Chapter 2600: The Frost Palace’s Curse

Zu An remembered that the Lord of Slaughter was the one who had brought this staff to this world. He hadn’t expected it to fall into Emperor Yao’s hands.

He found it even more surprising how easily Emperor Yao was handing it to him, especially since it harnessed the power of the Human Emperor. Becoming the Human Emperor was no easy feat; one needed to be acknowledged by the vast majority of the human race. Only Emperor Yao had the means to pull it off in this era.

“Do you know what I’m going to do?” Zu An was intrigued.

“I have a rough idea. Didn’t Zhuanxu share a sliver of his Celestial Court’s power insignia with you as well? This is the best decision we can make for the future.” Emperor Yao looked toward the battlefield where the shamans and fiends clashed with a deep look.

Zu An suddenly felt a surge of respect for Emperor Yao. The latter wasn't just the shallow schemer he'd previously thought. Emperor Yao harbored great ambitions; it was just that their paths diverged.

“I’m apologetic about what happened to Chang’e. On second thought, I’ll give you another present as a token of my sincerity.” Emperor Yao waved his hand through the air, opening a spatial rift that quickly expanded into a warp portal. Starlight shimmered across the pitch-black portal.

“This...” Zu An was surprised to sense the Celestial Court’s aura inside the gate.

“It’s a trump card I prepared back then. This portal allows me to travel between earth and heaven without passing through the South Celestial Gate. However, the severance of heaven and earth has shaken this portal too. I can only maintain it for a day.” Emperor Yao smiled. “You should need it right now.”

Zu An had to concede that Emperor Yao understood human emotions well. “Thank you.”

Emperor Yao glanced at the Lord of Slaughter, saying, “I’ll leave this to you.”

With that, he turned around and returned to the city, where he was met with the human populace’s resounding cheers.

Zu An was awed by Emperor Yao’s popularity. He glanced at Salamay’s corpse and felt wistful. Who could have known that she would meet such an end?

Considering that they were at least acquainted, he dug a simple grave for her on a distant mountain. He considered erecting a tombstone for her, but he didn’t know what to inscribe on it. Looking at the mound before him, he thought about everything she had done and sighed. “You didn’t have to put yourself through all this.”

Yun Yuqing murmured, “Big brother Zu laments whenever a beauty dies.”

Ji Xiaoxi shook her head. “Big brother Zu has always been kind-hearted.”

The Goddess of Wu Mountain’s eyes flickered, but it was hard to tell what she was thinking.

After burying Salamay, Zu An stowed the Lord of Slaughter in his Seven-Colored Divine Halo. Following that, he turned to Xie Daoyun and said, “You’ll have to seal him away when we return to Yumen Beiqing’s spacetime fragment to close this loop.”

Xie Daoyun nodded. She had already deciphered the sealing formation; it was just that she hadn’t found a way to subdue the Lord of Slaughter thus far.

He then turned to the group and said, “I’ll send you back to Wu Mountain first before making a trip to the Celestial Court.”

The Goddess of Wu Mountain frowned. She looked at the portal with worried eyes. “Be careful. It might be a trap.”

“I can sense the Celestial Court’s aura coming from the other side of the portal, so there should be nothing wrong with the destination. I also have Wu Mountain’s coordinates, so I can return if things go awry.” Zu An was confident in his odds of survival given his current strength and grasp of space.

That eased the Goddess of Wu Mountain’s worries.

Yun Yuqing was perplexed. She had asked Wuhui about the Goddess of Wu Mountain after their previous encounter, and Wuhui had told him that the Goddess of Wu Mountain was a cold and reclusive person. And yet, the Goddess of Wu Mountain allowed Zu An to freely enter and leave Wu Mountain as if it were his home.

How far have the two of them progressed?!

Zu An gently lifted the ladies with a wave of his hand before flashing back to the Wu Mountain via Rainbow Morph.

