After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

After the conversation in the greenhouse ended, Zhou Ran returned to the conference room.

The scales on the table were still shimmering with a gray light.

Li Zhiyao sat opposite her, her silver hairpin askew, untouched.

Zhou Ran took out the Yin-Yang Communication Bone Fragment and poured in his true essence.

The bone fragment glowed for three breaths, and Qiao Kun's voice came through, filled with barely suppressed confusion.

"Grand Commander, something has happened."

"explain."

"The rebels have retreated."

Zhou Ran's finger stopped on the table.

"A full retreat."

The retreat was organized; even the central command tent of Yama, the King of Hell, was dismantled.

Qiao Kun's voice was very low.

"Take away all the supplies, flags, and remains of the fusion soldiers."

The road to the underworld was spotless, without even a single soul-binding stake left behind.

Zhou Ran remained silent.

Qiao Kun continued:

"With Black Impermanence dead, the group should be in chaos without a leader."

But the command of this retreat was extremely professional.

It didn't look like a panicked escape, but rather like...

Mission accomplished.

Zhou Ran rubbed his thumb against the edge of the bone fragment.

"There's one more thing."

Qiao Kun's tone became even lower.

"Over there at the Three Palaces, Emperor Song has also relaxed his defenses."

Not only did he relax, he also voluntarily gave up three sentry posts on the road to the underworld.

Zhou Ran narrowed his eyes.

The day and night wandering gods do not belong to the Third Hall.

Before leaving, Zhou Ran specifically instructed Qiao Kun to keep a close eye on everything happening in the underworld.

Even the Five Temples, which rebelled against the US and Europe.

"I have a bad feeling about this."

Qiao Kun said,

"But we dare not act on our own initiative."

Awaiting the Grand Commander's instructions.

"Let's hold back for now."

"Don't take over the sentry post, and don't leave the area."

"Yes."

Zhou Ran cut off Qiao Kun's channel, re-injected his true energy, and changed direction.

The bone fragment vibrated twice, and the connection was established.

The voice of Emperor Song came from the other end.

It was more uneventful than ever before.

"With the war temporarily over, the Grand Commander can now focus on his affairs in the mortal realm."

Zhou Ran stared at the scale on the table.

The gray light flickered, like a heartbeat.

"Your Highness."

"Um?"

"You've already been inside the Heavenly Corpse?"

There was no sound from the bone fragment.

After ten breaths of silence, Emperor Song spoke.

"Where did the Grand Commander hear that from?"

"The bamboo scroll on the table in the main hall of the three halls."

Zhou Ran's tone remained unchanged.

"Put it somewhere else next time."

Emperor Song remained silent for two seconds.

He chuckled.

The laughter was devoid of warmth, the kind of relief one feels when someone who has played chess for thousands of years has had their cards revealed.

"Not just me."

pause.

"King Qin Guang, King Yama, King Dushi—everyone has been inside."

Li Zhiyao's fingertips turned white on the edge of the table.

Zhou Ran's expression remained unchanged.

Why?

Emperor Song remained silent for a few seconds, weighing how much to say.

"The Grand Commander guarded the River of Oblivion for me, killed the Black Impermanence, and cut 30,000 rebel soldiers in half at the waist."

His tone was completely flat and emotionless.

"With these, we can change the answer."

He chose to tell the whole story.

"The authority of the Ten Kings of Hell is not bestowed by Heaven."

Zhou Ran sat up straight.

Thirty thousand years ago, the Heavenly Corpse fell.

The first generation of ten Yama Kings each comprehended a portion of the Yin Law authority from the fragments of laws that fell from the corpses of the Heavenly Kings.

Based on this, the order of the underworld was established.

Li Zhiyao pulled her hand back from the edge of the table and tucked it into her sleeve.

The voice of Emperor Song continued.

"The Heavenly Corpse is the origin of the Underworld."

It has fully awakened and has the right to reclaim all ownership rights.

The Ten Kings of Hell will be reduced to mortal ghosts overnight.

Zhou Ran closed his eyes briefly.

Everything is working.

Yama, the King of Hell, wanted to break in before the Heavenly Corpse awoke, find the "root" of his power, and sever it.

Permanent independence.

"The divide between the orthodox faction and the rebels..."

"In terms of methods."

Emperor Song then continued his words.

