Chapter 746: Dad, I Want to Advance!

A child's possessiveness could be terrifying.

The Demon Child's possessiveness was even stronger.

And if he wanted to... he could abandon reason completely.

Over the past two years, as Zheng Fan gradually grew stronger, that tendency had been suppressed somewhat.

Or perhaps the appearance of Tian Tian had simply drawn away some of his attention.

At minimum... he was no longer like before, when he relied on being a soul-form that did not need food or drink and simply sealed himself inside the stone.

But at a crucial moment... a jar of vinegar could still overturn without warning.

After possession, Zheng Fan's body and the strength contained within it were overlaid with the Demon Child's power.

That produced a certain degree of amplification.

But the effect was not especially large.

More precisely... it was nowhere near as dramatic as during those earliest possessions.

Because the Demon Child now lagged two Grades behind.

Gather everything together, squeeze out what could be used, and Zheng Fan's combat strength could still reach somewhere above the middle of Fifth Grade.

The woman had just fallen to Fourth Grade.

There remained one full Grade of difference between them.

The gap in strength was still large.

But it was not so large that fighting became impossible.

Otherwise, at the beginning, Marquis Zheng himself could never have blocked that continuous series of attacks using nothing more than Wuya.

Fighting depended first on raw strength.

If raw strength was not enough... then you relied on experience.

In a battle of life and death... both mattered.

Neither could be missing.

Zheng Fan's hand seized the woman's wrist.

A sinister smile hung at the corner of his mouth.

Right now... the body belonged to the Demon Child.

The woman's gaze hardened.

She forcibly twisted her wrist and released power.

Instead of resisting, Zheng Fan moved closer.

Water churned around them.

But his body moved against the current, borrowing the woman's own force to press directly against her.

The woman immediately changed grips.

Both hands clamped onto Zheng Fan's wrist.

At the same time, her legs locked around Zheng Fan's thighs.

But Zheng Fan had never intended to attack with his hands or legs.

He used his head.

And smashed it directly into the woman's chest!

BANG!

Even though she had blood and qi protecting her body, the strike still made her chest tighten and brought sweetness into her throat.

More importantly... being attacked in that particular place by a man inevitably produced a flash of humiliation and fury.

Even though she understood perfectly well that in a life-and-death battle, no method or target could truly be considered improper.

Reason was reason.

Emotion was emotion.

The next instant... the woman drove both legs downward.

Her body surged upward... dragging Zheng Fan, who was still tangled against her, along with it.

BANG!

The ice overhead shattered.

Woman and Marquis burst back above the Wang River together.

Once they left the water... both sides could finally use their full methods.

The woman seized one of Zheng Fan's wrists with both hands.

She twisted.

Crack!

The wrist dislocated instantly.

Zheng Fan used that dislocated arm as an axis.

His waist exploded with force.

His entire body twisted first... then rotated.

One leg swept across and smashed into the woman's head.

BANG!

The woman's vision spun.

Fortunately, she had the physique of a Martial Artist.

She had not had time to block... but she had been able to convert blood and qi into protective force around her head.

Immediately afterward... the leg Zheng Fan had used to kick her dislocated as well.

Crack!

"..." the woman.

That leg bent like a fishing hook.

It hooked around the woman's neck.

Zheng Fan's body spun another half-circle around her.

At the same time, his remaining good hand slid to his boot.

A dagger appeared.

He stabbed straight toward the woman's throat.

The dagger... had been forged by Third Master of Marquis Pingxi Residence.

Blood-Sealing poison.

One cut could end a life.

Buzz!

A wave of blood and qi erupted from the woman's body.

With it came a cloud of blood mist.

The sheer force slammed directly into Zheng Fan.

This was the crudest possible eruption of blood and qi.

Its principle was simple: expel as much of your own blood and qi as possible in the shortest time, even though doing so was horribly inefficient.

Any cultivator with blood and qi could use the method.

When Xue San had first explained it years ago, he had compared it to one of those moves in a video game that spent your own HP to attack.

Except this move... really did spend blood.

If the woman had not been forced into a corner... she would never have chosen this.

Zheng Fan did not resist at all.

He allowed the wave of force to blast him away.

While flying backward, his body began dispersing the impact.

As he landed, the muscles across his back curved into an arc so he would not smash through the ice again.

Instead, he slid along the surface, shedding as much force as possible.

At last... his body stopped.

Crack!

Crack!

Two sharp sounds came one after another.

The dislocated wrist and leg were forced back into place.

Zheng Fan stood.

Tilted his neck to one side.

A pity.

The dagger had failed to pierce the woman's throat.

If it had... the battle would already be over.

