Countless vines tangled around the ancient trees.

    Qing Lin stood inside the main hall of Wan Ling Palace, wearing a dark green robe. She had her hands behind her back, whilst she looked down at the Pure Flame Pearl upon the spiritual platform.

    The remnants of the rose-tinted clouds at sunset pooled together, the outside world cast in a thick and gloomy dark cloud.

    The news of Lie Zhen’s return to Heaven and Earth had already spread across the realms. Soon, people who are willing to come will come to express their condolences and see him off. And this pure flame pearl will also be put into the Four Divisions Pill Furnace again to produce a new divine beast seed.

    The way of inheritance of the Demon Realm was different from that of other realms. If they breed with any other race, they will not be able to produce any great divine beasts as offspring. After death, the spiritual pearl from the beasts would be put back into the four divisions pill furnace. Only then will a new Zhenjun gradually be born to rule again.

    It is precisely because of this that there would always be only two Zhenjuns in the Demon Realm that would appear at the same time. It was also unknown who would be the next to arise from the Four Divisions Pill Furnace, whether it is the White Tiger, the Black Tortoise, or a new Vermilion Bird.

    Outside the main hall, there was the sound of light rain, accompanied by the soft sound of rain falling through the forest leaves, and the soft sound of raindrops falling onto the surface of the umbrella.

    Wan Ling Palace was suspected in mid-air by countless ancient trees and vines, hanging more than ten feet high1.

    Qing Lin turned around as if she had noticed something, and with a sweep of her divine sense, she immediately discovered the carriage pulled by the war horse of the Devil Realm stationed under the ancient trees. She knitted her brows, then slowly relaxed them as she took a few steps out, and leapt down from the entrance of the Wan Ling Palace.

    She saw her old friend.

    The umbrella was ordinary, with a blue-green marble pattern painted upon it. The wooden umbrella handle was held tightly by a long and slender hand. A head of snow white hair was held up by a plain jade hairpin, with a plush cloak draped over his shoulders, completely enveloping his thin and slender figure.

    It was the first time Qing Lin had seen him after that incident.

    She stretched out her hand to take Jiang Zheliu’s hand, and took the umbrella handle from him. She held the umbrella higher, blocking him, and whispered, “What brings you here?”

    “It seems that the others are not moving fast enough.” Jiang Zheliu said, “Or maybe, they don’t dare to come to the Wan Ling Palace to offer their condolences.”

    Qing Lin did not answer the latter part of his sentence, but instead said, “…… Dan Xin Monastery is not far from the Devil Realm, but you come over like this, don’t you think it is dangerous.”

    “I was about to tell you.” Jiang Zheliu glanced at the bracelet on his wrist, “Don’t touch me, you’ll get hurt.”

    Qing Lin followed his gaze and examined the bracelet covered with the devil’s script and said, “Lie Zhen has already told me about this, I know.”

    Qinglong Zhenjun was much more calm and mature than that Vermilion Bird, but since the height of the divine beasts who come out of the Four Divisions Pill Furnace were all fixed, even though she was a female cultivator, her height was the same as Lie Zhen’s, so she was also slightly taller than Jiang Zheliu.

    She had black hair and blue-green eyes, her eyes were of a dark blue color. Below her eyelids, there were fine dragon scales that had evidently revealed themselves, glistening and following the shape of her eyes. Due to the influence of the Azure Dragon’s body, her body temperature was normal, even a little lower than normal, like the temperature of lake water at room temperature.

    “His spiritual form has already been transformed back into the Pure Flame Pearl.” Qinglin said, “You …… don’t need to be too upset.”

    Jiang Zheliu laughed a little and said, “Do I look upset?”

    “No.” Qing Lin lowered her head and leaned a few inches closer, and her dark blue eyes met a pair of lightless, pitch-black pupils, “You’ve always known how to trick people.”

    After saying that, she suddenly paused, as if she felt something inconceivable, she inclined her head and moved closer again, inhaled deeply, and just when she almost touched Jiang Zheliu’s shoulder, she quickly paused again.

    “You ……” Qing Lin turned her head away, nearly subconsciously retreating half a step away, but she still held the umbrella for Zheliu, so she did not move, “You are too …… you need to give us divine beasts a way out, now all I can think about is picking you up2 and taking you back to the nest, and then hiding you away.”

    “Pick me up then.” Jiang Zheliu glanced at the Wan Ling Palace, “I can’t get up there by myself.”

    Qing Lin turned her head to look at the carriage not far away, she could feel that there seemed to be two small demons inside, one of them was not a pure-blooded demon, but both were too weak to be worth caring about.

    She was halfway through her sentence when she suddenly realised something.

    The two of them subconsciously seemed to realise that the only way to kill Lie Zhen on a one-on-one battle was Wenren Ye, but they didn’t count the Lord of the Netherworld at the bottom of the River of the Dead, because the latter had been silent for so long and he was unable to get out of the river at all.

    But just because he was unable to move his body did not mean that he had no way of killing someone.

    “The Pure Flame Pearl smells like the water from the River of the Dead.”

    Jiang Zheliu returned the Pure Flame Pearl, and said: “When I rescued Yujie, I had been in close contact with the water of the River of the Dead, and there was a smell of… decay.”

    Qing Lin looked at him without blinking, feeling that her throat was suddenly dry at that moment, she didn’t know what to say.

    He Sorshi’s body was unfathomable, but it was limited by the river, trapped in the Netherworld forever. However, there were countless evil spirits under his command, and their combat power was second only to the militant Devil Realm.

    “I’ll take you down.” She turned her head, got close to Jiang Zheliu and took a breath, and suddenly said in a low voice, “Could you tell me why him?”

