Chapter 62: Predicament

While waiting for the youth to return, Chen Xian began to sort through the memories in his mind.

As he reviewed these memories, Chen Xian's brows furrowed deeply.

Qi Jing, the master of the Diyuan Sect, had been tracked down by the Great Yuan authorities for harboring members of the Anti-Yuan Alliance.

Relying on the terrain, the original owner of this body had set up an array in an attempt to block the arrival of the Yuan officials. To his surprise, however, the enemy shattered Qi Jing's formation with merely three punches, after which everyone scattered and fled in all directions.

Although called a sect, the Diyuan Sect actually consisted of only a handful of people. Within the sect, there were neither many cultivators nor any profound cultivation techniques.

When escaping, Qi Jing fled together with Li Qingyun—the youth who had just fed Chen Xian his medicine—while the others followed a few members of the Anti-Yuan Alliance.

It was precisely because the Diyuan Sect was so unremarkable that the Anti-Yuan Alliance members had chosen it as a hideout. They simply had not expected their whereabouts to be known entirely by the authorities, which ultimately brought catastrophe upon the Diyuan Sect.

Had it not been for the close friendship between the body's former owner and the Anti-Yuan Alliance members, he probably would never have provoked the authorities in the first place. After all, a tiny, insignificant sect of just two or three members would normally never have attracted the attention of the government.

The reason the other members of the Diyuan Sect chose to follow the Anti-Yuan Alliance people was that those individuals were formidable martial arts experts; following them offered at least a glimmer of survival.

Qi Jing, although a sect master, specialized primarily in geomancy and Feng Shui. His martial arts cultivation was far inferior to that of the Anti-Yuan Alliance members. Furthermore, after the government agents shattered his formation, Qi Jing was caught in the backlash, suffering severe injuries to his mind and spirit.

Under such circumstances, the others naturally knew how to seek fortune and avoid disaster, sticking closely to those martial artists. Only the youth, who had been raised by Qi Jing, foolishly remained by his side to care for the grievously wounded master.

Now, with Chen Xian's arrival, recovering from the physical injuries of this body was no longer an issue; it was merely a matter of time.

Yet beyond that, an even greater trouble awaited Chen Xian.

After they had scattered and fled in all directions, the agents of the Great Yuan authorities did not pursue the others at all. Instead, like a cat toying with a mouse, they closely tailed Qi Jing's group, occasionally dispatching small squads to hunt them down.

After reviewing these memories, Chen Xian's frown deepened even further.

"For the Great Yuan authorities to act this way, they are most likely toying with the original owner," Chen Xian thought to himself.

He knew that since the enemy could shatter Qi Jing's long-established array with three punches, their strength was far beyond what Qi Jing could possibly resist. Likewise, if the authorities truly wanted to capture them, their power guaranteed that escape would be impossible.

In reality, however, not only did the Anti-Yuan Alliance members escape, but Qi Jing managed to slip away as well.

Who could possibly believe that the enemy was not doing this on purpose?

"Are they trying to use us as bait to catch bigger fish, or are they trying to make an example of us to intimidate the fence-sitters? Most likely, it is both," Chen Xian speculated, trying to decipher their motives.

"This means the former owner of this body is still being hunted. That is a major trouble."

"However, if the authorities had directly dispatched a massive force or that high-ranking commander, there would be virtually no chance of survival. But right now, they are merely surrounding and intercepting us, occasionally sending a few men to play cat-and-mouse. Such mockery actually grants me a glimmer of a turning point."

"This situation still has room for maneuver."

Feeling the restorative effect of his vital blood and Qi driven by inner strength, along with his slightly improving physical condition, Chen Xian gained a measure of confidence regarding the trials ahead.

"As for this world..."

Recalling the information gleaned from his memories, a contemplative look appeared in Chen Xian's eyes.

"Nine states and nine nations. An empress usurped the throne, seized the state power of Great Dali, unified the Nine States, and established the Great Yuan Dynasty."

At this thought, Chen Xian's heart sank slightly.

If things were truly as he suspected, then the situation had become far more complicated.

For thousands of years, the Nine States and Nine Nations had been locked in endless conflict, waxing and waning in strength, yet never once had a single nation been able to suppress the combined might of all the others. Among them, the strongest had undoubtedly been the Great Dali Dynasty in Qingzhou.

Yet ironically, Great Dali was also the first nation to fall, and the one that collapsed the fastest.

All of this changed because of a girl named Tiemuqiao, who had been sent from the endless grasslands outside the Nine States to study in Great Dali.

Although Great Dali was the greatest of the Nine Nations, it suffered from unceasing internal strife and all the classic symptoms of a dynasty in its twilight.

In Dali, Tiemuqiao first earned a reputation for peerless wisdom, and later won the appreciation of the imperial court. She became a strategist capable of offering counsel to the Dali court and influencing its foreign policy.

Not long after taking office, she proposed a grand strategy: "fringe alliances to attack the near, unite the many to weaken the few."

It was a brilliant strategy on paper, but for the Dali of that era, recuperating and resolving factional strife should have been the fundamental priority. For reasons unknown, however, the Dali court actually adopted the plan.

Subsequently, Dali allied with five nations to attack three others. In that war, there were no victors.

True to the old saying that a starved camel is still bigger than a horse, despite its internal problems, Dali still inflicted devastating losses on the three enemy nations. As for Dali itself, its status as the preeminent military power among all nations was completely exhausted in that conflict, leaving its army depleted to a fraction of its former size.

It was precisely at this moment that a million elite cavalry charged out from the endless grasslands, smashing the Dali Dynasty to pieces.

In less than half a year, the Dali Dynasty completely collapsed.

From that moment on, the fate of the entire world was fundamentally altered.

One must remember that Dali was the only dynasty in the Nine States that shared a border with the endless grasslands, serving as the strongest bulwark against grassland invasions.

Yet it had utterly crumbled in a matter of months.

This vividly demonstrated how severely Dali's national strength had been drained by the preceding war.

And all of this had been meticulously calculated by Tiemuqiao.

Dali was the greatest barrier protecting the Nine States from the cavalry of the steppes. Once Dali was defeated, the relationships among the various nations of the Nine States underwent a devastating, earth-shattering transformation.

Previously, due to the existence of the Dali Dynasty, a delicate balance had been maintained among the nations. Despite numerous conflicts, it had never escalated into all-out wars of national annihilation.

The very second the Dali Dynasty was crushed, however, that entire web of relationships instantly shattered.

Suddenly, the fires of war erupted across the Nine States, with continuous and explosive armed conflicts breaking out everywhere.

Lacking any prior experience in fighting the grassland cavalry, the other nations were almost uniformly defeated in a single blow. Within just a few short years, the entire expanse of the Nine States was thoroughly trampled and conquered by the steppes' iron hooves.

"Tiemuqiao..."

Recalling the information about this female ruler of the Great Yuan Dynasty, Chen Xian could not help but draw a sharp breath inward!

"Ruthless, ruthless, ruthless!"

"Vicious, vicious, vicious!"

"She is simply too vicious!"

The revelations drawn from his memories made Chen Xian grit his teeth in visceral shock, purely because of how unimaginably cruel this empress had been toward the people of the Nine States.