Great Zhou Martial Immortal

Chapter 33 More money is needed

Unfortunately, anger is meaningless in the face of absolute power.

Suddenly, the third rune array of Hui Yeqing's mechanical hand, [Thousand Pounds], lit up with a dazzling golden light, and every joint of her Ling Shu arm made a "crackling" sound as if it could not bear the weight. At this moment, her entire right arm seemed to transform into a hammer of the gods, with a thousand pounds of force surging within the metal skeleton, and even the surrounding air was twisted and trembled under this force.

Mountains crumble, trees shatter, and people are crushed!
At this moment, the Ling Shu Arm is the purest embodiment of destruction.

Those with insufficient cultivation will have their bones and muscles broken and their flesh and blood scattered on the spot, even if they are only grazed by the wind of a punch.

But before she could fully unleash this world-destroying power—

"boom!"

The four bronze corpses, like iron towers, had surrounded the area from all sides.

The black mist dissipated, the effects of the Bewitching Powder weakened, the illusion shattered, and the counterattack began!
These bronze corpses, meticulously crafted by Xie Tingyun, each possessed power no less than that of Hui Yeqing's original body, and were made of bronze with iron heads and iron arms, and steel bones! Their movements were perfectly synchronized, blocking all escape routes in all directions, and their withered claws were covered in a ghostly blue corpse poison, the mere smell of which was enough to make one dizzy.

"Go away!"

With a roar, Hui Yeqing unleashed his Ling Shu Arm, which slammed towards the bronze corpse directly in front of him with the force of splitting mountains and shattering rocks.

With a muffled thud, the bronze corpse's chest caved in instantly, and its entire body flew backward like a cannonball until it crashed into the stone wall and came to a stop. Almost simultaneously, she swung her hand back, and the bronze corpse's head on the right exploded like a watermelon, splattering blackish-purple brain matter all over the wall.

Such immense power is terrifying!
however--

"Crack!"

In that brief instant, the iron claws of the bronze corpse on the left had already dug deep into her left shoulder, and the corpse poison instantly invaded her meridians. Another bronze corpse attacked from above, its left hand grabbing her right shoulder like an iron clamp. Then it spun around, its arms clasping together, tightly gripping her body.

Hui Yeqing struggled fiercely, the light of the Ling Shu Arm flickering, but ultimately it could not withstand the combined suppression of the two bronze corpses.

Xie Tingyun remained calm, his pale face showing no emotion.

She gently raised her hand, and the bronze corpse that had been blasted away swayed and stood up again. The hollow in its chest began to heal itself, as if there were worms crawling through it. The bronze corpse that had been blown off also stood up headless and continued to approach.

"Truly worthy of being a relic of the hidden immortals..."

Xie Tingyun had no particular feelings towards Hui Yeqing, but he greatly admired the Ling Shu Arm in her hand: "Such a superb skill, truly divine!"

Hui Yeqing gritted her teeth and struggled desperately. The runes on Ling Shu's arm flashed wildly, but she could no longer break free. The copper corpse's cold fingers were already gripping her throat, and the corpse poison was spreading throughout her body along her blood vessels...

Her struggles grew weaker and weaker, her face gradually turning purplish-black, but her resentful eyes remained fixed on Lu Chenyuan.

Stop looking!

Lu Chenyuan stepped into the passage, ignoring the traps as usual, and came to her, smiling, "Those who play with disguises are usually quite confident. You can't do the job of impersonation if you're not confident, but being too confident is just foolish. Buddhist scriptures say that the eye of wisdom sees neither the unseen nor the unseen, which is obviously an exaggeration. So how do you know... I'm not hiding anything?"

Hui Yeqing's eyes widened, and she was about to speak.

Lu Chenyuan grabbed her jawbone with one hand, applied slight force, and with a crisp crack, dislocated her jaw.

"Lord Xie, this person is skilled in disguise. We must keep a close watch on her to prevent her from taking advantage of the situation."

"Ah."

Xie Tingyun flipped his wrist, and three Soul-Suppressing Nails appeared in his hand. With a flick of his finger, the three nails were inserted into her three major acupoints: Yintang, Tanzhong, and Shenque. With these three acupoints treated, even if she had extraordinary power, she would be unable to use them.

Lu Chenyuan nodded, then hesitated before speaking, "She..."

