Everyone looked at the unwelcome figure, and their faces turned ugly.

"Qin Huang, what are you doing here?" Su Rong said, her face stiff. The person she didn't want to see the most had arrived.

Qin Huang was standing alongside several other people from his family. "Is this how you welcome your future husband?"

"You are not welcome here." Yi Hanying stood up and brandished her fist. "Don't think you can bully Sister Rong..."

"Bully?" Qin Huang laughed on hearing Yi Hanying's words. He rubbed his chin and gazed at Su Rong up and down. "I will bully her, but this is not the time nor the place…"

"Bastard!" Su He and Yi Hanying were angry and wanted to jump at Qin Huang, but Su Rong held them back. She looked at Qin Huang and frowned, "I didn't think the son of the noble Qin Family had such a vulgar tongue."

"Hmph!" Qin Huang snorted. "I am not here to discuss etiquette with you. Although you are lacking in some aspects, I can reluctantly accept you as my wife… " He looked at Mu Chen and his friends. "But if you keep hanging around with ragtags like these—you won't even qualify to be a concubine."

Mu Chen and others frowned on hearing this.

"Who I am friends with is none of your business," Su Rong snorted. Although she was willing to compromise for the sake of her family, it didn't mean she would sit by and watch her friends getting insulted. "If you are here to just insult my friends, please leave."

"It's you who will be leaving with me," Qin Huang said. "Did you forget the agreement between our families?"

Su Rong bit her lip. Before leaving, her father had reminded her about this.

Su He couldn't take it anymore and jumped forward. "Qin Huang, how dare you talk to Elder Sis like that!"

"Su He!" Su Rong's expression changed and she tried to block Su He. She didn't want to escalate the issue.

"Elder Sis, don't worry," Su He brushed his sister aside and faced Qin Huang.

Qin Huang wasn't fazed by Su He's aggressive attitude, but just looked at him and smiled. "Yo! If it isn't my little brother-in-law."

"Who's little?" Su He roared. "And don't act like you are my brother-in-law. I've talked with the Elders. Although Father agreed to the marriage, none of the elders have expressed support. There is still a long way for you to become my sister's husband."

"Tsk, tsk… you this pair of brother and sister, you don't even respect your father's wishes," Qin Huang said. "If the Su Family head knew about this, he would be quite sad."

Su He almost exploded with rage seeing Qin Huang use their father's name to pressure them. "Don't think you can use my father's name to scare me."

"Su He, stop messing around." Su Rong was exasperated. She looked at Qin Huang and said, "Why are you here?"

"You think I want to be around?" Qin Huang snorted. "Patriarch ordered me to travel with you. I'm here to pick you up."

"N-now?" Su Rong was taken aback. She knew this moment would arrive, but when it arrived, she was still not ready.

"Is there a problem?" Qin Huang said. He looked at Su Rong's unenthusiastic expression and sniggered. "If you are reluctant to leave your girlfriends behind—I don't mind if you bring a couple of them along." Qin Huang chuckled and glanced at Liu Fengying and Zhou Mei, much to Mu Chen's chagrin, while the other Qin Family members behind him wolf-whistled.

Su Rong's expression changed. "No need. I will come alone."

"Sister Rong, there is no need to be courteous to such a guy," Liu Fengying said. She was already disgruntled with how Su He and his cronies were throwing covetous looks at them. If she didn't have to hold back Zhou Mei who was leaking murderous air, she would have knocked Qin Huang out earlier. Liu Fengying frowned at Qin Huang. Not mincing her words she said, "Sister Rong has no intention of going against her Father's wishes. But she only agreed to travel with you and not your band of ingrates. So unless you are ready to ditch them, don't bother us."

Listening to Liu Fengying's fiery rebuff, the several people behind him flinched, while Yi Hanying rejoiced.

Qin Huang was also taken aback but recovered. But instead of confronting Liu Fengying, he turned to Su Rong. "Is the noble lady of the Su Family going to let an outsider meddle in our affairs?"

Su Rong was initially hesitant, but Liu Fengying's words gave her courage. "What she said is correct. Why should I be the one who has to leave my group?"

"Sister Rong is right," Yi Hanying said.

"Yes, why does our Su Family Miss have to leave her group?" One of the Su Family members shouted.

"If our Su Family miss goes with them, who knows what they will do?"

"Does the Qin Family think they can bully our Su Family?"

More and more Su Family members started to voice their support for their young lady.

Qin Huang was frustrated and gritted his teeth. "You—" He wanted to speak, but his words were drowned by the cries of the Su Family juniors. Although he had brought a few people with him, their number was pitiful compared to people supporting Su Rong. "Good, good," he said. "I will see how long you can continue to play."

In the end, Qin Huang could only stomp his foot and leave with his group.

Seeing Qin Huang leave, Su Rong heaved a sigh of relief. Everyone settled down once more.

