The July Chamber’s first auction was over, with only four pieces of equipment sold, three of them going to Zangshen of the Divine Domain Pact. Nobody found that outcome hard to accept, because that was strength — the strength that belonged to the Divine Domain Pact. But by comparison, the biggest winner, beyond any question, was the July Chamber.

From this first auction, the July Chamber’s ticket revenue alone came to an unbelievable 103,200,000 gold, a figure that beyond any doubt surpassed every record ever set in the virtual gaming world, and in the real world besides. Traced back to its roots, the record rested on three things: the enormous reach of the World of Fate, the enormous pull of the equipment on offer, and Liu Qiyue’s exquisite calculation.

Gold taken from the equipment sold: 1,010,810,000.

Total: 1,114,010,000 gold.

A genuinely astronomical figure.

Nobody had seen it coming… except perhaps Liu Qiyue. Even Ye Tianxie and Zuo Pojun would never have imagined takings that beggared belief like these.

And alongside the money, the July Chamber’s name rang out across the whole Huaxia battle region that day, thoroughly and completely. Even foreign players who had been watching to see where that Immortal Spirit artifact would end up now had the July Chamber’s name fixed in their memories. Today’s July Chamber was no longer famous merely because of Liu Qiyue.

As for the other side — how the Shroud-the-Sky No. 1 Chamber’s auction carried on afterward, and how it ended, nobody paid the slightest attention.

That same afternoon, the players coming to consign equipment of every kind at the July Chamber all but broke down the threshold; there was no getting in even by shoving. The strength shown and the fame built in that short half-day made players yield without argument, and turned the place into their first choice.

And that same afternoon, the July Chamber began hiring in bulk — the finest players in the chef, engineering, design, and gathering-and-planting professions… every sort of them. Even for the most basic receptionists, servers and greeters, the lowest rate on offer was enough to turn a man’s eyes red with envy. Under pay like that, players came pouring in madly from every direction… but one notice cut well over half of them straight out. No male players. No one outside the life professions. Anyone whose looks fell short of beauty, no. Anyone whose bearing was not good enough, no.

And of the women who applied, well over half were cut again on profession, and the great majority of the rest were cut at the first screening on looks. The beauties among beauties who came through at the end were chosen personally by Liu Qiyue… In the past and in the present, the July Chamber had never had anyone but women, and in the future too, it seemed, it would be a chamber belonging to women.

From this auction, the ticket revenue went to the July Chamber. Liu Qiyue transferred the whole 1,010,810,000 gold taken from the equipment sold onto Ye Tianxie’s funds card. Her explanation was this… everything the July Chamber now had, in scale and in the renown won that morning, came from Ye Tianxie. One might even say the July Chamber as it now stood belonged to Ye Tianxie already, so the gold from the auction was naturally his in full, and there was no question of taking the 15% auction commission out of it.

27 July 2210, Wednesday. The sky is dull again today.

From the time I was very small I have lived in the shadow of illness. My body is as frail as a young shoot about to die, with almost no power to resist anything. For my sake Papa and Mama went to a great many doctors, but I have always known that my life was long past saving by any means at all.

Still, for my family’s sake, I have always had the courage to struggle on and live… I am twelve now, and I have not died. But Papa and Mama… have gone before me, one after the other… When the sickness hidden in my body broke out again, I suddenly lost the wish to fight Heaven over it. If it were not for my sister, I would truly like to leave this world without a backward glance — a world that looks gentle and is full of hidden knives.

My illness is getting worse. About two-thirds of every day I spend in a haze. That day, my sister told me happily that she had earned some money in that mysterious, longed-for game called Fate. I was so glad. Only, I am still a burden to my sister… her burden, and also the last frail thing she has to lean on.

So I must not die.

After that day, whenever my sister sat and talked with me she would mention a boy. She said he had given her hope and courage. She said how outstanding he was, how dazzling he was, how safe he made her feel. She said he had a very beautiful girlfriend. She said he…

When she talks about him, my sister’s eyes are so bright… and slowly, I think I have begun to understand something…

My sister often says I am an angel, that I do not belong to this world, and that the old man God wants to take me back early — but she cannot bear it, so she means to fight the old man God for me. Silly sister. Don’t you know that however much an angel loves your warmth, she still cannot disobey the old man God’s orders?

Before I leave I would so like to sit in warm sunlight, and look at this world that has darkness in it but also has my sister; to touch the softness of the grass, listen to the crisp calls of the birds, and feel what fine rain tastes like… There really are so very many things I wish for…

My sister has gone into the game again, gone to the home of the person she talks about. I would so like to go and see it too… only this body of mine is really so weak. Weak enough to… make a person despair…

That feeling has come back again, the one that wants me to sleep forever… But if I were gone, what would my sister do… all alone… how would she hold on…

That day, the bad man called Huang Quan came again. He was driven off again by Auntie Li and the others, but this time the look on his face was so frightening. He said next time he would really bring a lot of people and simply take my sister away… I do so hope he was only trying to scare us. It cannot be true. But I am so frightened…

I am already covered in wounds. So — since fate has thrown me away already, treat my sister well instead, can you…? So long as my sister is safe and happy, I would be willing and content even if I had to live forever in grey despair.

My sister says that all she has left now is me, that I am her whole world. But isn’t my sister my everything too? She is the one bright thing in my dark world — faint, and yet she is my whole sun.

