"Has the Judicial Heavenly Monarch returned?"
Before the Judicial Heavenly Lord Mansion in the Seven-Layered Heavenly Palace, a divine official from the Heavenly Court's Human Department asked the same question yet again.
Faced with this familiar visitor, who came two or three times every year, the heavenly general on guard gave the same answer as always: "The Heavenly Monarch is still in Penglai. He has not returned."
The divine official was not surprised. He did not want to come asking several times a year either, but Imperial Lord Ren Zhao was growing impatient.
After the Yaochi Dharma Banquet ended three thousand years into the era, Jiang Sheng had returned to Penglai to watch the sect competition. Imperial Lord Ren Zhao could hardly object to a competition Penglai held only once every three thousand years. But who could have imagined Jiang Sheng would be gone for thirty years?
Thirty years without returning!
Shen Yao and the others handled the affairs of the Judicial Heavenly Lord Mansion, so nothing had gone amiss. Nor was Imperial Lord Ren Zhao truly pressed for time. To Heavenly Court emperors of their Mahayana standing, whose lives endured as long as heaven itself, thirty or fifty years was much the same as three or five hundred.
The reason Imperial Lord Ren Zhao sent people to ask was not to learn when Jiang Sheng would return, but to make sure Qingde Divine Lord did not fall into someone else's hands—such as that old fox, Taibai Star Lord!
"The Judicial Heavenly Monarch hasn't returned in thirty years. It really is worrying."
"If that old fox Taibai Star Lord uses the chance to contact the Judicial Heavenly Monarch and buy Qingde from him, things will turn ugly for us."
"So you must keep a close watch on the Judicial Heavenly