Realms In The Firmament

It was the first time for the four of them to have a dinner together since the two kids were engaged.

“If your father is here, it would be perfect…” Prince Hua-Yang drank a couple of liquor and then sighed with emotion.

Princess Hua-Yang nodded in agreement.

It seemed like Prince Hua-Yang had changed his attitude towards Ye Xiao. At least right now, he didn’t loathe him like he did before.

What Ye Xiao did had made some difference. He brought the spear to Prince Hua-Yang before he left for battle.

That was not something an ordinary kid would do.

“Our families have been close for many years, but we have never enjoyed a proper meal together. Your father has been guarding the north all the time. He seldom comes back to the capital. I have been staying in the capital all the time and I could not leave for even a day. And whenever your father returns, it means I have to leave for somewhere else…”

Su Ding-Guo smiled gently, “Because when your father returns, it means the north is in peace. Since the most dangerous area is in peace, it means matters in the other areas need to be handled as the primary tasks for the kingdom… There won’t be anyone who could complete such tasks well except me.”

“Hmm… It was arrogant to say I am the only one who can do that. In fact, your father surely can, but he is too lazy. He would never waste a single minute of his vacation.” He looked at Ye Xiao.

Ye Xiao didn’t speak. He kept acting decently; silently eating and drinking.

Su Ye-Yue looked at her father, and then looked at Ye Xiao. She smiled with pleasure from the bottom of her heart. She lowered her head to focus on eating. She seemed to be thinking about something and her cheeks suddenly turned red…

Ye Xiao raised the cup and proposed a toast to Prince Hua-Yang. And then he said, “I wonder how you and my father became friends?”

Su Ding-Guo’s eyes were clouded with nostalgia as he stared blankly for a second. He then gently answered, “Your father… is truly a peerless figure…”

“Peerless figure?” Ye Xiao was surprised.

The word ‘peerless’ was not a word that people casually used.

For Ye Xiao, there were only a few that he thought were peerless in both the Land of Han-Yang and the Qing-Yun Realm.

However…

[Even though he is only a peerless man in the Land of Han-Yang…] He drank and thought, [… he is still peerless after all.]

“I am a prince in the kingdom. I have seen many great men. I know something about great people. However… I still have no idea where your father came from even after all these years. It is like he just suddenly appeared out of nowhere… And he looks down upon the world.”

Prince Hua-Yang’s voice was filled with yearning for the past.

After he spoke those words, he glanced at Ye Xiao and then turned a bit angry, “You goddamn fool have never known what your father has done for you. You have no idea how much he has sacrificed for you! You ungrateful stupid bastard! Stupid little shit! You garbage!”

Ye Xiao was speechless.

[What the hell is the matter with him?

We were just happy drinking, eating and talking, and praising my father, yet he suddenly started to shout at me… I just gave you a spear worth 750 thousand…

You old fool actually cursed me!

Are you drunk or have you taken any wrong pills?]

“You… Speak discreetly. Why are you cursing?” Princess Hua-Yang was also unsatisfied with what her husband had just said. She frowned and said, “In front of the kids, keep your decency, would you? You are a prince…”

“Decency my ass! Prince my cock! Without his father, I must have died a long time ago! What kind of dead man need decency!”

Prince Hua-Yang hit the table and pointed at Ye Xiao, “You little shit. You seem a little better now, yet when thinking about what a prick you were before, I only want to split you into pieces! And feed your penis to the dogs!”

Prince Hua-Yang and Su Ye-Yue both blushed and lowered their heads.

[What did the old fool say. He actually wanted to feed the dogs with his own son-in-law’s penis… What a fool!]

Ye Xiao was stunned. He was at a loss.

[Why… Why is he so emotional?

The former owner of my body was not a good kid. That is true. But no matter how bad he was, he was just a teenager. How bad could he possibly be? Is it necessary to curse him like that?]

As Prince Hua-Yang talked like that, Ye Xiao was like a scourge that was hated by both man and god!

Prince Hua-Yang stopped and sighed.

“In those years…” It looked like he was once again experiencing the battles from those days.

