“Are these all youths preparing to enter the sect?” Yan Shu asked.
“Replying to the Immortal Lord, these are all of them,” the Third Elder said. His solemn and respectful demeanor caused the surrounding people to chuckle. “Is the Third Elder afraid that the Immortal Lord will eat you? Why so serious?”
“Perhaps the Third Elder is afraid that if he says something wrong, I will eat him?” Yan Shu smiled, his eyes curving as he looked toward the Third Elder. “You say… is that right?”
Everyone merely took the Immortal Lord to be joking, but the Third Elder caught a hint of a threat within those words.
Do not run your mouth and tell others, the white-clad Immortal Lord’s eyes held zero warmth.
“The Immortal Lord’s jokes are truly unique,” the Third Elder said.
Yan Shu leaned lazily against the chair, seemingly pointing casually. “That little brat over there is not bad. He hasn’t shown a shred of fatigue even now. What is his name?”
The person he pointed at was clearly Mu Tinghan. The youth’s brows and eyes were delicate, exuding an air of pampered arrogance. Having climbed the pressure-laden steps for so long, he still remained full of energy, and the black bell at his waist jingled continuously, making him look precisely like a young master pampered and doted upon by a wealthy household.
“This person’s name is Mu Tinghan. Does the Immortal Lord fancy him?” the Sixth Elder asked, seizing the initiative.
The immortal and demonic realms are distinctly separated and have had little contact for a long time, let alone the fact that Mu Tinghan had appeared out of nowhere with no one knowing his origins. Therefore, remarkably, no one in the cultivation world knew that the Demon Lord they simultaneously revered and abhorred was standing right before them.
Mu Tinghan had actually not spent much effort to sneak in.
Magical artifacts are divided into several grades: spirit tools, magical treasures, immortal artifacts, semi-divine artifacts, and divine artifacts. Ordinary people all use spirit tools; immortal artifacts are scarce, while divine artifacts have not appeared for a very long time.
As the Demon Lord, as a Demon Lord with formidable and deeply entrenched prestige, and as a Demon Lord who frequently had treasures offered to him by others, Mu Tinghan’s collection of magical artifacts could pile up into a mountain. Among them was precisely a semi-divine artifact.
Below the Mahayana stage, the semi-divine Soul-Crossing Bell could freely convert between demonic energy and spiritual energy. Mu Tinghan, who was at the mid-stage of Tribulation Crossing, was extremely pleased, leaving the Left Protector behind in the Demon Realm to come find his true love. Then, after altering his bone age, he smoothly made his way to the disciple recruitment ceremony without a single obstruction.
Mu Tinghan had originally pondered about conjuring a fake identity, but before he could even figure it out, the person in charge of registration patted his shoulder with a sympathetic expression: “Brother, you must have run over from some other continent to participate in the recruitment too. And you got robbed along the way… How pitiful. Here is your examination token, go change your clothes before heading inside.”
Mu Tinghan looked down at the ragged garments he had specially imitated to win his true love’s sympathy, a small cross-shaped flower blooming on his forehead. He immediately returned to the inn to change his clothes and, by the way, placed a one-month gag curse on that individual.
Even though he knew it made no logical sense, what did it matter?
At this moment, Mu Tinghan sensed someone watching him. Suppressing his impatience and malice, he raised his head, only to see Yan Shu.
Unlike his appearance at sixteen or seventeen in the previous mission worlds, Yan Shu looked to be around twenty-something now. Gentleness and refinement were perfectly fused with aloof and icy pride; his brows and eyes were like finely sculpted jade, and the red traces at the corners of his eyes resembled smears of fresh blood, bizarrely enchanting and resplendent.
Mu Tinghan was stunned into a daze.
Their eyes met.
Meanwhile, the Sixth Elder sensed something was amiss—normally, Yan Shu’s red traces were faint, deepening only when his emotional fluctuations grew more intense. And right now… they were already rich and vivid enough to almost drip with blood.
Merely taking a fancy to a disciple shouldn’t trigger such violent fluctuations, should it? She secretly sized up Mu Tinghan. Eh, why does this kid’s expression look like he’s staring fixedly at a beauty without blinking? No, it’s even deeper than that—it looks like a lover experiencing a long-awaited reunion.
The Sixth Elder was startled and shaken by her own thought.
It was an illusion, it must be an illusion! She secretly observed Yan Shu again using her peripheral vision, and discovered Oh holy crap, why does the Immortal Lord’s expression look wrong too? This complicated gaze, tightly pressed lips, and affectionate eyes that were almost on the verge of shedding tears (illusion), it’s obviously a mix of deep love and bitter hatred!
Could it be… this youth was the Immortal Lord’s ex-wife?
Impossible, the youth’s age clearly appeared to be only sixteen or seventeen. That left only one possibility!
This youth was the Immortal Lord’s illegitimate child.
The more she looked, the more she felt the two of them resembled one another. The Sixth Elder felt she had stumbled upon a heaven-shaking piece of gossip, yet she was distressed to have no one to share it with. “Immortal Lord, this youth looks rather good. Will you take him as a disciple?”
“Take him as a disciple?” Yan Shu was slightly startled.
“Yes. Once you take him as a disciple, you can have more time to interact with him and understand each other better,” the Sixth Elder said.
That actually sounded rather nice. Yan Shu looked at the youth down below.
In this lifetime, this emotion bordering on obsession would be guided by him.
If he starts acting disobedient again, Yan Shu looked at Mu Tinghan’s face, manipulating the wind to gently caress him.
Then he would imprison his soul, turn him into a puppet, and for one lifetime after another, through all eternity, he would never be allowed to escape.
At the same time, Mu Tinghan was also agonizing over a problem. His true love actually turned out to be the Immortal Lord; what should he do to lure this person back to the Demon Realm?
Should he knock him unconscious and quietly carry him away? Demonic cultivators have strong combat power, and since Yan Shu is renowned for being gentle and kind, he should be able to win. It would be best to erase his memories so he wouldn’t have to worry about frightening him. Mu Tinghan rubbed his hands together in excitement.
That way, Yan Shu would belong to him alone.
Still, that was far too violent, so he guessed he would drop that idea. The task of abducting Yan Shu to the Demon Realm still required careful deliberation.
Sigh, love always demanded some sacrifices after another.