Chapter 59: The Four Beasts of Shuixi

Outside the tavern, tavern banners fluttered in the wind. Inside, the conversation continued.

Cui Xuanliang asked, "Are we not calling An Litong this time?"

Gan Zhixuan let out a cold snort. "Who knows what that wild—" Halfway through her sentence, she seemed to swallow the rest of her words.

The others fell silent.

They were by no means timid or soft-hearted individuals.

During the She-An Rebellion that had swept across the southwest, every single one of them had personally severed the heads of multiple Ming officials of the fifth rank or higher.

They were notorious across Guizhou for terrifying the garrison defenders by impaling infants on bamboo spears and brandishing them beneath the city walls.

An Bangyan, the undisputed overlord and regent of the Shuixi An clan, had personally bestowed upon them the title of the "Four Heroes of Shuixi."

When it came to cruelty, cunning, and a complete lack of humanity, they considered themselves second to none.

Yet, instinctively, they still felt that getting close to An Litong was a highly dangerous endeavor.

Especially after what happened last time...

"Besides," Elder Wen said, "I suspect that the incident in the secret realm last time was deliberately engineered by An Litong."

"I also felt something was terribly wrong," Second Elder Wen chimed in.

In the previous secret realm, An Litong had cajoled them into assassinating Li Hualong, the Sichuan governor and hawk faction general who had constantly targeted Yang Yinglong, claiming it would quickly bring the illusion to an end. Consequently, after elaborate preparations and surviving nine deaths, the five of them successfully assassinated Li Hualong, only to receive an unexpected outcome:

A furious Wanli Emperor made peace with Japan, ceded half of Korea to Oda Nobunaga, and then directly mobilized the entire nation's military forces to trample Bozhou to the ground.

Gan Zhixuan sneered, "I told you to read more books in your spare time. Assassinating a key hawk faction general was bound to backfire. Back in the Tang Dynasty, there was already the cautionary tale of the Huixi warlord sending assassins to kill Wu Yuanheng, the chancellor of the hawk faction, which resulted in the emperor completely eradicating the entire vassal state."

Gan Zhixuan had cited a historical allusion here, though she had mixed up a few details—for instance, the one who actually assassinated Wu Yuanheng was Huixi's ally, Ziqing. Of course, the end result was much the same: after the Tang Dynasty wiped out Huixi, it conveniently exterminated Ziqing as well.

Cui Xuanliang patted his chest, lingering fear in his voice. "Fortunately, the Ming Dynasty went all out to launch a war of revenge against Yang Yinglong and happened to flatten Bozhou within a hundred days. Had the war dragged on any longer, our real-world bodies would have perished."

The so-called "Four Heroes of Shuixi" had successfully escaped secret realms on multiple occasions.

Therefore, they knew that the moment their consciousness entered the secret realm, their physical bodies in reality would be tightly wrapped by extraordinarily large plant leaves resembling banana leaves, yet softer than silk.

No one knew where these leaves ultimately originated from, nor what kind of unimaginably massive plant they belonged to. Upon completing a secret realm, the spatial array engraved within the realm would teleport them back to the entrance.

Regarding these various mysteries, the inner circle of the Shuixi An clan had formed countless speculations.

Among them, the theory proposed by a long-reclusive Shuixi elder was the most widely accepted: this was a mystical giant plant rooted deep within the earth's veins, breathing in unison with the mountains and rivers.

In other words, the tremendous plant was actually harnessing the power originating from the dragon veins.

When the Four Heroes of Shuixi first departed from the illusion, the very sight that greeted them was their bodies wrapped inside these massive leaves. Scattered all around them were sporadic human bones.

Clearly, these bones belonged to those who had failed their expeditions into the secret realm: some who had unfortunately perished within, and others who had failed to complete the realm within the hundred days, starving to death to become nourishment for the giant plant.

Over the past few years, Shuixi had dispatched multiple batches totaling hundreds of people to explore Yang Yinglong's secret realm. As a result, the earliest batches all perished in groups due to their unfamiliarity with the world's rules, and moreover, these people had no way of transmitting information back to the real world. It was only recently, when Shuixi sent top-tier elites including An Litong and the Four Heroes of Shuixi, that the progress of the exploration took a massive leap forward.

Elder Wen summarized, "We all know that in this world, whether we choose to help Yang Yinglong declare himself emperor or help the Ming Dynasty pacify Yang Yinglong, as long as the objective is achieved, we can successfully escape and receive mysterious rewards."

Cui Xuanliang said, "In our past few illusions, we chose to help Yang Yinglong. After all, in this world, the difficulty of helping Yang Yinglong become emperor within a hundred days is far lower than eliminating him."

Second Elder Wen said, "Yet An Litong schemed and backstabbed us in the last secret realm."

Elder Wen remarked, "Perhaps that madman from the Night Owl family simply wanted to test his own theories, and whether it would cost lives in the process was entirely outside his consideration."

Clearly, the Night Owl family, much like the Gan, Wen, and Cui clans, was one of the branch families of the Shuixi An clan. Yet for some reason, Elder Wen's tone carried a distinct trace of disdain when uttering those two words.

Clearly, An Litong still bore the surname An, and his military achievements and reputation surpassed theirs.

Yet compared to Gan Zhixuan's attitude, Elder Wen still appeared much more scholarly and amiable.

"However, before that," Gan Zhixuan tapped the table with her porcelain-smooth knuckles and said, "there are a few mice who have been eavesdropping for far too long that need to be dragged out."

Just as her voice fell, Gan Zhixuan struck with lightning speed, driving the chopstick in her hand straight into the eyes of the nearby tavern waiter.

Instead of throwing the chopstick like a hidden weapon as martial heroines typically did in storybooks, the remaining three understood why: it was because Gan Zhixuan relished the tactile sensation of piercing an eyeball with her bare hands and subsequently driving it through into the enemy's brain.

At the very moment Gan Zhixuan made her move, the other three did not idle either. One lunged toward the proprietor, another dashed into the back kitchen, and the third headed straight for the landlady, each dispatching their targets with swift strikes of drawn blades.

In the blink of an eye, the four living souls maintaining the operation of the tavern had all been stripped of their lives.

Gan Zhixuan pulled out the chopstick stained with red and white matter, chuckling lightly. "Yun Zheng once said that carriages, boats, inns, gambling dens, and matchmakers are the standard paraphernalia of major underworld bosses. How fitting those words truly are. Luxi County was originally a tiny county, yet today it also has the fortune of welcoming so-called underworld giants."

The other three collectively rolled their eyes, knowing that once the topic inexplicably shifted to Yun Zheng, this woman—whose facial expressions changed faster than turning the pages of a book—would become endlessly talkative, her facial features instantly turning animated.

This woman didn't seem to harbor much hatred toward Yun Zheng, who had ruined her face; instead, she gnashed her teeth in utter loathing toward Ye Xi and An Miaotong, who stayed by Yun Zheng's side. Whenever she mentioned the two of them, she frequently referred to them as "orphans" or "bastards."

At times, Gan Zhixuan even seemed to fall into a certain fantasy. In her imaginary world, Yun Zheng was not her mortal enemy at all, but rather shared a complex, intertwined relationship of love and hatred with her.

In Gan Zhixuan's eyes, Yun Zheng—who had crawled out of the hell of the Guiyang siege and risen from the ranks of a lowly foot soldier—was fundamentally the same kind of person as herself. Although they stood on different sides, the day would eventually come when Yun Zheng would deeply comprehend that immortal resonance echoing from the very depths of her soul.