The Empress's No.1 Lackey-Chapter 402 - 335, the killer of the State Preceptor, Zhao Douan!

The three people on the ground, disheveled, were stunned for a moment; Zheng Laojiu was the first to speak, quickly describing the situation.

Hearing that Zhao Douan might have been dragged into a dream by the Demon Path, Ma Yan's heart sank violently!

Trouble!

A fine sweat broke out on his forehead, this was the situation he feared the most.

Although it was said that the Martial God's methods could, to a certain extent, resist the Demon Path through visualization, who could say for sure how effective it would be? After all, the Demon Path had returned to the Capital well-prepared.

"You all go back immediately to guard his body; I will go look for the Demon Path!" Ma Yan, not hesitating, immediately ordered.

Then, without waiting for the three to reply, he turned his head to look at Wu Ling, whom he held by the hand, his eyes cold and stern:

"Speak! Where is the person!?"

The beautiful Wu Ling, who had been smacked senseless, was now grasping for breath, his face flushed, his eyes filled with fear as he looked at the eunuch before him.

He opened his mouth but couldn't make a sound.

"Not talking?" Ma Yan's eyes widened in anger, another stubborn rebel!

Immediately, he saw Wu Ling silently lift his hand and point towards a certain building.

"..." Taking off, Ma Yan readied himself with twelvefold caution and arrived at the door, his body supported by Protective Gang Qi before he kicked open the tightly closed door.

He was ready for confrontation, but the room was unexpectedly quiet.

On the bed, an old Daoist seemed to be in deep sleep, sitting cross-legged.

In front of him was a small table with a small black deity statue about the size of a palm, surrounded by three candlesticks.

Arranged in a strange "formation," all three candlesticks had already been extinguished, the room was pitch-dark, and the devil-like deity statue stared silently at the newcomer.

Ma Yan pushed out with the palm of his hand, a gust swept through the room, overthrowing the candles and furniture, sending the deity statue and the Daoist crashing down.

Wait a second!

Ma Yan was stunned.

How did the Demon Path fall like this? Even if immersed in a dream, he shouldn't be so utterly unguarded...

Leaping forward, he reached the bedside and was shocked to see that the old Daoist sitting cross-legged was bleeding from all orifices, his eyes had horrifyingly burst open, and he was undeniably dead.

He reached out to flick the neck; the flesh was still warm, indicating the Daoist had just recently died, with no external injuries, as if his brain had exploded from within.

"Dead?!"

Ma Yan's shock was hard to conceal, and then a strong sense of unreality arose. Throwing Wu Ling aside, he demanded, "Is this the work of the Demon Path?"

"Cough... cough, cough..."

Wu Ling knelt on the ground, coughing madly, his tears and mucus coughed out as well; his eyes were also filled with shock, vividly feeling a sudden clarity in his soul.

The state he was bewitched into had been lifted!

Who killed the State Preceptor?

...

In a daze, Zhao Douan seemed to see a large swath of chaotic and blurry memories rapidly dissolving.

Only a very few memories could be barely captured by him.

In a fleeting moment, he "saw" 'himself' in a pavilion, with a vast cliff and drifting clouds just behind him.

Before his eyes, in the pavilion, stood a familiar old man of scholarly appearance, exuding an extraordinary presence.

It was none other than Zhuang Xiaocheng, the Grand Tutor, who had left him in a big mess at the beginning of his journey through time!

"You want to go to the Capital? What are you going to do?"

Zhuang Xiaocheng stared warily at 'himself,' his Confucian robes billowing in the mountain wind.

Wait a minute... is this the 'Demon Path's' viewpoint?

Right, these are his remaining memories; I'm accessing his memories through a first-person perspective... Zhao Douan's thoughts raced, understanding the general situation.

He heard "himself" coldly laugh with a hidden threat: "What I am going to do in the Capital is not something I need to report to you."

