“She isn’t married?” Yun Che asked.
He wasn’t expecting to find Situ Xuan in the Situ residence. At her age, she should’ve gotten married and been living together with her husband a long time ago.
“S-she is not, Spiritual Master Yun.” Situ Nan explained, “Xuan’er was born with a birth defect. She was okay during the first eighteen years, but on the day she was going to marry the son of the governor of Yuwen City, her illness suddenly reared its ugly head and… we have been housing and nursing her since. Her illness is so severe that we dare not neglect her health even to this day.”
While Situ Nan was talking, Yun Che had scanned Situ Xuan about a dozen times over with his spiritual perception.
According to his senses, Situ Xuan was a woman with a birth defect, severely depleted vitality, and short lifespan… and that was all. There was nothing special about her whatsoever.
He was both disappointed and relieved.
Yun Che shot Situ Xuan one last glance and said, “Hmph, I see.”
Then he was gone, leaving behind an entire residence of dumbfounded people in his wake.
An entire hour later, Situ Nan finally staggered back to his feet. However, he was still staring at the spot Yun Che had vanished without a trace and wondering if he had dreamed the whole thing.
“Finally! It’s done!”
An excited cry entered his ears the moment Yun Che returned to the Xiao Clan.
Right after that, a white light mixed with a bit of imperceptible crimson took to the sky. It was of course Shui Meiyin.
Beneath her, a dimensional profound formation about 6 meters in diameter was circulating in silence.
It was incredibly small considering the standards of the current world. No one would believe that it was connected to the impossibly far Southern Divine Region unless they had experienced it themselves.
“Do you want to give it a try, Big Brother Yun Che?” Shui Meiyin flew over to Yun Che the second she caught his scent.
“It has been a while since I went back,” said Yun Che curiously. Now that the dimensional profound formation was complete, he could travel between the Blue Pole Star and Emperor Yun City whenever he wanted to.
Also, a certain empress was going to nag him to death if he continued to shirk his duties any longer.
“Is it done? Is it done?”
The sudden emergence of the strange spatial aura and divine light had attracted the nearby Wuxin like a magnet. She stood beside her father and watched the dimensional profound formation with barely suppressed excitement.
“Yep!” Shui Meiyin said to Yun Wuxin, “All you need to do is to step into the formation, and you’ll be teleported to your dad’s city in just seven breaths. Right now, it is the highest and holiest place in the entire God Realm.”
“But of course, it is just a second home to our little princess.”
“I want to go now!” Yun Wuxin pulled her father’s arm strongly.
“Don’t you want to wait for your mom and aunties first?” Yun Che asked.
“I want to go now!” Yun Wuxin clearly couldn’t wait any longer. “Also, my mom may not have forgiven you yet.”
“Urk…”
In the end, Yun Che was dragged by Yun Wuxin into the newly minted profound formation by force. He didn’t even get the chance to notify Xiao Lingxi and the others about his departure.
…………
Emperor Yun City was a 150 kilometer long floating city. It wasn’t a particularly large city by any means, but there wasn’t a soul in the God Realm who would dare to not know about it.
Sitting directly beneath was a vast and seemingly borderless star realm. Once upon a time, it was called the Southern Sea God Realm.
The Southern Sea God Realm was known as the greatest star realm of the Southern Divine Region for almost a million years. Now though, it was only as superior as the shadow cast by Emperor Yun City itself.
The smoke and ruins that befell the Southern Sea Capital a while ago was long gone. Instead, it was covered by countless profound ships and even more profound practitioners. They were working to rebuild the former king realm of the Southern Divine Region into a whole new star realm.
Of course, most of the resources spent had come from the Southern Sea God Realm’s treasury.
The project was overseen by the two southern region king realms, the Xuanyuan Realm and the Purple Micro Realm. For obvious reasons, they were very motivated to see the project completed perfectly. The Xuanyuan God Emperor and Purple Micro God Emperor only wished that they could’ve performed the tasks themselves.
The eye of the dimensional profound formation in Emperor Yun City was set at the back of Emperor Yun Palace.
