Si Zhiruo took the transfer contract.
As a baby just a few months old,
She already had several listed companies under her name—she could be said to have won at the starting line.
No, that’s not quite right.
Strictly speaking, even before she was born, back when she was still a Ghost King, she was already leagues ahead of countless people.
“Mommy, how do you read this character?”
Si Zhiruo held up a sheet of white paper even bigger than her head, pointing at one of the characters with her little finger as she asked.
“This character is read as ‘sheng.’”
“It’s pronounced the same as the ‘sheng’ in ‘birthday,’ but with a bamboo radical on top.”
With her little head pressed against Mommy’s, listening to her soft, milky voice, it felt as though a lifetime of sorrow was being healed.
I lifted my head, “Su Liumeng, did you prepare this in advance? How come you always have exactly what’s needed, right when it’s needed? It can’t be such a coincidence, right?”
I was already a bit numb to Su Liumeng’s uncanny foresight.
Su Liumeng smiled and said, “Yes, the transfer agreement was drawn up long ago, but there just hadn’t been a good time to bring it out. I began preparing everything the first week after she was born.”
Si Zhiruo was flipping through the contract when suddenly, a black gleam flashed in her eyes.
“Mommy, I’m heading out for a bit.”
*****
In the capital, beside a pile of garbage, the Old Celestial Master was madly calculating with his fingers. Afterward, he muttered to himself, “Why can’t I figure it out?”
“A few days ago, I could still divine some clues—the demon fated for Heaven’s retribution was in slumber.”
He was trying to divine the demon’s mother, hoping to eliminate the disaster while she was still young.
But unexpectedly, the mother was even harder to divine, as though something was forcibly shrouding her in secrecy.
He had also witnessed the breakthrough of the Supreme expert a few days ago.
Although the initial fluctuations began in the capital’s territory,
Because of his own preconceived divination, he hadn’t considered whether it might actually be the demon herself awakening.
After all, with one’s true spirit still in ignorance, how could someone possibly wake up so soon?
He had even shared his theoretical analysis with others.
That was also why so many experts in this world had concluded the newly ascended Supreme was not of this realm at all.
Thanks to his relentless effort, more and more people gradually accepted this view.
Right now, the Old Celestial Master looked a bit haggard, clearly battered by wind and dew, as if he’d come all the way down from Longhu Mountain and paid a heavy price just to reach this place.
“Why can’t I figure it out?” He muttered again, incredulous. “Forget it, let me try divining the demon’s true form again.”
“You… are you trying to divine me?”
A chilling, childish voice echoed in the sky, startling the Old Celestial Master so much that he nearly blurted out, “A ghost!”
But wasn’t this one indeed a ghost?
Si Zhiruo folded her arms, her tiny body exuding an ancient air. Bathed in a halo of light, she stood in midair, watching the Old Celestial Master with idle amusement.
“You, you are…?” The Old Celestial Master stammered, his body trembling. This was the instinctive fear of someone at a lower level facing a Supreme being.
He hadn’t even seen how she appeared.
Anyone beneath the Imperial Realm was bound by the rules—how could they bear the pressure of the Imperial Realm?
Even a Half-Step Emperor was still an Emperor.
He felt the tremors in his tailbone and was suddenly struck by a terrifying guess.
Si Zhiruo sneered, “As you can see, I’m exactly the one you’ve been searching for.”
“So what?”
“Now that you see me in person, why aren’t you ranting about eliminating demons and upholding the Way?”
“Go on, try to kill me.”
Thump!
The Old Celestial Master couldn’t help it—his whole body collapsed to the ground, limp.
Only he could understand the immense pressure he now faced.
Like a mayfly gazing up at the heavens.
He had expected the demon to be strong.
But he hadn’t expected her to be so strong that he couldn’t even muster a single thought of resistance.
The gap between them was too great.
It was like an ant never imagining it could deal with an elephant.
He had never really thought he could win.
“I originally couldn’t be bothered with you. After all, you’re just an insect. But you insist on divining me every couple of days. Do you know how annoying you are? Sometimes, when I’m sleeping soundly, I suddenly sense someone trying to calculate me. Let me ask you, would you be angry if it were you?”
“A-angry,” the Old Celestial Master replied almost instinctively.
Suddenly, his expression turned cold. “So what if you’re stronger than me? It doesn’t change the fact that you’re a demon.”
“At this point, there’s nothing left to say.”
“Winners are kings, losers are nothing.”
“If I’d managed to divine your whereabouts earlier, you’d already be a corpse by now.” The Old Celestial Master was still a little unconvinced.
Not convinced, are you?
Then I’ll make sure you die utterly convinced.
“Oh?” Si Zhiruo dragged out the syllable. “You’re trying to say that you could have divined my mother’s whereabouts, and from there, found out where I was hiding?”
“Sorry, but I casually shielded my mother’s fate. Now, no one can divine anything about her.”
The Old Celestial Master’s eyes widened inch by inch, as a more horrifying realization began to take shape in his heart.
“Could it be…”
“Could it be…”
“She’s the Supreme expert who broke through a while back?”
If not, then there was simply no way to explain why, just days ago, he could still sense vague traces, but now everything was a blur—utter chaos.
No matter how much effort he put into divining, even sacrificing his own lifespan, he still couldn’t get a single clue.
Unless—the Supreme expert was the demon herself.
Only after she broke through and awakened her true spirit could she so thoroughly conceal the fate.
“Smart guess.”
“Time to depart.”
Si Zhiruo’s eyes changed once again, one black, one white, like a Taiji Eight Trigrams of Yin and Yang, as if they contained the essence of an entire world. In an instant, it was as if all the land nearby had become her domain.
Boom—
An invisible halo swept outward.
This scene left the old man unable to maintain his composure. “What realm are you, really?”
“How can this be!?”
He was a cultivator who followed the will of Heaven. The Heavenly Dao that used to respond to him at any time now seemed to have utterly vanished, and he could no longer communicate with it at all.
This incomprehensible phenomenon made the Old Celestial Master forget, for a moment, that he was about to perish.
He had never heard of any expert, in any realm, being able to block the Heavenly Dao’s perception in a single place, even temporarily.
Even the Nine Source Sovereigns spoken of in ancient texts couldn’t achieve this…
“Do you really want to know?”
The Old Celestial Master dumbly nodded his head.
Si Zhiruo’s lips curled up. “As you wish.”
“I am at the Imperial Realm.”
“Die!”
In an instant, the world went dark.
When light returned, there was no trace of the Old Celestial Master left on the ground—only drifting dust swirling in the breeze.
Si Zhiruo stood barefoot atop the sky, never once touching the ground. It was as if all the dust in this world could never come close to her true form.
Once an Imperial Realm expert’s domain is unleashed, everywhere beneath it belongs solely to her.
There was one thing the Old Celestial Master wasn’t wrong about.
It’s not just that the Heavenly Dao can no longer communicate.
At this moment, in this domain, she was a second, intangible Dao Fruit.
She was the rules themselves.
She had fully released her Dao Fruit, suppressing the Heavenly Dao in this area. In such a Supreme domain, how could any mortal hope to walk away alive?
That is the terror of the Imperial Realm.
All who follow the will of Heaven are crushed without limit.
Calling them ants would not be an exaggeration.