Volume 4, Chapter 179 – Emergence

Racing all the way back to Yujing, Wu Mengzi did not even wait to bathe and change. He went straight into Qianyu Palace and, after reporting his purpose, was swiftly led into the study to wait.

“Master Wu!”

Yu Emperor Yao Xing arrived soon afterward. Looking at Wu Mengzi with anticipation, he asked, “Did Master Chu… send any reply?”

Wu Mengzi shook his head. “Master Chu is determined to comprehend the true meaning of the Sword Dao. I fear Your Majesty will be disappointed.”

“So that’s how it is…” Yao Xing did indeed frown deeply, but very quickly his brows eased again.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“So long as he hasn’t defected to Bai Zhixing, or to those demonfolk of the Void Realm, it makes no difference how he chooses to act.”

Only the two of us remain as high-level combat power by now, and he can still say it doesn’t matter?

Wu Mengzi frowned.

He found the emperor’s words deeply unpleasant to hear.

But since that person had already awakened, it also meant that the Yaoyu court was no longer, as it had been for the past thousand years, something that Suzhen Dao could direct at will. No matter how dissatisfied he might be, he could only force it down and continue, “Barring the unexpected, Qingping’s next objective will be to eliminate Shenming Sword Dao in the main tournament.”

“Once Shenming is removed, the New Law will lose Bai Zhixing’s support and internal chaos will immediately erupt within the human path.”

“It will most likely trigger another round of struggle and disorder, which should buy us quite a bit more time.”

Yao Xing was delighted to hear that. “Excellent!”

He paced around the study twice, muttering to himself, “Mother Empress also told me not to show myself during this period, and to hand over every matter requiring a public appearance to those children of mine. It seems she too has resolved to pull away.”

As he spoke, a trace of irritation appeared on his face.

“I am the emperor of humankind, yet I cannot take part in this tribulation struggle!”

“This truly is… sigh!”

Wu Mengzi remained expressionless the entire time.

He knew this ruler inside and out. He knew there was no helping rotten mud up the wall.

To put it bluntly, Yao Xing served only a symbolic purpose. His own will mattered far less than his status and that bloodline of his.

“Your Majesty must remember to guard your heart and restrain yourself,” he reminded Yao Xing. “We are weak in this round. Only when chaos breaks out will we have a chance to rise again.”

After Wu Mengzi departed, Yao Xing sat in the study a while longer. Then he ordered a carriage prepared and rode all the way to a Buddhist temple outside the city.

“Mother Empress.”

There he met the old woman who had previously stood at an impasse with Li Huiran. Looking puzzled, he asked her, “Your son also understands the principle of avoiding danger. It’s only that if Qingping’s Sword Lord is lost as a fighting force, then relying on the current ‘Sword Dao’ alone…”

He left the sentence unfinished, but the meaning was clear enough. He felt it was unsafe. At the very least, the court still lacked high-end martial strength, and it was hard to say whether they would be targeted by interested parties in the first great melee once the tribulation struggle formally began.

“Do you know of Blood Soul Heaven?” the old woman asked him.

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Yao Xing nodded.

No matter how poor his information network might be, he was not so blind that he would know nothing of something even several of his children already understood.

The old woman continued, “Blood Soul Heaven has existed for so many years because someone within the Demon Court has tacitly permitted it.”

Hm?

Yao Xing froze, thinking that this was no different from how he himself tolerated the existence of factions like Demon-Immortal Dao and Right-Self Dao. Was it because they wanted to use Blood Soul Heaven to check the forces above?

“I understand.” Believing he had grasped the deeper meaning, he bowed to the old woman.

“Your son takes his leave. Mother Empress, please take good care of your health.”

After he left, Li Huiran suddenly appeared, casting a cold glance at the old woman within the hall.

“A hero of a generation, yet you raised a useless son.”

The old woman raised her brows. “This is a family matter of our House of Yaoyu. Patrol Warden, you are meddling rather too broadly.”

