Chapter 911 - Nine-Layer Illusion, Glorified! (1/2)
Chapter 911: Nine-Layer Illusion, Glorified!
The battle for the throne concluded amid the confusion of the majority. First Prince Ling Yue’s enthronement was closely followed by the national burial for the former Great Emperor, both taking an entire week in total. During this period, the new emperor, alongside all the royal members, kept guard around the casket.
After all that, everyone still questioned: What actually happened that night?!
They only saw the result, which was that the five princes reached an agreement and the four great clans came together for the first time. The supposedly bloody night ended with only a few people getting bruised.
This baffled everyone, including many of those involved. Even the princes and the members of the four great clans only knew one thing: They had been trapped in an illusion. As for who did it and how they did it, no one had a clue.
However, many people had a guess…
“It’s not easy to find you,” muttered Ling Yue, interrupting Bai Xiaofei’s cozy time as he sat on a mountain overlooking the Imperial City in the company of Ni Xue and Tan Xin.
“Shouldn’t you be very busy? Why come all the way here?” Tan Xin turned around with a resentful glare.
It wasn’t just Ling Yue, she’d show this expression to anyone who disturbed them.
“Don’t talk nonsense, he came as a friend, not an emperor.” Bai Xiaofei slightly smacked Tan Xin on the head.
Ni Xue stood up and said, “Lil’ Sis Xin’er, let’s go shopping. The shops will be closing soon.”
Compared with Tan Xin, Ni Xue was more rational. Tan Xin didn’t make any further fuss and followed Ni Xue after giving Ling Yue a cold snort.
“Thank you for regarding me as a friend.” Ling Yue sat down next to Bai Xiaofei and looked into the distance. He stretched his body and sighed with melancholy. “After all my time in Ethereal, I’ve never known there’s such a beautiful place.”
“That’s why Xin’er said you are a busy man. But now that Ethereal is no longer so troublesome, you will have many opportunities to enjoy such scenery in the future.” Bai Xiaofei smiled and lay back on the grass.
Seeing this, Ling Yue also lay down. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but didn’t know where to start.
“Just say what you want to say. We are friends, and I’m a person who loves to explain things to people.” Bai Xiaofei didn’t need to look at Ling Yue to imagine his troubled expression.
“What happened that night?” Ling Yue cut right to the chase. There were more than just one or two people who wanted to know the answer to this question. He was just a representative.
“It’s a long story!” Bai Xiaofei let out a long sigh, making Ling Yue nervous.
“Why? Is something hard to say?”
“Not really, I’m just thinking about where to start.”
Hearing this, Ling Yue’s expression relaxed into a smile. “Just tell me from the start. I’m here to listen, and I have plenty of time today.”
“In that case, it starts with the human puppet matter.” Bai Xiaofei took a deep breath and continued, “When I was investigating the source of the human puppets, by chance I got to talk with their creator, who revealed that someone wanted to use human puppets to intervene in the throne competition. Soon after that, I was called into the palace by the Great Emperor. He told me many things before asking me to solve the conflict among the four clans, find a suitable heir among you, and thoroughly deal with the human puppet matter.”
As Ling Yue listened, he repeatedly gulped. No one else in the whole Ethereal would dare to accept all these three requests, every single one of them required putting one’s life at risk!
“So I became the overseer of the Imperial Guard. Only after fixing it did I start investigating the human puppet matter.”
“After getting to know you, I concluded that none of you were the kind of people who would take advantage of such taboo things as human puppets. At the same time, I learned that the relationship between the four great clans was not as rigid as I thought. However, both of those weren’t solid enough for me to start from.”
“So, I spent a long time looking into the history of Ethereal and found a very interesting matter, a huge turning point that was neither you pacifying civil strife, nor the stabilizing of the Holy Puppetsmith Mountain and the Ethereal Merchant Group, but that a person went missing – Second Prince Ling Huang.”
“My intuition told me that I had found a breakthrough. Unfortunately, no matter what method I used, I couldn’t dig out any information on him. What disappeared with this man was his life story, as if someone had erased everyone’s memories of him. However, that just made me more firmly believe in my gut that he was the mastermind behind the human puppet matter.”
“After that, I began to use my ability to monitor the imperial city and watched everything that happened within every corner of it with my own eyes. And I saw someone I had never seen before.”
Hearing up to this point, Ling Yue grew emotional. “You mean Ling Huang really returned?!”
Bai Xiaofei laughed. “Do you want me to finish first?”
This calmed Ling Yue down. He weakly replied, “Yes…”
“Fortunately, after nearly a week of observation, a special stranger came into my sights, obviously having a clear purpose as he arranged matters in the city. He thought he was being flawless, but he’d never have thought that I was always monitoring the entire city.”
“On the day of the competition, in order to prevent you guys from making any irreparable mistakes, I did something I never dared to think of.”
Saying this, Bai Xiaofei’s eyes shone brightly and his expression was proud. It was certainly an epic masterpiece!
“I cast illusions on all of you, and they synchronized into one big illusion! From the moment you started moving, you were already in five identical illusions, where everything else was the product of my illusions except for you five!”
Ling Yue was completely dumbstruck.
They had all realized that they were in an illusion, but no one dared to even think that it was five independent illusions.
“Wait! But in the battles, many people used puppet masters’ skills! Your illusions…”
“As long as it’s something I’ve seen, I can recreate. When I let the enemy approach you, you’d naturally use your skills. I would recreate those skills and release them through your fake bodies in the other illusions, easily fooling the real people in there,” Bai Xiaofei explained.
Ling Yue’s eyes bulged in astonishment. It wasn’t about how hard it was to understand, but about how Bai Xiaofei was able to control the battle within five illusions and the twenty armies in them all at once!
Is this… really something a human can do?!!
“Wait!” Ling Yue suddenly remembered something. “You not only pulled the five of us into illusions, but also the four clans!”
He thought the four clans suddenly became harmonious as a result of the five brothers joining forces, but then he recalled his father’s requests for Bai Xiaofei…
“Yep. Fortunately, they were divided into two parties, so I only needed to create two additional illusions. After they exhausted themselves fighting with illusions, I gave them a little guidance to wake them up. In fact, they all understood it and only needed an opportunity to reconcile,” explained Bai Xiaofei nonchalantly as if it only took a snap of his fingers.
“That’s right! What about the human puppets?! If this is all true, then the human puppets in the illusion, and Ling Huang…” Ling Yue urgently asked.
Bai Xiaofei nodded again.