"I propose to secretly enter the Heavenly Corpse to find the answer without disrupting the balance of Yin and Yang."

Yama, the King of Hell, did not hesitate to sacrifice thirty million people in the mortal realm to hasten the awakening of the Heavenly Corpse, forcibly breaking in during its weakened state.

Zhou Ran clenched his right hand into a fist.

The truth behind the "ceasefire" has come to light.

Both sides reached a temporary tacit agreement to suspend external conflicts and concentrate all resources on exploring the corpse inside the sky.

The orthodox and the rebel factions may meet inside the Heavenly Corpse.

They remain enemies.

But until then, they don't need to fight outside anymore.

Zhou Ran's anger surged from his dantian, and the Primordial Chaos pattern on his forearm lit up for a moment.

"Your Highness."

His tone was very flat.

"How long did I fight in the underworld?"

Emperor Song did not answer.

"The River of Oblivion is sealed off, I'm going there."

I killed Black Impermanence.

Thirty thousand rebels, I chopped them in half with a snap of my fingers.

Zhou Ran uttered each word carefully.

"You're using me to draw fire on the front lines so your people can sneak up to the marked location next to the Heavenly Corpse."

It was so quiet inside the bone fragments that you could hear a chilling wind.

"I will pave your way with my blood."

Emperor Song did not deny it.

Zhou Ran picked up the bone fragment from the table and held it in his palm.

Once the true energy was withdrawn, communication was lost.

He slammed his fist on the table.

The solid wood tabletop has a crack running down the middle, with the crack extending to the legs on both sides.

The meeting room was silent for half a minute.

Zhou Ran's breathing calmed down.

"They all want to go in."

He looked up at Li Zhiyao.

"Penglai also wants to go in."

The rebels also wanted to get in.

The orthodox faction also wanted to get in.

Li Zhiyao put the scales back on the table without making a sound.

"Then I'll go in too."

"And I want to be the first to find that heart."

Li Zhiyao nodded slightly.

She took out a palm-sized bronze token from her sleeve.

The token's surface was covered in verdigris, and its edges were severely worn. The inscription on it was not a Yin Law rune, but a name that had been blurred by the passage of time.

Li Chengfeng.

"This is the second thing my brother left under the Wangchuan Bridge back then."

She turned the token over.

The back is engraved with a line of small characters, the strokes of which are strong and have not faded for four thousand years.

This command can summon the gate of the Heavenly Corpse's spine.

three days later.

The gray lines on the golden elixir changed from three to four.

The fourth one grew out last night; it was as thin as a spider's thread, but Zhou Ran could feel it arching.

The tide suppression array maintained by Su Qingling and her sister had been replaced with a spare array plate that he had personally carved. He withdrew, his face paler than paper.

A black sedan was parked at the entrance of the manor.

An elderly man in a gray cloth jacket got off the back seat, leaning on a bamboo cane. He walked slowly, and it seemed that his knees were not very good.

Zhou Ran stood at the second-floor window and looked down.

Jin Dan jumped.

It wasn't a tremor, it was a chill.

Since the formation of its own realm, the Golden Elixir of the Mind has never reacted in this way to any external force.

It spun rapidly in its dantian, encountering a natural enemy and smelling its own kind.

It is the mid-stage of the Nascent Soul realm.

Such a level of cultivation is extremely rare, even on Earth.

Fatty Wang and Xiao Rou stood on either side of the manor gate.

The moment the old man stepped into the barrier, both of them felt their legs go weak.

The old man didn't release anything.

It's purely a physiological reaction caused by the overwhelming difference in their cultivation levels.

Fatty Wang gritted his teeth and held on, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the doorpost.

Xiao Rou immediately knelt down on one knee, but her knee couldn't withstand the physical strain.

The old man glanced at them with a smile.

"Don't worry, the old man has trouble walking and walks slowly."

Two people followed behind him.

On the left is a middle-aged man with sharp eyebrows and bright eyes. He has a long sword without a scabbard hanging at his waist, the blade wrapped in strips of cloth.

His aura was restrained, but Zhou Ran's demonic eyes could clearly see that he was in the early stage of the Nascent Soul realm.

On the right is a young Taoist nun, appearing to be in her early twenties, dressed in a plain white Taoist robe and holding a whisk.

Also in the early stage of Nascent Soul.

Three Nascent Souls.