“How could that be? I missed you so much.”
Song Zang had prepared long ago. He coaxed Yin Chen softly with practiced ease, bent one knee, and lightly rubbed it against the thigh Yin Chen had planted beside the couch.
The delicate gold chain around his slender ankle gave a series of tiny chimes as it shifted.
“Look. You gave this to me a long time ago, and I’ve worn it ever since. You locked me down. I’m yours.”
Expressionless, Yin Chen closed his hand around Song Zang’s ankle. His warm fingertips rubbed the delicate skin for a moment before he suddenly dragged Song Zang into his arms and sneered. “How much did you drink?”
Song Zang immediately looked as though he might cry. Leaning weakly against him, he complained helplessly, “He bullied me. Why are you scolding me too? He forced me to drink and even tried to dig out my heart with a sword. I’m scared. Hug me…”
Of course Yin Chen could not refuse a request for a hug, even while he was in a bad mood.
He pressed his lips together, bought an extra-large cooling patch, and stuck it across the place where the sword had torn Song Zang’s clothes, perfectly covering the damaged area.
Warm Song Zang felt especially pleasant to touch. Holding him was different from usual.
But whenever Yin Chen remembered that Song Zang was this hot because he had drunk wine given to him by another man… some indescribable irritation surged inside him.
Even though Song Zang had only been greedily farming the wine’s Life bonus, Yin Chen’s thoughts still kept wandering somewhere they absolutely should not.
Song Zang, meanwhile, really was somewhat drunk.
Truly.
When people became excited, they naturally leaned more toward doing whatever they liked most.
Song Zang had not originally intended to drag matters out until Xu Ming tried to dig out his heart, but he genuinely enjoyed baiting people into incriminating themselves.
He also liked imagining things that did not exist.
For example, possessing a piece of land that belonged rightfully and exclusively to him. Ideally, he would buy several entire mountains at once, surround them as a heavily secured forbidden zone, cut off satellite signals, and guarantee absolute privacy.
Then he could build a beautiful open-air observatory at home too, lie beneath the night sky holding Yin Chen, and no one would be able to see what they were doing.
How exciting.
The more he thought about it, the more Song Zang laughed inside Yin Chen’s arms.
“…What are you laughing at?” Yin Chen completely failed to understand him and could not resist speaking sourly. “Still thinking about Xu Ming? Can’t bear to leave him?”
“Who said that? I’m thinking about weird things.”
Song Zang’s smile deepened. His bright eyes shimmered with moisture. He raised his head and kissed beside Yin Chen’s ear, then lowered his voice and blurted several whispered sentences without thinking.
Every sentence was shamelessly explicit.
Normally, Song Zang was an introverted, easily embarrassed good child. Even in bed, he had never said anything too outrageous.
At most, he praised Yin Chen’s beautiful body until Yin Chen flushed from head to toe… He would never dare talk wildly like this.
But rarity increased value.
Yin Chen reacted strongly. His whole body went stiff. The tips of his ears quietly heated, and for a long while he could not think of any response.
Even the leg pressed against Song Zang’s side became rigid as a plank.
Song Zang was still drunkenly acting spoiled. Wine-warm lips repeatedly kissed Yin Chen’s neck. “Baby~ I want to do so many things to you. I want a home with you~”
Yin Chen almost forgot how to breathe.
He was not sure whether Song Zang would still say those things after sobering up.
He rubbed Song Zang’s hair hard until the carefully arranged hairstyle became a complete mess, then forced himself to return to serious business.
“The Northern Pacification Army has already begun attacking the city. We need to meet Ning Ran. Sober up. I’m going to dismember this disgusting stitched monster first.”
“How could you do that?”
At precisely that moment, the headless corpse lying on the floor abruptly spoke in protest.
Yin Chen did not look especially surprised. He smoothly pulled the startled Song Zang behind him and thoughtfully studied the corpse.
Despite lacking a head, Xu Ming swayed upright by himself.
His cold-white neck, drained by blood loss, looked especially eerie and sickly beneath the brilliant fireworks.
