Start from Fulilian

"Um, big brothers..." The leading thug quickly went up to try to get closer, "We're just taking a walk. We ate a lot tonight, so we need to digest it."

The burglary was definitely a failure, but fortunately they didn't break into the house and there was still room for maneuver.

Without evidence, the guards couldn't do anything to them, but to be on the safe side, the leading thug gritted his teeth and decided to fight.

"Guards, thank you for your hard work on this night patrol. I just happened to find something and would you please take it to the lost and found office."

The gang leader took out all the money he had on him and wanted to stuff it into the guard's hand, but he didn't expect that the guard didn't even look at him directly. Instead, he slapped him in the face and sent him flying.

"You're talking nonsense! Don't insult my intelligence by saying such things in front of me."

Douglas sniffed the air and continued, "I smell the scent of crime from you. You dared to disobey Lord Ivan's orders and get those 20 gold coins!"

The gang leader covered his gradually reddening and swollen face with his hands and shouted in grievance, "It's a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding, we are really just passing by, absolutely true!"

But what he didn't expect was that the Jinyiwei were too lazy to listen to his nonsense and directly took action to capture these thugs, and even killed several who tried to escape.

The gang leader was splashed with blood and trembled on the ground, muttering, "You are killing innocent people indiscriminately. You have no evidence. We were really just taking a walk..."

"You still refuse to plead guilty?"

Douglas frowned, thinking that it was a bit troublesome to conduct overtime interrogation, and Ivan also gave him the power to act first and report later, so he made a throat-slitting gesture.

"Kill them all."

Anyway, these thugs are not good people. They sneaked into the strong man's residence in the middle of the night. Are they here to commit crimes or to bring warmth?

And as Lord Ivan had instructed in advance...even if no one came to take the 20 gold coins, he would still find some thugs in the city and kill them, and then frame them and hang them on the city wall.

Vine City is different from Suiye City. Most of the nearby villages have been destroyed by the massive attack of the demons, making it difficult to investigate corruption in tax collection. The only way to establish authority is to find another way.

"Ah, ah!"

The hooligans' dying cries woke up the nearby residents, who looked out the windows to see what was happening.

Douglas took the opportunity to shout, "These thugs tried to break into the home of the rewarded person during the day under the cover of night, but I caught them and killed them on the spot. Now everyone is safe, go to bed and rest!"

"Snapped."

"Snapped."

After seeing the gangsters with their heads and bodies separated, all the onlookers quickly retracted their heads and closed the windows.

slip away.

◇

The next day, Ivan dressed in fine clothes and rode a horse early in the morning, followed by the Jinyiwei, carrying a bucket and a fishing rod, ready to go out of the city to fish.

When he happened to meet Humphrey, he invited him to join him. Ivan really wanted this internal affairs talent who could govern Vine City well when the previous city lord was lagging behind, to work for him.

The two chatted all the way and soon arrived at the city gate.

Humphrey saw a group of people pointing at the city wall. Looking back, he saw more than a dozen heads of people with their eyes open hanging neatly on it. They were the gang of thugs and their families. He opened his eyes wide in horror.

"This, this is..."

"It feels more refined than before." Ivan admired it briefly and asked Douglas beside him, "Is this the idea you came up with?"

"Sir, this was thought up by my subordinate Xiaohu. Let him explain it to you in person." Douglas immediately pulled a young man over.

The young man was a little restrained, with a shy smile on his face.

"Hello, Lord Ivan. The weather has been getting warmer lately, so I was thinking that the simple treatment method we used earlier would make them rot easily. I'll drain the blood before wrapping them in lime, then fill the sunken areas with straw, and finally pickle them with lime. This way, they can be preserved for a long time. I'll also cut off their eyelids, so that they appear to have died with their eyes open, which will be more intimidating."

Ivan nodded with satisfaction, feeling that various talents were beginning to emerge among his men. He decisively rewarded him with a gold coin and a fishing rod, giving him the honor of fishing together.

Then he smiled and said to Humphrey, "See, this is called professionalism."

"Ha, ha, ha." Humphrey's expression was very stiff. "The Lord Mayor's subordinates are really talented."

"If you are willing to pledge your allegiance to me, I believe there will be even more talented people in the future."

"You are the city lord, so I am naturally loyal to you."

