After helplessly accepting the military order, Qianye dragged Song Zining to the side. “Why did you bring her here?”

The seventh young master replied with an innocent expression, “Wasn’t she already your aide-de-camp before this? What’s wrong with following an old superior? Don’t tell me you found a new flame and don’t like her anymore? She might not be excessively beautiful, but she’s still at an acceptable level. A person shouldn’t always judge people by their faces, how can you be like this?”

“Be serious!” Qianye cut short Song Zining’s lengthy discussion. “I’m already a vampire now, at least a half-vampire!”

Song Zining wasn’t moved. “So what? Not to mention a half-vampire like you, the military was even working with the Lightless Monarch Medanzo. As long as the profits are good enough, extrinsic characteristics aren’t important.”

Qianye remained silent for a moment and then laughed wryly. “I more or less understand, but… but some things, I’d rather not.”

“You… I really don’t know what to say to you.”

Qianye frowned. “What’s her ident.i.ty? Is it really appropriate for her to be here?”

“Well, it isn"t appropriate, but I’ll let you handle that. She’s already here, in any case, and it’s already too late to send her back. As for her ident.i.ty, I don’t know, either. Ask her yourself!”

Seeing Song Zining extricate himself entirely, Qianye was beside himself with anger. He said through gritted teeth, “I’m sending her back tomorrow!”

Song Zining pointed at the military order in Qianye’s hands and said meaningfully, “You think you can? You’ll be offending the Pointer Monarch if you do that. Think carefully now. Offending the military isn’t that big of an issue, but if you offend the Pointer Monarch, you can forget about keeping the Martyr’s Palace, first and foremost.”

“How can it be that serious?”

“It is that serious! In short, you must settle this matter with her, no matter what method you use. It’s best if you settle this in bed. That’s the only way you’ll have a sliver of hope to accomplish that outrageous Sacred-Mountain dream of yours.”

“Wait, this…”

Without waiting for Qianye to argue, Song Zining stuffed the words back into his throat. “This is the only method I can think of. Besides, what’s so bad about this? Just look at her more and you’ll find her attractive.”

Qianye heaved a long sigh, unable to further argue his case.

The initial feeling Ji Tianqing had given off was that of a pure, sweet young girl. She was on the prettier side of the spectrum but not outstandingly beautiful, the type that didn’t leave too deep of an impression.

Now that they were reunited...

Qianye could hardly remember how she looked, and this wasn’t normal. How could someone with the Eye of Truth forget someone’s appearance? And that of an ally, no less!

This kind of phenomenon proved that Ji Tianqing possessed some kind of extremely powerful secret art that could influence others secretly, preventing them from remembering her appearance.

It was just as Song Zining had said, she was already here and couldn’t be sent back. So, the only way was to build a good relations.h.i.+p. As for what whimsical notion had brought her to this accursed place, Song Zining had only one answer for him: willfulness.

While the two were busy whispering amongst themselves, Ji Tianqing had once again arrived near the Earth Dragon’s heart-engine. She also had a number of instruments in her hand and looked like she was about to disa.s.semble the machinery.

“Don’t move!” Shocked out of his wits, Qianye stepped in front of her and blocked the way. No one could save her if she were to activate the Pointer Monarch’s trap.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s dangerous, don’t mess around! The Pointer Monarch left a secret contraption here, I can’t save you if you activate it.”

Ji Tianqing didn’t seem to mind, though. “So it’s the Pointer Monarch’s trap. That makes things even easier. Rest a.s.sured, the old man’s power is useless against me, have you forgotten that I have this?”

With that, she waved the monarch’s personal seal in front of Qianye.

“Didn’t you steal that?”

Ji Tianqing pointed at the heart. “But it doesn’t know whether or not I stole it.”

“... Fine, as long as you feel it’s okay.” Qianye inhaled deeply.

“Of course it’s okay!” To Qianye’s great alarm, Ji Tianqing began knocking on the delicate components inside the engine. She then said, “There are several secret mechanisms inside this engine. You think those military people are saints? There are pre-set b.o.o.bytraps here, here, and here. And there’s a high-energy origin bomb hidden inside this part. Should your engine output reach a certain level one day, then congratulations! You’ll see the most brilliant fireworks go off!”

Qianye was astonished. “How can this be?”

“This is only natural. People from the military would naturally remove these defensive setups. You robbed this engine from them, so you have no idea. Speaking of which, they should’ve left an installation manual, right?”

Qianye nodded with a wooden expression, almost as though he couldn’t believe things.

“That’s correct then, they’re actually afraid you wouldn’t install the engine on the earth dragon’s heart.”

At this point, Qianye came to a new level of realization regarding the schemes of the imperial military. If it wasn’t for Ji Tianqing’s arrival, the day he completed the basic outfitting of the Martyr’s Palace and s.h.i.+fted it into full output mode would be the day of its destruction.

