“You absolute idiots!!”
The scream rang out across the massive hall that housed the throne from which the Mistress of the Crimson Realm Holy Land ruled.
The source, of course, could be none other than Yan Huo’er, the Mistress of the Crimson Realm Holy Land herself.
The de facto ruler of the southern borders of the continent was beyond mad and disappointed at her two closest confidants and subordinates.
“I can understand Liehuo since he has always been an impulsive idiot, but what about you? Yan Xinyan?? Where the hell did your sense go??”
The two people kneeling in front of the mistress cowered like children being scolded by their mother. A bizarre sight for anyone in the Holy Land since these two were some of the top figures of their faction and were usually extremely arrogant and prideful.
These were also the people who were responsible for wiping out the Heavenly Sword Sect after discovering the demonic cultivation present within all the elders and disciples of the sect. Even the patriarch and the hidden Grand Elders of the sect were no exception to this discovery.
Of course, when they found the source of this demonic cultivation, a pill being used by every member of the sect, they wanted to continue their investigation and root out the infection from the source.
Unfortunately for them, they received a direct summons from their mistress before they could continue and had to return home with nothing to show for their efforts for all these months except for wiping out a sect of potential Demonic path cultivators.
“But, Mistress! They were a sect of demonic cultivators-“
“Don’t try to shift the blame! Xinyan. When you found the source to be a pill that they were consuming, you should have realized that it was a subtle sabotage played by the Demonic path. You should not have destroyed the entire sect, especially since you did not ask for permission from the Hidden Heavens Holy Land.”
At those words, the woman fell silent and bowed her head in silence like her companion who did not make a peep until now.
The crimson locks of the mistress fell like a waterfall as she tiredly leaned back in her seat. Exhaustion was clear in her ruby-red eyes as she stared down at the two people that she once called brother and sister when she was still a child.
The unearthly beauty looked at the equally beautiful Yan Xinyan whose expressions were hidden behind her black hair with her beautiful purple eyes closed. Then, she looked at the extremely handsome Yan Liehuo who had similar black hair and purple eyes as he stared at his mistress in silence, waiting for his part in the reprimand and for his next assignment.
Looking at her cousins, she finally gave a sigh and tried to sit up, only for her body to fail her, causing the two to immediately bolt to her side and support her.
“Mistress!!”
“It’s okay. I’m fine.”
“Clearly you are not. Why did your realm regress by a stage??”
Yan Huo’er glared at her subordinates and bit out the words.
“Why do you think?? I had to produce a Vermilion stone to placate the Hidden Heavens Holy Land after you two destroyed the sect that they were personally protecting.”
Yan Liehuo gritted his teeth in anger as Yan Xinyan looked away in guilt and pain.
“….We will get back at them once you regain your health-“
“No, we will not! Yan Liehuo, have you forgotten what happened to the Golden Crow Clan?? Do you want us all to die through the manipulations of those enigmatic bastards??”
“The Golden Crow clan may have been strong but they were still nothing more than a clan of barbarians, humanoids that evolved from demonic beasts and inherited the legacy of their ancestor.”
“If we look at things in that way, won’t we be considered even worse than the Golden Crow Clan and the rest of the so-called Barbarian Clans since our techniques were only derived from the Four Symbols while those clans directly inherited them through blood?”
Those words caused Yan Liehuo to shut up but he was still fuming in anger towards the Hidden Heavens Holy Land for forcing his mistress into this situation. But, more than that, he was angry at himself for causing all of this in the first place.
In a similar way, his sister, Yan Xinyan was also feeling the same rage, however, this rage was overshadowed by her guilt and self-loathing.
Yan Xinyan slowly sat her mistress back on her throne before speaking.
“Mistress, how angry was the Hidden Heaven Holy Land?”
“…angry enough that they were preparing to go to war with us, openly, without resorting to their usual manipulations or hidden schemes.”
That brought extreme shock to the two siblings who looked at each other with a stupefied expression.
“…. Just why? We did not find anything particularly interesting when we wiped out that sect. Just what could such a backwater place have to cause the strongest Holy Land to care so much about that place?”
“I do not know. Even when I asked, they simply rebuffed my questions with threats. Originally, they were not planning on stopping their efforts for a war. It was only when the Ancestor Crimson Spear came to negotiate on my behalf that they calmed down slightly. The task of condensing a Vermillion stone was a punishment put on me by Crimson Spear for my incompetence in managing my subordinates.”
“……We are sorry, Mistress. We will never make a mistake like this again.”
“No, you won’t. Because if you do, I won’t be able to preserve either mine or your lives.”
Yan Xinyan’s eyes teared up and Yan Liehuo looked away in sadness.
“…The curse? It has become stronger?”
“Yes. Master estimates that I have two decades at most. My realm will continue to fall steadily during this time until I finally become a simple mortal right before my death. Our only hope was to either get a Heavenly Treasure with no elemental affinity, such as the Bodhi fruit or to buy information from the Hidden Heavens Holy Land to locate such a treasure. Clearly, neither of those options are available to us anymore.”