"Really? Why do I feel that your loyalty isn't absolute? You attended a small dance last night, didn't you? Did anything interesting happen there?"

"...!"

Humphrey knew that Ivan was forcing him to take sides, and to do so without reservation. At this moment, the row of terrifying heads on the city wall involuntarily emerged in his mind.

The west side of Vine City is close to the sea. Under the blowing of the refreshing sea breeze, the sweat on his forehead became more and more, gathering into beads of sweat and sliding down his face which was already beginning to wrinkle.

"...Lord Ivan, I have something important to report to you."

Fulilian (Thousand Years of Past): Chapter 46 Do You Desire Power?

Ivan found a nice spot at the seaside pier and fished while listening to Humphrey talk about the amazing wisdom of several nobles.

Because he was afraid of being treated cruelly like his counterparts in Suiye City, he wanted to kill Ivan in advance.

If you can't defeat them head-on, prepare to poison and assassinate them.

Unable to find an opportunity to poison, he tried to use the beauty trap.

The heroine of the beauty trap is still a little loli. It is said that Ivan half-forced Anna to sign a marriage contract with him because he thought he was into this kind of thing.

As the parents of the man whose engagement was broken off, the nobles simply assumed that the humiliated Viscount Humphrey would join their group, and even wanted to borrow his clever brain for help.

As for Humphrey defecting to the enemy?

What a joke, they are both viscounts. How can a noble swear allegiance to an equal?

"Although this plan sounds like the idea of ​​an Alzheimer's patient with half his body ashen, it would be inexplicably reasonable if it were a noble," Ivan complained casually.

Those who eat meat are vulgar and cannot plan for the long term.

My ancestors never deceived me.

Ivan asked again, "What's next? What are they going to do after they kill me? You know, I still have so many troops in the city."

"They feel that if they give them enough severance pay, the troops won't riot."

"6."

Ivan looked at a group of seagulls not far away. He used magic to cut a freshly caught fish into strips and scattered them on the ground. Soon, they flew over to peck at the fish, and a crow even mixed in among them.

After a large-scale contract magic was cast, the group of seagulls and the crow that were greedily eating fish strips at the dock became his pets, and they dispersed to scout the surrounding situation.

"Come to think of it, I haven't heard about what's happening across the sea. Humphrey, do you know anything about it?"

"What could be on the other side of the sea? There's still the sea on the other side of the sea." Humphrey didn't quite understand why Ivan asked this, but he told the truth without lying.

Ivan felt something was wrong.

He was laughing and discussing how to kill himself just now, but now he has sat up straight.

"You mean... there's no country on the other side of the sea?"

Humphrey still looked puzzled and tilted his head. "Of course not. Isn't that common sense?"

"!"

Ivan quickly took out a map from his space ring and asked, "Are you saying that this small continent is all the land in our world, and it's surrounded by sea water?"

"Ah, what's the problem?"

What a big problem!

According to his measurements and calculations, the radius of this planet should be twice that of the Earth. Now you tell me that the area under your feet, which is roughly the same size as the African continent, is all the land in the world. The ratio of land to sea is too exaggerated.

I originally thought that I couldn’t buy a world map because the place was remote, but it turned out that what I had in my hand really was a world map.

Humphrey continued, "There were people who once wanted to explore the end of the ocean, but no matter how large the ship or how powerful the people, they all returned empty-handed. This pier is only used by shallow-sea ships sailing close to the shore. Nowadays, it's rare to hear of people wanting to explore the endless ocean."

Ivan no longer had the heart to fish. After catching a shark, he set off on his journey back in the astonished gaze of everyone.

But the direction was not Vine City, but Broken Leaf City. He was eager to get in touch with Celiai.

Seeing that the master left without any instructions, the seagulls in charge of reconnaissance began to slack off, and only the black crow flapped its wings and followed.

After riding for a while, Humphrey realized that the route seemed wrong and immediately asked, "Lord Ivan, isn't this the way back to Vine City?"

Is he planning to kill me in the wilderness? No need. I've already proven my loyalty, and even if I were to die, I wouldn't go so far to be killed.

"I want to go back to Suiye City."

"Ah, why?"

"No time to explain, hurry up."

"Oh oh oh."

