Bao Gu said to Ba,
“I keep my word. If I say I’ll make sure you eat your fill, then I’ll make sure you eat your fill.”
She had just finished speaking when she saw Ba suddenly turn her head and curl her lips in a mocking smile.
Bao Gu instantly understood Ba was laughing at that so-called “keep my word.” They had made a deal: Ba let Yu Mi go, and in return Bao Gu tricked Ba into coming to this place. Her credibility was completely ruined in Ba’s eyes. Breaking faith was shameful, but even if Bao Gu were given another chance to do it all over again, she would still make the same choice.
The carriage was inscribed with a spatial array that expanded the interior, so it was not actually as small as its ten-odd feet length and width looked from the outside. Inside, the space was far larger than it appeared. It was divided into two sections by a wide screen carved with exquisite totems.
In front of the screen was the throne. Ten seats had been set on either side of it, but Bao Gu had moved them aside and instead placed a soft couch by the window, adding a few pieces of furniture for decoration.
Behind the screen was the living area. The original owner had probably been a water-root cultivator, or one of those rare ice-root cultivators. There had been a bed of ten-thousand-year profound ice in the room, but Bao Gu had long since moved that into her oversized storage bag and replaced it with a warm-jade bed more to her liking, then added a dressing table, wardrobe, and all the usual furnishings.
Now that she wanted to get along with Ba, she naturally had to see to Ba’s daily needs.
Space was very limited. Bao Gu had no way to create another room for Ba; there wasn’t even enough floor space to add another bed. Sharing a bedroom with Ba was completely out of the question.
She did still have another carriage in her oversized storage bag—a vehicle forged from Great Luo gold essence—but that was her final backup ride, reserved for escaping with her life someday. There was no way she would take it out just to house a walking engine of destruction like Ba.
For a cultivator, sleep was optional; meditative cultivation was the best form of rest. It was only Bao Gu, stubbornly clinging to mortal habits, who still liked to sleep to rest.
Seeing how cramped the place was, Bao Gu dropped the idea of arranging separate quarters for Ba. But having Ba, in the form of a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old girl, strolling around stark naked in front of her eyes was really hard to ignore.
She got up and went into the living area to prepare bath water in the tub.
The water itself was spirit spring water rich in spiritual power. Bao Gu added a generous amount of spirit herbs beneficial for cultivation and tempering the body, then scattered petals from several seventh- and eighth-rank spirit treasures into it. After that, she extracted the essence from a few ten-thousand-year medicines and mixed it into the bath.
Petals shimmering with spiritual luster floated on the water’s surface. The bath itself glowed faintly with treasure light, multicolored radiance curling in the tub like immortal dew.
The natural treasures of heaven and earth had always held immense allure for living beings. For Ba—who had only half-completed her transformation from death to life and whose body still contained a massive amount of baleful blood energy and death qi—the life essence radiating from that bath of peerless medicines and spirit treasures was an almost indescribable temptation.
A single screen was nothing to Ba in terms of obstruction, so when Bao Gu pointed at the tub and said,
“Get in,”
Ba sat down in the bath without the slightest hesitation. There was a hint of doubt in her eyes, though. She studied the tub carefully, making sure it was truly a bath and not a cauldron shaped like a bath for stewing meat, before relaxing fully and soaking in it. She unceremoniously drew all of the medicinal essence in the bath into her body.
Ba rested her arm on the rim of the tub, watching Bao Gu.
“You really go to a lot of trouble.”
Bao Gu, rummaging through her oversized storage bag for clothing and accessories that might suit Ba, asked in puzzlement,
“What?”
Ba lifted a hand and scooped up a handful of petals. They had been sucked completely dry and were now nothing but lifeless, brittle husks devoid of spiritual power.
“Why not just feed them to me directly?” she said. “Why bother soaking them in water? Isn’t that more trouble?”
Bao Gu gave Ba a long, faint look.
“I’m making you take a bath,” she said.
She took out the clothes and accessories and set them on the small table beside the tub.
“Finish your bath and put these on.”
Ba’s gaze swept over the clothes and ornaments beside her, then she turned away with open disgust, not even pretending she had any intention of wearing them.
That undisguised disdain was impossible for Bao Gu to ignore.
“Are the clothes I prepared that awful?” she asked.