Ji Tianqing was already beginning to remove some of the components at this point. “Stop gazing and stop the engine. You’re not going to make me work while it’s running, are you?”

Responding to Qianye’s will, the Earth Dragon’s heart slowly stopped beating and the engine grew dark as its intricate parts stopped operating.

Ji Tianqing moved as swift as the wind, immediately removing several components before opening up the internal compartment. From within, she carefully fished out a fist-sized silver drum and tossed it to Qianye. “This is for you!”

Qianye was greatly astonished because he could actually sense a violent force brewing inside this argent cylinder. Once ignited, the resultant blast would rival that of hundreds of origin grenades—it would even injure a divine champion.

He immediately sank into a horse-stance. His hand shot out at lightning speed but turned gentle at the final juncture, supporting the cylinder with an ephemeral application of force.

Qianye heaved a sigh of relief as the tube landed in his hand. This brief ordeal had actually left him drenched in cold sweat.

His instincts told him that he himself would survive if this thing were to explode, but Song Zining would probably be done for and the crew would be wiped out. Ji Tianqing possessed a mysterious background and superior abilities, so she might leave with her life, but it definitely wasn’t going to feel good.

How could she toss such a dangerous thing without a warning?

Carrying this dangerous cylinder, Qianye could neither toss it nor put it down anywhere. In the end, he put it away in Andruil’s Mysterious Realm.

Ji Tianqing’s eyes lit up. “Such high-grade spatial equipment! As expected of the awesome Sire Qianye, the fierce character who had embarra.s.sed the imperial military, one of the empire’s twin rising stars, and candidate for the most handsome man in the younger generation! You really do have some good stuff. What else do you have? Let me see.”

Qianye refused calmly. “That’s all, nothing else.”

“So stingy, it’s not like I’ll rob you.” Ji Tianqing rolled her eyes at him and then went back to fixing the engine parts. Finally, she latched the cover back on and patted her hands. “All done, now you can use her any way you want.”

Qianye issued a mental command to start up the engine and sighed in relief to find the engine still operating normally. This bomb was a hidden danger. Now that it had been removed, Qianye felt exceptionally relaxed.

Ji Tianqing jumped down from the engine and arrived beside Qianye, smiling. “Mission accomplished, Sire Qianye. When do you plan to start fighting?”

“Fighting?”

“Of course! The neutral lands wouldn’t be the neutral lands without all the fighting. I finally managed to run away, no, I mean… get dispatched to this place. We have to grasp this time to wage a couple of wars! War, I say!”

Qianye felt a wave of distress was.h.i.+ng over him. Who would’ve thought this fellow was a warmonger? In order to stop her from throwing more military orders at him, Qianye could only look at Song Zining for help.

This time, however, the seventh young master ran completely counter to him. “We’ll fight! Of course, we have to fight! Let’s take down that Fatty Ji’s Southern Blue first. I see that we’re not too far off from that place. It’s a great location to build a fort.”

“Taking a city right off the bat?! I like it! How many men do we have?”

“You, me, and him. Three of us,” Song Zining replied.

Ji Tianqing’s smile froze up. She glared fiercely at the seventh young master, saying, “Are you trying to fool me?”

Song Zining replied, “Of course not! If you guys aren’t going, then I’ll go alone.”

Qianye felt a deep headache. He dragged Song Zining back and said helplessly, “Don’t be rash, okay? Ji Rui is already obedient now, and there are a lot of benefits we can milk from that fatty. Besides, you’re not his match.”

Song Zining sneered. “I don’t necessarily need to attack in order to let him know my power. This fellow is clearly taking advantage of your softheartedness, attacking time and again. Too bad for him, Song Zining is also in the neutral lands now. That means there’s no more leeway for him to play his two-faced games. He will either submit or we’ll wipe him out sooner or later.”

“This…” Qianye felt that there was no need to go that far, but he had just been criticized for being soft-hearted and the seventh young master was quite agitated now. So, it wasn’t appropriate for him to say too much.

Thinking back, it would seem Song Zining had never before acted so thunderously because of his matters.

“So what exactly are we going to do first?” Ji Tianqing seemed to be in more of a rush compared to Song Zining.

It looked like things were about to go south if this battle-hungry madman wasn’t given anything to do. Qianye quickly recalled the expansion plan he had gone over with Song Zining before. “Let’s set up a mercenary corps first. Having a corps in the outside world will allow us to do some different things.”

“Mercenary corps? Good idea! Let’s do that.” Ji Tianqing’s tone made it sound like she was the commander and Qianye was the aide.

Qianye collected his thoughts. “Let’s find a base of operations and construct some basic defenses. Money isn’t a problem for the time being, but outfitting the hired guns will take some planning. We’ll also need people like Ji Rui to cooperate so that we can recruit people in Southern Blue…”

Qianye hadn’t even finished speaking when he was cut short by Ji Tianqing. “Man, that’s so troublesome, we’ll just rob one!”