The last light of the setting sun spilled over the jade-white palaces, coating them in a sheet of molten gold and casting back a blaze of gilded splendor.
Yu Mi was lying lazily on the soft couch beneath the window, propped on her right hand, a wine jug dangling from her left as she drank in slow, careless swallows. On the low tea table before her, a set of exquisite tea ware was laid out, busy brewing an extravagance among extravagances—a pot of Saint Dragon Enlightenment Tea infused with supreme spirit-water.
The woman tending the tea wore light-scented robes, hair piled up in cloudlike coils, her movements unhurried and tranquil. Tea fragrance, drifting spirit mist, and a beauty in soft hues, all bathed in the golden glow of the sunset, formed a scene so breathtaking that Yu Mi found her eyes going slightly out of focus just looking at it.
This Command Envoy Mansion had stood here for several centuries now. For her, it was nothing more than a temporary lodging she used once a year to rest and handle Kan Gang matters—a glorified inn she happened to occupy alone. Even so, no matter how luxurious, it was still an empty, lifeless palace.
Today was no different from years past, except for the presence of one more person.
But because of this one person, the entire place suddenly seemed to come alive. The former emptiness, with that one added stroke of color, turned bright and vivid.
All these years, she had always felt she was just a passerby in this palace.
Now, watching Bao Gu sit across from her, she suddenly had the strange feeling that she was, in truth, the mistress of this grand hall.
All of this belonged to Bao Gu.
In the past, she was only guarding and managing it on Bao Gu’s behalf. Now Bao Gu had come back and was sitting right in front of her. Only now did Yu Mi truly feel that all of this was hers—or at least, with Bao Gu at her side, she could finally enjoy what was Bao Gu’s without guilt. She no longer had to look at every brick, every wall, every sprig of grass and think of that person who left it behind, until it hurt enough to make her want to flee.
She had yet to ascend to immortality, but her life already felt complete.
Thinking of the Upper Realm, where one might obtain longevity and cultivate to even higher, more powerful realms—but where there was just as much conflict and slaughter as in the cultivation world—she found herself wondering whether becoming an immortal could really be better than this moment.
Yu Mi smiled as she looked at Bao Gu and sighed.
“Soft fragrance, a hero’s grave.”
Bao Gu’s lips curved in a gentle smile. She set a full cup upside down on the little table in front of Yu Mi and said,
“Senior Sister dreaming of resting her heroic bones in soft fragrance is probably a bit difficult.”
She lifted her own cup and drained it in one gulp, then said solemnly,
“Master and Mistress have treated me with kindness as heavy as a mountain. I have to repay that debt.”
Yu Mi’s smile faded.
“How?” she asked. “What Mistress said wasn’t wrong. With our strength, going against the Upper Realm is smashing an egg on a rock.”
Bao Gu asked,
“Five hundred years ago, when we had just entered Xuantian Sect, did Senior Sister ever imagine we would be where we are today? Did you think Kan Gang would have its current foundation? That we would sit in a palace like this, commanding armies of hundreds of thousands?”
Yu Mi answered,
“I did not.”
Her brows arched.
“Don’t tell me you already had those kinds of ambitions when you first joined Xuantian Sect?”
Bao Gu’s pretty face flushed a shade.
Honestly, she said,
“I didn’t, either. The biggest reason I followed you to Xuantian Sect was that I didn’t want to starve to death. The other reason was… your ‘presentation’ back then was really nice to look at.”
Yu Mi’s voice lifted.
“Presentation? Nice to look at?”
Bao Gu said,
“Mm. You were glowing all over, descended from the sky, and that groundfire toad bigger than a carriage was sliced to bits in just a few swishes of your sword. Even now, thinking back on it, I still think it was stunning.”
Listening to Bao Gu, Yu Mi felt a little embarrassed.
She coughed lightly.
“Talk business.”
