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

As night fell, the hustle and bustle of Jiuyou City gradually subsided.

Orders for post-war reconstruction are being relayed across the region. Qin San, dragging his injured leg, handed the newly arranged patrol shifts to Gu Ji. Ming Cang, carrying Xiao Hongli's revised logistics flowchart, jogged towards the warehouse, muttering to himself, "How many brains does this woman have?"

The door to the side hall was bolted from the inside.

Zhou Ran sat cross-legged next to the black coffin of Jiuyou, closing his eyes to regulate his breathing.

After that ordeal, although his right arm was barely stabilized by the spiritual spring water and the bloodthirsty ancestral blood, the wounds inside his meridians were still bleeding.

Not to mention the primordial spirit, the three cracks were barely patched together, and it leaked air as soon as the magic power was activated.

He needs quiet.

But Huanyin doesn't think so.

The latch on the palace door opened silently.

There was no magical fluctuation, no sound of breaking down the door, and the bolt simply turned half a circle on its own.

Huanyin squeezed through the crack in the door and quickly bolted it shut again.

Tonight she changed into an extremely thin, dark red inner garment, and removed her outer layer of stiff combat skirt and armor plates.

Silver strands interspersed among black hair accentuated a weariness she had never shown before, but her dark red eyes remained sharp.

"I'm not leaving tonight."

Huanyin walked behind Zhou Ran and sat down directly.

"Reason?" Zhou Ran didn't open his eyes.

"Soul Imprint of the Same Frequency"

My fingers pressed against his back, and through his thin shirt, the soul power transmitted through my fingertips carried a feeling that was both cold and hot, entangling me.

"When you forcibly tore through the void during the day, three of the Soul Imprint's resonance channels were severed."

The signal transmission is less than 40% of normal. If I don't recalibrate the frequency band, the channel will completely drop out within three days.

It paused for a moment.

"If you get hurt again, I won't even be able to sense it."

Zhou Ran did not refuse.

He knew all too well the role that Huan Yin's soul imprint of the same frequency had played in the past few life-and-death battles.

Without this passage, Huan Yin would not have been able to precisely contain his shattered primordial spirit barrier when he extracted the Emperor's blood.

"Let's begin."

Huanyin's hands slid from his shoulder blades down to the middle of his spine, searching for the best point of contact for resonance.

The moment the soul power was poured in, the two people's breathing rhythms inevitably began to synchronize.

The sound of a heartbeat could be clearly heard in the side hall.

Once, twice.

The frequencies gradually align.

Huan Yin's palm pressed against the crisscrossing scars on his back, and warm soul power seeped in along the old wounds, forcing out the chill left by the rules of the void bit by bit.

With each wisp of cold air she exhaled, Zhou Ran's body involuntarily tensed, the muscles in her back as hard as iron plates under her palm.

"Your health is much worse than last time."

Huanyin lowered her voice.

"When it was repaired last time, although the primordial spirit wall had cracks, the skeleton was still relatively intact."

This time... it was smashed to pieces.

"It was smashed by the imperial prince."

"I know."

Huan Yin's fingers paused at his seventh vertebra, where there was a charred mark left by a dark nail of imperial blood.

"When Ye Futian was being hunted down by the Emperor's son, his primordial spirit was also shattered to this extent."

Zhou Ran's body stiffened slightly.

Huan Yin noticed his reaction and the corners of her mouth curved into a smile.

"But that old man is much smarter than you."

His tone was utterly contemptuous.

He knew he couldn't win, so he hid.

He hid in the black coffin in the Nine Netherworlds and pretended to be dead, making the entire Six Heavens believe that the Demon Emperor had fallen.

Three purge teams from the Imperial Court came, but they still couldn't find him.

The palm moved from the spine to Zhou Ran's waist, and the way the soul power was poured in changed from gentle to a high-frequency vibration with a slight stinging sensation.

Do you know how long he's been hiding?

"how long?"

"Three thousand years."

Huan Yin's dark red pupils shone brightly in the darkness.

"For three thousand years, Bloodlust guarded the Blood Sea for him, Nine Netherworlds suppressed the Nine Netherworld Well for him, and I maintained the operation of the Formless Domain for him."

Three women watched over his empire for three thousand years, and he lay in his coffin for three thousand years.

Silver strands fell onto Zhou Ran's shoulders.

"But he never once reached his arm into the void rift to pull anyone out."

Huan Yin's voice was somewhere between mockery and seriousness, occupying both ends, yet not reaching either end.

"He's all scheming."

Calculate who deserves to die, who can live, and how to obtain the greatest benefit with the least cost.

He's a hundred times smarter than you, but deep down he's just a gambler hiding behind the chessboard.

Zhou Ran did not respond.

He sensed it.

Huan Yin's soul power output was increasing, not only to repair the resonance channel, but also to actively pour his essence into the crack in his primordial spirit.

This strength exceeds what is needed for normal repairs.

She was secretly replenishing his vital energy.

Zhou Ran grasped her wrist, which was pressed against his waist.

Huanyin's movements stopped.

"You've already wasted seven hundred years of your lifespan during the day because of those fourteen words."

Zhou Ran's voice was deep and low. "Don't put any more clothes on me."

"This damage is nothing."

Huanyin tried to pull her hand back.

Zhou Ran did not loosen his grip.

He grabbed her wrist with his other hand and activated the Demon Emperor's essence within his body.

An extremely concentrated source of the Demon Emperor's essence flowed from his palm into Huan Yin's meridians.

Huan Yin tensed up completely.

That wasn't a gentle gift; it was almost tyrannical. He was using his remaining essence to forcibly make up for the part she had lost during the day when she shared the fourteen-word judgment.

Huanyin's breathing quickened, and her dark red pupils suddenly dilated.

The power was so intense that her body couldn't process it all and could only passively accept it.

"you……"

"You've been carrying this debt for seven hundred years, so I have to pay some interest."

Huanyin leaned against his back.

I haven't spoken for a long time.

The white mist rising from the spring water enveloped them in a hazy atmosphere, leaving only two perfectly synchronized breaths in the hall.

After an unknown amount of time, Huanyin finally spoke.

The voice returned to its usual languidness, with a very slight tremor at the bottom.

"Zhou Ran".

"Um."

"That old bastard Ye Futian is no match for you."

After saying this, she released her grip and stood up.

The dark red inner veil billowed in an arc as she turned, and silver strands glittered among her black hair.

"I will slowly collect the interest you owe me."

The palace doors opened and closed again.

In the corridor outside the side hall, Jiuyou leaned against a pillar, his deathly aura blending into the night in the cold wind.

She had been standing there for the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.

She could hear every word in the hall, every frequency fluctuation of the resonance, clearly.

Jiuyou lowered his eyes.

She held a jade slip in her hand, on which was engraved something she had originally planned to show Zhou Ran at tomorrow's military council.

The fingertips slowly closed.

"Click."

The jade was reduced to dust, which fell from between her pale fingers and was scattered by the night wind.

Instead of returning to her main hall, she turned and headed towards the black coffin.

She wanted to see the name engraved on the coffin lid one more time.