Realms In The Firmament

“I have already received some information.” The man in black kept his head lowered and spoke nervously, “Our men have already reached some sources and they are now following your instructions. Your plan is truly brilliant. It is only a matter of time before we hear some good news,”

The man in white nodded, “Fair enough. I hope that you will not let me down.”

The man in black was sweating profusely and answered loudly, “We won’t let you down, my lord!”

The man in white laughed and made a gesture. The girls behind him stepped forward and started to push the man’s wheelchair to lead him away.

This mysterious white robed man turned out to be a disabled person.

“My lord, about Ye Xiao…” The man in black asked hurriedly.

The man in white, who was sitting on the wheelchair, didn’t even look back as he said, “When the violent disturbance comes, we won’t need Ye Xiao anymore, do we?”

“You are right.” The man in black felt inspired.

The man in white entered the house, which was located in the center of the courtyard house.

Suddenly, shadows appeared and started quivering, and then - Puff! - the courtyard house suddenly vanished. In fact, the bamboo trees suddenly started to move like they could actually walk, and the countless bamboo trees had quickly covered every open space where the courtyard was mere seconds ago.

Instantly, the open space, that was previously occupied by the courtyard house, became part of the bamboo forest. This place had actually fully integrated into the bamboo forest.

A faint voice appeared and sighed, “My Camouflage Array of Inversing Five Elements is still imperfect… If only it could be soundproof… and keep the sound, smell and spiritual energy inside from being detected from the outside… it becomes the perfect Anti-location Array…” These words must’ve originated from the mysterious man in white.

One of the girls, Wan-Er spoke softly, “Master, the auction of the supreme dan beads…”

“Go!” The man in white spoke gently, “At least get three beads back to me. Supreme dan beads with dan clouds is something that even I have never seen before.”

Wan-Er was astonished, “Master, maybe there are less than three beads at the auction… Maybe there is only one bead.”

“There must be over three.” The man in white said confidently.

Their voices had now completely disappeared.

The man in black crouched and then he flew up. He flew away and also disappeared.

…

Since the conversation with the three officers, it had been rather quiet around Ye Xiao. Everything was moving along peacefully.

Ye Xiao was free but he stayed at home. He was seizing every minute he had to cultivate with concentration. He was converting all the qi in his body into gelid qi to further improve his strength.

During this time, he had found a pleasant surprise. The scorching qi that had appeared alongside the gelid qi didn’t really disappear. Instead, it hid inside his Jing and Mai all over his body. Although it was weak, it still existed.

In other words, the two kinds of qi that were brought by cultivating the East-rising Purple Qi were working together; one showed on the outside, while the other was quietly working on the inside. That also meant that the present level of East-rising Purple Qi contained two skills. He needed to practice both of them.

Because of this, he worked even harder.

He used to have some spare time in a day to drink some tea, but now he didn’t want that anymore.

He was either reading or cultivating. He was like the creme a la creme of a group of good students.

The steward felt excited because of this. He thought that the young lord had finally grown up and had completely transformed. He felt that the general would be overjoyed if he were to see this…

The steward was right, but not in the way he had intended. His young master had indeed transformed, but in a different way!

Zuo Wu-Ji and Lan Lang-Lang had come to Ye Xiao twice, but Ye Xiao had driven them away multiple times, “Piss off! You foppish black sheep, don’t disturb me from becoming a supreme cultivator. Go on with your own businesses!”

Zuo Wu-Ji and Lan Lang-Lang felt speechless for his fanfaronade.

“Such a bastard. He actually called himself a supreme cultivator…”

“He must be daydreaming!”

“I say he never woke up!”

“I really want to punch him, but I fear that I can’t beat him. We are no match for him even though he isn’t a supreme cultivator, I am afraid…”

“He’ll beat the crap out of us!”

“It is fine that he daydreamed, but he actually dared to say we are foppish black sheep…”

“That’s true. Like he isn’t one of us...”

“We obviously are in the same boat. Wasn’t it the older one laughing at the younger?!”

“Of course! We are the ‘three lords’. We are even walking side by side.”

“Humph! The foppish fool, I will beat him up eventually.”

“Right! We can’t let him leave the glorious ‘three lords’.”

“Wait and see! Humph!”

“Humph!”

…

It was possible to kick the two of them out of the house, but there was someone else that couldn’t be driven away, no matter how hard Ye Xiao had tried.

Most importantly, this one had a whip in her hand, which was purposely given by Ye Xiao’s father to sexually discipline… Oh no, strictly discipline Ye Xiao.

That’s right! She was our adorable Princess Ye-Yue!

Su Ye-Yue.

Her dad was the only prince with a non-royal surname in the Kingdom of Chen. To be honored with the title of prince, he must have obtained great merits and should hold great power!

He was Prince Hua-Yang who had three sons and a daughter. He didn’t particularly care about his sons. Instead, his daughter Su Ye-Yue received all the care in his heart and was like an apple in his eye. Naturally the girl received special treatment, it seemed like her father feared that she was like something that would melt when he had it in his mouth and something that would drop when he held it in his hands. He truly spoiled her very much.

It was said that when he named the girl, he gathered every single great scholar in his house to help him think about her name. Finally he took the concept of ‘When the world revived, the moon shined in the night sky’ so that it represented the surname and the given name perfectly [1].

