“Impossible, absolutely impossible!”
Shang Xingyun, the Sovereign of Wind and Moon, looked utterly shocked, resembling someone whose sky had suddenly collapsed. His eyes were wide with terror, his lips trembled uncontrollably, and his fists were clenched so tightly that it felt as though he might throw a tantrum and roll around on the ground in the next second!
“I simply refuse to believe it!” He gritted his teeth, the fierce, cutting words escaping through the gaps of his teeth, “The millennial old widower can remain chaste and self-disciplined, but he absolutely cannot be called ‘no good’!”
Murong Yan, standing beside him, busied himself with fanning Shang Xingyun, “Old Shang, calm your anger, calm your anger. This is all an act of force majeure; if he’s no good, why don’t we modify the third installment into a eunuch-themed novel?”
Shang Xingyun spat in disdain, “Writing novels without leaving them unfinished is my consistent principle!”
Murong Yan coaxed him with soothing and pleasant words, “Then regardless of whether the Exalted Lord is good or not, just write it as usual! Coming from you, Old Shang, it’s bound to be a massive bestseller!”
Shang Xingyun pointed at Murong Yan accusingly, “You only ever care about money, money, money!”
“How could that be? Am I not helping you come up with ideas? Wow, if you say that to me, I’m going to show you how aggrieved I feel!”
Shang Xingyun let out a breath, wearing a bitter, deeply aggrieved expression of tragic sorrow, “Words without any basis in reality carry no warmth; they are merely progressive combinations without a soul.”
Xie Xun, standing to the side, had been trying hard to find an opening to speak, but the two sovereigns were so deeply immersed that he couldn’t find a single entry point at all. Seeing that Murong Yan paused and lost his train of thought after Shang Xingyun finished speaking, Xie Xun hurriedly squeezed in between the gaps: “Sovereigns, discussing this matter right now isn’t appropriate, is it? We are talking about our Exalted Lord! The number one immortal lord of Lanquque Heaven, the one whose shadow brings darkness to the moon and whose presence makes rivers and mountains shudder, a supreme heavyweight of the cultivation world! To harbor… such unspeakable hidden hardships, how can we remain aware of his difficulties yet completely ignore them?”
Shang Xingyun glanced sideways at Xie Xun, “Kid surnamed Xie, why do I always feel like you’re taking particular pleasure in this disaster?”
“What? I am so expressive and emotional, and my words are so resolute! You can say I empathize with his plight, but you can never say I’m taking pleasure in his misfortune!”
Shang Xingyun bluntly remarked, “How can you empathize? Are you no good too?”
Xie Xun pressed a hand onto the hilt of his saber, “If you, if you keep talking like that, I’m going to draw my saber!”
The peacemaker Murong Yan stood between the two of them and said, “We are all our own people, why stir up double the anger? When all is said and done, aren’t we doing this out of concern for our Exalted Lord’s happiness?”
Then he turned his head to look at the stunning beauty sitting off to the side, who was lazily sipping tea in utter silence yet completely impossible for anyone to ignore: “Your Holiness, what do you suggest we do?”
Ruan Yaibai cast a sidelong glance, then set down his teacup, “I brought you here to solve problems, not to present them.”
Shang Xingyun stated frankly, “The problem is that we don’t believe it!”
Murong Yan hurriedly chimed in, “Precisely! Your Holiness, is it possible that the ‘no good’ you speak of is somewhat different from the ‘no good’ we understand?”
Standing nearby, Xie Xun nodded with a dazed expression, pondered for a moment, and then asked without comprehension, “How is it different?”
Murong Yan extended a single finger and held forth with eloquent discourse: “As far as this matter goes, an ordinary mortal doing it for the space of an incense stick or half an hour is already considered quite decent. But our cultivation world is different. In a state of fasting from grain, dual cultivation can sustain a continuous output for a day or even two days without interruption.”
Xie Xun listened with exceptional earnestness: “And then?”
“And then, do you know how long a demonic cultivator can keep going?”
Xie Xun shook his head very obligingly.
Murong Yan closed his folding fan and said with a look of admiration, “Demonic cultivators are even more unbridled and excessive in this regard; they can keep going for consecutive days without any restraint! Furthermore, they often use duration as capital for showing off, especially when the top echelons of demonic cultivators form pacts, the duration of their wedding night is a focal point of attention for the entire Wufan Nine Domains! I hear the longest one currently lasted for seven days and seven nights.”
At this point, Murong Yan looked toward Ruan Yaibai.
“So, could it be that Your Holiness is defining Lanquque Heaven by the standards of the Wufan Nine Domains?”
Xie Xun wore a sudden expression of deep realization: “Turns out demonic cultivators are all this hardcore?!”
[System: Holy cow, you demonic cultivators are seriously not human!]
