Heretic Apothecary Genius

Chapter 52: Warring Dragon Punches Someone in the Hall of Supreme Harmony

In the Great Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Jade Capital Royal Palace, today’s morning court assembly was especially lively.

Right at the start, there were already many censors who rushed forward to accuse the Ren family head one after another of snatching others’ property, and the quantity was a startling one. He bought properties valued at a few million jade coins at a price of a few tens of thousands. Such was an act that disregarded the laws of the country and shook the fundamental principles of a country’s administration.

He had to be punished severely to be made an example of. Otherwise, there would be huge implications.

By their mouths, Ren Jie was a tyrant, an unpardonably wicked person. Such an incident had never existed in the thousand years since the country was founded, snatching others’ assets was something that a prosperous dynasty absolutely shouldn’t be seeing.

At this point, Fang Tianen stepped forward guiltily, expressing that he was also involved in this matter. In order to save his beloved daughter, he was forced to help Ren Jie seize Chang Le Casino. He took the initiative to ask to be punished by His Majesty. Of course, he also said that he would compensate Chang Le Casino and had prepared several dozens of the Fang family’s properties to allow them to continue doing business and so on.

Moreover, he even stated that he’d already finished negotiating with Chang Laosi of Chang Le Casino. This matter had started because of Fang Qi, the Fang family would remain responsible till the end.

All at once, with regards to the family head of the Ren family doing this sort of thing, people dug out other issues. After all, the Ren family had been in power for so many years, there were lots of things accumulated.

The Ren family line of people did not have a mainstay and it hadn’t been made clear what had been going on with this matter. Their lack of reaction and Fang Tianen’s concealed spurring further galvanized some people’s arrogance.

Hence, a matter that initially wasn’t much snowballed. Gradually, many agitated people started mentioning other matters. The emperor’s expression grew increasingly grim, and some even thought the emperor was about to flare up and punish the Ren family. Hence, they went on even more zealously.

However, Fang Tianen and his group of people also realized that something was amiss. If the Ren family’s people had no reaction regarding the attacks on Ren Jie, it would make sense. After all, there were many incidents of Ren Jie fooling around. Besides, in their opinion, he had not truly established his dignity as the family head. However, things were gradually becoming messy. Several fellows who didn’t know the limits or had risen sharply in recent years actually used Ren Tianxing in their arguments. And at this point, the Ren people still didn’t have much reaction, which was a little abnormal.

“That Ren Tianxing did as he wished since the early years, it isn’t only today that the Ren family has disregarded the laws of the country, except it’s become increasingly exaggerated, even snatching of others’ properties is something they do now. It seems it’s like father, like son in the Ren family. If they continue this way, the Ren family will be even fiercer than bandits…” Li Yan, the son of Prince Anyang, Li Zheng, was also of the royal bloodline and had just joined the court as an official two years ago. Back then, his father was responsible for supervising military rations. When he secretly deducted the rations, he was almost beaten to death by Ren Tianxing. And Ren Tianxing even connived with his subordinates. In the end, Prince Anyang was blinded in one eye and crippled, and he could only return to his fief. Li Yan was young and aggressive, seeing that the crowd was roused, he’d thought it was time to punish the Ren family and also brought out some issues that he’d gathered in secret.

However, he didn’t realize that the more he went on, the weirder the atmosphere became. Subsequently, even Fang Tianen, who started this issue at the start, was looking at him oddly.

“Bam…” Just as Li Yan was getting into it, a person suddenly bolted out from the front of the military officers. General Zhan, Zhan Tianlong, who had always stood right at the front and never uttered a word during court assemblies, suddenly stepped out, his perfected combat skill of traveling far with just a step wonderfully used. With a punch, Li Yan flew out.

“Spat… you… how dare you hit me. His Majesty, Royal Uncle, seek justice for me…” Li Yan spurted out a mouthful of blood from the hit, several teeth falling out as he roared in disbelief.

He was a true descendant of the royals and was also a second-class marquis right now. Moreover, he was his father’s eldest son. If he was lucky in the future, he even had the chance to become a prince. This was the Great Hall of Supreme Harmony, how dare he hit him.

“That’s letting you off lightly. If you dare to continue speaking bad of Marshal I will kill you…” Zhan Tianlong was like a raging huge dragon. Going forth, he added another kick, scolding while kicking. “Is the Marshal someone you can call by his name? So what if I hit you? Your father’s eye was also blasted by me back then. I hit your father in those days too…”

Zhan Tianlong, nicknamed Warring Dragon 1 On the battlefield, he was as ferocious as a massive warring dragon, Ren Tianxing’s capable assistant. Although he only had an official post in the military with little to do, once he flared up, he was unstoppable. His killing intent as he charged into enemy lines made the legs of many ministers that had never been on the battlefield turn into jelly. What was he going to do?

