After a bout of cursing, Wang Ping obediently sat back down where he was.
“It seems I’ll have to be more careful in the future.”
He had no plans to return to the immortal sect world anytime soon. After all, the 【Six Desires Heavenly Demon Banner】 was currently in the hands of that young Qi Refiner.
If he were to go back now, the young man would likely notice something was amiss immediately.
Then it would truly be all over.
“Yeah, let’s head back to Great Shun.”
Compared to the immortal sect, where the scale spanned the cosmos and interstellar travel was the norm, the divine weapons and martial arts of the Great Shun imperial court seemed far more harmless.
“As expected, I was born a martial artist. Even after cultivating immortality, my Heart of the Martial Path hasn’t changed a bit.”
I still just love bullying noobs.
Although the waters of the Great Shun imperial court were somewhat deep, no matter how deep they were, they surely couldn’t compare to that Qi Refiner casually reversing time with a snap of his fingers, right?
At this thought, Wang Ping looked once again at the 【Otherworldly Heavenly Demon】 scripture scroll.
【Current Identity: Constable (Black Robe)】
【Current Fortune: Seven (Local Hero)】
【Consume Fortune: to exchange for a new identity?】
“Exchange.”
Wang Ping nodded slightly. He had squeezed just about every ounce of value out of the constable identity. If possible, he naturally wanted to start with a better identity.
To his surprise, however, even though his fortune had multiplied exactly seven times compared to his last run, his actual identity rank upon exchange was still just a 【Black Robe】. There was no qualitative leap, merely a hint of cyan and crimson added to the profound light.
“So, zero fortune is a Commoner, and one through ten are all Black Robes.”
Comprehension dawned on Wang Ping. He then watched as the text on the scripture scroll continuously shifted, cycling through various identities before slowly stopping on one.
【Gilded Cavalry Guard】.
“An official again?”
Wang Ping frowned slightly. Information regarding the 【Gilded Cavalry Guard】 quickly flashed through his mind. It appeared to be under the direct command of the capital’s imperial guards, an identity akin to the Emperor’s personal entourage.
Sort of like the Brocade-Clad Guard.
From this perspective, there was still a difference between a fortune of one and a fortune of seven. The former could only be a constable in a county town, while the latter was already part of the capital’s imperial guard.
Wang Ping then looked toward the other side of the high platform.
There, dense piles of pills were stacked like a small mountain. The terrifying life force and primal qi felt like a vast ocean to his spiritual sense.
This was the life force and primal qi he had embezzled within the 【Six Desires Heavenly Demon Banner】 using the 【Thief of Life】. A third of it came from the corpses of those rogue cultivators, while the remaining two-thirds was entirely generously gifted by You Xuexin. The quality was truly breathtaking.
“I can eat to my heart’s content this time.”
Thinking of this, Wang Ping was filled with immense anticipation. He couldn’t wait to see how far digesting all this life force and primal qi would push his growth once he returned to Great Shun.
The next second, he stepped forward and walked into the 【Great Shun Heavenly Dynasty】 within the scripture scroll. He allowed the towering book before him to bloom with light and submerge him.
…
Wang Ping opened his eyes once more.
An unfamiliar ceiling greeted his vision. Dressed in martial attire, he seemed to be resting in bed. He immediately rolled over and checked the condition of his body.
After a moment, he breathed a sigh of relief.
“…No change.”
His reborn body perfectly retained the martial arts from his previous-previous life. The 【Heavenly Roc Force】 roared within him, and his Lesser Heavenly Circulation body was at its absolute peak condition.
“It’s a bit of a pity that I couldn’t bring back the cultivation results from my last life. Is it because I was refined into an artifact spirit last time…? But whatever, bringing it back would only give me a Flawed Spirit Root anyway, which is useless. The 【Thief of Life】 and the life force and primal qi are the most important things.”
Wang Ping quickly leveled his state of mind.
He then walked over to the bronze mirror in the room. As expected, the handsome face reflected in the mirror was still his own.