"She will be taken to the princess's dungeon and interrogated by His Highness personally."

Xie Tingyun knew what he wanted to say, and suddenly smiled strangely, saying to Lu Chenyuan, "This person should be the one who impersonated Wang Yizhi and spoke with Lord Lu three days ago, right?"

Lu Chenyuan replied, "Yes."

Xie Tingyun said, "Then that's it. The princess is very interested in her and won't let her spread any inappropriate rumors."

Lu Chenyuan smiled and clasped his hands in a fist salute: "It's better to avoid trouble. Thank you."

Xie Tingyun said in a serious tone, "If you want to thank someone, thank the princess. This was specially arranged by Her Highness the princess."

"..."

Lu Chenyuan glanced at her and said, "Once this matter is settled, I will speak to her personally."

Xie Tingyun nodded in satisfaction, manipulated the bronze corpse to remove the Ling Shu arm, knocked out Hui Yeqing, and threw it aside and locked it up.

Lu Chenyuan began to crack the third bronze door.

It still didn't take much effort.

Soon, the mechanism door opened, revealing the most central part of the entire mechanical city.

Lu Chenyuan stood in front of the door, and even he was slightly distracted by what he saw.

A thousand mermaid lanterns hung from the dome, their eerie blue light illuminating the seventy-two coiled dragon pillars like an inverted galaxy. The bronze dragons perched on the pillars were not inanimate objects; the luminous pearls embedded in their eyes flickered as the gears turned, and the tips of their whiskers were connected to "heavenly silkworm guides" as fine as spider silk, continuously transmitting the pulse of the entire mechanical city to these pillars.

Suspended in the center of the main hall is an ingenious armillary sphere.

This is the "heart" of the Mechanical City!
This intricately crafted, gilded instrument meticulously replicates the entire layout of the underground palace.
The three black iron gates on the outermost eastern side are slowly opening and closing in the instrument.

Every trapdoor in the winding corridor is clearly visible.

The six-story pavilion conceals arrow scabbards and mechanisms hidden among its eaves and brackets.

On the west side, opposite the eastern gate, a corridor of the same length is divided into several small rooms. At the end of the corridor, a middle-aged scholar wearing shackles sits on a rotating wheel, his eyes fixed on the Qimen Dunjia esoteric text on the ground.

The Three Wonders, Six Instruments, Eight Gates, Nine Stars, and Eight Gods above are constantly changing, and are extremely mysterious.

He appeared insane, as if possessed, unresponsive to the outside world, his right hand trembling as he turned the runes on the ground.

Wang Yi was about to stop him when Lu Chenyuan raised his hand to stop him as he touched the strings of the zither.

"Wrong..."

As soon as Lu Chenyuan finished speaking, the scholar's trembling fingers pressed down.

In an instant, the entire corridor trembled violently, and hundreds of gleaming saw teeth on the bronze walls on both sides flipped up and snapped together with overwhelming force! With a chilling "crack" sound, the scholar was shredded into a bloody mess before he could even scream.

"hiss!"

Everyone gasped in unison, taken aback.

In the instant they were stunned by this bloody scene—

"boom!"

A crimson figure suddenly sprang from the shadows, rushed toward the gate, and fled outwards.

It was a ferocious mechanical beast unlike any seen before, about ten feet tall, resembling an ape, its entire body covered in crimson scales, and its single eye gleaming with an eerie light. The moment it stomped its four legs on the ground, the entire hall trembled.

"what?!"

Wang Yi subconsciously plucked the strings of the zither, and three sound blades shot out into the air.

Shockingly, the monster dodged the sonic blade with a bizarre side somersault, leaving five deep claw marks, each six or seven inches long, on the ground.

A cold glint flashed in Xie Tingyun's eyes, and he unleashed the Blood Condensation Divine Palm, the blood-red palm print carrying a chilling intent as it aimed straight for the monster's heart.

"Roar!"

The monster suddenly stood upright, its claws crossed in front of its chest. The moment the palm strike hit its body, strange ripples appeared on its scales, and the rune arrays flashed, deflecting seventy percent of the palm strike to its sides. With a loud bang, the two dragon pillars on either side exploded, while the monster only took three steps back, a thin layer of blood-red ice crystals condensing on its scales.

"What a beast!"

