Seeing Yu Mi so shy, so flustered and angry that even her toes were probably red, Bao Gu felt both amused and stirred to the core. She knew Yu Mi’s awkward, tsundere nature, so she didn’t dare add more fuel to the fire. She only lowered her voice and said softly,
“Senior Sister, I missed you.”
She lifted her eyes to look at Yu Mi, her gaze soft and brimming with deep affection.
In those eyes, there was only Yu Mi.
Hearing that gentle voice, Yu Mi’s heart trembled. She sighed inwardly, then turned back—only to meet Bao Gu’s steady, unwavering gaze. In those eyes, she saw nothing but her own reflection, filling them completely.
Yu Mi’s lips curved into a tender, almost fragile smile. She reached out and took Bao Gu’s hand.
For no reason at all, a single tear slipped quickly from the corner of her eye.
Choking up, she said,
“I’m sorry. Because of me, you’ve suffered so much.”
Bao Gu shook her head slightly, smiling at the corners of her lips.
“With you, it’s not suffering.”
She felt faint, indistinct gazes sweeping over her. Following a few of those lines of sight, she spread her divine sense outward, and in one sweep saw a group of women on the pleasure barge on the small lake in the rear courtyard of the Commander’s Estate, all watching her and Yu Mi from afar.
Among them was her master’s wife.
At once she took Yu Mi’s hand, stepped lightly, and without any visible surge of energy, Bao Gu brought Yu Mi directly onto the barge.
Zi Yunshu cried out in surprise,
“What kind of technique is that?”
With their current strength, all of them could use spatial teleportation, but to leave neither energy fluctuations nor spatial ripples—that was astonishing.
Bao Gu said,
“It’s just the ‘Shrinking the Earth to an Inch’ divine ability. Is something wrong with that?”
Zi Yunshu: “…”
She suddenly recalled how Bao Gu had once casually grabbed her across a distance, and realized that Bao Gu’s current strength was utterly unfathomable.
Bao Gu bowed respectfully to Xue Qing, who was sitting at ease in her chair.
“Master’s Wife.”
Then she bowed to the Demon Saint.
“Aunt Saint.”
After that, she greeted Yi Rou, Zi Yunshu, Si Ruo, and Jade Shura one by one. As she finished, she saw Xuan Yue and Ling’er arriving together from outside the barge.
She called out happily,
“Senior Sister Yue, Ling’er, you’re here too.”
The words had barely left her mouth when Duobao Spirit Monkey popped out as well. A bright, irrepressible smile lit up Bao Gu’s face.
Everyone was here. That was wonderful.
Duobao Spirit Monkey bounced onto Bao Gu’s shoulder and sat down, chittering “zhi zhi zhi” as it wrapped its little paws tightly around her neck, burying its face in the crook of her neck and rubbing hard in affection. Then it lifted its eyes to look at Bao Gu pitifully.
Bao Gu raised her hand and gently stroked its head. She noticed that Duobao Spirit Monkey’s eyes were wet.
Ling’er scooted up to Bao Gu and said with a smile,
“It’s really good that you could come back.”
Her eyes sparkled, but her voice was a little choked. She was sincerely happy for Yu Mi and Bao Gu.
Xuan Yue gave Bao Gu a slight nod from a few feet away, watching her with a faint smile at the corners of her lips.
Back when Bao Gu had first met Xuan Yue in Drunken Flower Pavilion, she had only thought her dazzlingly beautiful and seductive. Seeing her again now, Bao Gu clearly sensed that Xuan Yue’s bearing was vastly different from before.
Her current aura faintly resembled Xue Qing’s, but where Xue Qing radiated gentle nobility, Xuan Yue was more composed and commanding, with a subtle edge of dominance. Yet she also looked extraordinarily alluring, and that razor-sharp dominance fused perfectly with her seductive beauty.
Her temperament was somewhat similar to Si Ruo’s, yet still distinct—Si Ruo had more unruly wildness and less sultry charm than Xuan Yue.
As for Si Ruo, five hundred-plus years had not left a single trace on her. To this day, Bao Gu still had no idea how old Si Ruo actually was. From what she knew, Si Ruo had ruled Yue Kingdom for over a thousand years already.
