Aspiring to the Immortal Path
chapter-674

The caged woman understood what Tang Jie wanted.

"You want me to be that favorite concubine, giving you a reason to not approach the other women?"

Tang Jie nodded. "Of course, I won't actually do it with you. We only need to act out this play on the outside."

"Why me?"

"It's not like I can work together with another fiend, right? Moreover, I can give you your freedom. Once the matter is done, I will take you away with me, and you can go where you want."

"How long will it take?"

"Until this land has no more value, or I'm discovered." Tang Jie grinned.

The woman dropped her gaze.

After a while, she said, "What did you mean when you said it was a pity?"

"You know," Tang Jie said, offering no explanation.

"I'm not pretty enough," she said.

Since he was going to pick a favorite out of the harem, his choice had to have beauty befitting one. After all, while an emperor might favor a woman who wasn't beautiful, it was a little hard to solely favor her.

Of course, if one really insisted, one might claim to have a mother complex, but alas, the Silver Eyes Fiend Emperor didn't have this sort of problem. People might change many habits, but rarely did their aesthetic tastes change on a whim.

As for this woman, she wasn't actually ugly, her elegant face putting her in the upper ranks. But she was rather lacking compared to all the concubines.

"But there's still hope." Tang Jie smiled. "A little make-up, good clothes and jewelry, and you can be a supreme beauty too." In his last life, he had seen countless examples of plain women being turned into beauties, with masters of make-up being able to turn the putrid into the divine. This woman had a decent foundation to work with, so only a little effort would be needed to bring her up to the standard.

"But I don't know how."

"It's fine. I can help you."

"You even know this?" The woman was amazed.

"I can learn. A man learning how to paint eyebrows for his love is the stuff of romance."

The woman's face reddened. "You're sure you won't do it with me?"

"I came to you exactly because I don't want to do it with other women. Of course, to keep our cover, a little public affection is unavoidable." While Tang Jie was protecting his body for Xu Miaoran, he wasn't so stubborn as to consider holding hands and kissing to be out of the question.

The woman's face reddened even more. Finally, she nodded. Really, she didn't have much of a choice.

There was one thing she was sure of. If she didn't accept, Tang Jie really would silence her permanently.

No matter how big of a secret she was hiding.

She said, "My name is Lin Xin."

――――――――――――

Just like that, the matter was resolved, and the Silver Eyes Fiend Emperor had a new addition to his harem: the Cloud Fairy Concubine.

The sudden appearance of this concubine made the entire harem uneasy, for from this day forward, this was the only concubine Tang Jie visited.

The other concubines were as frantic as if someone had lit their butts on fire, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't draw the Fiend Emperor from that woman's side.

Tang Jie was able to overcome this trial and continued to spend his days as he usually would.

Under Tang Jie's subtle direction, the Silver Eyes Empire repeatedly got into conflict with the other fiend empires.

The Five Fiend Emperors had never gotten along well with each other, and it was only because humanity had yet to be exterminated that they worked together. Still, never once had their internal conflicts ceased. And through Tang Jie's provocations, the conflicts intensified. Just in the last few months, several fiend generals had been slain in battle, and that Everjoy Fiend King had been captured and brought before Tang Jie, who had executed him on the excuse that he had been rude.

The Iron Blood Fiend Emperor was enraged and immediately sent over a flying talisman with a message asking what was going on. But Tang Jie waved him away, saying that he should come over and fight if he had the guts.

This infuriated the Iron Blood Fiend Emperor even more, and he really did muster up an army of one hundred thousand fiend soldiers and marched it up to the border. This army was led by twelve fiend kings, and they threatened the eastern border. That Scarlet Wind King who had captured the Everjoy King immediately sent flying talismans asking for reinforcements.

In response, Tang Jie ordered several of the nearby fiend kings to go and aid him, and a fiend cultivator war seemed imminent.

