Yefutidaolu

Chapter 333 Mountain Gate
"Enough." The black-robed man's voice suddenly turned cold, his hoarse tone containing a clear hint of impatience.

Gao Jian's face paled further, but his eyes remained clear. He knew he couldn't pretend to be stupid any longer.

"Senior, please calm your anger!" Gao Jian quickly bowed, his posture extremely humble, but his words showed no intention of backing down: "It's not that I'm trying to shirk responsibility. It's just... these people are not commodities! The people of Liangzhou are all citizens under the rule of the Divine Dynasty, protected by its laws. As an imperial envoy, I am here on behalf of Heaven to patrol and protect the people, not... not to buy and sell people! Such actions violate the laws of Heaven and the ironclad rules of the Divine Dynasty, amounting to treason! Even if I had ten lives, I would not dare to commit such a heinous act! Please understand my predicament, Senior!"

He directly accused them of "divine law," "treason," and "heinous crimes," attempting to intimidate them with the prestige of the Divine Dynasty.

"Heh, the laws of the Divine Dynasty?" The black-robed man's voice carried a hint of cold mockery. The pressure stemming from the difference in cultivation levels intensified, making Gao Jian feel as if his bones were groaning. "You can restrain mortal ants, you can restrain those false gods and false saints, but you can't restrain me. Gao Jian, don't try to play these official games in front of me. What I want is not your difficulty, but your nod."

"Senior's divine might is unparalleled, so naturally you have no fear of the law." Gao Jian immediately seized the opportunity, his tone becoming even more humble: "However... Senior, consider this: Liangzhou has suffered greatly from this chaos, its population already depleted. The Jin family's perverse actions have sparked widespread war, leaving countless people displaced. Now, everything is in ruins, and I intend to comfort the displaced people, restore production, and replenish the border. If we were to lose a large number of people now, it would be tantamount to cutting off the fuel supply, turning Liangzhou into a complete wasteland! At that time, the central government of the Divine Dynasty would be furious and conduct a thorough investigation... Losing my head is a small matter, but I fear it would disturb your peace, Senior!"

He once again brought up the "anger of the central government of the Divine Dynasty," and forcibly linked the population loss with the collapse of Liangzhou and the central government's accountability. At the same time, he deliberately emphasized the two things: "massive population loss" and "Liangzhou becoming a dead zone."

"Quiet?" The man in black seemed to sneer at this statement. "Are you threatening me?"

But then he added, "Whether Liangzhou lives or dies is none of my concern. The court is furious, and I have my own way of dealing with it. You just need to tell me, will you give it to me or not?"

Gao Jian's mind raced. The other party was unyielding, seemed to have limited scruples about the Divine Dynasty, and was indifferent to the fate of Liangzhou.

However, his statement that he "has his own way of dealing with it" reveals that he is not completely ignoring the Divine Dynasty, but rather that he has the confidence or contingency plan to "deal with" it. More importantly, the other side avoided probing about the size of the population! What does this mean? It means that the other side may need a large quantity, or... a very urgent one?
“Senior…” Gao Jian forced a bitter smile, as if he had been driven to a dead end, and began to pour out his heart: “How about this? Although Liangzhou is poor, it does have some mineral deposits, medicinal herbs, and even some… well, special local products. As long as you ask, Senior, I will do my best to find them for you! I will definitely satisfy you! This population… is really not something to be touched! If it shakes the foundation of the Divine Dynasty, I will not only be guilty of a thousand deaths, but the goods you want… will also lose their source in the future?”

He changed tactics again, trying to replace it with other resources, saying that "population" is a "renewable resource," and if the foundation is shaken now, it will be gone in the future.

At the same time, his ambiguity was actually a way of probing the other party's true intentions. His use of "goods" instead of "people" revealed the other party's thoughts.

This time, Gao Jian clearly sensed that when he said, "Wouldn't the source also be cut off in the future?", the cold, deathly stillness surrounding the black-robed man seemed to show an extremely subtle fluctuation! In the pure darkness, that withered figure seemed to tense up for an extremely brief moment!
Urgent! Gao Jian instantly caught this fleeting anomaly! The other party's need seemed to carry a certain time urgency, and could not be waited for indefinitely!
"My patience is waning!" The eerie light beneath the black-robed man's hood pierced Gao Jian like two tangible ice spikes. "I'll ask you one last time, will you give up the population of Liangzhou or not? If you dare to shirk your responsibility again..." He slightly raised his withered fingers, the tips swirling with a terrifying aura capable of annihilating everything around them!
Absolute silence descended once more, even more oppressive than before, like the calm before a storm. Gao Jian's heartbeat, protected by the rusty knife, remained steady.