He raised one elegant hand, long fingers soaked in blood as they grabbed his snow-white Daoist robes and tore them open.
The clothing ripped apart, exposing an equally pale chest.
Just as Song Zang thought he was about to act indecently again, a human face struggled painfully out from the center of Xu Ming’s chest.
The slightly raised parasitic skin abruptly came alive. Its features were equally peerlessly handsome, and even more disturbingly… looked even more like Yin Chen than the face on Xu Ming’s severed head.
The red lips on that chest-face moved. Xu Ming’s rib cage vibrated, producing a possessive, low-pitched coaxing voice. “Song Zang, now I look even more like him. I can do better. What other kind of face do you like? I have all of them. Look at me.”
Song Zang: …
He went silent because laughing aloud under these circumstances seemed somewhat impolite.
Yin Chen fell silent too. Suddenly, he felt that all his jealousy tonight had been completely pointless.
Long before they officially became a couple, months earlier during the Aberrant instance, Song Zang had emphasized the same thing many times.
Song Zang had never cared for counterfeits.
He had not even spared a glance for a perfectly replicated “Yin Chen.” How could Song Zang possibly become interested in this lunatic?
How ridiculous. To imitate him, this man had actually cultivated new faces inside his own body.
Not only that, Xu Ming dared use a face grown on his chest to flirt passionately with Song Zang.
Yin Chen studied Xu Ming carefully and suddenly noticed something strange about the texture of that skin.
Judging by his experience, it had definitely been cut from the delicate flesh of a human buttock.
Whether it came from Xu Ming’s own ass was now impossible to say.
Utterly bizarre. Lunatic. Copycat…
Perhaps even the lunatic part had been deliberately copied from Yin Chen. Yin Chen sneered inwardly. Then he remembered what Song Zang had whispered into his ear earlier, and enormous confidence naturally surged inside him.
As long as Yin Chen did not die, no person, ghost, god, or demon in this world would ever have the chance to take his place.
No one had the ability to steal Song Zang from him.
Yin Chen’s mood improved at astonishing speed. He no longer wanted to bother with Xu Ming. He simply wrapped Song Zang tightly in his arms and curled his lips into a mocking smile.
Song Zang loved hugs that almost squeezed the breath out of him. He immersed himself completely in Yin Chen’s closeness and became even less interested in Xu Ming.
The dark, twisted Xu Ming was provoked into even greater emotional instability.
He released a low, eerie laugh and slowly curled against the wall. The still-bleeding stump of his neck suddenly began healing miraculously. White bone compressed against writhing flesh and twitching muscle.
Before long, the smooth cross-section left by the blade grew an entirely new face.
This face was clearly unfinished. It was the third-generation “simulated Yin Chen” Xu Ming had carefully cultivated beneath his cervical spine.
Song Zang stared blankly at the severed neck for a long time, unable to hide his astonishment.
He did not understand. He genuinely did not understand. Finally, he could not resist demanding seriously, “Xu Ming, if you had put all the effort you spent studying these filthy heretical techniques into cultivating your character and studying the Dao, you could have become a revered Daoist master long ago.
“You’re clearly the Child of Destiny. You even said you should obtain everything you desire. Why do you despise orthodox paths so completely and insist on making these disgusting things?”
The writhing neck trembled and released a wet, bewildered chuckle.
Xu Ming stopped deliberately trying to seduce him and answered calmly, “No one ever taught me which road was the orthodox path. If I had not escaped death again and again, I would never have understood that those were trials the Child of Destiny was supposed to endure before rising to greatness.”
“…What trials?”
“Perhaps no one knows this, but my inheritance did not come from some ancient Daoist temple. Before I was old enough to understand anything, I was already being raised inside the palace.
“The previous emperor was cursed by an immortal and had difficulty producing heirs. He too became obsessed with seeking immortality and studying the Dao, so he kept many Daoist priests and child attendants inside the palace. Song Zang, I was one of the previous emperor’s Daoist child attendants.”
Xu Ming paused for a long time before adding, “I was the kind of child attendant who climbed into the dragon bed.”
