Chapter 243: Bandit Flames Shattering the Moon

Chapter 243: Bandit Flame Breaks the Moon

Qi Hua’s heart was now filled with unease and anxiety. The eerie "bai he" ability displayed by Wang Xie in this very moment—its horizontal and vertical sequence—filled him with an inexplicable terror.

In a daze, he could have sworn Wang Xie’s features were twisting, morphing into something increasingly like Ding Huan’s!

“Get away from me!”

Qi Hua’s foot lashed out in a violent kick to the chest of the figure before him, the sheer force nearly lifting the opponent’s sole off the ground. Yet Wang Xie remained unyielding, clamping his right hand with his side and muscles in a death grip.

Pain and blood loss rapidly gnawed at Wang Xie’s consciousness. Just as the last vestiges of strength ebbed away, he roared in fury, driving the embroidered spring blade in his right hand straight into Qi Hua’s chest!

Pfft!

The shattered mechanism emitted a mournful wail.

Qi Hua finally wrenched his right hand free, frantically clutching his chest, trying to stanch the blood pouring from both sides of the blade.

But his unruly palm continuously morphed into various grotesque blades, slicing his chest until flesh and blood curled and writhed. The milky synthetic blood surged forth in a frantic rush.

Qi Hua’s face twisted into a feral grimace, his lips twitching, eyes wide and round, as he slowly collapsed.

His own cleaved chest revealed the heart pierced by the embroidered spring blade.

“Ptooey!”

A glob of blood spattered onto Qi Hua’s face. Wang Xie knelt weakly on the ground, head bowed over the cold corpse, cursing and railing.

“You’re using me as a substitute to vent your fire, huh? Let me tell you, the zongheng sequence isn’t just gonna play with you—it’s gonna kill you!”

These words seemed to drain the last of Wang Xie’s strength. He gasped heavily for a long while before lifting his dazed gaze to survey the surroundings.

Where his eyes fell, only a handful of the Jin Yi Wei still stood, their faces strained into silent smiles, lips moving without sound.

“Stop the chatter. I’ll treat you all to a feast soon enough. If I don’t make you happy, I’ll carve my name backward.”

Wang Xie’s voice became a whisper, barely audible, a private sneer only he could hear.

So many have died…

Good, not all.

He turned his dull, lifeless eyes toward the figure still standing beneath the eaves, hands at his sides, unmoving in his azure ceremonial robes.

You bastard, you’d better pray the boss doesn’t die. Otherwise, I’ll strip off this flying fish garb and unleash the honghu on your family!

Finally, Wang Xie tilted his face to the sky, gazing up at the massive cavity piercing the dome above.

“Boss, you’d better not die!”

“Yan Baha, you’re nothing but a pawn in Zhu Youhong’s hands. Even when you meddle in his affairs, he’ll send that eunuch Zhang Ruzheng to kill you without hesitation.”

Ding Huan’s cold laugh was carried into the old man’s ears by the night wind sweeping over the rooftop.

“He’s so merciless, yet you still risk your life to save him. Though both you and Zhu Youhong are sacrifices I’ve offered to the gene, I must ask you—”

Ding Huan’s face grew solemn, his tone heavy. “How could you be so foolishly loyal?”

“Save your honeyed words meant to deceive children. In all these years, I’ve heard enough of your lot from the zongheng sequence to grow calluses on my ears.”

Yan Baha sneered mockingly. “If the zongheng could ‘bai he’ the Legalists, you wouldn’t have been driven to scavenge in the sinner’s district.”

“The banner atop the city gate shifts—your support is for the Wang Dao, your opposition for the zongheng.”

Ding Huan seemed to recall some tragic memory, his face rarely showing anger. “How dare you Legalists divide right from wrong on a single sequence?”

“Whichever side we stand on, that side’s fists grow stronger. Reason is forged through blows, not words! We look down on your branch, so you’re fit only to be rebels!”

Yan Baha said disdainfully, “Even I have to teach you this? No wonder you’re the worst of the Honghu kings, Ding Huan.”

