Through an old acquaintance of Fengji’s, Yue Yang got a line to Gold-Tooth, and at last he secured an invitation to the birthday banquet.

Beyond simply being in awe of Yue Yang’s standing, Gold-Tooth had been handed a bribe of monstrous weight — the demon crystal of a Sky-rank war beast — so naturally he threw himself into Yue Yang’s affairs with special zeal, running himself ragged in the hope of pulling this distinguished guest into the Windstill national ruler’s social circle as quickly as possible. Of course, a lowly squad leader like him had no standing to arrange a meeting between Yue Yang and the ruler himself; first he had to work the line to the head steward.

“Tomorrow morning the head steward returns to Greenvalley City. Around the afternoon he should be able to schedule a suitable time for an audience. I must ask the Titan Young Lord to wait just one more night.” Gold-Tooth was not only reverent and deferential toward Yue Yang; toward his old friend Keen-Eye Jinyun he had rekindled a genuine warmth, doing everything he could to drag him off to drink and carouse with the girls and rebuild their bond.

“No matter. My Titan Chamber of Commerce means to offer our birthday congratulations sincerely — there’s no rush over a moment or two.” Yue Yang smiled.

“These past two days quite a few distinguished guests have already been paying calls at the ruler’s manor. Might the Titan Young Lord be willing to attend as well? Perhaps you’ll run into an old acquaintance there at the manor!” To make up for his own lack of ability, Gold-Tooth was set on talking Yue Yang into going over to the ruler’s manor for a look. But never mind Yue Yang — even Fengji and Keen-Eye Jinyun, who had joined later, knew this was impossible. Before coming to Greenvalley City, this Titan Young Lord had never once set foot in Tianhua Domain. Seizing the various cities, scheming to take Greenvalley — it had all been a whim of the moment. How could he possibly bump into some old friend here?

“After my midday rest, if there’s nothing to do, I might take a stroll over to the ruler’s manor.” Yue Yang didn’t mind going to scout the terrain and probe for intelligence.

If only he could puzzle out why Tianhua Domain, beaten to the state it was in, still kept fighting on.

Was it really as simple as the surface claim — merely a bid for the seat of First Domain Emperor?

And besides, even if the three domain emperors were at war among themselves, what did that have to do with the common people? Why force tens of millions of soldiers to grind each other to death inside the combat zones?

This slaughter looked like war, but after Yue Yang, Yue Yu, Princess Qianqian, and the Drunken Cat Imperial Lady — the three women — had analyzed it carefully, it looked more like a kind of blood sacrifice borrowing the lives of countless people… What reason could it be, exactly, that would drive three domain emperors to pour in tens of millions of soldiers, offering life and flesh in an unending blood rite within the war zones? Though the answer to the riddle eluded him, Yue Yang had reason to believe that beings of national-ruler rank and above ought to know something. Even if they didn’t know why the domain emperors’ war demanded a sacrifice of endless blood, the eerie conditions scattered across Tianhua Domain — like the Windstill Swamp being a death-forbidden zone sealed off by some law — they ought to know at least a little about that.

This time, coming to Greenvalley City, Yue Yang was not here for something as simple as killing people, seizing treasure, and tormenting villains.

He also wanted to wring intelligence about Tianhua Domain out of powerhouses like the Windstill national ruler — at the very least, to squeeze out the truth about the Windstill Swamp and White River City.

Seeing Yue Yang agree, Gold-Tooth went off overjoyed to make the arrangements.

Though on the surface this Titan Young Lord didn’t appear to be a Sky-rank powerhouse, he had Sky-rank guards protecting him from the shadows, so he had to be an extremely eminent figure. Making the acquaintance of such a distinguished guest would be of enormous benefit to himself down the road. What’s more, this Titan Young Lord was young — so young, yet already this strong. Who could guarantee that once he came fully into his growth, he wouldn’t rise to Sky-rank?

“Those prisoners we caught — do we really not need to haul them back to the Sky Tower and lock them up first?” Yue Yu always felt that prison carts were child’s play for Sky-rank powerhouses. Even though these villains had already been dealt a beating by Yue Yang, some of them might have hidden skills, and the moment Yue Yang left they might slip free and escape.

“Relax, they can’t run.” Yue Yang, though, was perfectly calm.

“Those fellows are already crippled, and with Zhongguan, Heitu, and Baima watching over them day and night, if they could still escape then Zhongguan and the rest might as well just kill themselves — what kind of guards would they be? The way I see it, the biggest problem isn’t the prisoners at all, but whether the people from the Sky Tower can get here in time. If the timing is off by even a hair, if the plan slips the slightest bit, then the Windstill national ruler — or an opponent of his caliber — could get away. After all, this is their turf, and we haven’t gotten a clear read on the situation. Striking suddenly, we can’t rule out things taking a turn.”