Once again, the siblings could do nothing but hate themselves and their incompetence for what was happening to their beloved mistress.
“……Liehuo, Xinyan. Listen to me. You need to find Yan Ling as quickly as possible. She is the only one worthy of succeeding me as the Mistress of the Holy Land compared to the alternatives. With her physique inherited from my sister and our cultivation technique, she should be able to reach the Void Refinement realm in a matter of a century at most. Not to mention the purity of her spirit roots.”
She turned towards her cousins with pleading eyes.
“Most importantly, If the information you two brought back is really true, I can’t imagine the kind of hardship my niece is going through right now. The only possibility that my little sister would leave her daughter to fend for herself in a slum of all places would be her death. If true, I have already lost my only direct family, I can’t lose my niece too.”
“Don’t worry, Mistress, even if it takes us an entire year, we will only return once we find her.”
“We don’t have a year. You need to find her, now!!”
Suddenly, an ominous sensation filled the two at those words.
“What happened?”
“While we did manage to placate the Master of the Hidden Heavens Holy Land, his son was much less understanding. While he denied any involvement, I know that he was the one who leaked the details about Yan Ling’s physique and spirit roots along with her defining features to the other Holy Lands and the Barbarian Clans.”
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Shock was the only emotion that the duo could feel before they immediately sprang to their feet.
“What?? How did they even know this information in the first place??”
“Forget that!! We already know that those bastards always have information that they should never have access to. The important thing now is that we need to head out right now!! Who knows what will happen should she fall into the hands of the Holy Lands or the Clans? Worse yet, what would happen if the Infinite Blood Seas found her first??”
A chill went up the spine of the duo, filling them with an urgency that they hadn’t felt until now.
If the strongest demonic sect on the continent, the Infinite Blood Seas, found Yan Ling, there is no telling the kind of torment that the poor girl would go through at their hands. Worse yet, the Crimson Realm Holy Land would be completely helpless to do anything about it since the Heavenly Demon, Mo Yexuan, is at the peak of the Void Refinement realm. A realm that none of the ancestors of the Holy Lands or the Clans have managed to achieve till now.
“Go! Get her back by any means necessary. Since the Hidden Heavens Holy Land has already made such a move, we don’t need to give them any face anymore. Scour every li of the Yin Long Empire and find her. With the only place that they cared about gone, the Hidden Heavens Holy Land should no longer interfere with our search.”
The two did not waste any more words and simply bowed to her before teleporting out of the hall.
With no one left in the hall, she leaned back into the seat and loosened the grip on her body, causing blood to start leaking out of her mouth and nose.
She took out a cloth, cleaned away the blood stains, and regained her composure, knowing that she could not allow anyone to see her in such a state since it would cause the morale across the entire Holy Land to drop significantly, making them look weak to the outsiders.
“Yurong, you foolish little sister of mine. You should never have left the Holy Land. So what if you couldn’t cultivate? Didn’t you have me to shield you from everything? Now look at what happened. You died without anyone knowing how or why and left me in the dark about the existence of a niece I never met. It was only pure luck that I was working on reinstating your Soul Lamp and the artifact registered your daughter’s existence through that seal you had with you.”
Her exhaustion caught up to her as she slowly closed her eyes, reminiscing of times long past and people that no longer existed.
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“Oh! How cute!! Why were you hiding such a cute girl behind that stupid mask of yours??”
I gave an amused glance at Yin Lingxi as she pulled at Da Ling’s cheeks while the girl in question flailed her arms in protest.
“The same reason I wear a mask and the reason why I made you wear the mask now. To hide our identities from unsavory individuals.”
“Does that category of ‘unsavory individuals’ Include me as well?”
“Until yesterday? It did. Now? I am not sure. It depends on your actions from now on.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to climb back into that list with my evil actions from now on.”
I chuckled at her exaggerated evil look. A look that failed spectacularly as she tightly held onto Da Ling who resigned herself to be treated like a stuffed toy by the Princess.
Originally, I did not plan on having the Princess accompany us on my usual activity since I had just established a tentative friendship between us in order to avoid any unhealthy obsession she might develop due to a straight and firm rejection of her intentions.
However, after thinking about things throughout the night, I arrived at the conclusion that I could use this relationship to try and mold her into becoming a far better ruler than she was in the original timeline.
There was no mistaking the fact that she was a powerful empress in the Xiang’s timeline. So much so that she was one of the few who could outmaneuver him most of the time, leading to her demise through underhanded means.
However, she was not really a good empress to her people. At least, in my eyes. Sure, any resident of this world would call her an extremely kind ruler who cared greatly about her people, but from my perspective, there was a clear lack of understanding on her part when it came to the problems faced by the mortal citizens of her empire.
With today’s excursion, I plan to rectify that issue even if only a little bit.
Is it manipulative or me to abuse the newly established friendship in this way? Yes. It is. However, I cannot help but hope that this will cause a positive change for her in the long run.
The alternative is a future where she is betrayed by her own citizens who rebelled against her rule due to a mix of the old demon, Xiang’s, manipulation and their discontent with the Empress and every other emperor that came before her. A future that I am trying to avoid with my actions today.