Ding Huan’s face twisted in rage. “A useless prince no one in the imperial court would protect, and you, a mere Jin Yi Wei hundred-house, think you can save him? Can you?”

The one-armed figure raised his blade, his aura chilling.

“Wait till this embroidered spring blade is at your throat, and you’ll see if I can save you or not!”

Bang!

A three-finger-thick glazed blue tile on the rooftop crumbled to dust. The tattered flying fish garb tore against the cold wind.

“Ding Huan of An Nan, sinner, guilty of treason and plotting rebellion. By law—”

Yan Baha’s beard bristled as he shouted fiercely, “Death!”

The Great Ming Empire had endured for millennia, its laws’ majesty deeply etched into every subject’s mind.

Passed down through generations by bloodline, finally engraved into genes, impossible to eradicate.

Especially after the neural interface was implanted, linking to the Huangliang dreamscape, the deterrence of the Great Ming Law had become almost tangible, a “congenital valve” to shackle and constrain body and thought.

It could suppress not only the bodies of criminals but even their unlocked sequence genes.

So when Yan Baha, in the name of a Jin Yi Wei hundred-house of Chongqing, pronounced Ding Huan’s crimes, the fear and submission to the Great Ming Law spread through Ding Hong’s mind.

Like a palpable weight of law pressing down on Ding Huan’s body, rendering him hunched and immobile.

But just as the embroidered spring blade descended, Ding Huan’s mouth suddenly curled upward.

“I’m already a traitor and rebel—what’s there to fear?”

Clang!

The blade’s edge was pinched between two fingers, stuck like quicksand, unable to move.

“Never mind that during the New Donglin Party’s usurpation of imperial power, the Great Ming Law had already become an empty shell.”

Ding Huan’s hunched form slowly straightened inch by inch, his shoulders swaying with minute motions, as if shaking off a heavy yoke.

“Even if the Great Ming Law were as oppressive as before, you, Yan Baha, only hold some authority over the *Zhizhi Law*. How could you suppress me?”

Clang!

The old man’s embroidered spring blade, the seven-grade blade of the chief banner, was snapped in two.

Ding Huan grabbed the severed blade, plunged it with a *puchi* into Yan Baha’s one-armed, blade-wielding limb.

“The strong ought to be… no, wait—”

Ding Huan paused, shaking his head with a wry smile. “You’re weak now. The weak… ought to perish.”

The zongheng force field enveloped Yan Baha, leaving his already frail body utterly powerless.

His throat clutched in Ding Huan’s grip, his body held aloft in the wind, his pale head and black robes like a dying candle about to be snuffed out.

“Do you know why you’re so helpless in my hands? Do you know why the *Zhizhi Law* you wield is so feeble?”

Ding Huan’s face lit with a radiant smile, pressing his mouth to Yan Baha’s ear. “Because some Legalists in the *Sanfa Si* changed allegiance—we’re the true Wang Dao!”

“You said earlier that the world’s reason is forged through blows, not words. I agree. So now, my words are reason.”

The old man’s face flushed red from suffocation, blood spreading across his pupils.

“Do you know? The most satisfying thing in my heart is to play with you self-righteous Legalists, one step at a time.”

“I’ll let you watch the Jin Yi Wei die one by one, and then flay Zhu Youhong’s skin with the embroidered spring blade.”

Ding Huan’s eyes gleamed darkly, chilling to the bone, as icy words spilled from his mouth. “I’ll make you understand—you can’t save a single one!”

The night wind swept over the tiles of Jin Lou, emitting sounds like a person singing a late song, weeping and lamenting.

When the old man slowly closes his eyes as if accepting fate, the piercing, explosive blare of the suona soars skyward, slicing through the dark clouds that veil the moon!

Sudden moonlight spills forth, illuminating a black armor plummeting from the heavens!

Ding Huan lifts his head, startled, his gaze colliding with the crimson eyes gleaming from a helmet as red as snow!

There are eyes blazing with fierce, fiery flames!

Li Jun, clad in ink-black armor, treads upon black flying swords, his embroidered spring blade’s chilling edge outshining the bright full moon beneath the night veil!