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The Night Dove operation had eased the tension that arose between Xu Qing and the other six divisions because of how far out of his jurisdiction he had gone before. After all, credit was given for every arrest, and every Night Dove operative taken down brought in a good haul of spirit stones. More relevant than that was that the directors of the other Violent Crimes Divisions were all willing to follow Xu Qing’s lead. If they weren’t, then it wouldn’t matter how much battle prowess or prestige Xu Qing commanded, if they didn’t want to give him face, there were plenty of ways to do so. After all, they didn’t owe him anything.

True, Xu Qing was in the echelon. But there had been situations in the past in which echelon cultivators mysteriously died. And the other directors were all people who had struggled from the bottom through a sea of blood. They were intelligent people with many resources at their disposal. But as long as there was profit involved, everyone was happy to be friends. And thus, it was no surprise that Xu Qing was notified of the development right away.

When Xu Qing got the news, his guard went up. That said, he had already analyzed the situation fully, and taken all precautionary measures, so nothing about his daily routine changed much.

Meanwhile, Sir Bloodsmelter had invited Guru Eastnether to the Fourth Peak. Sir Bloodsmelter had started out on the Fourth Peak, and it was where he normally stayed when in the sect. After dismissing his attendants, the two of them discussed important matters.

When that was done, Guru Eastnether said, “I heard my granddaughter made a new friend here in Seven Blood Eyes. Someone named Xu Qing. This Xu Qing seems like a really nice kid, so I brought a gift for him.” A smile covered Guru Eastnether’s wrinkled face as she produced a jade box and held it out to Sir Bloodsmelter.

Sir Bloodsmelter laughed heartily, and didn’t even attempt to pretend that he didn’t know what this was about. Given the extremely high level of their cultivation bases, people like Sir Bloodsmelter and Guru Eastnether tended to handle matters very shrewdly. For example, in the matter at hand. Guru Eastnether didn’t need to openly make any sort of request. She just offered a gift, and that was enough to make her stance clear.

Continuing to laugh, Sir Bloodsmelter accepted the gift and put it away. There was no need to see what he did with it. The two of them continued to chat for a while, until a sound like whistling wind could be heard.

Yanyan, who had just been released from prison, burst into the room. All of the injuries she had sustained had healed, and she was now completely back to normal. She didn’t look the least bit upset. In fact, when she saw her grandmother, her eyes glittered, and she rushed over to hug her arm.

Pouting a bit, she said, “Grandma, what are you doing here?” [1]

When Guru Eastnether saw that her granddaughter looked fine, she smiled faintly. Though she was glad her granddaughter hadn’t been harmed, she felt bad for how she had suffered. And of course, she wasn’t very pleased with Xu Qing. Stroking Yanyan’s hair, she opened her mouth to speak. However, before she could, Yanyan jumped in to speak.

“Grandma, I want to marry Xu Qing!”

Guru Eastnether was visibly stunned. She knew her granddaughter was an odd one, but to hear her suddenly say something like this took everything to an even more astounding level of oddness.

Sir Bloodsmelter was similarly stunned. Not even he could have anticipated that something like this would happen. He knew his old friend had an unusual granddaughter. But who could have guessed that after Xu Qing beat that granddaughter up and imprisoned her for several months, that she would say something like this upon being released?

Looking incredibly serious, Yanyan shook Guru Eastnether’s arm and said, “He’s the only person in the entire world who’s a good match for me, Grandma. I want to marry him! I have to marry him!”

“This is outrageous!” Guru Eastnether barked angrily. “Don’t act so scandalously in front of your elders!”

Yanyan slumped visibly.

Despite Guru Eastnether’s harsh words, she was actually amazed. Turning to Sir Bloodsmelter, she said, “Fellow Daoist Bloodsmelter, if you have the time, do you mind arranging for me to meet this child Xu Qing?” [2]

Sir Bloodsmelter hesitated briefly. This whole thing was very bizarre. However, if Guru Eastnether really wanted to arrange a marriage, it could be a really good thing. Laughing heartily, he nodded his agreement. That said, he didn’t go into any specific details about it.

It was hard to say exactly how rumors started spreading, but in less than a day, everyone in the sect was talking about it. Ding Xue had the biggest reaction; she was incensed. On the other hand, Zhao Zhongheng was delighted. On the Second Peak, Gu Muqing was in her mansion grotto concocting some pills. After she heard the news, she ended up detonating several pill furnaces.

