Yu Mi lifted her head to look at the warship hanging overhead, so huge it dwarfed even Shadow City.
“Little Martial Aunt, you should come see Shadow City in person.”
She spread out her divine sense. The entire city was in an uproar.
A group of cultivators in Xuantian Sect core disciple uniforms spotted Yu Mi from afar. Overjoyed, they rushed over and bowed to her. A little girl of eleven or twelve, fair-skinned and slightly chubby, squeezed up beside Yu Mi, eyes shining.
“Martial Uncle, why are you here? Senior Brother said that thing up there is a battleship forged from Daluo Scarlet Gold. Daluo Scarlet Gold is so expensive, how many spirit stones would it take to buy that much of it?”
Bao Gu had just ordered the main ship’s army to make camp and reorganize on the flat grassland outside the city and sent them coordinates, when she realized she and Yu Mi had been surrounded by a ring of young Xuantian Sect disciples.
Yu Mi rubbed the little girl’s head.
“If you find a Daluo Scarlet Gold vein, you don’t need to buy it with spirit stones. You just mine it. You snuck out again, didn’t you?”
“I… I did not!”
The little girl stuck out her tongue, looking mischievous.
Yu Mi turned her head to Bao Gu.
“These are all Yu Jianming’s disciples. This little girl isn’t. Guess who she is.”
Seeing Yu Mi and Bao Gu talking, the little girl tipped her head back to stare at Bao Gu, blinking in confusion.
“Grandmaster, who is this big sister? Mm… she’s prettier than you.”
Yu Mi laughed.
“She’s your master.”
Bao Gu fell silent.
Aside from Qing Ying, when had she ever taken another disciple?
The little girl squeaked.
“Ah!”
“Ah what?” Yu Mi asked, amused.
“My master is…”
The little girl paced a circle around Bao Gu, hands clasped behind her back, putting on a solemn face.
“I’ll ask you a question. If you answer it correctly, I’ll admit you’re my true, direct master.”
Bao Gu shot Yu Mi a baffled look. Yu Mi was being unusually gentle with this little thing. The girl’s face was sweet, but she carried herself like a tiny adult—it was honestly a bit funny. Curious what she would ask, Bao Gu said,
“Go ahead.”
“What happens if you eat nine Zhu Ming fruits in one breath?”
Bao Gu was speechless and stared wide-eyed at Yu Mi.
Yu Mi’s shoulders shook with laughter.
“Don’t glare at me, Little Martial Aunt’s the one who told me. The day this little girl joined the sect, she climbed up the Zhu Ming fruit tree…”
“Grandmaster!”
The girl let out a mortified shriek, face crimson.
Bao Gu’s expression twisted.
She was sure Yu Mi hadn’t said it—Yu Mi had sealed her own memories and wouldn’t remember that. And Bao Gu remembered very clearly: back then, Senior Sister had tossed her into the courtyard and left. She hadn’t yet realized that not far from her little yard there was a deep pool, and in that pool were her Little Martial Aunt and Holy Aunt.
Zhu Ming fruit eaten in excess caused diarrhea. So much diarrhea she didn’t even have time to dig a latrine pit—that whole farce clearly hadn’t escaped her Little Martial Aunt and Holy Aunt’s notice.
Bao Gu bent down and leaned close to the little girl.
“From now on, you are not allowed to mention the Zhu Ming fruits. Got it?”
“You still haven’t answered my question,” the little girl said.
Bao Gu straightened, face serious.
“How many days did you have diarrhea?”
Yu Mi laughed so hard she had to shift to stand behind Bao Gu, resting her forehead against Bao Gu’s jade-carved shoulder.
“Bao Gu, did you really dig a whole row of latrines behind the house?”
Bao Gu bit her lip, gave an angry snort, and swung around to glare at Yu Mi, who was laughing so hard she could barely breathe.
Yu Mi laughed for quite a while before she finally managed to rein it in. The corners of her lips still curved up as she explained,
“The first day this little girl arrived at Xuantian Sect, she got hungry and went looking for food. By a twist of fate she snuck into Lingyun Peak’s spirit-fruit orchard, climbed the Zhu Ming tree, and clung to it while stuffing herself silly. Then, not far from that tree, she left a long, long line of… evidence.”
Yu Mi’s smile widened.
“Just then, Little Martial Aunt had dragged me over to the orchard to work as free labor picking fruit. Little Martial Aunt was stunned on the spot when she saw the scene. She waited until this little girl finished emptying herself, then grabbed her by the collar and said, ‘This one has to be kept for you as a disciple. A true, bloodline-close disciple.’”
Bao Gu was silent.
She wanted to kick Little Martial Aunt straight into a ditch.
The thought had barely formed when a flood dragon wreathed in pale golden light shot out from the Azure Dragon mountain range where Xuantian Sect was located. In an instant it was above the main ship, rolling and looping around it in delight.
