Chapter 42 Stumbling into the Great Tang Kingdom? Know When to Yield! I Want to Expose This

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However, thinking of the Emperor's warning, Cai Jian could only brace himself and carry out the task properly.

He understood that once he took this step, there would be no turning back.

From then on, he, Cai Jian, would have to rely entirely on the Emperor for his survival.

Otherwise, once this matter leaked out, the Emperor would surely push him out as a scapegoat to take the blame.

Yet, there were benefits to this as well.

With his leverage in the Emperor's hands, the Emperor would only trust and employ him more heavily in the future.

What kind of wealth and glory could he possibly lack then?

As long as he remained cautious, he would not end up like Wu Shanggui.

At this thought, Cai Jian's anxious heart began to calm and relax.

......

Ten days later,

Those few surviving senior disciples of the Qingmu Mountain were journeying southward along the road.

The further south they went, the more desolate the surroundings became.

Especially over the past few days, they hadn't encountered even a single small country along their path.

At most, there were only occasional nomadic tribes living in clusters.

"It's a good thing the few of us are cultivators and can use spells to speed up our travel."

"In such a desolate place..."

"It's simply impossible for ordinary mortals to survive."

"Do you think that deposed emperor is really that powerful?"

"Chased out of the Great Zhao Kingdom, yet he could still run to the Southern蛮 (Southern Barbarian territory) and build a new nation?"

"But how come I heard..."

"The deposed emperor, Li Muchun, used to be just an ordinary mortal of flesh and blood."

"For so many years, nobody ever heard of him practicing cultivation!"

"Now that you mention it, I've been feeling rather strange about it too."

"I heard that the deposed emperor possesses four extremely powerful demonic beasts."

"Our sect master, along with the First Elder and the Third Elder, were all eaten by those demonic beasts."

"Now that our Holy Lord has been missing for so long, I wonder if he also ran into those four demonic beasts?"

"Perhaps, that's entirely possible."

"Then we must travel carefully."

"Who knows if those four demonic beasts might suddenly appear around us."

"Even our Sect Master and Holy Lord were no match for those demonic beasts."

"There's even less hope for disciples like us to escape from the mouths of beasts."

As they walked and chatted, the group actually became quite engrossed in their discussion.

For a moment, they failed to notice that right ahead of them was the city gate of the Great Tang Kingdom.

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The direction these few individuals were advancing toward happened to be the sector guarded by the Azure Dragon.

Every word of the gossip just uttered by these people had been overheard by the Azure Dragon.

The Azure Dragon raised its majestic head high, staring at the few cultivator disciples not far away as if they were tiny ants, its huge dragon eyes bulging.

"The demonic beasts they were talking about..."

"Could they be speaking of this dragon?"

The Azure Dragon had originally been guarding the city gate out of sheer boredom, looking for some amusement, while the other three divine beasts ignored it entirely.

As it happened, several people had delivered themselves right to its doorstep.

"Shall I give these little brats a good scare...?"

"Since I'm bored anyway, I'll just treat it as a bit of fun."

Having made up its mind, the Azure Dragon stealthily made itself invisible, its dragon body drifting through the sky.

Before long, the Azure Dragon had glided right behind the cultivator disciples.

Without rushing to reveal itself, it leisurely followed behind them in invisibility.

After drifting along like this for quite a while, the Azure Dragon had listened to just about enough gossip.

Right at that moment,

One of the cultivator disciples finished speaking and added a question: "By the way, among those four demonic beasts, there's also a giant snake demon."

"That body... is said to be unimaginably long."

"Yet its head is supposedly terribly ugly, and it even put two horn-like things on top of its own snake head..."

The Azure Dragon leisurely drifted right next to the speaker, leaned close to the cultivator's ear, and spat out a sentence:

"The giant snake demon with the very ugly face you were talking about... is it this dragon?"

A freezing, icy breath brushed past the cultivator's ear...

The cultivator turned his head to look, and nearly scared the soul right out of his body!

"Ah—ah ah—ah ah ah ah—!!!"

"A giant—snake—demon—ah!!!"

Caught off guard, the cultivator disciple lost control of his magical power and plummeted straight down from mid-air.

The other two cultivator disciples, startled by the sudden scream, turned simultaneously toward the source of the sound.

At a single glance, the faces of both disciples turned instantly pale, and they nearly fainted on the spot.

A massive, unimaginably gigantic snake body—with a tail hundreds of times larger than themselves—was coiling in the air right behind them.

Losing their focus, the magical power of the two cultivators also failed, and both plummeted straight down toward the ground.

Just as the three of them were about to crash into the ground and be smashed into pulp,

The Xuanwu, a divine beast that was a hybrid of a snake and a turtle, noticed the commotion on the Azure Dragon's side.

Xuanwu rushed over and just in time rescued the three cultivator disciples who were about to fall to their deaths.

The Azure Dragon wrinkled its dragon face and protested unhappily, "Hey—"

"Why did you save them?!"

"You should have just let them smash to their deaths."

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"To let these ignorant cultivators dare speak ill of this dragon behind its back."

"Smashing them to death would be letting them off too easily."

Faced with the Azure Dragon's dissatisfaction, Xuanwu brushed it off completely.

"These three individuals carry the aura of Qingmu Mountain on them."

"They might very well be spies sent by Qingmu Mountain."

"They must be taken to the imperial palace to report to the master."

Ignoring the Azure Dragon further, Xuanwu directly grabbed the three individuals in its claws and flew toward the imperial palace.

Leaving the Azure Dragon all alone on the spot, stamping its feet—or rather, stamping its claws—in anger.

Upon hearing that they were being treated as spies, the three cultivators panicked instantly.

Seeing the appearance of the Azure Dragon and Xuanwu, and hearing this snake-turtle hybrid beast mention Qingmu Mountain,

The three cultivator disciples exchanged glances, realizing in their hearts just where they had arrived.

The imperial palace mentioned by that demonic beast must be the imperial palace of the Great Tang Kingdom.

And their so-called master was none other than the deposed emperor Li Muchun.

At that moment, the three cultivators became even more certain of the fate regarding the disappearance of their Holy Lord.

Their Holy Lord and the Fourth Elder had most likely already met a tragic end.

Who would have thought...

Even with their Holy Lord bringing tiger clansmen from the demonic realm along, they still couldn't defeat the four demonic beasts by the deposed emperor's side?

Apart from sheer terror, the three senior disciples of Qingmu Mountain were now left with nothing but absolute fear!

None of them knew whether what awaited them next would also be the fate of being eaten alive.

Thinking of this, the Qingmu Mountain senior disciples wailed inwardly...

"If we had known, we wouldn't have come to the Southern Barbarian territory."

"To think that the moment we escaped, our lives are about to end."

Just then, Xuanwu had already carried the three of them into the imperial palace.

Familar with the route, Xuanwu brought the captives straight to the Xuanzheng Hall.

As it happened, Li Muchun was currently inside the Xuanzheng Hall.

When Xuanwu dropped the three senior disciples of Qingmu Mountain before Li Muchun like bags of trash...

Li Muchun froze in blank astonishment, utterly failing to understand what was happening.

It wasn't until Xuanwu spoke up that Li Muchun learned these three were also cultivators from Qingmu Mountain.

At that moment, one of them preemptively cried out:

"Don't kill us—"

"We are here to expose... to bring you information!!"

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