It suddenly hit Bao Gu—Si Ruo was an “old monster” too.
Then she abruptly realized that this boatful of women was truly a terrifying lineup. Any one of them could stomp a foot and make the earth tremble.
While Bao Gu was silently marveling, Yu Mi had already moved herself over to a nearby chair and sat down. With a half-smile that was not quite a smile, she said,
“Just now, it seemed like someone started a betting pool?”
Jade Shura snorted with laughter.
“A reunion after a long separation is better than a new wedding night. What are you being shy about? Do you know what ‘overcompensating’ means? It means you, exactly you!”
She tsked.
“What’s so bad about getting slept with by Bao Gu? Go ask how many people in the cultivation world are dying to be slept with by her. Even I wouldn’t mind—ah—”
Before she could finish, Qu Yi Rou “quietly” gave her a vicious pinch.
Bao Gu was so stunned by Jade Shura’s brazenness that her eyes went blank and the tips of her ears burned hot.
Qu Yi Rou’s cold, beautiful eyes slid over to Jade Shura. She gave a light hum through her nose.
“Your skin itching?”
Jade Shura hunched her shoulders and quickly leaned toward Qu Yi Rou with a fawning smile.
“Master…”
She dragged the word out with a syrupy, wheedling tone that made everyone present break out in goosebumps.
Si Ruo said,
“Enough, stop flaunting your affection here. Spare a thought for those of us who are still short one empress, will you?”
Jade Shura shot Si Ruo a glance.
“Says the woman with three thousand beauties in the harem. Your conscience doesn’t even twinge when you talk like that.”
Si Ruo gave her an evil grin.
“You jealous?”
The corner of her eye flicked toward Qu Yi Rou.
Jade Shura said lazily,
“Of the three thousand rivers, I drink from only one ladle.”
Faced with this disciple whose cultivation realm grew slower than her shamelessness, Qu Yi Rou truly had no way to deal with her, and could only press a hand to her forehead in deep, helpless resignation.
Si Ruo had always thought her own skin was thick enough, but after getting to know Jade Shura, she realized she was utterly outclassed in that department.
Bao Gu watched Jade Shura and Si Ruo bicker with curiosity. She had never imagined the two of them would actually be this close.
Knowing Bao Gu’s nature well, Si Ruo didn’t bother beating around the bush. She asked directly,
“Bao Gu, aside from that big commotion you just caused, are you planning any other big moves this time back?”
She had been waiting here expressly for Bao Gu’s next step. Not just her—leaders from all the major powers were still waiting in Shadow City. The entire cultivation world was already restless.
But because of their close friendship, she and the others were in a much better position than the rest.
Bao Gu thought for a moment.
“There is something. I wanted to hear everyone’s opinion.”
As soon as she spoke, everyone at the table perked up, spiritual sense and attention focusing on her.
Being stared at by all of them made her a bit embarrassed.
“Don’t all look at me like that. I’m not a huge slab of juicy meat.”
Si Ruo laughed.
“Then start by telling us where you got that Great Luo Scarlet Gold battleship.”
Zi Yunshu said,
“You’re even juicier than a huge slab of meat.”
A battleship made of Great Luo Scarlet Gold!
Bao Gu said,
“Let me just tell you about my five hundred or so years out there.”
She carefully recounted everything that had happened after she tricked the Bie into entering the void—without skipping a single detail.
Her voice was very calm, her tone even and unhurried as she spoke, like a gentle stream flowing quietly by.
When she got to the part where she’d been abused and beaten by the Bie, she glossed over it with a single sentence:
“At first, Qing Ying was very angry, but it seemed like something was holding her back, so she wouldn’t kill me. She just used me as a punching bag to vent. I’ve gone through the Weapon Fusion Tribulation, so I’m not that sensitive to pain. She hit me, and I just endured it. After a while she got bored and couldn’t be bothered to lay hands on me anymore…”
Then, talking about how Qing Ying had acted as her sparring partner for years, often beating her half to death, Bao Gu said,
“Qing Ying is easy to coax. Every time I gave her a few Revival Pills, she’d dutifully spar with me. Sometimes, when she saw I really couldn’t keep up, she’d even give me pointers. In those fifty years, I went from not being able to take even one of her moves to being able to fight her a hundred exchanges without losing…”
…
“When I went into seclusion, they controlled the battleship and kept jumping through space, searching for life-bearing stars. Out in the starry sky, there are not just billions, but countless stars. The mineral resources are practically endless, but most of them are unfit for life. Many are incredibly dangerous.