So that was it.
Male-male desire was hardly unusual among the Lin Dynasty’s upper classes. Social ideas about protecting minors were extremely lax, and children received very little protection.
No one cared about a child’s psychological health. Even sending a child into a wealthy household as a “pageboy” was considered a coveted position that guaranteed food and clothing.
At last, Song Zang understood. No wonder Xu Ming’s personality had become so twisted. There was a root behind it.
“You are pitiful. A miserable past is absolutely no excuse for disregarding human life, and you still deserve to die. But I will admit this much: you are pitiful.” That was the only answer he could give.
Hearing this, Xu Ming’s tense body abruptly relaxed. He slumped weakly against the wall, exposing the prettier face on his chest.
“Pity is also a form of attention… I am satisfied.”
Yin Chen possessed no such excess sympathy. “Stop worrying about him. He stayed in the palace and killed this many people for more than psychological perversion. He has other plans. I found something interesting inside Emperor Yongjia’s sleeping quarters.”
Song Zang’s attention immediately shifted. “What? What? Let me see!”
From his wide sleeve, Yin Chen pulled out a finely drawn map of the Lin Dynasty and slowly unfolded it.
He completely ignored Xu Ming and patiently explained while pointing at the map. “Cangmu Mountain in the south. Shifu Mountain in the north. Si Nü Mountain in the east. Duan Zi Mountain in the west. See it?”
“This is an enormous ancient immortal formation. The four mountains are almost exactly the same distance apart. They can connect perfectly into one square formation, with the formation eye at the center of the imperial palace.
“I still don’t know what treasure was originally used to suppress the formation, but it has definitely been removed. So theoretically, an immortal could use this formation’s unknown power at any moment and do something we cannot predict. We need to be careful from now on. Hurry and sober up.”
“Sober up?” Song Zang blinked and demanded softly, “Then kiss me first.”
“Fine.”
Yin Chen complied without hesitation and gently kissed his lips.
Song Zang curved his lips in satisfaction and praised him. “Such a good baby.”
Yin Chen froze and answered somewhat awkwardly, “I kissed you. You’re still drunk.”
“Who says?” Song Zang refused to admit it. “I’ve already started thinking calmly. These mountain names are all homophones, right?”
Hide the mother, kill the father, daughter dead, sons cut off… the entire family neatly wiped out.
Elio’s Notes: The four mountain names form grim sound-based wordplay in Chinese. Cangmu echoes “hide the mother,” while the other names evoke “kill the father,” “dead daughter,” and “cut off the sons,” turning the geography itself into a family-extinction curse.
“Completely deranged. Who came up with these names?” Song Zang shook his head and sighed.
Yin Chen did not know either, but Xu Ming did.
“Desperate famine victims with nowhere left to turn abandoned beloved family members under a strange, almost involuntary impulse so they could reduce their burden… and under that same strange impulse, they collectively gave those mountains their names.”
Xu Ming’s two mouths spoke at the same time, creating a subtle resonance between high and low voices.
And he deliberately stressed the words “strange impulse,” making its connection to immortal schemes unmistakable.
Yin Chen became thoughtful. “How did you learn secrets like these?”
Xu Ming laughed softly. “I was once deeply favored by the emperor, which gave me access to the orthodox cultivation methods kept inside the palace.
“Unfortunately, Daoist priests are all frauds. I tried practicing orthodox methods and suffered cultivation deviation several times because of it. Yet misfortune became fortune. By repeatedly approaching death, I gradually learned to see the underlying structure of this world and found cultivation methods that genuinely worked.”
Song Zang could not help sighing inwardly. Xu Ming truly fit the archetype of a dark, overpowered wish-fulfillment protagonist.
Every time he encountered a deadly calamity, his strength rose dramatically afterward. Unfortunately, by then the immortals had already blocked most roads of advancement available to the human world.
Every cultivation method Xu Ming managed to comprehend was sinister and heretical, but each one happened to exploit a loophole in the still-incomplete Severing of Heaven and Earth.