Princess Qianqian, for her part, thought it would be best to bring Tianzhu and the other Sky Tower powerhouses along. True, doing so risked exposing their strength and drawing attention, but it beat having to call up troops from the Sky Tower once things had already kicked off.

“That bunch from the Heaven Devil Hall are all warmongers. If they came, could they honestly sit still and behave in the inn? And those demon kings like Barut — the moment they plant themselves here, even a blind man could tell what they are. If they really came, that’d be a disaster too!” The Drunken Cat Imperial Lady felt that no matter how they did it, there was a downside.

“If only Wuxia were here.” Yue Yu sighed softly.

In the past, it had mostly been Xue Wuxia who conceived the plans, with everyone chiming in to refine them — and it had never seemed all that hard.

Now that she slept, the heavy burden had fallen onto their own shoulders, and only then did they realize just how remarkable that Snow Girl really was.

How many battles they’d fought in the past was almost past counting. The soul-shaking ones alone, the ones so dangerous they’d nearly ended in defeat, included the unsealing of the Prison Emperor’s hall, the poison scheme of the Black Prison King, the Death Arena, the duel with the ancient demon king, the Night Empress’s invasion — brutal, grueling campaigns every one. And there had been all manner of battles great and small, and in each of them it was the two of them, Xue Wuxia and Yue Yang, who deliberated and decided, and in the end won.

The others contributed too, of course, but supplementing and refining was an entirely different thing from setting up the board and laying the schemes.

Yue Yang waved a hand, signaling the three women not to fret over all this. “There’s no such thing as a flawless, foolproof plan. A plan can never keep pace with how things change. We just need a basic route to move forward on — there’s no need to chase perfection. I know that with Wuxia gone, you all want to do everything you can to help me. But you don’t have to draft some peerless masterstroke. Against a character like the Windstill national ruler, we don’t need to be so obsessed with pulling it off cleanly… Even if he runs, we just give chase. It’s not as if we’re bound to succeed a hundred percent of the time, or that failure means death.”

Hearing him say it, the three women secretly laughed to themselves.

Come to think of it, it really was so.

With Yue Yang’s strength, taking down the Windstill national ruler wouldn’t be all that difficult.

The only slightly tricky part was how to net every last martial artist at the birthday banquet in one sweep, letting none of them escape and alarm the three domain emperors.

And even taking a step back — even if the domain emperors were alarmed and learned of Yue Yang’s existence, at most they’d merely be wary that some newcomer was rising. However suspicious they got, they’d never suspect it was someone from the Sky Tower… Going unnoticed was the plan’s perfect execution, but alarming the domain emperors was no earth-shattering matter either. Even if something went wrong, it wouldn’t be fatal to the larger picture.

The reason Princess Qianqian and the others were so tense was that, without realizing it, they had cast themselves as Xue Wuxia, straining to plot out a flawless, seamless plan for him.

“Little Three, why don’t you go take a wander, see if you can dig up some intelligence to bring back. And if it really comes down to it later, I’ll see whether there’s anywhere I can lend a hand.” Yue Yu was peaceable by nature and didn’t much care for fighting, so for her to volunteer for battle this time was exceedingly rare.

“Good!”

Yue Yang knew she didn’t want the plan to fall apart just because Xue Wuxia had gone to sleep — that was why she was being so eager.

Of course, this also had to do with the fact that Yue Yu’s strength had already surged upward by leaps and bounds.

The Yue Yu of now was no longer the fragile girl who once needed Yue Yang’s protection. When Yue Yang needed her, she really could step forward and become a powerful right hand!

Walking down the main streets of Greenvalley City, Yue Yang found the residents here very strange. Unlike anywhere he had ever seen, the polarization of rich and poor was extreme: the wealthy were rich beyond dripping, while the poor had nothing at all. The rich rode in fine carriages and dressed in splendid clothes, going about with retinues fore and aft, all pomp and spectacle. The poor had scarcely a rag to cover them. Many children wandering the streets seized on any chance to earn a coin — shining the rich lords’ shoes, sweeping up the rich lords’ horse dung, running errands and carrying messages for the rich lords… With withered, black, wasted bodies they did backbreaking labor beyond imagining, all to earn a little black bread to fill their bellies.

Getting paid at all was the good outcome. What they dreaded most was running into one of the foul-tempered rich, who not only wouldn’t tip after the work was done but would fly into a kick that snapped a few ribs.

The mercenaries were much the same.

The mercenaries with strength and backing lived large, riding high on the wind.

