Chapter 11597 — Li Qinghe's Next Move, Which Left Him Stunned
Li Qinghe spread both hands, making as if to gather the sky into a clumsy embrace, then suddenly exerted his strength.
A second before, Xiang Zigui had still been jeering, mocking him for not knowing his place beneath heaven and the depth of the earth; the next, his whole world was spinning.
BOOM!
Xiang Zigui, his Sleeve Universe and all, went crashing headlong into the ground, his mind reeling in utter confusion, and under the impact even his primordial spirit had been brutally shattered by half!
Li Qinghe dusted the dirt from his hands and surveyed the masterpiece of that one body-slam.
"What kind of garbage is this, that it thinks it's fit to yap in my face?"
Truth be told, had it been the old him, his strength was not weak by any means, but against this Xiang Zigui he would still, by and large, have lost more often than won.
But things were different now.
He had endured a full ten thousand years of bitter cultivation in the Realm of Sin!
Many an age had passed over the length and breadth of the Realm of Sin, and old relics who had survived the span of ten thousand years as he had were few and far between in that whole realm.
His strength was now simply not to be spoken of in the same breath as before.
Xiang Zigui, an early-stage Heavenly Rank Venerable, posed no real threat to him as he was now.
This was a bolt from the blue for Xiang Zigui, a solid kick against an iron plate.
So what if he had a Sleeve Universe?
One body-slam and it was over.
Yet Xiang Zigui did not die from it.
"Hm? Quick escape."
Li Qinghe let out a sound of surprise; in the mere blink of an eye, Xiang Zigui, who had just been planted upside down in the earth, had suddenly vanished without a trace.
He did not much mind, though.
After all, in his eyes Xiang Zigui was nothing more than a passerby slightly stronger than the rest.
He posed no substantive threat whatsoever, so if he ran, he ran; it made no difference.
His pressing concern now was to find someone to ask for directions and rendezvous with Wei Zhao.
Elsewhere, Xiang Zigui reappeared a thousand li away, his already slovenly appearance grown even more bedraggled, his hideous, savage face written all over with dread and the chill of narrow escape.
Thank goodness he had made ample preparations beforehand; otherwise, this round today would truly have seen him kicked the bucket for no reason at all.
"Damn it all to hell! Where in the world did this monster come from?"
Xiang Zigui erupted in a torrent of curses. He simply could not fathom it—one second he had been riding the crest of incredible fortune, and the next, everything had turned to this.
The world was fickle, sure, but was it really this fucking fickle?
The blow Li Qinghe had just dealt him was one he would not recover from even after ten years of secluded cultivation—and it might well leave a permanent scar.
Worse still, this sudden turn had shattered what little confidence he had left into a thousand pieces.
Xiang Zigui suddenly felt that the Inner Royal Court might no longer be as safe as he had imagined, no longer a place where he could swagger about as he pleased.
After probing about cautiously for a time, Xiang Zigui finally contacted Wang Lai.
With his own lair destroyed, the only place left that offered him any sense of safety was the territory of the Night Central Palace.
The Prince of Qi's Estate.
It was rare for the estate's central gates to stand wide open, and the whole household—every core scion of the clan—came out to welcome the arrivals.
No wonder. After a year away, Young Master Qi had returned.
And Wei Zhao had come back with him.
"Old Huang! Ha, you're still alive! Little Gongzi, what's with that look of yours? Feels like you never grew up!"
Young Master Qi was beside himself with excitement, greeting every familiar face with warmth.
The crowd was rather overwhelmed by the honor.
Given Young Master Qi's old temperament, he might not have kept people at arm's length, but he had rarely been this courteous to the likes of them—at most a casual greeting. Never before had he been so warm.
What had gotten into him today?
Had a year away changed Young Master Qi's nature?
Little did they know, a year here was a full ten thousand years that Young Master Qi had been pent up in the Sinful Frontier.
If not for Wei Zhao watching over him, he would have gone mad long ago.
Now that he was finally out, seeing these faces again after ten thousand years, anyone would feel as though a lifetime had passed.
A little excitement was entirely understandable.
In truth, it was not just him—even Wei Zhao, after that unprecedented ten thousand years of tempering and bitter cultivation, could not help but feel deeply moved at this moment.
Yet after looking around, Wei Zhao found the crowd's attitude strangely odd.
The rank and file were fine, but the core higher-ups of the Prince of Qi's Estate kept averting their eyes, as though none of them dared meet his gaze.
Surprised as he was, Wei Zhao did not especially mind.
After all, he had been gone a year. It was hardly incomprehensible that some things here should have changed.
After a word with the young Lord Qi, Wei Zhao headed straight back to the Prince of Zhao's residence. He meant to see the Prince of Zhao, and while he was at it, drop by the Rule Design Institute to see how it was faring now.
Watching Wei Zhao go, everyone in the Qi residence breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Young Lord Qi grew all the more puzzled. "What the hell? What kind of reaction is that?"
The others exchanged glances.
A quarter of an hour later, Young Lord Qi finally got the truth out of them, and flew into a rage, cursing at the top of his voice. "Idiots! Damn it, you're a pack of idiots with shit for brains! Do any of you dumb bastards know what my brother Lin is made of, what backing he has? And you went and helped the Night Central Palace move against him?"
The others looked at one another and smiled bitterly.
They had been through this very scene only moments ago—except that then it had been Qi Zhuiyun raging, and now it was Young Lord Qi.
"Insolence!"
A vast pressure rose in the main hall, and at the sight of it the crowd hurried to kneel. The master of that pressure was none other than the reigning Prince of Qi.
On any other day, faced with his own father's pressure, Young Lord Qi would have been scared witless.
But today Young Lord Qi did not budge an inch. Instead he flung his anger right back at it.
The crux of it was that the Prince of Qi's pressure was actually pushed back.
The crowd was struck dumb by the sight.
The natural order turned upside down!
Young Lord Qi, a good-for-nothing second-generation rich boy—since when had he grown such nerve?
Surely a year out in the world hadn't addled his brain?
These days the Prince of Qi kept ever more to his seclusion, showing himself before the crowd but rarely, yet the intimidation he inspired had not diminished in the slightest—rather, he had grown all the more unfathomable.
In their eyes, whether Young Lord Qi rose or fell lay entirely in the Prince of Qi's whim.
Never forget, Young Lord Qi was not even the official heir to the Qi residence yet—at best he was merely a leading candidate.
One word from the Prince of Qi, and in an instant he would be nothing at all.
"Kneel!"
The Prince of Qi's voice came, majestic and weighty.
An incomparable, immense oppression descended upon Young Lord Qi's head.
Sure enough, Young Lord Qi crashed to his knees.
No one was surprised by this, and quite a few took a secret delight in it, eager to watch young Master Qi come to grief.
His brothers above all—with young Master Qi fallen, their chances of rising to the position of heir to the Prince of Qi's household would only grow.
Yet a mere second later, young Master Qi suddenly rose to his feet once more.
The whole hall was struck dumb on the spot. (End of chapter)