Back in the Grimoire World, Yue Yang gathered with Princess Qianqian, Yue Yu, and the others. They deliberated for half a day, then rested and relaxed for a night before he went back out to the Reception House.
Yue Yu, Princess Qianqian, and the rest were both astonished at Yue Yang’s strange experience and thankful for how it had turned out.
With Duoduo and the others away in cultivation and not yet returned, and Xue Wuxia still not awakened, everyone could only set the question of the divine realm aside for the time being.
In his own heart, Yue Yang would much rather have seen the sword-spirit imperial-lady once more within his world of thought, and taken the finest guidance from her before doing anything else. But when he entered that world of thought in sleep, he found only the big loli keeping him company at his training as she always did — of the sword-spirit imperial-lady there was no trace.
The sword-spirit imperial-lady was not someone you could see merely by wishing to. Only at the most crucial — or the most urgent — moments would she appear to offer instruction.
So he’d wait patiently. There was no hurry now anyway; the sword-spirit imperial-lady came out to give him a little examination every so often, and he could put his questions about the divine realm to her then. Yue Yang had broken through the boundless world of the silver grimoire and comprehended creation, destruction, and eternity. He’d been flung to Earth Valley’s Mountain Beyond the Mountain, and for the moment could find neither method nor path back to Human Valley — but none of that dampened his present good mood.
Whistling a tune, he got out of bed at a lazy, unhurried pace. He stretched. He ignored Guoguo pounding on the door outside, washed and groomed himself thoroughly, and only then opened the door with an air of perfect leisure.
The door swung open to reveal Guoguo’s face, blackened with rage until it was darker than a coffin plank: “I thought you’d died in there! I called you for ages — why didn’t you answer?”
Yue Yang feigned surprise, but the expression was so clumsily done — worse than a bit-player extra fit only for handing out boxed lunches — that a single glance told you it was fake: “Did you just call me? I didn’t hear a thing! Sorry, I really didn’t hear you. Did you need something?”
Guoguo could have torn the door off its hinges, seized it in both hands, and beaten this kid to death with it. It took some doing, but he swallowed it: “The lord says get ready. We need to set out at once and return to the Southeast Divine Nation!”
Old Mao, who had collapsed unconscious the previous day, had woken to find his mind a blank haze, as though there were something very important he could no longer recall. But rack his brains as he might, he could not recall what it was, and it left him agitated and ill at ease. He sat there in a daze, soul scattered, for a very long time indeed, never once finding the lost memory. And even though his body was safe and unharmed, uninjured, with no sign of an attack, that uncanny business of a piece of his memory being missing left him deeply unsettled.
Once he returned to the Reception House, Old Mao found that his memory seemed, after all, to be fine. The memory in his mind of having just received a strange “newcomer” matched reality without the slightest discrepancy.
Old Mao truly began to doubt he’d lost any memory at all — but he could not explain why he’d fainted flat on the ground, and still less could he explain that jarring inner sense that some portion of his memory was gone!
He thought it over all night. Still finding no answer, Old Mao decided to end his reception duty and return to the Southeast Divine Nation ahead of schedule. Only back on his own ground would the unease in his heart lessen and fade… Old Mao rose at first light and ordered Guoguo and several subordinates to make ready for the return journey. As for that strange “newcomer” Yue Yang, though Old Mao had a few doubts, he privately wondered whether the supreme power backing this Yue Titan had done something to him — which only made him more reverent still.
The return journey passed in peace the whole way, but Old Mao remained doubly cautious, careful at every turn. Only when he set foot across the border of the Southeast Divine Nation, entering the frontier pass, did he quietly let out a breath of relief.
“Rest for a day. Tomorrow we’ll catch a ride — we’ll transfer to the ‘sky-hanging mothership’ that the border army is taking back to the capital for its rotation and duty report. You may wander the border city and buy any frontier goods you need for daily life, but you are not to stir up trouble.” Old Mao was well acquainted with the divine general garrisoned in this frontier fortress city, and before going off to a banquet at the general’s residence, he made a point of instructing them.
