The Riddle in the Words and the Ming Family Gets a Daughter-In-Law

　　Hero Shen Zhou left. The leaders of Shaolin and Wudang left too.

　　The emperor stood there in place blankly, staring at the white wall with the words.

　　Does thou know?

　　The dragons roar brought the support of the G.o.ds down below the clouds.

　　The moon shook at the cry of the phoenix.

　　One fool banned nine states.

　　The devil ruined the dynasty of five generations.

　　Does thou know?!

　　After looking at it for a while, the emperor suddenly realised that phrases were formed when read vertically too!

　　"Dragons and phoenixes are r.e.t.a.r.ds", "What the f.u.c.k are you b.i.t.c.hing for"?*

　　……

　　The emperor then realised it: He cussed at me?!

　　The next vertical line over was, "There are too many princes", which was pointing at how the fight for the throne would come due to having too many sons.

　　Then the next vertical line that the emperor saw was, "I'm tired"?

　　I'm tired?!

　　What the h.e.l.l?!

　　You left in a rush because you were tired?! How dare you?! I asked you to come to look into national affairs and that's your reason for leaving?! You d.a.m.n unreliable geezer!

　　The last three phrases, "Forbid the Divine Moon", "Clouds move nine five", "Shake the dynasty".

　　They didn't seem to make sense. But after pondering them for a while, the emperor felt like it addressed a concern he had.

　　The phrase "Shake the nation" was straightforward and required no explanation. But the other two phrases carried implicit meanings.

　　Divine moon? Was he referring to the Divine Moon Sect? The demon sect called Divine Moon had existed since the founding emperor's era. Their leader had always resided in the Western regions. They worked with the countries in the West to fight against the imperial court. They were indeed a problem in the shadows. "Forbid the divine moon", could that be suggesting that the Divine Moon Sect were going to bring harm to his children?

　　The very thought of it enraged him. If they dare touch a hair on my children, I'll go all out and eradicate them!

　　The phrase "Clouds move nine five" also confused him.

　　The cloud character should be pointing to one of the four major forces of the evil sects, the Demon Cloud Heavenly Palace. They are the most mysterious powerhouse in the pugilistic world. They've always behaved in inexplicable and strange ways. So "Clouds move nine five"…….. Could I……

　　The emperor stared at the white wall silently in a daze.

　　But after a while pa.s.sed, the emperor looked clearly bewildered.

　　The characters didn't resemble a poem, nor could they be considered phrases. The tones weren't making sense, and neither were they an ant.i.thesis. It was void of literacy refinement and colour, and its meaning was even more so confusing. But after staring at it for a long time, the emperor subconsciously began to s.h.i.+ft his attention. It was like the characters and the s.p.a.ces between them were imbued with an alluring magic. It was like looking at a demon that one couldn't s.h.i.+ft their gaze away from.

　　The emperor initially pondered the implied meaning of the text. However, looking at the text only made him feel heartbroken. The text looked magnificent on the white wall. He stopped paying attention to the meaning behind the text and just stared at the characters themselves blankly.

　　The characters curved like the movement of dragons and snakes, and the text emitted a powerful aura. The sentence "The roar of the dragons brought the support of the G.o.ds down below the clouds". Instead of calling it a sentence of a poem, it would be better to say it was fifteen separated words. The stroke of every character had its own personal intent. Every slash of the sword had its own aura. For example, the "dragon" character was carved with ferociousness. The character for "roar" alone seemed like it could blow the clouds away. Every character after it was just as amazing. The emperor loved the "cloud" character in particular. It looked heroic and seemed like it was flying, like a wind blowing the snow.

　　The emperor was so impressed he almost cried out!

　　While some of the characters had repet.i.tive components, but it was clear that there were some differences.

　　For example, the character for "ruined" in "The devil ruined the dynasty of five generations" was written leisurely, without any suave feel to it. The second time it was written, it was written with a strong demeanour, and stood out as an excellently written character.

　　Next, there was the repeated phrase "Does thou know".

　　The first time it was written, the three characters were written beautifully. "Does" was written beautifully, "thou" was written eloquently and "know" was written naturally.

　　The second time it was written, it was written in a completely different style. It was like two different people wrote them. The second time, "does" was written nimbly, the "thou" character was written uniquely, and the "know" character was written as if it were rushed.

　　The emperor got more surprised as he looked at it. It was like he was no longer himself. He suddenly wondered to himself: C-Could this be a sword taolu?

　　Emperor Yuan Sheng knows martial arts. His Li family has been proficient with archery and equestrian ever since the founding emperor established the dynasty. The founding emperor was a top-level master at the time. The martial arts he pa.s.sed down could compare to the best arts in the world.

　　It was just that Emperor Yuan Sheng was still young at the time. Since he was young, his martial development was naturally limited by his age. And since he was born into royalty, he never had the chance to spar with anyone. The empress dowager doted on him. She wasn't even willing to let him pick up a pet. He couldn't improve his martial arts much living in such an environment.

　　Secondly, although the founding emperor pa.s.sed down his martial knowledge, martial art training requires a teacher. It's not possible to master all the elements of a true master's martial arts from a single book. An emperor is only permitted to train with his family members. That further increased the difficulty of pa.s.sing on the knowledge, skills and inhibiting development. If by chance the exponent wasn't talented, the chances of the art being pa.s.sed down incorrectly or fading away entirely would be scary-high.