He knew he had made the right first bet—the other side wouldn't kill him for the time being. But this life-or-death negotiation over "population" had only just entered its most dangerous phase. He had to take advantage of the other side's hidden "eagerness" and their divine dynasty's apprehension to reach a good agreement.

To be honest, Gao Jian himself knows that what he just said was nonsense.

Bickering, making jokes, changing the subject, and trying to test the other party's bottom line—that's the purpose of all this nonsense from Gao Jian. And now…

Gao Jian is preparing to begin his next step in his plan.

Gao Jian's mind raced, calculating how to take advantage of the other party's apparent "eagerness" and the divine dynasty's reputation to launch a delaying tactic such as "installment payment" or a "high-quality population screening plan," and even considering whether he could shift the blame to a hypothetical enemy in the central government... The rhetoric he had prepared in his mind had only just begun.

Anyone would have to admit that Gao Jian is a genius.

For a genius, doing these things is obviously not difficult. By stalling and prodding, someone from the Lu Sect might arrive, or... he could use some other bargaining chip to force the other party to back down. The fact that he didn't die after doing those things is enough to show that he didn't dare to kill Gao Jian.

However, he clearly underestimated the patience of this twelfth-realm expert—or rather, the other party had no intention of engaging in any business negotiations with him at all.

Enough with the noise.

The black-robed man's hoarse voice carried a hint of impatience, as if he had "gotten tired of it." Before he finished speaking, Gao Jian felt an irresistible force, as if everything around him had solidified into shackles, instantly envelop him!
"Wait...!" Gao Jian only managed to utter one word before everything went blurry!
There were no spatial tearing effects, no cool teleportation arrays, and no thoughtful seatbelts or airbags. He felt like a tattered rag that a naughty child had carelessly tossed into a washing machine, and was forcibly "pried" out of the airship's sturdy hull by an unreasonable and brute force!

puff!
The airship's portholes, strong enough to withstand attacks from the Ninth Realm, were more fragile than an eggshell in front of the black-robed man, silently tearing open a large hole. Gao Jian felt like a potato launched by a slingshot, whooshing out of the air in a flash.

The air instantly transformed into countless cold razors! Gao Jian's official robes, though of decent quality and specially supplied by the Divine Dynasty, ripped under the strain, turning into tattered rags fluttering wildly in the wind within moments! Hair? What was that? Gao Jian felt a chill run down his spine, as if countless tiny hands were desperately pulling at his hair.

It might sound a bit gory, but in just a moment, Takami's hair and skin were shredded by the sharp wind blades.

His skin was ripped from his skin to his bones by the gale, his features were distorted, and his mouth opened wide involuntarily, filled with suffocating northwesterly sand! He tried to close his mouth, but the wind pressure was too great, and his facial muscles were completely out of his control.

One can imagine just how immense this power must have been, that even Gao Jian couldn't control his own body.

The physical body twisted, shattered, and turned into a spray of blood and flesh, like crashing into an airplane engine. But soon, the power of the essence began to...

Just as Gao Jian had adjusted to the "massage" of the strong wind, he felt the space around him begin to twist and fold wildly! One second he was looking at the shattered border city below like a miniature model, and the next second his eyes turned into a chaotic stream of light!

He had no sense of up, down, left, or right; no concept of time; only intense dizziness and a centrifugal force that felt like it was throwing his internal organs out! He felt like he'd been shoved into a high-speed spinning washing machine, his bones groaning. To make matters worse, the man in black clearly hadn't considered the passenger's comfort, holding him in an extremely casual manner, causing Gao Jian to be upside down one moment and spinning like a windmill the next…

This pain lasted for an entire day.

Myths say that some people can be hung on a cliff face and blown about by strong winds, while eagles peck at their livers every day, restoring them to their original state, and this cycle repeats itself.

Gao Jian felt his current situation was even worse than that. The speed was too fast, so fast that the surrounding wind became the sharpest blades, and the black-robed man clearly had no intention of protecting him, just letting him be repeatedly sliced ​​into pieces, then regenerated, and then sliced ​​into pieces again, in an endless cycle.

Time passed very slowly as a result, but the insightful observations remained unspoken.