Of course, this war was still limited to fiend kings. Neither the Iron Blood Fiend Emperor nor Tang Jie planned to personally intervene. Iron Blood didn't want to completely fracture their relationship, and Tang Jie simply didn't dare—he would expose himself the moment he did.

The eastern border of the empire was about to be engulfed in the flames of war, but the other ends of the empire weren't slacking off either. All those fiends searching for resources for Tang Jie had long ago begun to reach beyond the territory of Silver Eyes.

This immense territory that occupied four fifths of the Verdant Cloud Domain would have taken at least a hundred years for Tang Jie to search through, but all those fiends made everything much easier.

In just a few months, Tang Jie had obtained many space treasures, and even some materials for his teleportation formation.

Little Three's spatial ability was rapidly improving, and Tang Jie's treasury was growing.

Every day, vast resources were being poured into the Mountain River State Diagram, as it greeted its second phase of frenzied construction after that time in the Blood River Domain. But this time, the driver was the plundering of a country's wealth rather than inter-domain trade.

Of course, behind this frenzied extraction was constant chaos throughout the land. The fiend kings and generals under Silver Eyes were like ravenous locusts, rushing wherever treasure might be, seizing resources and leaving blood and death in their wake.

As the chaos spread, the trust between fiends began to crumble, and more and more struggles over wealth and treasure began to occur.

The words of an author from his past life perfectly described the situation: the wretched ways of the world degenerated the public morals day by day.

(TN: "世风日下，人心不古" comes from the novel "Flowers in the Mirror" by Qing Dynasty novelist Li Ruzhen.)

Through Tang Jie's shit stirring, the public morals of the fiends were rapidly dropping.

All of this was what Tang Jie wanted. A powerful and united fiend race didn't benefit humanity. What the human race needed was for the fiends to be broken up and caught in internal strife.

This was only the beginning!

He spent the rest of his time in the cultivation chamber.

When cultivating, Tang Jie was of two minds.

The avatar borrowed the lotus lamp and the jade chamber to improve its cultivation level. Unfortunately, Yiyi couldn't come and enjoy this place. While she was a sprite, she had showed herself in that earlier battle, and if she were discovered, it would expose Tang Jie's real identity, which was a risk that Tang Jie couldn't take. At times, Tang Jie felt like it would have been nice if his illusion transformation spell could work on others, but alas, that was just wishful thinking.

As the original body cultivated the Parting Classic and only needed to use up resources rather than time, he spent most of its time studying the Myriad Immortals Cauldron, continuing to strengthen his Dao Wills.

Over the last few years of study, Tang Jie had brought the number of Dao Runes he had entered to 99.

It wasn't obvious on the surface, but if someone were able to see through that solid flesh and into the bones, they would see that his entire right hand was covered in Dao Runes.

These Dao Runes were the principles of the Great Dao, that most fundamental of powers used to write the world, and carved into them was the method by which energy flowed.

Each Dao Rune carved into his bones deepened his understanding of the Dao of Yin Yang.

Although studying a Dao armament didn't produce as deep of an understanding as sudden enlightenment through his own efforts, entering the Dao was entering the Dao, and it on its own had an effect. Tang Jie was gaining a deeper and deeper understanding of the world's essence.

Today, he continued his study of the Myriad Immortals Cauldron, the moon and sun rotating through his eyes. Slowly, a new Dao Rune formed in his hand.

The 100th Dao Rune had been formed!

As this 100th Dao Rune formed, all of his Dao Runes seemed to come to life, swimming through Tang Jie's body like little mudfish. In the process, Tang Jie began to comprehend a secret of this world.

This world had a positive and a negative.

The negative side was Primordial Fog, and it was truly the negative, existing opposite to the Great Stellar Chiliocosm, existing with it like light and shadow, the Chiliocosm being the positive and Primordial Fog being the negative.

