SF 4

Even a formation master has to eat, sleep, and relieve himself.

The senior official knew this brat he had just captured was not someone easy to handle. He did not dare let his guard down and kept him suppressed with formation pressure at all times. He even tied him up tightly with rope, terrified he might try something sneaky again.

Though Ling Xun couldn’t speak, he could still sob. He shed tears along the way with a mournful expression, as if he had just lost his father, and it made the official extremely uncomfortable.

“If you don’t shut up, I’ll seal off all five of your senses!”

After a day’s journey, they finally found an inn to rest, but peace was still out of reach. The senior official was growing irritable from exhaustion.

Ling Xun, however, remained undeterred, stubbornly working to make eye contact and communicate with the man.

The official had just about had enough. In a moment of exasperation, he lifted the voice seal. Before Ling Xun could even speak, he warned, “No more shouting. If you pull that again, you’ll never speak again.”

Ling Xun behaved obediently and uttered just two words. “Need to pee.”

“Then piss your pants,” the man snapped.

Ling Xun thought it over and nodded. “Alright.”

The moment his brows relaxed and his qi sank down to his dantian, the official’s eye twitched. He rushed forward to stop him and ran around the room looking for a chamber pot, horrified that this lunatic might actually do it and stink the place up.

“Hurry up. I can’t hold it. It’s coming out…”

The official finally found a pot and shoved it in front of Ling Xun. “There. Go.”

Ling Xun glanced down at his lower half, then gave a slight jerk of his chin. The meaning was obvious. He was all tied up and couldn’t undo his pants.

The man had no choice but to help. He had never undressed another man before, and the whole thing felt deeply awkward. To make matters worse, the moment he touched Ling Xun’s waistband, the guy started twisting and squirming, moaning and gasping.

Their commotion summoned the inn’s errand boy.

The poor boy opened the door to find one man taking off another man’s pants, who was bound hand and foot. The sight nearly blinded him.

The senior official broke out in a cold sweat and was about to explain, but Ling Xun turned his head, lazily glanced over, and drawled, “What are you looking at? Never seen a man do a man? Get lost.”

The boy covered his eyes and scrambled out.

The official stood there stunned. He stammered, “Do… do you even have any shame?”

Ling Xun looked pleased, like he’d just been complimented. He thrust his hips a little and said flirtatiously, “Forget what you said before, big brother? From Yizhou to Jingzhou, every yamen gate has had me in their bed. What’s so shameful about it?”

That little bump must have set the official off. He snapped. With a snarl, he kicked Ling Xun aside, undid the ropes, lifted the limb-sealing formation, and growled, “Take your own damn pants off!”

Ling Xun stretched his wrists with a smile, unhurriedly removing his pants right in front of him.

Did this man have no shame at all?

The official could not bear to look and turned away. But the moment his eyes left Ling Xun, he felt a jolt of panic. He quickly turned back, and sure enough, the man was gone. The window stood wide open. The only thing left in the room was a clean chamber pot.

That damned slippery fox!

Furious, the official leapt straight out the window, vowing to skin Ling Xun alive if he caught him again. But when he landed and looked around, he was stunned to find Ling Xun standing right below, beside an old tree, tall and elegant in the moonlight
His expression soft, gaze wistful, completely absorbed in the night’s beauty.

“Ah, it’s been so long since I’ve had a moment to breathe. What a beautiful moonlit night.”

If one hadn’t just witnessed his vulgar display earlier, it would be impossible to believe that this poetic, ethereal man before them was the same scoundrel who had pissed in front of someone a moment ago. What a waste of that face.

The official charged forward with a slap, ready to grab him again.

Ling Xun dodged left and right. “Come on, senior brother, you said you’d let me enjoy myself. Don’t tell me you’re going back on your word?”

Everything about that sentence felt wrong. The official’s forehead pulsed with rage, and at last, Ling Xun’s shamelessness crossed the line. He waved a hand and instantly sealed off all five of his senses.

Peace and quiet at last.