Thus, she got the name Su Ye-Yue.

It was lucky that, even though Princess Ye-Yue was spoiled a lot, she didn’t have an overbearing personality. It made it easier for Ye Xiao to accept her…

However, at the moment, all Ye Xiao could think of when she stared at him, was how he could quickly get as far away from her as possible.

It was the feeling of a guilty conscience.

This kind of guilt was technically from the experiences that he had obtained during his previous life.

During his previous life, the Xiao Monarch was very powerful and had an unfathomable cultivation base. He laughed and was considered to be the most elegant within the firmament. However, he was cultivating the Pure Yang Martial Arts, so he stayed single in order to retain the purity of a male virgin.

In his previous life, he had missed out on so many beautiful girls. And those girls had all deeply fallen in love with him…

But all that Ye Xiao could do was to watch them. So he always showed a cold-hearted and uninterested look in his eyes, which had hurt more girls than he could count.

When they left him despairingly, one after another, Ye Xiao could only turn his back on them and sigh deeply in his heart.

Now that Su Ye-Yue, his legal fiancée, was looking at him with her beautiful eyes, Ye Xiao felt his heart racing.

He nearly ran away because of his usual practices.

In fact, there was another girl’s face showing in his mind – a girl with beautiful and sad eyes. It was like her face popped up blocking his sight and looking at him with tears of love and mourning.

“You…”

Ye Xiao reached out his hand and murmured.

But he was only able to say one word before he recovered from the trance. He laughed at himself and showed a little loneliness on his face.

…

It was in the Qing-Yun Realm.

There was a palace with clouds and fog floating in the air. It was silent and solemn.

In the backyard of the grand palace, there was a grave that looked new.

An entire piece of Qing-Yun Purple Jade that was three-meters wide and ten meters high was used as a gravestone! A piece of Qing-Yun Purple Jade, which would make countless people fight for it was actually just being used as a simple gravestone!

A sword light suddenly flashed rapidly.

Purple sparks bursting out on the surface of the Qing-Yun Purple Jade!

Some broken tiny pieces of the jade fell on the floor.

Six words appeared, which were carved deeply on the gravestone.

“笑尽天下英雄!” (To laugh at all heroes in the firmament!)

That sword light stopped immediately. The owner of the sword sighed and turned around to leave for the room on the top floor of the palace, and as she moved, she quickly disappeared from view.

It was in this room.

A girl that had a perfect slim body and was wearing a silk veil on her face silently admired the calligraphy on the wall for a long time, until she eventually closed her beautiful eyes. Two lines of tears coursed down her cheeks.

“I will avenge you!”

“Even though you never admitted you were my husband, but… I have decided to be your wife! I would stick with you ceaselessly if you were still alive and I will avenge you if you die!”

“Now that you are dead, how do you say ‘no’ to me? Could you actually stop me widowing myself? Ye Xiao, you bastard! I hate you! I hate you! I will hate you in all of my next lives!”

She might have said something with hate, but more tears were quickly dropping down from her eyes to the floor. The sword that was stabbing in the floor was quivering, like it was going along with its master’s emotions of love and hate, like it was eager for a piquant killing!

On the wall, there was not only the sword, but also the calligraphy. The beautiful girl was looking at the calligraphy lovingly.

The writing on the calligraphy was like a flying dragon and dancing birds; it showed unrestraint.

The main lines were:

‘一生惧见红颜泪；谨慎莫伤美人心；待到飘然消失日，化作天边不羁云！’

(To escape from the tear of the beauty; to prevent hurting her heart. When the death comes one day, to turn into an unrestrained cloud!)

There was a smaller line below,

‘今生有悔，害你形单影只；若有来生，许你四海八荒。’

(I regret, that I let you be solitary; if there is a next life, I promise I will accompany you to travel the world.)

The name of the author inscribed was ‘叶笑’ (Ye Xiao).

The girl in white looked at the calligraphy with tears in her eyes, and felt inconsolable, “You liar! You promised me your next life! There is no such thing!”

“You didn’t want to hurt a girl’s heart, but you have already hurt me so much!”

“You wanted to become an unrestrained cloud when you died… Now that you are dead, where is my unrestrained cloud, huh?”

“Liar! Liar! Liar! You are a terrible liar!”

She turned around and laid her head and arms on the table, once again started to wail.

“Today is your first seven [2]. I will wear mourning attire for you for seventy-five days and stay here to keep your grave for a year.” The girl stood up slowly and wiped her tears, murmuring, “After a year, I will carry my sword to avenge you! With such hatred, I will never let them go unless I die!”

…

“What’s wrong? Are you unwell?” Su Ye-Yue saw that Ye Xiao was lost in his own world, so she reached her hand out and waved it in front of him, “Hey, don’t make such a terrible look. What are you doing?”

Ye Xiao hurriedly drew back his mind, struck a decent pose and coughed, “What are you doing here?”

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[1] About her name Su Ye-Yue, the surname is Su and the given name is Ye-Yue. Su (苏) can represent ‘revive’ (复苏), and Ye-Yue (夜月) means the moon (月) at night (夜).

[2] First seven: It is believed in China that when people die, the soul will come back at the seventh day after their death, and the family will prepare meals for them.