As for Xu Qing, when the rumors reached him, he frowned at how absurd it seemed. As far as he was concerned, romance just took time away from cultivation. Besides, it didn’t lead to any profit. When he was younger, one of his scholar teachers had explained a bit about how things worked between men and women. But Xu Qing had never experienced it, and had no idea what it felt like. He had always lived alone, whether it was in the slums or the scavenger basecamp.

“Completely ridiculous,” he muttered.

Over the course of the next few days, he refused multiple requests from Yanyan to meet up.

Right now, he had the wish boxes to worry about, as well as the Night Dove operation. Time was precious, and he was in no mood to be dealing with unimportant matters.

As time passed, more and more nonhuman envoys and allies came into the Seven Blood Eyes port. The sect bustled with more noise and excitement than ever. Then, for the first time, cultivators from Revered Ancient arrived!

There were three of them, all women in green gowns with veils covering their faces. They were attractive, with a faint mist surrounding them that was obviously a fantastic technique unlike anything that Seven Blood Eyes cultivators used. Their long gowns were embroidered with immortal mountains, and the clouds drifting between their peaks seemed to contain a dao resonance. Because of that, these women appeared to exist on a higher level of being. Especially noteworthy was that they seemed to have very little mutagen in them. It wasn’t completely lacking. But their mutagen levels were so low that unless you carefully examined them, you wouldn’t notice it.

All of that attracted a lot of attention from the Seven Blood Eyes disciples.

For years on end, no one from Revered Ancient had come to Seven Blood Eyes. To the disciples here, the mainland was an amazing and mysterious place. And many people automatically assumed that cultivators from there were on a higher level. In some ways, that was true. Whether it was their spirit power, their techniques, their perception of the world, or their core teachings and doctrines, people from the Revered Ancient mainland were generally on a different level compared to those from Seven Blood Eyes, and by a wide margin. As a result, it was only natural that cultivators from there would seem superior.

What was more, these three female cultivators didn’t just look ethereal. They also exuded a fragrant aroma that made them seem unearthly. They also had astonishing cultivation bases. Of the group of three, two had opened roughly 100 dharma apertures, putting them just on the verge of having four life flames. The other was the superior of the group, and had 120 dazzling dharma apertures open. Even when she wasn’t in the profound radiance state, anyone in her presence felt like they were in front of a burning star. The three women were like bright moons that made the other heavenly bodies seem dim in comparison. Almost immediately, they were the talk of Seven Blood Eyes.

Xu Qing was privy to the details about them thanks to the files he had access to, though he didn’t get a chance to see them in person and get first-hand information.

What he did know was that the three women were chosen disciples from an organization on Revered Ancient called the Supreme Arbiter Immortal Society.

Around this time, the sect suddenly sent out details to all Foundation Establishment disciples regarding some previously secret information about Revered Ancient.

Normally speaking, the sect wouldn’t casually reveal this information, and thus, most disciples didn’t know much about Revered Ancient. But considering people from there were now showing up in the sect, it was necessary to reveal the details. As of now, the veil of secrecy regarding the mainland was being lifted.

The Revered Ancient mainland was a sprawling place that was generally divided up into large regions. A region was divided up into counties, and counties were divided into prefectures. There were countless species and all sorts of other strange things on the mainland. It was so large that no human could ever walk the entire continent. In fact, its size defied imagination.

The human species originated in the depths of the sprawling Revered Ancient mainland, in a location incomparably far away from Seven Blood Eyes in the Forbidden Sea. It was the same place where the last of the human Ancient Emperors had established an imperial capital. Because of it, humans considered it a holy land.

That Ancient Emperor was called Dark Serenity. He had conquered all other species during the epoch in which he lived, unifying Revered Ancient and establishing a road from his imperial capital all the way to the Forbidden Sea. That road passed through thirty-seven regions on its way to the shore.

In those days, it was called Dark Serenity’s Imperial Highway. However, as epochs came and went, it later came to be known as Dark Serenity’s Ancient Road.

Later, the human species declined, and innumerable other species rose to prominence. Also, countless forbidden regions had formed. Because of that, humans were no longer as glorious as they had once been, and had lost control of much of the territory they once owned. But they still maintained that ancient road.

Furthermore, other species proliferated and developed the area surrounding the road.

Over the years, the ancient road became home to seven human counties. Within those counties, human sects and organizations rose and fell. Though humans’ overall strength and power deteriorated, the seven counties and the imperial city made humans one of the top species on Revered Ancient.