With Primordial Fog were the Nether Domain and Shadow Domain… This was why they could access all the other domains, because these domains didn't actually exist on the same plane as worlds like the Verdant Cloud Domain, the Rosecloud Domain, and the Blood River Domain. If one were to search for them in the infinite void, one could search forever and find no trace. They existed in another plane, on the opposite side of the Great Stellar Chiliocosm, vast and unreachable.

This wasn't an understanding through lecture or experience, but something that he understood through his body. It was completely different, like the difference between hearing and seeing.

This was all thanks to the Dao of Yin Yang.

Yin and Yang represented opposite sides, and these two planes represented the greatest pair of opposites.

Other than allowing him to understand the essence of the world, the condensation of one hundred Dao Runes also affected his arts.

Dao Arts meant to merge the Dao with one's arts, and they could be considered even more important than Divine Connections.

These one hundred Dao Runes were the most basic requirement to creating a Dao Art.

Tang Jie had yet to enter Violet Palace and form a Divine Connection, but he already had a Dao Art—the Ten Extinctions Blade—so he could be considered a freak. Now, he had the right to possess a second Dao Art, and this time, it wouldn't be some pseudo–Dao Art. Only a Dao Art of someone who had entered the Dao could be considered a real Dao Art, and one hundred Dao Runes was the most basic requirement to reach this standard.

As he had just reached one hundred Dao Runes, he hadn't decided what sort of Dao Art to create, so he decided to put it off for now.

It had to be understood that creating a Dao Art was no game. Once created, it was not easily changed. Even if one carved more Dao Runes into one's body, that would only make the Dao Art stronger, not change it. Forcibly changing it would mean damaging all the Dao Wills that one possessed, so a cultivator had to carefully weigh the pros and cons.

Tang Jie was excited to have reached this milestone. Taking a look at the time, he found that it was about time, so he merged back with his avatar, took on the appearance of Silver Eyes, and emerged from the cultivation chamber.

Leaving the back mountain, Tang Jie headed to Lin Xin's Jade Fragrance Palace.

Every morning, Tang Jie would personally apply Lin Xin's make-up, showing that she was the Silver Eyes Fiend Emperor's most favored concubine and making Lin Xin more beautiful. Tang Jie wasn't very good at it at first, but after study and practice, he was able to do a pretty good job. In truth, some things weren't that difficult, and with Tang Jie's knowledge from his past life, only a little more understanding was necessary.

When he arrived, Tang Jie saw that Lin Xin was already waiting in front of the vanity.

Dismissing the maids, Tang Jie picked up the eyebrow pencil and began to draw Lin Xin's eyebrows, his actions slow and deliberate.

Lin Xin watched Tang Jie work. She had been scared and uneasy at first, but gradually, she had gotten used to it. She had also developed an understanding of Tang Jie as a person, and she knew that he really was what he claimed to be, having no desire for her and caring nothing for her secrets.

The unease retreated and was replaced by curiosity. What sort of man was this? How had he killed the Silver Eyes Fiend Emperor? And how was he so bold as to pretend to be the Fiend Emperor and take control of his empire? Lin Xin couldn't get an answer, but she knew that it was this man that had broken her out of the cage and given her freedom.

She was grateful to him.

Tang Jie knew nothing of what Lin Xin was thinking, continuing to seriously apply make-up to her face.

The pencil tip drew a crescent over her eyebrows, making her eyes seem more vivid. Cosmetics were applied to her face, giving it a rosy blush. Through Tang Jie's hands, Lin Xin's pretty face became resplendent and rich, her beauty finally standing out from the crowd. It was just that her eyes were a little narrow, her chin a little too broad, and her neck a little too long. It was hard for make-up to fix such flaws.

Sighing, Tang Jie was about to stop when he felt a warm current flow out of his body.

The one hundred Dao Runes within his body surged, returning to Tang Jie's right hand and transmitting a will to his fingertips.

As Tang Jie's fingers touched Lin Xin's chin, her face began to adjust itself, and those flaws fixed themselves.

Tang Jie was startled.