Zhao Douan's spirit was invigorated as he realized this was a conversation between the Demon Path who was on his way to the Capital and the rebel leader Zhuang Xiaocheng.

Zhuang Xiaocheng's face was expressionless, his demeanor displeased, tinged with sarcasm as he said:

"State Preceptor? The Fake Emperor stripped you of that title a long time ago, and you died in that coup. Do you still think you are the State Preceptor of the Great Yu Dynasty? Now, there's only the dead Demon Path, Master Gu Huo."

What Master Gu... so your Taoist name is 'Gu Huo'... Zhao Douan couldn't help but feel powerless to critique.

Master Gu Huo said in a strangely eerie tone:

"Zhuang Xiaocheng, you'd best show some respect. When your Kuangfu Society needed my help, you did not have this attitude. Besides, although we barely count as allies, with the Fake Emperor as our common enemy, I am not a member of your Kuangfu Society, and certainly not your subordinate."

Zhuang Xiaocheng replied indifferently:

"That's for the best; we and your Five Demons Sect are not on the same path. It would be best for you to say the same to others as well."

Master Gu Huo scoffed:

"Hypocrisy! Scholars are truly hypocritical! You want to borrow our strength yet refuse to be associated with the Evil Path, hehe... Very well, I do not care about these things. I'm going to the Capital to kill a few people and I need manpower from your Kuangfu Society."

Zhuang Xiaocheng closed his eyes: "What are you willing to pay?"

"Heh heh, how about if I help you kill that Zhao Douan? Wouldn't that be enough? Quite fortuitously, after I devour that young man's memories, I will also be able to savor the taste of his intimate moments with Xu Zhenguan in dreams," the old Daoist revealed his greed through his eyes.

Zhuang Xiaocheng, brushing off his sleeves, left behind a piece of paper:

"Get lost."

The scene came to an abrupt end.

Immediately afterward, a brand-new scene unfolded before his eyes.

Zhao Douan saw "himself" walking on a mountain path; ahead seemed to be an uninhabited temple.

'He' went straight in, stopped behind a Buddhist shrine, and triggered a mechanism. The walls "clacked" open to reveal a passage.

Behind him was a secret chamber.

'He' walked into it, and what was most eye-catching on the wooden racks in front of him was a pile of gold, silver, and jade objects, along with a stack of books. On the ground, there were various uniquely-designed items that looked extraordinary at a glance.

In an open chest on the ground, there were bottles filled with pills, and on the walls hung armor and weapons of obviously exceptional quality.

This was clearly a treasure trove!

'He' approached a shelf, raised his hand to pick up a black statue as big as a palm, with a Raksasha-like fierce ugliness; then he took three purple candles.

Immediately turning around, he came to a wooden rack opposite and lifted a milky-white leaf that looked like jade from a Zitan box lined with silk.

The veins on the leaf were clear. It was unknown what species it was, but its material was actually similar to jade. As soon as it was taken out, it began to ripple with a radiant glow.

"With this protective charm, it can withstand one slash of the Divine Soul. With this, there's no fear of the Martial God lineage's inheritance," Master Gu Huo murmured, very fondly, carefully clutching the leaf in his palm.

The next second, the mysteriously precious leaf actually vanished and melted into his palm.

Using the bronze mirror opposite, Zhao Douan vaguely saw imaginary white veins of a leaf appear on Demon Path's brow, then immediately disappear.

Zhao Douan instantly had an epiphany:

"The previous scene was this Demon Path's trade with Zhuang Xiaocheng, the conversation before coming to the Capital."

"The latter part should also be from the same period, when the Demon Path was in some 'treasure trove', taking away the Magic Artifact and Suppressing Object, preparing before coming to the Capital."

"Why can I read these two segments of memories? Could it be because the time is relatively close? This Demon Path's impression is the deepest? Not sure…"

Unfortunately, just as he tried to continue scouring memories, the remaining memories of the Demon Path all collapsed and dissipated, turning into a pure and majestic 'Divine Soul Power', which he devoured and digested entirely.