So long as I have my sister, I have the courage to smile and look up at heaven even from inside hell. If anything at all could be traded, how I long to sink into sleep just like this, and use this broken life of mine to buy my sister that crystal-bright smile…

Through the one small window a light that was not at all soft fell into a corner of the little room. Chenxue closed the diary gently and shut her eyes, breathing air that carried the smell of death in it… She did not know when it had begun, but her body had grown so weak that even breathing was difficult.

She turned her head and looked at her sister lying beside her, taking care to make no sound. Chenxin lay like a crab-apple flower asleep in spring, a smile on that quiet, lovely face, a smile that drew a person in… Chenxue loved seeing her smile like that, faintly and from the heart. In the game world she must be very happy, very blessed. And the time she spent in the game had quietly been growing longer and longer… but if Chenxue made the smallest movement, or called out even softly, Chenxin would come out of the game at once.

“Sister, you will be happy… and then I will be in heaven, watching you go on being happy, without a word,” she murmured, in the faintest voice she had, looking at the one person she had to lean on.

Today was the eighth day of Ye Tianxie’s journey to the City of Heaven’s Sun… and across those eight days the player population of the Lost Continent had not settled for a moment. After Ye Tianxie completed the Huaxia battle region’s Alliance-Guild System Quest, the great powers of the region had been formally founded one after another and were slowly maturing. And in these same few days, a name that had never appeared before, one that set the eyes and hearts of countless Huaxia players shaking, came into view.

Crossing the territory of the level 80 Golden-Armored Battle Bears, Ye Tianxie came at last to another small town. He rested briefly, opened the Level Ranking — and his brows moved sharply.

Level Ranking (at equal level, higher experience ranks first).

First: Xietian. Level 20. Class: Rebel-Boned Evil Dragon. Affiliation: none.

Second: Tian Moxie. Level 18. Class: Archer. Affiliation: Wings That Shroud the Sky.

On the very day Wings That Shroud the Sky was formally founded in the World of Fate, the news that Tian Moxie had joined them swept through the Huaxia player population like a violent storm and set it heaving. The Tian Moxie of old had been a proud loner who walked by himself. And this time… he had actually joined Wings That Shroud the Sky!

And the real Tian Moxie — which is to say Xietian as he now was — answered it with a cold smile…

That day at the auction, the man he had seen on his way out, the one standing behind the Son of Heaven with his face covered and an archer’s gear on him — however well that man had hidden his information, how was he to escape the Eye of the Evil Dragon? When the name Tian Moxie appeared in front of Ye Tianxie… if he had not been teleported out of the auction hall in the very next instant, he might well have lost his reason.

Tian Moxie… that was the name she gave him back then, and it was she who led him into the virtual gaming world. That name had stayed with him for five whole years.

And now that name… the name she had chosen for him, was being used by somebody else. It lit a rage in him that went straight to the top of his skull… With the reputation Tian Moxie carried as the Undefeated Evil Emperor, this could never be simple coincidence. Somebody had done it on purpose. And in that moment he understood at last.

Wings That Shroud the Sky were using his name… Because Tian Moxie was the acknowledged, unshakable king of the Huaxia virtual gaming world, the Undefeated Evil Emperor by common consent, the first man of Huaxia without dispute. He had worshippers and followers beyond counting, his renown was beyond anyone’s reach, and the whole world had once trembled at his name… And if one day the solitary Tian Moxie were suddenly to join some force — then even if it were a very small guild indeed, that guild would ring across the world overnight.

Wings That Shroud the Sky had succeeded, thoroughly and completely. The instant word went out that Tian Moxie had joined them, countless worshippers of his came flooding in… By rough count, Wings That Shroud the Sky and the Divine Domain Pact were founded at the same time, and in the days since, they had taken on new members at close to five times the Pact’s rate… Tian Moxie’s influence was beyond all comparison. And everyone believed that Wings That Shroud the Sky with Tian Moxie in it would be truly worthy of the name.

And the other consequence of that success was… Ye Tianxie’s rage, and his enmity.

What Ye Tianxie could not quite work out, though, was this: the Son of Heaven still stood only sixth on the Level Ranking. So what method had Wings That Shroud the Sky used to push this fake Tian Moxie so far up it? And if such a method existed, why had the Son of Heaven not used it on himself?

Third: Meng Yuyi. Level 18. Class: Assassin. Affiliation: Undying Samsara.

Fourth: Sha Wujin. Level 18. Class: Sword Warrior. Affiliation: none.

Fifth: Cang Chen. Level 18. Class: Summoner. Affiliation: Undying Samsara.

Sixth: the Son of Heaven. Level 18. Class: Spear Warrior. Affiliation: Wings That Shroud the Sky.

Seventh: Cloud-Piercing Sword. Level 18. Class: Sword Warrior. Affiliation: Undying Samsara.

Eighth: Zangshen. Level 18. Class: Assassin. Affiliation: Divine Domain Pact.

Ninth: King. Level 17. Class: Blood Hand. Affiliation: Undying Samsara.

Tenth: Fierce Shadow Star Soul. Level 17. Class: Sword Warrior. Affiliation: Undying Samsara.

On the very day a new power was founded, a name that shook the region was fixed in the memory of very nearly every Huaxia player, and that name was — Undying Samsara. Because on that day, among the top ten of the Level Ranking… four of them belonged to Undying Samsara.

And today the original four had become five. Half the top ten of the Level Ranking belonged to a single power. It was a fact to astonish anyone. Guesses beyond counting all pointed toward this strange, mysterious, and utterly formidable Undying Samsara.

And the newcomer among them was a man called “King” — a strange and arrogant name… And what astonished Ye Tianxie was his class — Blood Hand!

(End of Chapter 233)