Xie Tingyun, enraged, laughed coldly. He formed hand seals, and the four bronze corpses suddenly changed formation, flanking the monster from all sides. The monster's single eye flashed red, and the scales on its back suddenly flipped open—

"Chucky!"

Hundreds of dark lights shot out like a torrential rain, very similar to the way the Ling Shu Arm launched hidden weapons. The two bronze corpses were instantly riddled with holes. But this time Xie Tingyun was prepared. The remaining two bronze corpses suddenly changed their tactics. One opened its arms and hugged the monster's left leg tightly, while the other directly used the Corpse Explosion Technique of the Corpse Driving lineage!
"boom!"

The violent explosion sent the monster flying several feet. Before it could regain its footing, Xie Tingyun had already closed in, his five fingers like hooks, aiming for its throat.

This time, wherever the claws passed, even the air condensed into tiny, blood-red ice crystals!
At the critical moment, the monster suddenly leaned back in an illogical posture, narrowly avoiding the fatal claw. However, Xie Tingyun reacted even faster, changing the claw into a palm and striking the chest and abdomen with an extremely yin and evil palm!
Seeing no way to avoid it, the monster roared again, its arm muscles bulging, and the mechanical runes beneath its crimson scales suddenly glowed brightly, appearing on its surface like bulging veins. It fiercely met Xie Tingyun's attack with both palms—

"boom!"

The moment the two terrifying true energies collided, a resounding clang rang out, and a sudden gust of wind swept through the entire hall!
Blood-red ice crystals spread wildly across Xie Tingyun's palm, while the runes on the monster's body shone brightly. Under the overloaded operation of the mechanism, those rune patterns were almost about to crack open and pierce through the scales.

Upon seeing this, Wang Yizhi immediately plucked the strings of his zither. He knew that his skills were insufficient to break through the defense, so he had to attack where the enemy was bound to defend. As the zither music began, seven sound blades shot towards the monster's eyes in the Big Dipper formation!

The eyes of a mechanical beast need to be bright and clear, so the material used is naturally difficult to compare with the scales on its body.

The monster was forced to dodge, and in that split second, Xie Tingyun seized the opening, and his left palm suddenly glowed with an eerie blood-red light.

"Heart-Shattering Palm!"

The palm struck the monster squarely in the chest, denting its scales. A blinding red light burst forth from the "heart" behind its chest, but Xie Tingyun was also forced back three steps by the recoil, his palms numb and his arms trembling.

Between the lightning and flint.

Another figure appeared behind the monster like a ghost.

Lu Chenyuan moved swiftly, seizing the opportunity to circle around to the best position. He pointed his fingers like a sword, and the Geng metal energy condensed into a three-inch sharp point, which precisely pierced into a slightly reddish gap in the monster's neck scales.

"Crack!"

A crisp sound of a mechanism snapping rang out, and the crimson light around the monster instantly went out!

It remained frozen in its attack posture, the red light in its single eye gradually dimming, and finally collapsed to its knees with a loud thud, kicking up clouds of dust.

Even after the smoke cleared, Lu Chenyuan's fingertips were still pressed against the back of the monster's neck.

A drop of blood slowly seeped out from the gap in the mechanism's hub, and the cockpit sprang open with a "hiss," revealing Ashina Yan inside, bleeding from all seven orifices.

"How...can you see..."

Ashina Yan's face turned deathly pale. Before she could finish speaking, the golden energy within her body surged violently, causing her blood and qi to flow in reverse, forcing her to suppress it.

Lu Chenyuan laughed, "I just made up a few things, and she actually believed it... The best part is, you believed it too..."

Lying requires nine parts truth and one part falsehood.

Lu Chenyuan was completely open and honest with him that day. Although it was a bit unconventional, he also agreed with it to some extent.

For example, he complained that Li Lingyue was too hesitant and that progress was too slow, which was really what he felt.

For example, viewing human desires such as sexual pleasure as a shortcut is also a matter of personal opinion.

He didn't care about reputation, only about profit, and he felt no pressure taking the path of a male concubine.

Even his criticisms of Sima Qian were born from genuine feeling.

With his discerning eye, he cited scriptures and Buddhist teachings, using the boundless exaggeration in Buddhist texts and combining it with the contrast between himself and Huineng in reality, to guide the woman to a wrong conclusion—the fallacy theory in logic points out that people often compress multiple options into two opposing options, ignoring the possibility in between, which is "black and white" or "diode".