The world he had known had always revolved around the palace’s hidden cruelty and depravity. The methods of advancement he mastered were likewise paths that only became effective after he nearly died again and again trying the orthodox way.
As for the secret treasure said to allow ascension in broad daylight, Xu Ming voluntarily explained that he did not intend to touch it so soon.
The moment he came into contact with descendants of the founding meritorious officials, he would become a collateral target of the “sheepdogs” and be suppressed alongside them. Xu Ming had committed countless atrocities. Being watched closely by immortals was absolutely not desirable.
Song Zang became even more curious about the treasure. “The immortals are this wary of the secret treasure’s existence? Then using it must genuinely be an effective path to ascension.”
“Correct. The secret treasure was given to humanity by the Heavenly Dao, a reward for the Human Sovereign who drove away the Divine Lord and restored proper order,” Xu Ming answered.
“So what exactly is the secret treasure?”
“The only śarīra relic left behind after the founding emperor entered final repose. I threw it into the Cold Palace to suppress the yin energy. Extremely effective.”
Elio’s Notes: A śarīra is a sacred relic traditionally associated with the cremated remains of accomplished Buddhist practitioners, often described as bead-like. The novel deliberately applies the concept here to the founding emperor’s posthumous relic.
Yin Chen raised a brow. “You don’t dare touch the secret treasure, yet you dare imitate it. Your nerve really is impressive.”
“You can imitate something like that?” Song Zang asked in surprise.
The face twitching on Xu Ming’s chest slowly curved its lips.
Only then did Song Zang learn that some of the 【Human Jars】 Xu Ming created were not used for brewing liquor. He was attempting to “brew” śarīra relics from nothing. The flesh-body Buddha’s head, for example, had been one failed experimental product.
This horrifying and deranged experiment had genuinely produced surprisingly good results.
Although the 【Human-Jar Relics】 could not truly allow a person to ascend into immortality in broad daylight and completely open a road to Heaven… they could temporarily gouge out a small hole leading into the immortal realm.
The technology remained in its early stages. The relics could only open repeatedly into the same location within the immortal realm.
That place was Immortal Lord Zhen Yu’s wine-storage cave residence.
Ridiculously enough, the enormous stockpile of Jade Spring Wine inside the Lin imperial palace had all been stolen by Xu Ming while testing his experimental products.
He used immortal wine to curry favor with the imperial family and combined it with gu insects to manipulate palace servants. Every time he stole wine, he could also absorb some immortal-realm spiritual energy and strengthen himself.
“Genius. A peerless supergenius.” Song Zang could not hide his regret and sighed drunkenly. “If only you were on our side. Why insist on digging out my heart and modifying me into a monster too? That’s twisted love!”
“Stop regretting it. I can make him even more twisted,” Yin Chen said with a half-smile.
The instant he finished speaking, snow-white blade light flashed.
Before Song Zang even saw the movement clearly, Xu Ming had been chopped into hundreds of pieces, skin and bone scattering messily across the floor.
Yin Chen took out a handkerchief and slowly wiped the blood from the blade. Frowning, he said, “His body contains genetic material from more than thirty animals. Several demon cores resembling the Mountain Lord’s are embedded in both kidneys, along with eggs from juvenile Myriad Flowers Gu.
“Lunatic. He turned his own body into a culture dish.”
Song Zang froze. A clear chill of revulsion surged through him again, finally sobering him somewhat.
Fortunately, Yin Chen had acted quickly. Without hesitation, he destroyed every filthy piece of visible tissue, leaving only a small cluster of gu eggs, which he interestedly stored inside his inventory.
The two sheets of skin resembling Yin Chen were thin as cicada wings and faintly translucent, hanging from the now-clean point of the snow-white blade.
Then the strangest thing of all happened. Xu Ming still had not died. His low laughter emerged simultaneously from the mouths on both detached pieces of facial skin.
Song Zang and Yin Chen exchanged a look. Both understood what this meant.
Xu Ming was the kind of cockroach villain who simply could not be killed. He always had some method of resurrecting again.
