The Dark Realm — getting in and out was a challenge, but not one that could stop Yueyang with the Three Realms Compass in his possession. Through direct observation, he came to understand the place to a meaningful degree.

The people there hadn’t become thoroughly good. Nor had they become worse.

The harsh conditions of survival had simply forced them to become more united.

Forced them to hold onto hope.

Without unity, without keeping some ember of hope alive in the deepest part of themselves, no one could survive for long in an environment as bleak and hopeless as the Dark Realm.

What left Yueyang genuinely lost for words was this: after tens of thousands of years of adaptation, the exiled fallen races had become intricately woven into every part of their environment — part of a biological chain, even a natural chain. They were a component of that world.

Severing that carelessly would have consequences beyond imagining.

In other words — even if Yueyang had the ability to pull the exiled races of the Dark Realm out of there on the spot, he couldn’t do it.

Otherwise the Dark Realm risked collapse.

Besides, Yueyang wasn’t noble enough to look at every exile he encountered and instantly burn with selfless compassion to rescue them no matter the cost. He was nobody’s savior. For strangers, he didn’t do things without some form of reward or benefit in return. Things that were unrewarded and incredibly dangerous and liable to get him killed — he certainly didn’t do.

If something went wrong, what would become of Fourth Elder Sister and Bing’er?

What about Wuxia and his tiger girl?

Yueyang had never considered himself a selfless saint — but he also didn’t do cold-blooded, heartless things either.

He had read plenty of novels featuring what he privately called the pork-leg type of protagonist: a man who spent his entire life needing no women, no family, severing all earthly bonds for the sake of cultivation alone, training endlessly across thousands of years until his greatest rival fell to a single sword stroke, until he could punch entire planets apart, until he achieved supreme invincibility across the cosmos — and at the end of it all, with everyone dead, he was left standing alone, immortal and profoundly lonely, still technically a virgin. With all due respect, that wasn’t the world’s strongest warrior. That was the world’s number one idiot.

If that was the life of cultivation, he might as well become a monk.

At least monks in the modern day drew a salary, wore official robes, drove decent cars, kept mistresses, enjoyed occasional indulgences, and occasionally performed ceremonial blessings for ladies of uncertain virtue. That was living.

So — having actually transmigrated — Yueyang was absolutely not going to be the kind of peerless, solitary ascetic who cultivated alone in virtuous misery.

The legendary harmonious harem life was what he was after. Full stop.

After his visit to the Dark Realm, Yueyang formed a plan.

Since the place was a prison created by powerful figures of the ancient age, it clearly still functioned as one. Sometimes, killing too many people grew tiresome — having somewhere to put them that was worse than death might make for a pleasant change. So, after discussing it with Xue Wuxia and Princess Qianqian, he decided there was no urgent need to rescue the exiled races all at once. Free them in portions when the opportunity arose — using a replacement system. As better opportunities came, swap some of the worst people Yueyang captured into the Dark Realm in their stead, and bring an equivalent number of the original residents out.

“That’s a very sensible approach.” Even Fourth Elder Sister, who almost never commented on Yueyang’s decisions, gave him rare and genuine praise when she heard it.

“In the Western Heavenly Realm, there was a middle-aged woman who asked me to find two people,” Yueyang said, changing the subject obliquely — trying to fish for inside information from Fourth Elder Sister.

“I wouldn’t know about that. How would I possibly know anyone from the Heavenly Realm?” Fourth Elder Sister looked at him sideways with those lovely eyes of hers.

“…” Yueyang nearly said: but you seem to know about the Dark Realm.

He let it go.

There was one other person who might know something.

The equally mysterious Emperor. Yueyang went in his most docile good-child persona to request an audience.

He was refused first, as expected — but Yueyang’s skin was thick enough to outlast anyone, and the Emperor, eventually unable to endure the sheer relentlessness of the young man’s pestering, summoned him. Through a palace door, of course, as always.

When Yueyang raised the matter of what the middle-aged Heavenly Realm woman had entrusted to him, the Emperor fell into a long silence — and then suddenly erupted in anger and chased him out: “For a matter like that, go ask Nangong. Stop making a nuisance of yourself in here. And next time, have some manners — no more of that sly smiling!”

It was only then that Yueyang remembered — his smile had a passive Mesmerize effect on people of the opposite sex.

