In broad daylight, with a mind full of thoughts, Meng Ruji naturally couldn’t sleep, so she chose to meditate and enter contemplation, quickly entering a hazy state of consciousness.

However, unlike her usual meditation, this time Meng Ruji felt her mind unexpectedly clear.

She watched herself consciously walk into her dreamscape. The surroundings seemed like a huge cage-like space, with a background of gray fog clouds of varying shades.

Meng Ruji casually approached a fog cloud and looked inside. Through the mist, she could see the scenes within clearly.

Those strange and magnificent scenes were her past, yet not merely her past.

She saw Zhan Ye. The scene displayed was the day she saved him.

On the icy lake, the young man was thinly dressed, curled up on the ground, nearly frozen to death. Meng Ruji was casting a spell on Zhan Ye. The spell emitted warm light, enveloping him and seemingly melting the solid ice and cold wind on the lake.

She had saved him.

But unlike her real memories, in this dreamscape, Meng Ruji saw another version of herself.

That Meng Ruji wore different clothes—the clothes she wore on the day Zhan Ye destroyed Hengxu Mountain. Her garments were covered in dark red blood.

Blood droplets had also splattered on her face. She stood beside the Meng Ruji, who was saving someone, crying in anguish and screaming: “Don’t save him! Don’t save him! You’ll regret it! He’s not worth it! He should stay here! Kill him!”

Every cry, every sentence was the painful inner screaming from the day Zhan Ye massacred Hengxu Mountain.

She regretted, she hated—all emotions were magnified in the dreamscape.

Meng Ruji watched that hysterical version of herself in silence.

This was she who would never appear in reality, in life.

When she told Zhan Ye that over the years, she had killed herself the most, she wasn’t joking. She had indeed killed such an out-of-control version of herself countless times in her heart.

Then she would open her eyes and continue to face the years ahead of her with calm and reason.

“Oh my, Little Meng, it’s quite difficult, isn’t it?”

A voice broke Meng Ruji’s continued exploration of her dreamscape.

She turned her head and saw Mo Li standing behind her.

Mo Li looked at her with a beaming smile. His overly pale face seemed to glow in the darkness. He waved his hand, dispersing the gray mist around Meng Ruji: “Why are you so absorbed in watching nightmares? Look at something happier.”

Mo Li beckoned to the sky, and a slightly darker gray fog cloud floated down. Mo Li blew on the fog cloud, dispersing some of the mist inside. When Meng Ruji glanced inside, she saw herself as a young child, being led by parents whose faces she could no longer remember, playing naked by the riverside…

Meng Ruji: “…”

She slapped away this fog cloud with one palm.

“You’re absurd!”

“I’m so sad. Unfilial daughter, won’t even let me see what you looked like as a child.”

Meng Ruji looked at Mo Li with annoyance: “Time is tight now. Don’t waste time with idle chatter.”

Mo Li smiled: “I’m a nightmare demon. In the dreamscape, isn’t time under my control? Don’t worry.” Mo Li pointed to the fog clouds floating overhead. “If you want to look, you can finish watching all these dreams before going out—there’s still time.”

“I won’t look anymore.” Meng Ruji crossed her arms and looked at him. “Why have you been sleeping all this time, unable to wake up no matter how we called?”

Mo Li pouted: “I was injured. Resting, you know.”

“And now you wake up so timely?” Meng Ruji sneered coldly. “The situation outside is very bad. Someone with malevolent qi rose from under the Yinyuan Tree. He seized the position of Zhuliu City’s lord and wants to destroy the Land of No Return…”

“I know. Zhan Ye.” Mo Li spoke lightly.

“You know him?”

“Of course.” Mo Li smiled. “I sealed him.”

Four words, spoken lightly, yet they fell heavily into Meng Ruji’s heart.

“You…”

“Me.”

“You are the Lord of No Return.”

“More or less.”

In this instant, Meng Ruji was enlightened, understanding everything!

Why his broken stone could previously pulverize Luo Yingfeng’s gold into powder, and why he could use his stone body to cast spells unaffected by the gold and silver rules.

So he was the one who set these rules!

“Are you playing with me?” Meng Ruji angrily grabbed Mo Li’s collar. “You even asked me to provide for your retirement! What retirement do you need? Did you orchestrate my entry into the Land of No Return?”

“That’s not the case.” Mo Li wasn’t angry either, still smiling as he patted Meng Ruji’s hand. “Coming to the Land of No Return is because of your deep obsessions—you can’t blame me. As for retirement, who says being the Lord of No Return means you don’t need retirement? I don’t trust others. I only trust you, Little Meng. You have a kind heart.”

Right now, Meng Ruji only hates her kind heart!

Suppressing her anger, Meng Ruji released his collar, turned her head, took a deep breath, and calmed her emotions: “Fine, if that’s the case, it’s also good. Previously, when Zhan Ye came to the Land of No Return, he carried malevolent qi. You didn’t want him to disturb this place, so you sealed him under the Yinyuan Tree, right?”

“Little Meng is clever.”

“Seal him again.”

Mo Li sighed and shook his head: “Can’t do it.”

Meng Ruji gave him a cold glance: “Don’t give me nonsense about Luo Yingfeng injuring you. You’re the Lord of No Return. In the Land of No Return, how could that thing injure you this badly?”