“Yes, my lord. Please set your mind at ease.” Guoguo hastened to make his position clear, while shooting Yue Yang a hard, venomous stare.
“Can Heaven Crystals be used here too?” Yue Yang didn’t so much as glance at him, but reached out to take a small pouch Old Mao handed over. Opening it, he found more than a dozen Heaven Crystals inside, and was delighted. Yue Yang might not have much else on his person, but Heaven Crystals he had in quantity — it seemed that even here in Earth Valley he wouldn’t have to live a miserable life.
“What dumb luck!” Outwardly Guoguo didn’t dare voice a complaint about Old Mao privately gifting Yue Yang, but inwardly he was deeply aggrieved. That little pouch of Heaven Crystals was worth half a year of his salary. And now it had just been handed off, casually, to this pretty-boy. Who hadn’t even said a word of thanks!
Before leaving, Old Mao caught the expression on his subordinate’s face and felt uneasy about it. Breaking his own precedent, he bestowed three Heaven Crystals on each of his subordinates before he went. They were all his trusted men, after all, and he had no wish for a small pouch of Heaven Crystals to open a rift between master and servant.
Three Heaven Crystals didn’t measure up to Yue Yang’s little pouch, but it salvaged some face at least. Guoguo’s expression finally improved. He gave Yue Yang a hmph, a certain arrogance escaping through his nose, as if to say: In the end it’s still me — the old hand who’s followed the lord all these years — who’s the favored one!
Yue Yang tilted his face up toward the sky, pretending not to see the fellow at all, leaving Guoguo with the helpless sensation of having thrown a punch into empty air — and another wave of vexation with it!
The other few subordinates were beside themselves with joy, and after thanking their benevolent superior Old Mao, they hurried out one after another to the border city market outside the inn to buy the local frontier specialties.
With no need for that unqualified guide Guoguo, Yue Yang strolled the border city market alone.
The goods here were not scarce merely because this was the frontier. On the contrary, the goods here were remarkably abundant — a dazzling profusion of them.
“Earth-marrow mystic silver from the Western Divine Nation! One of the ten great forbidden goods in the trade among the eight divine nations! I have only three vials left — I risked my very life to take this commission from Earth Valley’s Skyfall Bandits. A thousand Heaven Crystals a vial, no haggling. If you mean to buy, act quickly!”
“Purple coral from the Southern Divine Nation! Wear it and grow wise; it clears the mind and keeps you from delusion. A mere fifty!”
“Ink Steed, Windchaser, Snowtread, Purple Lightning, Startling Thunder — every rare and precious mount, two hundred Heaven Crystals across the board!”
“Serpent-veined gray grass, cures a hundred poisons; feed it to a plant-type war beast and it increases its toxicity. Also on offer: dragon-spittle fragrant wood, iron-leaf thornbrier, and star-pistil purple sky-net.”
“Frontier tokens for every divine nation for sale! Hold a token and you may pass the borders of any divine nation.”
“Heaven Crystals exchanged, always…”
“The Lion Rolling a Snowball, from the Northeastern Divine Nation — the greatest pearl in all the Mountain Beyond the Mountain! This treasure is warm in winter and cool in summer, and gives off light by day and night — soft, gathered light that never disperses. Truly the one and only choice for the decor of a noble household’s chambers. Three hundred Heaven Crystals. First come, first served. Come and take a look, all of you!”
Walking through this border city market, Yue Yang found the trade here livelier even than the plaza on the sixth level of the Sky Tower, the hawkers’ cries rising and falling one after another.
What he found most inconceivable of all was this: here, you could buy anything.
Contraband, treasures, pearls and precious stones. Whatever you wanted, they had it. So long as you had Heaven Crystals enough, this border city market could sell you absolutely anything at all. Forbidden goods, illegal dealings — to the merchants here, such things were no more than drifting clouds. Most audacious of all: that fellow selling the Western Divine Nation’s earth-marrow mystic silver was standing directly beneath the warning board listing the ten great forbidden goods, in what amounted to open defiance of the border city’s laws — while the garrison guards standing not far off played the wide-eyed blind man and saw nothing at all.
