Just from the characters on screen, it was as if Ye Zichen could sense the Queen Mother’s loneliness.
For someone like her, who’d always liked her peace and quiet, to openly admit to loneliness, said something. It seemed the current Heavenly Court and Underworld were barren indeed.
Old familiar faces had left. Both factions had lost their former vibrance, and they were unlikely to recover it.
The Heavenly Palace and its surroundings were like a ghost town. Less than half the fairies remained, and over seventy percent of former ranked immortals had gone.
The immortal residences atop the twelve heavens were practically uninhabited.
Could a place like this really call itself the Heavenly Palace? Suddenly, the Queen Mother laughed bitterly, shook her head and left the group. She looked up at the Heavenly Court and its still dazzling rosy light. She couldn’t help but reminisce about when the Great Sage and the others were still around. Back then, the Heavenly Court was so lively, not even the dogs and chickens could live in peace.
“They’re gone. They’re all gone.” She sighed, shook her head, then flew off on a magic cloud.
Of course she was lonely! The Profound Lady of the Ninth Heaven, who’d been by her side all these years, had left too. Even if she searched the entire palace, she couldn’t find a single person she could open her heart to.
The Queen Mother’s anguish affected the others in the chat, too. The Immortality Peach Fairy lamented that her companions had all left her side, while the Kitchen God wondered aloud if the skills he’d spent his life accumulating were worth anything at all. The Barefoot Immortal gave testament to the decline of the Red Packet Server. It seemed the group chat was almost dead. His words were full of lamentation.
As he read the messages on screen, Ye Zichen couldn’t help but frown.
Given the concentration of spiritual power in the lower realms, their inhabitants shouldn’t have been able to progress so quickly. When he saw the group chat’s current state, even Ye Zichen couldn’t help but look mournful.
The immortals’ cultivations had increased explosively. This was, of course, a good thing, and Ye Zichen was naturally happy for them.
But this particular increase was just a bit too fishy, and moreover, it had severely and negatively influenced the Heavenly Court and Underworld’s regular operations. As a whole, this wasn’t good news at all.
“Great Sage.” After a few messages to comfort the remaining immortals, Ye Zichen put his cell phone on the table and looked at his friend. The Queen Mother herself had said she’d invited him down to investigate, so he naturally had more information about what was going on down there. “Did you discover anything while you were in the Lower Realms?”
“To tell the truth, I didn’t discover anything out of the ordinary.” The Great Sage sat upright and said, “When I went, the God of Thunder and Mother of Lightning were still there, but their auras gave off the impression that they were on the verge of ascending. The old officials and attendants are practically all gone. The ones responsible for keeping things in order are now their descendants.”
“What’s the concentration of spiritual power like down there, then?” asked Ye Zichen.
There were a few things that affected how fast your cultivation increased. One was your innate talent. Another was your enlightenment into the Dao of Heaven and Earth. But the concentration of spiritual power in the surrounding area was important too.
Of these, the last was by far the most important.
No matter how talented you were, even if you were a monstrous genius, if your surroundings lacked spiritual energy, you couldn’t possibly grow at such an explosive rate. Conversely, with sufficiently dense ambient spiritual energy, even a newborn could become an immortal.
Even a clever chef couldn’t cook without ingredients. The same logic applied here.
Without spiritual energy, it was useless, no matter how talented you were.
“It didn’t seem to have changed,” said the Great Sage after giving it a moment’s thought. “After the Leyline filters it, the spiritual power is just as pure as on the Divine Mountains, but it’s not more plentiful. They’re roughly on par. While I was down there, I paid a visit to Mount Huaguo, too. There weren’t many fewer monkeys there now than in the past, either.”
“Is that so?” Ye Zichen narrowed his eyes.
Mount Huaguo was in the Endless Beast Region. It shared the same spatial plane as the Heavenly Court, Underworld, and Immortal Region.
Logically speaking, the inhabitants of the Heavenly Court, Underworld, Immortal Region, and Mountain all absorbed the same ambient spiritual energy. And yet, the other factions had had countless immortals ascend, but Mount Huaguo hadn’t changed.
“Did their cultivations shoot up?” asked Ye Zichen.
“Not really, no.” The Great Sage glared. “I lost my temper at my commanders over that. Why are all the other factions getting stronger like crazy? Why are the kids at Mount Huaguo the only ones to stay the same?”
“This really is strange!” Ye Zichen stroked his jaw and looked at Yang Jian. “Yang Jian, go tell the Ocean Emperor about this. Actually, alert all the great emperors in the group chat, too. Ask if any of our old friends have ascended to the Divine Mountains or Yao Realm of late. Also, have Su Yiyun keep an eye on the God Realm’s Lower Lands. I’ll tell Wei Jie and the others in a bit; we’ll have our bases in the Lower Lands keep their eyes open.”
“Alright, I’ll go make arrangements now.” Yang Jian nodded and left the room.
The Great Sage then added, “Let me tell you, the situation is really awful in the Heavenly Court and the Underworld, but the Heavenly Court is comparatively well off since most of the old officials at least had heirs. I went to the Underworld, too, and all eighteen hells’ administrations have fallen into disarray. Those who remain have low cultivations, and they’re not strong enough to intimidate the ghosts on layers fifteen and below. The entire underworld is now filled with hateful cries and mournful wails.”
He frowned. “I even left behind some of my hair clones to help suppress them, but when the hairs lose their effect, everything will go back to the way it was.”
“Also, there’s been an influx of vengeful spirits these days, but the underworld has no judges. They can’t give the dead a fair trial or decide which layer of hell to put them in. The Underworld’s administration has become increasingly corrupt. I watched with my own eyes as ghost messengers accepted a gift of gold, then placed blatant, unrepentant villains in the reincarnation pool.”
Ye Zichen’s expression was grim. He’d never been involved with the Underworld’s administration, but based on what the Great Sage was saying, it seemed their problems really were even worse than the Heavenly Court’s.
They couldn’t suppress the vicious ghosts, their soldiers were corrupt, and their higher-ups had ascended.
“Aren’t Ksitigarbha and the Ghost kings around?” asked Ye Zichen.
“What Ghost Kings? When I was down there, the strongest people I saw were minor ghost kinds at the human immortal level, not even sky immortals yet. All the other higher-ups were gone. It’s the same in the Heavenly Court, but at least they still have the queen mother who’s capable of instilling some fear in the rank and file,” said the Great Sage. “But although she’s got the cultivation, she’s just one person. She’s in no position to govern the Underworld, too. Ye-zi, if things go on like this, both the underworld and the Heavenly Court will crumble.”
“I think I get it. At the end of the day, the problem is a lack of administrators!” Pu Jingwan, who’d been silent all this time, suddenly spoke up. This had nothing to do with her, but sometimes, outsiders saw clearer than insiders. At a time like this, she saw straight to the root of the problem.
Ye Zichen and the Great Sage looked at her, only to hear her say, “If that’s the problem, just send them some administrators! Won’t that fix everything? Why are you so worried about such a tiny little problem?”