The very first place Yun Wuxin visited in the God Realm was the most elevated place in the God Realm, Emperor Yun City. Naturally, the elements and spirit energy of the place—countless times richer than they were on the Blue Pole Star—had suffocated and dizzied her instantly. Of course, Yun Che easily dealt with her condition with just a casual wave of his hand.
“Emperor Yun City is not really a city. It is a profound ark from ancient times called the ‘World Dragon City’. Its creation actually has quite a lot to do with the World Piercer held by your auntie Meiyin. It belonged to the Dragon God Realm, but I took it for myself after defeating Long Bai.”
While holding his daughter’s dainty hands, Yun Che took her to every corner of Emperor Yun City while telling her everything there was to know about the God Realm.
The process was also meant to give her time to adapt to the laws and auras of the God Realm.
“This is the Silk Shadow Palace, the bedroom of your Auntie Qianying.”
“This is the Color Sound Palace, the bedroom of your Auntie Meiyin… this is the Ice Phoenix Palace… this is the Rainbow Star Palace…” [1]
Suddenly, Yun Wuxin interrupted, “What about mom, master and me? Do we get a palace as well?”
“Of course,” Yun Che said smilingly. They both blurred, and before Yun Wuxin knew it she was staring at a palace adorned with all kinds of icy crystals and dreamlike corals. “This is the Graceful Dream Palace. I had collected these crystals and corals from the Heavenly Netherfrost Lake of Snow Song Realm myself. They will never melt unless they are burned with a divine flame. I hope that she will like it when I show it to her.”
Yun Wuxin’s eyes curled into crescents. Amidst the fantastical array of reflected light, she thought she could see her father carefully setting down the items one by one and using some of them to make the word “Graceful Dream” [2] A beautiful smile crossed her lips without her noticing.
“Mom will definitely love this… she might even forgive you for what you did.”
“But!” Yun Wuxin abruptly changed her tune. “Even if mom forgives you, that doesn’t mean that you’re allowed to bully little aunt behind her back, understand!?”
Yun Che: “Ahem hem hem!”
“Hmph!” Yun Wuxin snorted before lowering her voice to a whisper, “At least court her openly. Do you really think mom doesn’t know about…”
“Hmm? What did you say?”
“Nothing!”
“…”
“You see that?” Yun Che pointed at the image of a phoenix in the sky. The sky itself was dyed red by its radiance. “That is where your master’s palace is, the Phoenix Snow Palace. Your palace is in between Graceful Dream Palace and Phoenix Snow Palace.”
Yun Wuxin looked and whispered the name, “Eternal… Heart… Palace.”
The three engraved words filled her with infinite warmth and strength. She knew immediately that her father had carved them with his own fingers.
“Why did you call it that?” Yun Wuxin asked her father expectantly.
Yun Che smiled and moved his daughter’s hand to his chest. Then, he stared into her eyes and began, “I have never been a good father, Wuxin. I’ve missed you for many years, worried you unduly, and broken my promises to you again and again. You even had to sacrifice your greatest talent for me.”
“There are many things I cannot fix or redeem even after I’ve become the strongest person in the universe, but… no matter what happens in the future, no matter when or where, no matter how high I’ve ascended or how long I’ve fallen, I want you to know that you will always occupy the most important place in my heart. Always.”
“…” Yun Wuxin’s gaze stilled for a moment. She stared into her father’s eyes for one breath… two breaths… and then she lost control of herself and burst into laughter.
“Er…” Yun Che tapped his nose in embarrassment. “Was it that bad? I practiced it a lot of times in my mind, you know.”
“It’s not bad, it’s just so… old-fashioned!” Even with one hand covering her lips, it was obvious that Yun Wuxin couldn’t stop smiling. “My father is the great emperor of the universe! You should be able to speak so~ profoundly that a normal person would never be able to say it!”
“I’ll… I’ll do my best next time,” Yun Che promised, but it obviously lacked confidence.
“It’s fine.”
Before Yun Che knew it, Yun Wuxin was leaning against his shoulder with her eyes closed in contentment. “It is enough. It is enough to last me a lifetime.”
“Oh my, it looks like I’ve shown up at an inconvenient time. I didn’t mean to disturb your precious father daughter time.”
