“I don’t get it — why choose Emerald Isle?” Chimu, the fellow who’d tagged along, had not the faintest awareness of being a third-wheel lightbulb, and prattled the whole way, more long-winded than the Tang Monk in A Chinese Odyssey, until the once-cheerful Yue Yang was rendered utterly speechless.

“Is Emerald Isle no good?” Yue Yang couldn’t help shooting back.

“Apart from the name ‘Emerald Isle,’ I can’t think of one single thing worth mentioning about that godforsaken back-of-beyond.” Chimu was thoroughly glum himself.

“They say it’s got mineral deposits… All right, there’s nothing there. But it doesn’t matter — mineral deposits aren’t what we need most right now.” Yue Yang dearly wished he could stuff a wad of cotton into Chimu’s mouth. The whole trip, the fellow hadn’t rested his jaw for a second, buzzing on and on like a fly. If they weren’t presently aboard a luxury airship soaring through the sky with no way to escape, Yue Yang would have loved to get far, far away from this “old gossip.”

“No mineral deposits, tsk tsk tsk — easy for you to say. You finally land an assessment championship, and then, at the most crucial moment, you don’t consult with us friends who backed you, and off you go making this maddening decision on your own. Honestly. We racked our brains over this choice of yours for two solid days, and still haven’t recovered. Of all the places you could pick for a fief, you had to go for Emerald Isle — an overseas island at least two thousand kilometers from the mainland. What good is building a fief there? Who exactly do you expect to move out there, take up farming or trade, and pay you taxes? When people angle for a fief, they’d give anything for the most prosperous, flourishing spot in Human Valley — the closer to a city the better, or a town or village at the very least. You’re the exact opposite, running off to the most remote, desolate, barren patch of wretched hills and evil waters where there isn’t so much as a single feather. ‘Emerald Isle’ — sounds lovely, doesn’t it? But it’s just a barren rock where, apart from sand, you’d be hard-pressed to find a few blades of grass. Going out there is asking for misery, pure and simple!” Chimu had a great many opinions. He’d assumed two people as clever as Yue Yang and Mingzhu would carve out a fief in the outskirts of the Imperial Capital or some special mining district — never dreaming the two of them would want Emerald Isle, a place you couldn’t give away for free.

“It’s ours now whether we want it or not — what would you have us do?” Yue Yang spread his hands.

“What to do? Can’t you see I’m racking my brains over it?” Chimu clutched his head.

“Racking your brains?” Yue Yang was amazed. This Chimu’s brain actually worked?

“That’s right. I’m firing up my clever mind, thinking the problem through, trying to figure out whether there’s any way to salvage a bit of the loss. Damn it, I have to say, this choice of yours is dreadful! Emerald Isle has nothing. Build a fief there and even pirates probably won’t bother stopping by — never mind anything else, the two-thous-plus kilometers of coastline alone are enough to make anyone turn and flee.” Chimu couldn’t resist another dig at Yue Yang’s eye for real estate.

“Isn’t that a good thing, though? Cut off from Human Valley’s interior by the sea, our fief will be very safe.” Yue Yang felt there were merits after all.

“Safe? You call it safe? Build a fief on Emerald Isle and what safety is there left to worry about? What you should worry about is that loneliness-and-isolation business, being so far from other people. Honestly — even if you spent a hundred Heaven Crystals hiring someone to keep you company on Emerald Isle, or paid pirates to come rob you, hardly a soul would be willing to make the trip. The sea out there swarms with more monsters than a bull has hairs — who’d throw their life away for nothing? As for flying there, how many people in this world own a luxury airship? Worst of all, that route isn’t just plagued by foul weather, with storms and lightning that never let up — it’s also utterly without profit. Only a fool would go the long way round for thousands of kilometers, journeying ten thousand miles out to a godforsaken place like Emerald Isle to eat sand!” Chimu felt Yue Yang was fine in every respect but this one failing — his choice of fief. Picking a fief like that was simply inviting ridicule! By now Wanmo, Ranfeng, and the rest had probably laughed their two front teeth loose.