Bao Gu said,
“I want to rebuild a Worldbreaking Realm Gate. I know my strength is limited and I can’t help Mistress with much, but I’ll do what I can. However much I can help is however much they get. I can’t just sit back and do nothing because I’m weak. A grain of sand makes a tower, drops of water pierce stone. If we do it and keep going, it might not be impossible.”
Yu Mi had always thought Bao Gu had more ideas and firmer resolve than she did. Since Bao Gu was saying this out loud, she must already have a plan in mind.
“What do you need me to do?” Yu Mi asked at once.
Bao Gu said,
“I want to travel this cultivation world, to look for a place with absolutely superb feng shui to rebuild the Worldbreaking Realm Gate. The reason this realm’s Worldbreaking Realm Gate was built into the Nine-Dragon Ascension Formation is because the spiritual energy consumption was too great. If we can find another way to supply that much power, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the Nine-Dragon Ascension Formation. Worst case, after the Realm Gate is built, if the spiritual energy isn’t enough, I can patch the gap with spirit stones.”
Yu Mi ground her teeth.
“Rich, aren’t we!”
She shot Bao Gu a sideways look.
“Even if Kan Gang is big and rich now, after several hundred years of expansion, there aren’t that many liquid spirit stones left. A few rounds of that kind of squandering from you, and we’ll burn Kan Gang’s savings to the ground.”
Over five hundred years ago, right after Bao Gu left, Kan Gang had just wiped out several powers and seized an uncountable amount of spoils—territory, spirit stones, spirit treasures, medicines, mines. Back then, they lacked everything except money.
But after several centuries of expanding the army, building fleets, and enlarging cities, all those spirit stones saved while Bao Gu was still around had long since turned into warships, cities, armies, and a sprawling, tangled web of businesses. As for the spirit stones they could actually take out now—they would need to be carefully gathered. If too many were withdrawn at once, circulation might seize up.
With an operation that huge, if the flow of spirit stones broke and a chain reaction followed, Yu Mi had no idea what kind of disaster it might cause. She had never been good at accounts or business, so she had always played it safe—keeping cash flow flexible at all times, unafraid of slower growth so long as things stayed stable.
Activating a Worldbreaking Realm Gate had previously required the support of the Nine-Dragon Ascension Formation; she could easily imagine the spiritual energy it took. Just picturing plugging that gap with spirit stones made Yu Mi’s scalp prickle.
Transport through a Realm-Breaking Gate cost a fortune, never mind a Worldbreaking Realm Gate. Even with Kan Gang’s deep foundations, a few of Bao Gu’s “loss-making ventures” might send their finances tumbling off a cliff.
Yu Mi laid out Kan Gang’s current “money” situation for Bao Gu, along with all her worries.
Bao Gu chuckled.
“You think I look like someone who’ll burn through her own spirit stones?” she asked.
Yu Mi froze for a moment.
Bao Gu said,
“The Manhuang Realm is a huge stretch of territory with endless spirit treasures and medicines, not to mention the rich resources in the starry sky around it. Do you really think the great sects won’t be willing to pay a toll to cross a Worldbreaking Realm Gate and go there? Even if they’re not willing, they’ll have to be!”
Her tone cooled.
“Once another power snatches the advantage and grows even further, those who haven’t gotten any benefits—especially the ones just a step away from ascension—are guaranteed to decline. To put it bluntly, if they miss the chance now, they won’t even be able to recruit disciples with good aptitude later. Talented, well-rooted cultivators can join any big sect they like—why would they go to one that can’t even afford to open a Realm Gate? Even if they somehow cultivated to the level of ascension, they’d have no spirit stones to ascend.”
She smiled faintly.
“A sect that can’t even open a Worldbreaking Realm Gate—how many cultivation resources can they possibly provide their disciples? If they can’t get good disciples, there’s no follow-up strength, and the sect is sure to dwindle.”
Yu Mi finally caught up and couldn’t help sighing.
“Scheming merchant.”
She asked,
“So you’re planning to turn the Worldbreaking Realm Gate into a money-printing machine?”
