Ji Haoyue of the Ji Family Had Been Waiting

It was a delicate, beautiful hand.

The nine transformations of the Other Shore had remade him from the inside out. His once rough, dark skin had long since become like white mutton-fat jade.

His face, which had once been merely delicate, had changed as well, becoming strikingly handsome. His black hair was thick, his features exquisite, and a layer of black-and-white mystic light enveloped him, crystalline and brilliant.

With one downward slap, great fissures opened in space, blocking their path.

"Split up!" the fat Daoist shouted. Working together seamlessly, the two immediately turned into streaks of light, about to flee in different directions.

"Useless!"

Qin Tian stirred his divine power, and the hand seal slowly pressed down, seeming to expand dozens of times over in an instant, encompassing the sky and blotting out the sun and moon.

It possessed something of the profound intricacy of the Void Great Hand Seal!

Rumble!

A single clean, decisive slap knocked both men to the ground.

Qin Tian landed and asked, "I've been meaning to ask for a while. How did you find me?"

Wherever he went, people hunting him would appear.

How could there be so many coincidences?

"A fat Daoist calculated your location, sir, and charged us a lot of source for it," the Tall, Thin Man said, trembling.

Qin Tian stared in surprise. "Wait. A fat Daoist?"

That description inexplicably brought Duan De to mind.

"Was it this fat Daoist?" Qin Tian, who had always trusted his instincts, projected an image of Duan De.

"Yes, yes, yes! That's him!" The Short, Fat Daoist nodded hastily.

Duan De had left a deep impression on him. Perhaps like repelled like; the two of them shared far too many traits for him to forget.

Utterly astonished, Qin Tian asked, "When did you meet him?"

"Not long after the Yaoguang Holy Land issued its notice. He said he'd calculate your location for ten thousand jin of source."

"Then he told us to wait near the Fire Domain."

"That early?" Qin Tian's mouth fell slightly open in surprise.

Qin Tian sounded a little puzzled. "A Heavenly Diviner? Duan De knows how to do that too?"

"Was he fooling them, or can he really do it?"

Judging solely by Duan De's personality, these two had probably been swindled.

Duan De had casually named some random place and earned ten thousand jin of source. That suited his character perfectly.

Their encounter with Qin Tian would then have been nothing more than a blind cat stumbling over a dead mouse.

But considering his background and identity, he might truly know the art of heavenly divination.

He was, after all, a reincarnated Heavenly Venerable. Even if he had severed his own cultivation, forgotten everything, and begun learning anew, he could still master it at astonishing speed.

"A teacher is still a teacher!"

Qin Tian chuckled. "I was wondering why people kept tracking me no matter how often I changed direction."

"So there were Heavenly Diviners calculating my location all along."

"Unfortunately for them, I'm a child of fortune. Turning calamity into good luck is just the basics."

It was not as though Immortal Platform cultivators had never hunted him. Whenever danger approached, however, his ahoge would warn him, and Qin Tian would immediately change course.

As a result, not a single Immortal Platform cultivator had encountered him head-on.

Instead, these people who posed no danger had found him more than once. His ahoge gave no warning about them, and they had help from Heavenly Diviners.

"I thought I was the first person Duan De had failed to swindle, someone who'd swindled him instead."

"Who would've thought that my teacher had already swindled me months ago, without anyone being the wiser?"

Full of admiration, Qin Tian glanced down at the Devouring Heaven Demon Jar. He had not lost out, at least.

So he had been swindled. So be it.

If there were more "swindles" like this, he would gladly take a little risk and start with a hundred and eighty of them.

"I can't take this route anymore!" An unusual hue once again colored Qin Tian's eyes as he observed the timeline, capturing fragments of cosmic light from the future.

"Time for another route!"

Whoosh!

Qin Tian sent out another paper-effigy puppet while he himself slipped off in a different direction.

Riding a divine rainbow, he raced onward like the wind and lightning, mountains and rivers streaming backward beneath him.

He was already far from the Fire Domain.

The once barren mountains gradually gave way to greenery. Fine trees flourished, flowing springs and cascading waterfalls wound among them, and immortal cranes danced through the air. Everything was vibrant and natural, veiled in drifting, hazy mist, with exotic flowers and rare herbs everywhere.

Suddenly, Qin Tian stopped as a voice reached his ears.

"Fellow Daoist, the Ji Family has been waiting for you!"

On a fractured mountain stood a Purple-Clad Man, his robes fluttering as though he were a heavenly god descended to earth. He looked about thirteen or fourteen, his eyes shone like stars, and he stood with his hands behind his back, alone blocking the way ahead.

He seemed one with the mountains, merged with heaven and earth, giving the impression of the Dao following nature and man united with heaven. His depths were impossible to fathom.

"How did you know I'd pass through here?" Qin Tian descended from his rainbow light and landed on another peak, facing the Purple-Clad Man.

The Purple-Clad Man replied arrogantly, "The methods of a Desolate Ancient Family are beyond your comprehension."

Qin Tian blinked and asked with a smile, "I'm a little curious. Could you tell me about them?"

The Purple-Clad Man was somewhat taken aback. Could this person not tell that he had come to kill him? Why was he asking questions of an enemy?

Still, he answered, "A Heavenly Diviner calculated that you would appear here today."

Qin Tian's heart sank. Although he had long been prepared for this, he still could not help feeling a trace of apprehension.

"A Heavenly Diviner?!"

"They really are impressive. They could even calculate my last-minute change of route."

But on closer thought, these Heavenly Diviners could foresee great calamities in the distant future. Calculating one person's whereabouts did not seem particularly difficult.

More importantly, the stone house where he had lived for years in the Yaoguang stone workshop was still there. To Heavenly Diviners, all these things were clues, threads of karma, and anchors.

With an anchor to guide them, finding a Sea of Bitterness cultivator was hardly difficult.

Even with his fortune, Qin Tian remained beneath the Heavenly Dao. Heavenly Diviners acted by observing the Heavenly Dao, so naturally they could glimpse him as well.

Still, they had only been able to find him because the person before him posed no threat whatsoever to Qin Tian as he was now.

Had there truly been danger, he would have fled far away long ago.

Within his Bitter Sea, the lid of the Devouring Heaven Demon Jar trembled faintly. Like a black hole given physical form, it let strands of black energy trail down, radiating an aura of utmost danger. Metallic clangs rang out as it stood ready to unleash an extreme Dao strike at any moment.

"Your name!" Qin Tian looked him up and down, then suddenly asked.

The Purple-Clad Man opposite him made no attempt to hide it, answering directly, "Ji Haoyue of the Ji Family!"

Qin Tian sighed helplessly. "Seriously? Again? All I did was defeat Ji Haiyue. Is this really necessary?"

Right, the Void Emperor and the Ji Family are two different things.

Given how the Ji Family behaved in the original novel, this is exactly the sort of thing they'd do.

In the original novel, although Ji Haoyue had been kept hidden for twenty years and only emerged upon reaching the Four Extremes Realm, his battle against the Demon Emperor's descendant had produced what could be called the novel's greatest joke: someone in the Four Extremes Secret Realm trying to seize the Demon Emperor Saint Weapon.

In the novel, that scene could still be explained as the Red-Haired Monster not having settled on the setting yet.

But in this real world, it was simply idiotic.

Trying to kill the Demon Emperor's last descendant right in front of the Demon Emperor Saint Weapon.

Was he not afraid that the Demon Emperor Saint Weapon would awaken and unleash an extreme Dao strike?