“It’s a fine place, though — at the very least it’s huge.” Yue Yang found yet another merit.

“True, it’s huge — at least a hundred times, even several hundred times, larger than the lands Silver Maple City administers. But what use is that? It has no mineral deposits, no value whatsoever. For thousands of years, countless explorers — more than a thousand of them, in organized parties — have come to Emerald Isle hoping to find a new settlement site, hoping to wring from it a shred of anything, any kind, of value at all. And they found nothing. That is Emerald Isle. That is the fief you chose.” The mere thought of a man as clever as Yue Yang doing something this stupid drove Chimu to distraction.

“I told you, no mineral deposits is fine — we can build this place into a port.” Yue Yang picked up the map. He already had a plan.

“And then ship Emerald Isle’s sand out?” Chimu was stunned, then roared with laughter. “If that’s the plan, you might as well toss Heaven Crystals into the sea to skip stones — at least that’d give you a bit of a thrill! Nowhere is short of sand; shipping sand from Emerald Isle is no kind of idea at all! Better to lash together a few rafts and fish, rig up a shrimp boat and sell shrimp or something… But I ask you, big brother — who are you? You’re heaven’s own favored son, you’re the cleverest Little Titan in all the world, you’re the overall champion of the Life Assessment. Your fame now outstrips even that puppet king in the Imperial Capital. The world’s beauties are lined up waiting for you to mount them — and yet here you are, running off to this damned place to build some port. I really don’t understand it!” Chimu heaved a dejected sigh. “Here I was, thinking I’d step in to save you when the beauties had you surrounded, share your burdens and untangle your troubles — and instead you drag me all the way out here to gnaw on sand with you!”

“You didn’t have to come. I told you from the start not to tag along!” Yue Yang was delighted to hear it.

“What? What did you say? Do I look like a man that lacking in loyalty?” Chimu was furious as an Angry Bird — if he’d had a slingshot, he’d surely have launched himself straight at the pig’s head.

“All right, all right, you’re very loyal…” Yue Yang thought to himself that if Chimu hadn’t chased after them, the whole journey would have been a great deal more peaceful — and what’s more, Mingzhu wouldn’t be stony-faced and shutting him out the way he was now.

“When your career hits its early low ebb — face full of gloom, in need of a friend’s comfort — if I’m not there at your side supporting you, who else can you count on? That blockhead Hauge, or that tombstone-faced Qingmo? Apart from eating and drinking their fill at the celebration, they’ve got no other talents at all. Only I will support you now as ever, steadfast and unchanging. A boss like me is hard to come by these days — knowing me is your good luck!” Chimu reached out and thumped Yue Yang hard on the shoulder, without the slightest awareness of being the lightbulb obstructing the earth’s rotation.

“…” What could Yue Yang even say? He could hardly go all Ziwei from My Fair Princess and gush, I’m so moved, so moved, so very moved!

“The port still has to be built, but forget the fishing. Say what you like, you’re a champion, a lord, a personage of standing and status. Bring in some servants to bustle about out here. Maybe you mean to do something grand — but this really is no good sort of place. Still, even if your decision is trash beyond trashing, I’ll support you all the same!” Chimu put on his boss airs again, patting Yue Yang’s shoulder, indicating he’d “cover” his little brother Yue Yang.

“The recruiting, then — I’ll trouble you with that.” Yue Yang didn’t stand on ceremony, and handed off the task directly.

“Recruiting is dead simple — once I, the little Prince of Charm, take the field, guaranteed… it’s just there’s a bit of a funding problem. That’s no failing of my silver tongue — it’s that this fief of yours is genuinely awful. I tell you, out here you couldn’t hire people even by throwing money at them!” Chimu felt recruiting people to build a fief out here was a task on par with scaling the heavens.

“See any other problems with the recruiting?” Yue Yang stuffed a card loaded with three thousand Heaven Crystals into Chimu’s hand.

