Thus, Fei-er should not be wronged!” With a slight sigh and a look of exhaustion, Yan Yuntian looked at least 10 years older than he had been when Northern Yuan was ruined and he was full of high spirits just a few years ago.

“Alas, one false move and everything can be lost. This time it is a foregone conclusion. The result has been fixed this time. But luckily I didn’t push Zhou Bao to the extreme!”

Yes, he had not pushed Zhou Bao to the extreme! The first reason was that Zhou Bao had the Tian Long Taoism as his backer, so Yan Yuntian could not target his family or the Anyuan Store. The second reason was that although he had started a siege, he had lost heavily, and Zhou Bao had not suffered much damage. Therefore, their hatred was not yet irreparable. It was a bit humiliating for him to marry his daughter to Zhou Bao now, but there was room for improvement.

“I made a mistake after the destruction of Northern Yuan by putting too much attention on the inside, thinking that it was more secure to consolidate the internal forces to enhance strength to make it my powerful backing, and then compete for that big goal.”

“There was nothing wrong with your plan!” There was a flicker of helplessness in the eyes of the woman. “It’s just that no one thought that there would be such a demon-like figure, Zhou Bao!”

“Yeah, no one saw that coming. But it’s still not too late!” Yan Yuntian’s expression was even more bitter. “Let the boys deal with those internal affairs. I have lost face completely this time. Fortunately, the foundation hasn’t had losses, and there are still huge advantages!”

“It seems that you have come around!”

“Come around? Humph, I’ll never come around!” Yan Yuntian smiled grimly, but the expression on his face was much more relaxed than it had been a few days before.

The woman smiled because what Yan Yuntian said showed that at least the anger, which had been in his heart over the last few days, had subsided. “Actually, this time, the Mingyi School has lost the most. The Tian Long Taoism is really insidious, hiding such a powerful henchman, looking for such a good opportunity. After this battle, the Mingyi School’s prestige is over, and they won’t be able to recover for a decade or two!”

“That’s okay. Their losses are not too great, just a Level Nine expert. Zhou Bao is very discreet and it seems that he was prepared. Otherwise, it would not be so easy for him to retreat. Hehe, his combat capability is far superior to Level Nine, but his cultivation is just at Level Eight. Although he is unable to be an immortal, he can act with fewer scruples. Such a guy is the scariest. Unfortunately, he can’t be my man. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise, he will be a powerful henchman of Your Majesty!” The woman giggled, “But Your Majesty, do you ever think that even the Tian Long Taoism is under your rule? He’s a powerful henchman of Tian Long Taoism now. Maybe he’ll be a powerful henchman in your hands someday!”