Once he understood, Jian Shang felt guilty and sank into contemplation.
Strictly speaking, with the Mending-Heaven Divine Stone in her possession, Yu Ji was already little different in nature from an Otherworlder. Through the stone's spatial pull, she could even accompany Jian Shang to Earth World. The intangible difference lay in her personality and outlook, which leaned toward those of a woman living under a feudal system. Naturally, she placed greater importance on descendants and continuing the family line.
More importantly, Jian Shang's inexplicable month-long disappearance beneath Heavenly Punishment, with a strong possibility that he had perished, had immediately exposed a glaring weakness in the Great Huan Dynasty. Had the Huan Emperor left an heir, the panic, desires, ambitions, and other emotions among Great Huan's officials would have diminished by at least seventy or eighty percent. After all, the Huan Emperor had single-handedly founded the Great Huan Dynasty, and the overwhelming majority of its civil officials and military officers remained deeply loyal. This was the fundamental reason they had still united against outside enemies during Jian Shang's disappearance, despite the turmoil surrounding the Huan Emperor and his dynasty. Their differing thoughts had merely been the natural human impulse toward self-preservation.
Now, Jian Shang felt an increasingly urgent desire to defy heaven, break the seal, and ascend to the Upper Realm. Otherwise, the clearly visible cage was simply too tormenting.
Whatever the outcome, Jian Shang had to leave Pangu World. What would happen to those left behind? Raising the cultivation of everyone around him as quickly and as far as possible so they could protect themselves was merely his own idea, and it was not entirely sound.
Perhaps he truly had to give his consorts offspring, whether for their sake, for those around him, or for the Great Huan Dynasty.
Having