Approximately two hours later, Bai Zemin sent Shui Meiying with his eyes until she disappeared beyond the back door of the Sky Emperor Palace. This time it was not Chen He who escorted her back to the exit but another soul evolver.

"What do you think?"

Bai Zemin calmly asked no one in particular but his words made everyone present subconsciously look at Shangguan Bing Xue. After all, she was the second in command in the entire faction; to say that she was the second most powerful figure with the most power over the future and the lives of the others on the entire Earth was by no means an exaggeration.

"She is excessively cunning and scheming." Shangguan Bing Xue was straightforward as always with her words. She frowned her eyebrows slightly and continued, "Even though she is clearly a Fourth Order soul evolver that just broke through the barrier somehow I feel that she is just as dangerous as that old monster Thao Zhi or even worse."

Bai Zemin nodded and stayed silent as he thought to himself.

The old and torn book was shocking, to say the least.

"She is dangerous because of her intelligence but that same intelligence is a safety insurance for us if you think about it carefully." Bai Zemin finally withdrew his gaze from the place where Shui Meiying had disappeared and looked at Shangguan Bing Xue calmly, "She was forced to come looking for me after realizing that her brains and plans are useless against absolute power. Once that Shui Meiying girl understands that the losses will definitely outweigh the gains if she dares to act against us she will become our most loyal sea soldier."

Shangguan Bing Xue thought about it for a few seconds before gently shaking her head, "I don't know... I still feel that woman is a double-edged sword."

"Precisely because she is a double-edged sword she can be used to great benefit. It's just that it takes a powerful user to control the sword, one who is confident in not being cut by their own weapon."

An enchanting voice approached accompanied by a highly seductive scent. Just hearing the voice and smelling that fragrance that covered the surroundings made even a powerful soul evolver such as Chen He shows reaction immediately.

Sun Ling, Wu Yijun's mother, walked over with a faint smile and directly occupied the seat that Shui Meiying had just left. She looked at Bai Zemin with sparkling eyes before looking at Shangguan Bing Xue and saying, "Little Bing Xue, you know what I have learned throughout my life after more than a decade of being involved in government and occasionally military affairs?"

Other than her mother, only Sun Ling in the entire Transcendent faction dared to address Shangguan Bing Xue in such a tongue-in-cheek manner. Even Wu Keqian who was partially a kind of father figure did not dare to take such freedoms because of Shangguan Bing Xue's terrifying power and exalted position.

Shangguan Bing Xue sighed helplessly in her heart but outwardly maintained her composure as she asked, "What thing?"

"I learned that the more power and wealth people have, the more they fear death so they go to great lengths to ensure their survival even if they have to give up their lifelong dreams or 99% of their benefits." Sun Ling explained and turned to look at Bai Zemin, "Of course, not everyone follows this rule. Nevertheless, those who are willing to step forward in the face of difficulties that could end their lives or make their existence more complicated after gaining a lot of power are rare and distant among themselves."

Shangguan Bing Xue narrowed her eyes after hearing this and could not help but think of all the enemies they faced so far. Regardless of whether they were ordinary humans or powerful soul evolvers, most of those settlement or country Leaders eventually lowered their heads when given a choice between submitting or dying.

Even Angelo, a terrifying soul evolver capable of fighting on equal footing for an entire day against a gigantic Fourth Order dragon with over a dozen nuclear weapons and many subordinates at his disposal still chose to surrender in the face of hardship. Angelo submitted because he knew that his chances of survival after fighting Bai Zemin would not be very high even if he used the full power of the American faction.

It was not as if Angelo had absolutely no chance of winning, but the percentage was so low that he preferred to surrender. This way, he could still keep on living, enjoying countless privileges, and being praised and appreciated by countless living beings.

"... I guess you may be right." Shangguan Bing Xue slowly nodded and suddenly felt much better.

Feng Tian Wu who had been silent all this time suddenly looked at Bai Zemin and questioned, "So what shall we do now?"

Everyone's eyes locked onto him, and after some thought, Bai Zemin stood up as he calmly said, "Although Shui Meiying managed to make things difficult for those Higher Existence factions I'm afraid they might figure it out soon. Plus we can't afford to be overconfident either as they might have another way to open that place."

Looking at Bai Zemin who was walking away with confident steps, Feng Tian Wu quickly asked, "Where are you going now?"

"I need to have a talk with Xian Mei'er." Bai Zemin waved his hand without looking back and soon disappeared inside the palace....

Thanks to the seal that blocked his memories of life inside that illusion was slowly being shattered under his continuous effort, Bai Zemin gradually began to become more capable and aware about the power that his different skills had. For example, he could now use Blood Manipulation and as long as he invested a little Mana he was able to sense the different vital auras of all living beings within 400-500 meters around him regardless of whether they were allies or enemies.

After some searching, he quickly found Xian Mei'er in a room on the second floor. When he got there, the first person he met was Kang Lan.

"Are you okay?" he asked as he saw her all covered in sweat.

Kang Lan forced a smile and pointed behind her as she said, "I don't know what she was poisoned with but... if we had arrived two days later she would be dead even if we gave her our best antitoxin."

"That serious?" Bai Zemin was surprised.action

One had to know that the best antitoxin developed by the main lab was so strong that even the poison of a Vicious Infernal Venomous Snake beyond level 200 and capable of releasing toxic clouds of 2-3 kilometers could be cured in a matter of 5-10 hours.