“That year, I led the army against the Kingdom of Lan-Feng. In an attempt to rescue the besieged 30 thousand brothers of mine, I raided the enemy’s troops. That time, the Kingdom of Lan-Feng had discovered my raid. They set up a trap and were waiting for me to fall in it. What I did was to actually lead my men to their deaths…”

“When I thought we were all going to die there, a man in white wearing a mask suddenly appeared. He came from the sky with only a sword. He landed in the middle of the 300 thousand soldiers of the Kingdom of Lan-Feng and led me to slash a path out of it.”

“With the help of this marvelous cultivator, I actually survived. The most important thing was that, if he didn’t show up that time, that would be a big failure of mine. The invincible Military God? It would have been a joke already!”

“That day, the sun bled into the sky. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were fighting in the final battle of the war.” He raised his head and stared at the sky through the window. He spoke gently, “The blood had dyed the ground. Every soldier of either side had went mad because of killing. At that time, an impatient and vigorous voice echoed, ‘Who is Su Ding-Guo?’”

“The voice came from far away, but everyone in the battle heard it. It was a battle of hundreds of thousands people! Even a thunder was insignificant at that moment… However, that voice had made all the soldiers stopped fighting at the same time!”

“I was among my men. I thought that there was a superior cultivator in the enemy’s troops and he wanted to kill me in order to capture my flag. Even though I knew I would never have a chance to defeat such a superior cultivator, I couldn’t lower my head in front of all my men. So I answered loudly, ‘I am Su Ding-Guo! Speak your name! I never kill a man with no name!’”

When he spoke of these events, Prince Hua-Yang felt like he was seeing the gruesome scenes of that battle once again. His voice became terrified and his face horribly distorted.

Su Ye-Yue was overtaken by worry, so she held her father’s hand.

Prince Hua-Yang took a deep breath and calmed down. He laughed and said, “Damn it… ‘Never kill a man with no name’ my ass. With a single battle, I had killed more than one thousand men without knowing any of their names. What I said was just to boost my courage. The man was too strong for me. His strength was in a level that I had never known about. A general shouldn’t fear death during the battle, however, dealing with a powerful enemy like that, I felt terrified…”

Ye Xiao was surprised that his father-in-law was so cute that he actually told them his innermost thoughts and feelings, as well as his disgraceful experience!

“… That voice then spoke, ‘You are Su Ding-Guo? Good. Let me give you a gift.’ And then I saw a sword light rushing over from the peak of a mountain. At that moment, because of the shining sword light, the sun seemed to lose its glow… The sword light was getting bigger and bigger, longer and longer, harder and harder… Finally it reached the… crowd!”

Prince Hua-Yang was fascinated. Recalling the sword light in that battle, he was filled with enjoyment.

Princess Hua-Yang must have thought about something naughty as a blush appeared on her face. She looked at Prince Hua-Yang with embarrassment and then lowered her head immediately. She was murmuring, “Shameless old bastard!”

Ye Xiao was holding the cup and touching his lower jaw with a look of ‘I am listening and thinking’.

In his heart, he felt very curious, [Longer and longer? Bigger and bigger? Harder and harder…

Was he really talking about the sword light?]

He couldn’t help looking down on his crotch…

And then he coughed and said, “Admirable! Admirable!” He raised the cup and drank.

Prince Hua-Yang was lost in the memory of the old days. He was shaking his head slowly and murmuring. He didn’t know he had described the sword light in an inappropriate way.

Obviously, that battle was the greatest honor of Prince Hua-Yang!

“That sword move slaughtered those men like crushing dry weeds and smashing rotten wood [1]!” Prince Hua-Yang sighed, “People always said that the army slaughters its adversaries as easy as crushing dry weeds and smashing rotten wood… After that, I witnessed what crushing dry weeds and smashing rotten wood truly means! That was the real glow of a peerless expert!”

“After that light slashed down, thousands of men had already fallen while he calmly stood there. I discovered that the man’s clothes was still clean and white!”

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[1] Crushing dry weeds and smashing rotten wood (摧枯拉朽) means destroy things easily with irresistible force.

This is the 5th Guaranteed Chapter of the week.

Translated by: Rain

Edited by: Arch, Sietse