Lin Yu felt utterly speechless.
What had Pei Jiye just said? He had dreamed of his love last night?
Leaving aside the fact that Pei Jiye actually had a love, just the matter of Demon Butterfly Senior arriving deep within Silent Night Palace yesterday, followed by seven cultivators dying overnight, was enough to give anyone a headache.
Yet Pei Jiye was still reminiscing about that illusory dream?
Lin Yu kept a blank expression. If he could beat Pei Jiye, if he didn’t owe Pei Jiye an enormous debt of gratitude, he would have jumped ship and run away long ago.
Pei Jiye ignored Lin Yu.
It had been a long time since he dreamed of the events from back then. After so much time, he had even started to think that it really had been a dream, not something that had actually happened.
“Have you found the person I asked you to look for?”
“I only found pill materials that could make you speak like a human, but now I’m regretting letting you speak like one.”
Pei Jiye ignored Lin Yu’s complaints. He stood up from the soft cushion, flapped his fleshy wings like a chick, and hopped onto the Crimson Tree Branch Throne.
He rolled around on the spot covered in gems. Those gems, filled with dense spiritual energy, demonic qi, and demon power, slid across his skin that resembled fish scales, producing faint sizzling sounds.
Pei Jiye examined his own body, which lay slumbering there.
The slumbering cultivator emanated profound, terrifying, and chilling power. This was not only Pei Jiye’s power but also the merits and karmic obstacles from countless Silent Night Palace cultivators who had fallen and been reclaimed by the palace.
Just as heavenly tribulation periodically settled accounts with a cultivator’s everything, Silent Night Palace constantly delayed the arrival of Silent Night Long Chant by exploiting its sect cultivators and merits.
However, the moment of thunderous reckoning would eventually come—it was just a matter of which Palace Lord would be unlucky enough to face it.
Constrained by the bindings of power, Silent Night Palace—especially the Palace Lord—could not leave the palace’s sphere of influence at all. But there was one exception.
That was Moon Qinghai Plateau, located in the True Realm within the former territory of Nine Spirits Sect, at its westernmost edge.
That highland sea had a Huntian Tribulation Extinguishing Array jointly set up by Silent Night Palace and Nine Spirits Sect. It was even exempt from the restrictions of the boundary gates between the two realms, allowing demonic cultivators to travel freely between the True Realm and the Demon Domain.
Back when he was still Pei Ji, he had fled to Silent Night Palace in just this way.
But with the conviction that he must return to Jiuxia Mountain and to Xie Linlang’s side, when he finally returned to the human world, he was stunned to learn that Xie Linlang had already held a Dao Companion Ceremony and taken a dao companion.
At that moment, Pei Ji’s every hope turned to ash.
That was how he was exploited, becoming thoroughly bound to this black-purple Demon Domain.
Yet he had never stopped thinking of him.
Even while remaining in Silent Night Palace, Pei Jiye would occasionally hear the name Linlang Dao Lord, after all. Xie Linlang’s pill refining skills had grown ever higher, even earning the favor and regard of Mahayana Stage cultivators.
Everyone praised Linlang Dao Lord as upright and bright, kind and virtuous.
Especially the Qie Xie Pill that Xie Linlang later developed, which was made from the most common mortal materials. It was a carefully refined medicine that could help most ordinary people ward off wind evil and treat high fevers.
After this pill spread to the mortal world, it saved countless lives.
When Pei Jiye heard of this, he felt joy for Xie Linlang even as he grew even more unwilling to contact him.
His junior brother, the one he had cherished so deeply, was doing better and better—successful in both love and career.
While he had fallen into the demonic path, struggling to preserve himself, even bearing the curse and debts of Silent Night Palace accumulated over ten thousand years. Why should he go and bother Xie Linlang?
And so, when the news came that Xie Linlang had failed his heavenly tribulation and perished, Pei Jiye was completely dumbfounded.
How was that possible? with the merits Xie Linlang had accumulated, with the pills he had stockpiled and the Magic Artifacts exchanged for them, how could he fail to pass his Heavenly Tribulation? What exactly had happened?
—If you are no longer in this world, then what is the point of my bitter struggles?
From this illusion arose obsession. Pei Jiye did not hesitate to expend his own power and cast a forbidden technique, ultimately ending up in this form.
Despite Lin Yu’s help in covering it up, Pei Jiye’s changes were still noticed by the disciples of the former Palace Lord, leading to last night’s attack.
Lin Yu watched as Kill Matt Little Bird turned his back to him, gazing for a long time at the slumbering figure on the Crimson Tree Branch Throne. He felt some worry—would Pei Jiye lose it again?
He probed lightly, “The elders in the palace and the seniors in secluded cultivation are all inquiring about news from each other right now. Do you want to meet them?”
A long while later, Kill Matt Little Bird chirped twice.
“Yes, of course we will meet.”
Kill Matt Little Bird dove into the slumbering cultivator’s body like a swallow returning to the forest. The next second, the black-haired youth slowly opened his eyes.
Unlike the golden vertical pupils from last night, Pei Jiye had a pair of bright red eyes. When he lifted his gaze, it was as if an endless blood sea surged and roiled, filling one with heart-shaking dread.
Pei Jiye slowly straightened his body. With a flick of his sleeve, the vast, empty hall before him underwent earth-shaking changes in the blink of an eye.
The hall space became bright and clear. The palace walls were covered in layers of gold foil, the dome rose high with white clouds gathering and dispersing, and the floor turned into pure white jade stone.