Right.

His pleased grin must have shown at the wrong moment.

As for the Sacred Grimoire — Yueyang set aside his impatience and took Fourth Elder Sister’s advice: stop fixating on it for now. Rather than hoping the Grimoire chose to acknowledge him in his current state, he was better off working harder so that he could summon the Sacred Grimoire himself. Or, he could try to clear all ten stages of the Trial Grounds — even Vivienne believed a Grimoire was waiting for a new master in that place. He didn’t know whether someone who already possessed two Grimoires could receive the acknowledgment of a third — but the opportunity was there, and not trying at all would be a waste.

At the Sky-Reaching Tower, things were quiet.

Tianzhu and the others, having tasted the breakthrough gains that came from the pressure of their battle against Tiangui, were still on the fifth floor of the Sky Stairway, continuing to use the two Temple Elders as training targets.

Elders Red Crane and Scarlet Peak had long wanted to surrender and follow Yonghui and Yue Su’s example — but pride made it hard to be the ones to bring it up first, so the stalemate dragged on. Tianzhu needed his training dummies, and the two Elders knew it was a miserable arrangement, yet had no choice but to grit their teeth and stay. In their hearts, they clung to the faint hope that some day, one of the Central Divine Temple’s upper-level figures would come back to claim them.

Well. Everyone needed a little hope.

Even if it was naive. Even if it was barely possible.

Otherwise, the sheer crushing weight of daily life became unbearable.

Worse off than Red Crane and Scarlet Peak was the false Jade Domain Lord Pang Pei — because Yueyang had finally remembered him.

Pang Pei had originally planned to make good use of the Tairen King’s public execution as an opportunity to network heavily, build solid alliances, and stabilize his increasingly precarious position as Domain Lord. Making sure his relationship with the Central Divine Temple was solid had been his top priority.

Instead — not only had Elder Yumu died, even the almighty Tiangui had been killed out of nowhere.

He hadn’t been remotely prepared for any of this.

Every plan had crumbled.

The Tairen King had been rescued. The entire Central Divine Temple presence at the Stargazing Fortress and the surrounding region had been swept clean. If he hadn’t run fast enough, he would likely have been swept up in it too. The Chou Squad had dissolved — the last message from Chou was every man for himself. At one point, Pang Pei had even briefly considered whether to accept the enormous bounty Captain Lieyan had placed on Chou’s head and turn him in for the informant’s reward. But ultimately he abandoned the idea. If Chou didn’t die, he was finished — that man had a memory like an elephant for grudges.

The Lion Heart King — that avenue was closed to him now. He had been shut out long before tonight. The only person he still had any hope of leveraging was Wilderness King Moye Changqing. With Moye Changqing’s full backing, maybe he could hold onto the Jade Domain Lord title.

Exhausted in body and spirit, the false Jade Domain Lord Pang Pei made his long journey back to Jade City by airship. Before he had even stepped through his gates, he was already issuing orders to his most capable subordinate, Yu Qianjun: “Take the Radiance Gemstone I spent a fortune on and deliver it to the Wilderness King. If he’s willing to support me in sending troops to crush a few of the rebel city holdouts, he can have the fifteen southern cities.”

The Wilderness King had been eyeing the mineral resources in those fifteen cities — but after exchanging territories with the Lion Heart King recently, it hadn’t been appropriate to move on them immediately.

To get the support he needed, Pang Pei swallowed the pain and offered them up voluntarily.

Sometimes, the difference between what you freely give and what someone takes by force made all the difference in the world.

Losing a little territory was fine — as long as he could have some peace and quiet. Those rebel forces were a constant headache. They’d been significantly weakened recently, at least, and were no longer a serious threat — otherwise there would never be a quiet day. Pang Pei stepped down from the airship at the gates of his Domain Lord’s manor, looking forward to soaking in a comfortable hot bath and enjoying some quality company. What, after all, could be more important than seizing pleasure while one still could?

The very thought of certain pleasures brought a surge of anticipation — and a certain physiological response.

An odd metallic smell of blood drifted by.

Strange. That wasn’t normally here.

When Pang Pei saw clearly what was waiting to receive him — Wild Bull, holding the severed head of his most beloved companion — his face went white with shock. “Wild Bull — is that you?”