[System: This setting is simply… so filthy yet immensely satisfying!! Why don’t you try your best to drag the Heavenly Lord into falling into demonic corruption and marrying into your Wufan Nine Domains?]
Ruan Yaibai rested his chin on his hand, smiling faintly, “Sovereign Murong truly lives up to being the strategist of Lanquque Heaven, to be so well-versed even in such matters.”
The three realms indeed held regional cultural differences regarding this matter.
However, immortal cultivators of Lanquque Heaven tended to disdain mentioning such topics; after all, immortal cultivators were mostly high-minded and pretentious! On the contrary, the Wufan Nine Domains were far more enthusiastic. That fellow Murong Yan mentioned who lasted seven days and seven nights, Ruan Yaibai knew him well. He was Yilian, the Buddhist monk of Qiyue Lianhuan and one of the three Sovereign Lords of Xuange.
Before falling into demonic corruption, Yilian had been an eminent monk who had attained the Dao; after falling into demonic corruption, he officially became the exact antonym of an eminent monk, completely unleashing his innate nature to the fullest and shattering Buddhist precepts to absolute smithereens! He even held a record of seven days of continuous unyielding performance, driving countless demonic cultivators in the Wufan Nine Domains to aspire to become his bedmates… Thus, the fact that Murong Yan knew even these details clearly indicated he hadn’t spent little effort researching the Wufan Nine Domains in his spare time!
Murong Yan waved a hand, “Your Holiness flatters me.”
Ruan Yaibai crossed his legs, looking toward the three of them with considerable elegance, speaking at a leisurely pace: “However, to say your Exalted Lord is ‘no good’ is actually beautifying the reality. Strictly speaking, perhaps ‘impotent’ is a more fitting description?”
Upon hearing this, all three of them drew in a sharp breath.
[System: Wow, Host, you, you, you, aren’t you afraid of being struck by lightning for telling lies in public! Just yesterday you were saying the Heavenly Lord’s crime-committing tool was full of vigor and raring to go!]
Right on cue, Lanquque Heaven echoed with a magnificent clap of thunder!
Rumble!
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
Ruan Yaibai: Hurry up and close your crow’s mouth! If I don’t exaggerate a bit, how will his underlings believe me!
[System: Oh… So that’s how it is.]
Shang Xingyun immediately lost his composure, “Based on my observations of our Exalted Lord for over a century, that is even more impossible! Your Holiness, please refrain from joking! Even if you were past mortal enemies, you shouldn’t resort to such defamation!”
Murong Yan also wore a startled expression, nearly dropping his fan to the ground, “Unbelievable, utterly impossible! With our Exalted Lord’s facial features, physique, and temperament, you could tell me he’s dead before you could tell me he’s impotent!”
Xie Xun chimed in, “Yeah, yeah! We cannot believe it based on your word alone!”
Hiss, who would have thought that these underlings would actually be quite protective of you, Ye Tang?
Seeing that all three of them stood united, Ruan Yaibai chuckled coldly, “You cannot believe it? Does that mean you still want to see it with your own eyes?”
Hearing those words, the three of them looked at each other, and suddenly, with full emotional resonance, shouted back in unison:
“Yes!”
The trio’s blood-pumping, synchronized shout of “Yes” nearly startled Ruan Yaibai right off his stool.
No, what kind of mental state do these subordinates of Ye Tang have? They just want to watch the show and don’t care how big the commotion gets?!
Tch, Ye Tang, you really need to reflect on yourself. How did you manage to cultivate one, two, three subordinates who are all rebellious to the heavens, each and every one of them dying to watch you make a fool of yourself?
With you acting as such a terrible leader in terms of character, how on earth do you expect to remain the supreme boss of everyone!
I’m embarrassed for you, bah!
[System: Though, but, doesn’t this precisely prove that they actually have very good relationships behind the scenes?]
Meanwhile, inside the main hall, Ye Tang was processing official documents stacked as high as mountains for Lanquque Heaven when he suddenly heard someone knocking on the door outside.
He raised a hand, slightly rotating his wrist which had grown somewhat sore and numb from writing for too long, “Enter.”
The door was pushed open, and Xie Jiaya walked in holding a classified military dispatch.
The moment Ye Tang lifted his eyes to see Xie Jiaya, his brow furrowed tightly. He laid down his brush, stood up, and asked, “Is something the matter with Ah-Ruan?”
Xie Jiaya glanced at the official documents the Exalted Lord had been reviewing and approving over these past few days, discovering that the volume was already nearly five times the amount of the corresponding period previously: “The Exalted Lord is doing very well.”
“Then why have you come over here?” The tone carried an obvious trace of reprimand.
Xie Jiaya understood that Ye Tang was worried about Ruan Yaibai being left unattended, so he replied, “A-Xun is there.”
