Chapter 1781: Last Year at This Door

Zhang Ruochen could not escape whatever he needed to face, after all.

Yueshen sent him out of the Celestial Court and unlocked the Qiankun Realm’s seal within his Sea of Qi.

He conjured a spiritual avatar and entered the Qiankun Realm, arriving at the Central Shengming Empire’s imperial burial grounds. Then, he appeared before a large tomb.

Before Zhang Ruochen left the Kunlun Realm, he had moved the imperial tombs and imperial ancestral halls into the Qiankun Realm.

Now, he was standing before a tombstone.

The words, “Tomb of the Empress” were engraved on the tombstone.

Eight hundred years ago, Emperor Ming had told him that his mother was buried in the Tomb of the Empress, and Zhang Ruochen had always believed those words.

Now, however, he needed to verify it himself.

Zhang Ruochen stood in place for a long time and took a deep breath before he released his spiritual power. It spread all across the tomb to explore it.

To do so was disrespectful to his late mother, but he needed to know the truth and did not want to be kept in the dark.

A moment later, Zhang Ruochen retracted his spiritual power as a bitter and mocking smile appeared on his face. He laughed. “Haha, it turns out that Chi Yao was not lying to me. It really is an empty tomb.”

Immediately after, Zhang Ruochen screamed in agony. “Father, why did you lie to me?! Who is my birth mother? Why have you deceived me? Hahaha!!”

Zhang Ruochen found it very difficult to accept the fact that the Blood Empress was his birth mother.

The Immortal Vampires were synonymous with evil, destruction, and slaughter. They drank the blood of living beings to enhance their cultivation and constantly pillaged. Their greed was insatiable.

This race simply destroyed one civilization after another.

Once they destroyed all civilizations, they would eventually die off themselves.

Zhang Ruochen was repulsed by the vampires, and he hated them. But now… an Immortal Vampire was probably his mother. What kind of joke was this?

At some point, Yueshen had also entered the Qiankun Realm, and she appeared beside Zhang Ruochen. Her beautiful star-like eyes were fixed on the imperial tombs, and she said, “The ancestors of the Zhang Clan are far more than this. Many powerful characters are not buried here.”

Zhang Ruochen managed to control his emotions and gradually calmed down. He use Heaven’s Eye to observe the imperial burial grounds.

The gravesite was one of the most important grounds for the Zhang Clan, and it had been laid with the inscriptions of a Supreme Saint.

In the past, when Zhang Ruochen’s cultivation level was still too low, he had visited some areas of the imperial burial grounds and did not understand a lot of it. Even the relocation of the imperial tombs had originally been carried out by the Guardian Dragon Pavilion.

Now when Zhang Ruochen observed the imperial burial grounds, he was slightly shocked to discover that there were as many as nine tombs that radiated the aura of a Supreme Saint. Even though the Supreme Saint ancestors were dead, their auras were still potent and constantly flowing out of the tombs.

“I heard my father said that the imperial burial grounds were only created after the establishment of the Central Shengming Empire,” Zhang Ruochen said. “Our ancestors were not buried in the burial grounds.”

Clearly, the Zhang Clan’s history was far beyond the Central Shengming Empire’s.

“So that is how it is.

“This place should have had a god buried in it!” Yueshen said.

A name that made all descendants of the Zhang Clan proud filled Zhang Ruochen’s heart. “Mistress Yueshen, are you referring to The Immovable Wisdom King?”

Yueshen shook her head and said, “The era of The Immovable Wisdom King is too far back. Even I have not met him before. But during the end of the Middle Ages, the Zhang Clan gave birth to a god called the Crownsnatcher. It is said that he fought against a god and perished in the stars. His divine body was later brought back to the Kunlun Realm by the descendants of the Zhang Clan.”

In Yueshen’s opinion, once the corpse was brought back to the Kunlun Realm, it would be natural for it to be buried within the Zhang Clan’s imperial burial grounds, hence why she said that.