"That went as expected," Su He said to Mu Chen. This was the contingency plan they had come up with. Since they couldn't oppose the decision of the siblings' father, it was better to control other variables. "Now if Qin Huang insists on being with Elder Sis, he must join our group. Once he joins our group, I will see how he gets close to Elder Sis, hehe." Su He chuckled, a crafty light hidden inside his eyes.

Mu Chen's face twitched. He had no doubt Su He must have planned dozens of pranks to keep Qin Huang occupied. Although Su He was a troublemaker, he was very popular among the youths his age. It was he who had secretly instigated the juniors from the Su He Family and rallied them for support.

"Just don't take it overboard," Mu Chen said. If Qin Huang died during one of his pranks, it would be a big deal.

Su He thumped his chest. "Brother Chen, you can count on me. This is related to my sister, how can I be careless?"

Mu Chen shrugged. What worried him was not Qin Huang, but rather Mu Changshou. When Qin Huang had come, Mu Chen had scrutinized the people he had brought along. Mu Changshou was nowhere to be seen. Mu Chen didn't believe Mu Changshou was scared of facing him. Just like him, he must be waiting for an opportunity. But the more discrete and patient Mu Changshou was, the more difficult of an opponent he was. Mu Chen didn't feel he was facing a human, but a venomous snake who was ready to sink its teeth the moment he became negligent...

"Aaah!"

"Something's happening over there."

The surprised cries of the people around him pulled Mu Chen out of his reverie.

"Mu Chen, look!" Zhou Mei tugged at Mu Chen's sleeve and pointed at the lake.

The water in the lake had become even more turbulent. It had turned into a vortex, exposing the bottom of the lake. Contrary to people's expectations, the bottom of the lake wasn't empty. A translucent sphere, the size of a small house, was nestled at the center of the vortex. It looked like an oversized marble, made out of shimmering glass. It stood still in place but seemed to revolve as indistinct shapes and shadows twisted and deformed on the surface. The mist from the water that had risen glittered in the sunlight and threw rainbow colors on the sphere,

"So beautiful!" Several female cultivators, who had an eye for beauty exclaimed.

"Ah! T-that, Is that the entrance to the secret realm?" Xia Ping couldn't control his astonishment.

"It's not the entrance." It was Liu Fengying who answered, "That's the secret realm."

"The secret realm?"

Not just Xia Ping, several other people were also confused.

"Yes. What you are seeing is not the entrance, the secret realm itself." The middle-aged woman came forward and explained. Although Mu Chen and his friends were talking in whispers, it hadn't escaped her notice. "When space itself is layered and folded over by hundreds, thousands of times, it will undergo a qualitative change and become capable of hosting principles becoming a small world. So don't be fooled by its small size… " the woman said.

Several people gasped. They craned their necks trying to get a better look at this small world. Some of them were bold and used their divine sense to probe.

"Aaargh!"

"Nooooo!"

Those who had used their divine sense collapsed in pain, holding their heads. Some of them had been knocked unconscious. Their team members hurried forward to help them.

"Ignorant," one of the elders sitting in front of the lake, opened an eye and snorted. Then not paying them any more attention, he went back to his meditation.

"Youngsters who don't know the immensity of the heavens…" The middle-aged man came next to the woman and shook his head.

The woman looked at the several people who had fallen and sighed, "Even the experts have to be careful when dealing with a small world. The strength of a world is not something you can contend with. It is your good luck that the spirit was injured just a little bit… I hope you've learned your lesson and will be more careful in the future."

Mu Chen and his group were unscathed. They had already reviewed the information about the secret realm which had a clear warning. But the woman's words were a wake-up call for several others. They shuddered at the thought of having their souls devoured and realized their earlier actions were nothing less than reckless. Everyone nodded in agreement, especially the ones who had just tasted the pain. They hung their heads down in embarrassment. Even those who had gloated at their misfortune reigned in their arrogance and put on a serious face.

The woman was satisfied with their reaction. She was about to say something but then paused and turned her head to look at the sphere. Everyone followed her line of sight.

Unbeknownst to them, a black fissure had appeared on the sphere. It stretched wide for over a dozen meters. The water in the lake was gravitating towards the crevice, pulling along with the aquatic life forms that had once populated it. The crevice was like the maw of a beast, a bottomless pit that swallowed everything. Soon the entire lake had turned dry, but the crack had stopped growing and stabilized.

"We have stabilized the channel," one of the experts who was surrounding the sphere said. "You may send them in."

The couple bowed towards the elders, "We thank the Supreme Elders for their hard work."

The supreme elder nodded and went back to meditation. They couldn't enter the realm due to their cultivation, but they could still sense its mystery. If they could comprehend it, it would be of great benefit for their cultivation.

After thanking the elders, the woman turned to them and said, "The secret realm will remain open for six months. At any time during this period, if you want to come out, crush your token and you will be ejected from the realm… I wish you all luck in the upcoming endeavor. Now everyone line up—"

But before she could finish speaking, a group of cultivators had approached the sphere.