Bao Gu said,
“After I go to all the trouble of finding a place and spend that much effort to build a Worldbreaking Realm Gate, of course I need to earn something from it. Why would I do such a laborious, thankless job for free? Everyone else puts in no work, no resources, and just waits to enjoy the gate once I finish it? Since when is the world that nice?”
Her eyes flashed.
“We’re pulling Sect Master Si and Pavilion Master Qu in on this.”
Yu Mi laughed.
“Why? Because of friendship?”
Her instincts were telling her that wasn’t the only reason.
Bao Gu said,
“We’ve had hundreds of years of friendship, and they’re both people we can trust. Naturally I won’t leave them out of the benefits. And if any power gets greedy for the Worldbreaking Realm Gate or the Five-Element Immortal Stones and wants to rob or seize them, with Kan Gang, Yue Kingdom, Xuantian Sect, and Soul Chasing Pavilion joining forces, just the sight of that lineup will stop them cold.”
She thought silently: life-and-death friends ought to be dragged aboard the pirate ship together.
Yu Mi’s lips curved.
So the pie was too big, and one person couldn’t finish it alone—she was afraid of bursting.
Yu Mi drained the last of her wine. Bao Gu’s tea was nearly finished as well. One put away the jug, the other cleared the tea set, and they stepped down from the soft couch.
As soon as they opened the door, they saw Duobao Spirit Monkey squatting on the railing outside the corridor.
When Duobao Spirit Monkey saw them come out, it let out a delighted squeak, leapt onto Bao Gu’s shoulder, and chattered excitedly. Then it waved its paws about, acting out its meaning: it wanted to go back to Monkey Ridge in the Xuantian mountain range.
When Bao Gu had tricked Qingying into the void, she had taken the entire Xuantian mountain range with her, along with Monkey Ridge itself. Before she left, Duobao Spirit Monkey had picked a great many ingredients for brewing Supreme Monkey Wine. But after so many years, most of those Primordial Spirit Fruits and Nascent Soul Fruits had already gone into the wine jars. The small portion it had been unwilling to use had gradually dwindled as well.
Whenever some disciple of high status in Xuantian Sect had a mishap, their masters would personally come to Yu Mi for help. These were all fellow sect members who had escaped together when Xuantian Sect was destroyed, relying on each other on the road. For example, how could Yu Mi just watch Feng Menglong’s only son’s Nascent Soul scatter and not save him? How could she ignore Hua Sheng’s Dao companion dying and leave the man kneeling and kowtowing to her in desperation?
Add in a few life-and-death friends made outside the sect who came seeking aid, and by the time all the requests were done, even the last few fruits the little monkey couldn’t bear to use had been spent.
Unable to brew more Supreme Monkey Wine and with the stock on hand shrinking by the day, Duobao Spirit Monkey was understandably anxious. It had waited with longing eyes for Bao Gu to return, but Bao Gu kept being busy with no time to spare. In the end, it couldn’t wait any longer and simply parked itself by her door, staring and waiting.
At last, Bao Gu came out, and the monkey was so excited it was shaking.
Bao Gu only thought Duobao Spirit Monkey had missed its Monkey Ridge and the wine ingredients it used to brew. She gently patted its head, opened the entrance to her gigantic storage bag, and said,
“I’m out of Monkey Wine. Go to my medicine fields and pick some spirit herbs and treasures, then trade me some Monkey Wine.”
Duobao Spirit Monkey scratched its head in confusion, peering wonderingly at Bao Gu. It had long grown used to a cold, distant Bao Gu, so being suddenly patted so tenderly on the head made it almost uncomfortable.
Seeing the monkey dazed, Bao Gu only chuckled softly.
“Go on.”
Duobao Spirit Monkey squeaked, then hugged her neck in giddy delight, rubbing its furry face against her cheek. Afraid of making her angry, it darted away the instant it finished, shooting into the oversized storage bag with a whoosh, its excited, shrill cries echoing away into the distance.
Bao Gu saw how happy it was and assumed it was all for the sake of those spirit herbs. Shaking her head with a smile, she took Yu Mi’s hand and headed for the study.