“Fortunately, after many rounds of improvements, the scouting formation could examine a star’s basic situation from very far away, from a sufficiently safe distance—estimating its danger level and primary composition before we decided whether to approach…”
Living through more than five hundred years had felt extremely long.
But looking back on it, not that much had “actually” happened. Mostly, it was just endless time spent building warships, cultivating spirit plants, refining pills, brewing wine, collecting resources on various stars, teleporting again and again, investigating one star after another…
Afraid they would worry, Bao Gu described everything in an extremely flat tone, as if nothing had been dangerous at all.
She didn’t notice the look in her own eyes as she recalled those five centuries.
A person’s eyes don’t lie.
Neither did the emotions that flickered through her gaze, and the women here were all old monsters themselves, each more shrewd than the last. No one called her out on it. They just silently listened as Bao Gu told the story of those hundreds of years, and then listened as she relayed what she had learned:
The universe had ten realms.
The upper realm was the Realm of Eternal Life, where immortals, demons, beasts, ghosts, and other powerful races coexisted.
The lower realms were divided into nine: the Barbarian Desolation Realm, the Nether Ghost Realm, the Spirit Realm, the Asura Realm, the Cultivation Realm, the Mortal Realm, the Great Void Realm, the Chaos Remnant Realm, and the Wild Heaven Realm.
These nine lower realms had once been interconnected. Their current world—the cultivation world—was the Wild Heaven Realm. It had originally been linked to the other realms below, but ever since the Ascension Platform was used to seal Qing Ying, this realm had been completely cut off from the outside.
Bao Gu said,
“If you don’t become an immortal, even an Earth Immortal will eventually reach the end of their lifespan. If we want true longevity, we still have to ascend to the Realm of Eternal Life. So the Realm-Breaking Gate will have to be rebuilt sooner or later.
“Before we ascend, I think we need to seriously consider how we’re going to establish ourselves up there. We know almost nothing about the upper realm. When we first ascend, compared to the existing powers up there, we probably won’t even have the strength to protect ourselves.”
Xuan Yue and Ling’er both looked over at Xue Qing.
Xue Qing seemed a bit pensive.
Si Ruo, Qu Yi Rou, the Demon Saint, Zi Yunshu, and Yu Mi all fell into deep thought as well.
Whether it was constructing the Realm-Breaking Gate or ascending, from the current vantage point it still seemed a bit far off—yet it was something they could no longer ignore, and it would be a massive upheaval.
In the past, ascension had seemed impossible; Bao Gu’s plans for rebuilding the Ascension Platform had felt like an empty promise. But that promise was also a single sliver of opportunity in the future, something everyone was desperate to seize.
Back then, the advantage had still lain with the Kan Gang and Bao Gu. Now, that advantage remained in their hands—but ascension had gone from a distant dream to something they could almost see and touch, something that might happen in the foreseeable future.
And after that, they would have to face the question of survival in the upper realm.
Xue Qing looked to Bao Gu.
“Let’s hear your thoughts.”
Bao Gu said,
“I want to first build the Realm-Breaking Gate and reestablish contact with the Barbarian Desolation Realm. Then, through the War King’s Estate, we can have Xuantian Sect officially ‘acknowledge its ancestry and return to the clan’ within the War King’s bloodline. That way, once we go up, the War King’s clan can look after us.
“But I have two concerns: first, you, Master’s Wife. Second, Qing Ying.
“Even though countless tens of thousands of years have passed, that’s the upper realm. Your enemies might all still be alive. I’m worried you’ll face another round of pursuit and slaughter.
“Here in this realm, your existence is known to everyone. Once we reconnect to the outside, I’m sure there will be people who leak your identities.”
Xue Qing asked,
“Bao Gu, have you noticed any differences between yourself in this cultivation realm and in the Barbarian Desolation Realm?”
Bao Gu frowned slightly.