...

"The lord is waking! The lord is about to wake up!"

Zhao Douan heard cries of joy next to his ear, he lifted his heavy eyelids, and the field of vision gradually cleared.

He was still leaning back in the carriage, faced with a series of familiar faces.

Qian Kerou, Yun Xi, Qing Niao, Shen Juan…

This 𝓬ontent is taken from fгeewebnovёl.co𝙢.

In the carriage, the Jinyi guards were overwhelmed with joy. After they had sent Ma Yan out, they immediately returned to the carriage and saw the sleeping Zhao Douan's eyelashes trembling, awakening.

"What's going on…"

Zhao Douan felt dizzy and uncomfortable as if his brow was being stretched tight. When he saw the bloodied and injured state of his three subordinates, he was stunned at first, then quickly guessed the situation:

"Did you guys fight with some people?"

The three smiled through their injuries, looking like they weren't too seriously hurt. They quickly recounted how they stormed into the courtyard, encountered rebels blocking their path, and how they rescued Ma Yan after Zhao Douan had fallen asleep.

"Since you are awake, lord, it seems Lord has dealt with the Demon Path," Qian Kerou said joyfully.

No… I burst him from the inside… Zhao Douan snorted inwardly.

He clearly remembered that in the dream, when he poured a vast amount of memories from his previous life into him in one fell swoop, Master Gu Huo had no power to resist and was immediately overpowered.

In haste, the old Taoist seemed to have attempted to summon a leaf to withstand it, but the massive tide of memory directly crushed the Daoist's Divine Soul, bursting it open.

And the residual Divine Soul Power left after the explosion was happily eaten and absorbed by Zhao Douan; that was why his head was throbbing now.

Right… that leaf… Zhao Douan's heart stirred, feeling something hard in his palm.

His face turned odd for a moment:

"A protective treasure used by the Demon Path? It can be transferred through a dream? Was it something he never got the chance to use, and now it has fallen into my hands?"

As thoughts whirled in his mind, Zhao Douan feigned a headache with his hand to his forehead, secretly slipping the jade leaf into the scroll space in his sleeve.

Trophy＋1

"Lord is back!"

At that moment, a figure rushed toward the carriage from outside, and Ma Yan stepped into the alley wrapped in a cloak, each hand carrying a person.

One was Wu Ling.

The other was the dead Master Gu Huo, with all his head veins burst open.

Ma Yan walked over, dropped the two people onto the ground, and the black statue and three extinguished candles rolled out of the corpse's body.

"Ah, it really is the Demon Path, exactly the same as in the portraits…"

"Lord has slain the Demon Path? Well done!"

A group of Jinyi guards showered him with flattery.

Inside the carriage, however, Yun Xi and Qing Niao, the two female prisoners, showed no expression, seemingly lost in thought.

Yet Ma Yan didn't care for the praises of the crowd at all. His burning gaze was fixed on the awakening Zhao Douan, filled with disbelief and a hint of anticipation as he asked:

"Was it you who killed him? In a dream?"

Zhao Douan answered weakly, with a nod: "It was me."

Then, as if thinking he should provide some explanation, he smiled slightly, pointed at the sky, and said:

"Your Majesty had once told me, if I found myself in a dream, to envision the Martial God to shatter it."

This was the excuse he had thought up in advance—after all, dead men tell no tales.

If there was a bug, he could blame it on the "Dragon Essence" inside his body—after all, with the support of the Dragon Essence, it was completely logical for him to imagine a Confucian, a Buddha, or Pei Niannu knocking off the State Preceptor's head with a stick, right?

Ma Yan took a deep breath, his eyes filled with a complex light.

And it was only then that the surrounding bunch of people came to their senses, all simultaneously stunned and staring at Zhao Douan in disbelief, speechless.