Furthermore, compared to his previous-previous life, even his age hadn’t changed much.
“This won’t do.”
Wang Ping furrowed his brow. Showing up once or twice was fine, but appearing time and time again with the same face under different identities? Any idiot would know something was wrong.
Recalling the fleeting glimpse he had inside 【The Taiping Classic】, where the descending Qi Refiner reversed time and directly resurrected You Xuexin, Wang Ping couldn’t help but sigh. The resurrection mechanism of 【The Taiping Classic】 still wasn’t broken enough. Why couldn’t it also rewind time?
“It seems I need to find a way to get my hands on a disguise art.”
Wang Ping calculated internally. Finding such technique wouldn’t be hard; the real problem was ensuring the disguise left no flaws for others to spot. That wouldn’t be easy.
Just then, memories suddenly surfaced.
“Here it comes.”
Massaging his glabella, Wang Ping began to digest his predecessor’s memories. By now, however, he vaguely understood the true nature of these memories.
Rather than calling them a predecessor’s memories, it was more accurate to call them background settings.
Because the vast majority of these memories pertained to his new identity, lacking any mundane, daily life memories like eating, sleeping, or using the latrine.
Wang Ping quickly frowned.
According to his memory, he was a Gilded Cavalry Guard directly under the capital’s imperial guard. He was currently acting under military orders, heading to Longxing County in Changle Commandery to serve as the military supervisor of the 【Black Armor Battalion】.
“Why is it Longxing County again?”
At this point, Wang Ping was beginning to suspect Longxing County was some sort of singularity. Once or twice could be passed off as coincidence, but three rebirths in a row were all tied to it.
This had to be a conspiracy; someone was pulling the strings.
Wang Ping continued digging through his memories:
“At this point in time, about four months have passed since I wreaked havoc in the county office. Because the county office suffered heavy losses, the imperial court’s foundation in Longxing County has been shaken.”
“It seems someone subsequently pulled strings within the Changle Commandery Prefecture. In the end, the Commandery Governor of Changle overrode all objections and dispatched a military battalion to garrison Longxing County, ostensibly to assist the county office in maintaining stability. Only then did they report to the capital and request a military supervisor… This is acting first and reporting later. Where did the Commandery Governor get the nerve?”
Deploying troops without authorization, interfering in county administration, and blurring the lines of responsibility.
“According to intelligence from the capital, it seems a highly influential and capable noblewoman spoke up, which facilitated the Changle Commandery Prefecture’s rule-breaking actions this time.”
As for who exactly she was, Wang Ping didn’t know.
“Regardless, the 【Black Armor Battalion】 is already in Longxing County, and I am the military supervisor sent by the imperial court. My official duty is to assist the County Magistrate in maintaining stability…”
Secretly, however, he had received another order.
Thinking of this, Wang Ping reached into his clothes and pulled out a bright yellow brocade silk. Engraved with cloud patterns and rolled on a black rhinoceros horn shaft.
It was an imperial decree.
To be precise, it was a secret decree stamped with the Emperor’s seal. It commanded him to secretly support the civilian uprising upon arriving in Longxing County and facilitate the rebels in breaching the county walls!
Accompanying the imperial decree was a bronze military tally capable of mobilizing any battalion-level army, evidently granting him the authority to act unilaterally if necessary.
Seeing this, Wang Ping was stunned.
Why?
If it weren’t for the fact that the Emperor’s seal on the decree was unmistakably genuine, he would have suspected his eyes were playing tricks on him. Was the imperial court digging its own grave?
“…There’s definitely something fishy going on,” Wang Ping became even more certain of Longxing County’s peculiarity. He then quickly cast his doubts aside. Regardless, he was no longer the same person he used to be. Once he digested the life force and primal qi stored in the 【Morgue】, he was confident he could easily kill that dog official Xu Bingzheng!
“I still need to practice martial arts.”
Although he could technically be considered half a cultivator now, he didn’t possess a true legacy. Rounding up, he was basically a rogue cultivator—possessing cultivation but lacking methods to protect his Dao.