For now, they could only carry the facial skins with them. They still had serious business to handle.
＊
Meanwhile.
Yin Wu Xue was flying through the air on a sword. Fireworks filled the sky above her, while golden light surrounded her body and drew the curious eyes of everyone in the city.
Most of the capital’s residents had been startled awake by the astonishing scale of the fireworks. It was impossible to obey the Ghost Festival taboo of sleeping early, so they opened their windows and craned their heads outside to watch.
Besides, this was the legendary Daoist Wuxue who kicked the Jade Emperor and punched the King of Hell. With her personally guarding the imperial city, what ghost would dare act recklessly?
Yin Wu Xue was wildly excited and enthusiastically controlled the fireworks display.
Using faith power, she repeatedly arranged the flying bursts of gunpowder into enormous radiant lines of text.
【The Azure Heaven is dead! The Yellow Heaven shall rise!】
Elio’s Notes: This is the famous slogan associated with the Yellow Turban uprising at the end of the Eastern Han: the old Heaven has died, and a new order symbolized by “Yellow Heaven” should replace it. Yin Wu Xue is gleefully borrowing a classic rebellion slogan for the coup.
【Emperor Yongjia is brutal and without virtue! He murders his own children!】
【The Imperial Noble Consort practices witchcraft and gu, swapped the imperial children, and harmed the previous emperor’s sole posthumous son!】
Yin Wu Xue also repeatedly emphasized the tragic history of the mermaids being exploited and slaughtered.
The common people watched with delight. Those with more courage even erupted into cheers and applause.
After all… who did not enjoy watching the imperial family’s dirty secrets unfold in public?
While everyone focused on the spectacle, the capital’s garrison camps were thoroughly thrown into chaos.
The Northern Pacification Army’s elite cavalry required no explanation. They sealed the city gates early. The mermaid troops striking directly toward the imperial palace were even more formidable. Against the imperial guards and the palace’s living-corpse soldiers, they could slaughter freely.
Imperial relatives and nobles who attempted to flee the capital were captured one after another. In full view of the entire city, Yin Wu Xue hauled them into the air and conducted large-scale blood tests to establish their parentage.
The result was that these supposedly noble “imperial bloodlines” were barely related by blood at all. Even many nominal brothers shared no blood relation. The scene became extraordinarily awkward.
A royal ethics drama played across the sky. Ning Yan sat on the edge of a palace wall hugging the śarīra secret treasure and watched with tremendous interest.
He tugged Ning Ran and sighed. “Wasn’t this supposed to be a low-magic world? Yin Wu Xue is way too incredible. How did she manage to make herself this powerful?”
Ning Ran shook his head and analyzed calmly, “Power that comes with a time limit isn’t necessarily good. Once she leaves the instance, the difference will create a massive sense of loss and psychological shadow.
“Also, don’t forget that invisible force… immortals aren’t weak. They’re only stronger than she is. According to the original plan, Yin Wu Xue never needed to become such a conspicuous target. If we simply rebelled carefully and followed the plan step by step, we could have completed the mission smoothly.”
“That makes sense. She really is in danger now. Look at that face in the sky, appearing and disappearing. It’s creepy as hell… If the Divine Lord suddenly wakes up, he could swallow her alive in one bite.”
Indeed. Drawing too much attention was never a good thing.
Xu Ming watched Yin Wu Xue’s carefree figure and laughed just as eerily.
His two sheets of facial skin rubbed against each other in a stack. When they smiled, countless wrinkles formed, making the sight even more bizarre.
Perhaps Yin Chen and Song Zang’s relationship truly was unbreakable. Xu Ming seemed somewhat shattered and had stopped talking. He merely stared secretly at Song Zang’s swaying skirt, his dark, sticky gaze almost tangible.
Seeing that Xu Ming was still deliberately disgusting them, Yin Chen simply stored both pieces of skin, together with the long blade, inside his system inventory.
“Wait. You can store living things inside the system too? Why can’t you store me?” Song Zang asked in surprise.
