Before this, Si Ruo had never even heard of Shadow City. All she knew was that the Kan Gang’s main headquarters was extraordinarily well hidden, and that it had likely started being rebuilt four years ago, after the gang survived that great disaster. Counting carefully, Shadow City had only been under construction for four years. Even with the Kan Gang’s deep coffers, what kind of “city” could they build in just four short years? Could it possibly hold as many people as Cangdu City?
When Si Ruo’s imperial carriage arrived before the realm gate in the Yue imperial palace, she instinctively swept her gaze over the coordinates carved into the gate—and froze.
“Qingzhou?”
Shadow City was in Qingzhou?
Qingzhou was a plateau. It had mountains, but no major mountain ranges, and was mostly endless open grasslands as far as the eye could see. Without towering mountains and great dragon leylines to rely on, such a place was never the choice of sects or powers in the cultivation world—not in terms of defense, concealment, nor density of spiritual energy. And yet the Kan Gang had actually built Shadow City in Qingzhou?
While she was still dazed, her carriage had already passed through the realm gate. The sudden brightness made her squint, unable to adapt for a moment.
She rose from the throne within the carriage, stepped quickly outside, and looked up to the sky.
A flawless blue vault spread overhead. Brilliant sunlight poured down, bathing a jade-green sea of grass. The vast prairie swelled and dipped in gentle hills; in the low-lying spots, lakes lay scattered like polished mirrors, water so clear you could see the bottom, reflecting the world like a treasure mirror.
The spiritual energy here was not as dense as in Cangdu City, but this pure, clean brightness was something a Cangdu long shrouded in blood-reeking death aura couldn’t begin to compare to.
For a moment, Si Ruo actually had the illusion that she had escaped from hell into the light.
The Yue soldiers who had come through the realm gate with her stared wide-eyed at the scene around them. Quite a few of them threw back their heads and let out joyful howls.
Cultivators stepping out of the teleportation formation rode their flying swords and magic treasures straight into the sky to survey the surroundings.
Si Ruo quickly sensed that something was wrong.
Where was this promised Shadow City?
Forget a city—she didn’t see a single thatched hut, not even a loose brick. Only blue sky, white clouds, grasslands, lakes, and a flood of cultivators pouring in from Cangdu City…
She released her divine sense and swept every inch of land within her range. Nothing. Not a trace of any city.
“Bring me a map of Qingzhou!” she called.
She distinctly remembered: Qingzhou was not this big.
More ornate carriages rolled out of the realm gate and drew up near Si Ruo’s imperial carriage. A flock of delicate beauties descended from them; some looked around in delight, others in wide-eyed wonder and confusion.
The Yue court officials gathered around Si Ruo in a hurry. Quite a few ministers asked, “Your Majesty, what is going on? Where is Shadow City?”
Another minister rushed over, cupped his fists, and said, “Your Majesty, this is bad!”
“What has you so flustered?” Si Ruo asked. Where was that Qingzhou map? Why had no one brought it yet?
The minister cupped his fists again. “Reporting to Your Majesty: only the Yue army, the court officials and their families, and the people of the palace have been transmitted here.”
Si Ruo paused, frowned slightly. “Minister Wu, what are you trying to say?”
“Your Majesty hasn’t noticed that there isn’t a single itinerant cultivator here?” Minister Wu said.
Si Ruo lifted her eyes and looked around. Aside from the officials and their families, there were only Yue troops in sight. She focused and looked back; six realm gates were standing behind them in a row. Those six were the realm gates used officially by Yue.
Seeing this, she understood at once.
The ordinary “citizens” in Cangdu City had most likely been sent somewhere else through other gates.
A minister, visibly anxious, asked, “Your Majesty, what does the Kan Gang—and Lord Blade—mean by this?”
“Calm yourselves,” Si Ruo said.
She took out a sound-transmission jade talisman, just about to contact Bao Gu, when her divine sense brushed against a faint ripple in space nearby. She looked over, and there was Bao Gu, stepping out of the void.
Si Ruo’s expression brightened. “I was just about to contact you.”
She descended to Bao Gu’s side and said, “I didn’t expect this place to be completely untouched by the Ba calamity.”
Bao Gu took out three jade slips and handed them to her.
Si Ruo eyed the jade slips. “What are these?”
She did not stand on ceremony and accepted them.
“One is a formation diagram of this place,” Bao Gu said. “One is a map. And the last one shows the realm gates for entering and leaving this area. We’re within Qingzhou’s borders, but this whole area has been sealed off by formations. Without the proper way to get in, no one can ever find it.”
