Bao Gu went to the kitchen, swept all the spirit treasures, rare medicines, and stocked demon beast meat from the kitchen storeroom into an extra-large storage bag, then turned to the six terrified cooks standing by.
“I’m giving you a month off,” she said.
“You start working again when the warship sets sail. If Ba comes looking for you, tell her it was on my orders.”
One of the cooks asked in horror,
“If… if Ba forces us to cook, what do we do?”
Bao Gu replied calmly,
“A clever woman can’t cook without rice.”
She rose and left.
Back in her small courtyard, she transferred every last spirit plant from the yard back into the herb gardens in the Xuantian Mountains, not leaving behind so much as a single seed.
From then on, Bao Gu’s days became packed.
The two hundred and fifty thousand miners and fifty thousand shipwrights who had built the warships were now idle, so she decided to rebuild the army.
To rebuild an army, she first had to set the military structure, choose officers, and forge and equip armor, blades, and other war gear. Over a thousand warships were lined up, but fewer than a hundred people could actually operate them. The crews to man the ships also had to be carefully selected.
The main control formation was too important. She didn’t trust anyone else watching over it; she had to keep an eye on it herself. When the main control formation was finally repaired, she personally inspected it, checking every detail from start to finish. Only after confirming everything was flawless did she assign newly selected heavy troops to guard the control room, sealing it up so tightly not even an ant could get in, let alone someone as big as Ba.
After the disaster when the formation was damaged, the gates stood wide open and anyone could roam the whole ship unimpeded. Once the army structure was settled, Bao Gu stationed guards at every gate and checkpoint of the flagship, issuing waist tokens and command passes. No pass, no entry. No exceptions.
Bao Gu worked day and night without a moment’s rest.
Ba came drifting over several times wanting to talk, only to be brushed off with,
“I’m busy. I’ll find you later.”
Once the broken formation pillar from the main control formation was removed, Bao Gu had people carry the pillar over to Ba.
That day, Bao Gu was bent over her desk, drafting the appointment list for officers based on the latest selection results.
In the cultivation world, the powers were in constant war. Most of the cultivators she had here were picked elites who had once marched to attack the Yue Kingdom. If there was one thing she didn’t lack, it was generals.
Suddenly, she sensed a figure appear in front of her desk.
She looked up and saw Ba standing there, eyes shining, looking at her with a pitiful, slightly aggrieved expression.
Ba pouted.
“I haven’t eaten in half a month.”
In truth, over the years she had gotten a huge stash of spirit pills and treasures from Bao Gu, more than she could ever finish just snacking on. She’d been hoarding them; the jade bottles alone could fill Bao Gu’s whole desk. With all those pills, she wasn’t actually starving. But for a meat-eater like Ba to be forced to “go vegetarian” every day was sheer torment.
Bao Gu gave her a once-over, then let out a soft laugh.
“Half a month without food, and your complexion is still this good?”
Her face was so rosy that even the prison-breaking Blood Lotus mark on her forehead had faded from sight.
Bao Gu knew very well that anyone who had truly gone hungry or lived through famine would develop the habit of hoarding food. She’d raised Ba for so many years; she knew Ba’s “appetite” and exactly how much she had given her. If she did a quick mental calculation, even if she stopped giving Ba rations for ten years, Ba still wouldn’t starve.
Ba dryly spat out two words.
“No meat.”
“You know why there’s no meat,” Bao Gu said.
“I spent fifty full years building that formation. Before we even set off, you broke the main control formation. Was that deliberate, or on purpose?”
She raised her head and fixed Ba with a sharp stare, her aura pressing.
Ba blinked at her and asked,
“Is there a difference between deliberate and on purpose?”
As soon as she finished, Bao Gu’s gaze turned icy.
That look made Ba jolt inside.
Ugh, so scary.
She was suddenly amazed to discover that this “soft bun” she beat up all the time actually had a side that radiated authority without anger.
Seeing Ba looking completely oblivious to having done anything wrong by breaking the main control formation, Bao Gu couldn’t help a silent sigh.
“You don’t want to leave this place, do you?” she asked.
She knew the three characters Ba had carved onto the formation pillar—“Qing Ying” as a ship name—were definitely not meant for naming the flagship. Warship names were carved in the most prominent places on the hull, not on an internal “part” that only a few people would ever see.
Ba guiltily rubbed her nose.
“Was it that obvious?”
“Why?” Bao Gu asked, stunned.
Ba lowered her head and said nothing.
Bao Gu’s voice softened.
“Tell me. Why don’t you want to leave?
If you don’t want to leave, then why only destroy one formation pillar instead of the whole ship?”
Someone who could shatter the pillar at the array eye could easily destroy the entire flagship.
Ba said,
“There’s food and drink here, and no one can beat me.
Why would I want to leave?”
Bao Gu froze for a moment, then said,
“Do you understand that everything you’re eating now—the spirit treasures, precious medicines—all of it was left here tens of thousands of years ago by the Jiao-dragon corpse demon and the Xuantian Patriarch? Every plant you eat is one less. Eventually, they’ll all be gone.”