“Surprised? Didn’t expect me to still be alive and coming back for revenge?” Wild Bull was covered in blood from head to toe, a savage grin stretched across his face.

“What are you even talking about?” Pang Pei’s heart sank. This wasn’t like Wild Bull at all — he wasn’t the jealous type usually.

“Stop playing dumb. I came back today to take you down with me!” Wild Bull had never hated anyone the way he hated Pang Pei for the betrayal — the man he had once called his closest person. He didn’t know that everything had been orchestrated within Yueyang’s Creation Domain, that a Domain capable of simulating anything had made it all look real. Wild Bull only believed what his own eyes had seen and his own ears had heard, and for the man who had loved him and then betrayed him, he wanted nothing short of mutual destruction.

Pang Pei panicked and retreated ten thousand meters in an instant.

But Wild Bull gave chase.

In the moment Pang Pei unleashed his full power to strike Wild Bull’s body, Wild Bull showed the most savage and terrifying grin: “You really did try to kill me. You liar. Die.“

Wild Bull’s body erupted in self-destruction.

He had summoned an extremely unstable Magma Volcano Beast inside himself beforehand — if not for Pang Pei’s full-force strike providing the trigger, Wild Bull’s body might not have gone off. But it did.

In that instant before the end, Pang Pei caught Wild Bull’s furious gaze — and felt a sudden, deep regret.

If I’d only talked to him. He was someone who’d loved me once…

Too late.

Boom.

Blood and flesh scattered across the sky.

The colossal shockwave reduced the Domain Lord manor’s front courtyard to rubble — the beautiful gardens turned to drifting ash, the decorative rock formations ground to powder, the ornamental pond evaporated, the ground caved in to form a vast crater.

At the bottom of the crater, Pang Pei — battered and bleeding from every inch — roared with fury: “You worthless fool! Wild Bull — you destroyed me, you absolute idiot, you deserve to die ten thousand deaths for this!”

He was now more pulp than person, and would likely never again be able to enjoy the more aggressive end of certain pleasures. At best, he might have to take a different approach going forward — specifically, the passive one.

Wild Bull’s self-destructive act of sabotage sent Pang Pei’s fury to heights beyond description.

Critically wounded, suddenly feeling very unsafe, he bolted toward the airship still hovering in the air above the manor. Before he had even made it fully inside, he was already screaming orders: “Qianjun! Stay close and guard me — I need to recover my wounds. Tell the servants to find the best physician available immediately. Move!“

Yu Qianjun bowed obediently, exactly as he always did. “Yes, my lord.”

And drove a sword directly into Pang Pei’s already-wounded torso.

“You too? You’re betraying me?” Pang Pei stared in disbelief.

“Qianjun has not betrayed the Domain Lord.” Yu Qianjun’s expression was perfectly composed as he replied. “In fact — I never betrayed anyone. Not once.”

“Pang Pei, you treacherous dog — so you’ve finally gotten what was coming to you!” The long-vanished Black Wind City Lord came around from the other side of the airship, and his heavy fist drove into Pang Pei’s back with the force of a man who had nothing left to lose. He unleashed a relentless storm of attacks like a man possessed: “You took everything from me — fine, I accepted it. But you don’t get to walk away from this either!”

“Let me explain — Black Wind, this is all a misunderstanding—” Pang Pei was terrified. Under ordinary circumstances, Black Wind and Yu Qianjun together wouldn’t have been enough to worry him — but right now, in this condition, it was deadly serious.

“If I believed a single word out of your mouth, I’d be the biggest fool in all the Heavenly Realm.” Black Wind laughed coldly.

Like Wild Bull before him, he only believed what he had seen with his own eyes.

Flying Locust, Flower Panther, Yanzao, and the newly and shamelessly self-added Lima the Minotaur and City Lord Qianhu appeared in formation around the airship.

A traitor and fallen dog like the false Jade Domain Lord — not kicking him while he was down would practically be an insult to themselves. This was a rare opportunity to earn merit, and everyone wanted to make a good showing. Especially since Yueyang had pulled up a lounge chair on the wide balcony of the Domain Lord’s manor, sipping his finest Rare Orchid wine with Bi Lv’s gentle hands working out the knots in his shoulders, watching the proceedings with the most leisurely expression possible.

With the boss watching like that — how could anyone afford to put in anything less than their best performance?