As for the seven counties, they all existed in different regions. The seventh county occupied the spot where the ancient road reached the Forbidden Sea, and was in the Holytide Region. It was called Sea-Sealing County. It was called a county, but in reality it was vastly more majestic than all of Seven Blood Eyes. It contained five prefectures, each of which was ten times larger than the entire continent of South Phoenix.

Within Sea-Sealing County, the prefecture closest to the Forbidden Sea was called Emperor-Receiving Prefecture. According to the stories, after Ancient Emperor Dark Serenity went out to sea to corroborate his dao, he returned to conquer Revered Ancient, and made landfall on that spot. That was the origin of the prefecture’s name, and it was still used to this day.

Emperor-Receiving Prefecture was full of powerful organizations that tended to balance each other out. There were also nonhumans who had established camps and cities in the prefecture. Over the years, after countless wars and treaties, six powerful groups rose to the top.

They were...

A collection of numerous smaller sects and groups, with seven sects in charge. It was a colossal monster of an organization known as the Seven Sect Coalition.

The Church of Departure was present in the Emperor-Receiving Prefecture as well. They venerated Ancient Emperor Dark Serenity, and had carried out all sorts of insane plots, shedding blood left and right to make sacrifices to the Daoist Rite of Departure.

Cultivators native to the Emperor-Receiving Prefecture had a secret legacy, which was essentially the dao of the prefecture. They were... the Supreme Arbiter Immortal Society!

The fourth group focused on collecting grues. They gave them food in the form of flesh and drink in the form of souls. They were a vicious lot that were known to strike despair into the hearts of all other cultivators. They controlled 137 human cities, all of which were littered with corpses and rotting flesh. Unfortunately, none of the other groups could do anything about them. They were Three-Spirits Dao-Suppressing Mountain.

The fifth group considered themselves supreme. Their entire organization was centered around a relic that had been passed down for many epochs. The name of their organization was the same as the name of the relic they venerated: the Supreme Beginning Netherflight Pillar. Supposedly, the Supreme Beginning Netherflight Pillar was so tall it pierced the clouds, and no one knew the full extent of its height.

The sixth and final group made their home on a 300,000-meter-tall mountain that resembled a vicious ghost. He sat cross-legged in the middle of Emperor-Receiving Prefecture, wearing a suit of armor and holding a massive blade in his hands. A world rested on each of his shoulders, making him seem like a god from ancient times. The two worlds on his shoulders were the sixth and final group. They were called South Tor Ghost Mountain. The vicious god upon whose shoulders they rested was called the South Tor Ghost Emperor.

In addition to these groups, there were many nonhumans as well as plenty of forbidden regions, as well as two forbidden grounds that were kept under control, but were constantly expanding on a yearly basis.

1. Yanyan uses the word for ‘paternal grandmother’ here. This is the same word my children use for my mother when speaking Chinese. ☜

2. Madam Deathblade and I had a long and heated discussion about this part of the story. First let me tell you my perspective. I think this scene heavily implies that Guru Eastnether made a snap decision (or possibly a premediated decision based on intelligence reports) to try to arrange a marriage between Xu Qing and Yanyan. The first evidence is the gift. The exchanging of ‘gifts’ when arranging a marriage is common in China. In modern times, one side of the family will usually provide a car, the other will provide a house. And there are often cash gifts involved as well (often coming from the bride’s side of the family, depending on the circumstances and local customs). The fact that Guru Eastnether “wasn’t pleased” with Xu Qing doesn’t inherently mean she wouldn’t consider an arranged marriage. The second evidence is her asking to meet Xu Qing. In traditional Chinese culture, a young man "officially" meeting the parents of a girl (or the grandparents if the parents aren’t around), is an informal sign that they are engaged. This “meeting” is particularly important, and it’s something that I saw cause problems for many foreign guys in China. If a girl invites a guy to her hometown to meet her parents, it’s a very serious thing. Except, most foreign guys don’t think much of it. Therefore, they don’t hesitate to “meet the parents,” not realizing that they are essentially getting engaged in the minds of the parents. In any case, Madam Deathblade thinks I’m reading too much into the scene, that the gift was casual, and the request to meet Xu Qing was not as important as I believed it to be. So… you are welcome to side with Madam Deathblade on this matter, or me. Whichever makes more sense to you! ☜