“Your younger brother isn’t as steady as you; he gets swayed easily just by being sweet-talked a few times by Ah-Ruan. Since you’ve come to find me, the person accompanying Ah-Ruan can’t possibly be just Xie Xun, right?”
Xie Jiaya nodded, “Yes, three people in total.”
Ye Tang was well aware of Xie Jiaya’s personality, his sentences never exceeded four words. Fortunately, having spent a long time together, communication had long since become completely unobstructed. He looked at Xie Jiaya, “Murong Yan and Shang Xingyun are there too?”
At this hour, Bai Ruogu was still hauling bricks. In Lanquque Heaven, the only ones permitted by Xie Jiaya and Xie Xun to pass through and enter Moonfall and Crying Crow were the five Peak Masters and Pavilion Sovereigns of the Five Sacred Peaks. Su Wanxing had yet to emerge from the Jialan Bone Mirror; the Pavilion Sovereign of Yanyun Pavilion, Qing, and the Pavilion Sovereign of Chunqiu Pavilion, Daisui, were both away from Lanquque Heaven. That left only Murong Yan and Shang Xingyun.
Xie Jiaya replied, “Precisely.”
The attitudes of Lanquque Heaven’s upper echelons toward Ruan Yaibai varied drastically. Among them, the left and right commanding officers, Xie Jiaya and Xie Xun, although seemingly at odds with Ruan Yaibai on the surface, were actually neutral factions who posed no threat to him. Murong Yan and Shang Xingyun belonged to the supportive and conservative faction, being relatively friendly toward Ruan Yaibai and caring little about his past. As for the remaining three pavilion sovereigns—Su Wanxing, Qinghe, and Daisui, they belonged squarely to the opposition faction, and most of the immortal cultivators under their respective pavilions held the Demon Lord in deep contempt, posing a significantly greater threat to Ruan Yaibai.
That was precisely why he had instructed Xie Jiaya and Xie Xun to stand guard over Ruan Yaibai in his absence.
He could no longer bear the agonizing pain of losing him a second time.
Knowing that Murong Yan and Shang Xingyun were present brought him a measure of reassurance, prompting him to take the golden-threaded classified dispatch from Xie Jiaya’s hand. He discovered it was news brought back from the mortal realm by Qinghe of Yanyun Pavilion.
He had originally expected, given Qinghe’s temperament, that it would yet another classified dispatch impeaching Ah-Ruan. To his surprise, the matters detailed within this dispatch genuinely took Ye Tang by surprise.
He finally understood why Ah-Ruan was in such a frantic rush to head to the mortal realm.
“I have received the dispatch. You may withdraw first.”
With those words, he intended to turn back to his document reviewing, only to notice Xie Jiaya standing in place without moving away.
“Is there something else?”
Xie Jiaya looked at him with a somewhat troubled expression, seemingly at a loss for how to begin.
Never had he witnessed such a tongue-tied expression from Xie Jiaya. Guessing what might be happening, Ye Tang hypothesized, “Is what you wish to say related to Ah-Ruan?”
Xie Jiaya honestly nodded, but then shook his head immediately after.
Although Xie Jiaya was usually cold and taciturn, Ye Tang was genuinely seeing this kind of hesitant, back-and-forth demeanor from him for the very first time.
After weighing his thoughts, Ye Tang asked uncertainly, “Could it be that Ah-Ruan is speaking ill of me to them?”
Xie Jiaya finally responded with a sound, “Yes.”
“Very harsh things?”
And calling it merely harsh was an understatement.
Xie Jiaya didn’t know how to express it, but if you asked him to repeat those two words directly to Ye Tang’s face, he genuinely could not bring himself to say them. He paused for quite a long while, rolling the vocabulary around in his mind back and forth, until he finally managed to squeeze out four characters: “Unbearable to the ear.”
Presumably thinking that Xie Jiaya had been deeply wounded by Ruan Yaibai’s harsh words, the Yaoguang Heavenly Lord, who still wished to comfort his subordinate, expressed deep empathy: “It doesn’t matter. Whatever he says, just play along with him; there’s no need to stand up for me.”
Xie Jiaya frowned, “But”
“There’s no need for buts, whatever Ah-Ruan says is always right.”
Xie Jiaya: “…”
A protracted silence fell.
Xie Jiaya experienced a thousand twists and turns internally, struggling violently and feeling utterly tormented, but ultimately, he maintained his consistent, high-level professional conduct as he respectfully replied:
“Understood, subordinate.”
[Author’s Notes]
Theater segment
Xie Xun: Exalted Lord, it’s just that sigh!
Murong Yan: Words hanging on the edge of expression.jpg
Shang Xingyun: Exalted Lord, rest assured, I will never believe it! Never!
[System: Heavenly Lord, actually, um the Host said you were. Oh dear mother, it’s truly too embarrassing to utter!]
Ye Tang: ?