Chapter 182 - The General

Chapter 182: Chapter 166 The GeneralThe private club on Beihai Mountain, controlled behind the scenes by the Spirit Sect, within a secret room.

The 63-year-old woman who ascended to the presidency of South Korea and ruled half of its realm with a woman’s identity, sat respectfully behind a low table, cradling an exquisite porcelain cup in her hands.

She watched the tea leaves floating and spinning in the cup with utter focus, as if through the changing patterns of the leaves, she could see the endless illusions of the past, present, and future.

From memories unique to her own childhood to the future direction of the entire nation. From the turbulent changes in the world’s political landscape over the next two or three decades to the imminent personal attacks and schemes against her...

It seemed as if she saw something, yet also as if she saw nothing. Mysterious and profound, it was irresistibly engaging.

And sitting across the low table was a young girl in a high school uniform, her eyes closed, holding a baby bottle, feeding a newborn baby cradled in her arms.

When the tea leaves gradually stopped spinning and the visions naturally dissipated, Madame Park lifted her stiff neck, both shocked and regretful, said, "It’s over again..."

A best friend, seated in the corner of the room, curiously asked, "What did you see, Your Excellency?"

"I thought I saw a golf course, a missile truck, and... you?"

Madame Park looked puzzled at her close friend Cui Shunshi, who was like a sister to her. Since the divination prophecy did not produce clear results, she couldn’t understand the direction of the "future" she saw.

She nodded respectfully to the high school girl once more and asked softly, "Goddess, I want to know, what I saw, is it an ill omen or a good one?"

Unlike those charlatans who play at being gods or witches, the young girl in front of her truly possessed what could be called "supernatural" powers.

Whether it was the tea leaf divination that seemed almost prophetic here and now, or those Shikigami Demons, they were all seen with her own eyes.

It was a power beyond ordinary people, inexplicable by science, capable of breaking past social rules.

Compared to that, leading a modern nation with a population of fifty million and a GDP of trillions of US dollars seemed rather plain.

The girl named Jiang Meixi spoke as always with inscrutable words, "The past cannot be traced, the future is unpredictable. Whether it is auspicious or ominous depends on the choices you make right now..."

Her words suddenly stopped, as Jiang Meixi turned her head to look towards the south.

Cui Shunshi asked puzzledly, "What’s wrong?"

"Someone is coming."

Jiang Meixi flipped her palm, and the baby bottle in her hand vanished into thin air.

At the same time, the door to the secret room was knocked, and two guards from the Blue House Protective Services hurried in, kneeled beside Madame Park, and whispered, "Your Excellency, there’s been an incident in Seoul. Five minutes ago, a civilian helicopter crashed into the Han River at low altitude."

The guard handed over a smartphone barely displaying the image of the helicopter on its screen, bearing the logo of Chengzhe Group.

Chengzhe Group... Wasn’t that the company that connected herself and the Goddess?

Before Madame Park could ponder deeply,

Boom—

A dull sound like thunder came from afar, followed by a succession of gunfire and explosions.

"Turn left out the door, the furthest room has a secret passage leading to the underground parking lot. Go there to escort the president out."

Jiang Meixi stood up leisurely and gave a casual order before walking out of the room with the baby in her arms, ignoring the others. She stepped through the corridor, echoing with the fire alarm, and arrived at the front courtyard of the club.

The place was in shambles; the iron fence had vanished without a trace. Parked vehicles by the roadside, including several Kia cars from the Blue House’s security service, were all ablaze.

Li Cheng and Gray Rain stood in the courtyard, concluding a massacre; a large number of corpses lay at their feet.

Han Mountain Private Club was one of the Spirit Sect’s key industries in South Korea, staffed exclusively by devout followers.

To protect the Goddess, they all took out paper cutouts and summoned their respective Shikigami.

The Heavenly Dog Demon with wings on its back; the slippery ghost with an elongated occiput; the one-eyed, green-bodied Momonji cloaked like a monk; the Snake Woman, a half-human, half-beast with a serpentine body...

The scene resembled the prime time for demons, a parade of a hundred spirits by night.

Unfortunately, they were largely ineffective.

Firstly, the Shikigami could not stray too far from their summoners, who were mere mortals without even bulletproof vests.

Once the summoner died, the Shikigami would dissipate on its own.

Secondly, the mid- and low-level Shikigami, not having transcended physical existence, could still be injured, killed, and revert to paper cutouts under the suppressive firepower of modern heavy weapons.

When Jiang Meixi appeared, Li Cheng’s mechanical arm on his back was reloading shotgun ammunition. Gray Rain was lifting a burning car, flattening both the Heavenly Dog Demon and its summoner with it.

The entire front courtyard had cleared of any bystanders, leaving only a silence between the three of them.

Li Cheng looked at the girl dressed in high school uniform, resembling Jiang Meixi from the photos on his phone, and felt that he had to say something. Clearing his throat, he asked loudly, "That JK outfit looks good; which store did you buy it from? It’s not cheap, is it?"

The system’s translation feature perfectly rendered this sentence, causing not only Jiang Meixi to tilt her head but also Gray Rain to turn and glance at him.

Seeing no response, Li Cheng continued, "Anyway, how should I address you? Jiang Meixi, or the revenant that’s taken over my daughter’s body?"

"It seems my sister has told you everything."

Jiang Meixi, or rather Jiang Zhihui, openly admitted all, "It was I who secretly founded the Spirit Sect, plotted the maritime disaster, possessed my niece’s body, kidnapped Shaoxi, and took this child."

She paused for a moment before asking, "Have you given her a name?"

"Jiang Ziya, Jiang Wei, Jiang Cha, Jiang Suancong. Considering we’re in South Korea, I prefer the name Jiang Jun, which has a warm, sun-like feel."

Li Cheng made it up as he went and asked casually, "There are two things I don’t quite understand. First, why send someone to fabricate Jiang Shaoxi’s body model. Couldn’t just finding a corpse from the morgue and destroying its face also deceive others?

Second, why did you need to possess Jiang Meixi’s body?"

He seemed to be asking casually but remained highly alert—the Bat Wing Motorcycle hadn’t been turned off, and his right hand hidden up his sleeve was ready to whip out the powerful Thunder Horn at any moment.

"For the first question, I had a body model made because Shaoxi begged me to. I falsified a body to make Jiang Wanyong lose hope and stop searching for his wife. Otherwise, if it were up to me, I wouldn’t mind killing Jiang Wanyong directly," Jiang Meixi spoke calmly, "As for your second question, as you suspected, the whole ’Shaoxi and I are both Goddesses descending from heaven’ story was indeed false, used solely to fool the Spirit Sect followers.

However, to move freely in the real world, I do need a living body with a close blood relationship.

Do you understand? Human player from the Otherworld."