Chapter 5: One Character Suppresses the Capital!

The shopkeeper let out a long breath.

He barely managed to calm the churning of his qi and blood.

Then, with a sweep of his wide sleeve, he actually strode toward the main doors.

“My friends, since matters have come to this, let us go and meet our Third Prince.”

The others lowered their heads and said nothing, following closely behind the shopkeeper.

Their shoulders hung low, while their hands remained hidden inside their sleeves, constantly forming some kind of hand seal.

Zhao Sansi blended in at the rear of the group, inwardly calculating the exact moment he should make his move.

When the doors opened, he could not help but freeze.

On the long street, there were no torches, only the cold moonlight.

Beneath that moonlight, several hundred members of the Embroidered Uniform Guard in Flying Fish Robes had surrounded the entire Drunken Immortal Tower so tightly that not a drop of water could have slipped through.

At the very front of the formation, seated atop a jet-black warhorse, was a young man.

He wore no dragon robe, only a dark crimson Flying Fish Robe. One hand rested on the long blade at his waist as his cold gaze swept across the people of Drunken Immortal Tower.

Xu Yong, the Third Prince of Great Xia.

At the Third Prince’s side stood the very man Zhao Sansi had been longing for: Captain Zhao Wuji of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

The two men exchanged a covert glance and gave the slightest nod.

“Your Highness the Third Prince…”

The shopkeeper drew in a deep breath and forcibly suppressed the unease in his heart.

Forcing a stiff smile onto his face, he cupped his hands and said, “It is so late, and yet Your Highness has honored us with your presence. This old man failed to come out and welcome you. Why did Your Highness not send word ahead of time, so that I might…”

“Word? No need. There is no need to be so polite.”

Xu Yong cut him off. A grim curve spread across his lips.

“Once we reach the Imperial Prison, we will have all the time in the world to exchange pleasantries.”

The smile on the shopkeeper’s face gradually vanished, replaced by a dark expression.

He stepped forward and said in a ringing voice, “Your Highness, Drunken Immortal Tower is an honest establishment. It has never violated the laws of Great Xia.”

“For Your Highness to surround us with troops in the dead of night without written authorization from the Ministry of Justice… I fear that does not quite accord with proper procedure.”

“Procedure?”

Xu Yong looked at the shopkeeper with a half-smile. In his condescending gaze was nothing but mockery.

“You are conspiring to rebel, arresting people in the street, and taking hostages. If I kill you, it is only Heaven’s law and Earth’s justice!”

The shopkeeper’s pupils contracted as he shouted sharply, “This is the capital! So many eyes are watching. You say it, and that makes it true? I refuse to believe His Majesty the Xia Emperor would permit you to act so lawlessly!”

“That is right. I say it, and so it is!”

Xu Yong swept his gaze around, as though meeting the countless unseen eyes fixed on this place. His face was full of scorn.

“Do you think the common people will believe you? Or believe this prince, you filthy rat?”

Those words were naked and undisguised, without the slightest attempt at concealment.

The shopkeeper’s heart sank completely.

There was no room left for negotiation.

The Xia Emperor was in seclusion, Xu Tian had been stripped of his title, and now no one could restrain Xu Yong.

“If Your Highness means to leave us no path to live, then do not blame this old man for dragging you down with us!”

The shopkeeper roared in fury, both hands slamming downward.

“Raise the formation!”

The hand seals the men behind him had been preparing for so long suddenly blazed with light.

Rumble!

The entire Drunken Immortal Tower suddenly began to shake violently.

Strange purple-black runes emerged across the surface of the building, linking together in an instant.

A terrifying aura shot into the sky, forming a massive dome of light in midair that enclosed and protected them all within.

“As expected, Your Highness the Third Prince is domineering enough, but still too young.”

The shopkeeper’s hair whipped wildly as his face twisted savagely.

“This formation is connected to the earth veins within a radius of three li! If you attack by force and shatter those veins, the surrounding homes will all collapse!”

“When the time comes and countless people are dead or injured, I would like to see how you explain yourself to the Xia Emperor, and how you explain yourself to the Prince of Qin!”

“If you let us leave, we guarantee we will never appear in Great Xia again. What do you say?”

In an instant, the scene fell utterly silent.

