Boom! Dust and debris waltzed around after Ming Feizhen shoved Mr. An back to the ground.
“Well… This is a surprise.”
Ming Feizhen draped his unmovable arm over Mr. An’s shoulder and jovially asked, “If I’m correct, you’re with you-know-who, aren’t you?”
“You demonstrate great insight, Fuma… working out master from the scarce clues. I am but a pawn taking orders from Her Highness.” As much as he hated to give in, Mr. An didn’t have options. Still, he managed to hide his surprise.
Jingan and Mr. An’s alliance was a secret known only to those highest in the organisation, not a tool for him to slip away with. Knowing her, he had no doubts that she could find a way to resolve any problems he caused. Having his plans ruined was what he hated the most, nevertheless.
According to their plan, Mr. An was supposed to have rendezvoused with Poison King at the agreed time and place already. Mr. An, known for being punctual and demanding the same of others, was going to have to be late this time.
He really is tough to deal with. I had taken the worst possible outcome into consideration, yet he countered it right away and effortlessly.
“Brilliant, Sir.”
“I wasn’t talking about Jingan but the leader of Demon Realm.”
Similar to how extreme heat could visually distort space, Mr. An contorted space with his bloodlust.
“Stay there.”
As if those two words Ming Feizhen enunciated were a magical chant, he restored Mr. An’s contorted form to his normal form and fossilised his body.
Nobody could tell just from watching that the hand on Mr. An’s shoulder was essentially a lock as heavy as a mountain. Mr. An tried to break Ming Feizhen’s hold three times using his internal energy to no avail. That is not praise for Ming Feizhen but for Mr. An as it was a miracle he hadn’t been flattened yet.
Do I have to reveal my true skills? No, it’s not time to yet. Let’s entrap him…
“Hahaha, fantastic skills. This one yields, Master M-”
In a gentle voice that drowned out Mr. An’s, Ming Feizhen asserted, “If we’re going to chat, let’s take it somewhere else.”
Ming Feizhen dragged Mr. An along against the latter’s will using strength in excess of what the latter could resist against. Unlike Mr. An’s style that made him resemble particles of air that couldn’t be erased, Ming Feizhen’s style left a field of dust behind because Ming Feizhen’s style was all about brute strength.
Emperor Yuansheng was planning to have Lai Jingzhen listen to what the two were saying. Howbeit, he had to scrap the plan when the two of them vanished out of sight. “Empyrean, be careful! He… He is strong! Do not go out too far! State Preceptor Lai!”
“Present! Your subject shall go assist him immediately.”
“No. I want you to stay here and protect me. Have I not been thrust into jeopardy enough times today yet? If he’s trying to lure you away to harm me, what am I to do? Stay right by my side.”
“… Oh.”
“Yiren, will Empyrean Zha be all right?” Emperor Yuansheng couldn’t be blamed for his anxiety after all the shocks back to back in one day.
“Yes,” Shen Yiren confidently replied. “… I think.”
Abels, observing Emperor Yuansheng and Shen Yiren for a while, finally realised what they were peering into the distance for. “You are looking in the wrong direction. They went the other way.”
Regardless of who the mastermind behind the scenes were, the sole fact that they could recruit Luo Ming as a pawn and stir chaos on this scale was troubling, to say the least. Judging from Ming Feizhen’s tone, Shen Yiren speculated they were facing something more dangerous than Luo Ming and his Purple Forbidden Enclosure Dragon Slayer.
Ming Feizhen didn’t like talking about his past or experiences, while Shen Yiren wasn’t the type to be wishy washy. Thus, she trusted he could make his own judgement as the master of Night Fortress. In saying that, she knew that he had always been the same person deep down regardless of whether that was before or after she learnt of his true skills. The fact that he was barely any different as a person surprised even her. Put it this way: whatever skin he was wearing, he was still the same man. If there was something he was embarrassingly lousy at, it was acting. Irrespective of what shoes he was in, “danger” was a concept that eluded him, and he was always nosy. In the pugilistic world, they call that sort of nosiness “chivalry”.
“You confident you’ll survive?” Shen Yiren questioned prior to letting Ming Feizhen go.
“Yeah,” Ming Feizhen casually answered.
“Will you be back?”
“… Definitely.”
Shen Yiren still remembered the smile on his face when he left. “He’ll be fine. He won’t lie.”
***
Crossing dozens kilometres in mere seconds made it difficult even for Ming Feizhen to maintain his hold on Mr. An, therefore affording the latter the chance to regain freedom. Since he couldn’t stop Mr. An even if he tried, he decided to show Mr. An that choosing to break free while they were moving was a bad decision: leveraging Mr. An’s momentum against him, he hurled Mr. An straight into the ground.
Mr. An had full confidence in his manoeuvre and had been relying on it to remain elusive thus far, yet it was countered twice in a single day for the first time since mastering it.
By the time Mr. An got up, Ming Feizhen was already standing in front of him. Cornered, he lunged at Ming Feizhen. Mr. An, being more dangerous than Luo Ming with Purple Forbidden Enclosure Dragon Slayer, prompted Ming Fezhen to creep one foot back as he evaded attack.
“The sword or your life? You can only choose one.”
“Mingming Zhen, don’t troll me. Would I be able to keep my life if I lost the sword?”
Ming Feizhen smirked: “Well, isn’t that quite the fascinating thought process. Can you keep the sword if you’re not alive?”