About ten hours have passed.

Just when Gao Jian felt he was about to die, about to be tormented by the "express train" and meet the King of Hell prematurely, that tyrannical force suddenly withdrew!
boom!
He crashed heavily onto the cold, hard stone like a bag of potatoes carelessly tossed aside. His internal organs churned violently, and he saw stars before his eyes.

The wind stopped, the sense of spatial distortion disappeared, and the deadly temperature difference stabilized—stabilizing in a cold, deathly stillness, a chill that seemed to penetrate to the bone.

His physical body recovered quickly. Fortunately, Gao Jian's vital energy was very abundant. In fact, he could have lasted for another half an hour or so, but now it was only ten hours...

Well, ten hours is already incredibly long.

Takami struggled to lift his head, spitting out the sand and...maybe his own hair? in his mouth. He looked around.

Where can one still see the sunset over the Liangzhou border? Where can one still see flying boats?
Before them stood an enormous, magnificent mountain gate, seemingly carved from a single piece of black Nether Stone! The gate soared into the clouds, and above the lintel were two large characters that emitted a faint green light, chilling the soul with a single glance—Youming!
On either side of the mountain gate were bottomless abysses, churning with gray-black mist, from which the faint wails of countless mournful spirits could be heard. A chilling wind blew, causing the few remaining tattered strips of cloth he wore to flutter loudly.

What could be more painful than Qin Long making him travel tens of thousands of miles back to Liangzhou in eight days? Gao Jian previously thought there was nothing.

But now it's possible: in a single day, they flew from Liangzhou to Youzhou without any coverings.

He, Gao Jian, the imperial envoy of the Divine Dynasty and the new behind-the-scenes big boss of Liangzhou, had just been outwitting a being of the twelfth realm on a flying boat, and now he was airdropped by the other party to the gate of the old lair of Youming Land, dressed in rags, covered in dust, with a wild hairstyle and no image left.

Okay, just to confirm, he is now at the gate of the Netherworld.

In just one day, he traveled from Liangzhou to Youzhou, which is the region of Youming. In that day, he traversed at least 500,000 li.

His speed was over a thousand meters per second, and that was just his average speed. Obviously, it was much higher when he was accelerating, otherwise he wouldn't have been torn to pieces by the strong airflow.

However, none of that matters now.

"Phew." Gao Jian let out a long sigh and looked at the gate of the Netherworld Mountain in front of him.

Youming is located in Youzhou.

Youzhou, located in the northeast of the Divine Dynasty, was considered one of the more powerful states in the dynasty.

Youzhou is located in the north, a dark and obscure place. The original meaning of Youmei is dim and unclear, but it can also refer to quiet and mysterious places.

In the past, after the founding of the Divine Dynasty, Duke Shao was enfeoffed in Youzhou and given the title: Yan.

This place is also the location of the ancient Yan Kingdom and Yan Pavilion, as well as the old lair of the Netherworld.

A poem describes the spirit of this place: "A barbarian warrior from Youzhou, with green eyes and a tiger-skin cap. He laughs and flicks two arrows, unmatched by ten thousand men. His bow bends like the moon, and white geese fall from the clouds."

However, because this place is called 'You' (幽), the yin energy of heaven and earth is relatively heavy, and the Yellow Springs (黄泉) are particularly 'shallow' here. Therefore, the customs here are rather fierce, and the people are mostly brave and reckless, and do not feel that death is anything to be afraid of.

Now, the withered figure of the man in black robes hovered silently before him, the wide black robes remaining motionless in the eerie wind. Two eerie lights beneath the hood, like lighthouses in an abyss, coldly "illuminated" the disheveled Gao Jian.

"..." Upon seeing the other person, Gao Jian, who had initially felt better, could only open his mouth, feeling as if his throat was full of sand. In the end, he could only squeeze out a few helpless words: "...Senior...can we...make a deal...next time...give me a piece of clothing...okay?"

He stood up, gathered the few pitiful strips of cloth around his body, and tried to maintain the last shred of dignity he had as a "genius master".

He was clearly feigning helplessness.

The man in black robes did not answer. The withered figure merely turned slightly towards the ominous, dark mountain gate.

Gao Jian shrugged.

Since they're here, let's make the best of it. If they dare to do this, it means they have the confidence. So... we'll just have to deal with whatever comes our way.

So he followed the man in black robes in a very natural manner and entered the gate of the Netherworld.

(End of this chapter)