It was high noon, and the birds were chirping happily, the flowers were vibrant, and the grass was a healthy dark green color. It was a very beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky.

Which was why Murong Zili was banging on the door of his daughter’s room, urging her to go out with him.

“You always stay in your room! You need to exercise more, do you want to get fat? You never eat enough! You keep eating junk food! You’re too skinny! You need to put on some weight! Get out of your room! Come with me. We can even go hunt some of those ‘main character’ things!” He continued to blather on, oblivious to the fact that years ago Yingyue had recruited her mother into helping her set up a sound-proofing artifact in her room. The said artifact sat innocently on her bedside table, leaving her sleeping soundly under her covers as her father’s hope of spending quality time with her was slowly shattered.

Her father had been at her door since the morning, and his mouth was starting to get dry from all his talking. He conjured a glass of water from the air, taking a long gulp, before he opened his mouth to start nagging again.

Feng Ran walked into the hallway and took in the sight of her hopeless husband, briefly wondering why she ever married him. She gave him a disdainful glance.

“This is why she doesn’t want to spend time with you.” Zili stared in horror at her, before falling over, having fainted from the shock of her words. His wife casually stepped over his body, quickly knocking twice on the door, waiting for a reply.

When there was no response, she took out a key from her sleeves, unlocking the door Murong Yingyue’s room.

The room was dark, thick curtains pulled shut over the only windows in the room. The human-shaped lump of blankets on the bed shifted slightly, and a head poked out. Half-opened eyes peered at the intruder through messy hair.

“I’ll be visiting my brother. Try not to step on your father when you go out.” With those words, Yingyue’s mother left, leaving the door open.

Grunting in annoyance, Murong Yingyue dragged herself and her blankets to the doorway, closing her door after taking note of her father’s unconscious body.

Yingyue went back to bed, spending several minutes trying to fall asleep. To her irritation, she couldn’t fall back asleep after getting up. Growling in frustration, Murong Yingyue reluctantly got off her bed. Stepping over her father’s body, she made her way to the kitchen to get something to eat.

Feng Ran had prepared a meal for her, which was still hot. Yingyue’s cheek twitched.

She knew that I would get out of bed soon... She left the door open on purpose, didn’t she? To make me wake up?

She still ate the food, cleaning up afterwards. After some thought, she decided to go grab her father’s scroll and put it in her space ring, so she wouldn’t forget it when she left. It wasn’t as if it would take up much space in her ring, so it would be good to be prepared.

Besides, her father had “hid” it in an obvious place. It wouldn’t take much effort to get it.

Murong Yingyue walked over to a drawer, and opened it, expecting to see a scroll at the bottom.

Of course, since she expected something, it wasn’t going to happen. The plotline demanded to be advanced in some way.

Instead of seeing her father’s scroll, she saw a black card with silver dots in the drawer. Scanning for a trap with her spiritual energy, Murong Yingyue picked it up when she deemed it safe to do so.

Her cheek twitched.

The silver dots weren’t actually dots, but ridiculously tiny characters. With a sigh, she expanded the card to read it properly.

Sovereign Shui:

I have your scroll. If you want it back, meet me in the Gusty Plains.

- X

Moments later, Murong Zili’s body jerked up at a scream of frustration that rang through the house.

“Huh? Yueyue! I’m coming!” In an instant, he appeared next to his daughter, who was covering her face with her hands.

“Dad,” She spoke, her voice muffled by her hands. “We need to do something about this.”

“About what?” He replied, confused. The enlarged card caught his eye. “What? Someone stole my scroll?” She lifted her head from her hands. What was with her father? Some sloths could react faster than him, ‘kay?

“You need to start hiding your valuables properly! Before, I thought it wasn’t a problem because we have formations around the house. But now, the moment Mom leaves, you can’t even properly defend the house. Aren’t you supposed to be a mighty Elemental Sovereign? Can’t you at least sense other people around with your spiritual energy?”

“B-but your father was unconscious?” He stuttered nervously at his daughter’s rage.

“Then shouldn’t you use your super senses to wake up once you detect someone?” Murong Zili looked blankly at her. Yingyue sighed, used to her father’s lack of situational awareness. “Nevermind. But now my main character storyline has progressed! Let’s just get this over with quickly so I can go back to doing nothing.”

She opened a cabinet, which had racks of neatly hung artifacts inside. Skimming the rows, Murong Yingyue searched for a specific artifact.

Feng Ran had a hobby of collecting all kinds of artifacts, even useless ones. However, she often lost track of how many artifacts she had, and Yingyue often took two or three with her each time she visited. Between her mother’s hoarding habits and her rich master, Murong Yingyue had plenty of people to leech artifacts off of.

Finally finding the right artifact, Yingyue brushed off some of the accumulated dust. The artifact was cube-shaped, and was a shiny dark blue. It was about the size of her head, and she tucked it under her arm.

Why did she need this artifact? It was to travel to the Windy Plains. She couldn’t call on Qie because there were certain areas that only cultivators of the Sovereign level could travel. For the Sovereigns, they could use their spiritual energy to shield themselves in the unstable space-time around the area and force their way in.

