Chapter 733 – Who Holds the World’s Chessboard? The Underworld Bed Outshines a Wedding Night - Part 2

Yan Yu stood in the middle of the boat, gazing silently at the stars.

Li Yuan stood beside her, feeling a kind of weightless, cosmic romance, like standing aboard a spaceship just outside the Earth, watching the galaxy unfold.

Then, suddenly, an idea sparked in his mind.

He raised his hand and pushed outward. In a flash, a series of miniature worlds materialized in the starry sky, each one floating close enough to be seen in detail.

They scattered, drifted, rearranged.

At first, Yan Yu didn’t quite understand what he was doing. But as more of these small worlds appeared, a realization dawned.

Across the vast cosmos, the miniature realms connected one by one, forming a single, breathtaking sentence.

Yan Yu, I love you.

Each character was formed by more than a dozen small worlds, linked together like celestial calligraphy.

It was, without exaggeration, the most romantic confession in the universe.

“Childish.” Yan Yu said, her voice flat, her expression unreadable.

Li Yuan sighed. “These are just minor worlds. Mortals can’t see them. But one day, if I grow strong enough...I’ll rearrange the

actual

stars in the heavens to say the same thing. So that anyone in the world, the moment they look up, will see it written across the sky. I want the whole world to know I love you.”

Yan Yu didn’t respond. She turned her head slightly, as if dismissive, as if trying to maintain her aloof air...but also maybe, just maybe...suppressing a laugh.

She held it in for a moment longer, then turned to glance at Li Yuan again, as if trying to figure him out.

Is this man really a second rank cultivator? Why does someone so strong still act like this? Why say something so ridiculous with a straight face?

Li Yuan inched closer.

A cold aura, like snow and ice, brushed against him.

But he, at that moment, felt like fire.

After centuries apart, to meet again like this, it felt just like a wedding night.

Quietly, without a word, he reached out his little finger and hooked it toward hers.

Their fingers inched closer and closer. Yan Yu didn’t seem to notice. Just as Li Yuan was about to touch her, she suddenly flicked her hand away. And with a movement sharp and swift like a cat’s sudden swat, she flipped her palm and lightly slapped him.

“I’m still recovering my memory,” she said coldly, after smacking his hand.

But the man who’d once roamed the mortal world unchallenged for a century, the Lord of Light whose church was built atop rivers of blood, showed not a flicker of shame.

Without missing a beat, he grinned and said shamelessly, “Yan Yu, there’s a lot of great food in the mortal realm. Want me to take you out for a bite?”

“No.” Yan Yu’s voice was like a winter wind cutting through glass.

Li Yuan began counting dishes on his fingers, rattling off names with practiced ease. “Steamed lamb, steamed bear paw, steamed deer tail, roast duckling, roast chicken, roast gosling, soy-braised pork, soy-braised duck, marinated chicken, cured meats, pine-flower sausage...”

Yan Yu interrupted his gourmet litany with a scowl. “Have you ever seen a ghost that eats?”

Li Yuan replied, dead serious, “A hungry ghost.”

Yan Yu resisted the urge to roll her eyes and coldly said, “There are no such ghosts in the Underworld.”

Li Yuan paused, then suddenly remembered that gluttonous boar from the Exotic Beast Park. The one that pulled Yan Yu’s carriage now.

That boar would eat

anything

.

Take it to a restaurant in the human world, and not only would it devour everything on the table, it would gleefully gobble down the restaurant, the guests, the chefs, and probably even dig several feet into the earth to finish off some dirt for dessert.

Then again...comparing Yan Yu to a boar was probably not the smartest move.

So he cleared his throat and quickly changed course. “Alright, no food then. But Yan Yu, if you really want to recover your memories, shouldn’t we do something together? We could go touring the great mountains and rivers of the human world. Or, if that’s not your style, we can visit some other realms beyond this one.”

“Not in the mood.” Her voice was like frost, but there was something else buried in it, a faint, muffled, pouty tone that hinted at a shy sort of pride.

“Why not?” Li Yuan pressed on, thick-skinned as ever. “Tell me, why aren’t you in the mood?”

“Not in the mood means not in the mood.”

With that, she flicked her sleeve and turned to leave.

Li Yuan hadn’t locked the voidship, so she merely found an anchor point in space and vanished on the spot.

Left alone on the ship, Li Yuan suddenly broke into a stupid grin.

The scent of love, sour, sweet, and ridiculous, mixed with a kind of sparkling foolishness, filled the empty ship. It wrapped around this old devil who’d lived for centuries like a warm, invisible fog.

And now, there was nothing to do but wait.

He would wait for Yan Yu to finish separating the ghost from Sheng’er.

While she worked, Li Yuan took the chance to explore the Underworld.

It was vast like the Eastern Sea, sprawling and immense.

The realm was divided by the Yellow Springs River, which served as the border between north and south.

To the south lay the entrance to the Underworld. Beyond it stretched a long, winding road of shadows. Any spirit that stepped upon it would have their memories and desires suppressed, becoming something like a zombie, stumbling forward with the crowd in blind procession.

North of the road lay the Yellow Springs. Right beside it was the Mountain of Yearning..

The road of shadows teemed with spirits.

Yan Yu’s task was relentless. She punished those who had committed wicked acts in life, only to send them back again, over and over, day after day, year after year...to suffer their sentence anew. A cycle of endless punishment for endless crimes.

As for the virtuous souls, she settled them on the Mountain of Yearning, a name that carried hope. It meant these spirits could in theory return to the human world whole...but since that road was now sealed, they would remain on the mountaintop, gazing longingly toward the land they once knew.

