After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

The expressions on the faces of the people in the living room all changed.

Li Zhiyao had just come up from the basement with the unconscious Lin Qingxue when she heard the words "silver-haired woman." Her hand holding the medicine bowl trembled, and the rim of the bowl hit the corner of the table.

The bone fragment paused for two breaths.

"Penglai has been guarded for 30,000 years."

Zhou Ran's voice was flat.

"He's never even stepped foot inside the Heavenly Corpse's gate. Old Xu entered the Void Realm six times, losing two fingers and half his life, isn't that the number?"

Old Xu's smile faded somewhat.

"Now that I'm here, with a knife already at the crossroads of the Moon Emperor's return, you're only now coming to reap the rewards?"

Zhou Ran paused.

"It's too late."

"presumptuous."

Shen Zhui gripped the hilt of his sword, his killing intent emanating from it.

Old Xu raised his hand to stop him, then stood up using his bamboo cane, and slammed his head on the floor tile.

An oppressive aura descended upon him.

The pressure felt like an entire mountain was pressing down on your head.

It also carries the unbridled "rules" of the ancient Penglai Law.

The living room chandelier exploded, the coffee table shattered into pieces, and Wang Pangzi and Xiao Rou were crushed, both letting out muffled groans as their knees hit the ground.

Li Zhiyao stood in front of Lin Qingxue, her ancient legal authority barely managing to create a layer of blue light.

"Young friend Zhou".

Old Xu's words carried a chill.

"I had no other choice but to do this."

We are not the enemy.

Should we submit the coordinates or not?

Deep within the heart of the Heavenly Corpse.

Zhou Ran opened her eyes.

Though the person was thousands of miles away, the fiery aura traveled along the bone fragments all the way to the mortal realm.

"Old Xu."

Zhou Ran enunciated each word clearly.

"I don't care what 30,000-year-old rules Penglai has."

"Here it is with me—"

The bone fragment burst forth with a dark golden light, which was the fragment of the idealistic laws that Zhou Ran poured in from across the two realms.

Guanghua exploded in the living room, actually managing to withstand Old Master Xu's oppressive aura.

The mountain that had been pressing down on Wang Pangzi and Xiao Rou was gradually lifted up, inch by inch.

"My rules are the only rules."

"Take another step forward,"

Zhou Ran's words turned cold.

"I'll bury you along with me."

That idealistic law was nothing more than a few fragments, yet it carried a "self-definition" that even the Heavenly Dao had to give way to.

Old Xu's face changed color, and he paused subconsciously with his bamboo cane, but the oppressive aura remained unmoved by those words.

He has seen so many geniuses that he can't count them on one hand.

But I've never seen anyone who could suppress the ancient law pressure he unleashed with just words, across the divide between the realms of Yin and Yang.

The living room fell silent.

Old Xu stared at the dark golden light for three breaths, then suddenly withdrew all his pressure.

Fatty Wang pushed himself up from the ground, panting heavily.

"Very good."

Old Xu sat back down on the sofa, a smile returning to his face; it was as if he wasn't the one who had been so tense just moments before.

"Young friend Zhou, let me put it another way."

"Qingxue is suffering from the backlash of Yue Zhao's split soul, she won't last more than a few days."

Penglai has ancient methods for suppressing divine thoughts.

He used a bamboo stick to lightly touch the floor tiles.

"I will help you suppress her; you take Penglai alone into the heart of the Heavenly Corpse."

How about this deal?

On the other end of the bone fragment, Zhou Ran didn't rush to respond.

The backlash within Lin Qingxue's body was very real.

Although Yue Zhao was freed from his physical identity, that divided soul had been rooted in Lin Qingxue for over twenty years, and it couldn't be resolved with just a few words.

Old Xu's blow struck precisely at his weak point.

As for why Penglai wanted that "person" to enter his heart, Zhou Ran knew perfectly well.

"I'll think about it."

Old Xu squinted, about to raise the price again—

It was dark outside the living room's floor-to-ceiling windows.

It's not nighttime.

