A flicker of alarm showed deep in Ji Wuri’s eyes.

But nothing on his face changed.

Facing a sword of Orange Vast Radiance — an ocean of positive energy that nothing could stand against — Ji Wuri showed none of the despair of a man at the end of the road, and Yue Yang caught the detail immediately. Could the Four Divine Armor, ranked fourth among the six divine artifacts, be on Ji Wuri’s body right now? With that armor, Ji Wuri might as well be undying. He would still lose, but his life would not be in danger — which would explain why he showed no fear of the Orange Vast Radiance at all.

Yue Yang was getting ready to put the sword away and use the God-Binding Chains instead, so he could drag Ji Wuri into the black-hole seal space where Vivienne was and take his time with him.

And then Ji Wuri’s expression changed.

His face went white.

Panic all over it.

His eyes filled with despair and fear, and his hands and feet even began to shake, so faintly that nobody was meant to catch it.

The change came a hundred times faster than a chameleon’s. Set beside Ji Wuri’s performance, the greatest Best Actor in the world wouldn’t have qualified to play the corpse lying in the background. If Yue Yang had not had the Heavenly Eye of Wisdom, there was every chance he would have been taken in.

“Don’t kill me…” Ji Wuri let out a frightened whimper, exactly like a coward about to wet himself.

Yue Yang had nothing to say to this.

If you want to act, and you have the talent for it, fine.

But there’s no outsider here. Who exactly are you performing for? Am I supposed to applaud and then personally hand you a Best Actor award?

Half a second later.

Something went through Yue Yang’s mind like a flash of light. Not a speck of it showed on the surface, but inside, the transmigrator felt as though eighteen bolts of heavenly lightning had come down on his head at once. He put everything he had into relaxing his body, and a smile came up his face like water out of a spring. He did not put the Orange Vast Radiance away. He deliberately raised that fully materialized innate sword-qi high, with three parts showing off and three parts pride and three parts contempt and one part sheer arrogance, and jeered at Ji Wuri. “Aren’t you the favored son of heaven? Get down on your knees. Bang your head on the ground like a beetle and beg me for your life, and maybe this young master will be feeling generous and let you live. Plague-chicken, oh, plague-chicken. Do you know what I hate most about you? Your rank. You’re nothing but one small hall master out of the Central Divine Hall. Standing in front of me, the number one tall, rich and handsome man in the Sky Realm — what exactly have you got to be proud of? Pah. You aren’t even garbage.”

“Ah — no!” Ji Wuri let out a wail, as though his heart and his gall had split together.

“What interesting little friends you two are.”

Out of the smoke.

Came a mysterious man with his head shrouded in a black cloak, his face impossible to make out at all.

He walked out slowly, and he might have been taking a stroll around his own back garden. Nothing in the world seemed to be hurrying him.

The corner of Ji Wuri’s eye twitched, and he kept his face in the expression of a drowning man going down for the last time. Yue Yang was smiling, and he kept the swagger and the arrogance right where they were — though anyone who knew him as well as Princess Qianqian did would have seen at once that every hair on the transmigrator’s body was standing up.

The mysterious man walked very, very slowly. So slowly that time slid away without anyone noticing, and both Ji Wuri, still holding his Best Actor face, and Yue Yang, whose smile had gone stiff, began to find it awkward.

Keep it up?

Or pretend to have only just noticed the new arrival?

“Relax a little, you two.” There was no reading his expression, but his tone was warm — like an official visiting the countryside at New Year to look in on the cabbage farmers whose crop had frozen. All that was missing was asking whether they had enough to eat, whether they were dressed warmly, how things were going, whether life was treating them well. And whether he meant anything by it or not, the mysterious man stopped for a few seconds behind Yue Yang.

Those few seconds felt harder to get through than a few years in prison.

While the man stood there, Yue Yang felt as though every ugly, revolting demon worm and every slick, cold poisonous snake in existence were crawling over him.

He wanted to throw up.

He fought it down.

In Yue Yang’s whole life, no enemy had ever made him feel anything as bad as this.

Back when he was still a complete beginner and went up against Demon King Haxin, who came across space through the sacrificial fire in White Stone City, he had not been rattled anywhere near this badly. It was just as well the man only stayed a few seconds before moving on toward Ji Wuri, or Yue Yang would not have kept it down.

Ji Wuri’s face had gone stiff too, like cooled volcanic rock.

He wanted to cry.

He couldn’t.

He couldn’t laugh either.

His mouth hung open in something that was neither a smile nor a sob, and looked wrong either way.

“Don’t be nervous, either of you. I only have a few questions.” The mysterious man was very kind about it, and made it clear that once he had his answers there would be no trouble.

“And you would be, elder?” Ji Wuri was not like Yue Yang. He plainly knew who this was — and he brought out his very best Heavenly-Realm-class acting to pretend he didn’t. Yue Yang had to admit he couldn’t match that. How thick does a man’s face have to be to reach Ji Wuri’s level? Yue Yang had always thought his own face was as thick as a city wall, and next to Ji Wuri it felt thinner than a dumpling skin.

“You don’t know me? My apologies. I haven’t been out and about for a few thousand years, and there aren’t many young people left who know me.” The mysterious man made the joke at his own expense, then turned to Yue Yang. “And you, little friend. Do you know me?”

“No!” Yue Yang was an honest, well-brought-up boy, and his head went back and forth like a rattle drum.

Never mind that he genuinely didn’t know.

Even if he had, he would have taken his lead from Ji Wuri and said no.

