The small wooden boat drifted lazily down the dark river, guided only by the gentle current and the soft, golden glow of thousands of floating lotus lanterns.
Plum Blossom City slowly faded into the distance behind them. The loud music and the bustling crowds were replaced by the quiet chirping of night insects and the rhythmic lap of water against the wooden hull.
Yan Shuo sat comfortably near the back of the boat, one arm casually draped over the tiller. He did not need to steer. The river was wide and peaceful, free of spiritual beasts or hidden dangers.
Sitting right beside him, completely ignoring the beautiful scenery she had been so excited to see, was Tantai Zhi.
She was impossibly close. Her shoulder was pressed firmly against his, and she was clutching her two-copper paper rabbit lantern in her lap. Her golden eyes, completely visible above her white silk veil, were fixed squarely on Yan Shuo’s profile.
The lanterns are pretty, Tantai Zhi reasoned internally, but my husband is infinitely better to look at. The curve of his jaw is flawless. His eyelashes are so long. How can a man look this perfect while just steering a boat?
She remembered a specific scene from a mortal romance novel she had read last month—The Domineering Sword Saint Falls for the Village Girl. In Chapter twelve, the female lead had pretended to be tired on a boat ride, allowing her to gracefully rest her head on the male lead’s shoulder. It was a classic, foolproof technique to increase physical intimacy.
Tantai Zhi took a slow, deep breath. She could fight three Late Nascent Soul Grandmasters at the same time without her heartbeat rising a single beat, but trying to execute a romance trope made her palms sweat.
She let out a very soft, very fake little yawn.
"Husband," she murmured, her voice sweet and entirely unconvincing. "The river breeze is making me a bit sleepy."
She carefully tilted her head, preparing to execute a flawless, slow-motion lean onto his shoulder.
But Yan Shuo, possessing the veteran instincts of a man who had survived a century of demonic warfare, saw the maneuver coming from a mile away. He didn’t expose her terrible acting. Instead, he smoothly lifted his arm from the tiller and wrapped it completely around her waist, gently pulling her flush against his side before resting her head securely on his chest.
"Then rest, Zhi’er," Yan Shuo said warmly, resting his chin lightly on the top of her head. "I will keep watch."
Tantai Zhi completely froze.
The romance novel had not prepared her for a counter-attack of this magnitude. She was practically engulfed in his pristine white robes. She could hear the steady, calm beating of his heart right beneath her ear. His arm around her waist felt so strong, so incredibly possessive and protective.
A catastrophic amount of heat rushed to her face. The white silk veil hid the absolute, tomato-red blush consuming her face, but she was entirely short-circuiting.
"Y-Yes, Husband," she squeaked, burying her face into his robes, completely forgetting about her paper rabbit lantern. She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the urge to giggle like a maniac. He pulled me in! He is holding me so tightly! I am never washing these clothes again!
Yan Shuo smiled, gently patting her shoulder as she curled into a happy, blushing ball against him.
While his wife was lost in a blissful romantic daze, Yan Shuo’s dark eyes looked out over the dark water, his mind working with the cold, calculating precision of a sovereign.
One leyline node is rotting, Yan Shuo thought, casually tapping his fingers against the wooden bench. By tomorrow morning, the eastern anchor of the Nine-Heavens Grand Array will completely shatter. That leaves the West, the South, and the center.
He recalled the glowing jade map he had studied earlier. The southern node was buried under the Heavenly Furnace Mountains, a region entirely controlled by weapon refiners. The western node was hidden deep beneath Mirror Lake, a massive, ancient body of water guarded by the illusions of the misty valleys.
Mirror Lake is closer, Yan Shuo decided. And water leylines are incredibly fragile once corrupted with demonic Qi. We will head west at first light.
He leaned his head back, enjoying the cool night air. For a dead man, his second life was turning out to be remarkably pleasant. He had a bottomless treasury, a brand new Nascent Soul foundation, and an apex predator for a wife who was currently using his chest as a pillow.
"Life is good," Yan Shuo murmured softly to the empty river.
---
Thousands of miles away, in the absolute center of the Central Continent, life was not good at all.
Deep beneath the opulent, golden pagodas of the Golden Dragon City, Bai Chen sat in the center of a massive, pitch-black stone chamber. This was the true core of his grand design—the control room for the continent-wide cage he had spent three years building.
The chamber was entirely empty except for a massive, circular jade table in the center.
Carved into the jade was a flawless, three-dimensional topographical map of the Central Continent. Four glowing, golden pillars of light rose from the edges of the map, all feeding their energy into the center. These were the visual representations of the ancient leylines.
Bai Chen was meditating near the table, his weeping silver mask resting on the floor beside him. He was still trying to expel the lingering chaotic Qi from Yan Shuo’s Abyssal Severing Strike.
Suddenly, the ambient spiritual energy in the stone chamber violently fluctuated.
CRACK.
The sound was sharp and terrifyingly loud in the silent room.
Bai Chen’s eyes snapped open. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the sharp pain in his meridians, and rushed to the jade table.
On the eastern edge of the map, representing Plum Blossom City, the glowing golden pillar of light was violently flickering. But it wasn’t just fading. A deep, sickly black stain was rapidly spreading up the pillar, eating away at the pure golden Qi like an infectious rot.