Si Ruo’s heart stirred.
“Let’s talk on the carriage,” she said.
As she spoke, she made an inviting gesture and led Bao Gu up into the imperial carriage. She dismissed all the serving maids, then invited Bao Gu to sit.
“This place is far beyond what I imagined,” she said. “Can you tell me what is going on?”
“This is Qingzhou,” Bao Gu said. “Shadow City lies within Qingzhou’s borders. Shadow City has divided Qingzhou into eighteen zones. Where we are now is one of them. I’ve marked it clearly on the map I gave you. The formation diagram is for this specific zone.”
Si Ruo blinked. “And?”
As she spoke, she unrolled the jade slip inscribed with the formation diagram and sent her divine sense into it. Just one glance made her head swim.
Her attainments in formations weren’t high, but they were enough to recognize that this was a spatial formation diagram combined with teleportation formations—and those were formation pillars carved with primeval demon sigils.
She asked bluntly, “May I ask what special purpose this formation serves?”
“You know the Kan Gang has only been building Shadow City for four short years,” Bao Gu said.
Si Ruo nodded. “I understand. Building a capital and its foundations is not the work of a single day.”
“The Kan Gang has drawn all of Qingzhou into Shadow City’s sphere of influence,” Bao Gu said. “But Qingzhou is vast. It would be impossible for the Kan Gang to build walls all around Qingzhou’s borders, then spend a fortune on large-scale defensive formations.”
Si Ruo nodded in agreement.
“Qingzhou’s terrain is ill-suited to constructing large defensive formations,” she said. “There are no great dragon leylines to support them; it can’t sustain the drain of such formations. The land is too flat to form any grand geomantic pattern. That’s why, aside from the Kan Gang, no other powerful force has ever chosen Qingzhou as its base.”
“Shadow City’s defenses don’t rely on great leylines,” Bao Gu said. “They rely on spatial formations and teleportation formations. Shadow City may be in Qingzhou, but that doesn’t mean the entirety of Qingzhou is Shadow City.”
She paused for a moment.
“Let me put it this way, with an example,” she continued. “The area you’re in right now is just one sealed zone, enclosed by spatial and teleportation formations. Its radius is a little over three thousand kilometers, and there are only ten coordinates that allow entry and exit.
“If you don’t have those ten coordinates, then even if you know this zone exists, whether you use a teleportation formation, a realm gate, or try to fly or walk here directly, you’ll be trapped by the spatial and teleportation matrices.
“If you walk here, you’ll get lost, circling around and around and never finding this place.
“If you try to come through teleportation formations or realm gates, and your luck is good, you’ll just be transmitted into some other part of Qingzhou outside the formations’ coverage.
“If your luck is bad, then…”
“How bad?” Si Ruo asked.
“Then you’ll be thrown into the void,” Bao Gu said.
Si Ruo’s eyes widened.
“Shadow City and the eighteen zones it has carved out,” Bao Gu continued, “can’t be found even if you turn all of Qingzhou upside down—unless you have the coordinates. The coordinates are all in the realm gate construction diagrams I gave you. Nine of those gates connect to the outside world, and only one connects to Shadow City itself.
“If you want to go to Shadow City, you have to link your gate to that gate on their side. You’ll be transmitted to the outside of Shadow City, and then you walk in.”
“You’re planning to give this area to Yue as a foothold, aren’t you?” Si Ruo asked thoughtfully.
Bao Gu nodded.
“Thank you,” Si Ruo said after a brief pause to collect herself.
She went on, “What about the others from Cangdu City? The itinerant cultivators, and the ordinary subjects of Cangdu—how do you plan to settle them?”
“They’ve been sent through different realm gates to different places,” Bao Gu said. “Later, you can send officials from the Ministry of Revenue to bring Yue’s people back. But before that, I need to conduct a thorough investigation.”
Si Ruo’s brows drew together. “Investigation?”
“When the Ba calamity broke out, too many people poured into Cangdu City,” Bao Gu said. “All kinds of forces were mixed in. Do you think there were few spies and agents with ulterior motives among them?”
As she spoke, her gaze went ice-cold.
“Si Ruo,” she said, “I’ve always believed that with the Ba calamity upon us, the cultivators of this world should be uniting as one to get through this disaster.
“The coalition army has already been routed. I didn’t want to kick them while they were down, so I didn’t hunt them to the last man. I only thought to hold Cangdu City, to make it the frontline fortress against the Ba.
