"I am the old monk!" someone shouted from the crowd.
"Who is the old monk?!"
By this time, Yang Qinglan and Li Qianxia had already left the crowd, following the candies flying in the sky.
Walking through the streets and alleys, they saw candy fall into a courtyard. The two of them leaped up and landed lightly on the eaves like feathers, looking into the yard.
"Pah! What is this? It's not sweet at all."
In the courtyard, it seemed like a snow festival was taking place. The snow that Li Changzhou and Yang Qinglan had seen earlier was piled up into various shapes - palaces, houses, pedestrians, and carriages.
Upon closer inspection, this was part of the Capital. The little snowmen walking on the road were actually moving.
This was a map made of snow.
Hovering above the map was a young girl with white skin, golden blonde hair, and a pair of bright, expressive blue eyes. Around the girl floated candies of a dazzling blue hue.
"Bi!" Li Qianxia called out, her face full of surprise.
The girl looked up and said in a bland tone, "Oh, it's you guys. I saw two people following and was about to kill them."
Yang Qinglan glanced at the map, and under Bi, in the snowy landscape below, were two ant-sized snowmen standing on the eaves. By this deduction, their approach must have been clearly observed.
She became more alert. From Bi's behavior, it was evident that the players who could enter this instance were not easy to deal with.
"Bi, how did you end up in the Ming Dynasty?" Li Qianxia had already entered the yard.
"Don't step on my map!" Bi yelled.
Li Qianxia hadn't learned the Flying Spell yet, but her brother could "Step in the Air," and her Visualization of the "Roc" allowed her to fly early on.
She floated into the yard.
Bi carelessly tossed the half-eaten candy she was holding to her, then glanced behind her: "Where is my horse?"
"My brother is in the Imperial Palace. Bi, aren't you Russian? How come you ended up in Xia Country?" Li Qianxia caught the candy, tossed it into her mouth, and asked again.
"How would I know." Bi rolled her eyes, "Go call your brother. Tell him the Princess wants to ride him."
"It's no good." Li Qianxia feigned a sigh, "Now, not even you can ride, only Lan can."
Bi glanced at Yang Qinglan, not fond of this woman who had deceived her.
"Just you?" Yang Qinglan asked.
"Do you think I came here to play house? There are five more." As a princess, Bi had the best allocation of personnel, similar to the national team of Xia Country.
"Five? What is your mission?" Li Qianxia was both surprised and curious.
"You first." Bi, having been tricked and taken advantage of before, insisted.
"To become an Immortal through Tribulation." Li Qianxia repeated her mission.
"Ours is to kill the Jiajing Emperor before the sixteenth of the first lunar month."
Before the sixteenth of the first month, could it be related to the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth? What connection does killing the Jiajing Emperor have with becoming an immortal? Would the Dragon Vein disappear after his death? Yang Qinglan pondered.
"We might be enemies this time." Li Qianxia frowned as she came to this realization.
"You are doomed." Bi waved her hand nonchalantly, and took a sukhothai soft candy into her mouth, emitting a satisfied "mm-hmm" sound.
Li Qianxia turned her gaze toward Yang Qinglan, feeling a bit troubled.
Having dealt with the Black Card players attacking Kale Square, they needed to ensure they wouldn't lose this time.
"But—" Bi tossed a handful of sukhothai soft candies into her Storage Bag, and then tried a chew made from white sugar, milk, shortbread, and cheese.
She rolled the sugar in her mouth with her little tongue and continued, "If you can give me a reward better than the success of my mission, I might help you."
"A reward?" Li Qianxia pondered what she had.
It was hopeless; it seemed she had nothing.
The Game Coins were spent by her brother, the money belonged to her sister-in-law—Bi wasn't lacking in money.
Jade Pill? Bi would probably prefer to age a bit more, transitioning from a child to a full teenager.
"Like the Moon Base." Bi revealed a mischievously cute expression.
"How do you know about the Moon Base?" Li Qianxia asked, puzzled.
"Hmph, with the level of attention you get and your information security, I even know what you had for dinner."
The three really didn't care much, mainly because they had "Teleportation" and "Honey Pot World," so they seemed to do as they pleased.