She went on,
“Yes, no one here can beat you. But there’s no spiritual energy replenishing this place. For the three hundred thousand cultivators outside you, there’s no support for their cultivation. Their realms won’t improve, their lifespans won’t increase.
“With the cultivation of most of them only at Nascent Soul stage, if they reach their limit, they’ll live perhaps a thousand years. Many of them are already several hundred years old. In a few hundred more, these three hundred thousand cultivators will age and die one after another. How many will be left?
“Cultivators creating offspring is trading life for life. All the female cultivators here together number only a few hundred. You expect them to reproduce and flourish in this place?”
Ba was struck speechless.
Bao Gu continued,
“Your lifespan is long. You won’t starve even if you go tens of thousands of years without food or drink. But these cultivators—and me—we can’t live that long. Forget tens of thousands of years; even living a few thousand is something you could count on one hand.
“When they—and I—are all dead, and you’re left here alone, what will you do then?
By that time, even if you want to leave, you might not be able to.”
Ba kept her head down, silent.
Bao Gu stared at her.
“I don’t believe you’re so short-sighted that you’d stay here just because there’s food and no one can beat you. Tell me—what else is making you unwilling to go? The real reason.”
Ba flicked her little claws.
“If you want to go, then go. There is no reason.”
She turned around and headed for the door.
Bao Gu was truly afraid that one day Ba would get another whim, decide she didn’t want to leave, and cause a massive disaster. She didn’t dare let Ba depart without first getting to the bottom of it and thoroughly dispelling that notion.
“Come back,” she called.
The words had barely left her mouth when Ba’s shadow was already gone.
“You can dodge the first day of the month, but can you dodge the fifteenth?” Bao Gu said coldly.
“What, are you planning never to show your face in front of me again?”
Ba’s figure slowly appeared at the doorway, then in a blur, she was right in front of Bao Gu again.
She stared fixedly at Bao Gu’s face, watching every twitch of her expression and eyes.
“If you find Yu Mi,” Ba asked,
“will you still treat me this well?”
“…”
Bao Gu hadn’t expected that to be the reason.
At the mention of Yu Mi, her gaze dimmed. The clear light in her eyes clouded over with a hazy mist. The person buried deep in her heart suddenly surged up, dragging with him that bone-deep longing and the tearing pain of living separation.
Ba was startled by the wave of grief that suddenly flooded out of Bao Gu.
This was someone who didn’t blink even when beaten into an unrecognizable mess—yet just the mention of Yu Mi turned her into this.
She thought of how Bao Gu, in order to rescue Yu Mi from her hands, had tricked her into entering this void together, clearly prepared to die with no return. Sourness welled up in Ba’s heart.
“What’s so good about Yu Mi?” she demanded angrily.
Then she remembered Yu Mi had also been someone unafraid of a beating. No matter how she tormented him, he played the dead pig not afraid of scalding water, just like Bao Gu—just as hard to handle.
Her mood instantly soured even further.
Bao Gu’s emotions slipped out of control. She didn’t want to keep talking about Yu Mi with Ba.
“Get out,” she said quietly.
Ba glared at her, eyes blazing.
She knew it. Once Bao Gu found Yu Mi, there would be no place for her.
If things repeated themselves, and she posed a threat to Yu Mi again, Bao Gu would definitely move against her.
When Ba still didn’t leave, Bao Gu stood up and walked straight out.
Ba stared after Bao Gu’s rapidly departing figure, an indescribable discomfort swelling in her chest.
She bit her lip, lowered her head, trudged back to her room, threw herself onto the bed she had never actually slept in, and grabbed a pillow to savage it with wild swings.
Bao Gu left the flagship, leapt up, and sat on the slightly curved top of the main hull. She lifted her head to gaze at the distant stars and this empty, lightless world, and her tears fell one drop after another.
No matter how she forced herself to hold up, she couldn’t lie to herself.
No matter how busy she was each day, the loneliness and rootless drifting without Yu Mi never went away.
She had always forced her emotions deep down, burying them at the bottom of her heart. Today, with Ba mentioning Yu Mi, it was like dropping a spark into oil—the deeply hidden feelings all burst to the surface and ignited at once.
Scene after scene from the past replayed before her eyes. Her tears flowed faster and faster.
Bao Gu drew up her knees, hugged them, curled into a ball, buried her face, and bit down on her lips, crying in silence.
She regretted it.
She truly regretted it.
Rescuing Yu Mi had never been limited to this one method, yet she’d chosen the stupidest one.
She had been angry that Yu Mi had left without a word, gone straight into danger without considering her, so she’d used this living separation as a way to strike back—until now, the void lay between them, and there might never again be a day they could meet.
Bao Gu cried for a long time before the tears finally slowed.
She pressed her emotions back down, wiped the tear tracks from her face, then returned to the flagship and threw herself back into work.
Another half month passed.
The main control formation was fully repaired. Bao Gu carefully inspected it from start to finish again, and only after confirming nothing at all was wrong did she conduct a trial voyage. Once that passed without any issues, they finally began their journey.
The void was boundless.
Every direction looked exactly the same. There was not even a coordinate to use as a reference; they could only pick a direction and keep going.