“Too broadly?” Li Huiran sat down in a broad, forceful sprawl on the ledge outside the Buddha statue, one hand resting on the hilt of the sword at his side, his narrow eyes fixed dead on the old woman’s body. “I, however, am very curious what exactly you intend to rely on to preserve yourselves wisely when the time comes.”

The Sword Dao?

That purple-gold sword qi might indeed be enough to make him wary, but in the entire Sword Dao system, how many people were left who could truly wield that power properly?

Even if Chu Weiping were counted in, even if he managed to kill Bai Zhixing and wash himself clean to return under Yaoyu’s command, then at an absolute maximum Yaoyu would only be able to field three or four such people.

That number was too small. Never mind facing those “radicals,” even compared to the power behind Li Huiran it was far too weak. There was no way it could protect itself.

“The Sword Dao alone truly is not enough.”

“But if this is added as well… do you think it will be enough, Patrol Warden?”

The old woman fell silent for a moment, then suddenly changed the tone of her voice. The originally aged timbre swiftly grew young, like a maiden murmuring in mocking ridicule.

Li Huiran’s expression blanked for an instant. Then he abruptly rose to his feet, eyes wide as he watched the transformation.

Before him, great patches of dead skin peeled away from the old woman’s body. The newborn skin beneath was smoother than white jade. In an instant she had completed a full cicada-molt, and from within emerged a young woman.

“You…”

Li Huiran instinctively wanted to say something, but a warning sign flashed through his mind.

Lowering his eyes, he saw that several twisted tendrils had sprouted from the woman’s shadow. Without his noticing, they had already bound and locked down his own shadow.

Sweat dripped down. For the first time, Li Huiran felt pressure in front of this person.

“This isn’t you.”

He gave that judgment without hesitation.

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“It’s that thing?”

“…Are you the chief culprit behind the Severing of Heaven and Earth?”

Sixteen hundred years ago, Yaoyu accomplished the Severing of Heaven and Earth, cutting off the path between the main world and the Void Realm. It was the first time such a thing had ever happened in history.

Before that, no matter how much destruction void tribulations brought, if anyone wished to return and court death during their duration, there were no barriers and no threshold. They could return whenever they wanted.

And the reason Yaoyu was able to achieve such a feat was because a traitor had appeared within demonkind.

There were rumors that the rebel great demon dwelled within the bloodline of Yaoyu’s imperial clan, hidden in ordinary times and only emerging at moments of grave crisis to display its overwhelming power.

Sixteen hundred years was not all that long to the Demon Court.

Before coming here, Li Huiran had looked through the records, yet very unexpectedly, he had found no detailed information at all regarding this great demon.

Now, staring at the enemy before him, his face shifted between light and dark. For a moment, he actually could not judge what odds of victory he would have if they fought.

“Who exactly are you?”

he demanded of the woman.

“Hehe… who am I?”

The woman gave a soft laugh, then let out a sigh.

“Ah~”

“I wonder if Patrol Warden has ever heard the ancient name ‘You’?”

The newly emerged woman covered her face with a sleeve, her expression displaying an entirely different kind of seductive charm. Her voice sounded husky and low, as though the voices of a thousand people had merged into one.

“I wonder whether this explanation would satisfy Patrol Warden?”

She said ‘You’…!

Li Huiran’s eyelids twitched violently.

The ancient demon You was, in the records, the nemesis of the ancient demon Shiling.

The ancient demon Shiling fed on years and ages, while You could feed on Shiling itself.

So that’s how it is…

That really does explain it… explain some of the doubts I’ve had.

He paused. “Why reveal this to me?”

“Naturally because there are some things I need to trouble Patrol Warden with~”

The woman’s figure swayed lightly like a beautiful serpent, a strange radiance blooming in her eyes.

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“After all, I count as an old monster too.”

“Some of the disputes inside the Demon Court, I may understand better than you do, you know?”

…

Elsewhere, outside the gates of a great hall shrouded in drifting clouds and mist, a group of child attendants had gathered.

