Chen Yixin’s arms naturally went around Wenren Li’s neck. He slowly leaned closer and rubbed his cheek against Wenren Li’s. “Why is A-Li carrying me?” As he asked, a faint blush appeared on his face. Clearly, his thoughts had already wandered in a certain direction.
Wenren Li turned his head and could not resist kissing Chen Yixin on the cheek. “I’m taking A-Rong somewhere.”
“Oh.” Chen Yixin answered, unmistakable disappointment appearing in his eyes. He had thought Wenren Li intended to comfort him in some special way. What a waste of expectation.
Wenren Li did not disappoint him entirely. The foot he had been about to lift settled back down, and his lips moved from Chen Yixin’s cheek to the tip of his nose, then finally to his mouth. Wenren Li had never had the slightest objection to being intimate with Chen Yixin.
Wenren Li had noticed his disappointment and was now giving him a little consolation, so Chen Yixin naturally showed no coyness whatsoever. The arms around Wenren Li’s neck tightened as he eagerly returned the kiss while being carried in Wenren Li’s arms.
Only after they finished kissing did Chen Yixin remember that the irritating Jing Thirteen was still lying on the floor. He sent a message to Nan Ke through spiritual transmission, instructing them to “entertain” Jing Zhihua properly, then signaled for Wenren Li to continue carrying him.
Several breaths later, they arrived inside a completely dark space. Chen Yixin extended his spiritual sense in every direction, only to find an empty void with nothing in it. An inexplicable sense of dread tightened around his heart, and he held Wenren Li more closely.
“A-Li, where is this? Why did we come here?”
“The town is one of the Dao Grounds of the Fentian Nether Abode. We’re in the underground space beneath it.”
A Dao Ground was a place where the former master of the Fentian Nether Abode had once cultivated or comprehended the Dao. His aura had permeated the land itself, leaving an influence so deep that even the passage of countless years had been unable to erase it.
As Wenren Li spoke, he swept one hand forward. It was as though a gust of wind passed through the darkness, dispersing the illusion before them. There was no endless void at all. There was only a pool of blood. The sight of that blood gave Chen Yixin an extremely unpleasant feeling. He struggled lightly, and Wenren Li immediately set him down.
Chen Yixin hesitated before taking two steps forward to sense it more carefully. A moment later, he retreated again until he was safely back inside Wenren Li’s arms, and only then did he settle slightly. Wenren Li had not brought Chen Yixin here merely because he wanted to be intimate with him. He had anticipated exactly this reaction—that Chen Yixin would instinctively become afraid of this place.
“This is… divine blood. It feels incredibly familiar… My blood.”
The sensation was so powerful that Chen Yixin could immediately be certain of it. Before the Fentian Nether Abode fell from the Upper Realm, there must have been a battle of unimaginable scale. The aura radiating from this entire pool of divine blood was enough to make anyone’s heart tremble.
Yet that was not the only thing making Chen Yixin uncomfortable. He could also feel, as though it were his own, a resolve so absolute that it bordered on despair—a fierce determination to shatter like jade rather than survive intact as common clay.
Wenren Li had not brought Chen Yixin here simply to make him experience such emotions. He gathered Chen Yixin into his arms and explained, “That year, I happened to pass through this town while badly wounded. The land here made me feel comfortable, so I stayed. Only later did I discover this place.”
“I may have been born a Demonborn, but this pool of divine blood never harmed me in the slightest. It even protected me while I recovered here. A-Rong has never hurt me, and A-Rong never will.” This was the divine blood of Chen Yixin’s previous life, blood that had remembered the will of the person it once belonged to.
Chen Yixin’s jade pendant made Wenren Li uncomfortable, but the discomfort had never gone beyond sensation. The pendant had not actually harmed him at all. Otherwise, Chen Yixin could never have gone until now without noticing.
The first time Wenren Li came here, he had cried. At the time, he had not understood why. He could not even comprehend the sudden grief that overwhelmed him and had assumed it came from the lingering aura of the blood’s former master. But looking back now, that explanation had been wrong.
He had not merely been affected by someone else’s emotions. He himself had been grieving for the owner of this divine blood.