When they reached the study, only Si Ruo was there. Qu Yirou, Jade Shura, her holy aunt, and Little Martial Aunt were all gone.
She asked,
“Where are they?”
Si Ruo looked up and saw Yu Mi and Bao Gu walking in hand in hand, and instantly felt they were an eyesore. She had a sudden urge to summon a whole row of her concubines to stand behind her, just to show these couples that she, too, was cherished and adored.
But the thought only made her more dispirited.
Her harem might number in the thousands, but more of them loved her power than loved her. They feared her more than they cherished her. Their kindness was all for the sake of her favor and status.
The more time she spent with them, the more meaningless her three thousand harem seemed, and the more she envied these people with their little pairs of true companionship. And her own harem was tangled up with political marriages—a complete headache.
She said,
“Yu Mi beat Zi Yunshu until her face was black and blue. Zi Yunshu said she was going to ‘teach Yu Mi a lesson.’ Jade Shura came up with the idea of making Yu Mi kneel on a washboard artifact. The Demon Saint and Pavilion Master Qu saw Zi Yunshu and Jade Shura together itching to stir up trouble and dragged them off.”
She reported it exactly as it was, but she did not, of course, complain about Yu Mi in front of Bao Gu, who always took Yu Mi’s side. What kind of person did she look like? Would she waste time on such pointless tattling?
Bao Gu’s brows rose, and she turned to look at Yu Mi.
Her senior sister had beaten Little Martial Aunt black and blue? What on earth had happened?
Yu Mi snorted.
“With that thick skin and scales of hers, you really think I can make her face swell?”
Si Ruo thought inwardly:
Which just proves how hard you were hitting.
Bao Gu considered it, then nodded.
“True,” she agreed.
She believed Yu Mi without hesitation and without the slightest principle.
Si Ruo: …
She wanted to slap herself. Why had she even brought it up?
“Go flaunt your affection somewhere else,” she snapped. “Don’t disturb me while I’m copying books.”
The dignified empress of Yue Kingdom, who kept entire offices full of clerks, was personally bent over here copying texts all by herself, without even an assistant. If the cultivators of the world heard of this, their jaws would drop.
Bao Gu said,
“Take your time. Once you’re done, bring them back and show them to your ministers. They’ll be very useful later.”
Si Ruo’s instincts flared. Her eyes lit up.
“What do you mean?”
She rose at once, hustling Bao Gu into the study and pressing her into a chair. She even brewed a pot of tea herself and set it before her.
“All right, out with it. What are you planning now?”
Bao Gu accepted the tea, blew at the leaves floating on top, and said mildly,
“I’m planning to open the way to the Manhuang Realm again. Are you interested in going?”
Si Ruo thought of the resources Bao Gu had mentioned detecting in the starry sky, and of those Da Luo Scarlet Gold warships and the three hundred thousand troops in Da Luo Scarlet Gold armor that she’d been drooling over all this time. Her heart practically flew to the Manhuang Realm on the spot.
She had assumed that with the Nine-Dragon Ascension Formation gone, there was no way to build another Worldbreaking Realm Gate, and that going to the Manhuang Realm was off the table for the foreseeable future. She hadn’t expected Bao Gu to bring it up again, and sounding as if there were actually a way.
“Of course I’m interested,” she said immediately.
As if remembering something, Bao Gu turned to the maid standing outside on duty.
“Go invite Pavilion Master Qu. Invite Fairy Yunshu as well.”
Si Ruo lifted a brow and thought for a moment. The smile at the corner of her mouth deepened.
Before long, Qu Yirou, Jade Shura, Zi Yunshu, and the Demon Saint all entered one after another.
Jade Shura sighed.
“We’d barely left when we got dragged back. Have you two finished whispering sweet nothings?”
Zi Yunshu, on the other hand, went straight up to Bao Gu, stuck her face right in front of her eyes, pointed at her own pale, delicate cheek, and said,
“See my face? See the medicine I had to put on it? Your dear Senior Sister Yu Mi. She hit me.”