Ba nodded, then rose straight up out of the tub and stepped out.
As she emerged, she did not bring out so much as a single droplet of water. Her skin was so smooth even water couldn’t cling to it.
The clothes Bao Gu had prepared were all made from phoenix-hue spirit silkworm thread. Even if they weren’t unique under heaven, they were still top-grade in quality. Yet Ba would rather go naked than wear them.
Bao Gu rubbed her forehead, headache brewing.
“What kind of clothes do you want to wear?”
She received no response at all. Ba didn’t even look back and simply walked straight out of the inner room.
Bao Gu was speechless, equal parts helpless and on the verge of tearing her hair out.
She and Ba were basically enemies. Now they had fallen into misfortune together and were forced to form a temporary alliance, cooperating for mutual benefit, each taking what they needed. She was not Ba’s doting mother—so why was she worrying about these things?
But with Ba wandering around completely bare right beside her, it was just… an offense to the eyes. In the mortal world, someone like Ba would have been seized and thrown into a pig cage long ago.
“You could at least find something to cover yourself,” Bao Gu said. “Walking around like that, don’t you think it looks terrible?”
She didn’t hear any response from Ba. When she followed her out, she found Ba sitting on the viewing platform outside the carriage, staring blankly at the boundless, endless void.
The cultivator stood silently in a corner, trying to make his presence as small as possible.
Bao Gu knew Ba carried the memories of the daughter of the Heavenly Emperor and also possessed the wild nature of what she was now. She had no idea how much of her former-life memories Ba had awakened, nor how far her current intelligence had developed. There was no way to guess what was actually going on in Ba’s head.
She thought to herself, Let her stay naked if she wants. It’s not my nakedness.
Ba didn’t want to wear clothes—what could she do, force her?
Bao Gu sat down on a chair in the outer room and waved to the cultivator cowering in the corner.
“Sit.”
The cultivator walked over to her, cupped his fists, and bowed respectfully.
“Lou Wenfeng greets my lord.”
Bao Gu pointed to the chair beside her, indicating that this rogue cultivator named Lou Wenfeng should sit.
“I wouldn’t dare,” Lou Wenfeng said.
He lifted his robes, bent his knees, and knelt instead.
“I am willing to serve my lord as a humble slave and beast of burden,” he said. He kowtowed hard, his forehead thudding against the floor. “I beg my lord to save my wife’s life. If you give me orders, I will not hesitate even if it means dying a thousand times.”
“If you’re willing to serve me, I won’t treat you unfairly,” Bao Gu said.
Lou Wenfeng knocked his head heavily on the floor once more.
“Wenfeng greets his master.”
He proactively drew out a strand of his heavenly soul and life soul, sealed them into a soul plaque, and offered it to Bao Gu.
The soul plaque functioned much like the blood-pledge tokens used to bind demon servants. If Bao Gu ever wanted Lou Wenfeng dead, she would only need to crush the soul plaque in her hand.
Bao Gu didn’t refuse and accepted the plaque.
She would spare his life, and he would serve her as a slave—a fair transaction.
In a place like this, in such dire straits, she had no time to deal with complex human hearts.
Most of the people Ba had caged as food here were ones she had caught in the Primordial Desolation Mountain Range. They were either from the group who had originally broken the seal to seize the holy artifact, or from the later army of one million sent into the Desolation after an internal conflict.
Those people had proven they would do anything for their own gain, no matter the consequences.
They were now locked in cages like chickens waiting for the chopping block, too terrified to resist. Yet when Ba had wanted to kill the cultivator who used his pill furnace to “cook” people, that man had immediately lunged at Bao Gu in an attempt to attack her instead.
Bao Gu didn’t even have to think about it: even if she rescued them from Ba’s hands, they would have very little gratitude. As long as they had the chance and enough benefit on offer, they would not hesitate to turn on her.
Lou Wenfeng’s group were rogue cultivators. They had gone to the Primordial Desolation to seek opportunities. When she had first met them, they’d noticed that her cultivation level was low and had even kindly urged her to leave. She had a slight favorable impression of them.
But she knew almost nothing about them. How could she possibly be sure they would never one day turn against her?
