Hui opened his eyes. A distant stone ceiling greeted him, dull and gray, darkened with shadows here and there. Back in the Underworld.

The bottom of a boot appeared. It plunged toward his face.

Hui’s eyes flew wide. He threw himself aside, desperately rolling away. The boot slammed home, fracturing the ground behind him. He kept rolling, and rolling, fleeing the expanding crater with all his might.

“Elder Sister, we’ve already done this! Elder Sister, violence is never the answer! Please calm down!” Hui cried.

The crater stopped expanding. Hui flipped his roll into a somersault, neatly vaulting himself to his feet. He dusted off his robes and nodded at the reaper. “There. Now we can talk like civilized human beings. Isn’t this better, Elder Sister?”

“You’re a frustrating little bug. I’m starting to feel the urge to crush you under my thumb,” the reaper grumbled, half under her breath.

“Elder Sister, please. I just broke Tseng Caihong of the small bug habit. Please don’t pick it up!” Hui begged her.

She crossed her arms and raised her brow at him. “Then stop burrowing into my realm like a small bug, and I’ll stop calling you that.”

Hui sighed. He shook his head. “I didn’t mean to die, Elder Sister. I tried my best not to! But the other Elder Sister didn’t give me a choice. She forced me to die!”

“Faking your death isn’t good enough anymore? You have to experience the real thing to get your thrills, now?” she asked skeptically.

“Elder Sister, please. I still believe life is the most precious thing! I don’t want to come here, I really don’t, I swear!” Hui cried.

“Prove it,” she challenged him.

He bowed. “I will, I pledge I will.”

“So? Are you heading back?”

Hui hesitated. “Er, Elder Sister, I’m in a bit of a sticky place right now. There’s a certain someone who really wants to ensure small cultivator is dead. I wouldn’t want to upset her again.”

“But you will,” she said.

Hui rubbed the back of his neck. “Yes… it’s not as if I intend to stay dead. But I should at least avoid provoking her into killing me a second time in ten minutes.”

The reaper harrumphed. “You should avoid provoking ninth-realm cultivators outright.”

“Ah… I concur. Ninth realm?” Hui put a hand on his chin. No wonder I can’t counter her in the least.

But… hmm. Ninth realm… she isn’t a mere inheriting disciple at that high realm. She’s got to be at least a Tier Master. But I saw all the Tier Masters. She wasn’t—

Wait. I didn’t see one of the Tier Masters… to be specific, I didn’t see the Palace Master! Is Tseng Caihong… could she be…?

The reaper snorted. “At last, you figure it out.”

“Ah… hahaha… I seem to have provoked someone I shouldn’t have,” Hui said, scratching the back of his head. Ahhh! I was talking so casually with her, too! I should’ve been respectful, so much more respectful!

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

None of the other disciples recognized her or reacted to her at all… but then, if she’s reclusive like Master, it makes sense! Few disciples recognized Master, too… or myself, for that matter.

And she wants me dead? She’s convinced there’s some secret to me, and wants to figure it out by killing me? I’m in trouble, I’m truly in trouble! I might have to flee this sect.

Ugh, but then I give up on being the hostage… I can’t do that. I can’t leave my children to shoulder this burden! After all… after all, Tseng Caihong has killed me twice, carelessly! What would she do to my children?

Wait, hold on. Tseng Caihong killed me. She knew I was the hostage—the second time, for sure—and killed me anyways. It’s true that sometimes, hostages will be killed willy-nilly in cultivation novels, but… but even so, this is a bit excessive. If she wanted a hostage, why kill me twice? It’s completely against taking a hostage in the first place. She’d just kill me, if she wanted to kill me… and she did. She did just kill me!

He put a hand on his chin. Hold on! Could it be? Is there internal unrest? Did Tseng Caihong, Palace Master, not order the taking of hostages? But instead, the Fourth Tier Master ordered the taking of hostages. In that case, it’s no wonder that Tseng Caihong doesn’t care about my little life. She didn’t want hostages in the first place.

But… wait, huh? Why did Jizhi Zhimei want hostages, in that case? Is it a power play against Tseng Caihong? Or… perhaps, is this merely Jizhi Zhimei testing out the limits of what she can get away with, testing how much power she can exert before attracting Tseng Caihong’s retribution? Especially with Tseng Caihong being reclusive… well, it’s the same pattern I saw with All-Heavens.

Though there, it wasn’t that Gui Delun was testing the limits of Fen Long’s patience. He legitimately thought that Fen Long was sealed off, injured, unable to interact with the mortal world any longer. This… it’s more of a cat and mouse game. Jizhi Zhimei toeing the line, ever so slowly pushing the limits, testing to see how far Tseng Caihong lets her go.

After all, both Tseng Caihong and Jizhi Zhimei are ninth-realm cultivators. Either one could be the Palace Master. I’m guessing Tseng Caihong is the one who united the tiers and brought the palace together, and that’s why she’s on top, but… is she truly the strongest? After all, Eight Tiers Palace is a loose conglomeration of eight former individual sects, united under one banner. Obviously Tseng Caihong had the power to unite them, but the power to conquer is not equivalent to the power to maintain control. Or perhaps she used some artifact, some trick or technique, that Jizhi Zhimei now thinks she can conquer. Or perhaps Jizhi Zhimei has ascended to ninth realm since Tseng Caihong conquered the sects.

One way or another, the balance of power has shifted, and now, Tseng Caihong’s grip on control of the Eight Tiers Palace loosens. This… this is an ideal state to destroy Eight Tiers Palace! I just need to find an army capable of beating them into submission.

The resentment demons are a good start, but they obviously need an upgrade. Hmm…

The reaper coughed. “Going to stand there all day?”

“Ah? Oh! My apologies. She’s probably gone by now. I should get going,” Hui said, nodding.

“Don’t come back too soon,” the reaper said, tone flat.

“I’ll try not to,” Hui promised. Turning his head upward, he cast himself back toward the mortal realm. To my body. It’s high time I woke up!

Hui vanished from the Underworld, the phoenix flames in his soul calling out to the phoenix flames in his body. The world blurred around him, then went dark. For a moment, he hung in the void between realms. The emptiness gaped beneath him, beckoning him to the depths.

Focus. Back to my body. Hui gazed upward, toward the faint glimmer of flamelight at the tunnel’s end. He burst back into his body with a jolt.

An unfamiliar ceiling. Unfamiliar incense tickled his nose. Hui sat upright, startled. Where… what…

Chains jangled as his wrists caught short. Hui looked down. Heavy chains bound his wrists and ankles, keeping him from moving far off a heavy metal plank. Runic charms crawled over every chain of the link and thickly lined the cuffs. Even before he extended his qi toward them, a heavy sense of suppression weighed at Hui.

“Oh? Look who’s awake,” a familiar Voice murmured playfully.

Startled, Hui turned toward her. The Voice stood over him… and at her side, Jizhi Zhimei smiled beneath her veil, one hand on her cheek, the other propped on her hip enticingly.

Hui swallowed. He laughed, nervously. “Er, Seniors… er, could it be that you’ve made a terrible mistake?”

“Oh… I don’t think so,” Jizhi Zhimei murmured, her lashes flickering. She lifted a hand to her veil. “I think you’re going to tell me… everything.” With a flourish, she threw her veil away.