Yin Chen curled his lips mysteriously. “For now, only I can. Relax. Let’s change into something respectable first. It’s time for me to become emperor.”
The Northern Pacification Army worked extremely efficiently. Officials and ministers living in the capital were also captured and brought into the palace, gathered inside the council hall.
When they saw Yin Chen, now wearing men’s clothing, emerge from behind the dragon throne, everyone sucked in a breath.
No one had imagined that the Eldest Princess treasured in Emperor Yongjia’s palm was actually a man. Looking carefully, Yin Chen’s face was practically carved from the same mold as the previous emperor in his youth.
None of them could understand how they had overlooked something this bizarre before. Then the dazed Imperial Noble Consort was dragged onto the raised platform by mermaid soldiers.
She personally confessed the entire sequence of events: swapping the children, using witchcraft and gu to steal fortune, and casting illusion magic to conceal the truth.
Yin Chen maintained an aloof expression and took the forged succession decree from beneath the plaque reading “A Bright Mirror Hangs High.”
The Lin Dynasty’s chancellor was pushed forward. He personally held the decree and inspected it carefully. Only after a long while, having confirmed that the writing matched Emperor Yongjia’s hand, did he cautiously return it to Yin Chen.
Then he lifted his robes and knelt.
“Long live His Majesty. Long live, long live the Emperor!”
Once the chancellor, the most powerful figure among the officials, lowered his head, the remaining confused and frightened ministers hurriedly knelt as well.
【Side Mission: Rebel, rebel, rebel! Overturn this damned Heaven! (100%)】
With a powerful army backing them, successfully rebelling had always been inevitable.
But only by emphasizing Yin Chen’s legitimate identity as the “previous emperor’s posthumous son” could they greatly reduce the risk of loyal ministers smashing their heads against pillars in suicide.
Yin Chen had specifically ordered tonight that these officials from every region of the realm be kept alive and not casually killed.
Because if they wanted to complete the main mission quickly, there was a strong chance they would need these people.
The abnormal elderly villagers probably did not come only from Cangmu Mountain.
Yin Chen brought out a map of the Lin Dynasty and had the Ning brothers hold it upright while the ministers came forward to inspect it.
“Anyone at least sixty years old whose hometown is one of these four mountains, step forward,” he said coolly.
The officials exchanged confused looks. Only three people hesitantly stepped out.
One was the current chancellor. He came from an impoverished farming family and had struggled through officialdom for decades, serving under two emperors before reaching his current position.
“You three, come with me. Everyone else may return home and sleep. We’ll discuss anything else tomorrow.”
Yin Chen dismissed the crowd and sent Yin Wu Xue a message at the same time, ordering her to finish up quickly and bring the Zhang family baby into the palace as well.
Then he looked at the officials who remained. “Which of you possesses a secret unknown to others, something concealed for years that carries a risk of sudden death if spoken aloud?”
The three ministers were terrified and repeatedly insisted they “would never dare,” shaking their heads.
Yin Chen was in no hurry. He slowly curved his lips. “All of you came from those four mountains. You must understand what I want to know.
“Telling me the secret only creates a risk that you may nearly die. Refuse, and your nine clans will certainly die.”
Song Zang did not participate in Yin Chen’s interrogation.
He voluntarily dressed as a pretty young eunuch and stood guard outside the hall with the Ning brothers, lowering his head to study the utterly ordinary-looking śarīra relic.
After the time it took one incense stick to burn, Ning Yan began muttering uneasily to him. “Something’s wrong. Yin Wu Xue can fly. Where is she? Why hasn’t she arrived yet?”
Song Zang froze, then felt the same suspicion.
He suddenly remembered the wording of the Side Mission and hurriedly asked with a pale face, “Do you think 【Overturn this damned Heaven】 might mean something else too?”
Ning Ran’s pupils contracted. He snapped his head up toward the sky. Several seconds later, his hand abruptly tightened around the hilt of his sword.
“…Fuck. The Heavenly Mirror really broke. Look carefully. Those points of light aren’t stars at all. They’re holes where light is leaking through! The moon is the biggest hole!”