The small stool was set up stably with four legs planted firmly on the ground.
Chen Xia took a seat on it, set up a chessboard, tilted his head slightly, and started playing chess against himself.
He pretended someone was playing chess with him.
Although it was pretend, concentrating on two chess strategies at once still burned his brain.
There were no other sounds in the little house, only the constant clacking as pieces were placed on the board.
Some cultivators kept passing by outside, like passersby, though they were actually Zhang family cultivators stationed there to protect the little house.
Although there were cultivators protecting the house, Zhang Feiyu didn't seem to come by often.
"Checkmate," Chen Xia declared, checkmating himself. He shook his head, feeling it wasn't very fun, and got up, grabbing a hoe to smooth out Old Zhang's slightly tilted grave mound.
"Old Zhang, I'm not robbing your grave, just helping you dig a little," he said.
"Here we go!"
Chen Xia yelled and swung the hoe at Old Zhang's grave mound, straightening the tilted mound and making it tidy. That was helpful.
"Much better looking now," Chen Xia nodded, and prepared to remove the long-dead parasol tree to plant a new one, celebrating the new circumstances.
Several heads popped up over the wall of the little house, peering inside. Chen Xia had blocked his spiritual awareness, so they could hear noise but not investigate. Anxious and helpless, they could only climb the wall and observe.
Chen Xia turned and looked their way, eyebrows raised, pointing at the wall and saying:
"Those who climbed the wall to peek last time hung here for decades."
The cultivators quickly apologized to Chen Xia, knowing he was Zhang family's highest status Chen Zu. Their manner was full of respect, and they took the chance to get a good look at the legendary Chen Zu to imprint his image in their minds.
"Stop looking, go back, and don't come again. No need to guard here, go do what you should," Chen Xia said with a wave of his hand.
"But... our task is to guard the house," one cultivator on the wall explained in a small voice.
"Then change tasks. Or just go cultivate, don't waste time here. I don't need you," Chen Xia replied, shaking his head again and critiquing, "You really are quite boring."
The cultivators on the wall quickly nodded and took one last lingering look at Chen Xia before leaving, wanting to fully imprint the image of the legendary Chen Zu in their minds.
Being able to see the legendary Chen Zu in person gave them capital to brag.
Chen Xia shook his head, thinking they really were quite boring. Climbing walls and peeking was so unseemly. If they had just walked in the front gate and looked directly it wouldn't have bothered him so much.
He stretched lazily again, smacked his lips twice, then suddenly turned to look at the doorway, murmuring:
"Three, two, one."
A knock sounded at the door.
"Enter," Chen Xia said with a laugh.
Wang Yangzi's tall figure squeezed through the door, smiling at Chen Xia.
"I got the intel you wanted. The one who named you and told you to go to Great Death Realm is Palace of Panic's Palace Lord Jia Sheng, a Onefold Saint who cultivates the dao of armor and wood. Not too powerful, I could take him myself.
"The problem is Jia Sheng's foundational roots in the upper domains are too deep, and he has beneficial ties with many saints, like locusts on a rope. If Jia Sheng's life is threatened, those saints won't stand by."
"What should we do, kill them all?" Chen Xia asked doubtfully.
"We can't kill them all. If we did, the High Saints would come make trouble for us," Wang Yangzi quickly shook his head.
"Good point," Chen Xia nodded, then tentatively asked again, "What about killing the High Saints too?"
Silence filled the room.
Wang Yangzi was quiet a moment, then nodded slightly. "You sure dare to think big. What makes us, a Twofold Saint and a Twofold Quasi-Saint, think we can kill a High Saint? Let alone all the way up to the Realm Lord of the Twelve Forbidden Zones?"
"What if there's a possibility we're both saints now?" Chen Xia said with a laugh.
Wang Yangzi stared blankly at Chen Xia, unable to stop shaking his head. "You progressed so expediently! Already Twofold Saint!"
"Mm," Chen Xia neither confirmed nor denied, still hiding that he was actually a Fourfold Saint, planning to shock Wang Yangzi later.
Give Wang Yangzi a bit of a Fourfold shock.
Wang Yangzi kept shaking his head. "Even if you're a saint, it's still unrealistic. Even if I used every trick I had, sacrificing half my life to trade for one of the High Saint's lives, there's still another High Saint, and the Realm Lord of the Twelve Forbidden Zones wouldn't ignore it. Could the two of us really fight our way out?"
Chen Xia nodded, what Wang Yangzi said made sense. He thought for a bit before responding:
"You're right, let me think about how to kill the Realm Lord first, then do it when I've got a plan."
"Forget it, forget it," Wang Yangzi quickly waved his hands. "Bro, let's just think about how to kill these saints. No need to make it harder by targeting all the way up to the Realm Lord."
"Do you have any ideas?" Chen Xia asked.
"I have one," Wang Yangzi nodded, and started describing his plan to Chen Xia.
"From my investigations, the Great Death Realm incident involves a total of two Quasi-Saints and three Saints, with Palace of Panic's Jia Sheng taking the leading role."
"Let's go make trouble for those two Quasi-Saints first, and draw Jia Sheng of Palace of Panic into action. Then it won't be us deliberately murdering, just both sides brawling. "
"Since we'll be brawling, it's normal for some cultivators to die, as long as we kill fast enough. Even if a High Saint comes later, they can't say much to us."
Chen Xia nodded, thinking this was a good plan. It seemed quite similar to when he was fighting in Blue Sky Sword Sea. He first directly killed the small fries, so when the elders came they couldn't do anything. After all, the small fries were already dead.
"But there's another step we need to succeed," Wang Yangzi added, hands behind his back.
"What is it?" Chen Xia asked, puzzled.
Wang Yangzi replied, "You have to join Saint Hall first, and get a decent ranking among the current forty Quasi-Saints and Saints."
"That way you'll be an 'insider.' Even if we kill Jia Sheng, it'll just be in-fighting. The High Saints who come will definitely take the side of us survivors."
"Okay," Chen Xia nodded, feeling it was more and more like his time in Blue Sky Sword Sea.
"As for joining Saint Hall, just make a big commotion and the High Saints will naturally come invite you themselves," Wang Yangzi went on.
"Mm."
Their conversation ended there. As Wang Yangzi was leaving, Chen Xia asked one more thing:
"Do you have any saplings of spirit trees? Get me a whole one, I'll plant it here."
"I should have some, I'll look for you."
"Thank you for the trouble."
"We risked our lives together in Great Death Realm, no need for such polite words between old friends."
"I was just being polite."
Conversations between old friends always make one feel warm. A few words contain thousands of years of friendship.
Wang Yangzi left.
Chen Xia turned and sat back on his little stool, picking up the chess pieces again. He placed one on the board ahead of him, a shallow killing intent appearing between his eyebrows as he softly said:
"Little Red, this time I'm going to checkmate you."
An illusory faint red flying sword emerged, swirling around Chen Xia as if cheering happily.
The flying sword had no consciousness and did not comprehend the passage of seasons.
Chen Xia was also very happy.
He felt he could finally repay some grievances.

