The two of them stepped off the teleportation array outside Zhao City. After taking Disguise Pills and completely changing their appearances, they finally entered the city.
As a city that never slept, Zhao City was bustling around the clock. Even at dawn it was still noisy and thriving.
Yu Mi led Bao Gu through the city, wandering around until they found the restaurant run by Sun Dilong. They booked a private room and ordered a full table of dishes to fill their stomachs. Yu Mi had collected a lot of demon beast meat in her storage treasure and was itching to toss it to the kitchen to have it cooked for her, but she was afraid of exposing their whereabouts and had to give up on the idea.
Not long after the food was served, Bao Gu received a voice transmission from Qu Yirou asking where the two of them were. Bao Gu gave her the address, and about the time it took to burn two sticks of incense later, Qu Yirou arrived, face glowing with springtime warmth.
Stuffed with food and wine, Yu Mi lounged lazily on the soft couch, smiling as she stared at Qu Yirou. Her gaze and expression were practically screaming, “Did you go roll in the sheets with Jade Shura last night?”
Although Pavilion Master Qu and her own sworn sister were dao partners, their master-disciple relationship was also real and unshakable. In any case, Qu Pavilion Master’s seniority was a whole generation higher than Yu Mi’s. No matter how bold she was, she didn’t dare openly make that kind of joke.
Qu Yirou had indeed gone to see Jade Shura last night, but what actually happened was nothing like what Yu Mi was imagining. Thin-skinned as she was, she didn’t dare argue back, lest it sound like a guilty denial. She simply found a seat for herself and sat down.
“I led a team to raid Dragon Gate Fortress last night,” she said, “and harvested quite a few heads. I’ve already handed them to Jade Shura so she can get Wang Ding to settle the accounts. To cut off Hidden Dragon Abyss’s support for Dragon Gate and their chase after Soul Chasing Pavillion, I had no choice but to destroy Dragon Gate. Then I thought about it and felt it’d be a shame to waste all the supplies inside since it was going to be destroyed anyway, so I reluctantly scooped them all up. Waste not, want not!”
Yu Mi slanted her eyes at Qu Yirou, thinking to herself, So in your mind this doesn’t count as robbing one of Hidden Dragon Abyss’s eighteen water strongholds?
Robbing was putting it lightly. She’d practically scraped Dragon Gate clean—kill them all, loot it all, burn it all!
Bao Gu’s eyes lit up.
“How many did you kill?”
“Eight thousand,” Qu Yirou answered. “Picked up fifty warships. Soul Chasing Pavillion has no use for warships, so we sold them to the Cut Gang.”
Picked up?
Yu Mi was speechless. Soul Chasing Pavillion’s sect rules forbade plundering, so in order not to violate the rules, its master had simply changed “looting” into “picking up.”
And with one casual “pick up,” she’d “picked up” fifty warships. That was some luck.
Yu Mi arched a brow and said to Bao Gu, “In just three days, Hidden Dragon Abyss has lost nearly thirty thousand troops and almost a hundred warships. A full tenth of their forces and fleet are gone. And you’re still not satisfied?”
“It’s only a small victory,” Qu Yirou said. “For Hidden Dragon Abyss, it doesn’t even count as hurting their bones. I’ve already heard about what you two did last night. Not bad—just the two of you wiped out more than twenty thousand of them. The cultivation world is looking at you in a new light again.”
Bao Gu pondered briefly.
“How did you settle the people you took away last night? Are they safe?”
“It wasn’t convenient to go looking for you,” Qu Yirou said. “When we retreated I used Dragon Gate’s domain gate to teleport them back to Cut Gang territory and handed them over to Jade Shura to command.”
She paused, then went on.
“After those two battles last night, Hidden Dragon Abyss is sure to tighten its defenses. Sneak attacks will be much harder to pull off. What are you planning next?”
Bao Gu softly breathed out four words.
“At my wits’ end.”
She slumped lazily in her chair.
“If you ask me to make money, I’ve got ten thousand ways. Ask me to lead troops in war, and all I’ve got left is a headache.”
“Then pull back the troops,” Qu Yirou said.
Bao Gu cast her a long, quiet look.
“Wang Ding is so busy his head’s practically on fire,” Qu Yirou added. “He probably hasn’t had time to report to you yet.”
“What happened?” Bao Gu asked.
