Chapter 184
Chapter 184: Groom Selection Part Three
Creak
The gate closed, completely sealing the first to enter—the【Heavenly Blade Dragon King】—from the outside world.
……
Forest of the Middle Grove, Main Hall
The hall was filled with the faint fragrance of sandalwood, extravagant beyond measure.
On the white jade reclining couch at the center of the hall, a peerlessly stunning woman reclined at ease.
She wore a sweeping crimson imperial robe, golden phoenixes embroidered on the hem so lifelike they seemed ready to take flight.
The flowing robe did not conceal her figure in the slightest—on the contrary, it traced every line of her breathtakingly alabaster...
And her waist, so slender it seemed barely a handspan.
She was beautiful in a way that stopped the heart.
This was the absolute sovereign of Soul-Return Town:【Phoenix Sovereign】.
And yet...
The Heavenly Blade Dragon King stood at the center of the hall, gazing at the Phoenix Sovereign on the couch.
Those gray vertical pupils were filled with nothing but bleak sorrow.
He had not come for any bridegroom selection!
"Phoenix Sovereign!"
The Heavenly Blade Dragon King surged forward, dropping to one knee with a heavy thud.
"The seal on the Imperial Mausoleum is nearly spent! Please lend us your strength—save all living beings!"
The Phoenix Sovereign's beautiful eyes were full of impatience.
"You should not have come here, Heavenly Blade."
"This Sovereign is tired. Several thousand years of killing and fighting."
"Now, I only wish to take a pleasing groom here in Soul-Return Town and live my days in peace."
"You may deceive others, but you cannot deceive me!"
The Heavenly Blade Dragon King raised his head and flatly refused her claim.
"This grand island-wide selection is, in truth, nothing more than a front!"
"As an old subordinate of both you and the Dragon God, I understand better than anyone in this world..."
"The feelings you hold for him!"
At the mention of the Dragon God's name.
For the first time, a ripple crossed the Phoenix Sovereign's face.
She let out a cold laugh.
"Heh... you are not wrong."
"But what of it?"
The Phoenix Sovereign sat upright, her crimson robe billowing around her.
"After that faithless man died, This Sovereign has no other wishes!"
"All I want now is to protect the sanctuary I built with my own hands!"
"Moreover, I may as well speak plainly..."
The Phoenix Sovereign's gaze grew dim.
"We have already lost—and lost badly."
"Soul-Return Town struck a non-aggression pact with the Evil Gods several hundred years ago."
"And the cause of all this lies not with me, nor with anyone else!"
"It all falls on that one person!"
The Phoenix Sovereign spoke through gritted teeth, her eyes reddening. "If only he had not been so blindly obsessed with that path of immortal cultivation!"
"If only he had never gone and placed his faith in that propagandist of Grand Love—how could things have ever come to this?!"
She hurled the jade cup beside her to the ground, shattering it.
Then she drew a long, slow breath.
"Heavenly Blade, for that faithless man's sake, go back."
"Stop meddling here. Let what remains of the Claws of the Dragon God rest well."
The Phoenix Sovereign waved a weary hand and turned away.
"But... Phoenix Sovereign!"
The Heavenly Blade Dragon King cried out in despair. "Those filth cannot be trusted! Please, lend us your strength!"
He rose to his feet and stripped the silver armor from his own body!
"I will speak plainly... the Claws of the Dragon God were slaughtered to the last by【Void】several years ago!"
"We have nothing left!"
"And as for myself..."
The Heavenly Blade Dragon King bared his chest. The entire left half of his body had turned completely black.
It looked as though it was covered in unspeakable writhing worms—yet in truth, it was flesh.
"I cannot hold on much longer."
"The Evil God's curse is evolving without end! The Dragon Bloodline is on the verge of withering!"
"Void is about to take her final step and ascend to godhood!"
"When that day comes, all living beings in the entire Savage Realm will suffer untold devastation—and even Soul-Return Town will not be spared!"
"Even you would not be able to stop her!"
"Please! Come forth!"
A Dragon King of an age—now kneeling with his forehead pressed to the floor, weeping beyond words.
The hall fell into a long silence.
The Phoenix Sovereign stood with her back to him, her shoulders trembling faintly. A sigh escaped her lips.
"This Sovereign also has... difficulties that are hard to speak of."
She did not turn around, but her voice softened somewhat. "However..."
"I can give you one chance."
"As long as you can pass the final test of this selection, This Sovereign promises to lend you the River-and-Mountain Brush."