“Mm.” Chen Yixin answered. He turned around and walked another two steps closer, then crouched by the blood pool and lowered his hand into it. He simply left it there in silence. By now, he had begun accepting this so-called identity of a “divine scion.”
The feeling this pool of blood gave him was even more convincing than what he had discovered through Jing Zhihua.
“There’s something else I haven’t told you.” Wenren Li did not approach. He knew Chen Yixin’s emotions must be extremely complicated right now. Chen Yixin undoubtedly wanted answers to countless questions, yet probably had no idea where to begin searching for them.
“Zhou Yan carries a Servant Imprint of the Fentian Nether Abode within his divine soul, but he has suppressed it through a secret method and is no longer under your control.”
Other than Wenren Li, Zhou Yan was probably the only person who knew with certainty that Chen Yixin was the true divine scion. Yet Zhou Yan had still attempted to completely annihilate Chen Yixin’s divine soul. Put simply, he wanted Chen Yixin dead. He was a servant who had betrayed his master.
He did not merely want to free himself from the Servant Imprint; he also wanted to seize the inheritance that belonged to Chen Yixin. The Inheritance Crystal that had been dug out of him that day was probably part of the bargain he had struck with Jing Zhihua. What Zhou Yan had failed to anticipate was Wenren Li’s existence—that Wenren Li would restore Chen Yixin so quickly and bring him back to the Fentian Nether Abode as well.
Wenren Li even suspected that Zhou Yan’s betrayal had not begun in this lifetime. It was entirely possible that he had already betrayed Chen Yixin while they were still in the Upper Realm.
Wenren Li could overwhelm nearly all of Taixuan’s Soul Transformation great cultivators, but Zhou Yan came from the Upper Realm. Wenren Li had no idea what hidden cards he might possess, nor whether he had other accomplices from the Upper Realm who also intended to harm Chen Yixin.
“In a study of the Fentian Nether Abode that has already been completely destroyed, I found several ancient slips recording scattered bits of information. Some of them mentioned the secret method connected to the Servant Imprint.”
Wenren Li transmitted everything the slips contained about the Servant Imprint directly into Chen Yixin’s mind. There would have been no point giving Chen Yixin the slips themselves; he could not read the writing on them anyway.
“Ahhh… You mustn’t, you mustn’t! How can Master use divine blood to nourish our souls…?”
Just as Wenren Li was about to continue, the Abode Spirit poked its head out from the ring on Chen Yixin’s thumb, which was still submerged in the blood pool. It looked utterly horrified. Yet the moment it realized what was happening, it tried to duck back inside. Before it could escape, Wenren Li dragged it out and sealed off its retreat with a restriction.
“Since you’re awake, don’t even think about hiding.”
Wenren Li wasted no time. He briefly explained what Chen Yixin had experienced in the Yuding Sect, then mentioned the Servant Imprint within Zhou Yan’s soul.
“Hiding things from A-Rong does him no good. Tell us about the Upper Realm.”
The Abode Spirit stared blankly. Apparently it had never imagined that Chen Yixin and Wenren Li would encounter someone from the Upper Realm this soon, much less someone intent on harming them. It had kept silent because it did not want to disturb Chen Yixin’s state of mind and interfere with his cultivation, but given the current situation, Wenren Li was right. Continuing to hide the truth would merely give those “traitors” more opportunities to act.
The Abode Spirit floated above the pool of blood. Before saying anything, it solemnly kowtowed to Chen Yixin and Wenren Li. “This Abode Spirit, Fentian, pays respects to Lord Yi and Lord Li.”
Cultivation in the Upper Realm was likewise divided into numerous levels. After a cultivator completed Great Ascension, ascended, and passed through the Immortal Transformation Pool, the subsequent realms were Ascendant Immortal, Earth Immortal, High Immortal, Celestial Immortal, followed by Immortal Lord and finally Immortal Emperor. Each realm was further divided into nine ranks, and the difference in power between individual ranks could be vast.
The fact that the Abode Spirit addressed them with the honorific “Lord” was enough to reveal the level Chen Yixin and Wenren Li had once reached: each had ruled over a domain of his own and received the homage of countless immortals.
