Dual Cultivation God Returns - Chapter 1053 - 1053: Depths of depravity

That evening, Chen Hui conducted the raid, leading his soldiers to clear out the Corrupt Path lair. At some point, everything looked so realistic, and the atmosphere of the place was so vividly lived in and active, he himself began to doubt whether he was really raiding an active lair of Corrupt Path cultivators.

The only thing that kept him grounded and not allowed him to believe in this trick was the fact that everything went exactly according to the scenario that Wu Long described to him in detail just a few hours ago.

When the dust was settled, the corpses of Corrupt Path practitioners were everywhere, with Chen Hui, slightly injured standing over the corpse of the leader with a bloodied spear in his hands, heavily breathing.

He knew that everything he saw now was no longer an illusion, and was shocked at the fact he stood, essentially, at a real scene of a fight entire months or rather almost half a year after it actually happened, and yet it looked like it was just concluded, like he really was the one who just fought and won it.

It was then that his final worries dissipated, as he was nervously anticipating the moment when the illusions cleared to find that it did not look as real, or that the atmosphere would still be somehow off, instead finding himself doubting if there was any illusion at all. And he knew, that if even he who knew the secret had such an effect, there was no way someone would doubt it.

The news instantly reached the Imperial Palace that went into an uproar.

Not only the Palace, but the entire Imperial Capital was woken up from the serenity of the evening slowly going into the night as it prepared to slumber, into a sudden frenzy.

Loud sounds of gongs reverberated across the entire lake and the plateau it was on, signaling that the city was now on lockdown as the only entry and exit point to the city – the sky ports – were shut close.

Chen Hui, and his closest adjutants, with armor and weapons still covered in blood, and light injuries left unattended, were summoned to the Emperor for an immediate audience as the entire upper echelon of high nobility flocked to the Palace.

Only the princes who still participated in the succession battle, the 3rd, 4th, and 8th of the 5 still in the race, with exception of the 5th prince and Wei Yuanjie who were away, were present in the main throne room. And of the princesses, Wei Zhenhui alone was allowed inside.

The foreign guests were absent as this was exclusively an internal meeting, and not even all levels of the Imperial Court were allowed into the room.

At the same time, Imperial Investigators were dispatched to the site, gasping at the depths of depravity they witnessed in the Corrupt Path lair. They were documenting everything and conducting investigations, some of them interviewing the soldiers who participated in the raid.

There were also investigators dispatched to investigate and interrogate the ‘evidence’, or the people that Chen Hui captured trying to make contact with the Corrupt Path lair ‘during his own personal investigation into the matter’ that lead to the raid.

The results of the investigation were conclusive, as there wasn’t much room to doubt the authenticity of all the evidence and the scene of the raid itself.

The audience lasted for several hours while the investigation went on, reportedly with heated conversations that only died down when the results of the investigation were announced.

Chen Hui left that audience hall with a noble title and a rank of General as Wu Long predicted.

No one noticed that one of Chen Hui’s adjutants was a bit more observant of his surroundings than usual, even if someone did notice his gaze, they simply wrote it off on the post-fighting excitement and adrenaline, as all other adjutants also were acting a bit off in various ways.

As the adjutants were dismissed, they started going off in various directions, and the one who was a bit more observant was the only one who followed behind Chen Hui, or rather, another one with the exact same face appeared amid them, and went off like all others while the one that was in the throne room with Chen Hui became invisible to others.

“D-does that really work?”, Chen Hui asked when no one else was around as he walked along the corridor toward his quarters. He was ordered to rest today even from the duties of protecting the princess who would be assigned the Emperor’s personal guards for this night.

“Of course it does, I told you, he saw and experienced the exact same scene as his colleagues, I just took his place in real life”, the appearance of the adjutant began to turn smoky and vague, as wisps of mysterious white mist shed off of him to reveal Wu Long, “You saw him go off without even suspecting anything, right? It was like he was always there throughout the whole thing”

“Haa~ I don’t even know with all your tricks…”, Chen Hui shook his head, and then turned to Wu Long, “Why did you need to do this anyway? Weren’t you not that interested in the Emperor to begin with? I thought you were unusually busy today, but you suddenly have time for the ‘Imperial Court farce’ as you once called it…”

“I was in a hurry, yes, but now I’m not”, Wu Long chuckled, as having set the Spatial Node with Song Lingfei in the secret basement of the mansion they bought, he was no longer worried about needing to suddenly travel away from here without leaving a quick way back, adding with shaking head, “Keep up with the news, will you?”

“Wha-…”, Chen Hui’s jaw drop at this shamelessness, how would he know why Wu Long’s priorities shift.

Meanwhile, Wu Long proceeded to answer his earlier question.

“I wasn’t there for the Emperor or the Imperial Court… though it turned out more interesting that I thought. I wanted to take a look at the Empress and some other nobles around directly with my own eyes. And I’d say this was more fruitful than I even anticipated”, Wu Long made a pondering expression, tracing his chin.

“You… you’re…”, Chen Hui’s eyes widened as he gulped, as blasphemous thoughts about Wu Long’s goal in seeing the Empress appeared in his head, especially with her slightly older looks of around 50 years old and his looks of about 20. Not to mention Wu Long’s friendship with Wei Yuanjie.

Wu Long first turned a questioning, confused look at him, not knowing what he was so suddenly flabbergasted about, and then his expression turned deadpan, “Haa~ you and your depraved thoughts and dirty mind~”

“Wha-? You’re the woman heart-killer, enemy of men, handsome Dual Cultivator with a lot of women and a suave mood toward those things! I’m just following the logic! And I’m the one wrong?! T-This is the first time I said anything even remotely of the sort! Why am I the one with the mind in the gutter?”

Wu Long shook his head with a look of lament at Chen Hui’s depravity, “Tsk tsk tsk, you disappoint me, my friend. I expected a more pure heart and mind from you”

“Y-You are the one who-…!”, Chen Hui remembered how Wu Long gave him advice on Dual Cultivation, lecturing him on its importance in the relationship between a man and woman when he and the princess weren’t even in a proper relationship yet, and yet lecturing him about pure heart and mind. But before he could properly formulate those thoughts, he saw Wu Long’s figure start to disappear into a cloud of mist, “Hey! Hey get back here!!! You can’t leave now! You have to let me reply!”

“We’ll talk more tomorrow. Good work and congratulations on your promotion. I’ll leave you to ponder on the depths of depravity your mind reached for tonight”, Wu Long’s voice resounded like an echo in his ears, leaving Chen Hui to frantically gesture out his frustration in an empty corridor.