The Heavenly Blade Dragon King snapped his head up and moved to press further.
"But Phoenix Sovereign, powerful as the River-and-Mountain Brush may be, what we need is for you personally to—"
"Silence. One more word and even the River-and-Mountain Brush is off the table."
The Phoenix Sovereign cut him off.
The Heavenly Blade Dragon King froze.
He looked at the Phoenix Sovereign's silhouette, and then, with bitter understanding, he grasped the truth.
The Phoenix Sovereign was bound by her pact with the Evil Gods and could not act directly.
Yet by proposing this condition, she clearly intended to use the selection as cover to hand him the supreme spirit instrument through the back door.
"This subordinate... obeys. My deepest gratitude, Phoenix Sovereign."
The Heavenly Blade Dragon King lowered his head helplessly, donned his armor once more, and withdrew from the hall with heavy steps.
The Phoenix Sovereign slowly turned around and watched his desolate retreating figure.
Then she tilted her head back, gazing at the Dragon and Phoenix Auspicious Blessing carved into the domed ceiling of the hall, and closed her eyes.
"This time..."
"Consider it one final struggle, for your sake."
The words fell. The Phoenix Sovereign resumed her cold, composed bearing.
She addressed her chief handmaiden Xiao Que beside her.
"Send the next one in."
"Let him go through the motions, then throw him out."
……
Outside the hall.
Watching the Heavenly Blade Dragon King walk out with his head hung low.
Muraguchi Kazusu, standing beside the second sedan chair, was so excited he nearly leapt off the ground.
"Hahaha! Did you see that, Morishita-kun!"
"That arrogant white-haired man must have been thoroughly scolded by the Phoenix Sovereign and eliminated!"
"Now, it is time for me to demonstrate the noble grace of the Sakura Empire!"
"Next—the Prayer Deep Pool candidate..."
"Enter the grove for your interview!"
Handmaiden Xiao Que's voice rang out.
Muraguchi Kazusu straightened his kimono and stepped into the main hall.
The moment he crossed the threshold and laid eyes on the peerlessly beautiful Phoenix Sovereign on the couch.
Muraguchi Kazusu's gaze locked and his breathing stopped entirely.
"So beautiful!"
But before Muraguchi Kazusu could smile and open his mouth to speak—
"Ugh!"
The Phoenix Sovereign suddenly pressed a silk handkerchief to her nose and mouth, her face twisting with undisguised disgust, and issued her verdict on the spot.
"Quickly! Get him out of my sight this instant!"
"The stench coming off him is revolting! It's giving This Sovereign a headache!"
Muraguchi Kazusu went pale with shock. He frantically raised his sleeve and sniffed himself in a panic, face flushed crimson as he argued his case.
"Phoenix Sovereign! Are you certain you are not mistaken?"
"This humble one is wearing the finest imperial cherry blossom perfume our empire has to offer—it smells wonderful!"
"How could I possibly stink?!"
The handmaidens nearby exchanged glances. They truly smelled nothing.
If there had genuinely been a stench, they would have cut this man down at the door—there was no way they would have let him in.
The Phoenix Sovereign rubbed her chin, eyes shifting slightly, clearly too indifferent to even bother crafting a convincing excuse.
She simply let out a cold snort.
"No stench? Then it is because he is too hideous to look at!"
"Merely laying eyes on that vulgar face of his makes This Sovereign feel sick!"
"That little tuft of disgusting whiskers beneath his nose in particular—they look exactly like the legs of a fly that crawled out of a cesspit!"
"One glance and This Sovereign would lose ten years off her life!"
"Someone remove him at once!"
"F... fly legs?!"
Muraguchi Kazusu reeled as though struck by lightning. His prized samurai mustache—his point of pride—had been reduced to fly legs?
Combined with the relentless humiliations he had already suffered, the fury surged from his heart in a rush, and he could not draw breath!
His eyes rolled back and he fainted dead away from sheer rage—again.
"Insufferable nuisance. Get rid of it at once!"
The Phoenix Sovereign waved a disdainful hand.
Two handmaidens stepped forward immediately, grabbed Muraguchi Kazusu by the ankles, and dragged him toward the door.
……
Near the storehouse behind Forest of the Middle Grove.
Guo Shuai was grimly hauling two enormous buckets of foul-smelling night soil onto a flatbed cart.
Just then, two paper-figure handmaidens came dragging an unconscious Muraguchi Kazusu past him.
Thud. They casually dropped him right beside the two buckets of waste.