“Little Meng, you…” Mo Li smiled. “Sometimes you’re just too clever. I really was injured, but indeed not because of Luo Yingfeng. During the time I was absent, I went to the mortal realm.”

“You can still go to the mortal realm?” Meng Ruji laughed in anger, but didn’t want to argue about this matter now. “Fine, continue.”

“I was injured in the mortal realm.”

“What kind of injury did you get in the mortal realm?”

“Didn’t my second son-in-law, Ye Dahe, mention before…”

Meng Ruji interrupted him first: “He’s not your second son-in-law!”

“Anyway, Ye Dahe said that malevolent qi is rampant in the mortal realm now. I wanted to go see the situation, and then in the mortal realm, I was injured by something with deep, malevolent qi.”

Hearing this, Meng Ruji frowned and looked Mo Li up and down.

He stood straight, his expression natural. From his appearance, there was no sign of injury, but given the current situation, Zhan Ye was their common enemy—he did not need to lie to her.

“When will your injury heal?”

“Two to three hundred years.”

“You…”

Meng Ruji held back a curse in her throat.

Two to three hundred years—by the time his injury healed and he could seal Zhan Ye, the mortal realm outside might be gone.

Meng Ruji quickly calmed down: “Teach me the method. I’ll do it.”

“That’s exactly what I meant!” Mo Li immediately responded. “My injury is severe now. I have no extra strength at all. It’s probably because of this that Zhan Ye could break my seal and escape. I’ll teach you the formation to seal him. You should find it simple to learn, but there might be one rather difficult thing for you now…”

“Just get to the point.”

“You have no money.”

“…”

Mo Li looked at Meng Ruji with pity, saying somewhat sadly for her: “Setting up this formation requires luring him into the formation, then using magical power to seal him after he arrives. But using magical power in the Land of No Return costs money.”

By the end, Meng Ruji felt waves of splitting headaches—the real suffering brought by poverty pressed down on her frail shoulders like a mountain.

Even in the dreamscape, Meng Ruji felt her body trembling…

Because of poverty.

Never in her life had she dreamed that one day, when she needed to confront world-destroying evil, she would first be constrained by…

Money!

“Can’t you change this ridiculous rule?” Meng Ruji spoke through gritted teeth.

“I can exist beyond this rule, but I can’t help you.”

Meng Ruji was exhausted, truly worn down by this wretched place.

“Mu Sui…” She used her last bit of energy to think of a possible solution. “Zhuliu City was built by him. They say his wealth could pile up into a thousand mountains—he must still be able to find extra money. If we can contact Mu Sui, there might be a way.”

“Hmm…” Mo Li pondered for a while. “It would be easy before, but my power is quite weak now. To contact him out of thin air would be somewhat difficult. Do you have anything on you that’s connected to him?”

Meng Ruji instinctively touched her wrist. In the dreamscape, she also wore that branch bracelet on her wrist.

“Mu Sui cast a spell on it. Although it’s not working now, it should still carry his aura. Can you use this as a medium to contact him?”

“Yes, I can use this object to enter his dreamscape and connect your dreams. Then you can contact him.” Mo Li smiled confidently and proudly. “Unbeknownst to gods or ghosts.”

“Excellent.”

Finally, it wasn’t bad news. Meng Ruji perked up and extended her hand: “Right here, can you do it?”

Mo Li smiled confidently: “Of course. I am, after all, Yan Tianjun. Even Heaven cannot escape.”

Mo Li reached out and touched the branch on Meng Ruji’s wrist within the dreamscape.

Layers of thin mist rippled outward from where his finger touched, just like the mist that had previously concealed Meng Ruji’s dreamscape.

The mist scattered, and the surroundings were almost obscured by fog. At such close distance, Meng Ruji could barely see Mo Li’s face.

Time passed bit by bit.

Meng Ruji went from excited to calm and finally became somewhat speechless. Her mouth turned down as she looked at Mo Li in front of her.

“Yan Tianjun?” Meng Ruji’s tone already carried some contempt and mockery. “Even Heaven cannot escape, so how did Mu Sui escape? Can’t you summon him?”

Mo Li coughed lightly, covering his embarrassment: “Well… he needs to be asleep. If he doesn’t sleep at all, how can I call him over from the dreamscape?”

Meng Ruji withdrew her hand.

In the next instant, the surrounding haze faded, and Meng Ruji suddenly opened her eyes.

Looking at this room with windows on all four sides, Meng Ruji took a deep breath.

Really…

She was awakened by anger!

This Mo Li was unreliable, and that Mu Sui wasn’t any good either!

She had been kidnapped for at least a whole night! Including yesterday, at least a day and night had passed—how could he not sleep?

What was he staying awake for?

“Thud”—a light sound. Meng Ruji was currently amid her frustration with everything going wrong. She thought Zhan Ye was coming again to tell her more world-destroying theories that would annoy her.

But when she looked up, she saw that outside one of the windows, amid flowing clouds and rosy light, stood a person, very person she couldn’t even dream of in her dreams…

“Mu Sui?”

Meng Ruji stared in amazement.

“Meng Ruji.”

Mu Sui was outside the window, suspended in mid-air, but his expression was indifferent and calm, as steady as if this were the first floor and he stood on solid ground.

“If you don’t hurry over, do you still want to stay here and reminisce with your old friend?”