“The coalition army invading Yue Kingdom,” Qu Yirou said, “originally had a force of a million men that was supposed to rush straight to Cangdu City via domain gate. But the coordinates were wrong, and they were teleported into the Wild Ancient Mountains instead. An entire army of a million just vanished into that mountain range.”
Yu Mi’s eyes went wide.
“That kind of blunder is way too big!”
“Is it true?” Bao Gu asked. “Couldn’t it be fake news to lure the enemy in?”
“Hard to say yet,” Qu Yirou replied. “All the major factions are sending people to investigate and confirm. Based on what we know so far, the coalition really did lose a million-strong force. If they have a treasure like your Void Treasure Realm, then this news is very likely fake. But if that million truly vanished into the Wild Ancient Mountains, Bao Gu, what do you think will happen?”
Bao Gu thought of the Ba absorbing the power of that million-man army and felt a chill of dread.
“I’d rather this was just a ruse by the coalition army,” she said. “If it’s really a colossal screw-up then… it’s too terrifying.”
She took out a voice transmission jade slip and contacted Wang Ding and the master of Shadow Pavilion, asking them about the million soldiers disappearing into the Wild Ancient Mountains.
Both Wang Ding and the Shadow Pavilion master answered that the matter was still under verification. Since the truth of the news couldn’t yet be confirmed, they hadn’t reported it to her.
Bao Gu then contacted Yue Kingdom’s empress, Si Ruo.
“I heard the coalition army lost a million men in the Wild Ancient Mountains?”
Si Ruo’s voice came through the jade slip, trembling slightly.
“Bao Gu, I’m sending three hundred thousand troops to help you attack Hidden Dragon Abyss. You need to return to Cangdu City and see me.”
Bao Gu sat up straight.
“So it’s true? The coalition really lost a million soldiers in the Wild Ancient Mountains?”
“The news about that million disappearing is still being confirmed,” Si Ruo said. “But all across Yue Kingdom, skeleton monsters have already started appearing. Especially around the towns and villages near the Wild Ancient Mountains—one after another they’ve turned into dead zones. No raids, no attacks. People and animals are just silently gone.”
“Skeleton monsters?” Bao Gu asked in shock.
“Yes,” Si Ruo said. “Just skeleton frames, their bones radiating baleful blood energy and death aura, with two flames burning in their eye sockets. There aren’t many of them yet, they’re only appearing in scattered handfuls, but they’re particularly hard to deal with. Even if you smash them apart they reassemble themselves. I had people capture one alive and bring it back. Blades, fire, magic treasures, even lightning don’t work. The most effective method is the one you taught us for dealing with zombies and corpse spirits—hit it in one blow and disperse the blood fiend energy in the bones, then it collapses. But right now we’re busy dealing with the coalition army and have no spare time to deal with these skeletons.”
The always-composed Si Ruo could no longer hide the urgency in her voice. She had never expected the Ba calamity to come so quickly.
The Ba scourge was already at the gates, yet the coalition army still pressed in relentlessly, refusing to withdraw until Bao Gu was handed over. In the face of the Ba, Bao Gu was Si Ruo’s only lifeline. Hand Bao Gu over, and Yue Kingdom would surely be destroyed under the Ba’s plague.
Si Ruo was full of regret. If she had known it would come to this, when all the factions first entered the Wild Ancient Mountains to break the formation and seize the sacred artifact, she should have mobilized the entire nation’s forces and stopped them at any cost.
Bao Gu fell silent upon hearing this.
When she didn’t respond, Si Ruo called softly, “Bao Gu…”
“The Ba scourge is a man-made disaster,” Bao Gu said heavily. “Si Ruo, I can’t save them.”
“The catastrophe is almost here…” Si Ruo cried.
Bao Gu’s voice rose uncontrollably.
“So what? If I go back, will the Ba calamity vanish? Si Ruo, I’ve already taught you every method I have to deal with it. If I return, the cultivation world won’t set aside their disputes and unite against the Ba. They’ll just force me to face it alone. With my pitiful level of cultivation and meager skills, do you really think I can defeat the Ba?
“Right now, even with the Ba at their doorstep, they’re still attacking Yue Kingdom with all they have. All just to force me to give in, to force me to beg my master’s wife to personally eradicate the Ba.