Some mercenaries, though, were downcast and hollow-eyed, like walking corpses, trailing along behind others, staking their lives as the wager, scraping together one full meal and then one hungry one, without a shred of hope. Many mercenaries, homeless and family-less, simply collapsed in the streets. Beside them lay nothing but a placard offering to hunt demon beasts below Ground-rank level five for one gold coin, and nothing else at all — a rare few of them didn’t even have a weapon.

By contrast, along both sides of the main streets, all manner of tall, magnificent, resplendent buildings stood in rows, every one of them proclaiming the prosperity and abundance of Greenvalley City.

This place was the paradise of the wealthy.

And the hell of the poor.

Yue Yang sighed softly. The Sky Tower, too, prized strength above all, and there too the weak were prey to the strong — but no matter how bad it got, it was never like Greenvalley City. Emperors like Jun Wuyou, even one who was less than worthy and governed like garbage, would at least occasionally see to the people’s livelihood.

On the Longteng continent, no matter how badly a man was doing, if he thickened his hide and threw himself on some family as a servant, he could still get himself a meal.

Nowhere was as terrifying as Greenvalley City, with its starving masses numbering in the thousands upon thousands, collapsed all over the streets.

Seeing the small, one could infer the large — and it likely wasn’t just Greenvalley City that was this way.

The whole of the Windstill nation.

Even the whole of Tianhua Domain would be like this.

“Get lost, you lowborn scum! The Sky-rank lords are about to enter the city — clear off and die out of sight, quick, before you soil the lords’ eyes!” Guards had come back from the city gate, driving off the starving folk collapsed in the streets, forcing them to duck into the dark alleys so the visiting Sky-rankers wouldn’t see the ugly sight of this filthy rabble. A few of the sick who moved a little too slowly got beaten with fists and boots by the guards — and had they not fled fast, being hacked dead on the spot wouldn’t have been the least bit surprising.

“Welcome, welcome, a warm welcome to our honored guests gracing Greenvalley City with their presence!”

A troop of riders came flying out from the ruler’s manor, half of them scantily clad beauties, half of them palace guards in gleaming armor.

They lined up together, gleefully welcoming this incoming Sky-rank envoy delegation. Most such delegations were sent by friends of equal rank to the Windstill national ruler, with a few being distinguished guests the ruler had gone out of his way to invite. Greeting them in person was the head steward — first of the three grand stewards — with the ruler’s Marshal Baisu, one of his four marshals, accompanying them the whole way.

Gold-Tooth, currying favor, explained to Yue Yang that the delegation had originally not been due to arrive until deep in the night, but because the road had gone rather smoothly — no mishaps at all while passing the edge of the Windstill Swamp — they’d arrived more than half a day early.

A dozen or so Sky-rankers, the highest among them reaching Sky-rank level three.

Formed into a single column.

Accompanied by the head steward and Marshal Baisu, all smiles, they flew into Greenvalley City.

Yue Yang had little interest in these people to begin with — a dozen Sky-rankers were nothing our classmate Yue Yang hadn’t seen before. But there, flying in the middle of the column, was a ten-meter-tall giant, and that one really did leave Yue Yang staring dumbstruck. As for this giant’s build, it was neither the tallest nor the smallest, and his features were nothing special, his armor rather ordinary too — seemingly utterly without distinction, the sort you’d forget the instant you glanced at him.

His strength, on the other hand, was quite decent — equal to the two proudest-faced Sky-rankers in the column, possessing the strength of Sky-rank level three.

“Damn, this cursed bastard!” Yue Yang swore aloud.

“What is it?” Gold-Tooth was scared half to death. It didn’t matter if this young lord lost his temper — ordinarily he could beat or kill whomever he pleased — but he absolutely could not go cursing at a Sky-rank delegation right now, that was extremely dangerous. Even if the Titan Young Lord came out of it unscathed, if such a blunder happened, his own little life probably wouldn’t be saved. He was about to urge Yue Yang to go back — beat and curse all he liked once they were home, just for heaven’s sake don’t provoke these people here, that was over a dozen Sky-rank powerhouses!

Yue Yang kicked him aside with one foot, pointed at the ten-meter-tall giant, and bellowed, “You see an old friend and can’t even be bothered to say hello, some host you are! This is really beyond the pale!”

The giant took one look at Yue Yang and went utterly stiff.

His expression was nothing but disbelief.

Standing beside him, a powerhouse likewise of Sky-rank level three gave a soft snort and asked, “Tianhao, that’s a friend of yours?”

The unremarkable-looking giant nodded, then suddenly burst out laughing and strode over toward Yue Yang with great steps. “When fate wills it, two meet across a thousand miles; without it, they pass face to face as strangers. I never imagined it’d be you, brat! It’s been how long, and you’ve already grown to this level? Really, you damn near scared your old Hao to death! I did hear you’d come up, but I never thought you’d be doing this well now… tsk tsk tsk, that outfit of yours is downright dazzling, and that Sacred-rank ring — Yuehua? Where’d you loot that from?”