“Absolutely none!” The instant he saw the crystal card in his hand, Chimu’s eyes went sharper than an eagle’s, his spine straighter than a javelin.

“I believe in you!” This time it was Yue Yang’s turn to put on the boss airs, patting his shoulder in encouragement.

“Boss, do we recruit girls?” Chimu wanted one last question cleared up.

“Just three rules against: none who aren’t fresh and lovely, none who aren’t pretty, and none who aren’t of a generous… bosom…” No sooner had Yue Yang said it than Chimu very nearly sent his drool cascading three thousand feet straight down, both eyes turning instantly into red hearts.

“You should’ve led with that! Had me worried for days. Heh heh — honestly. With that on the table, whether it’s the ends of the earth or the far corners of the sea, even this godforsaken Emerald Isle, I can turn it into the most spirited, most vibrant place in all the world. Soft girls, fresh-and-lovely girls, pretty girls, buxom girls — as many as you want, as many as there are! Rest easy — with me on the job you’ve nothing to fear. There’s no task in this world that can stump me, the brilliant, dashing, debonair, gallant, self-styled foremost Prince of Charm in all Human Valley!” Chimu seldom got the chance to boast, least of all in front of Yue Yang — and now he’d finally found his opening.

“…” Yue Yang was rendered speechless once again.

Once he’d sent the lightbulb Chimu packing, Yue Yang’s and Mingzhu’s ears finally knew peace.

Together the two of them hauled down everything the luxury airship was laden with, ready to roll up their sleeves and go to work here — to build, according to the secret plan they’d worked out along the way, an overseas base from which they could one day stand against the evil god.

Because of the great distance from the interior, a base built here would be easy to defend. The sea routes went without saying, and even the air routes, once the base had flying constructs patrolling and intercepting, would be locked down tight as an iron cask.

This was one reason for choosing Emerald Isle as the fief. The second was that within the small circle of territory Mingzhu had claimed while securing the fief, there lay a secret sealing point — the largest and last of the evil god’s sealing pillars in all of Human Valley, and quite possibly the very burial ground of the evil god’s true body. The Heavenly Pride Chairman couldn’t say so outright, but the Principal had hinted at the place’s importance.

Mingzhu, terrified Yue Yang might not grasp how important the spot was — or might turn contrary and rebellious about it — had rushed to nod his agreement to the placement of Yue Yang’s new fief.

With a port and with flying constructs, then no matter how mighty Ji Wuri, Wanmo, and Ranfeng were, no matter how many sealing points they smashed, this last one would be near impossible to break.

Or, alternatively, if a year from now the evil god did at last return to the Human Valley mainland, Yue Yang would have spent that year secretly building up Emerald Isle and would have a measure of power to resist — enough that he wouldn’t be left entirely helpless, awaiting death with his hands tied. Developing in Human Valley’s interior wasn’t necessarily bad, but first, the secret would be hard to keep; second, the evil-god cultists would obstruct him at every turn; and third, Ji Wuri and the Heavens-Splitting Demon Lord would surely come attacking in force, an inevitable disruption — and if things went badly, he might lose one thing while grabbing at another.

With a port established here, and a secret base built within the sealing point — with two-thousand-plus kilometers of sea and land as a barrier, and flying constructs patrolling in defense — then however capable Ji Wuri was, he couldn’t conjure an army out of thin air to invade Emerald Isle and release the evil god’s true body from its seal.

“Once the secret base is built, you can hand it off to Qingmo and the others to run. You yourselves still ought to prioritize raising your own strength — after all, your opponent is the evil god.” As it happened, three honored guests had come along on this journey too: Human Valley’s divine envoys, the three white-clad maidens revered by all. They ordinarily kept out of sight — even with Chimu still around, they wouldn’t come out — and only once Chimu and the airship’s crew had piloted the vessel away did they emerge to speak with Yue Yang and Mingzhu.

“Raise our strength how, exactly?” This was precisely the line Yue Yang had been waiting for.

(End of Chapter)