“I beat you too. How dare you speak about the Marshal…

“F*ck, I’ve long seen this bastard as an eyesore, he actually dared to speak badly of the Marshal.

“Who do you think you are, daring to call the Marshal a bandit. Without the Marshal, how could you be alive and speaking here.”

Never mind that Zhan Tianlong had struck, a dozen people rushed out from amongst the military officials. Although they did not use their true energy, their punches and kicks became more forceful. Who were they? People who had fought hundreds of battles. Even if they didn’t use their divine power, dharma spells or their combat skills, their strikes weren’t something that someone like Li Yan could handle.

Not just the military officials, several of the city officials had also rushed out. Back in those days, Zhan Tianlong was the second-ranked general under Ren Tianxing. Together with Sixth Lord of the Ren family, they had assisted Ren Tianxing in creating a monumental legend. Today, the Ren people all watched Zhan Tianlong, once he moved, especially since this Li Yan had often been speaking about the Ren family in usual times, they’d held back for a long time.

Li Yan shrieked repeatedly, wailing continuously, in disbelief that this bunch of people were mad, that they actually dared to beat him up in the Great Hall of Supreme Harmony.

Fang Tianen, Wen Yong, Gao Zhanyuan and others looked at Li Yan without making a sound. They thought to themselves, Your father back then was a true prince. Other than escorting rations in transportation, he also had the responsibility of supervising troops, but even so, he was almost killed. Most importantly, of all people, why did you have to idly push everything onto Ren Tianxing. This is the Great Hall of Supreme Harmony, if you dare to say this to the armed forces, countless people will rip you apart even if it means having their entire clans slaughtered.

Although Ren Tianxing had disappeared for many years, still no one dared to ignore the strength of his influence. Including some actions of the emperor and the big family clans, they were all gradual and tentative, step by step. But look at this rascal.

Eventually, seeing that Li Yan was half-dead from the beating and Zhan Tianlong and others cooled down, the emperor stood up with a furious holler. He reprimanded Zhan Tianlong and the others, then gave everyone a dressing down, ordered Fang Tianen to investigate this matter clearly again, then left with a flick of his sleeves.

“Em… peror… Royal Uncle…” Li Yan laid there, unable to believe that this was the outcome. The rest shook their heads while leaving the Great Hall of Supreme Harmony, thinking, Didn’t you ask for a beating. The emperor had wanted to confer Ren Tianxing the title of Great General King that was equivalent to his own. How did Ren Tianxing get those two Death Exemption Jade Tablets? Back when the emperor was a prince, the number of times Ren Tianxing saved the emperor wasn’t less than ten, not to mention his subsequent work in fighting for the country and expanding its territory.

If he allowed others to speak bad of Ren Tianxing, even the emperor would have no way to explain it, not to mention Ren Tianxing’s unmatched reverence in the military. If Li Yan spoke badly about Ren Tianxing today and the emperor supported his words, the consequences would be unpredictable. This wasn’t a usual matter.

You silly child, you aren’t even a prince. And you didn’t learn from your father’s lesson back in those days. Who should they beat if not you?

Hence, a storm that was originally targeted at Ren Jie ended just like that because of Li Yan being beaten up by a group of civil and military officials as a result of him shooting off his mouth. At least, it was so for now.

Although nothing came out from the morning court assembly, this incident was spread through the Jade Capital soon afterward. Under someone’s intentional drive, this also became the most popular topic in Jade Capital, and there were all sorts of sayings.

And the Ren family, having such a dandy family head, became a joke and a worry.

If pestering doesn’t work in wooing a pretty lady, poison her. Then, when threatening to use the yin yang mediation doesn’t work, make use of the Fang family to seize other people’s property. What was worse was, he was also extremely ruthless towards his own family clan member, viciously beating up a servant at the gates…

And with the interpretations of people with motives, the Ren family members led by Zhan Tianlong did not utter a word when the current Ren family was accused and attacked and instead, exploded when their old family head Ren Tianxing was spoken badly of and recklessly beat up Li Yan, the son of Prince Anyang, in the Great Hall of Supreme Harmony. This was seen as an utter disappointment of the Ren family people towards the Ren family head.

All sorts of interpretations, all sorts of rumors, all sorts of gossips pushed the Ren family, Ren Jie, who was already known for being a dandy, to become the focus of Jade Capital once again. At the same time, it also worsened the Ren family’s already soiled reputation.

And Ren Jie himself was standing in the pavilion in his courtyard, watching a thin and small figure working hard in cultivation in the courtyard. It wasn’t just Ren Jie, at present, even other members of the personal guards who had been cultivating had all stopped.