Who else could it be but her Little Martial Aunt!
Bao Gu used the Move-Mountain-Shift-Sea technique the little monkey had taught her. She raised her palm toward Zi Yunshu, who was happily circling the main ship, and grabbed.
Zi Yunshu suddenly sensed a surge of power around her. Space itself twisted where she floated. Something was wrong. She was just about to lash her tail and tear open the void when Bao Gu appeared in front of her.
Zi Yunshu’s head snapped around. She realized, to her shock, that she was hovering before the teleportation domain gate in the central square of Shadow City. A moment ago she had been high above the clouds. Now she was less than a zhang off the ground.
She keenly sensed the lingering spiritual fluctuation around Bao Gu and cried out in disbelief,
“You dragged me down here?”
She was an eight-tribulation flood dragon, just one calamity away from becoming a true dragon. Ah Sheng had said she already had half a step into Earth Immortal realm; ordinary Great Ascension cultivators were no match for her. Yet Bao Gu had just hauled her over using the very spatial techniques she prided herself on.
“Little Martial Aunt,” Bao Gu said, “I was afraid you’d get curious and swipe a claw across the Daluo Scarlet Gold ship. That wouldn’t be great.”
Zi Yunshu shot her a sidelong look and transformed into human form.
“With metal that tough, you’re afraid I’ll actually scratch it?”
“There’s someone who, whenever she gets mad, likes to poke holes and rake her claws across my Daluo Scarlet Gold ships,” Bao Gu said. “To keep her itchy hands from wrecking things, I had no choice but to lay a defensive talisman layer over the outer hull.”
Zi Yunshu didn’t need to think to know she meant Qing Ying.
Defensive talismans specifically designed to deal with Qing Ying—just imagining it made her own claws ache.
Wait.
Bao Gu had said she’d laid a defensive talisman array over this Daluo Scarlet Gold warship. Then think about how right after Bao Gu came back, this thing appeared out of nowhere. In the current cultivation world, never mind a warship—just having a Daluo Scarlet Gold personal flying treasure was rare and could be counted on one hand.
So this Daluo Scarlet Gold ship could only belong to Bao Gu.
Even with that conclusion staring her in the face, Zi Yunshu still found it hard to believe, shocking beyond words, that Bao Gu actually owned such a warship.
Before she could collect her thoughts, the air trembled again. On either side of the Daluo Scarlet Gold ship, massive doors swung open—taller even than the sect gates of Xuantian Sect. From within, ranks of armored soldiers marched out in perfect formation.
They stepped off the main ship in columns lined up exactly according to battle array. Their armor gleamed gold.
These cultivators were not particularly strong; most were at Nascent Soul stage. Since the seal over the Heaven-Sealing Forbidden Domain had been lifted and spiritual energy had returned to the land, the overall level of cultivation across the world had risen. Among modern armies, Nascent Soul troops were only average—true elite forces were at Divine Transformation stage.
Compared with the current cultivation world’s military strength, these soldiers’ realms clearly fell short.
But the painstakingly crafted armor they wore—the magic weapons in their hands—
Not just Zi Yunshu; every cultivator in Shadow City found their breath caught in their throat.
The army’s equipment was forged primarily from Daluo refined gold. It wasn’t pure Scarlet Gold, but an alloy. From the luster of the plates and the aura they exuded, everyone could tell: these were full suits of defensive war armor made from Daluo refined gold mixed with Profound Gold, Ore Essence, and over a dozen other precious metals, covering the wearer from head to toe without a gap.
In the present cultivation world, the only sect known for using full magic-armor sets as standard sect attire was Xuantian Sect, whose uniforms were classified as leather-and-cloth type—flowing and elegant.
But compared to the armor on this army, Xuantian Sect’s full-set magical uniforms instantly fell to the level of commoners’ rags.
These eye-dazzling suits of armor, combined with the stern, orderly bearing of the troops, left everyone with no doubt: a force like this could crush the Cleaver Gang’s million-strong army, which had long held the top seat among cultivation powers.
Kuang Mo, Wang Ding, and Sun Dilong were so terrified by this army they didn’t even dare breathe.
Their loyalty to Bao Gu came not only because she had favored, nurtured, and raised them up, but also because they knew how unfathomable her strength truly was. Yet faced with this Daluo Scarlet Gold warship and this army, they realized they had still underestimated their Lord.
Back when the Lord left, she had tricked Ba into going with her, taken only three void-crossing ships, and handed over the Qingzhou Grand Array, the Five-Element Immortal Stones, and that immortal treasure which had annihilated Rong Ruyu—practically giving up almost all her accumulated assets.
And she’d gone to the Void, that perilous nothingness said to contain nothing at all—and had gone as a self-imposed exile at that.