Yue Yang made a circuit of the market. He didn’t buy much, but he did purchase a few things that caught his eye — for instance, some war-beast eggs of exceedingly high growth potential.
In the Sky Tower, no quantity of war-beast eggs was ever enough — least of all the high-growth, high-potential eggs that Yue Yang brought back, which had become one of the very benchmarks each race needed for its own rise. The kings of the various races fought over them tooth and nail. Had Elder Nangong not arranged and handled the distribution reasonably, it might well have touched off war all over again.
Of course, what Yue Yang needed most right now was not war-beast eggs.
It was intelligence.
“Tell me every rumor you know. Don’t let your mouth rest, don’t repeat yourself, don’t ramble. If I’m satisfied with what I hear, you get one more Heaven Crystal for every five minutes.” Yue Yang observed the market for a good while, then found a small itinerant peddler with a very nimble tongue, set three Heaven Crystals on the man’s gemstone scale, and promised a rich reward besides.
“Young master, you’ve come to the right man! Nobody knows Earth Valley’s rumors better than I do — three days and three nights wouldn’t be enough to tell them all. Ah, that reminds me — word is a fierce band of Skyfall Bandits just raided ‘Fire Island,’ butchered every soul there, plundered untold wealth, and fled into the meteor stream belt. The Southeastern, Southern, and Southwestern Divine Nations are preparing to jointly form an expeditionary legion to wipe out the bandit menace. Speaking of the Skyfall Bandits — apart from throwing us the occasional smuggling commission, those fellows are good for nothing at all. Everyone knows that Earth Valley and the Mountain Beyond the Mountain are drawing closer together every moment of every day, and once they touch, the whole world will be destroyed. Everyone is doing all they can to stop that convergence, and yet those bandits are out there wrecking things day after day, as though they can’t wait for doomsday to arrive early. Granted, the convergence of Earth Valley and the Mountain Beyond the Mountain is still at least ten thousand years off, so we may not live to see the end of the world ourselves — but one still has to secure a chance at survival for one’s children and grandchildren… The Western Divine Nation is expanding its armaments. They say it has a ‘Thousand-Year Plan,’ meaning to unify the Mountain Beyond the Mountain and Earth Valley within a thousand years — though whether that’s true or false, who can say! Then what else was there? Ah… that’s right, I’ve got the biggest secret of all. After the two divine lords Taiyan and Bingli fell, some say the ancient relic was lost in ‘the Land of Divine Extinction,’ the most terrifying no-man’s-land in all the Mountain Beyond the Mountain. Others say the ancient relic was split into eight portions, each held by one of the eight great divine lords. And there’s yet another rumor that the Eastern and Western divine lords, using the pretext that the ancient relic was lost, secretly hid the relic away for themselves — and are secretly drawing divine power from it, so that the strength of those two divine lords rises without cease and has already left the other six divine lords far, far behind…”
“Not bad. This is your reward!” For the sake of the Heaven Crystals, the fellow poured out every piece of gossip he knew, talking until his lips were dry and his tongue was parched. Yue Yang listened for a good long while and at last gained a certain understanding of Earth Valley and the Mountain Beyond the Mountain. Thoroughly pleased, he grabbed a handful of Heaven Crystals and tossed them to the man as a reward — the man now so exhausted that his tongue lolled out and he panted like a dog.
“Now there’s a generous, open-handed young master. I’d say he’s a prince, or a marquis at the very least!” Cradling the Heaven Crystals, the fellow who’d talked himself half to death revived all at once, and set about guessing at Yue Yang’s identity — though no matter how he guessed, he could never possibly have gotten it right.
Gossip it might be, and not to be believed entirely. But there was a little in it worth taking.
