I transmigrated to ancient times and became a king with a title equal to mine.

The man seemed startled and asked in a deep voice, "Where is Lu Yuan?"

"Lord Lu has another mission and should be in Lishui City at the moment."

The man waved his hand and said, "Arrest him!" "My lord, I'll say it again, we are the Imperial Guards under Lord Lu's command. I hope you won't cause any trouble, otherwise you will be responsible for any problems that arise."

Wang Hai sternly warned the man, who blinked and said, "The Imperial Guards are the King's personal guards. How could they possibly be here protecting the demoted Prince of the South? Arrest them!"

Wang Hai drew his sword with a clang and shouted, "Protect the Southern King!"

The other nine men also drew their weapons and roared in unison, "The Emperor's grace is boundless; let us bravely fight the enemy!"

With a whoosh, ten people lunged forward.

This imposing aura startled the more than forty members of the Imperial Guard.

Startled, Wang Hai and his men seized the initiative, sweeping down their swords and injuring six of their opponents.

"Huh?" The minister who called himself Jinwuwei felt his scalp tingle. Just as he was stunned, Wang Hai kicked a guard away, leaped behind him, and with a whoosh, stabbed the man in the lower back.

The man reacted quickly, but he was still seriously injured.

"Brothers, the King of the South has rebelled! Let's rid the country of these traitors and kill them all!"

Under the man's shouts, the forty-odd men he brought gradually regained their footing.

Inside the carriage, Long Bin saw that Wang Hai and his men had only six men protecting him, yet they were not intimidated at all. They fought against more than forty enemies with only six men, growing stronger with each battle. Long Bin couldn't help but exclaim: "The Imperial Guards of history were indeed extraordinary. I have witnessed it today."

The two groups of Imperial Guards clashed fiercely, fighting for half an hour.

Seeing that Wang Hai was seriously injured, Long Bin lifted the curtain of the car and said in a deep voice, "Stop!"

The voice wasn't loud, but it was delivered with immense internal force, causing everyone's eardrums to ache, and both sides stopped instantly.

Through the battle between the two armies, it became clear that these people were all highly skilled. No wonder the Zhengyangmen disciples who tried to intercept them failed; it turned out that they were all top-tier imperial guards.

Empress Xiao has been kind to me, yet she has committed a vicious four-pronged attack, and now there's the imperial envoy who's rushing here.

It seems my reign as the King of the South has come to an end.

Seeing Long Bin get off the carriage, the man laughed and said, "Long Bin, we've finally caught you."

Ji Fangkui rebuked in a deep voice, "How dare you be so disrespectful in front of the Prince of the South?"

"The Prince of the South?" The man snorted. "He might have been yesterday, but after seeing this imperial envoy, he's nothing."

"Your humble servant Long Bin receives the imperial decree!"

The man pulled a golden imperial edict from his sleeve and shouted.

Ji Fangkui sneered, "Don't try to fool me. Tao Chun has already been arrested by Lishui Prefecture for impersonating an imperial envoy. And here you are again?"

The man stared coldly at Ji Fangkui and asked sharply, "Do you want your entire family executed?"

"I'll kill you, you damn imperial envoy, first!" Ji Fangkui lunged forward, but was stopped by Long Bin.

"I am right here. Read the imperial edict."

Long Bin stepped forward, and the man was about to order him to kneel and receive the imperial edict, but seeing the imposing presence of the Southern King, who exuded a murderous aura, he was so frightened that he had no choice but to unfold the edict and read aloud: "By the grace of Heaven, the King decrees: The Southern King Long Bin has colluded with foreign powers and falsely reported the war situation, committing the crimes of deceiving the King, treason, disloyalty, and filial impiety. He is hereby punished for all these crimes, stripped of his title of Southern King, demoted to a commoner, and sentenced to immediate execution! This is hereby declared!"

"..."

Ji Fangkui, Wang Hai, and their men were all stunned.

The man glanced coldly at the Imperial Guards and said to Long Bin, "I'm giving you the chance to commit suicide because you're a prince. Do it yourself and preserve your dignity."

"Are you sure you're the real imperial envoy?" Long Bin asked calmly.

With a clang, the other party drew the sword wrapped in red cloth. A flash of golden light, and everyone recognized it as the imperial sword, the king's personal sword.

Long Bin nodded and said, "The sword is real, but the imperial edict is fake. I directly suspect that Consort Xiao obtained this sword by any means necessary."

"You...?" The man trembled, and suddenly his vision blurred. With a jolt, the Shangfang sword in his hand was already in Long Bin's hand.

However, Long Bin seemed to make no move and remained standing in the same spot.

"You, you're actually a fifth-grade Grandmaster?" The man's face turned a deep purplish-red, and he began to tremble. He knew that if the Southern King had killed him just now, it would have been as easy as taking candy from a baby.

“You now have three choices,” Long Bin said with a sinister face. “The first choice is for me to kill you; the second choice is to hand you over to the imperial envoy who will be arriving soon; the third choice is to tell me everything you know, and I will let you return to the capital.”

"I am an imperial envoy sent by Empress Xiao. Do you dare to kill me?" the man asked arrogantly.

Upon hearing this, Long Bin's eyes blazed with fury. In a flash, the man's ear fell to the ground, and blood began to ooze out a moment later.

Everyone present was stunned. How could someone slice off someone's ear with a single sword stroke?

When people stared blankly at the arrogant man, he realized something was wrong. His left ear felt cold, and when he reached out to touch it, ah...? His ear was gone, and blood was gushing out.

He was no longer invincible, because pain and fear struck him at the same time.

Long Bin asked coldly, "Which path do you choose?"

After struggling for a while, the man said, "You can hand me over to the imperial envoy."

He believed that no one in the Great Xia Kingdom would dare to offend the Empress.

However, his wishful thinking backfired.

He had just chosen the second path when Ma Gui interjected, "You deserve to die for falsely conveying the imperial edict; you can't choose either one."

The man turned around and saw Ma Gui, a fifth-rank official, and couldn't help but feel contempt for him. But when he saw another group of people arriving in a dusty and grimy state, he trembled with fear.

"Lord Lan?"

Only then did Long Bin realize that his father-in-law had arrived, and he immediately stepped forward and said, "Father-in-law!"

Lan Tianpeng reached out to stop him, his face serious and businesslike, and said in a deep voice, "Today I am an imperial envoy, here on behalf of the Emperor to inspect Lishui and investigate the matter of someone accusing you."

Immediately afterwards, Lan Tianpeng read out the imperial edict.

Long Bin and others paid their respects to the Imperial Envoy.

Lan Tianpeng showed him the materials that someone had reported on Long Bin in front of everyone.

After reading the materials, Long Bin returned them with a calm expression, which greatly surprised the officials from Kyoto.

Lan Tianpeng was uneasy. If Long Bin really committed a crime, he, as his father-in-law, would be implicated. Seeing the young man's relaxed and harmless appearance, the father-in-law became even angrier.

Lan Tianpeng asked in a deep voice, "After reading it, what are your thoughts? Is there anything you want to say?"

Long Bin replied, "I have no feelings, and nothing to say."

Lan Tianpeng was furious when he heard Lan Tianpeng's answer to his question.

"Long Bin, I am asking you this on behalf of His Majesty, and this is how you answer?"

“Even if the king himself were standing right here, I would still give him the same answer. Do you know? Before you even arrived here, I had already received two groups of imperial envoys, each with a royal decree, each wanting to kill me. How do you expect me to answer you?”