Spacial arts cultivators could go to those places as well without being Sovereign level, but the art they were cultivating had to specialize in travelling through space. In addition, they needed a sufficient amount of spiritual energy, both of which Murong Yingyue didn’t have.

So, as a solution, she would use the artifact to protect her body while she hitched a ride on Murong Zili.

“You remember where the Windy Plains are, right?” She narrowed her eyes at this unreliable father of her’s.

“Yeah? Mostly?” Whatever, we should at least be pretty close by even if he doesn’t remember.

“Then let’s go.”

“Okay! Isn’t this so nice? We get to spend some time together now!” Yingyue just glared at her father. He drooped in disappointment, but perked back up when Murong Yingyue stepped next to him and held his hand so they could travel.

“All right! Gusty Plains, right?”

“What? N-”

...

“Soooo.... How did you get in here? What did you do?” Lu Fei asked. They were running from a group of guards, who were all yelling at them to stop.

Earlier, Yun Siye had offered to let the guard get closer and admire his pecs, luring him inside the cell so he could knock him out. In his trance, the guard agreed, and was now lying unconscious on the filthy dungeon floor. Qing Zheng, seeing his chance, offered to give them the location of an extremely rare artifact if they let him join their escape.

The other prisoner shrugged, then ducked under a dagger that was thrown at him.

“Same as you. I stole some items from them.” She wrinkled her nose at him.

“Really? That’s so boring.”

“You were doing the same thing!” Another dagger sailed overhead him.

“There’s a difference! We were forced to by our First Senior Brother!” Qing Zheng sighed.

“Forced, willingly, what’s the difference these days?” Yet another dagger flew right at him, and he was forced to jump away, sticking closer to Yun Siye. “Goddammit! Why does someone keep trying to hit me everytime I speak?”

“Because your voice is fucking annoying. I’d shut you up too if you weren’t giving us information.” Lu Fei deadpanned.

“Back in my day-” Yun Siye slapped him, almost throwing him off balance and crashing into the ground.

“You stop right there. We are not going there.” The other man glared at him.

“Back in-” Yun Siye slapped him again.

“Shut it, you annoying old man!”

“If I’m old, then you better respect your elders!” Qing Zheng argued back, an arrow whistling through the air right beside his ear. “Finally, some variation!”

“You don’t look the part. How old are you really, old fool?” Lu Fei asked.

“None of your business!” She snickered.

“So over a hundred?” Qing Zheng ignored her. He felt as if talking to these two was like talking to a toddler. A vicious toddler that would spew out insults that they had learned, ignoring whatever the other person had said.

“We need to get ready.” Yun Siye interjected. “Qie said he was directly linked to the gate, so the teleportation time isn’t a problem, but we need time to contact him uninterrupted. Third Junior Sister, I gave you some vials earlier. I wrote down the order in which you have to throw them. Make sure you throw them far away from us.” She nodded.

Earlier, they had made a pit stop at the guardhouse to retrieve their things, Yun Siye’s space ring in particular. With it, they had access to unknown poisons and more importantly, a way to contact Qie.

The courtyard gates came into view, and Yun Siye waved his hand, taking out a scroll with a formation drawn on to it. Grabbing on to Qing Zheng and activating the formation, he gained a sudden burst of speed, dragging the other escapee with him.

Meanwhile, Lu Fei turned on her heel and threw a vial with black liquid at the guards. It hit the leading guard and shattered, black fumes instantly shrouding the rest of the guards.

“Ahhh! My eyes!”

“It’s draining away my spiritual energy!”

“I can’t move!”

Satisfied with the guards’ screams, she continued to run towards the gate. By the time she was halfway there, some guards had broken out of the black cloud, the rest either twitching on the ground or clawing at their eyes.

“Stop right there!” The nameless head guard shouted.

“Who the fuck actually stops when you say that? Tell me, has anyone actually stopped because you told them to? Reevalute your work tactics, you need to consider their effectiveness!” Lu Fei sped up further, pulling further away from the guards. As she was the fastest of the group, she had stayed behind to stall them with some poison that could paralyze them and drain away their energy.

Of course, if it was all that it took to take down the Purple Emperor’s guards, then the Purple Emperor would be robbed every other week.

Yun Siye had prepared for that, giving Lu Fei the second vial - one that would activate the second, deadly poison that had entered the guard’s bodies along with the first paralytic one.

That poison was Yun Siye’s most prized poison, the Fragrant Bloom. He had spent months developing it, and the element of surprise it had was invaluable in taking down stronger opponents. It could be mixed with other poisons without affecting them and was near impossible to detect.

As Yun Siye enjoyed making other’s lives difficult, the effect of his poison was the exact opposite of its name. It would make the body decompose rapidly, rotting until they were just a lump of discolored flesh, and even then, the vicious poison wouldn’t stop there. The victim’s body would rot and turn into dirt, leaving no trace of a human even existing in their place.

Furthermore, Yun Siye was capable of changing how long it took for the poison to activate. The particular strain of Fragrant Bloom he had given his Third Junior Sister was one that would activate after a day. He would've given her one that activated quicker, but he didn’t have any other deadly poisons with him that were sure to kill their pursuers.