From the counterattack beneath the river to the fighting above the ice... every one of the woman's reactions had been within the Demon Child's calculations.

To the Demon Child, the task was simple: use his father's low-level account... to defeat this woman's higher-level one.

For now... he had failed.

But his own body... no.

His father's body... had suffered only limited additional injuries.

The woman's condition, however... was far worse.

She had already forcibly fallen a Grade.

Now she had been driven into explosively releasing her blood and qi.

Even if she still stood within Fourth Grade... the emptiness inside her reserves was enormous.

Rich experience.

A merciless offense.

Perfect exploitation of every condition available.

And on top of that... his father had already used Wuya to destroy the woman's weapon, her whip.

Only then had the Demon Child been given the chance to force a close-quarters fight.

The Sword Saint had once learned from the Prince of Jingnan how to calculate while fighting.

In this respect... the Demon Child was absolutely no worse.

If anything... he went even farther.

Because the body he was using was not his own.

As long as he did not play with it until it stopped breathing... crippled?

Ruined?

Whatever.

In fact... he might even have been somewhat pleased if his father spent the rest of his life paralyzed in bed.

That way... he could stop wandering around everywhere, flirting and finding new stepmothers for his own son.

On the other side... the woman landed on one knee.

Her brightly patterned clothes had become a single color.

Red.

She gritted her teeth.

Shock and fury twisted her face.

After that previous exchange... she had genuinely begun to fear the Marquis of Great Yan.

This temperament.

This level of calculation.

No wonder people called him the new generation's God of War.

On Zheng Fan's side... his chest distorted several times.

He struck it with his palm again and again, forcing several broken ribs back into position.

Not healed.

Simply returned to places where they would interfere less with movement.

When he finished...

Zheng Fan lowered his body.

Both hands hovered only a fraction above the ice.

His head lifted.

He looked like a spider crouching close to the ground.

The woman did not attack immediately.

And Zheng Fan... did not turn and run.

The strength gap between them... had narrowed through the previous exchange.

From the Demon Child's point of view... why run?

He was afraid of Tian Wujing.

There was no shame in that.

Tian Wujing was simply stronger.

Which of the other Demon Kings, in their current states, would not fear Tian Wujing?

But this woman?

This opponent... he had a chance to beat.

Heh.

Then why run?

Fighting was exciting.

Fun.

Interesting.

And then... another thought rose.

If he lost... and accidentally got his own father killed... those other six bastards might die with him.

Just thinking about it... made the Demon Child feel... so happy.

Zheng Fan smiled.

The curve of his mouth stretched too wide.

The skin at the corner actually began to split.

But to the Demon Child... that was the only way a smile could truly feel satisfying.

And he still did not forget to say:

"Those little bastards of yours think they're worthy of entering my family?"

At that moment...

Marquis Zheng's own consciousness finally began awakening from the haze.

He and the Demon Child shared the same field of vision.

But that was all.

Zheng Fan remembered that in the past, the Demon Child had sometimes lent him strength while leaving control of the body to him.

This time...

Marquis Zheng had no intention of taking over.

Why refuse a professional carry when one was available?

Still... inside his mind...

Marquis Zheng began calling out.

Son.

Advance.

Son.

Advance.

This assassination had not been some exquisitely designed scheme.

It had begun one day when a neighbor dropped by and casually said to Wei You:

"I heard Marquis Pingxi has come to Shangchuan County."

Wei You heard it.

That very night... he began wiping down the Lilong Spear that had gathered dust for years.

His wife saw him.

Fed the two older children.

Nursed the youngest.

Then asked:

"You want to go kill him?"

Wei You nodded.

His gaze drifted unconsciously toward their children.

The woman grew impatient.

"If you're going to kill him, then kill him. Stop acting like an old woman. I'll go with you."

And then... they found one more person.

Kong Shanyang.

Kong Shanyang was a Jin man.

His involvement was actually an accident.

He had come here after receiving an invitation from Xu Wenzu.

Of course, that did not mean Fatty Xu had suddenly lost his mind and decided to have Zheng Fan assassinated.

Nor did it mean Xu Wenzu was secretly behind the attack.

Xu Wenzu had invited Kong Shanyang because he intended to establish a new branch of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau in Yingdu to observe the seasons, weather, and natural disasters.

Essentially... a branch of Yanjing's Imperial Astronomical Bureau.

The Yan court governed Jin as its own territory.

Naturally, it wanted talented Jin people to enter government service.

That included men like Kong Shanyang.

So Kong Shanyang came.

And then... before Wei You made his move, he went to Yingdu and met Kong Shanyang.

He said directly:

"I'm going to kill Marquis Pingxi. Will you help?"