Zhang Ruochen frowned and responded, “I once read an ancient tome that mentioned another ancestral land belonging to the Zhang Clan, but it was destroyed at the end of the Middle Ages. As for where that ancestral land was, no one knows!” Yueshen had seemingly lost interest in the imperial burial grounds and turned around to walk out. “It is extremely perilous to go to the Kunlun Realm now. I have inscribed a Divine Mark on you. Perhaps it could be of some use to you.”

“A Divine Mark!”

Zhang Ruochen’s eyes lit up as the haze in his heart was swept away.

In the past, Zhang Ruochen would become quite envious whenever he saw other scions of gods with Divine Marks on them.

After all, a body with the protection of a Divine Mark was similar to an Unbreakable Body, and he would not be easily killed.

Now that he had the Divine Mark, even if he were to meet elites like the Fane of Truth’s Ten Divine Scions, he would still have a chance to escape.

That was great!

As expected of Yueshen, the more he looked at her the more godly she appeared.

Zhang Ruochen roused his Saint Qi and activated the Divine Mark. Right after that, a series of white circuit lines appeared and covered every inch of his skin, generating a faint chill.

Very soon, the smile on Zhang Ruochen’s face froze because he felt a cold surge between his legs as they were intertwined with fine circuits.

“This…”

An unspeakable feeling manifested in Zhang Ruochen’s heart.

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Yueshen’s voice rang out in Zhang Ruochen’s ears once again as she said, “The Divine Mark has not only been placed on your skin, but also in your Sea of Qi. It will seal off the Qiankun Realm’s power and prevent it from seeping out of your Sea of Qi.”

Zhang Ruochen’s initial elation disappeared in an instant. “Why?”

Since the Divine Mark sealed his Sea of Qi, did that not mean that Zhang Ruochen could no longer use the Qiankun Realm’s power?

That power was his biggest trump card.

“The spirit of the Qiankun Realm has begun to take form. You will be the Qiankun Realm’s master in the future, not its envoy. If you want to be the master of the realm, you need to use your power to suppress the Qiankun Realm’s world spirit and cast it away instead of borrowing its powers to slay your foes.”

Yueshen flew up and rushed out of the Qiankun Realm.

Zhang Ruochen carefully thought about what Yueshen had said, and a moment later, his spiritual avatar flew out of the Qiankun Realm and merged into his body.

Yueshen returned to the Celestial Court, while Zhang Ruochen brought Awesome, the Little Taoist, as well as the Mastadon-Devouring Rabbit and the Demon Ape, to one of the planets by the bank of the Celestial River. Using the Saint Road to connect the Celestial Court to the Kunlun Realm, they soon arrived at a planet not too far away from the Kunlun Realm.

This planet, named Tianquan, was the Grand Terminal of Merits, which had been recently developed in combination with the Celestial Court, the Fane of Merits, and the Kunlun Realm.

On Tianquan, there were dimensional teleportation arrays, a merits exchange hall… and the like. All of them were meant to serve the Kunlun Realm’s War of Merits, and all major macroworlds had also established their strongholds there.

Although the Kunlun Realm’s battlefield had just been recently opened up, Tianquan was not deserted. Instead, it was overcrowded as a steady stream of cultivators kept arriving.

“The Kunlun Realm is full of opportunities, and if my luck is with me, I might even be able to obtain the legacy of a Supreme Saint.”

“It is said that the Kunlun Realm has many sacred artifacts from the Middle Ages. It even has supreme artifacts. If I manage to get my hands on a few of them, my power will definitely increase.”

“You lot are a bunch of clowns. Are all of you graverobbers? Do not forget why we are going to the Kunlun Realm. We are going to war, and our enemy is the Infernal Court. This time around, I must enter the Saint King Merit List!”

…

All of the cultivators who went to the Kunlun Realm had their own goals. Some coveted the realm’s treasures, some wanted to hone their skills, while some wanted to become famous.

Zhang Ruochen was not too bothered. He just went directly to the Grand Terminal of Merits.

After verifying his identity, the reception staff at the Grand Terminal of Merits looked at Zhang Ruochen strangely as expressions of surprise, excitement, solemnity, and awe were interlaced in his eyes.

