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

The second opening of Moon Road was scheduled for that night at the hour of Chou (1-3 AM).

It's shorter than the first time.

The Moon Emperor granted a half-quarter-hour window. The moment the silver passage cascaded down from the crack in the dome, Zhou Ran had already been standing outside the north gate of Nine Nether City for the time it takes for two incense sticks to burn.

Qin San and his men set up a cordon. The Taihuang Black Blade was held horizontally at his waist, and the patterns induced by the Domain Heart Pill illuminated half of his body. The newly grown bones on his ribs throbbed faintly in the night wind, but he gritted his teeth and remained silent.

Bone Silence stood guard on the flank, and the screws in the metal spine, which had been behaving themselves for most of the day, began to slowly turn again.

In the third breath after the silver passage opened, a figure fell out from the depths of the pillar of light.

Xiao Rou landed on her knees first, clutching the Gu box tightly with both hands. She stumbled forward a step, but Qin San grabbed her by the back of her collar to prevent her from falling to the ground.

Her face was covered in ash, dried blood oozing from her ears, and six of her ten fingernails were broken, the bloodstains having congealed into a dark red crust.

The front and cuffs of the clothes were burned with several holes by the aftershocks of the Emperor-level rules, revealing a thin body inside, so thin that you could count the ribs.

But she was alive, and the Gu box was intact.

Qin San steadied her and patted her shoulder with his rough fingers. The force was not light.

Xiao Rou hissed and looked up to see the ugly smile on Qin San's scabbard face.

"I'm back."

Qin San's voice was muffled.

"I'm back."

Xiao Rou smiled at him, her teeth were white, but she was missing one on the left, she didn't know when she had knocked it out.

The moon's path contracted behind her. The silver pillar of light swirled back into the dome's crack even faster than the first time.

Zhou Ran stood at the entrance of the passage without moving.

The Taihuang Black Blade rested on the ground, its remaining patterns flickering in the afterglow of the moonlight.

His gaze swept from Xiao Rou's face to the Gu box, and then from the Gu box to the six broken fingernails on her hands.

Xiao Rou handed over the Gu box.

"Your Majesty, the hidden nail has been removed."

The golden gu swallowed the entire eyeball and evolved into a six-winged form.

The scanned data has been engraved; Sister Lin engraved it herself.

She paused for a moment.

Xiao Rou bit her lower lip, considering how to say what to say next.

"Sister Lin's original essence of Dharma is less than half complete."

She had hidden nails pressed into the ground three levels underground for seven days, and she couldn't even stand up, leaning against the base.

Zhou Ran took the Gu box.

The moment his fingers touched the lid of the box, he felt the heat emanating from the golden Gu shell inside. It was more than three times hotter than when he sent Xiaorou away.

He opened the box.

The golden potion was tucked away at the bottom of the box.

It had six wings, one more than before it left, neatly attached to both sides of its back.

The carapace surface now has a deep black-gold base layer, covering the original dark gold color. The patterns are dense and thick, clearly showing the alteration marks left after the Emperor-level rule fragments were devoured.

On the back of the shell, a dense array of data covers every inch of the shell surface.

The silver microcode gleamed faintly under the illumination of magic, its information density so great that even a copying maniac like Mingcang would have a headache for three days after seeing it.

Zhou Ran took the golden gu out of the box and turned it over to the bottom.

My fingers traced along the folds and overlaps of the six wings.

He searched three times before finding the most hidden side flank crevice.

A line of words was carved in the crevice.

The text is extremely small.

He could only make out each stroke of the Gu shell when he held it three inches away from his eyes.

The gray line is still jumping.

I counted for you for seven days, 86,400 times a day, not a single time less.

Zhou Ran's finger stopped on that line of text.

Eighty-six thousand four hundred.

The number of seconds in a day.

She counted for seven days.

Qin San stood to the side and saw that Zhou Ran's hand, which was holding the Gu shell, was trembling slightly.