Kong Shanyang, who was already waiting to receive his official robes... hesitated for a moment.

Then nodded.

Agreed.

Everything about the entire affair... had been improvised.

Ma the Cripple and his men had been recruited on impulse too.

Partly to throw a stone ahead and test the road.

Partly because one of Ma the Cripple's subordinates had once made lewd remarks toward Wei You's wife in their village... so he might as well send them to their deaths along the way.

No one truly believed a river bandit like Ma the Cripple could gain any advantage over the Sword Saint.

An improvised team.

An improvised decision to assassinate Marquis Pingxi.

How was the Secret Intelligence Department supposed to trace every thread and discover it in advance?

And they had chosen the Wang River besides.

But precisely because everything had been improvised... the plan could never be perfectly airtight.

The woman's first exchange with the Demon Child had exposed one weakness.

The second... was something Marquis Zheng understood clearly.

Given the woman's present condition... if the Demon Child advanced now, their side's strength would rise substantially again.

If he could advance two Grades... then steady happiness would no longer be far away.

But the Demon Child gave no response to Marquis Zheng's call.

When the Demon Child first fell one Grade behind, the Demon Kings and Zheng Fan himself had assumed he was simply throwing a childish tantrum.

But when he fell two Grades behind... it became difficult not to wonder.

How could he tolerate it?

Or... what purpose did he have in suppressing himself this way?

On the night they killed Zhao Jiulang, Marquis Zheng had spent quite a while trying to have a heart-to-heart talk with his son.

The Demon Child still had not advanced.

He was genuinely holding himself back.

And now... it was the same.

The woman moved again.

At the same time... the Demon Child, holding the dagger horizontally, moved too.

The woman's blood and qi erupted again.

No restraint.

No hesitation.

She was burning her own foundation directly in the clash.

At this moment, only one thought remained in her head:

Kill this Yan Marquis!

The Demon Child's choice was even simpler.

Just before they collided, Zheng Fan's foot plunged directly into a crack in the ice he had noticed during the charge.

The Demon Child's vision differed from that of ordinary people.

His world was gray and white.

It lacked much color... but that also stripped away many illusions.

The surrounding environment was actually clearer through his "eyes."

That included... the thickness of the ice.

BANG!

One instant before the woman reached him...

Zheng Fan smashed through the ice again.

"AH!"

The woman roared in fury.

One fist slammed down against the surface.

The ice exploded.

A huge cloud of spray burst upward.

But none of that force could injure Zheng Fan below.

Water itself... was an excellent shield.

Beneath the surface...

Zheng Fan spread both arms.

He did not flee.

He simply swam around below her, as though inviting:

Come on.

Jump down again if you dare.

After punching once, the woman did not continue venting her anger.

Her body had never fully recovered after the premature birth of her youngest child.

Today's repeated injuries had worsened everything.

She could no longer squander strength recklessly.

The woman turned and walked toward one side.

Below...

Zheng Fan continued swimming under the ice.

A hunter needed patience.

The woman walked some distance west.

Then reached out.

One of the leather whips abandoned there flew back into her hand.

She lowered her head.

Looked again at Zheng Fan beneath the ice.

The Demon Child did not need to worry about holding his breath.

More precisely... he could place Zheng Fan's body into a state almost like turtle breathing.

He did not need to worry about losing consciousness.

His father was unconscious.

He was not.

"Rise!"

The woman's whip moved as if alive.

It smashed through the ice and plunged beneath the water.

Zheng Fan moved at the same instant.

His body surged upward.

The whip twisted like a python.

In the blink of an eye, it wrapped around Zheng Fan's waist.

Then dragged him upward.

BANG!

The ice shattered again.

Zheng Fan was hauled out like a fish on a line.

This time... the woman deliberately kept him far away.

She would not give him another chance to enter close range.

The whip stretched to its limit.

Then... tightened around his body.

She poured strength into it.

From a long distance away... even if doing so meant she would never return to Third Grade... she intended to strangle Zheng Fan to death in midair.

It felt almost like flying a kite.

Flesh.

Bone.

Everything began compressing violently.

A great expert could appear surprisingly fragile before a properly organized formation of cavalry.

But when that expert faced one man alone... and could pour all of her power onto that one body... the result was something else entirely.

Yet Zheng Fan's expression did not change.

Even that exaggerated, signature smile remained fixed on his face.

Blood began leaking from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.

The crushing force had already begun damaging his internal organs.

The woman continued tightening the whip.

She would not give the Yan Marquis another chance.

Not one!

Then... a red stone suddenly appeared on the whip.

Like a tiny bell sliding down the line of a kite... it moved from above toward her.

The woman remembered that red stone perfectly well.