"You should ask my brother about the Moon Base, oh, and you can ask her too!" Li Qianxia pulled Yang Qinglan in front of her, placing her hands on her slender shoulders, "It's mainly because she said so, my brother will absolutely listen."
"He doesn't listen to what you say?" Bi seemed to look down on Li Qianxia, she was doing too poorly, what family status? She thought she was very disappointing.
"Personality differences, I guess, I generally listen to my brother."
"I don't have the habit of commanding your brother either." Yang Qinglan gave her a look, then turned her gaze towards Bi, "Tonight you two meet and talk it out yourselves."
"Of course." Bi crossed her arms, "King to king, general to general, you guys aren't worthy to speak to this princess."
"You're so full of yourself." Li Qianxia immediately pinched her little nose.
Before Bi could retaliate, she spoke again, "Did you find any information?"
With her nose pinched, Bi spoke nasally, "There's a lot, you want to hear—" she slapped Li Qianxia's hand away, "Which ones do you want to hear?"
"Players?"
"How would I know if they are players?" Bi rolled her eyes, "I'll just tell you the experts' locations."
She raised her right hand slightly, and in the snowy scenery of the courtyard, a few ant-sized snowmen quickly grew larger.
In the model-like Capital, these snowmen were like giants, each movement they made collapsed the surrounding buildings, which were rebuilt again once the snow giants moved on.
"I only know the locations," Bi said.
The place with the most giants was the Forbidden City, where a cluster of huge figures piled up. Zijing City would get fixed and then collapse again, collapsing and then getting fixed again.
The rest of the giants were scattered around various parts of the Capital, also in significant numbers.
"Why are there different sizes?" Yang Qinglan asked.
"The bigger they are, the more dangerous." Bi ate another candy, her mouth wasn't the only sweet thing, even her voice sounded very sweet.
"Such a high-level feature?" Li Qianxia said enviously.
"Bought it for over ten thousand Game Coins, it can only do this, and still requires confirming identities on the site."
"...The Emperor of Russia will be overthrown sooner or later."
Yang Qinglan's eyes flowed over the snowy landscape, too many experts in the palace, the snow scene not large enough, a bunch of snow giants squeezed together, even knowing Li Changzhou and Turquoise Pool were together, it was hard to pinpoint their positions from this.
Giving up on finding Li Changzhou, Yang Qinglan took an overall look again.
Inside the Forbidden City, there were five notably taller snow figures, and of these five, two were even taller than the others.
Was one of them Li Changzhou, and the other Shao Yuanjie?
The gaze shifted away from the Forbidden City, there were also some experts scattered around the Capital, their exact locations quite clear.
"Tonight, after Changzhou arrives, we'll go to this place." Yang Qinglan pointed towards a solitary towering snow giant.
"I'm going too!" Bi, floating in the air, changed from "lying" to "standing," "Those five people are so annoying, they won't let me go anywhere, and they've caused me to fail the missions several times."
"You are a princess, of course, safety first, others can't even dream of safety," Li Qianxia laughed, feeling relieved.
She herself had experienced being attacked due to mission failures and did not want to cause Bi to fail because of her own actions, but hearing Bi's tone, it seemed failure had already become routine for her.
The main reason being, Bi had a Black Card, so even if a mission failed, she could still figure out the target Black Card player's location in advance, and then... a bunch of Russian experts would swoop in.
So to say, there are many factors to success, but birth ranks first.
Li Qianxia herself was also a beneficiary of her birth, if not for being Li Changzhou's sister, Kale Square wouldn't just be scared to incontinence that easily.
The three chatted for a while, sharing their experiences during this time, waiting for nightfall.
Inside the Forbidden City, Li Changzhou and Turquoise Pool were also racing against time, staying in the library without coming out, browsing through book after book, hoping to cram last-minute to increase their means to handle Cultivators.
At the same time, the news of the two of them taking the Jiajing Emperor and flying to the moon had spread.
If the situation were likened to a lake, at this moment, the water was already sloshingly beginning to surge, ready to turn into a towering wave at any moment, engulfing everything.
While the total population of 670,000 in the Capital, with 84,600 households in the inner city and 49,400 in the outer city, still immersed in the liveliness of the New Year, was unaware of the impending danger.