Bao Gu had once risked everything, even the possibility of never returning, to trick Ba away for the sake of the cultivation world. But the things so many in the cultivation world had done had chilled her heart. And most of the ones still alive from that group were now here.
She did not deny that some among them might be innocent, or still hold kindness in their hearts. But those who did evil would only continue to do evil when given the chance, while those who were kind might not stand up to stop them. Most people simply protected themselves and stayed out of trouble.
Bao Gu repaid kindness and grudges alike. Faced with these culprits, she could not feel so much as a shred of pity. Nor would she give them any chance to move against her.
She had already made up her mind: if they wanted to live, they would have to place their very lives in her hands. Otherwise, she would definitely have Ba eat them alive.
After accepting Lou Wenfeng’s soul plaque, she said,
“Get up. I’ll have tasks for you later.”
Then she walked out to the viewing platform outside the carriage and sat down beside Ba, handing her a plate of spirit fruit.
Ba glanced at her, took the fruit plate, and held it balanced in one hand. With the other, she picked up a spirit fruit and popped it into her mouth.
“Can you open your Blood Prison World?” Bao Gu asked. “Before I put them to work, I need to discipline them a bit. Otherwise, they’ll just cause trouble.”
She paused, then added,
“If anyone refuses to obey orders or work, stew them together with the spirit herbs and I’ll let you have an extra meal.”
Ba held the fruit plate in one hand and a fruit in the other. She didn’t even look at Bao Gu.
Silently, space beside her rippled, and her Blood Prison World unfolded.
The left interior wall of the carriage vanished, replaced by a field of blood-colored inferno. From the outside, the carriage still looked like a carriage. From the inside, as long as one ignored the Blood Prison, everything appeared normal—but where the left wall had been was now an entrance to a boundless crimson world that stretched far beyond sight.
The wall itself had been only about nine feet tall, but now, when Bao Gu looked toward the Blood Prison’s entrance from within the carriage, it seemed infinitely vast. She couldn’t tell if this was some optical illusion or the power of spatial law.
A Sumeru-within-a-mustard-seed world?
The principle behind storage treasures was this very Sumeru-mustard concept. From what Bao Gu knew, experts who had comprehended the heavenly laws to a certain level could open up an independent world without relying on any external treasure, using Sumeru-within-a-mustard-seed techniques. The size of that world depended on the strength of its creator.
Bao Gu had seen Ba, several times now, casually open the Blood Prison World without any self-contained-world-type treasure. The thought that this might actually be a true Sumeru-mustard world could not help but arise in her mind.
If it was, and it was such a vast, expansive world at that, then Ba’s strength was probably even greater than she had guessed. And not just in terms of raw physical combat power, but also in her control and understanding of heavenly laws and dao principles.
Bao Gu grew a bit more cautious toward Ba in her heart, feeling that Ba was truly unfathomable. Her own master’s wife, Xueqing, still relied on the Void Treasure Realm, rather than this kind of independent world existing without a treasure as a vessel.
Now that she had reached an agreement with Ba, Bao Gu no longer had to worry about Ba killing her in the immediate future. She called Lou Wenfeng over and stepped into Ba’s Blood Prison World.
The moment she crossed the threshold, her vision opened up dramatically, and what she saw was even more expansive than the carriage’s interior had been.
The palace of white bone before her was far more towering and magnificent than she had sensed before. Standing within it, she felt as small as an ant. The Xuantian Library wasn’t even a tenth the size of this bone palace.
Behind her, there was a gap more than nine feet high and over ten feet wide, like a tear ripped through space itself. On the other side of that spatial tear lay her carriage.
She could feel countless divine senses falling on her in the Blood Prison World.
She lifted her gaze and swept her eyes over the rows upon rows, tiers upon tiers of cages crowding this space, each filled with cultivators.
Seeing them brought a hot knot to her chest.
They had shattered the seal to seize the holy artifact, causing the Xuantian Sect to lose the Primordial Desolation Mountain Range—its sect territory that anchored the Nine-Dragon Ascension Formation. They had brought Ba into the world. They had led to her current miserable situation.
They were now tasting the consequences of their actions. But how much disaster and pain had they brought to others in the process?
Looking at them, Bao Gu could not help but ask herself: if she didn’t need them for labor, would she be willing to trade them back out of Ba’s hands?
She would rather see them die.