"Hey, new guy."
A handmaiden fished out twenty taels of silver banknotes from her robe and stuffed them into Guo Shuai's chest, then pointed down at Muraguchi Kazusu on the ground.
"The Phoenix Sovereign finds this one disgusting."
"When you haul the night soil out of the grove later, dump this piece of garbage somewhere in the 3rd ring of the town. Anywhere will do."
"As long as you don't leave a mess in the Forest of the Middle Grove, we don't care."
Guo Shuai blinked, stared down at the silver banknotes in his hand, then looked down at the little idiot on the cart.
"What the hell? This kind of good fortune exists?!"
Guo Shuai's eyes lit up instantly.
He thumped his chest with confident assurance.
"Leave it to me, ladies! I'm absolutely reliable!"
"I'll make sure he gets a fine plot of land with excellent feng shui!"
Once the handmaidens left.
Guo Shuai rubbed his hands together with a cold laugh and grabbed Muraguchi Kazusu by the collar.
He dumped him straight into the night soil bucket.
"Hehehe! You little idiot—you actually dared to compete with the boss for a woman?"
"Not a shred of self-awareness! The cesspit of Soul-Return Town is where you truly belong!"
……
Inside the main hall.
The Phoenix Sovereign let out a languid yawn.
The selection was nothing more than procedure anyway. She had already privately designated the final slot for the Heavenly Blade Dragon King.
The remaining riffraff could simply be thrown out.
"Xiao Que, call the third one up."
The Phoenix Sovereign closed her eyes and began mentally rehearsing what absurd excuse she would fabricate next.
"When he walks in, I'll say he stepped through the door with his left foot first and violated This Sovereign's rules..."
Because the other handmaidens had all gone to deal with that insufferable little Sakura person, Xiao Que had no choice but to make her way over to the first grand bridal sedan herself.
Since her mistress had already set the tone—this was mere formality—Xiao Que's demeanor was naturally nothing to write home about.
She stood before the sedan and called out in a perfunctory voice.
"You inside, stop dawdling! Get out of the sedan. The Phoenix Sovereign summons you for your inter—ah!"
Xiao Que's words cut off mid-sentence.
A hand reached out and drew aside the crimson sedan curtain.
Jiang Nan stepped out of the sedan with unhurried ease.
He peeled off the slip of paper he had placed over his face to block the light, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it aside.
That cold, proud face was laid completely bare beneath the moonlight.
The instant Xiao Que saw those features clearly.
She stumbled back two steps, her entire body trembling.
A reverence and disbelief rising from the very depths of her soul left her unable to form a single coherent sentence.
"Is it... is it him?!"
"That man who once made ten thousand clans bow before him in Dragon-Summer Imperial City..."
"Who even the Ancestral Dragon Emperor held in awe..."
"But how can this be? Surely he had already..."
Jiang Nan glanced at her.
No wasted words. He paid no attention to her shock. He simply said in a cold, flat voice:
"Lead the way."
Two simple words.
Sent a full-body shudder through Xiao Que. She did not dare look at Jiang Nan again. She could only nod frantically.
"Never mind..."
"These humble eyes of mine may be seeing things—I'll just bring him inside and let the Phoenix Sovereign see for herself!"
Xiao Que was so frightened her legs crossed.
She stumbled forward to lead the way.
Through the corridor, over the threshold.
Jiang Nan officially stepped into the main hall of the Forest of the Middle Grove.
On the reclining couch.
The Phoenix Sovereign heard the approaching footsteps. Without even opening her eyes, she was already prepared to launch the excuse she had just constructed.
"When you stepped in just now, did you put your left foot forward..."
But the words died in her throat.
Because she sensed an aura—familiar enough to be carved into her soul...
One that had haunted her every waking dream for three thousand years.
The Phoenix Sovereign's eyes snapped wide open. Her gaze fell upon the man standing at the center of the hall, wearing a dark flying fish robe.
Time, in that moment, stopped.
Every trace of that perpetually languid expression vanished from the Phoenix Sovereign's face.
Her red lips trembled violently. The emotions flooding her eyes shifted from shock...
to disbelief...to blazing heat—in less than half a second.
The next instant!
Whoosh!
A violent gust swept through the hall!
The Phoenix Sovereign—without even stopping to put on her shoes—stepped barefoot in a flash of pale white.
She teleported from the couch to stand directly before Jiang Nan in an instant.
The tips of their noses were barely an inch apart.
"You... came back?"