Su Laoqi Starts Up

After being called several times, Ah Yin finally snapped out of her daze. Flustered, she hurriedly sent a message to the Blue Silver King, telling him Su Ming was not an intruder.

At first, the Blue Silver King had failed to recognize his emperor's bloodline suppression. Su Ming's aura had overwhelmed it, making him think the plant in Su Ming's arms was ordinary Blue Silver Grass. But things were different now.

"My emperor! Where have you been all these years? You've finally returned! Do you know how much your subjects missed you?" The Blue Silver King's phantom clung to Su Ming's leg. It wasn't that he didn't want to hug Ah Yin, but that would be far too presumptuous. After some thought, he decided hugging Su Ming's leg was appropriate. Su Ming had brought the Blue Silver Emperor back, after all. There was no shame in it.

Su Ming could distinctly feel the Blue Silver King holding his leg. Strictly speaking, as a Wind Spirit, Su Ming's true form was a kind of energy, so there was nothing strange about him feeling another mass of energy wrapped around him.

"Uh... Ah Yin, are all your subordinates like this? He comes straight up and hugs my leg. What happened to showing you some respect?" Su Ming asked casually. He pulled his leg free and moved away from the Blue Silver King. Having a man cling to his leg while looking ready to weep with joy was downright creepy.

Ah Yin badly wanted to speak, but her meager cultivation wasn't enough to let her communicate with Su Ming.

Unable to speak to Su Ming, Ah Yin turned on the Blue Silver King instead. "Have you no shame? He's my hus—" She cut herself off, glanced shyly at the yawning Su Ming, then looked back at the Blue Silver King. "He's my good friend. You're embarrassing me! Hurry up and let us through."

A flash of understanding lit the Blue Silver King's eyes. I get it! The emperor must have brought her husband back to inspect her territory! Why else would she be so angry and embarrassed? How could I, an old retainer, miss something so obvious? I deserve to die! I deserve to die!

The Blue Silver King quickly straightened up, then bowed to Su Ming like an old butler. "My emperor, please come in."

Su Ming was fairly pleased by the change in his attitude. "Not bad. What did you tell him? It's like he suddenly caught on."

As Su Ming stroked her leaves, Ah Yin grew shy and flustered. She formed a few words with her vines in front of him: "Friend. Let's go."

"Oh, is that so? Let's go, then. By the way, where are the other Blue Silver Kings? Why are you the only one here?" Su Ming walked ahead, with the Blue Silver King following behind him.

"When the emperor left, several Blue Silver Kings stayed to guard this place at first," the Blue Silver King explained. "But later, they all left."

Listening to him, Su Ming felt that Soul Beasts had a strange way of talking. The Blue Silver King had said something without really telling him anything. That was what it felt like, anyway.

After settling Ah Yin in, Su Ming considered what to do next.

After thinking it over for a long while, he decided to first figure out what was going on with his current Martial Soul.

It didn't take long. Su Ming came to a rough understanding of the changes to his Martial Soul. The wind had indeed evolved, and it was evolving toward time. For now, the change mainly affected his perception of time; it had given him no other abilities.

Personally, Su Ming thought this evolution was pretty lousy, though something was better than nothing. What he found harder to accept was that, after his Foundation increased, his Soul Power cultivation speed had slowed by at least a hundredfold.

"Ah... Without strength, it's all empty talk!" Su Ming sighed. He closed his eyes and settled into the hammock woven from Ah Yin's vines.

He had to admit, the Blue Silver Emperor was useful. Her vines could be woven into almost any kind of furniture or shelter.

"Su Ming, isn't there anything you want to ask me?" Ah Yin's phantom leaned over the side of the hammock and asked curiously.

Su Ming was speechless. "Didn't I already tell you? If you don't want to talk about it, don't. I don't mind either way."

Ah Yin pursed her lips, not quite believing him. In her memory, Su Ming had been curious about everything. Once he started asking questions, he hardly ever stopped until he got to the bottom of things.

"All right, stop bothering me. Aren't you embarrassed? There's so much Blue Silver Grass watching in the Blue Silver Forest. As the Blue Silver Emperor, you need to carry yourself with some dignity, okay?" Once Ah Yin's cultivation recovered to the thousand-year level, she had been able to communicate with Su Ming. The problem was that she talked his ear off every day. She was driving him to the point of losing his mind.

"Oh... all right." Looking wronged, Ah Yin's phantom dissipated and returned to her true form.

Once the world finally fell quiet, Su Ming began a new Simulation.

[Simulation begins. 1 point of Foundation deducted. 1325% remaining.]

[Simulation, day zero. Realizing the Simulation has begun, you first send your true self a heartfelt greeting: "You absolute bastard. I really have to thank you, don't I? With the cultivation speed of this body you put together, are you expecting me to take a million years to become a god? Fuck you, you rotten piece of shit! I hope your son turns out gay and your daughter runs off with some blond punk."]

[After a heartfelt greeting lasting one thousand, one hundred and forty-five minutes and twelve seconds, you finally stop cursing and begin thinking about what to do next.]

[The first person who comes to mind is Bibi Dong. She was directly involved in Su Laoliu's descent into darkness. You want to go kill her right now, but you worry that your current Soul Power, at level 0.1, won't be enough.]

[A Foundation of 1325% certainly looks impressive, but Foundation is Foundation. It doesn't translate directly into combat strength.]

[Su Laoliu was outrageously powerful despite having a strong Foundation and a low level. That wasn't because he trained especially hard. The main reason was that he was already strong himself, and his Foundation made him stronger still.]

[You aren't a fool. You understand the complications. After thinking it through, you choose what seems like the safest path: riding Tang San's coattails.]

[It may be a little embarrassing, but if you can snag a Divine Seat, your life will have been worth it. Besides, according to what you learned in the last Simulation, contact with the Divine Realm will be lost in a hundred and thirty years, and the Abyss will invade in a hundred and ninety. You aren't sure you can survive the invasion. You could hide in Dragon Valley, but for Su Laowu and Su Laoliu, you decide to make an effort.]

[Simulation, day one. You bring Ah Yin to the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, then have her find and eat a medicinal herb that will let her take human form. Ah Yin's cultivation is only at the thousand-year level, which is more or less like being born prematurely. As a result, her human form now looks just over three years old.]