“Be careful,” the Goddess of Wu Mountain warned him. It wouldn’t be convenient for her to tag along, since he was there to look for Chang’e. The other ladies thought the same too.

However, Zu An turned to Yun Yuqing and said, “Wuhui mentioned you have the purest Celestial Court’s Fiend Bloodline. You shouldn’t miss this fortuitous encounter. I’ll bring you with me.”

Yun Yuqing was taken aback, but she happily agreed to it. Zu An’s lovers were so outstanding that it heaped a lot of pressure on her. There was no way she would miss a chance to become stronger. This would allow her to better share some of Zu An’s burdens in the future.

But most important of all, this allowed her to have some private time with Zu An.

Zu An brought Yun Yuqing back to Taoqiu’s outskirts using Rainbiw Morph.

Yun Yuqing was amazed. “Big brother Zu, you’re formidable! To think that you can cover such a huge distance in the blink of an eye.” What she enjoyed more was monopolizing big brother Zu’s hands, however.

“I was only able to return so quickly because I recorded the coordinates to this place,” Zu An explained with a smile. He confirmed the safety of Emperor Yao’s portal once more before stepping in with Yun Yuqing.

The space around them distorted. As soon as Zu An stepped out of the portal, he was faced with the celestial palace. He breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that the portal had worked.

A divine light suddenly surged out of the celestial palace, and Zhuanxu’s silhouette appeared behind the two of them. The latter was surprised to see Zu An.

Zu An was surprised too. “I only just arrived, but you've already found me?”

“I closed all the passageways leading to the Celestial Court so that the battle wouldn’t reach here. Your portal would have been hard to detect under normal circumstances, but it is exceptionally conspicuous now.” Zhuanxu was perplexed too. “How did you get here?”

Zu An made no attempt to conceal the truth for Emperor Yao. The latter was too sly. It wouldn’t be that bad for the Celestial Emperor to keep an eye on him.

“No wonder I kept sensing the traces of another enigmatic entity. So he’s the one.” Zhuanxu chuckled. “But he has helped me a fair bit this time.”

Zu An was taken aback. Did Emperor Yao open this portal for me as a message to Zhuanxu? Now that I think about it, they have a common enemy—Emperor Jun—and an enemy’s enemy is a friend.

It feels as if Emperor Yao had everything calculated, but I bet he didn’t expect to be sealed away by Shun in the future, while Shun is none other than Zhuanxu’s descendant.

But that was a fight between the Celestial Emperor and the Human Emperor; Zu An couldn’t be bothered to get involved. He had more important things at hand, so he told Zhuanxu about what had happened to the Mermaid Queen.

Zhuanxu did a quick calculation with his fingers. “I see... I’m afraid you will be disappointed. You won’t be able to take her away with you.”

“Why?!” Zu An was stunned. “You are the Celestial Emperor. Can’t you at least do this much?”

Zhuanxu frowned. “The Celestial Emperor has to obey the rules of nature too. Chang’e’s ascension is inscribed in fate. The Frost Palace carries an ancient curse: anyone who moves into the Frost Palace is destined to be lonely. Now that Chang’e has become one with the Frost Palace, separating her from it would only bring about her destruction. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. She’ll cultivate faster than anyone else in the Frost Palace...”

Zu An interjected, “What’s the point of having unparalleled cultivation when the tradeoff is a life of loneliness? Is there no solution?”

Zhuanxu briefly paused before replying, “It might be possible to do something about the Frost Palace’s curse ten thousand years from now...”

“Ten thousand years...” The thought that the Mermaid Queen had to suffer ten thousand years of loneliness made his heart lurch.

“It might not be a short time, but it isn’t a long time for a deity either,” Zhuanxu consoled him.

“Is the ten thousand years counted by the Celestial Court’s time or mortal time?” Zu An asked.

“Of course, it’s calculated by the Celestial Court’s time.”

Zu An’s heart sank. A day in heaven was equivalent to a year on earth.

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