A moment later, the receptionist cautiously asked, “There are seventy-two sub-terminals established in the Kunlun Realm. May I know which terminal are you going to, Master Ruochen?”

“Are you a Kunlun Realm cultivator?” Zhang Ruochen asked.

The receptionist replied, “All of the low-level staff in the Grand Terminal of Merits are recruited from the Kunlun Realm. Since this is the Kunlun Realm’s war, we need to provide a helping hand as well.”

Zhang Ruochen did not ask further and said, “I would like to go to the Omen Ridge in the Eastern Region. What is the closest sub-terminal that leads there?”

While the Omen Ridge was a remote and barren place, it produced two extraordinary characters in Zhang Ruochen and Luo Xu. Soon, a crowd thronged over.

The receptionist then said, “The thirteenth sub-terminal is the closest to the Omen Ridge, and it is built in the royal city of Qianshui Commandery.”

 “Qianshui Commandery.”

When Zhang Ruochen said those words out loud, the look in his eyes became a little complicated.

Through the dimensional teleportation array, Zhang Ruochen directly teleported from the Grand Terminal of Merits to the 13th Sub-Terminal of Merits. As he walked out of it, he appeared in the streets of the royal city of Qianshui Commandery.

Qianshui Commandery was one of the top-ranking commanderies in the Eastern Region. The royal city was built to look very impressive with its towering walls that resembled mountains. The strength of the city’s defense system became a lot stronger than before after the sub-terminal was built in the city. In the past, Sifang Commandery had commanded an army of a million and declared war on Yunwu Commandery. In just ten short days, Yunwu Commandery lost twelve cities in a row.

Yunwu Commandery’s king had no choice but to bring Zhang Ruochen along to Qianshui Commandery’s royal city to seek help in hopes to survive the onslaught. In order to save the country at that time, Zhang Ruochen even participated in a spouse-seeking martial arts competition for the thirteenth princess of Qianshui Commandery.

When he recalled that martial arts competition, an ice-cold figure appeared in Zhang Ruochen’s mind.

Suddenly, his heart ached greatly.

If it had not been for that competition, he would not have had to deal with so many grievances and feuds later on.

Zhang Ruochen walked on the crowded streets with many thoughts running through his mind, and his body was as numb as a doll. On the contrary, the Mastadon-Devouring Rabbit and Demon Ape were ecstatic to return to the Kunlun Realm. As they jumped about along the street, god knows how many item shelves they knocked over.

Previously, Zhang Ruochen’s three meridians had been exhausted, and many of his foes had appeared, wanting to find him and take the opportunity to finish him off. At the same time, everyone knew that Huang Yanchen, the Princess of Qianshui Commandery, was Zhang Ruochen’s wife.

In order to force Zhang Ruochen out, an unknown number of enemies headed by the Immortal Vampires struck the royal palace in Qianshui Commandery and killed all of Huang Yanchen’s clansmen. They then captured the king and queen of the commandery.

It was during that period of hardship that Zhang Ruochen finally opened up his heart to Huang Yanchen and tried to truly love someone.

Unknowingly, Zhang Ruochen had approached the gates of the Qianshui Commandery’s royal palace. Even after several years had passed, there were still faint bloodstains on the palace walls, and the rain was unable to wash them away.

Zhang Ruochen initially thought that he had completely forgotten about Huang Yanchen, but when he got there, he still had the urge to walk into the palace. Perhaps by walking in, he could see her as he did before.

They could either draw swords at each other or cross glances coldly, or look at each other silently, or… treat the other like a stranger.

However, in the end, Zhang Ruochen did not cross the palace gate.

Last year at this very door, the plum blossoms and their faces were flushed.

Gone was the familiar face, yet the plum blossom continued to bloom.

“It is all in the past, all in the past…”

Zhang Ruochen turned around and left the royal palace. The farther he walked, the more his back emanated a depressing aura. Perhaps this was a hurdle that he would never get past in his lifetime.