“Master truly is a divine scion from the Upper Realm, but you are not the child of a human Immortal Lord. You are the youngest son of a Sovereign of the Ancient Phoenix Divine Clan, and you were born already a first-rank Immortal Lord.” At the time Chen Yixin fell, it was said that he had lacked only one final step before becoming the third Sovereign of the Ancient Phoenix Divine Clan to exist in the same era.
“This old servant knows very little about how Master and Lord Li first met. I only heard Palace Lord Yinzi mention it once or twice.” The Palace Lord Yinzi mentioned by the Abode Spirit was naturally Yinzi. Chen Yixin had been an Immortal Lord in the Upper Realm, so there was nothing strange about his adopted son being addressed as a Palace Lord.
“What did he say?” Chen Yixin walked back from the edge of the pool and stood shoulder to shoulder with Wenren Li. Looking at the Abode Spirit’s awkward expression, he immediately pressed for an answer.
“Palace Lord Yinzi said that Lord Li was the tree you raised yourself, so naturally you had every right to sleep with him.”
Phoenixes had roosted in wutong trees since ancient times. Unfortunately, the youngest son of this generation of the Ancient Phoenix Divine Clan had possessed a rather peculiar temperament. He had no interest in wutong trees that had lived for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. He only wanted to sleep with the tree he had raised himself—and apparently liked sleeping with that tree so much that he intended to make it his Dao companion.
“The Fentian Nether Abode was a coming-of-age gift given to Master by the Phoenix Empress. This old servant only knows what happened from that point onward.” As the Abode Spirit spoke, a trace of melancholy entered its expression. It lifted its eyes toward the two of them. Certain things it had never understood back then suddenly seemed a little clearer now.
“How long did A-Li and I live in the Fentian Nether Abode?” Chen Yixin asked. If it had not been too long, the Abode Spirit could tell him everything in detail. If it had been an enormous span of time, then it could simply focus on what mattered.
“About a hundred thousand years.” The Abode Spirit bowed respectfully as it answered.
Chen Yixin froze. His present life had simply been too short. Even a thousand or ten thousand years was beyond anything he could truly imagine, much less a hundred thousand years or several hundred thousand…
“Then just tell me how A-Li and I ended up like this, and how the Fentian Nether Abode fell from the Upper Realm into Taixuan.”
“Yes.” The Abode Spirit nodded, but instead of speaking, it used the blood pool to project a series of images before them.
During the hundred thousand years they had lived in the Fentian Nether Abode, aside from their ordinary cultivation, Chen Yixin and Wenren Li had spent most of their time traveling outside in search of treasures. Chen Yixin wanted to turn the Fentian Nether Abode into the home they would share after marriage. At the same time, he had to work on his father, mother, brothers, and sisters. At the very least, he needed his family to accept Wenren Li before the two of them could hold their formal bonding ceremony.
Sometimes Chen Yixin returned with his eyes curved happily in a smile; other times he came back carrying a bellyful of anger. Yet after wearing his family down for a full hundred thousand years, the relatives he cared about finally accepted the fact that their son intended to marry a tree—a male tree that could flower but could never bear fruit.
Whatever the Sovereign, the Phoenix Empress, and the other Immortal Lords privately thought of the matter, they had already agreed to Chen Yixin’s marriage. Invitations to the bonding ceremony were therefore sent to the residences of Immortal Lords and Sovereigns throughout the Upper Realm.
On an auspicious date jointly selected by the Phoenix Empress and the Siming, Chen Yixin and Wenren Li finally arrived at their bonding ceremony dressed in red. Everything proceeded smoothly until the moment they swore their vows before the Heavenly Dao. Divine lightning suddenly descended from the heavens. Their vows had been rejected by the Heavenly Dao.
“How could this happen?”
Ordinarily, when the descendants of an ancient divine clan married and completed their vows, auspicious signs descended from Heaven. Many Ascendant Immortals and Celestial Immortals had come precisely because they wanted to witness such a spectacle with their own eyes. Yet no auspicious signs appeared. Instead, divine lightning had descended in warning.