Past that mountain lay the Wild Ghost Village.

Though Yan Yu had absorbed many ghosts into her Underworld system, not every one of them fit into its structure. Only those capable of accurately recognizing evil and triggering their own killing rules via the Mirror of Karma, or those who had developed intelligence, were formally enlisted.

The rest, the unfiltered, unrefined, and unstable, were all corralled into the Wild Ghost Village.

That place was a nightmare.

Unless you were at least second rank, stepping into the village meant you might never even know how you died. The moment you entered, you could unknowingly trigger any number of ghosts' killing rules, one after another, until you vanished without a trace.

Fortunately, the Wild Ghost Village didn’t lie along the main path. One had to intentionally deviate from the road to reach it, so wandering spirits had no chance of stumbling in by accident.

At the far end of the road of shadows stood a bridge.

And guarding that bridge was a ghost in a burial robe, the same Apparel Atelier ghost from before.

Li Yuan remembered when he first came here, hundreds of years ago. Back then, behind that ghost, there had been a peach tree.

Now, the tree was gone.

The ghost, however, remained, reduced to the role of a sentry, stationed at the bridge, standing guard.

Naturally, this bridge made Li Yuan think of the legendary

Bridge of Helplessness

. But no matter how hard he looked, he saw no sign of the

Soup of Forgetfulness

. And this burial robe ghost? It hardly resembled a Granny Meng.

Beyond the bridge was the Karma Hall, where the sins and virtues of one’s past life were revealed in full. Many of the enlisted ghosts stayed there. As each spirit came through, they watched silently. And if a spirit’s reflection triggered a ghost’s rule, that ghost would drag the offender away for punishment.

To the southeast of the Karma Hall was the Jade Pool. To the northwest stood the Hall of Yan Yu.

In terms of architecture, the Underworld still seemed somewhat incomplete. But then again, if this was truly the beginning of a reconnection with the mortal world, wasn’t the rebuilding only just getting started?

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Li Yuan finished his Underworld tour.

Yan Yu summoned him back to the Jade Pool.

It was time to remove the ghost from Sheng'er.

And with that, many lingering questions would finally find their answers.

The Jade Pool steamed with thick mist. A ring of ghosts stood on high alert, releasing dense waves of ghostly Yin energy, as if trying to suppress something.

In the center of the pool, the crow was nowhere to be seen. In its place were two spirits, floating together like shadows, tightly linked but now untangled into distinct strands.

One was tiny, no larger than a soybean.

The other was...unspeakable. Its shape defied logic, pulsing with a terrifying aura. From within it, hideous ghost heads occasionally emerged, each one more grotesque than the last.

Every time a ghost head surfaced, the surrounding ghosts would immediately intensify their suppression efforts, joining forces with the utmost caution to keep the monstrosity contained.

Li Yuan narrowed his eyes, carefully examining the creature. It looked like...a dragon, but something was deeply off.

He could make out the head of a bird, the tail of a sparrow, even the shell of a tortoise. It was a grotesque patchwork, a chaotic fusion of beastly parts that didn’t belong together.

The more he looked, the more it felt like something torn straight from the Classic of Mountains and Seas, some bizarre, ancient nightmare given form.

At the same time, he got a clearer sense of how terrifying this ghost truly was.

It had first been sealed away during the Age of the Ancient Gods. Who knew how many tens of thousands of years it had slumbered since? By the time it escaped, it was already on the verge of dissolution, barely clinging to existence. That was likely when it latched onto Sheng'er, drawn by the heavy Yin aura surrounding her.

And just when it might’ve had a chance to recover, it was dragged into the Deathless Tomb, where the recovery was stalled once more. But even in that weakened state, it had already corrupted the locust tree that housed Sheng'er’s soul avatar, feeding off it and clawing its way back to strength through the dark ages of the Great Upheaval of Heaven and Earth.

Li Yuan was certain that this thing still hadn’t returned to its full power.

Yet even now, Yan Yu had mobilized some of the Underworld’s most dangerous taboo level ghosts, deploying them in tight formation just to suppress it. And still, it resisted.

He could only imagine how horrifying it must have been at its peak.

Not long ago, Li Yuan had thought himself unmatched. He had reached the pinnacle of the second rank, a state of power that felt absolute. But seeing this...it humbled him. In its prime, this creature had to be at least equal to him, perhaps more.

Just then, as he stepped up to the edge of the Jade Pool, the ghost still writhing under the weight of suppression suddenly froze.

All at once, the many eerie eyes on its shadowed form turned and locked onto him.

Li Yuan didn’t flinch. He simply stared back, curious.

He wanted to know what this thing truly was.

It was almost as if the creature could sense his thoughts, or perhaps it had simply made up its mind.

It spoke.

Its gaze bore into him as it rasped out, “Northern Dipper, Southern Dipper, Polaris, Valley Obscura...and me.”

Li Yuan frowned slightly and glanced at Yan Yu.

She didn’t react. Nor did she try to stop it.

The thing continued, its voice guttural and distorted like metal scraping bone.

“The four stars...and me. We devoured the stars of the heavens. They swallowed the Central Constellations. I took the rest of the Three Quadrants.

“In the sky, the Eight Archon Stars are the Northern Dipper, Southern Dipper, Polaris, Valley Obscura, Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise.

I consumed the three others. Then, I rushed to the mortal world, eager to seize the Ancestral Lands, to become the Heavenly Dao, and leap beyond it all.”

It paused.

Then it laughed, a manic, twisted, gurgling laugh that chilled the blood.

“But guess what?” it screeched. “Guess what?! The Heavens...have a

will!

This whole world, it’s a trap! HAHAHAHA!”