pression Bureau] Transported to a fantasy world overrun by demons and monsters, Gu Qingfeng becomes a jailer in the Demon Suppression Prison of the Great Yan Dynasty's Demon Suppression Bureau. From this point on, bizarre cases frequently occur in the Demon Suppression Prison, once known as hell on earth and infamous for its gloomy, terrifying atmosphere! Why do the demons and monsters in the prison wail miserably every night? Why has the corpse demon, capable of transforming into various beauties, donned black stockings and switched careers to become a foot massage therapist? Why has the eye demon, expert in soul-snatching and illusions, turned into a VR headset? Why is the fox spirit performing otaku dances? Are all these occurrences a twisted expression of demonic nature, or a descent into moral depravity? After peeling away layer upon layer of mystery, all clues ultimately point to a jailer named Gu Qingfeng. Gu Qingfeng: "Hehehe... My dear demons and monsters, whose card shall we flip today?"

transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”

u Chenyuan transmigrated into a female-oriented novel about a real and fake heiress, becoming the CEO elder brother of both. Unfortunately, the entire Lu family—including himself, the CEO—were mere cannon fodder in the story. Determined to save himself, Lu Chenyuan took action. The spoiled, attention-seeking fake heiress? Thrown into the harsh realities of the working class to learn humility. The love-struck real heiress? Pushed toward academic excellence, so lofty goals would blind her to trivial romances. As for the betrayed, vengeful arranged marriage wife… the plot hadn’t even begun yet. There was still time—if he couldn’t handle her, he could at least avoid her. "CEO Lu, are you avoiding me?" Mo Qingli fixed her gaze on Lu Chenyuan. For the first time, the shrewd and calculating Lu Chenyuan felt a flicker of unease.

ver to a world of cultivation and returned invincible. Modern medicine is child's play compared to elixirs; technological might crumbles before true cultivation. My name is Qin Ning, Earth's sole cultivator!