Shen Qiyuan was very curious about how Puhua could avoid heavenly punishment while committing such forbidden acts, but what was more urgent now was finding out whether the current emperor had also requested something from Puhua.

He entered the palace quickly and urgently, but once inside the palace grounds, he slowed his pace.

“What’s wrong?” Ruyi asked, standing on his shoulder.

Shen Qiyuan lowered his eyes: “His Majesty is extremely suspicious. No matter what I say when I go before him now, he will harbor doubts.”

He might even tell Puhua first, which would be like alerting the enemy.

Ruyi tilted her head: “I do have a way.”

Shen Qiyuan knew her method—as a demon, she could enter dreams and capture souls, but such methods would cause certain harm to mortals. As an immortal, he could not take such crooked paths.

Seeing his silence, Ruyi knew what he was thinking and immediately rolled her eyes: “Puhua has already entered dreams to bewitch the ruler into building divine statues for him and offering worship in ancestral temples, yet you’re still arguing with me about this.”

With that, she flew off his shoulder.

“Ruyi.” He followed two steps forward, reaching out to stop her, but unexpectedly, she suddenly struck out. Dark demonic energy rushed toward him without warning, corroding the neat palace bricks on the ground into jagged black holes.

He paused for a moment, and when he looked up again, the magpie had already vanished without a trace.

The palace was full of demon-warding water gates—where could she recklessly break through? Shen Qiyuan became somewhat anxious. He quickly formed hand seals to restore the ground stones to their original state, then hurriedly expanded his divine consciousness to search for where she had gone.

“Lord Shen.” Lord Zhuo from the Ministry of Justice came from another direction. Seeing him, he said: “What a coincidence to meet you here. His Majesty has ordered me to discuss the Ningyuan Marquis Manor affair with you. Let’s go together.”

Shen Qiyuan stiffly hid his seal-forming hand back in his sleeve, hesitating: “I still have some other matters.”

“My lord, what matter could be more important than His Majesty’s summons? Have you forgotten how furious His Majesty became last time when you didn’t answer his summons?” Lord Zhuo shook his head repeatedly, reaching out to pull him forward. “The way of being a minister—never become arrogant because of favor, Lord Shen.”

Mentioning this matter, Shen Qiyuan’s brow twitched.

Looking at the current situation, that sudden summons last time made perfect sense. Puhua wanted to use His Majesty to detain him, so that Liu Ruyi could kill all the people escorting the grain supplies in the illusion, then have him go slay the demon. At that time, in Puhua’s view, he was deeply in love with Liu Ruyi—nothing would be easier to cause cultivation deviation than killing one’s own beloved.

Puhua didn’t want him to ascend to the Ninth Heaven; he even wanted to destroy him.

But why? The two of them seemed to have no deep enmity.

Puhua’s calculations were quite good—controlling the human emperor would allow him to indirectly control Shen Qiyuan while also gaining enough incense offerings for cultivation. No one would dare easily investigate the current sage, and even he, as the Azure God of the human realm, had many taboos. So no one would expose his violation of heavenly laws.

But he hadn’t expected that Shen Qiyuan would stand together with Liu Ruyi again.

Black and white interlaced wings spread open on the palace walls as Ruyi avoided one water gate after another, landing directly on the flying eaves of the Imperial Study.

Even missing one soul, she was still a formidable great demon. These human water gate arrays were still too immature.

Gracefully brushing the small wounds on her claws, Ruyi fanned up a breeze from under the eaves.

The emperor was angrily saying in the Imperial Study: “Who allowed Song Zhenshan to go to Nine Rivers? He only sent a confession letter after arriving, and he still has me in his eyes? The Ningyuan Marquis is also useless. Just when an opportunity came, he caused trouble and gave the censors something to criticize. How can I entrust him with important tasks?”

Just as he was speaking, the wind brushed by, and he suddenly yawned.

The palace attendants in the Imperial Study quickly advised: “You haven’t slept peacefully for many days. Your Majesty must take care of your dragon body. Please rest for a while.”

“No, I still summoned…” His voice grew smaller and smaller. The emperor only felt his eyelids were as heavy as a thousand pounds, and soon he fell asleep leaning on his desk.

Ruyi laid down barriers around the study and mercilessly invaded his dreams. She had thought that such an emperor who liked to muddle through would have wine pools and forests of meat in his dreams.

Who would have expected that when the thick fog dispersed, it would be the sound of clashing weapons and galloping horses?

“In my lifetime, I will surely break through Great Xia’s gates, recover Great Qian’s territory, and let the people live in peace and the nation’s soldiers rest in peace!”

“Follow me into battle! Where I am is your royal capital!”

“Heyang, I’m sorry.”

Ruyi perched high above, looking at all this in amazement.

This wasn’t something the current sage could accomplish—he could probably only be so brave in dreams, even able to face his past directly.

Emperor Qian’an, Zhao Eryang, son of a concubine, was unloved in childhood, only gained power after age eight. With achievements earned by risking his life, he was praised by court ministers and ascended to the Eastern Palace Crown Prince position.

But even so, the late emperor still didn’t like him. Even before dying, he had thoughts of changing the crown prince. He summoned important ministers to the palace overnight to redraft the imperial edict. So Zhao Eryang finally developed rebellious intentions, surrounding the palace with heavy troops, killing five princes and consorts and the empress who were in the palace at the time, kneeling before the late emperor’s bed and forcibly sending him to his death.

The consequence of this was resistance from important court ministers and celebrities. More than ten ministers holding great power resigned one after another, leaving behind a mess that couldn’t be cleaned up, and it coincided with Great Xia invading the borders and swallowing territory.

At that time, even wearing the yellow robe, Zhao Eryang was in dire straits and powerless to reverse the situation. Fortunately, with the full support of Princess Imperial Heyang, he successfully moved south to establish the capital and proclaim himself emperor again. Unfortunately, Princess Imperial Heyang and her husband died in battle at Nine Rivers and never returned to Lin’an.

The current Emperor Qian’an had stabilized his throne, and Great Qian was prosperous in trade with wealthy people. He began to fear those who held military power and became wary of capable generals. He feared that his palace coup would be reenacted a second time in Lin’an City, so he would rather cede cities and pay reparations repeatedly than establish another commander’s flag in great wars.

He only dared to secretly think in dreams—if only Great Qian could win one battle, if only he could fulfill Heyang’s wish and recover the land north of Nine Rivers.

The dream shifted, and he knelt before the divine statue in the ancestral temple, murmuring wishes, willing to exchange the prosperous incense offerings of the human world for Great Qian’s stability for a hundred generations.

Such a price was naturally insufficient. He heard the divine statue say that he must put a drop of his blood into the burning incense candles for Great Qian to have no wars for ten years.

Zhao Eryang was overjoyed and naturally did so without hesitation.

A dignified emperor was actually like a gullible child before the immortals. Blood dropped into the incense candles, producing a wisp of red mist. He smiled happily and kowtowed three times to the divine statue.

When he raised his gaze, the stone statue of Divine Lord Puhua seemed to smile at him.

Ruyi watched and wiped her face.

She dove down from the emperor’s dream, transforming into a fierce wolf demon, struggling out from the stone statue and opening her bloody maw toward the emperor: “Your wish is fulfilled. Your three souls and seven spirits all belong to me now.”