“The Hall Lord suddenly summoned us. I wonder what’s going on?”

“Is it to look for someone? But haven’t the Cloud-Sea Square Mirrors all been searched already…”

“Exactly. That person has been down there for centuries. Even if they were found, there’d probably only be a skeleton left.”

“There are rumors that person was once the Hall Lord’s lover.”

“Shh. Don’t speak carelessly about things like that…”

Each of the child attendants was exquisitely pretty, bright-eyed and white-toothed like figures carved from jade. Though they wore translucent gauze robes, no male or female features could be seen beneath the haze.

Some held Jade-Dew Immortal Vials, others carried Cloud-Holding Bamboo Baskets. They merely gathered at the entrance, whispering among themselves and waiting for the master within to summon them.

A careful observer might also have noticed some small animals drifting outside the clouds.

There were cranes, fish, insects, and beasts among them.

If Bai Xiang and Bai Zhuqing had been here, they would have recognized at once that those snowy-white foxes were of the same stock as the white fox.

Clang!

With a heavy sound, the gates of Rebirth Hall finally opened.

The child attendants filed inside in order, entered the great hall, and bowed toward the high seat.

“We pay our respects to the Great Sage of Rebirth.”

“Rise.”

“Our thanks, Great Sage.”

The great hall was filled with drifting cloud-mist, far denser than that of the other halls. While kneeling, the attendants could not see the figure on the high seat at all. At most, they could make out the vague outline of a slender figure and hear a woman’s voice coming from the clouds.

“I summoned you here for an advance harvest.”

“There is no need to wait any longer for the medicinal fields of Douyun Sea.”

“Starting today, collect every immortal root.”

So that was it?

All the attendants showed shock. No wonder they had been specially summoned here. The order was simply too abnormal. Had it been relayed ordinarily, it would certainly have been questioned.

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Because once that was done, the whole of Douyun Sea… all of its medicinal fields would be ruined.

Had things truly reached this point already?

Was their mistress also going to the main world to take part in the tribulation struggle?

Though all kinds of speculation rose in their hearts, none of them dared reveal it. One by one they accepted the order and withdrew, and very soon the hall returned to emptiness once more.

With a swish, a stream of black demonic aura swept into the hall and condensed beneath the high seat into a middle-aged man.

“So you’ve finally made up your mind after all.”

The man looked toward the high seat as he spoke.

“You had the nerve to cooperate with me, your ‘enemy.’ You should have cast aside those pointless private feelings long ago.”

He looked very pleased with himself, a smile spilling uncontrollably onto his lips.

But the woman in the mist clearly had no wish to entertain him. The moment she spoke, it was an order to leave. “Would you rather have me strike you out of here, or will you leave this instant on your own?”

“It has been two hundred years, and you still can’t forget Changlun?”

The man narrowed his eyes, his gentle expression gradually withdrawing.

“You studied the emotionless Dao and drove all that ‘naivete’ out of yourself, yet you still look this infatuated.”

“What sort of love hex did Changlun place on you to make you so utterly devoted?”

The surrounding clouds began to riot.

Wrapped in a layer of silver light and faintly flashing with green radiance, they surged and leapt, yet they could only pass straight through the man’s body, as though through a phantom.

Perhaps realizing there was little she could do to him, the clouds gradually calmed again, and the mist once more gave voice to a faint response.

“My mortal ties are already severed.”

“I don’t know what it is you’re talking about.”

Then who was it that had kept sending people into Douyun Sea to search the Fangjing Secret Realm?

The man shook his head. He did not expose the lie, merely warned her instead. “I have received word that your ‘naivete’ has already reached the main world.”

“She still seems to carry the wish you long ago cast aside, deluding herself into thinking she can create the world of myth.”

At that point the man deliberately paused, then looked on with satisfaction as the surrounding clouds grew slightly disordered.

“I won’t waste any more words.”

He turned into a surge of demonic aura and vanished.

“When that moment truly comes, I hope you will know where to draw the line.”