A black rift, hundreds of feet long, was forcibly torn open in the sky above Jiangcheng, and thick, impenetrable yin energy surged within it.

Countless ghosts clad in ancient armor and clutching summoning banners fell from the cracks, crashing down upon the entire city.

An old and majestic voice swept across every corner of the city.

"Jiangcheng—"

"It has been taken over by the Underworld."

It was the Song emperor.

Li Zhiyao raised her head, her face pale.

"The ghostly soldiers have crossed the border; they're trying to seize the city."

Old Xu, on the contrary, was amused. He slowly stood up, leaning on his cane, gave the two guards a wink, and retreated to a corner of the living room, adopting a posture of watching a show.

Within the bone fragments, Zhou Ran's words were so heavy they could drip ice crystals.

"Emperor Song".

"I was desperately protecting him from Yama and breaking the seal in the Heavenly Corpse, and he came to raid my city right afterward."

Fatty Wang stood up straight, leaning against the door frame.

"Ran-ge, what should we do?"

You're still trapped inside the Heavenly Corpse and can't get out!

Deep within the heart of the Heavenly Corpse, Zhou Ran slowly stood up.

He glanced down at his right hand, then looked up at the slowly beating heart beneath the ground.

"Who said I have to go back to have any say in Jiangcheng's affairs?"

He raised his hand, his palm holding a token that shimmered with golden light.

Grand Commander's Order.

The supreme authority of the underworld.

It works even across the divide between the realms of Yin and Yang.

As soon as the ghost soldiers landed, Jiangcheng descended into chaos.

Where the yin energy swept, pedestrians on the street collapsed in droves, their eyes rolled back, and they fell into a deep sleep.

Shop windows were covered in frost, and streetlights went out one after another.

Outside the Xiao family manor, dark, ghostly figures lined up in mid-air, and the eerie wind whipped up by the soul-summoning banners made one's bones ache.

A Yin general, clad in black armor and possessing cultivation at the peak of the Golden Core stage, landed in front of the manor on a cloud of black clouds.

Behind him followed hundreds of elite Yin soldiers, armored and gleaming.

The general unfurled a scroll of eerie edict, his voice shrill.

"Edict of the Song Emperor: Grand Commander Zhou Ran has illegally withheld the Grand Commander's order and overstepped his authority in the underworld."

Immediately hand over the command and return to your post, opening up the manor's ley lines for the Yin soldiers to garrison.

Those who disobey this order will be punished as traitors to the underworld!

Fatty Wang spat at him through the barrier.

"Your emperor himself is too afraid to show his face, so he sends you, cannon fodder, to die?"

The general was furious and flung the summoning banner.

"Nine Netherworld Killing Formation - Take over the manor!"

Hundreds of ghostly soldiers took a step in unison, transforming into a black stream, carrying the resentment of the summoning banner as they crashed into the manor's barrier.

Li Zhiyao stood guard at the entrance of the main building. The ancient law's authority was pushed to its limit, and the blue light of the barrier swayed.

Just then—

A blinding golden light illuminated the entire manor.

The golden light appeared out of nowhere, covering the sky and turning half of Jiangcheng into gold.

The charging Yin soldiers all froze, all the ghosts' figures were nailed in mid-air, and even the resentment on the soul-summoning banner was frozen.

At the very center of the golden light, a phantom slowly materialized, and a token shimmering with golden light hung above the manor.

Deep within the heart of the Heavenly Corpse, Zhou Ran held the Grand Commander's Order in one hand, and his Nascent Soul True Essence poured in like a river with its dam opened.

This supreme decree of the underworld was originally capable of suppressing the ten courts and commanding all ghosts.

He used it to force 30,000 rebels to surrender on the north bank of the River of Oblivion, and now, even across two realms, he can still choke these few hundred ghost soldiers.

"To see the decree is to see the king."

Zhou Ran's voice, amplified by the power of the token, crashed into the consciousness of each Yin soldier, its sound like thunder.

"You lot—how dare you act so presumptuously!"