"I had to use almost all of my Mana and was even forced to use Repeal, which has a cooldown of two months after failing with my other skills." Kang Lan smiled bitterly as she shook her head.

The corner of Bai Zemin's mouth twisted a couple of times as he muttered under his breath, "Damn... What poison did they spill on that girl..."

"God only knows..." Kang Lan sighed.

Repeal was the most powerful anti-poison skill Kang Lan had and, Bai Zemin was sure that in all of Earth, there was no skill more powerful than hers in dealing with poisons.

Why was he so certain? The answer was very simple.

Repeal was a Fifth Order skill and its records clearly stated that even poison released by Higher Existences below level 500 could be successfully expelled!

"Forget it," Bai Zemin shook his head and sighed, "She's our ally. We did what we are supposed to do."

Kang Lan could only nod silently.

Repeal was one of the skills she had "sealed" strictly under Bai Zemin's command. At the end of the day, this skill was one of the lifelines they had to protect themselves from the Higher Existences.

Bai Zemin exchanged a few more words with her before taking his leave and entering the room where Xian Mei'er was resting. After walking without making a sound, he sat on the armchair near the bed and watched her silently as he fell into deep thoughts.

In reality, Bai Zemin accepted Shui Meiying's proposal not only because he simply had no other choice as he desperately needed all possible cards to become stronger and strengthen his faction in the shortest amount of time possible. Another reason why he did what he did was that he wanted to see Xian Mei'er's reaction.

Depending on her reaction, Bai Zemin might make different decisions ahead.

"You came..."

"Mm?" Bai Zemin jumped in surprise when a beautiful but somewhat tired voice brought him out of his inner world.

What surprised him most was that the magic lamps in the room had turned on automatically, a sign that the day/night magic array covering the entire city had been activated to replace light with darkness.

Just... How long had he been sitting there thinking without noticing the flow of time?

Pushing the other thoughts out of his head, Bai Zemin looked at the beautiful woman lying on the bed in front of him with a smile, "Well, you seem to be feeling better."

"Mhm." Xian Mei'er checked her condition, and sensing that she only had some minor injuries couldn't help but sigh, "I've never been this close to dying before... This time it was a really close call and made me realize how weak I am."

In contrast to the man in front of her who always found a way to overcome obstacles on his own, Xian Mei'er realized that not only did she have to pay half a life in exchange for killing three Kings collectively, but the other half life she had left was almost taken by the First Princess of the Coral Kingdom.

Comparisons often tended to be hateful, indeed.

"Don't worry about that. To begin with, the things we can do are limited. Even I can't do everything alone or else why would I bother setting up a faction and working like a mule all day?"

Bai Zemin tried to comfort her but who would have known that Xian Mei'er would look at him with a weird expression on her face?

"What?" he growled realizing that she probably wasn't thinking anything good.

The corner of Xian Mei'er's mouth curved slightly upwards as she said in an amused voice, "As far as I know, Wu Yijun is the one in charge of all the politics while Shangguan Bing Xue is the person in charge of the army. It's not for nothing that your subordinates secretly refer to you as 'King delegator of jobs' is it?"

"Hey!" Bai Zemin cursed those people a thousand times in his heart as he said with a black face, "I work hard okay? This daddy barely sleeps thinking of ways to improve his strength and so save the butts of little mermaids about to die!"

"Ugh..." Xian Mei'er immediately was at a loss for words.

"Hmph!" Bai Zemin snorted and immediately felt pleased with himself after silencing her.

The room was quiet for almost a minute before he spoke again.

"Can I ask you a question?"

Xian Mei'er looked at him with a somewhat puzzled expression but said nothing. She nodded.

After thinking about it for a moment, he finally brought up the issue, "At first I promised that in exchange for your help in conquering China I would help you become the Queen of the East Sea. It was difficult as many things happened along the journey that neither of us expected but, eventually, we were both able to reach our goals. I now have control over my home country and you have finally become the East Sea Queen."

Xian Mei'er looked at him silently as she didn't know where he was going with all this.

"Your longing to become Queen was born from the fact that you did not want to see the citizens of your kingdom devouring each other. Yet, what I did after helping you to reach your wish was to ask you to mobilize the troops of your kingdom to attack other kingdoms... To say that many of your East Sea Kingdom died because of me is not particularly wrong since if it were not for me wanting you to become the next Forgotten Empress you would have no reason to attack other kingdoms."

Seeing that she still said nothing, Bai Zemin took a deep, silent breath before slowly saying, "How would you feel if instead of asking you to help me conquer all the seas on Earth you only had to conquer half of them? Of course, I will help you all the way. However, this would also mean that you could never become Empress."

According to Xian Mei'er, she wanted peace and hated war.

In fact, it was her desire for peace and hatred of wars that pushed Bai Zemin to want to form an alliance with her since only someone like that was less likely to be her enemy in the future and be a pain in the ass. At the end of the day, Bai Zemin did not want to raise a wolf cub that could later bite him in the ass in a moment of carelessness.

This was the time to see whether or not Xian Mei'er's mindset had changed.

Would she prefer to go to war and sacrifice many of her people for a title and power or would she choose peace?

Depending on her answer, Bai Zemin might have to make some adjustments in his path in the future.

* * * * * * *

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