“Once we were ready, we’d take Cangdu as our base, advance into the Archaic Mountains, and destroy the Ba.
“But they threw realm gates toward the Archaic Mountains, intending to wipe out Cangdu—using the destruction of Cangdu to wear down the Ba’s strength. Because of that, my Little Martial Aunt and my Holy Aunt were gravely injured…”
Her gaze, dark and cold, fixed on Si Ruo.
“Anyone who hurts my Holy Aunt and my Little Martial Aunt,” she said, enunciating each word, “will pay in blood.”
Si Ruo kept her silence.
The case of the Fierce Cavalry General’s Manor and Rong Ruyu alone was proof enough. Zi Yunshu, the Demon Saint, and Yu Mi—those three were Bao Gu’s reverse scale. To harm them was to make an enemy of her to the death.
Zi Yunshu and the Demon Saint had been injured; that account would certainly be settled.
After a moment’s thought, Si Ruo asked, “Will the Ba calamity spread to Qingzhou?”
Bao Gu nodded.
Si Ruo’s brows knitted tighter. “Do you have a countermeasure?”
“If the Ba dare come,” Bao Gu said with a cold laugh, “I dare exterminate them here.”
She rose to her feet.
“I still have things to do, so I’ll take my leave for now,” she said. “From here on out, this place is your territory. As long as you’re not attacked from outside, the Kan Gang won’t meddle in anything here.”
Si Ruo lifted a brow.
“So you’re tucking Yue under your wing and protecting us, is that it?” she asked.
“I invited Yue here,” Bao Gu said. “Naturally I have to guarantee your safety. I promised you before: if Yue is in danger, the Kan Gang and I will never sit back and watch.
“Si Ruo, when I give my word, I keep it. What I say always counts.”
Something slammed hard into Si Ruo’s heart.
She stared at Bao Gu in stunned silence.
Never in her life had she imagined that someone would one day say to her—her, Si Ruo, the Empress of Yue—that they would shield her, protect her, protect Yue.
She knew perfectly well that in terms of pure combat power, Bao Gu was far weaker than she was. Si Ruo had ten-tenths confidence she could take Bao Gu down within ten moves.
Yet when Bao Gu spoke, the conviction and confidence in her voice left Si Ruo with no doubt that she could do exactly as she claimed.
Bao Gu was young—very young, so young that she was not even a fraction of Si Ruo’s age. Many times, an almost careless youthfulness would leak from her. But it was precisely this youthful, headstrong spirit that made Si Ruo look at her with new eyes.
A touch arrogant, a bit dismissive of all under heaven, but utterly self-assured.
She actually made Si Ruo feel that the new generation truly would surpass the old.
Especially now, with that blazing aura of hers—vowing to stand up for Zi Yunshu and the Demon Saint—Si Ruo felt a strange stirring in her chest.
“Is there anything I can help you with?” she asked.
“Settle Yue’s people first,” Bao Gu said. “Give me some time. I need to pull out all the nails belonging to various forces that have embedded themselves among Yue’s people and the inhabitants of Cangdu.
“If, in the process, I offend Yue in any way, I hope you’ll forgive me.”
Si Ruo’s heart moved.
“So that’s why you welcomed all comers before, never refusing anyone—so you could shut the gates and beat the dogs?” she asked.
Bao Gu had used entry into Shadow City as bait, accepting anyone who wanted to follow the Kan Gang. Then, via different realm gates, she had sent them into different zones, each one sealed tight by layers upon layers of formations.
Once inside, with spatial and teleportation formations locking everything down, there was no way to leave. And pitted against the Kan Gang, which held the home-field advantage and tens of thousands of troops, these people would inevitably be subjected to investigation and reckoning.
The only force with enough soldiers to rival the Kan Gang—the Yue army—had been isolated separately. Bao Gu had even come in person to explain everything to Si Ruo, calming her and soothing Yue’s concerns.
Bao Gu nodded, her expression frosty.
With the Ba calamity upon them, she had not wanted the human race tearing itself apart. But there were some people she had to remove.
She refused to let herself be used as someone else’s weapon, or be stabbed in the back while she fought.
And more than that, they had hurt her Holy Aunt and Little Martial Aunt. How could she let them suffer such wrongs? How could she let their blood be spilled without demanding justice?
The Xuantian Sect’s rules held four words: “Punish evil, uphold good.”
Those with kindness in their hearts who did good should not have to bleed and weep.
Those who did evil deserved evil in return.
She could not control the entire cultivation world. But on Kan Gang turf, her word was law.