    Qing Lin’s body had a smell similar to the rain, which was an extremely fresh scent.

    “I know you are disappointed in us.” She said, “But, is there any chance? Or ….”

    “My good friend.” Jiang Zheliu interrupted her, his eyes were calm, “The rain is about to get heavier.”

    Qing Lin stopped talking.

    Everything seemed fruitless, no ending, no answer.

    She unfolded the paper umbrella, took Jiang Zheliu down from Wan Ling Palace, and helped him back onto the carriage. But instead of returning the umbrella to him, she watched the carriage leave, shaking off the raindrops on the umbrella once again.

    Jiang Zheliu was still the same Jiang Zheliu, as if he would never change.

    What had changed was the world.

    He was still a good person, but… he didn’t belong to her.

    The rain continued to fall.

    It took a while for the carriage to leave the Demon Realm. Even if the straight-line distance between Dan Xin Monastery and Wan Ling Palace was very close, this did not take into account that it was still two separate realms. It would take about two days to completely leave the Devil Realm, but it was also a bonus to have the devil war horse.

    Jiang Zheliu had no cultivation, nor did he have much investigation skills. But he knew that this had nothing to do with the Little Devil Lord, and it was something to be celebrated to have prevented the Devil Realm and the Demon Realm from clashing over this incident.

    And this was indeed Lie Zhen’s last journey.

    But he was clearly the white-haired person here, so why did he have to send people off first?

    As soon as Jiang Zheliu got into the carriage, Ah-Chu replaced his slightly wet soft velvet cloak and put another light blue robe on him. Jiang Zheliu covered his lips and coughed a few times. He felt that he had been thinking too much lately. He had a headache mixed in with the other pain in his body. He drank his medicine very slowly, his old wounds began to flare up again, it was so painful, he found it hard to bear. He was weak like porcelain that was riddled with cracks.

    But the medicine still worked, and coupled with the effect of the resurrection stone, although he looked a little worse these past two day, he felt much better than when he had first arrived in Zhongnan Mountain back then.

    Jiang Zheliu took the warm tea from Ah-Chu, and listened to the little deer’s complaints and nagging. Just when he was about to say something, he realized that the carriage had stopped again.

    He looked up and saw Chang Qian enter the carriage, with a confused expression on his face: “Gege….. We seem to be lost…”

    Jiang Zheliu took a deep breath, closed his eyes and said, “…River of the Dead.”

    The surrounding scenery changed rapidly, like some sort of teleportation technique arranged in advance. This space seemed to be temporarily cut out, and grafted upon the actual road, and then directly changing into another exit road.

    Jiang Zheliu fiddled with his robes and then raised the curtain of the carriage.

    The surrounding area was no longer surrounded by lush ancient trees and vines of the Demon Realm, and there was no trace of spiritual energy. The sky was dark, and something above seemed to be blocking all the light, only the ground was faintly blue, glistening softly.

    There was a transparent boundary all around them, the evil spirits and ghosts that roamed at the bottom of the River of the Dead were hanging around outside of this boundary, leaning over with a face that looked quite cruel at first glance.

    Jiang Zheliu heard the familiar sound of footsteps.

    He turned around and saw the reflected cold light from the ice scabbard of Ling Xiao sword coming from a gloomy shadow.

    Zhu Wuxin was standing opposite him.

    He had never seen such a look on Wuxin’s face, it was hard to describe, if he had to describe it, it was like Zhu Wuxin had gone to great lengths to retrieve a toy that had been broken, regardless of the sacrifice, only to find that the toy had become a treasure in someone else’s palm, altered, carefully mended, and turned into something he was not qualified to touch.

    Jiang Zheliu looked at him calmly.

    His eyes were dark and dull, impenetrable to the light, they had always been like this. It carried with it an indistinguishable chill which seemed to twist and turn in whisps.

    Until Zhu Wuxin said in a subtle tone: “Shixiong.”

    “En.”

    Jiang Zheliu acknowledged quietly and then said: “You have some sort of deal with He Sorshi?”

    “Yes.” Zhu Wuxin lowered his head, slowly gripping the Ling Xiao sword in his hand, “I don’t want anything, I only want you.”

    “What does he want?”

    “He wants to escape.” Zhu Wuxin said, “He doesn’t want to be trapped underneath the River of the Dead any longer.”

    Jiang Zheliu approached him step by step, there was no sign of any fluctuations in his voice, not even the slightest sign of anger.

    “For what cost? What method did you use.”

    “The method of ghostly possession.” Zhu Wuxin could see him this time and unexpectedly had the thought of backing up, but he didn’t. Instead, he stood in place, “Ghost Lord He made a mark on my soul.”

    He spread out his hand slowly, and there was a dark mark upon it, which was a very complicated ghost cultivation symbol.

    This could not be described as capricious, it was simply insane. Jiang Zheliu even felt that Zhu Wuxin had been poisoned, by some kind of gu insect, curse, poison, or his soul was being controlled… Even if it was for the good of the Cultivation World, or for Ling Xiao Sect, anyone who still had a sense of rationality, would not do something like this.

    Jiang Zheliu let out a deep breath, his voice was hoarse: “Do you know what you are doing right now?”

    “I do.”

    Zhu Wuxin raised his eyes to look at him.

    “Shixiong, I don’t want anything else, I just want you, you –”

    After the loud sound of his voice was heard, his voice stopped abruptly.

    Author Note:

    Shi Binghen: Come on xiongdi, let’s snatch the Devil Queen back!

    The great devils who’ve been beaten up by Wenren Ye for the last few days: ……..

    Translator Note:

    Oh…. Zhu Wuxin…. What have you done!?