Having gotten the intelligence he needed, Yue Yang lingered no longer, and made his leisurely way back to the coaching inn.
Earth Valley. The Mountain Beyond the Mountain.
Since he’d wound up in this place, then whatever the situation here, obtaining Taiyan’s and Bingli’s ancient relic was clearly a must. At the very least, that mysterious existence in the silver grimoire’s boundless world needed him to complete this task — otherwise he might not even be able to return to Human Valley. Ji Wuri had come to Earth Valley, but the evil god was still there, and he had to make a trip back to Human Valley regardless. Otherwise every affair in Human Valley might truly end up outmaneuvered by that fellow Ji Wuri…
If he wanted the ancient relic, it seemed there was one figure to pay close attention to: the divine lord of the Western Divine Nation.
What exactly was that fellow to Ji Wuri? Could he be of the Central Divine Hall as well?
And the Land of Divine Extinction seemed a place worth noting too…
Yue Yang was still deep in thought when, at the inn’s doorway, a giant with a bare torso and tremendously powerful musculature suddenly came squeezing out through the broad entrance, and glared furiously at Yue Yang — an innocent passerby — as though thoroughly displeased that Yue Yang had walked along with his head down and failed to respectfully yield the way to him.
“Pelican, don’t be rash. We have urgent business to handle. Don’t go picking fights.” Following close behind, a middle-aged man clad head to foot in gorgeous fire-red furs checked the furious giant.
“Hmph. What are you looking at? Look again and I’ll take apart that skinny frame of yours!” the giant — piled with muscle, endowed with boundless brute strength — bellowed in fury.
He glared viciously at Yue Yang once more, then reluctantly departed alongside the middle-aged man, seeming truly to have pressing business on hand. Otherwise he might well have attacked Yue Yang, that innocent passerby who’d merely been strolling past minding his own business.
When Yue Yang came in through the door, Guoguo — who had seen it all from the hall inside — suddenly hurried up and warned him in a low voice: “Those two are Skyfall Bandits! You idiot rookie, don’t go casually provoking desperadoes like that. They’re not the sort you can afford to provoke…”
Yue Yang might normally keep a low profile, and he never went in for shuddering-torso, radiating-a-lord’s-aura theatrics.
But that didn’t mean he was timid or afraid of trouble.
On the contrary, if someone truly came at him, he’d not hesitate to bestow a good ringing slap across the man’s face, so that these fellows who looked down their noses at everyone might understand what it meant to be slapped!
“So what if they’re Skyfall Bandits? I didn’t provoke him. If he dares raise a hand, I’ll beat him till his own mother doesn’t recognize him.” Yue Yang shook his head, entirely unconcerned. If this was what the legendary Skyfall Bandits amounted to, they truly didn’t seem like much to look at!
“Tch — go on, keep blowing hot air. If that big lump had really made a move just now, you’d have been bawling for your mother long ago.” Guoguo sneered. Anyone can boast after the fact — say it to those two bandits’ faces and see how you do. The Skyfall Bandits might number several dozen bands, of wildly varying quality, but even the sorriest Skyfall Bandit was not something a single man’s strength could take on. Even the divine generals of the various divine nations, faced with a Skyfall Bandit chieftain, wouldn’t lightly claim they could take him down.
“All right, all right, you win!” Yue Yang, not wanting to argue, spread both hands, gave a debonair shrug, and turned to leave.
“Interesting. A truly interesting young man — a pity he’s a bit too young!” At a wine table in the corner of the hall sat a burly, down-at-heel man with a full beard, his clothes tattered and worn, looking very much like the sort of drunkard-mercenary you’d find in the Sky Tower, too poor even to pay for his own wine. As Yue Yang walked past him and went up the stairs, the man — who had been holding his cup and ceaselessly pouring wine down his throat — suddenly let a shaft of arresting, piercing light flash in his bleary, drink-fogged eyes. It vanished almost at once, and he returned to the picture of a drunkard blind to heaven and earth.
(End of Chapter 1136)