Tong Qiang, Tie Ta and others hadn’t paid too much attention to this small child at first. They wondered from where the family head had brought such a delicate, pretty little boy. They had thought he was here to play.

No one expected that he would actually participate in the training with the personal guards, and the more they didn’t expect him to already be at the eighth level of Body Refinement Realm at his young age. However, it seemed like he had never underwent such strict, scary cultivation before, as these were some training exercises that Ren Jie had renewed by combining some memories from his previous life, not to mention that the personal guards were all really crazy with their cultivation now.

Even if those old veterans in the military at the ninth level or at the perfected Body Refinement Realm were to come, they definitely wouldn’t be able to handle more than two hours of it, let alone a child as young as him.

In the end, this kiddo that appeared thin and weak to them actually trained all the way with them. He never stopped even when they took a break. Finally, he stunned Tong Qiang, Tie Ta, Mouse, and all the personal guards.

Was this still a child that wasn’t even ten years old?

Everyone looked towards Ren Jie, thinking to themselves, Never mind if the family head has harsh and scary demands for the personal guards and himself, why did he bring such an adorable child and made him undergo such a terrifying training. This is way too… inhumane.

At this point, Ren Jie was really helpless too. After bringing Sun Rui back, Ren Jie had given orders to find a few sets of pretty clothes suitable for her age. Given the size of the Ren family, the family clan had everything.

However, this little Sun Rui simply refused to wear them. As she wouldn’t speak, Ren Jie had spent a good half a day’s effort, guessing and questioning before he understood her. She’d heard the sounds of the personal guards training outside and wanted to wear a child’s clothes to go join their training. Whether it was her refusal to speak or present abnormality, Ren Jie was unable to understand it all. After all, she’d just experienced such an incident, it was rather lucky that she did not breakdown or go mad.

As for her unwillingness to talk and her other reactions, Ren Jie had originally planned to take it slow. Now, seeing how insistent she was, Ren Jie went along and had someone find some boy clothes for her. Although she looked very delicate, once she put on a boy’s clothing, she looked like an extremely handsome little boy. At first, Ren Jie had wanted to let her rest and even return the jade essence pearl to the bag by her chest that was embroidered with beautiful flowers.

However, her reaction once she saw the jade essence pearl was very odd. Hence, Ren Jie could only put it away and allow her to come out to train with the personal guards. He had thought she wouldn’t be able to keep up with the high-intensity training or would give up once she was tired. In the end, in the past several hours, even the personal guards were starting to take breaks but she was still training.

She really wanted to become strong, but that Yan Zhenfei had already been killed by him. Could it be that that massacre gave her such an idea, or was she using a training method that was close to self-mutilation to suppress the fear that the bloody exterminating massacre brought?

All of a sudden, Ren Jie was reminded of Sun Rui’s reaction when he’d brought out the jade essence pearl and she saw the mark that the smiley old man had said belonged to the Broken Souls organization. He sat up abruptly. It couldn’t be that in her young heart, she wanted to take revenge, revenge on the entire Broken Souls organization?

F*ck!

Ren Jie felt even more troubled now. When faced with Sun Rui, this odd child who had become closed off after suffering a blow, Ren Jie felt that it gave him more of a headache than facing the Fang family, Gao family and those elders of the Ren family. The Broken Souls organization was something that even the smiley old man was troubled by, it was clearly uncommon. Never mind, regardless of what this little girl was thinking, he’d have her recovered before thinking of anything else.

Just then, Fatty returned from outside and also brought news of what was happening outside.

“F*ck, Meal Ticket Big Brother, are you abusing a child!” Upon seeing Sun Rui training, Fatty was shocked. He looked towards Ren Jie fearfully. That gaze, how could you bring yourself to act on such an adorable child.

“I really would’ve forgotten if you didn’t mention it. Several times in the past, you were told to start training, but in the end, you got away. It seems like you’ve gotten fatter and fatter recently. Look, you aren’t even as strong as a child, isn’t it embarrassing? Do you want really to advance in the examination a month later? It’s just nice that you’re back, you can train with her.”

Ren Jie ignored Fatty’s howls and called Tong Qiang over, really getting him to have someone make sure Fatty participate in the training. At the same time, he got Tong Qiang to send out several invitations for the Fang family head, Fang Tianen, Wen family head, Wen Yong, Gao family head, Gao Zhanyuan, respectively, and one of them was even for the emperor.

The contents of the invitations were all the same: The Ren Family Head is going to take in disciples tonight, you are invited to come over to be a witness.

Footnotes:

Chinese characters read ‘Zhan Long’, the same characters taken from his name.