“When the cultivators broke the formation and took the sacred artifact, undoing the seal, my master’s wife came once. She told my honored aunt one thing: ‘Medicine cannot cure those fated to die. The Buddha only saves the fated.’
“The prescription has been written. The method to deal with the Ba has been handed out. What more can be done? The cultivation world is killing itself. Who can save them?”
Si Ruo felt wronged and furious.
“This disaster was brought on by the cultivation world,” she shouted, “yet they want Yue Kingdom to bear it! Bao Gu, for the sake of our friendship… forget it. I shouldn’t make things hard for you. I… Yue Kingdom… ha…”
She let out a long, bleak sigh and cut the connection.
Unable to bear it, Bao Gu quickly reached out to her again with a voice jade.
The jade connected, but Si Ruo said nothing.
“Si Ruo?” Bao Gu called, bewildered.
There was a soft “Mm.”
“I’m here. I’m fine. I was just too worked up earlier, a bit emotional, that’s all. It doesn’t matter. At worst I’ll live and die with Yue Kingdom. At worst, I’ll be Yue’s last empress. So what? No dynasty lasts forever. No life is immortal.”
Bao Gu hesitated briefly.
“Use Yue Kingdom’s strength to help me destroy Hidden Dragon Abyss,” she said at last. “In return, I’ll preserve Yue’s inheritance for you.”
“You’ll help preserve Yue Kingdom’s strength?” Si Ruo asked.
“Yue can’t be kept,” Bao Gu said. “Since you can’t hold it, are you really going to sit and wait to die? Back then Xuantian Sect couldn’t hold its territory either, so the entire sect moved…”
She didn’t need to finish. Si Ruo immediately understood what she meant.
Where had Xuantian Sect moved to? Into Bao Gu’s Void Treasure Realm.
If they did the same, it would mean abandoning Yue’s entire foundation and all the common folk within its borders. The army could retreat. The cities could be relocated. But what about the boundless land, the living beings upon it, the uncountable mortals?
If Yue’s armies withdrew, what would become of those innocents? Under the Ba calamity, what would they do? You couldn’t move the mountains and rivers. Without mountains and rivers, without land to stand on, how could mortals survive? Three days without food and they’d starve.
If not for the coalition’s siege, perhaps Si Ruo could beg Bao Gu to help Yue Kingdom find a way to move the land itself into the Void Treasure Realm, then create sun, moon, stars, and the four seasons with formations. But under this siege, with all factions watching like tigers, Bao Gu might not even show her face, let alone risk exposing the Void Treasure Realm and having it stolen.
Bao Gu heard Si Ruo’s long silence and waited patiently, not cutting the line.
After a long time, Si Ruo’s steady voice finally came.
“Bao Gu, as Yue’s empress, I cannot abandon the people of the world. If I leave with the army, what becomes of the mortals? I’ll help you wipe out Hidden Dragon Abyss. You help Yue Kingdom keep a single line of inheritance. Shangdu is Yue’s auxiliary capital, and the ancestral land of the Si clan, our dragon-raising ground. I want to entrust it to you.”
She was entrusting her legacy—and that only made Bao Gu’s heart grow heavier.
“I don’t have the power to move an entire city,” Bao Gu said. “And the Void Treasure Realm is my life. I can’t let anyone else control it. I’m sorry.”
You bear the weight of hundreds of millions in Yue; as for me, am I not bearing the legacy of the Xuantian Mountains?
The Void Treasure Realm was too great a temptation. She didn’t dare let anybody else have control over it.
She paused, then went on.
“The Xuantian Mountain Range in the Void Treasure Realm covers a vast area. I can set aside a territory within it for Yue. I can’t move your cities, but I can move people inside. You pick suitable people and send them to the Cut Gang’s branch in Cangdu City. I’ll come and take them. I won’t let Yue’s lineage be cut off.”
“Thank you,” Si Ruo said softly.
“I’ll help you destroy Hidden Dragon Abyss,” she added, and then cut the connection.
Yu Mi said nothing.
“The empress of Yue is a good ruler,” Qu Yirou murmured with a sigh.
A wave of irritability washed through Bao Gu.
Asking Yue to fight Hidden Dragon Abyss now would only add to Yue’s burden and losses. Yes, Si Ruo already had the resolve to die. For Yue, dying under the coalition, dying under the Ba calamity, dying under Hidden Dragon Abyss—it was all death. If Bao Gu could help her and make a trade in exchange for preserving Yue’s inheritance, it was indeed a worthwhile deal.
