The affectionate messages Ji Canghai had sent her before, which she had kept, now seemed so ironic next to his last mocking message. Unable to hold back any longer, Su Yao grabbed her bag and stormed out. “Su Yao! Are you crazy? It’s work hours, where are you going!” her boss roared behind her. After a two-hour journey, she found Ji Canghai in the city where he lived. “I know you’re not that kind of person, Ji Canghai. Proposing just for a suit, ha, you’re kidding me, right?” Even as composed and strong as Su Yao was, she confronted this visibly exhausted man. Was this the man who had promised to love her for a lifetime? “I’m sorry, Yao Yao, do you want to hear the truth?” “Tell me.” “I…” Ji Canghai hesitated, “A female player flew thousands of miles to see me the day after Confession Day last month.” “Haven’t I ever done that for you?” Su Yao scoffed, thinking what a lame excuse it was. “I’m sorry, it’s my fault, Yao Yao, go ahead and scold me…” Ji Canghai sighed deeply, “Today, she found out she’s pregnant.” “I haven’t—” Su Yao started to say, but then heard Ji Canghai’s next words. “What the fuck! Yours?” she stood up abruptly. “Yes,” Ji Canghai admitted, “I have to marry her.”
“You’re really something,” Su Yao left him with those four words and a face full of coffee stains. On her way back, Su Yao cried the whole way. Over the years, she had never lost, never cried.
Chapter Five: The Eternal Palace
After returning home, Su Yao shut off her phone, closed the door, and slept for three days. When she finally logged into the game, her inbox was about to explode. Half of the messages were from Liushui Changsi:
- Su Yao, where the hell have you been?
- Canghai is parading around in the Divine Armor, and everyone wants to see you in it too!
- Why the hell is your phone off, dead Su Yao!
- Your company said you didn’t show up for work?
- What the hell are you doing, are you okay? You’re supposed to get married!
- Su Yao!! Say something, your boss is threatening to fire you!
- What happened to you, Su Yao? I asked Canghai, but he won’t say. Did you guys have a fight?
Su Yao read through them one by one, feeling completely numb. She selected them all and deleted them in bulk. The remaining half were the usual messages she would typically handle daily; now, after three days offline, they had accumulated. For instance, threats from the Yan Kingdom like, “Release Princess Liuli, or we’ll find the Eternal Palace to kill you,” were nothing new to her.
She had a bad reputation for being pretentious and seducing other women’s men. Many female players despised her, but they couldn’t do anything about it; she was a high-ranking princess, young, beautiful, and charming, attracting a plethora of male players to her side, including the king of Yan, a rich second-generation named Pishan Daohai Nanbo Wan, who was one of her sugar daddies.
During a mission to infiltrate the Xia Kingdom and steal military secrets, Princess Liuli was caught by Su Yao, who happily imprisoned her in the Heavenly Prison.
The Heavenly Prison in “The Human World” was designed interestingly; once inside, players find themselves in an endless corridor, walking in circles with no escape, not even with teleportation scrolls or real-money items. Logging off or any other action would still keep them trapped until someone with authority released them.
The Eternal Palace mentioned in the messages was the most powerful and mysterious player in the server. In “The Human World,” countless conflicts and vendettas occurred daily, with some players left with no way out, seeking justice or revenge. The Eternal Palace was their last hope.
However, the Eternal Palace never appeared proactively, never showed up in crowded places, living as a loner like the former Red Pill Hall, not belonging to any player organization or needing any backing.
The Eternal Palace occasionally accepted payment to eliminate enemies for players, but this was rare. Most messages sent to him went unanswered; he acted on his mood alone. When he chose not to kill, no amount of offered reward would make him appear. Yet, he remained the last hope for those with nowhere else to turn, the only one who could save them or decide their fate. He wielded a scythe named “Twilight of the Gods,” the only weapon in the entire game capable of demoting a player to level 1, stripping them of all their gear. Its attributes were simple:
- The defeated are demoted to level 1, with all gear removed.
- The holder is the Lord of the City of Rebirth.
So those who wanted to kill Hong Yaotang would bombard Chang Sheng Dian with countless private messages every day. Su Yao hoped that this mysterious Chang Sheng Dian would challenge her. Unfortunately, Chang Sheng Dian seemed uninterested in her; he hadn’t even shown his face. Even when Dayan declared a bounty of 100,000 ingots for her head, this guy did not respond, content to nest in his Netherworld City, his whereabouts shrouded in mystery.
The game “Mortal Realm” features numerous natural structures like the Millennial Snow Mountain in the north, Shennong’s Forest in the east, the Dusk Sea in the south, the Desert and Gobi in the west, the White Jade Capital in the sky, and the Netherworld City underground. Players can build their own kingdoms or cities on empty land and eventually become their masters. However, even kings like Ji Canghai or Nan Bo Wan are just ordinary people ruling their own domains. To truly become a god, one must master these natural structures or environments in the Mortal Realm. Imagine causing the millennial snow mountain to collapse or the boundless sea to swallow millions of subjects’ nations; this feeling of having the world at one’s fingertips is the dream of many mortals. Yet, becoming their master is not something attainable by just anyone.
According to legend, deep within Shennong’s Forest, there’s a Bodhi tree; whoever sees it can become the master of the forest. However, the Eastern Forest is a labyrinth that one cannot navigate out of in three days and nights.
The labyrinth itself is one thing, but its constant change every minute makes it even more frustrating. Over the years, every player who ventured deep into the forest for exploration either ran out of supplies or was driven mad by the labyrinth, ultimately teleporting out with a city return scroll.
Legends tell of a divine beast in the Western Desert and Gobi; subduing it allows one to become the master of the Gobi, commanding even the most terrifying bosses. The monsters distributed in the west are the most fearsome in the entire Mortal Realm, with the fiercest being a black dragon named Jiu Li Ba Wang, rumored to be level 500 with a billion health points. A full team from Dayan’s Holy Court once went to challenge it, and five minutes later, hundreds of floating corpses were seen.
Even on the outskirts of the Gobi, ferocious monsters are numerous. The harsh natural environment makes the Desert and Gobi sparsely populated, with no one mining or treasure hunting, let alone establishing cities or nations.
Legend has it that deep within the Millennial Snow Mountain in the north lies a scroll called “Memories of the Snow Maiden,” which records a poignant story and the location where the gods hid their treasures before their fall. Within the god’s treasure, there’s a talisman that can make one the master of the Snow Mountain.