Seeing that it was an old acquaintance, the Sky-rank powerhouses didn’t pay it much mind either, merely sweeping a curious glance or two over Yue Yang before continuing on.

The head steward, though — his eyes flashed like lightning, darting sharply.

He immediately summoned Gold-Tooth to his side to inquire about Yue Yang’s identity… but of course, beyond the title of “Titan Young Lord,” he got nothing. Gold-Tooth had only just made this connection himself — what intelligence could he possibly have to offer?

“Wait on him with everything you’ve got, and get a clear read on his background. He turns out to be a friend of Lord Tianhao’s? This young man really is no ordinary figure!” The head steward gave Gold-Tooth his orders.

“Yes.” Being given such important use, Gold-Tooth was beside himself with joy, his very bones lightened by several pounds.

Over there, Yue Yang and the ten-meter-tall giant were cursing each other out under their breath.

Yue Yang didn’t hold back in the slightest and let loose right away. “I’ve met plenty of poseurs in my time, but I’ve never met one who poses like you! You’re plainly a monstrous Perfect Innate Sovereign level eight, yet you disguise yourself as a Sky-rank level three idiot and come running to a broken-down backwater like this — what on earth are you up to? Ming Rihao, you conned me but good. Back then I really must have been blind to believe you were only Sky-rank level three!”

That ten-meter-tall giant was none other than the golden giant Ming Rihao, whom he’d met back at the Prison Emperor’s divine hall. Only now, keeping incomparably low, he had hidden away all his golden light — even his features he’d made plain and unremarkable — and, what’s more, he was still feigning a strength of only Sky-rank level three.

Disguising oneself was all well and good — but to possess the strength of a Perfect Innate Sovereign level eight and disguise oneself as Sky-rank level three?

Yue Yang felt that not cursing him to death simply wouldn’t do!

Ming Rihao made a hushing gesture. “Don’t — don’t go blabbing it out, it does none of us any good. You play your rich young lord, I’ll play my Sky-rank mercenary — everybody takes what they need, eh!”

“I’ll give you ten seconds to explain. Otherwise, I’ll blow your cover even if it means we’re friends no more!” Yue Yang struck the pose of: talk, or I start shouting for people.

“Had I known, I’d never have come to this cursed Greenvalley City. Forget it — running into you is just my rotten luck… Before I say anything, you tell me about yourself first. Did you brat crack open the Ruins of the Gods and absorb divine power? How could you have advanced to this level? I’m already having a bit of trouble making out your strength — don’t tell me your strength has already surpassed mine? How is that possible? If it really were so, then what was that Prison Emperor, hailed back in the day as the fastest-advancing of all?” Ming Rihao grew even more curious about our classmate Yue Yang.

“This young master advances fast because he’s a genius at heart — it’s got nothing to do with the Ruins of the Gods.” Yue Yang summed it up in a single sentence, then asked Ming Rihao, “I’m done. Your turn — what did you come here for? Oh, right, I wrote a whole stack of love letters. Why hasn’t your sister written back?”

“Don’t ask me about your business!” Ming Rihao seemed positively terrified of his little sister Ming Yueguang, and refused to discuss it further.

“Then what did you come here for? Don’t tell me you were so bored out of your mind you came here for a stroll on purpose.” Yue Yang gave a thoroughly displeased snort.

“Out here in the open streets, what are we doing discussing affairs of state? Come on, let’s find a tavern, sit down, and have a drink. If we get into this in detail, three days and three nights wouldn’t be enough to finish.” Ming Rihao was finding this a bit thorny. Had Yue Yang still been as he was before, he’d have just offhandedly done away with him. But the Yue Yang of now had already come into his own, his strength grown unfathomable — killing him was no longer possible. Rather than make an enemy of him, better to pull him in as an ally.

In any case, having a sly, shameless fellow like this for a companion didn’t seem so bad.

Our classmate Yue Yang had a thought of his own, too: if this Ming Rihao weren’t the elder brother of that girl Ming Yueguang, then he’d still have to find some way to do him in.

But that girl Ming Yueguang was one he’d already earmarked to bed, and strictly speaking this fellow counted as a future brother-in-law — decent strength, decent brains, and a particularly scoundrelly way of doing things. Taking him on as a temporary ally wouldn’t be a loss.

After weighing it back and forth at last, he decided to cooperate.

Besides, if he didn’t come out well ahead this time, he’d just take it back later out of his sister’s hide!

Fortunately Ming Rihao had no mind-reading arts — otherwise, had he known this thought of our classmate Yue Yang’s, he’d surely have bellowed out, “My sister? Your sister, my ass!”

(End of Chapter 930)