This was the strength of arcane cultivators. Their arts could not compare to Confucian arts, and their physical bodies were far inferior to those of martial cultivators, but they excelled greatly in all kinds of formations, mysterious and unfathomable.

Among the Embroidered Uniform Guard, Captain Zhao Wuji frowned slightly, but inwardly he was overjoyed.

This deadlock was exactly what he had been waiting for.

From the corner of his eye, he glanced toward the people inside Drunken Immortal Tower, while his right hand casually tapped the hilt of his blade three times.

Inside the formation,

Zhao Sansi, who had been shrinking back at the rear all this time, saw the signal and immediately understood.

Now!

As long as he created chaos and exposed even the slightest flaw in the grand formation, the Embroidered Uniform Guard would be able to charge straight in.

When that happened, the foremost merit would belong to him and Captain Zhao.

With that achievement, and with Captain Zhao’s status as a son of an aristocratic clan, they would have more than enough to soar straight to the heavens.

Zhao Sansi drew in a deep breath and quietly shifted his position until he reached the shopkeeper’s side. His gaze locked onto the shopkeeper’s back, where the man stood fully absorbed in controlling the formation.

And just then—“Kekeke…”

A low laugh rang out abruptly, cutting off Zhao Sansi’s movement.

On horseback, Xu Yong was laughing so hard that he nearly doubled over.

“You dare threaten me? Are you worthy?”

His smile suddenly vanished, and his voice turned cold in an instant.

“Do you know why no Confucian cultivators came with us today?”

A powerful unease abruptly surged up in the shopkeeper’s heart.

Xu Yong reached into his robes and pulled out a sheet of xuan paper that looked utterly ordinary, then casually tossed it into the air.

“While you were preparing your formation, this prince was activating a calligraphy sheet as well…”

That flimsy sheet of paper drifted lightly above Drunken Immortal Tower.

Then, in the next instant—Buzz!

A vast white aura suddenly erupted from that thin sheet of paper!

It was none other than Vast Righteous Qi!

The paper burned in midair and transformed into a gigantic stone stele.

Upon it was written a single character: “Suppress,” ancient and weighty.

In that instant, Heaven and Earth changed color!

The originally violent purple-black formation was like lingering snow meeting the blazing sun. It gave off a shrill sizzling sound and dimmed in an instant.

“This is… a Confucian Dao secret art! Confucian Dao true intent?!”

“How is this possible?!”

The shopkeeper let out a despairing scream, his eyes nearly splitting apart.

Confucian Dao true intent was exceedingly rare in this world, and incomparably precious.

Any object containing Confucian Dao true intent could scarcely be called anything less than a national treasure.

And yet now, this madman Xu Yong had actually used such a treasure on someone like him.

At that moment, he only wanted to ask one thing: Was I even worthy?

“Kneel!”

Xu Yong roared.

That gigantic stone stele crashed down with a thunderous force.

There was no earth-shattering explosion, only the teeth-gritting crack of breaking bones and collapsing buildings.

Boom!

In that single instant, the entire Drunken Immortal Tower, together with all the arcane practitioners inside it, was smashed bodily into the ground by an unimaginable force!

Dust and smoke billowed everywhere.

The lofty tower was gone, and in its place there appeared a huge crater three chi deep.

At the bottom of the pit lay nothing but ruins, along with dozens of bodies crushed so badly they had lost their shape.

Dozens of Arcane Dao experts, among them even two third-rank powerhouses. In the world of cultivators, that would have counted as a force no one could afford to ignore.

But at this moment, they were barely clinging to life. Only by using everything they had to resist could they avoid being crushed to death, yet they were utterly unable to move.

Because Zhao Sansi had been standing close to the shopkeeper, the shopkeeper had borne most of the pressure for him. That was the only reason he had not been crushed outright.

Even so, he had been shaken until the world spun around him. Covered in blood, he lay sprawled amid the ruins, his mind completely blank.

This… this was the Third Prince’s method?

A single sheet of paper?

Just a single sheet of paper?!

Whose handiwork was this?

Since when had Great Xia gained yet another Great Confucian?

“My friends, was my elder brother’s calligraphy not beautiful?”

Xu Yong looked at the wreckage before him and nodded in satisfaction.

Then his face instantly turned as cold as iron, and he waved a hand.

“Unfortunately, this was your only chance to see it.”

“Leave none alive. Kill them.”