Nine Years

"Your world has already established order. There's no need to rush toward loftier goals. What matters most now is preserving and consolidating the order you already have."

"If you run too fast, you might fall flat on your face." Sister Houtu smiled. Her smile was infectious, making people instinctively believe what she said.

A man eating Sugar-coated Haws entered the teahouse and spotted Sister Houtu chatting and laughing.

"Your Majesty, it's been several years. Why are you still in the Nine Provinces?"

Jiang Li remembered that nine years ago, he had asked Houtu Empress to go to the Nine Provinces and tell everyone that he was leaving for a Parallel World, so they would not worry.

Yet nine years had passed, and Houtu Empress was still in the Nine Provinces.

Who was managing the Underworld now? "Well, I told them you would return after nine years. What if you didn't come back on time? Wouldn't I have to take responsibility for what I said?" Houtu Empress said solemnly.

Jiang Li eyed Houtu Empress suspiciously, suspecting that she simply did not want to return to the Underworld.

"Are things in the Parallel World over?"

"More or less wrapped up. It was quite the eye-opener."

Jiang Li pursed his lips. "Then what's this Parallel World arc of The Biography of Human Emperor Jiang about?"

He had never returned over the past years. How could anyone have known what he experienced in the Parallel World?

"Never underestimate the imagination of the masses."

"..."

No wonder those stories felt so unfamiliar. They were all made up.

Jiang Li had never doubted the masses' imagination. Otherwise, there would not have been so many copies of The Biography of Human Emperor Jiang, each one swearing up and down that it recorded Human Emperor Jiang's true experiences.