It trembled for less than two breaths before stabilizing.

Zhou Ran removed her fingers from the line of text. She didn't touch it a second time.

Xiao Rou added quietly from the side.

"Sister Lin asked me to pass on a message before she left."

Zhou Ran looked up at her.

She said, "If the gray line is still jumping, don't let it break."

No matter how heavy the burden you're carrying over there, as long as the gray line keeps jumping, she'll keep moving things inside.

Zhou Ran didn't say anything.

He stared at the words on the Gu shell for a long time.

The night wind blew down from the direction where the crack in the dome was closing, stirring the stray hairs that fell across his forehead.

Mingcang jogged over from behind the cordon, clutching a military register in his hand, all ten of his fingers covered in ink.

"Your Majesty, scan the data..."

Zhou Ran turned his gaze away from the Gu shell.

The action is fast.

Turn the golden gu over and probe the data array on the surface of its shell with your magic.

The silver microcode was activated the instant it touched the magic, and sets of data peeled off the shell and merged into the blank pages of the unified military register.

The full picture of the hidden markings by the scribe was laid out on the military register.

When Mingcang leaned in, he almost shoved the military manual into his face.

He had never seen this information encoding format before; it was neither the magic rune system of the Sixth Heaven nor the rule inscription of the Imperial Court.

It's more like a language far older than either of them, where the intended purpose of scanning precision is translated into readable data coordinates.

The core of the data points to a set of rule equations nested deep within the causal chain.

The equations are layered, each layer being three times more complex than the one before. Deciphering them is like peeling an onion; each layer you peel is more painful than the last.

The final solution to the equation points to a coordinate.

Blue Star. Three thousand meters directly below the foundation of the White Pagoda.

Mingcang copied the coordinates onto the parchment next to the military register, his hand trembling so much that the strokes were crooked.

"Your Majesty, this location matches the abnormal signal deep beneath the White Pagoda that Chen Ya previously reported..."

"It totally coincides."

Zhou Ran closed the military register.

The coordinate labels are extremely concise. Just two words, engraved next to the solution result at the very bottom of the equation.

Judgment Seal.

Mingcang's pen slipped from his hand and bounced twice on the stone slab.

Judgment Seal.

The seal of the Imperial Court Judge.

Three thousand meters underground on Earth lies the seal of an Imperial Court judge.

The first clause of the secret edict written by the White Bone Brush states that the Emperor's son is the executor of the Seventh Judge; wherever the judge hides, the Emperor's son will be anchored there.

Article 2: When the Sixth Judge defected, he carried a forbidden catalogue with him. Before his death, he sealed fragments of the catalogue into his own blood.

The blood of sin splattered across the six heavens, but was intercepted by Ye Futian and sealed within the Demon Emperor's origin.

The Sixth Heaven is filled with the blood of sin.

Blue Star has a judgment seal.

The thing that the Imperial Court had been chasing for 30,000 years, half of it was in his dantian and half of it was underground on Blue Star.

Zhou Ran gripped the strap of the Gu box tightly.

The gray pattern on his left wrist twitched, and the newly appeared silver line next to it twitched as well.

Two stripes, two colors, their pulsating frequencies are perfectly synchronized.

Lin Qingxue was still transferring data into the gray area stroke by stroke on the other side of Blue Star.

The Imperial Court's purge team is also rushing towards Blue Star.

Three thousand meters underground on Earth lies a judgment seal powerful enough to rewrite the entire game.

"Mingcang".

"Your subordinate is here."

"Encrypt this coordinate data and store it on the bottom page of the military register, setting the access permissions to be read exclusively by the Emperor."

Mingcang complied.

Zhou Ran put the golden Gu back into the Gu box. The Gu worm burrowed around at the bottom of the box, its six new wings folded up against the shell, all the barbs retracted, and it lay down quietly.

Before closing the lid, he touched the side slit with his finger one last time.

The force was extremely light.

It was so light that even the Golden Gu couldn't sense it.