The flagship was enormous. Every long-distance teleportation consumed an immense amount of energy. Even though the meteorite mining had provided ample replenishment, stored energy could still be rapidly drained. After more than a thousand teleports without encountering another large meteorite cluster—only scattered small rocks—there was no supply to top them off.
Without replenishment, they didn’t dare burn through their reserves.
Bao Gu could only cut back on teleportation and let the flagship sail through the void at full speed instead.
The void was vast.
In front of them, endless darkness and emptiness; beyond that, still darkness and emptiness.
The distant stars were as numerous as cattle on a plain, but each one was so far away as to be untouchable.
Days drifting in the void were extremely unsuitable for cultivation. Progress in realm was painfully slow. With nothing but endless darkness on all sides, even trying to comprehend the Dao was hard.
Most cultivators passed the time by practicing combat techniques, drilling battle formations, forging armor, blades, and magic treasures, and planting spirit herbs and rare medicines.
When the flagship was built, they had already considered how to house three hundred thousand cultivators. The residential areas were designed entirely after towns and cultivation sects. There were shops and trading districts for them to barter, and everyone’s residence was an independent courtyard—only the sizes differed.
Almost all the cultivators laid down space formations in their courtyards to expand them, then planted the seeds of spirit treasures and rare medicines Bao Gu had distributed as benefits. A single spirit herb released very little spiritual energy, but a patch of them produced a noticeable aura.
Among the seeds Bao Gu handed out were some high-grade varieties as well. These grew slowly, but once mature, their spiritual energy would be abundant, and they were extremely rare. In the future, when they grew to maturity, they would be of great help to cultivation.
Under Bao Gu’s administration, these three hundred thousand cultivators lived by clear rules and order. Cultivation was difficult in this place, but at least there was reliable support.
Bao Gu also collected the cultivation techniques of all the various sects and powers, organized them, and founded a library. Everyone could borrow manuals to read according to their realm by using their identity token. They weren’t allowed to take books away, but they could hand-copy or reproduce them.
For rogue cultivators lacking proper techniques, this was an enormous blessing.
For those from sect backgrounds, getting other sects’ methods for reference allowed them to learn from others’ strengths and improve their own. As for their original sect techniques: their sects no longer existed. If they still tried to hoard their inheritance, the final result would be its complete extinction.
Moreover, sect techniques weren’t handed in for free. They could be converted into military merit. With military merit, one could exchange for cultivation techniques, spirit treasures, rare medicines, spirit wines, magic treasures, and other resources. Future promotions when positions opened up would also be based on military merit.
No matter how they calculated, that trade only benefited them.
In this extremely harsh environment, in such a place of utter spiritual scarcity, Bao Gu still managed to provide them with a cultivation setting like this. It was hard not to feel at least some gratitude.
They knew what Bao Gu wanted was their loyalty, their willingness to risk their lives for her. Their lives had been saved by Bao Gu; everything they had now was given by her, and they weren’t actually living badly. Naturally, a measure of loyalty and willingness to serve grew.
Thinking about the consequences of violating Bao Gu’s orders and acting on one’s own, whatever dangerous ambitions anyone had left quietly vanished. They settled down to cultivate, sharpen their combat strength, and gamble on a way out together with Bao Gu.
If someone who could subdue Ba and make Ba call her “Master” wasn’t worth following, then who was?
As for the tiny minority who dreamed of standing above others, they’d already given up completely. Their lives were pinched between Bao Gu’s fingers. Harboring treasonous thoughts would only make them die faster.
At first, Bao Gu could still pour all her attention into building the army and fleet and selecting talent for various roles. But once everything was running smoothly, she suddenly had time on her hands.
And when people have time, they think.
Emotions they’d forced down start to rise.
Ever since Ba mentioned Yu Mi and they’d quarreled, Ba hadn’t gone to see Bao Gu, and Bao Gu had no desire to face Ba either. The two hadn’t met again.
Before, with Ba there to practice with and to teach, Bao Gu had felt somewhat fulfilled. Now that Ba was absent, and since she disliked attendants hovering around—she didn’t even keep a single servant—she lived alone in her courtyard. Aside from tending to her spirit herbs, all she could do was sit in meditation and comprehend sword intent.
The Xuantian Sword had the power to break through realms and tear the void. One casual swing could rip open space. She was afraid a single slash might cut the flagship in half and cause a shipwreck that would kill everyone, so she hadn’t dared use the Xuantian Sword again.
In the past, Bao Gu had always worried about time slipping away.
Now, with the road ahead utterly uncertain, time no longer mattered. A year, ten years, a hundred, a thousand—adrift in this void, unable to return, even ten thousand years would feel no different.
She knew she was not in a good state.
Ever since her breakdown when Ba mentioned Yu Mi, her mood had never really recovered.
She missed Yu Mi. She regretted. But there was no path back, and she couldn’t even find the road home. For all she knew, this drifting might carry them farther and farther away.
Here, three hundred thousand people obeyed her orders, but there was not a single person she could truly talk to.
Loneliness let her grief and longing spill out of control, spreading wider and wider, harder and harder to suppress or conceal.
The only thing holding her up was that faint, almost nonexistent, threadbare sliver of hope.