The senior official slung the limp, unconscious Ling Xun over his shoulder. He turned his head for a glance and, from the bottom of his heart, thought that Feng Wuge really did look like an immortal when he wasn’t talking. If he could stay silent for the rest of his life, he might even pass for a living Buddha. If not for the bounty he could fetch, the official might have been tempted to keep him unconscious forever. Letting out a disgruntled huff, he returned to the inn and dumped him on the floor, finally ready for a decent night’s sleep.

Ling Xun had always known there was no escaping this senior official. Still, before leaving Yizhou, he had to leave behind some kind of clue. He couldn’t just vanish into thin air. Being watched day and night, it was nearly impossible to act without being caught. Left with no choice, he had resorted to drastic measures.

Sold off to the brothel at the age of four, raised among women, and later straying onto a crooked path, Ling Xun lacked many skills but could read people well. Those without much guile only needed to pass in front of him a few times before he could figure out their nature. That was how he had managed to hit the sore spot, earning himself a brief but precious lapse in surveillance and using that to leave a coded sign outside the inn.

Of course, a man like this senior official was no fool. Pulling off a stunt like that meant paying the price. Ling Xun had been prepared for retaliation, but he hadn’t expected it to be so brutal. When he finally woke again, more than half a month had passed. He was already in the capital and had been brought to the outer residence of Chief Eunuch, Qin Chao.

“You’re awake?”

It wasn’t the senior official who unlocked his senses, but another man in scholar’s robes, clearly another formation master.

“Clean yourself up, eat, and wait for an audience with the lord.”

The man looked at him like one might look at a stray dog waiting to be tamed. He tossed him a set of clothes and left. Compared to the last one, this man’s attitude was far colder.

Ling Xun slowly pulled the clothes off his face and glanced around the opulent guest quarters. The ever-present smile he wore, so often used to mask his thoughts, had vanished entirely.

Chief Eunuch Of The Inner Court …

What a joke. Since when did some old castrate who wiped the emperor’s ass dare to call himself a lord?

The traitorous eunuch who could die ten thousand times and still not be forgiven now wanted to recruit him and make him work under him?

Ling Xun found it almost laughable. These days, even formation masters could be enlisted by the court. What else was impossible?

Once, the title of formation master had meant power and prestige, especially in the early days of the Great Xia dynasty. Now, it was something people fled from like the plague.

When the Great Xia dynasty was first established, many of its founding generals were masters of formation arts. They had aided the Founding Emperor in conquering the land, earning great military merit. The Founding Emperor knew full well how he had come to power, and even more so, how terrifying the strength of formation masters could be. Once his reign was secure, he grew increasingly wary of those comrades who possessed such supernatural skills.

Under this cold-blooded emperor’s meticulous planning, the art of formations could not withstand the calculations of men. One by one, those meritorious founding officials met the fate of rabbits and hunting dogs, useful in war, discarded in peace. Eventually, the emperor even issued a decree to exterminate all formation masters, commanding every region to shut down all formation academies and burn every book on the subject. The art of formations was to be erased from the world. Anyone caught sheltering or hiding one would be punished with the extermination of nine generations.

Formation masters became outcasts. The moment their identity was exposed, they would face utter annihilation.

For generations, the emperors of Great Xia upheld this policy of ruthless suppression. After centuries, only a handful of formation masters remained. Even those rare individuals with exceptional innate talent, able to awaken their potential without formal training, were a far cry from the legendary predecessors who once shook the world.

Fourteen years ago, there was a major dispute within the court over whether to abolish or preserve the formation masters. That very struggle set off a purge soaked in blood, reshaping the political hierarchy through ruthless means.

If not for that incident, Ling Xun would still be Ling Xun, and not Feng Wuge.

But there are no ifs in this world. Ling Xun had become Feng Wuge, and he could only be Feng Wuge now.

He briefly lost himself in thought, but quickly buried all emotion behind his usual mask, and began to worry about his own prospects instead.

If he remembered correctly, Qin Chao, the current Chief of the Inner Court, had once been one of the loudest voices calling for the extermination of formation masters. So what exactly was he up to now, secretly gathering them from among the common folk? He couldn’t possibly be collecting them all just to wipe them out in one fell swoop, could he?