The speaker was none other than Chi Wuyao. She was followed by Jie Xin and Jie Ling.
On a related note, the coolness in Jie Xin and Jie Ling’s eyes had melted away immediately after they saw Yun Che. They proceeded to bow their heads so they wouldn’t be able to meet his eyes.
On the night Yun Che was crowned the Great Emperor of the God Realm, he slept with the Nine Witches. This was the first time Jie Xin and Jie Ling had met him since that day.
Naturally, they felt shy and embarrassed in his presence.
“Auntie Wuyao,” Yun Wuxin greeted and saluted Chi Wuyao politely. She held great respect toward the Empress because she was, out of all the women her father had courted, easily the one with the greatest right to the first wife position, and the person her father depended on the most.
Chi Wuyao smiled and nodded in return before facing toward Yun Che. “My Emperor, are you aware that your city has nearly forgotten its own master’s name?”
Yun Che replied with a straight face, “You don’t need me to carry out your business. In fact, my presence could’ve made your work harder than it should’ve been.”
Chi Wuyao rolled her eyes at him before complaining to Yun Wuxin, “You see that, Wuxin? In the future, be sure not to pick a man as shameless and irresponsible as your father to be your husband.”
Yun Wuxin giggled at that. She might be young and inexperienced, but she could sense the deep emotion behind Chi Wuyao’s every “complaint”. It was a love so deep that even an outsider could be moved by it.
No wonder her father was the most envied man in the entire universe.
“It so happens that Cang Shitian is showing up today to report about the latest rebellions and matters regarding the Enforcer Bureau. I suppose it’s about time I stop overstep my authority and leave the work in your rightful hands.”
Yun Che subconsciously raised a hand to say “no”, but he quickly lowered it and nodded. “Yes. Send Cang Shitian to meet me.”
He had been “Emperor Yun” for almost half a year already. He really should begin carrying his own weight!
The palace bedrooms were devoid of presences because no one was allowed to approach them. When they approached the main hall though, a vast, heavy, and icy pressure immediately pressed down on all of them.
The guards chosen to protect Emperor Yun City and guard Emperor Yun himself were naturally powerful. For example, the lowest bar of acceptance was Divine Sovereign Realm. A Divine Master was also posted every ten thousand steps in every direction.
The combined aura of these experts alone would keep most people from taking even half a step in Emperor Yun City’s direction.
Yun Wuxin was only in the Divine Origin Realm. She immediately felt like ten thousand mountains were pressing against her person.
She stopped in her tracks and gritted her teeth tightly. She began shaking like a leaf as icy fear threatened to buckle her knees, shred her body, destroy her beliefs, and engrave the essence of submission onto her core.
Yun Che summoned a bit of profound energy between his fingers, but he didn’t dispel the pressure for Yun Wuxin. Instead, he injected it into her soul and “fought” against the pressure alongside her.
This was his Emperor Yun City, and she was his daughter. She should be able to adapt and conquer this pressure with her own body and will.
Yun Wuxin gritted her teeth harder and harder. Pain kept flashing across her beautiful features. However, her mind and soul never succumbed, her posture never bent for even a second, and her knees never buckled to the pressure.
Not even when Yun Che withdrew his palm and left her to fight on her own.
For an entire hour, Yun Wuxin fought unceasingly against the pressure. She probably felt that it was much longer than that.
She succeeded. At the end of her struggles, her body stopped shivering completely, and she opened her eyes to reveal more determination than fear. “I’m fine now, father.”
“As expected of our little princess,” Chi Wuyao praised from the bottom of her heart. It wasn’t perfect, but the fact that Yun Wuxin managed to regain control of herself in just an hour was very impressive. At this rate, this level of spiritual pressure would be like air to her in half a year at most.
It would be a great advantage when she faced off against powerful enemies in the future.
After all, her enemy’s starting point would just be a king realm at best, but hers would be Emperor Yun City. It would be a gap as great as heaven and earth themselves.
1. (T/N: I know we call it a bedroom, but it’s really more like bed-residence or even bed-palace. Shit really is that big.)
2. (T/N: I’m so fucking disappointed this Chinese character isn’t Cicada. Dream Cicada would’ve sounded way better).