Bao Gu froze, staring at Zi Yunshu in stunned horror, not daring to respond.
Her senior sister had beaten Little Martial Aunt?
There was no way to adjudicate that fairly…
Her eyes flicked aside, and she hurried to change the subject.
“Little Martial Aunt, I’ve got a huge business deal,” she said.
Yu Mi added,
“Little Martial Aunt, you should get out and move around more. You’ve been cooped up in Xuantian Sect, not stepping past the main gate or second gate, for so long your reflexes are getting rusty.”
Zi Yunshu rolled her eyes at Yu Mi.
“That’s only because you’re such a sly fox. If I didn’t suppress my cultivation and hold back, you’d have been slapped flat and left lying on the floor ages ago.”
Thinking that, she felt much more balanced.
She turned away, went to sit down nearby, and reached for the teacup at Bao Gu’s side. One glance told her it wasn’t of her own make, so it definitely wasn’t tea Bao Gu had brewed. She withdrew her hand and said to Bao Gu,
“Make tea.”
Bao Gu’s senior sister had beaten her Little Martial Aunt. Even if she wanted to slight her, she didn’t dare. She hurriedly brewed a fresh pot and served it respectfully to Zi Yunshu.
Zi Yunshu took a sip of Bao Gu’s tea, and the irritation of being punched in the face and losing just a bit of dignity to her grand-disciple vanished like morning mist.
Smiling, she said,
“Everyone’s been guessing you’re about to make a big move. Tell us. What’s the big move, and what’s this huge deal?”
“I’m going to rebuild the Worldbreaking Realm Gate,” Bao Gu said. “And I want to bring you all in on it.”
The Demon Saint frowned slightly.
“Didn’t you say we couldn’t build a Worldbreaking Realm Gate without the Nine-Dragon Ascension Formation?”
Bao Gu rose, sealed the study, and cut off all outside detection before laying out her plan.
“Right now,” she said, “I’m planning to go out and find a suitable place to build the gate. As for things on this side, I’d like to ask the four of you to join forces and bring the Five-Element Immortal Stones back under control.
“Xuantian Sect, Yue Kingdom, Soul Chasing Pavilion, and Kan Gang working together, plus my three hundred thousand troops—would that be enough to suppress the combined resistance of the other sects?”
Qu Yirou thought for a bit.
“Various powers have been cultivating on the Five-Element Immortal Stones for centuries,” she said. “Some of them are now peak experts in the late Tribulation stage. Here in Qingzhou, with the Qingzhou Grand Formation in place, they won’t dare stir trouble. But once they leave Qingzhou, even if they don’t gather openly, they will definitely move behind the scenes.
“When you first yielded the Five-Element Immortal Stones and let the cultivators of the world share them, over these few hundred years countless powers have benefited. Now you suddenly want to take all the Immortal Stones back without offering them anything in return. Kan Gang’s move will very likely trigger public outrage.
“People from all kinds of sects are mixed into Kan Gang. I’m afraid you’ll be sowing the seeds of future trouble.”
Bao Gu thought it over, then turned to Jade Shura.
“Jade Shura, if I didn’t invite Soul Chasing Pavilion in on this, what would you think? What would you do?”
Jade Shura considered.
“Kan Gang is huge,” she said. “They have the Qingzhou Grand Formation, they have Qingying, and they have so many top experts sitting in town. If I came at you head-on, I’d be an idiot.
“You building a Worldbreaking Realm Gate does me no harm. You taking back the Five-Element Immortal Stones doesn’t hurt most cultivators, either. The only ones who really lose out are those peak experts who get to cultivate closest to the stones.
“Everyone in the cultivation world knows exactly how ruthless you can be when you act, Bao Gu. I’d never move carelessly.
“But my Grandmaster is currently in closed-door cultivation right in front of the Five-Element Immortal Stones. If you pull the stones out from under him and he blows up and orders me to do something, I’d have to weigh my options.