“Master’s Wife means…?”
Xue Qing said,
“The difference in the laws of heaven and earth—and in your own strength.
“The ten realms all differ from one another. The Barbarian Desolation Realm, the Cultivation Realm, and the Wild Heaven Realm have similar environments with only subtle differences. The Mortal Realm has completely depleted spiritual energy—forget cultivation, you can’t even practice basic Qi Refining there.
“The Spirit Realm is the closest to the Realm of Eternal Life. The Nether Ghost Realm and the Asura Realm are both dark realms—no sun, no moon, no visible stars. The sky and earth are forever grey.
“The Great Void Realm is also called the Great Void Illusory Domain: illusion and reality are tangled together, everything is indiscernible, and it serves as a place of trials and heart-tempering. The Chaos Remnant Realm is a mass of primordial murk, heaven and earth undivided, all things in chaos…”
She paused for a moment, then continued,
“These are differences in terms of environment. But there are other differences too, such as the so‑called suppression by the laws of heaven.
“Have you ever really thought about why beings from the upper realm fall in cultivation when they come down here? Why is there such a thing as ‘suppression by the laws of heaven’?”
Bao Gu said,
“Because they’re too strong, and the world is afraid they’ll smash this realm apart?”
Xue Qing shook her head lightly.
“Take a fish out of the water and throw it on the shore under the blazing sun. See whether it doesn’t turn into dried fish.”
Bao Gu: “…”
Xue Qing explained,
“Immortals from the upper realm nourish their bodies with immortal qi. But this realm doesn’t have immortal qi—only spiritual qi. An immortal’s body being fed by spiritual qi is like you being thrown into the Mortal Realm with no spiritual energy at all.
“You get no replenishment, but you’ve already consumed a huge amount of energy breaking through the barrier between realms. How much combat power do you think you’ll have left?
“It takes a very long time for a body used to immortal qi to gradually adapt to the spiritual qi of this realm.
“Benben jumped out of a celestial stone in the upper realm. Even now it can’t adapt to this realm’s spiritual qi; it survives entirely on the life essence in heavenly herbs and treasures.
“Back then, your master and I chose to flee down to this realm because we had the Void Secret World; we could afford the drain. And because this realm is shielded by the gale layer, coming down here consumes more power than going to any of the other realms.
“After all these years, I’ve fully adapted to this world, and my current strength isn’t weak. If immortals from above receive the news and break the realm to come down… however many come, I’m confident I can kill them all.”
She paused, then added,
“This realm is cultivable, but its spiritual qi is the weakest of all the nearby realms. Cultivating here is much harder than in the Cultivation Realm or the Barbarian Desolation Realm. But the harder the road, the greater the tempering—and the stronger you become.
“Before I came here, there was once a True Immortal from the Wild Heaven Realm who ascended, then slew a Profound Immortal across the boundary.”
Bao Gu: “…”
Xue Qing fell silent after saying this.
Bao Gu mulled over her words carefully.
“So, even if we reconnect the Wild Heaven Realm with the outside, the upper realm still won’t be able to do much to us?”
Xue Qing said,
“With the power we currently have, if we join forces, we can at least guarantee our own survival.”
Bao Gu’s eyes brightened.
“So it’s feasible to build the Realm-Breaking Gate now and establish connections with the other realms?”
Xue Qing said,
“It’d be best to start by reconnecting only to the Barbarian Desolation Realm and the Cultivation Realm.
“All the realms have basically abandoned the Mortal Realm—just breathing there is depressing.
“As for the Asura Realm, it’s entirely filled with barbarians at True Immortal and above. Humans and demon beasts survive only in the cracks, and are little better than food.
“The Nether Ghost Realm has no spiritual qi, only yin qi. Yin and spiritual qi are like water and fire—mutually exclusive, one rising as the other falls.
“The Spirit Realm has abundant spiritual power, but it’s the homeland and breeding ground of the most powerful spirit beasts, including the true dragons and phoenixes of the divine clans. From the standpoint of this realm, it’s best to show respect from a distance and stay far away.
“The Great Void Realm and the Chaos Remnant Realm… with the strength of the cultivators in this realm, going into either would only mean one thing: going in and not coming out.”