But Bao Gu still felt uneasy. With the Ba scourge right in front of them, they shouldn’t be fighting each other. Yet this infighting wasn’t something she could stop just because she wanted to. This war wasn’t started by Cut Gang or Yue Kingdom. It was the coalition that provoked it, and Yue and Cut Gang were simply fighting back because they were forced to…
Bao Gu contacted Si Ruo again. When the connection was made, she said,
“The one who brought this disaster should be the one to shoulder it. Yue shouldn’t have to perish. Build domain gates around the Wild Ancient Mountains. Throw those domain gates into the mountain range and divert the flood of disaster toward the factions that caused it.
“Why should we die just because they demand it? If anyone’s dying, then we all die together.”
She hung up immediately and sent orders to Wang Ding: Cut Gang was to build domain teleportation gates on a large scale, inscribe each one with the coordinates of the coalition’s strongholds and the old nests of the factions attacking Yue and Cut Gang, then hurl those gates into the Wild Ancient Mountains and remotely activate them—so the things crawling in that cursed place could step through and appear directly in the lairs of those idiots still fighting their civil war on the eve of catastrophe.
The order went out. Wang Ding let out a strangled cry.
“Leader, reconsider!”
His voice even cracked.
Yu Mi and Qu Yirou both stared at Bao Gu, eyes wide with disbelief.
Qu Yirou shot to her feet, her whole body trembling.
“You’re helping the Ba plague spread!” she cried. “Once you do this, the Ba scourge will sweep across the entire cultivation world in an instant!”
“If I don’t do this, will the Ba not spread?” Bao Gu countered. “If I don’t do this, will they stop their infighting to deal with the Ba? As long as the disaster isn’t at their own doorstep, all they think about is making Cut Gang and Yue bear it.
“Who caused this mess? They did, yet they want us to die for them. They’re dreaming too beautifully.
“They want to force me to beg my master’s wife to deal with the Ba for them? Do they want to replay the same old farce—letting the demon race shoulder the Ba calamity, then stabbing them in the back once it’s over?
“They can keep dreaming their pretty fantasies.”
Qu Yirou was choked speechless, her brows furrowing tightly.
Wang Ding took a deep breath and said in a low voice,
“Leader, the domain gates… will make the Ba scourge even harder to deal with in the future.”
“When you build domain gates, can’t you hide measures inside them to control their destruction?” Bao Gu asked.
Wang Ding let out a heavy sigh.
“Your subordinate will obey. Then about the current war…”
“Handle it as you see fit,” Bao Gu said. “In any case, throw out the domain gates, and make sure every hostile faction’s lair receives several of them.”
“Yes. Your subordinate takes his leave.”
He cut the connection.
Yu Mi rose, walked over to Bao Gu, and pulled the still-seething girl into her arms. She didn’t know whether Bao Gu was right or wrong to do this. She only knew Bao Gu almost never had emotional outbursts this intense.
This anger came from disappointment in the selfishness and greed of the cultivation world, from helpless compassion for the common people, and from a deep, bone-deep fear of the Ba calamity.
“This world has always been full of greed, selfishness, and injustice,” Yu Mi said softly. “Just do your duty and keep your conscience clear. We’re not gods. We can’t save everyone under heaven. All we can do is give our best and leave the rest to fate.”
Bao Gu clung to Yu Mi, holding her tightly.
The cultivation world was like a ball of filthy mud. Whether she wanted to or not, she was caught in it, rolling around until she was stained from head to toe.
If she did nothing and retreated from the world, then she would be cold-hearted, turning a blind eye. But if she acted, this cultivation world chilled her to the core. What she feared most was that while she fought for her life at the front against the true enemy, people from that same world would stab her in the back.
“Why don’t we wait a bit longer?” Qu Yirou suggested. “Wait until we’re sure whether that army of a million really vanished in the Wild Ancient Mountains before making a final decision?”
Bao Gu took a deep breath and forced her emotions down.
“With the way Si Ruo reacted, I’m afraid those million are already as good as dead,” she said quietly. “Let’s go back to the Cut Gang’s branch in Cangdu City. We need to meet with everyone and discuss a plan.”