Chen Yixin was a native-born member of the Ancient Phoenix Divine Clan, so there could be no question about his identity. That meant the person whom the Heavenly Dao was warning against had to be the other party to the marriage bond: Wenren Li.
“Jiu’er, you’ve seen it yourself. Even the Heavenly Dao refuses to recognize this union. Your marriage bond is invalid. This marriage ends here.”
As the surrounding guests broke into discussion, Sovereign Feng Yuan of the Ancient Phoenix Divine Clan finally spoke. From the very beginning, Chen Yixin’s family had never particularly approved of him being together with a tree immortal who had no background whatsoever.
“Wait!” Chen Yixin shoved the red embroidered wedding ball connecting him and Wenren Li into Wenren Li’s arms, then stepped forward and blocked Sovereign Feng Yuan and the Phoenix Empress from leaving. “If the Heavenly Dao refuses to acknowledge us, then I don’t need its acknowledgment. I acknowledge it, A-Li acknowledges it, and all of you acknowledge it. That is enough to make this marriage bond valid. From this day forward, A-Li is the Dao companion of Lord Yi of Fentian!”
While Chen Yixin confronted the Sovereign and Phoenix Empress, a beam of divine light suddenly descended from the sky and landed upon Wenren Li. He gave a muffled groan, and the aura within him that belonged to neither the immortal race nor the divine clans could no longer be concealed.
“A demon… A Heavenly Demon! An abomination! When did something like this infiltrate the territory of the immortals?”
“Sovereign Feng Yuan, you cannot continue indulging this son of yours!”
The Upper Realm was controlled by the human and divine races, while the demon race had already withdrawn into the barren Demon Realm during the previous era. There had been no major conflict between them in the current era, but there were always people eager to invent conspiracies. They immediately insisted that Wenren Li had been sent as a spy from the Demon Realm and intended to help the demons invade the Immortal and Divine Domains once more.
Voices buzzed everywhere around them, all condemning Wenren Li and Chen Yixin. Under the eyes of so many people, even if Sovereign Feng Yuan and the Phoenix Empress wanted to favor Chen Yixin, they could not do so too openly. At the same time, their dislike of Wenren Li—the one they saw as the cause of the entire crisis—only deepened.
Chen Yixin stopped arguing with anyone. He returned to Wenren Li’s side, and divine radiance surged from his body, immediately preventing the divine light that was hurting Wenren Li from affecting him any further.
Chen Yixin took Wenren Li’s hand, his gaze darkening slightly. “A-Li, I suppose I was the one who became too attached to making everything official. I kept wanting to give you something, and instead I invited all these irritating flies here to ruin the occasion.”
Every person there was either a Sovereign or an Immortal Lord, and even the lesser guests were seventh- or eighth-rank Celestial Immortals. Naturally, every one of them heard Chen Yixin clearly. Faces flushed with anger throughout the crowd. If the Ancient Phoenix Divine Clan had not always been so powerful—and if Chen Yixin’s father, mother, and brothers had not all been present—quite a few of them would probably have stepped forward and taught him a lesson themselves.
“The wedding is over. Everyone can leave!” Chen Yixin tightened his grip on Wenren Li’s hand and pulled him toward the inner residence. “We’ll go straight to the bridal chamber.” Whether or not the Heavenly Dao acknowledged their wedding, Chen Yixin himself did, and that was enough for him.
They had not managed two steps before two Immortal Lords moved in front of them and blocked the way, their faces filled with righteous indignation. “Lord Yi, stop behaving so recklessly. An abomination like this must be eliminated. Otherwise, when he brings calamity upon Xuanhuang in the future, it will already be too late.”
“Eliminated?” Every trace of warmth vanished from Chen Yixin’s face. Ordinarily, no matter how angry he became, he was accustomed to wearing a smile. This time, however, they had truly pushed him beyond endurance. A joyous wedding had somehow transformed into a grand gathering where everyone demanded the extermination of the person he loved. How could Chen Yixin possibly tolerate that?
“I found A-Li. I raised him myself, little by little. If he is a demon, then I am the one who raised that demon. How could I possibly have nothing to do with it? If you mean to eliminate him, then eliminate me along with him!”
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