Over five hundred years later, she returned like this: with such absolute, crushing strength.
Once again they felt fortunate—deeply fortunate—that not once had they ever harbored any disloyalty toward the Lord or the Decree Envoy. Otherwise, even if they had seized control of all of the Cleaver Gang’s power, the Lord could have wiped them out in one stroke upon her return.
Even setting aside this army and this Daluo Scarlet Gold main ship—Zi Yunshu of Xuantian Sect alone, an eight-tribulation flood dragon. How many people in the world dared provoke her?
Yet the Lord had merely lifted a hand and directly dragged her down. Zi Yunshu hadn’t even had time to react.
If Bao Gu weren’t standing by Yu Mi’s side, chatting casually and even eating the occasional teasing loss, without a trace of overbearing pressure, the three of them might have dropped to their knees on the spot, awestruck as if before a deity.
They stood behind Bao Gu, as respectful as they could possibly be.
It wasn’t just the three of them. The entire Shadow City held its breath, watching the army sweeping across the sky.
Only when the vast host of three hundred thousand had all stationed themselves on the grassland outside the city, and the main ship—whose presence had weighed over the city like a falling sky—vanished from above their heads, did the onlookers begin to snap out of it. But the shock in their hearts still echoed.
Among the three hundred thousand, there were human cultivators and ghost cultivators, and even sword cultivators of the kind unique to Xuantian Sect and the Cleaver Gang.
With such a show of force, such thunderous movement, and control over the Qingzhou Grand Array on top of that, there was only one impossible-sounding possibility that came to everyone’s mind—
The Cleaver Order’s Lord had returned.
But hadn’t the Cleaver Order Lord tricked Ba into going to the Void? How had she come back? Where had all this come from?
The more they thought about it, the less it made sense. But if it wasn’t the Cleaver Lord’s return, how else could any of this be explained?
All kinds of rumors flew. Spies from every faction raced off to report. A flood of cultivators rushed toward the teleportation domain gate in Shadow City.
Outside the city, the three hundred thousand troops stood in formation, awaiting orders. Without Bao Gu’s command, none of them dared move a muscle. They were like carved statues, ranked in tight, neat lines as far as the eye could see—dense ranks of armor, golden brilliance flowing off them, dazzlingly gorgeous yet radiating a killing intent that drilled straight into the heart, making onlookers’ blood run cold.
The commanders aboard the main ship contacted Bao Gu using sound-transmission jades to request further instructions.
Bao Gu ordered the troops to rest in place and await further orders. She then summoned the nine regional commanders to come into Shadow City to discuss the army’s deployment.
The teleportation domain gate was guarded by Cleaver Gang city defenders, and Wang Ding and Sun Dilong’s personal guards had sealed off the area. No idle people could get close. Even so, it was hardly a suitable place to discuss major matters, so they moved to Yu Mi’s “Envoy Manor” inside the city.
Yu Mi only spent one month a year at the Envoy Manor, but as the Cleaver Gang’s Decree Envoy, her status was extremely exalted. Kuang Mo, Wang Ding, and Sun Dilong all scrambled to elevate her, so the Envoy Manor had been built even grander and more luxurious than a royal palace.
Yu Mi had hardly used it over the years, but Bao Gu’s soul lamp showed Bao Gu was still alive and well. Zi Yunshu had always said that once she became a true dragon, she would go personally to bring Bao Gu back. Yu Mi had a vague feeling Bao Gu would return.
If Bao Gu did come back one day and once more took up the reins of the Cleaver Gang, she would need a residence to handle its affairs. So, when building the Envoy Manor, Yu Mi had used the Lord’s Manor specifications.
The Envoy Manor was magnificent, but because it lacked people, it felt deserted and cold.
In the past, whenever Yu Mi moved in for her annual stay, Wang Ding, Sun Dilong, and Kuang Mo would send guards to lock the Lord’s Manor down like an iron barrel.
Now that Bao Gu had returned with three hundred thousand troops, none of the three dared move a single guard without her express command. Thus, despite the Envoy Manor’s vast size, aside from a few gate guards and some lowly servants responsible for cleaning, it was empty.
So empty it was on the verge of becoming a ghost city.
Seeing how the Envoy Manor was as desolate as a haunted town, Bao Gu turned and instructed a steward-looking cultivator who’d been following at her side to transfer her personal guards and service staff from the main ship to the manor.
“Handle everything the same way it is aboard the main ship. Don’t change the Envoy Manor’s plaque.”
After issuing those orders, she sent the man off to make arrangements. Then she led everyone into the main hall, first letting the Cleaver Gang’s people and the main ship’s stewards and commanders get acquainted with each other.
She then assigned the palace complex on the left side of the Envoy Manor as their council hall.
“Discuss it among yourselves,” she told them, “and present me with a solid plan for stationing the troops.”