The mysterious man gave a small sigh. “Almost nobody knows me these days. It seems I should get out more.”

Ji Wuri made a deep formal bow to him, respect in every line of it. Yue Yang gave Ji Wuri the middle finger — and the instant the mysterious man looked his way, broke into loud applause. “Senior not coming out among us all these years is frankly the single greatest loss in the entire history of the Heavenly Realm! For juniors like myself, who long for nothing more than a look at senior’s bearing — never seeing your face, never learning your name — it’s the greatest disrespect and the greatest loss there could be.” Over on the other side, Ji Wuri could not stop himself shooting Yue Yang a look of pure contempt. And the moment the mysterious man turned back, the respect was on his face again.

The mysterious man seemed to enjoy the flattery. “What an interesting little friend you are. And what’s your name, little friend?”

“Tianlang! My name is Tianlang!” Yue Yang bowed deeply, as well-behaved as a second-grader who has just been praised in front of the class. “This humble one is the one thousand one hundred and ninety-fourth generation disciple of Lingyun Pavilion of the Clear Sky Sect, in the Sky Realm, under Patriarch Xuanhu. I’ve cultivated a little meager swordwork. My natural gifts being limited and my art unpolished, I make a laughingstock of myself and bring nothing but shame on my school. It’s shameful. Truly shameful.”

“I see.” The man nodded and turned to Ji Wuri. “And this little friend? What about you?”

“Since senior asks — this humble one is Zhonghua, heir to the Light Hall of the Wisdom Light Orb line of the Central Divine Hall, in the Sky Realm. My meager name can only defile senior’s ears.” Ji Wuri had just declared himself Zhonghua, Lord of the Light Hall. One wonders whether the real Zhonghua, currently still down in Human Valley working himself to death as a puppet piling up Sky Crystals, would have burst into tears if he’d heard it.

“Is that so.” The man nodded again, and then raised a question. “If you are Zhonghua, then the one who stayed behind in Human Valley — the one using Weiguang’s divine power, positioning himself to take the largest share of the profit — that would have to be Ji Wuri, the direct disciple of the Divine Hall Sovereign Tianyu. Wouldn’t it?”

The tone was light. It landed harder than a slap across the face.

Thick-skinned as Ji Wuri was, he actually blushed.

Yue Yang burst out laughing.

Of all the people in the world to impersonate, you pick your own mortal enemy Zhonghua? Use that plague-chicken brain for one second — could an idiot like Zhonghua ever have a Sacred Codex? The Sacred Codex is sitting right there in the open, and you lie about it with your eyes wide open. Whose face is there to slap, if not yours?

The mysterious man went on. “Little friend Tianlang. I believe you are Tianlang. You are indeed the most ferocious star of all, the Heavenly Wolf, who took on the power inheritance of the Heavenly Demon Hall in the Sky Tower. But this Lingyun Pavilion of the Clear Sky Sect you mention — I don’t recall any such sect in the Sky Realm, and I’ve never heard of a Patriarch Xuanhu. Set against Tianyu’s disciple, you — the Prison Emperor’s heir, the Conquest Queen‘s disciple — are a good deal more honest. Only your guard is a little too high, and you hold things back. Even with an old man like me, it’s three parts truth and seven parts misdirection. And I’m not really an outsider, you know. My connection to your Sky Tower is a close one. Tens of thousands of years ago I fought the Peerless Emperor Wushuang — we didn’t know each other until we’d fought, and after that we were good drinking companions for a while. I went to the wedding feast at Buried Sword Manor too — and unlike that rude fellow Tianyu, I didn’t eat and drink without stopping and help myself to the furnishings on the way out. And then time got away from me. I cultivated quietly and had no idea the days were flying past outside; I even missed the Conquest Queen storming into the Heavenly Realm and challenging everyone in it. Missing the Conquest Queen was a great pity, and then I went and missed Prison Emperor Zhanfeng as well. Today I don’t intend to miss any more of what you younger ones are doing. You’re young, but you have potential in abundance and outstanding gifts, and there’s a light and an appeal about both of you that goes beyond your predecessors’. Especially you, little friend Yue Yang — Yue Titan — whose fate belongs to the Heavenly Wolf. A peerless talent who doesn’t appear once in ten thousand years. You genuinely have this old man’s admiration. If my disciple Jiuxiao hadn’t sworn to me that the Sky Tower had produced an unprecedented child of destiny, I would never have believed there’d come a day when I’d go back to the Sky Tower and see the old place again.”

Yue Yang’s laughter cut off as though somebody had chopped through it, and the sweat came out of him all at once.

Pouring like rain.

Nobody had ever had him pinned down this exactly.

Standing in front of this mysterious man, Yue Yang felt as though he had turned transparent — as though he had no secret left that would hold.

The master of Jiuxiao, one of the three great powers of the Heavenly Realm. Someone who had fought the Peerless Emperor Wushuang to a standstill. A Heavenly Realm powerhouse who had been at the massacre at Buried Sword Manor. Someone who called the mightiest figure in the Central Divine Hall, the Divine Hall Sovereign, plain “Tianyu,” in the tone of a man talking about an old classmate — and who could frighten Ji Wuri witless just by standing there.

How was an old monster like that supposed to leave Yue Yang anything but scared out of his wits?

He had shown a great deal of his hand and a great deal of his strength, and he had been about to cut Ji Wuri down by force. And then this mysterious man had simply walked in.

Him.

What was he here for?

(End of Chapter 1194)