In the early stages, martial arts should be able to cover this flaw.
As for his martial path, Wang Ping had a completely new idea. If feasible, he would walk a path no one else had ever taken before.
…
Longxing County, outside the city walls.
Unlike a few months ago when this area was merely open wilderness, a towering military encampment now stood here, bustling with the smoke and fire of daily life.
The Great Shun Dynasty’s military was organized into battalions of five hundred men, each divided into fifty ten-man squads. Every battalion had five Captains, fifty Squad Leaders, one hundred File Leaders, and a Commander overseeing the entire battalion.
The entire force was professional, fully supported by the imperial court, well-equipped with martial arts and weapons, and held a status higher than that of constables.
This was especially true for a titled battalion like the 【Black Armor Battalion】.
Even across all of Changle Commandery, they were the elite of the elite. If the five hundred men joined forces, their combat prowess could surpass the majority of Titled Martial Masters on the 【Weapon Register】.
Right now, however…
As the Commander of the 【Black Armor Battalion】, Wu Xintai was nursing a massive headache as he looked at the beautiful woman before him. Her pretty face was icy cold, looking exactly like someone who wouldn’t rest until she achieved her goal.
“Commander Wu, are you going to deploy your troops or not?”
The beautiful woman asked in a deep voice.
“Madam Su, it’s not that I don’t want to deploy the troops, but that I simply cannot… That is the county town. Just setting up the encampment here is already breaking the rules…”
Hearing this, Madam Su’s expression grew even colder. But looking at Wu Xintai—who, despite speaking humbly, remained firm in his stance—she couldn’t help but feel a sense of powerlessness.
Her experiences over the past four months flooded her mind.
This 【Black Armor Battalion】 was something her former close friend and sworn sister had specifically gone to the Changle Commandery Prefecture to procure for her after she reconnected with the main family in the capital.
Because she refused to leave just like that.
That young constable, a man whose promises were worth their weight in gold, had been missing for four months without a body. She wanted to avenge him by killing the dog official hiding in the county office.
Oh, mother…
Looking at Madam Su before him, Wu Xintai couldn’t help but sigh inwardly: This woman is eighty percent crazy. Who knows how the Longxing County Magistrate offended her.
She was pressuring him to deploy troops to kill a County Magistrate.
You must be joking! Deploying troops is causing a disturbance; killing an official is rebellion! He was sitting pretty as a Commander; why would he willingly destroy his own future?
Furthermore, the 【Black Armor Battalion】 garrisoning here was already against regulations. The higher-ups had merely bent the rules, acting first and issuing orders later. If he deployed troops without an order and publicly murdered a County Magistrate, he could kiss his position as Commander goodbye. He might as well just slit his own throat and accompany that Longxing County Magistrate to the grave.
Wu Xintai had a bellyful of words he wanted to say.
But in the end, he swallowed them all down—he had no choice. Even though the woman before him was crazy and didn’t know martial arts, he couldn’t afford to offend her.
Because he had already asked around.
This woman alone wasn’t much. Although she used to be a noble daughter of the Su family in the capital, she had long been struck from the registry and left to wander the countryside. She wasn’t formidable.
The problem was, she had a very close cousin from her youth who was essentially her sworn sister.
That cousin was a completely different story. Chosen by the 【Fangxian Dao】 years ago, she had become an Extraordinary after all these years—and a prominent one at that!
When this Miss Su got into trouble a few years ago, her cousin happened to be cultivating in the 【Fangxian Dao】. Now that she had returned and caught wind of Miss Su’s situation, she immediately rushed to the Changle Commandery Prefecture and single-handedly orchestrated the deployment of the 【Black Armor Battalion】. Her influence truly reached the heavens, and her background was terrifyingly solid.
It’s a pity, really.
If she hadn’t had to leave temporarily due to an emergency, with her taking the blame, it wouldn’t have been impossible for me to deploy the troops. The County Magistrate would be dead meat.
However, doing it alone was another matter entirely.
