Chapter Thirty-Two: Conflict

In truth, before his rebirth, when Lan Yi first entered the Artificial Divine Realm 1909 trial, he had already shared a brief fate with Felia.

To him, all of it was ancient history now.

Back then, in order to avenge the poisoned Huo Yuanjia, during this era where surveillance and communication were extremely primitive, Lan Yi launched a frenzied assassination campaign against the Dongyang people, especially the key figures of the chamber of commerce and the military who orchestrated everything from behind the scenes.

Though the assassinations succeeded, they sparked a massive citywide manhunt in retaliation.

During several brushes with death, Lan Yi was saved by Felia’s daughter, Scotty, a young lady with a fondness for chivalrous outlaws. She hid him within the home of the Sindhu president. What followed was an explicit tale not fit for retelling in detail—servant and lady, servant and mistress, passionate interludes in the bath, day and night blending together; the story could easily stretch for another three thousand words.

What stood out particularly was Felia’s intelligence and competence, her decisiveness and initiative—rare virtues for a woman of that era.

Looking back on it now, Lan Yi still found it rather amusing. Who among us, in our youth, hasn’t done a few outrageous and intoxicating things?

“Master Immortal, if you wish, I can go fetch Madam Felia right now,” Zhao Sikong spoke up, standing quietly in the shadows. Unless he made his presence known, it was nearly impossible to notice him. As Lan Yi’s shadow, he was adept at reading moods and judging the situation.

With Zhao Sikong’s spiritual might, he could spirit someone away without a trace.

“No need. In order to kill me, in another hour, her husband will drive her here himself,” Lan Yi replied, pausing to sigh with resignation.

“Along with her, they’ll be bringing a dozen or so wildly unrealistic assassination plots. Even if I stood there and let them try, I doubt any would succeed. Perhaps I ought to let that president believe I’m about to indulge in an affair with his wife in the office, and see if a naval cannon can blow me to pieces.”

That ragtag group was truly absurd.

There was no need for Felia to leak information, nor for Liu Baiyuan and the others to eavesdrop. The moment their plans were finalized, that very night, the group either directly or indirectly reported the assassination attempt to the Warrior Syndicate themselves.

Clearly, there were few true fools among them. It only appeared as if everyone was acting foolishly together, when in fact, only a handful were genuinely stupid. The rest were all scheming to sell out the idiots for a good price.

As for those foreigners who had witnessed Lan Yi’s terrifying power and kept their wits about them—what did a cuckold’s humiliation matter?

Even if it meant avenging a father’s death, they would now swallow it with a smile.

“Master Immortal, there’s no need to risk yourself. Should any ironclads approach, Geng Liangchen and I will seize them for you,” Zhao Sikong urged, not wishing to see Lan Yi take unnecessary risks.

He did not know the full extent of Lan Yi’s power, but it was clear that, given the sacred duty entrusted to him—the revival and glory of Xinghan—no one could be sacrificed except the Master Immortal himself.

Besides, what were a few ironclads to them?

For martial artists who could run over the waves by sheer force of will, whose spiritual power ignored iron armor, as long as the enemy didn’t try to escape, boarding and capturing the ships was a certainty.

Moreover, they too possessed ironclads: the Qing Dynasty’s Yangtze Fleet, which had surrendered under Geng Liangchen’s “friendly persuasion.” These ships would fare poorly in a direct artillery duel with the western fleets, but if used to ferry martial artists close enough, the task would be almost effortless.

At that very moment, the ironclads that had defected were already on the move—carrying the martial generals Huo Yuanjia and Geng Liangchen, searching for the invading western fleet making its way south.

Those foolish enemies were hardly deserving of Lan Yi’s personal intervention.

Lan Yi had not intended to act himself. The indignation from being publicly berated by the court had yet to subside; the southern factions, now entrenched in self-preservation, still required a purge. His original plan was to oversee operations today, wipe out the insubordinate punitive fleet, and then head north.

But Felia’s secret letter had changed his mind.

She was right. In his current position, having a western woman interview him and create publicity would be far more effective with the Qing authorities—who suffered from a widespread fear of foreigners—than his own blustering but ultimately restrained punitive measures.

After all, Lan Yi was a Xinghan man.

He could not truly allow an uncontrollable massacre. If he did, the riverine civilizations of this world would have no future. As the highest-level spiritual practitioner of such a civilization, Lan Yi could be apocalyptic and methodical in his killings, but he still upheld certain principles for the sake of civilization’s integrity.

If half the nation stubbornly refused to become Xinghan, and in the face of the Warrior Syndicate’s brutal tactics, fully sided with the foreigners, then the coming northern expedition would be an endless quagmire.

Leveraging Felia and other foreign journalists to build his own reputation thus became the optimal solution.

After all, the great powers were not of one mind. If his publicity succeeded, even if the pig in the dragon robe wanted to sell him out, the great powers—after weighing their interests—would likely deem the Far East, beyond their reach, to be the domain of this newly rising Divine Emperor.

“Go make preparations for the farce to come,” Lan Yi instructed Zhao Sikong.

“At your command, Master Immortal,” Zhao Sikong replied respectfully, bowing as he faded into the shadowy corner.

Moments later, Lan Yi, who seemed to be sitting in a stupor, had blue-and-white lotus patterns slowly bloom in his eyes, and his black hair instantly lengthened, turning white in a windless flutter. In mere seconds, all these anomalies vanished, but his face became deathly pale—so drained that he almost coughed up blood.

With the nurturing power of the spiritual furnace, the splitting pain in his head eased slightly.

“As expected, there’s no shortcut with Manifestation.”

“Even by forcibly condensing a heartscape with past experience and insight, I can’t fool my body’s innate resistance, untempered by genuine martial cultivation.”

“Truly, Daoist arts and martial arts are fundamentally at odds.”

Daoist arts rely on reason, while martial arts defy it.

During the Qi Refining stage, Lan Yi could cheat, using spiritual energy to force his body into the most perfect state of cultivation.

But from the Divine Training stage onward, shortcuts became impossible.

With the Self Aspect and Human Aspect, he could still explain progress through Daoist theory. But from Manifestation onward, once one began to interfere with reality, and tried to rely on Daoist knowledge, the result was that the Manifestation lost its spirit and became an external demon that would turn against him.

For Lan Yi, still at the Life Refining Forest stage, such backlash manifested as a loss of mental control—he could no longer keep himself from self-harm as his mind tore itself apart.

Lan Yi realized that, as a reborn cultivator, the first barrier he faced in pursuing both Daoist and martial paths was resolving the conflict between their underlying concepts. This barrier should not be fatal to someone reborn, for there were many ways to overcome it.

And that was interesting.

“This also means, after the first Artificial Divine Realm, my old friends’ cultivation would at best be at the Life Refining Forest stage in Daoism, and the Human Aspect in martial arts, wouldn’t it?”