Earlier, after she had beaten the Marquis down and was about to take his life... that strange artifact had activated and triggered everything that followed.

More terrifying still... a dagger was lodged against the stone.

In truth... the stone was not moving especially fast.

Nothing beyond the normal speed of something sliding down a taut line.

But because of how unnatural the stone had already proven itself to be... and because it now looked almost like a tiny assassin carrying a dagger straight toward her... the woman's pupils widened.

Very few people in this world understood the relationship between the Demon Child and Zheng Fan.

Even Old Tian in the past... even the Sword Saint now... knew only that Zheng Fan seemed to possess some spirit companion through a strange encounter.

Nothing more.

The woman's gaze tightened.

Then... she had no choice but to release part of her strength.

One arm swung violently toward the red stone.

BANG!

Stone and dagger were smashed away together.

But the stone... was only an empty nest.

Fortunately, it had been carved from the core of a meteorite and polished by Xue San.

The Demon Child's little home did not shatter.

The instant the woman's strength slackened... the Demon Child, still controlling Zheng Fan's body, seized it.

More precisely... he had been waiting for exactly this opening.

One wrist caught the whip.

His body began spinning.

Like someone rolling himself inside a blanket... he followed the line of the whip downward.

The woman saw what he was doing and refused to let Zheng Fan close the distance again.

The whip snapped sideways.

But at that moment...

Zheng Fan suddenly opened his mouth.

A shrill howl erupted.

Within the sound... was a direct spiritual attack.

Another technique he had deliberately kept hidden until now.

The woman had never imagined the Marquis of Yan possessed so many strange methods.

No.

These were not techniques a Martial Artist ought to possess.

They were more like abilities belonging to ghosts and monsters.

The attack struck her mind.

For one brief instant... her consciousness slipped.

That instant... was the opening.

The opportunity.

Her whip failed to knock Zheng Fan away in time.

He appeared directly in front of her again.

And in his hand... was another dagger.

After all... a man had two boots.

Of course he could hide two daggers!

The woman had no other defense left.

Drive the dagger into her body... and he won.

But precisely then... the clothing across the woman's chest suddenly split apart.

A red whip shot out.

It wrapped directly around Zheng Fan's neck.

Like a hand gripping his throat... it lifted him into the air.

In one instant... every calculation... every setup... every carefully created opening... collapsed.

The confusion vanished from the woman's eyes.

What replaced it... was relief.

She had won.

She truly had not expected this Yan Marquis to be so difficult.

So troublesome.

Even... so terrifying.

Zheng Fan seized the red cord around his neck with both hands.

He tried cutting it with the dagger.

For some reason, the blade simply slid across it.

There was no purchase.

It would not cut.

Seeing this, the woman said:

"I braided this whip from the umbilical cords of my children."

BANG!

Marquis Zheng was flung to the ground.

The woman's foot... came down onto his chest.

The red whip remained wound around his neck.

At this moment... she could crush the chest of Great Yan's Marquis with one step.

Or stamp his skull apart.

And she truly intended to.

But there was still one thing she wanted to say.

Just as Marquis Zheng, when killing Zhao Jiulang in the capital, had deliberately dragged the Chancellor along for a while and watched the dawn appear with him... it was not that villains died because they talked too much.

Rather... after defeating a hated opponent, almost no one could resist the satisfaction of saying a few final words over someone already doomed to die.

Besides... their fight had carried them farther away from the Sword Saint's battlefield.

It was safe enough.

And most importantly... what Zheng Fan... no.

What the Demon Child had said earlier... had enraged her.

She had been holding it in.

If she did not spit the words back... if she did not repay the insult... she would not feel satisfied.

Her husband wanted to kill Marquis Pingxi because doing so would make his heart feel right.

She had come to help her husband kill because if he felt right, then she would too.

So... she wanted satisfaction.

"You actually called my children bastards? Heh-heh-heh. Let me tell you something. My father formally betrothed me to my senior brother. I am his lawfully wedded wife, married through proper matchmakers and rites. My children have names. They have a father. They have a mother. Bastards? Heh. Your child is the damned short-lived little bastard!"

"..." Demon Child.

"Hoo..."

The woman released a long breath.

Comfortable.

She had cursed him back.

Now her heart felt smooth.

She lifted her foot.

Prepared to send Great Yan's illustrious Marquis Pingxi down to the Yellow Springs.

And at that moment... a child's voice suddenly sounded deep inside Zheng Fan's heart.

Suppressed.

Low.

And carrying... a kind of true fury so close to boiling over that even Zheng Fan, his own father, had never heard anything like it before.

Yet at the same time... the voice was terrifyingly calm.

"Dad... I want to advance."

[End of Chapter 746]