Humphrey followed them in a daze. There were demons wandering around now, and the danger of being alone was too high. He used the fastest speed he had ever ridden in his life and did not dare to fall behind.

Soon they arrived at the border between Vine City and Suiye City.

"Quack quack—"

A crow's unpleasant voice cried out in the air. Ivan read the crow's perspective and found that a village not far away was burning fiercely under the ravages of the demons, with broken limbs everywhere.

Even though warnings had been issued long ago, there were still many people who were unable to go to the city, and they became targets of killing by the demons.

"Damn it, you dare to kill my people!"

Ivan immediately turned and headed for the village, completing the transformation of Shura Armor on the way. After so many days of recovery, the Great Demon's transformation card had recovered full magic power.

◇

"Swain... run away... ugh!"

A skinny middle-aged woman had her legs cut off. She crawled on the ground and tried to stop the tall demon in front of her, but was pierced through the heart by a sharp blade in an instant.

Ranked last among the Seven Sages, he, known as the Mad Sword, looked at the little human boy in front of him with interest.

Even though he was so weak and someone was buying him precious time, he did not run away. Instead, he picked up a stone and threw it at himself, one of the Seven Collapse Sages, in a ridiculous way.

Incomprehensible.

In this situation where the disparity between the enemy and us is so huge, the demons have already begun to beg for mercy. For the sake of their own existence, they will beg for mercy in any humble way.

Most humans were like this too. Up to now, he didn't know how many humans he had heard crying and begging him for their lives, but there were also many people who dared to rush up to him unarmed, wanting to bite off a piece of his flesh with their teeth.

The little boy in front of him was the latter. He hadn't encountered such a top-quality prey for a long time. Of course, he had to appreciate the change from hatred to despair in his eyes, and separate all the flesh and blood from his body one by one.

"quack--"

The crows above his head seemed to be announcing the arrival of death to the little boy.

"Hmm? With such a huge magical aura...why is there a big demon running over here?"

He looked back and saw a pair of steel boots that were getting bigger and bigger in size. He had no time to react effectively and his head was kicked away in an instant.

This is the charm of disguised sneak attack, identified as playing as Neeko.

After putting the disposable teleportation array activation battery into the space ring, Ivan looked around and found no other demons or even living humans. The only living human left was the little boy in front of him.

The newly signed pet crow seemed quite interested in it and jumped onto his shoulder.

Ivan transformed, looked at the little boy with empty eyes, and asked seductively, "Do you want revenge on the demons?"

Fulilian (A Thousand Years of Past): Chapter 47: Celia's Memories

Ivan didn't care too much about this survivor. After he was thrown into the newly built school, someone would help train and manage him. After two years of basic education, if he had outstanding talents, he would be further trained, no matter whether it was military, internal affairs, magic, art... As long as he was good enough, he would get resources.

If you are just an ordinary person, then after two years of basic education you will be able to read and do math, which is enough to be qualified for some local government officials. These are important cornerstones for promoting national institutional reform.

Whether it is a rebellion or something else, there must be enough talents available, enough to break the aristocracy's monopoly on education, so even if it keeps losing money, the school must continue to operate.

After returning to Suiye City, Ivan asked Douglas to accompany Humphrey on a tour, while he immediately returned to the castle, wrote down some of the incongruities of this world on a piece of paper, and sent it to Celia through the teleportation array.

After a while, the teleportation array began to light up again. After a slight flash, a virtual three-dimensional projection of Celia appeared in front of Ivan.

It's been a while since we last met. Although I can't see any changes in her age, her petite figure is still so suitable for hugging, but her hairstyle and clothing are very different. Her long, soft golden hair is tied into a bun in front of her chest, and she is wearing a soft and comfortable nightgown, which is more in line with the home state in the illusion world.

Ivan reached out to touch her pretty face, but his hand just passed through the air.

"Troubleshooting, can you receive images and sounds?" The voice came from the magic circle, and subtitles were added to the projection.

This was probably the first time that video calls appeared in the world. At this memorable moment, which was like a small step for mankind and a big step for the world, Ivan couldn't help but sigh from the bottom of his heart.

"Wife, you are so cute~"

"!"

Celie was stunned at first, then her eyes became a little vague, and her pale and thin lips opened slightly, appearing a little flustered, but it did not last more than a second before she regained control.