“I might be the branch master of Kan Gang’s Shadow Hall and wield great power there, but I’m also the young pavilion master of Soul Chasing Pavilion. In Soul Chasing Pavilion, I rely on my master and my Grandmaster to back me up. I can’t just defect to Kan Gang and then betray my own sect, can I?”
She paused, then added,
“There are a lot of Five-Element Immortal Stones. Missing one or two won’t cripple you. If my Grandmaster ordered me to take advantage of the chaos and steal a few? I absolutely would.
“At worst, if you hunt them down, I hand them back. If you don’t trace them to me, I quietly pocket them.”
Jade Shura thought some more, then said,
“There’s an old saying: there are thousand-year thieves, but no thousand-year guards. You’ll need craftsmen and formation masters to build the Worldbreaking Realm Gate. Once there are many people involved, you’ll have many hands in the pot.
“Even if you manage to take back every Five-Element Immortal Stone safely right now, can you guarantee nothing will happen during construction? Some of those formation masters will be Tribulation-stage experts. Preventing them from making subtle little tweaks in some insignificant corner of the grand array… that’s going to be very, very hard.”
Bao Gu exhaled softly.
“Then I’ll have Qingying oversee the work. Anyone who dares cause trouble, I’ll have her eat them. She’s been doing exactly that job for over five hundred years. She’s got the practice.”
Jade Shura: …
Qu Yirou: …
Demon Saint: …
Si Ruo: …
Yu Mi drawled,
“Qingying’s that easy to fool. Aren’t you afraid she’ll get tricked and help someone else steal the Five-Element Immortal Stones instead?”
Bao Gu: …
“You really think Qingying is that stupid?” she asked.
Yu Mi said,
“Before anyone even tries to sell her out, she’ll probably sell herself first. You tell me. It wouldn’t even take that much effort—just string together a few layered little schemes and she’ll be dizzy. If you don’t believe me, I can run a test and scam her for you?”
Bao Gu hurriedly waved her hands.
“I’m more afraid she’ll catch on and, in a fit of rage, stew you and eat you!”
The Demon Saint said,
“Yu Mi has a point, though.”
Bao Gu: …
Qu Yirou said,
“Relying on someone as easy to trick as Qingying to guard the Five-Element Immortal Stones—don’t you think that’s a bit risky?”
Bao Gu herself felt that relying on just one person to protect the Five-Element Immortal Stones, which every cultivator in the world coveted, was reckless to the point of carelessness.
Building a Worldbreaking Realm Gate was a massive project. Leaving everything else aside, just the grand array linking the gate to heaven’s laws above and the earth veins and mountains below was terrifyingly complex. If any formation master secretly made a small change at some unobtrusive point, it could be enough to cause a huge disaster. Qingying couldn’t possibly watch every inch.
Yu Mi thought for a moment, then said,
“Jade Shura, suppose we take back the Five-Element Immortal Stones, but leave over a hundred stones engraved with heaven’s laws in place. You work for Kan Gang, or you participate in building the Worldbreaking Realm Gate. Based on your contribution, we’ll give you a certain number of passes—say, several, or a dozen—for using the Worldbreaking Realm Gate.
“You can give those passes to your loved ones and seniors. Whoever uses a pass can cross the gate for free, and can also cultivate on the remaining Five-Element Immortal Stones. Under those conditions, would you still sabotage us behind the scenes?”
Jade Shura’s smile burst forth like sunshine.
“With those passes in hand, I can milk my sect for so many benefits when I go back. Why would I ruin that?”
She shot Qu Yirou a mischievous look and winked.
“Right, Master?”
Yu Mi went on,
“The cultivators currently guarding the Five-Element Immortal Stones are the strongest batch in the world right now, and the ones with the greatest chance of becoming immortals. Given their realm and power, they probably want to step out of this world and become stronger even more than we do.
“They don’t want to lose the Immortal Stones, but more than anyone, they want that Worldbreaking Realm Gate built. If we promise them enough benefits, I think they’ll guard both the Five-Element Immortal Stones and the Worldbreaking Realm Gate with everything they’ve got.”