This is a common limitation in human thinking.

The Buddhist scripture speaks of the "all-seeing, all-seeing" wisdom eye, but in reality, Lu Chenyuan has to go to great lengths to find someone, unable to even see clearly within a ten-mile radius. Such a stark contrast between extremely high expectations and extremely low reality easily leads to this kind of thinking, resulting in the conclusion:

Having a keen eye is nothing special.

This is the basis.

With this foundation, my confidence naturally increased, leading to the second theory: he couldn't see through my disguise, and then I deduced that he was telling the truth, and finally concluded that discerning eyes can only distinguish between reality and illusion, not between truth and falsehood.

But in fact, with the discerning eye, one can see through her true nature and her false face. Naturally, one can also see through the mechanical beast and see Ashina Yan, who is piloting it. Once the key to the problem is found, the rest is to start from the weak point, cut off the main node of the mechanical beast's true energy circulation, and thus disable the mechanical beast and Ashina Yan!
To some extent, insightful eyes can "see through".

However, it sees through not the superficial appearances like skin and clothes, but something much deeper.

Looking at Ashina Yan's disheveled appearance, Lu Chenyuan suddenly smiled, a smile so sincere it sent chills down one's spine:

"If only all my future enemies were as stupid as you guys~"

"puff!"

Ashina Yan could no longer suppress her surging blood and qi, and spat out a mouthful of blood.

Wang Yizhi's lips twitched slightly, and he shook his head helplessly.

Not surprising at all, I'm getting more and more used to this infuriating style!

A hint of amusement flashed in Xie Tingyun's eyes. It hadn't been long, and this was already the third time he'd tried to kill someone by attacking their spirit...

No wonder the princess treated him differently.

Xie Tingyun suddenly understood.

Since the Li Tang imperial family suffered misfortune, the princess has maintained a calm demeanor on the surface, but she must be suffering inside. Over the years, outsiders have found it hard to understand, and those around her cannot speak openly about it. Even when talking to Shangguan Wan'er, they can only keep it to themselves.

Perhaps, in such turbulent times, what Her Highness needs is someone who can be both capable and independent in action, and also unconventional in private, to help her ease her mind and dispel her loneliness.

In just a few days, she has been getting "angry" more and more often, but her joy has also grown stronger. The once aloof and detached princess is now shedding her mask...

"Ashina Yan has also been captured. She has the Yuanrong Divine Crossbow in her possession. Everything the Martial Emperor wanted is now complete."

Lu Chenyuan breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at the two of them, saying, "We should go back and report, and wait for the rewards to be distributed."

Both of them smiled.

Wang Yizhi felt somewhat ashamed.

Along the way, apart from unleashing a few sonic blades, he didn't seem to play a significant role. On the other hand, Lu Chenyuan, despite only being at the second realm, played a decisive role in everything from deciphering mechanisms to assisting in defeating enemies and finally subduing the ferocious beast.

Ultimately, it still can't compare...

His gaze unconsciously fell on the slowly rotating disc at the end of the passage: "That mechanism..."

"That's not the point."

A strange look flashed in Lu Chenyuan's eyes, and he said indifferently, "I can't untie it."

Xie Tingyun was somewhat surprised: "Even you can't untie it?"

Lu Chenyuan's expression was solemn: "That is the [Four Symbols Revolving Heart Wheel]. It is arranged according to the Qimen Dunjia method, and there are two types: the Palace Method and the Flying Palace Method. There are more than 700,000 variations! I can only see the general direction. The person who was trapped in the 'White Tiger Carrying Corpse Formation' just now was trapped because he turned the wrong hexagram, which is why he met such an end. I can tell that he turned it wrong, but if you ask me to solve it, I don't have that ability."

Nonsense, even if it could be solved, it wouldn't be solved immediately.

Things given away for free are the cheapest.

Only those in demand can fetch a good price.

As the saying goes: "The law should not be lightly passed on, the way should not be sold cheaply, a teacher should not be taken on a journey, and a doctor should not be knocked on the door."

Lu Chenyuan never challenges human nature, so he deeply agrees.

If you want me to solve it, you'll have to pay extra!

(End of this chapter)