Regardless, Wu Xintai refused to stick his neck out. He would rather fail to act than act wrongly. He made up his mind—without orders, his troops wouldn’t move an inch.
Seeing this, Madam Su grew even more frantic.
“That County Magistrate abused his power for personal gain, and the officials of Changle Commandery protect their own! Liu Ye has already been arrested and thrown into prison! Even if you don’t deploy troops to kill the Magistrate, at least rescue Liu Ye…”
This was the reason she could no longer wait.
Originally, her sworn sister had said that she only needed to leave temporarily and would return to deal with that corrupt dog official who preyed on the common people as soon as she finished her business.
She had also made arrangements for Liu Ye, the man who brought her the news. He was supposed to be sent to another Commandery Prefecture, but Liu Ye refused to leave his hometown.
In the end, he chose Changle Commandery. As it turned out, Xu Bingzheng had connections in Changle Commandery. Upon hearing the news, he immediately laid a trap for Liu Ye.
The result was Liu Ye being arrested under the charge of “disrespecting a superior official.”
The entire process strictly adhered to the Great Shun Laws. Liu Ye was stripped of his status, returned to his place of origin as a commoner, sent back to Longxing County, and thrown into the county office dungeon that very same day.
Madam Su’s primary reason for seeking out Wu Xintai this time was to save him.
Yet, Wu Xintai still shook his head: “I am truly sorry, but a military camp cannot mobilize without orders.”
He was aware of Liu Ye’s situation, but in his eyes, this was undoubtedly the workings of another faction within the imperial court, one that might not be any weaker than Madam Su’s sworn sister.
How could a lowly Commander like him dare involve himself in a clash of power between such big shots?
So, after thinking it over, he felt the only thing he could do was remain completely loyal to his post. That way, even if the sky fell, the blame wouldn’t fall on his head.
“…”
Madam Su fell into utter despair.
It wasn’t just because of Liu Ye. In her eyes, both she and Liu Ye had been protected at the cost of that young constable’s life.
Yet, in the end, Liu Ye still couldn’t escape disaster.
It had all been for naught.
If so, didn’t her husband die in vain? Whenever she thought of this, Madam Su felt it was deeply unjust, her heart filling with anger and helplessness.
Right at that moment.
“Commander, he’s here! He’s finally here!”
The tent flap was suddenly pulled open, and a Captain of the 【Black Armor Battalion】 ran in shouting, “The military supervisor sent by the imperial court has arrived! He’s waiting outside the camp…”
“Calm down.”
Wu Xintai shook his head, looking deeply disappointed as he lectured, “You must remain calm in the face of emergencies. That is the true quality of a general. How many times have I taught you this?”
“It’s just a military supervisor, yet you act like you’ve never seen one before.”
“To put it bluntly, they’re just a bunch of ball-less eunuchs. Back when we rotated to the north, we saw enough of them to make us sick. Have you gone without seeing a woman for so long that…”
“No, sir.”
The Captain hurriedly shook his head, emphasizing his words: “It’s not an imperial eunuch this time! It’s a Gilded Cavalry Guard! A Gilded Cavalry Guard directly under the capital’s imperial guard!”
“…A Gilded Cavalry Guard?”
Wu Xintai blanked: “The Emperor’s personal guard?”
The Captain nodded profusely like a chicken pecking rice.
“Fuck! Why didn’t you say something so important earlier?!”
The next second, Wu Xintai—who had just been preaching about “remaining calm in the face of emergencies”—bolted upright as if struck by lightning, and dashed out of the tent without stopping.
Translation note:
The military ranks in this novel are localized for readability while preserving the original chain of command. A Captain corresponds to the Chinese 百夫长, literally “leader of one hundred men.” A Squad Leader corresponds to 什长, who commands a ten-man unit. A File Leader corresponds to 伍长, who leads a five-man unit. Above them is the Commander (都统), who oversees an entire battalion of five hundred soldiers. These English titles are functional equivalents rather than direct historical ranks.