A name suddenly surfaced in Zheng Chong’s mind.
“No, that’s impossible! He died a hundred years ago. How could he possibly be here now?” Zheng Chong howled internally. He couldn’t believe this at all! The person who’d just showed up was the man who killed the leader of the demons one hundred years ago and sacrificed himself to seal away Denglong, Emperor Ye.
This was impossible, but if it wasn’t him, who else could it possibly be?
Zheng Chong thought himself one of the strongest experts of the Three Realms. In fact, he had a vague sense that his divine tribulation was just around the corner. Given his abilities, for him to feel this scared….
Did someone strong enough to terrify him like this really exist in the Three Realms?
“No, I didn’t, this is all….” It didn’t matter whether this person was Emperor Ye or not. Either way, he was someone Zheng Chong couldn’t contend with. Terrified, Zhong Chong tried to explain himself, but found he couldn’t get even a single word out.
“Three thousand demon kings. It’s awfully stingy of them! They obviously had supremes on hand, so why not just send one to take the leyline by force? It seems that the struggle for the Xuan-Yuan Sword is awfully tense.”
The three thousand demon kings couldn’t move a muscle either. Ye Zichen scanned them coolly, then snapped his finger.
The sky instantly rumbled with electricity, and three thousand bolts of divine lightning descended simultaneously, obliterating every last one of the demon kings.
“You two servant girls, listen up. Have your gang find itself a new leader. If they still want to follow in Zheng Chong’s footsteps, they’re welcome to visit me at the leisure house. I’ll welcome them any time. However, if they dare consort with demons ever again, next time I won’t simply show up and drag their leader away.”
With that, Ye ZIchen disappeared from the courtyard, taking Zheng Chong with him.
After they vanished, the two incomparably terrified servants recovered the ability to move and shrieked involuntarily. Before long, two early stage immortal kings rushed into the courtyard.
When they saw the lightning-scorched ground and the ashes of the demon army, they couldn’t help but frown. “Where’s the boss?”
“Someone took him away,” stammered a servant girl. All the blood had drained from her face. “He said that we need to find ourselves a new leader, and that if anyone wants to follow in His Excellency Zheng Chong’s footsteps, they’re welcome to come find him at the leisure house; he’ll welcome them at any time. He also said….”
“What did he say?”
“That man also said that in the future, if anyone dares consort with demons, it won’t end as simply as him taking our leader away.”
“I hadn’t realized that the Leisure House still possessed such an expert.” The two immortal kings, who were second only to Zheng Chong within their gang, fell silent. Whoever it was, he could drag away a peak immortal king without making a sound. This level of strength…. Just thinking about it was terrifying.
Meanwhile, back in the maple forest…
When Ye Zichen vanished, Xue Qi didn’t leave. He simply stood silently in the grove, looking off and into the distance. Just now, he saw storm clouds gather over Pool City, and he knew…. Ye Zichen was there.
Suddenly, a human figure fell from the sky and thudded to the ground like a sandbag. At the same time, Ye Zichen reappeared in the maple grove.
He pointed at Zheng Chong, who was splayed on the forest floor, and asked, “He’s the one, yeah?”
Xue Qi nodded. “Yup, that’s him.”
At that moment, Zheng Chong saw the man who’d kidnapped him clearly for the first time. To his intense disbelief, it was exactly who he’d thought: this was none other than Emperor Ye.
Although he wasn’t born in that era, all nine cities of the Immortal Region had statues of Ye Zichen; it was impossible not to know about him. Moreover, legends of Emperor Ye appeared in school textbooks; anyone with an education had heard of Ye Zichen and knew who he was.
“Emperor Ye, please spare this junior his life.”
Zheng Chong knelt and kowtowed repeatedly. Even Zheng Chong, an arrogant immortal king, had no choice but to act this way.
He was now facing a legend, the man who’d reshaped the Three Realms. Furthermore, he knew full well… what the consequences of consorting with demons were.
“I’ll just ask you this: how did you come into contact with the demons?” asked Ye Zichen.
“A few days ago, this junior ran into them while wandering outside. I had to protect myself, I had no other cho-….” Zheng Chong started to explain himself but found he couldn’t go on. He did this to protect himself? He had no other choice? If that were really the case, where did he get three thousand demon kings and why was he working for the demons?
“You can’t go on, can you?” Ye Zichen laughed, then asked, “Where did you run into them? How many of them were there?”
“In the wastelands. There were ten of them: six men and four women.”
Ye Zichen nodded. They must be the group of supremes the demons sent to vie for the Xuan-Yuan Sword. However, he still didn’t know whether they were earth supremes or sky supremes. Or maybe they were diviners?
If there were diviners among them, this would be troublesome. Although he’d achieved minor success in all five elements, he still couldn’t open the second floor of the Yao-Sealing Pagoda. Without ninth-stage sky supremes’ help, he lacked the capital to compete with emissaries of the Three Upper Reams.
More importantly, he couldn’t say for sure that the second floor even had ninth-stage sky supremes.
He frowned and pondered for a while as Zheng Chong continuously knelt and kowtowed. Finally, Ye ZIchen asked, “Xue Qi, what should we do with him?”
“Zheng Chong can be considered a peak-level expert down here. If we just kill him, it’ll be a loss to the entire Three Realms. By perfect coincidence, our Leisure House is lacking a top-class expert. Emperor Ye, do you have some sort of treasure we could use to keep him under control?”
When Xue Qi said that, Ye ZIchen understood what he was thinking.
He wanted to enslave Zheng Chong and put him to work as the Leisure House’s thug. Ye Zichen supported this in theory. If he killed Zheng Chong, that would be the end of it, but that was a bit cruel, and was also letting him off too easily.
However, he really didn’t have any methods of controlling him.
He suddenly recalled a trick he’d read about in the “Deer and the Cauldron,” a popular book from the Modern Realm.
“I do. Of course I do!” Ye Zichen flipped his hand and produced a medicine bottle. The pill inside was aquamarine and looked a bit poisonous.
“Feed this to him.”
Xue Qi grabbed Zheng Chong’s jaw and tossed the pill inside.
After swallowing the pill, Zheng Chong’s expression immediately contorted, as if he couldn’t bear it. When Ye Zichen saw that, he was surprised despite himself….
That pill was actually nothing but an ordinary pill used to recover spiritual energy. It seemed that Zheng Chong’s imagination had run wild.
But it was even better this way!
“That was a leopard embryo pill,” said Ye Zichen, arms crossed and eyelids drooping. “You have to take the antidote annually, otherwise… you ought to know what’ll happen to you. I’ll give the antidote to Xue Qi. From now on, you’d best behave yourself and work hard for the Leisure House. Otherwise, don’t even think of getting your hands on the antidote.”
He took out two bottles of perfectly ordinary pills and tossed them to Xue Qi.
Despite his unwillingness, Zheng Chong had already consumed the poison pill, and he really had felt something strange inside him just now, so he had no choice but a gnash his teeth and respond, “Understood!”