‘David, are you sure this plan will work? What if the princess decides that looking after struggling mortals is too boring or beneath her? What if she decides to eliminate the entirety of the slums since it ‘ruins the image’ of her precious empire?’
‘This coming from the guy that wanted me to use a demonic technique to restore my Spirit Roots all those years ago by harvesting an entire village of mortals?’
‘That was just a test. You know that. I wanted to see if you would fall into the temptation. If you did, I would simply teach you the demonic techniques I knew without truly guiding you on the path properly which would inevitably open up your body for me to occupy.’
‘Relax. I know why you did what you did. The past is in the past, remember? As for your question, I don’t know if what I am doing is the right thing or not. However, if we want something to change, we have to take the risk. In this case, this is probably the best chance that the unfortunate mortals of this city and the empire as a whole have to turn around their lives in this lawless world.’
‘And what if she does do it? What if she really does care about them and changes the empire in the ways that you want her to?’
‘Nothing. Friendship is not a deal, Xiang, where we exchange our loyalties or feelings for something material or by doing or not doing something. Even if she does not change, even if she ends up becoming the same kind of empress as she was in your life, I would still call her a friend.’
‘Hmm. I guess we will see.’
‘Indeed.’
Soon, we walked further and further away from the upper-class district of the capital where I reminded the two girls to put on their masks. I would have given a mask to Yao Xingchen as well to hide herself. But since she did not and continued to look out for the princess from her hiding place while occasionally bursting with killing intent, thinking that I could not sense her, I gave up on that front.
As we finally arrived at the center of the maze made of alleyways, I saw a scene that I had grown familiar with in the past six years.
On my side, I felt Da Ling hold onto my hand tightly, probably being reminded of the dump where she was living before I took her home.
The biggest reaction was from none other than Yin Lingxi.
Despite knowing that we would be going to a slum to distribute resources for their survival, there is no way for her to have ever imagined the state that the place was in, especially when compared to the beautiful and scenic upper district and the palace where she must have grown up in since her birth.
Shock and confusion were the greatest emotions on her face followed by anger, worry, and other emotions that I could not decipher.
Soon, one of the children moving about spotted me and immediately ran towards one of the better-looking houses from which and old man with a hunch walked out hurriedly.
“Ah! It is good to see you again, my lord.”
“Zhou Lan, how many times have I told you not to call me that?? People will misunderstand me as some kind of a noble from the upper district.”
“Haha, if you actually were someone from a noble family, I highly doubt that this city would ever have a place like ours in the first place.”
“Ok, ok. Enough flattery from you. Let’s go.”
I turned around to have the two girls follow me, only to find Da Ling missing and Yin Lingxi talking with a woman in the corner.
Spreading out my senses allowed me to spot Da Ling with a few children her age, playing some game that they came up with.
With a shake of my head, I motioned Zhou Lan, the unofficial leader of this slum, towards the small building I made for them last time to store the goods and protect them from thugs or corrupt officials who would seek to deprive them of their source of sustenance.
My signature on the building and the inscriptions were enough to deter any corrupt official or noble from trying anything with these people while my commissions to the dark guild to protect the slums of this city and many other cities that I regularly visit are enough to ward off most of the lawless thugs.
Soon, we walked into the building filled with inscriptions to keep a walled-off section of the building at freezing temperature like a fridge all year round to store perishable foods and meat while another part was inscribed to take away all moisture and pests from it to store clothing, and other necessities for the people.
Since I don’t know when I visit the city most of the time, I tend to stock the building to its capacity, storing enough supplies for five years at the very least even if they used them in excess. And given the amount of supplies left, it is clear that they have been used more than usual.
“As the lord can see, we have been forced to use more than usual since there has been a steady rise in the number of refugees from the south entering the city with nowhere to go and learning about this place through word of mouth and through a few kind officials and guards of the city.”
“I see. Then, maybe we should look at increasing the size of the building and the infrastructure of this place soon. The current number of houses won't be able to house such a steady rise in numbers and neither can the storehouse keep up with the demand. How are the negotiations with the governing office?”
“As you suggested previously, I used the token you gave me to talk to the governor of this district. Fortunately, he agreed to provide letters of recommendation for our people to gain work throughout the district. If all goes according to plan, the youngsters should start making enough money to slowly move out of here with their families and find a place for themselves in the commoner districts.”
The old man looked wistfully at his surroundings before speaking again.
“As for the old folk like us without any young people with us, we have decided to stay here for the rest of our lives. It’s not like we have much time left anyway.”
“… You know my offer still stands, right? I could take you people away from here to my village. Although it would be a little difficult for you old guys to fit in since you won’t be able to contribute much to the village, it’s not like we don’t have such people with us anyway. A few dozen more would barely matter in the end.”
The old man smiled at me with gratitude.
“While I appreciate your offer and your boundless kindness for unfortunate people of this place, I would have to decline. I was born in this city, you see, and I wish for the last days of my life to be spent here as well.”
I just nodded at his words and got back to work unloading all the supplies I bought for the people here into the storage.