I was born a god, the son of the Demon Lord.

Xu Nanyi silently clasped her hands together in her heart.

Dad, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to think you were old.

But then I thought that Wu Qiyue wasn't wrong to call him that way.

She didn't blame Wu Qiyue.

From the moment she woke up, she had already told Wu Qiyue that they were no longer in their own time and space, but had been sent to the past.

"Yiyi, have you finished looking at the array diagram?"

Xu Nanyi swallowed the last bite of lotus-shaped pastry and patted the crumbs off her hands.

"I've finished reading it, now you can take the test."

Tianxing was taken aback, then grinned and took a few steps over to squat down in front of Xu Nanyi.

"Wow, so confident after only half an hour? There are a full sixty formations here."

He opened the illustrated book.

The cover of the encyclopedia is titled "Overview of Elementary Array Diagrams, Volume One," and it's filled with densely drawn patterns, nodes, and spirit runes of sixty basic arrays. They are indeed all low-level, but for a child who has only recently begun learning about arrays, this amount of information is not insignificant.

Tianxing casually flipped through a few pages, then looked Xu Nanyi's confident little face up and down, and couldn't help but laugh.

"So confident? Then I'll have to give you a good test."

He cleared his throat and turned to page seventeen.

"First question. When the Xun Wind Formation and the Li Fire Formation are superimposed, what is most likely to occur at the point where spiritual energy converges?"

"Spirit rune conflict".

Xu Nanyi blurted out, pointing her little finger to the intersection of the array corresponding to the diagram, "Xun wind belongs to wood, and Li fire belongs to fire. Wood generates fire, that's true, but the spiritual energy of these two patterns flows in opposite directions. At the intersection, they will twist into a pretzel, blocking the spiritual energy and causing it to explode. To solve this, just add a Kan water pattern in the middle to mitigate it."

Tianxing raised an eyebrow and turned to page thirty-two.

"Second question. If the sixth node of the Spirit Sealing Array is shifted by half an inch, how much will the coverage area shrink?"

"Thirty percent."

Without hesitation, Xu Nanyi even gestured, "Moreover, the spiritual runes on the side that is deviated will stop flowing, and the binding effect of the entire formation will become one-way, making it easier to break out from the inside."

Tianxing's expression was starting to become a little subtle.

He pursed his lips, turned to the last page of the encyclopedia, which contained only one array diagram labeled "Sixth Rank - Heavenly Gang Demon Subduing Array". This was already an intermediate-level array, exceeding the scope of the beginner-level encyclopedia.

"Third question: Why can't the core of the Heavenly Gang Demon-Subduing Formation be located due south?"

Xu Nanyi tilted her head.

"Because the Heavenly Gang Demon Subduing Formation uses the Xuanwu position to draw in Qi, and due south belongs to the Li Fire element, which overcomes Water. Placing the formation's core there would directly burn out the entire Qi-drawing channel. The correct position should be three inches east of due north, but that's the requirement for the complete version. For the simplified beginner version, placing the core in the northwest can actually be used as a workaround."

Tianxing was silent for two seconds, then he slammed the picture book shut, crossed his arms, squinted at Xu Nanyi, and ground his back teeth.

"You little brat, you actually stole lessons! Stealing lessons is not a good habit for children. You should know that your Uncle Tianxing hates stealing lessons the most..."

He was only halfway through his sentence.

Tianxing suddenly felt a chill down his back.

Lin Qingyue was standing behind him without him noticing.

Arms crossed, spear leaning against the doorframe, a half-smile playing on his lips, "What are you trying to learn?"

Tianxing dared not say that Lin Qingyue had done the exact same thing back then, secretly looking at the manual and skipping to the last page to practice directly. As a result, the clash of spiritual energy blew the entire warehouse into the sky.

Tianxing was selecting items in the warehouse at that time, while he stood in the ruins, covered in dust and dirt, taking the blame for him and cleaning the latrines for three months.

From then on, whenever he heard the words "stealing knowledge," he would start to feel a phantom pain in the back of his head.

He stiffly turned his head, meeting Xu Nanyi's innocent big eyes, then meeting the glares of Wu Qiyue and Shen Xizhou who seemed to enjoy watching the drama unfold. Finally, he forced a smile that looked more like a grimace as he looked at Lin Qingyue behind him.

"No, it's nothing! I was just saying that Yiyi is a gifted child! She learns things very quickly! She's truly exceptional!"

"boom--!"

A muffled thud came from outside the door.

From the direction of the Demon Palace, a golden phoenix flame shot into the sky, its golden light like molten lava, turning half the sky a warm orange hue.

Everyone looked in that direction.

Then, they all turned their heads back.

In the past two days, a ball of golden flame has been exploding in the sky above Shanghai almost every few hours, burning from the east of the city to the west, and then back from the west to the east.

The remaining forces in the city that posed a threat to the Demon Lord's position were chased from the streets to the alleys by Xu Yuan, who was carrying a bow. A dense rain of golden arrows fell down, and those who were slow to run were instantly turned into charred remains.

At first, everyone would nervously run out to see what was happening, but later, they ate and drank as usual, too lazy to even lift their heads.

Those brothers and sisters of the same blood who tried to stop Shen Jiuyuan either died or fled. Most of them were wiped out by Xu Nanyi's attack that day, and the rest were routed by Xu Yuan's golden arrow rain and Shen Jiuyuan's black scythe.

To be honest, there aren't many things left in Shanghai that can pose a threat.

But if Shen Jiuyuan wants to secure his position, he still needs to get rid of the last few stubborn nails.

So, in order to give her parents more opportunities to "spend time alone," Xu Nanyi dragged Tianxing and Lin Qingyue down, ostensibly to "teach me how to form formations," but in reality to prevent them from getting involved in the battlefield.

She even did something with her limited and rather immature little brain.

Impersonating Shen Jiuyuan, he sent a large bouquet of flowers to Xu Yuan's bedside for three consecutive days.

The first day's gift was red roses, the second day's was white jasmine, and the third day's was wild azaleas with baby's breath.

Xu Nanyi picked them all early in the morning on the mountain outside the city. After picking them, she divided them into two portions. One portion was sent to Xu Yuan's room and signed with Shen Jiuyuan's name, and the other portion was sent to Shen Jiuyuan's room and signed with Xu Yuan's name.

As for the results...

She doesn't know either.

Anyway, her parents haven't come to ask her "who sent the flowers," so they must be... quite satisfied, right?

As Xu Nanyi was happily munching on a lotus-shaped pastry, Tianxing casually remarked from the side, "You're smiling like a weasel that's stolen a chicken."

Xu Nanyi swung her short legs: "Leave me alone!"

-

On the ruins of the eastern side of Shanghai, at the half-collapsed training ground.

The three figures clashed and fought, the aftershocks of their spiritual energy collisions sending the surrounding rubble flying up and falling back down, as if the entire area was being repeatedly kneaded by an invisible giant hand.

Xu Yuan drew her bow to its fullest extent, and golden arrows flew from her fingers, each arrow precisely blocking the eldest princess's retreat. The phoenix flames attached to the arrowheads left a scorched groove as they grazed the ground.

She leaped nimbly among the ruins, her long hair flying in the wind, her whole being like a moving golden flame.

Shen Jiuyuan lowered his body, the black scythe spinning in his hand like a whirlwind, the blade making a sharp whistling sound as it sliced ​​through the air.

He cut close to the eldest princess's defenses, each scythe aimed at her vital points, each strike swift and deadly.

The two people, one at a distance and the other close, coordinated perfectly.