Qingzhou. The edge of Yang'an Prefecture.

Ye Wenxuan hung in the sky like an immortal out travelling, her figure lost among the clouds and mist.

After leaving Wutong Mountain she had meant to go straight to the War Temple in Great Qian's Imperial Capital to find them.

She had not expected to receive an unlooked-for piece of news along the way.

The demons had left the Den in their entirety, meaning to take revenge on Great Qian.

"So this is what the lot of you wanted to do?"

Ye Wenxuan was silent a long while, then could not help laughing aloud.

She had concentrated on her cultivation. Apart from things she needed, she had never in her life gone deliberately out to slay demons and banish evil.

But so long as her cultivation was high enough, the great demons inside the Thousand Demon Den had seldom dared come out to trouble the world.

She had only to lie quietly in the waterfall-veiled grotto for the Nanyang Sect to hold in a stable state. There were still demons making small mischief, but nothing that mattered.

Take Great Qian for an example.

In all these years, when had it ever been at risk of destruction?

And now?

She looked calmly into the distance, something reflective in her eyes.

Just as now — even though she happened to be passing, and had seen it, she had no thought whatsoever of intervening.

Ye Wenxuan knew perfectly well which mattered more.

If the old dog learned her whereabouts and cut her down, the Nanyang Sect would never see the clouds part again.

Still, she did not mind watching a while longer.

It would serve, later, to teach that young man she had never met what it meant to govern by doing nothing.

A Return-to-Void cultivator's perception was a terrible thing.

Under her gaze, dense ranks of figures stepped out of the morning mist and came walking toward the place.

"……"

At the county town's gate, the constable on duty had only just yawned.

The next moment his eyes nearly started out of his head.

"Oh,…