"No," Bai Chen whispered, his face draining of all color. "No...that is the Dragon Tail node. The Plum Blossom leyline is buried beneath a thousand-year-old spiritual root! It is impenetrable!"
CRACK. SHATTER.
Right before his terrified eyes, the eastern pillar on the jade map completely exploded into black dust. The sudden severing of the leyline sent a violent shockwave through the control table.
Bai Chen was thrown backward, crashing hard against the stone wall. He coughed up a thick mouthful of dark blood, his chest heaving as the array’s backlash hit his own spiritual sea.
He slid down the wall, clutching his chest. He didn’t care about the internal injuries. He cared about what the shattered node meant.
"He isn’t on the mountain," Bai Chen gasped, his voice trembling with a deep, paranoid terror. "He didn’t stay behind his defensive arrays. He is here. Demon Lord Yan is in the Central Continent."
The realization hit him like a physical blow.
Yan Shuo hadn’t just survived the demonic armada and the Heavenly Punishment. He had instantly gone on the offensive. And he wasn’t attacking the Righteous Alliance blindly; he was surgically dismantling the only weapon Bai Chen had capable of stopping him.
"You think you can dismantle my cage before I lock the door?" Bai Chen hissed, his fear rapidly twisting into cornered, desperate malice.
He staggered to his feet and picked up his weeping silver mask, pressing it firmly back onto his face. He walked over to a dark corner of the chamber and pulled a heavily warded, black iron lever.
A secret door slid open, revealing a dark tunnel.
"Shadow Pavilion," Bai Chen called out, his voice echoing into the abyss.
Moments later, three figures stepped silently out of the tunnel. They wore completely featureless black robes and smooth, blank iron masks. They radiated no spiritual Qi. Living ghosts—the Faceless Scholar’s personal, supreme-tier assassins, raised in total darkness and trained to kill Grandmasters without making a sound.
"The eastern node has fallen," Bai Chen ordered, his voice dripping with cold authority. "He is moving westward. He will target Mirror Lake next. Take the teleportation arrays. Get to the lake before he does. I don’t care what it takes—use the water-binding curses, use the mortal towns as hostages. Delay him, or kill him. If he snaps another node, none of you will return alive."
The three black-robed assassins didn’t speak. They simply bowed in unison and melted back into the shadows, vanishing without a trace.
Bai Chen looked back at the ruined jade table. One quarter of his grand array was already dead. The clock was ticking, and the monster from the ancient era was hunting him.
---
The next morning, the sky above the western region of the Central Continent was covered in a thick, cool mist.
Mirror Lake lived up to its name perfectly. It was a massive, sprawling body of water surrounded by towering green peaks. The surface of the lake was so incredibly still and clear that it perfectly reflected the sky, making it impossible to tell where the water ended and the heavens began.
Standing on a grassy bluff overlooking the massive lake, Yan Shuo took a deep breath of the damp, spiritual air.
He had changed out of his pristine white robes, opting for a comfortable, light-blue scholar’s outfit that blended in perfectly with the misty surroundings. He looked entirely refreshed after a peaceful night on the boat.
Tantai Zhi stood right beside him, holding a small bamboo basket. She was no longer wearing the white veil. She had tied her hair back with a simple blue ribbon, looking like a stunning, elegant wife preparing for a picnic.
"The leyline is at the very bottom of the lake, Husband," Tantai Zhi noted, her golden eyes scanning the vast expanse of water. Her spiritual sense effortlessly pierced the depths. "It is buried under a layer of ancient profound-ice. Do you want me to split the lake in half? I can evaporate the water in a few seconds."
She said it with the casual tone of someone offering to sweep the floor.
Yan Shuo chuckled, taking the bamboo basket from her hands and setting it on the grass.
"If you evaporate the lake, Zhi’er, the local fishing villages will starve," Yan Shuo reasoned mildly. "We are here for a romantic trip, not to ruin the local economy. Besides, I brought the perfect tool."
Yan Shuo reached into his spatial ring.
Tantai Zhi watched eagerly, fully expecting him to pull out a supreme-tier magical artifact or an ancient demonic array flag to corrupt the water.
Instead, Yan Shuo pulled out a long, slightly crooked bamboo fishing pole.
He held it up, completely serious. It had a simple silk line and a rusted iron hook.
"A fishing pole?" Tantai Zhi blinked, entirely confused.
"A man must have hobbies, Wife," Yan Shuo smiled warmly, walking down toward the edge of the water. "And the demonic Qi needed to rot a leyline is very heavy. If I just drop it in, the Righteous Alliance will notice the splash. But if I lower it on a fishing line... no one will ever know."
He sat down on a smooth gray rock by the water’s edge, effortlessly baiting the hook with a tiny, condensed bead of pitch-black gravitational Qi. He cast the line into the misty lake with a soft plop.
"Come sit with me, Zhi’er," Yan Shuo patted the rock beside him. "Let’s see what bites."
Tantai Zhi’s confusion instantly vanished. He wanted her to sit with him by the water? It was basically a second date!
She hurried over, happily sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with him on the rock, resting her head against his arm while he held the fishing pole. She didn’t care about the rotting leylines or the grand strategy. If her husband wanted to fish for a continent-destroying array node, she would happily watch the bobber all day long.