"You dreamt you turned into a star?"
"Mmm-hmm! Not only did I become a star, but I exploded in the end!"
Exploded until not even ashes remained.
Xu Yi's expression was dazed.
She felt like she had drifted in the galaxy for eons, but when the star she had become fell, her memories returned, and those long moments felt as if they had happened in the blink of an eye.
She was still Xu Yi.
Lu Zaiye's brow furrowed slightly as he listened to Xu Yi's account.
"Can you unleash that power?"
Xu Yi tried to recall, but found that the movements, which had almost become instinctual, were suddenly obscure and difficult to understand. In the end, she shook her head in frustration.
"I, I can't."
Lu Zaiye was not too disappointed.
Instead, he was shocked by Xu Yi's words.
The power Xu Yi described was very similar to the immortal arts wielded by immortals.
With a raise of their hands, they could invert the sun and moon, and make the stars fall.
And at present, no one in the Kyushu Continent could achieve such a feat.
If he hadn't known that Xu Yi wouldn't lie about such matters, he would have assumed she had fabricated it.
The Demon Attendant lineage only passed down forbidden arts of the demon race, much like how he had learned the demon race's teleportation technique here.
He found Xu Yi's situation difficult to imagine and even harder to explain.
"You cannot tell anyone about this," Lu Zaiye said solemnly.
"Okay."
Although Xu Yi didn't know why Lu Zaiye said this, she subconsciously felt that this matter was extremely important, and she did not wish for it to be exposed.
After a period of conversation with Lu Zaiye, Xu Yi finally noticed that they had changed locations again.
"Is this a palace?" Xu Yi's mouth opened slightly.
She had thought the palace Elder Qing Feng had built for her was luxurious enough, but compared to this palace, it was like comparing a firefly to the bright moon.
If she wasn't mistaken, the floor tiles and walls of this palace should be constructed from Han Bing Yu (Frost Jade).
Han Bing Yu grew in extremely cold regions and was very difficult to mine, being a sixth-level refining material that even Void Integration cultivators would covet.
Yet here, it was stacked so casually, as if it were the most common stone.
There were also the Xuan Guang Pearls used for illumination, the carpets woven from Jiao Sha (Mermaid Silk), and the inner pillars made of thousand-year-old Chen Xiang wood... all of which spoke of the owner's nobility.
With a thought, Xu Yi blurted out, "This wouldn't be the residence of Fairy Jing Hong, would it?"
She remembered that Liu Jing Hong had an Ice Spirit Root, and Han Bing Yu would perfectly suit her spiritual root's attributes.
Moreover, one of Liu Jing Hong's admirers was the King of the Demon Race.
Lu Zaiye was slightly surprised. Xu Yi's intuition was always exceptionally sharp when it came to matters related to Fairy Jing Hong.
Lu Zaiye looked towards the palace gate and said, "Perhaps there will be clues outside."
"Then let's go out and take a look."
As Xu Yi spoke, she walked towards the outside.
Lu Zaiye called out to stop her, "Everything here is worth a fortune if taken out."
Given Xu Yi's nature of not leaving anything behind, she couldn't possibly be unmoved.
Xu Yi's face contorted for a moment as her back was turned to Lu Zaiye.
Of course, she was tempted.
But if these items belonged to Liu Jing Hong, then she absolutely would not touch them, nor would she want anyone around her to touch them.
One did not get Liu Jing Hong's belongings for free.
She had understood this principle two hundred years ago.
Who knew if these items were imbued with offensive formations.
She would rather pretend not to see them.
"Let's go out first."
With that, Xu Yi hurried out, not daring to linger for a moment.
Lu Zaiye watched Xu Yi's fleeing back, a smile flashing in his eyes as he slowly followed.
After Xu Yi emerged from the palace, she was utterly speechless at the sight before her.
It turned out that the palace that had amazed her was not the main hall, but a most remote side hall.
Opposite where she stood was another magnificent palace with a completely different style.
The four corners of this palace's eaves were shaped like terrifying and ferocious beast heads.
"Is the palace opposite the Demon King's!"
Other than this, Xu Yi could not think of any other possibility.
That's right, the Demon King admired Liu Jing Hong, so he had painstakingly built a palace solely for her opposite her own.
She hadn't expected the Demon King to be such a devoted lover.
However, since the opposite side was the Demon King's palace, why didn't she sense any demonic aura?
Was this Shenzhou?
"The opposite side is indeed the Demon King's Palace, the residence of the previous Demon King. Later, Fairy Jing Hong established a contract with the demon race, and the demons were confined within Shenzhou.
This place is located in a remote corner of Shenzhou, so the new Demon King chose a new site to establish the Demon King's Palace, and this place was preserved."
"So that's how it is," Xu Yi realized with a start.
A moment later, she suddenly felt something was amiss and turned to ask, "How do you know all this so clearly?"
Lu Zaiye replied with a poker face, "I saw the handwritten notes of an ancestor in the Scripture Pavilion before. He had visited Shenzhou."
Xu Yi nodded and didn't ask further.
"There are only the two of us here, I wonder what the situation is with the others," Xu Yi sighed, then mustered her spirits, "Let's go."
Xu Yi and Lu Zaiye first circled the palace believed to be Liu Jing Hong's, only to find that apart from the side hall where they had appeared, the other palaces were protected by formations and could not be approached.
The Demon King's Palace was the same. Except for a side hall in the corner, any attempt to get closer would cause blood to surge in reverse, forcing them to retreat.
Recalling the words they had heard in the plaza, Xu Yi finally had to accept that the two palaces they could freely enter and exit were actually the accommodations for the Demon Attendants.
And they had risked their lives by jumping into the Yang Shen Trench, only to become attendants for the Demon King and his woman.
Xu Yi: ...
Alright, Demon Attendants they shall be.
It was just that she didn't know when the other Demon Attendants would appear.
They waited for seven days.
Xu Yi thought that the first to appear would be Xiong Zhuangzhuang or the Monkey Demon with the highest cultivation, but she didn't expect Peony to be the first to emerge.
Watching Peony's agile figure emerge from the side hall of the Demon King's Palace, Xu Yi's eyes and brows were filled with smiles.
A few days later, Xiong Zhuangzhuang, with an unconcealable look of joy, also came out.
Following them were the Monkey Demon, Pomegranate, a stranger Human cultivator, and Zhou Cheng.
Their entire group, without exception, had passed the trials of being a Demon Attendant.
This made the Monkey Demon and the other cultivator's expressions extremely displeased.
However, they worried unnecessarily, as Xu Yi and the others paid no mind to their thoughts; they were busy researching how to get out of there.
It was unclear which Demon King had set up the guardian formations outside the two palaces; not only could no one enter, but no one could leave either.
Xu Yi and Lu Zaiye tried several methods but could not break through the invisible barrier.
They could only grab Xiong Zhuangzhuang and Zhou Cheng to help them find a way to break it.
Zhou Cheng wanted to deal with Xiong Zhuangzhuang here, but he wanted to get out even more.
Upon learning that they could neither enter nor leave, he became more anxious than anyone else.
However, enthusiasm alone was not enough.
Just as they were sinking into despair, Pomegranate discovered something.
"Xu Yi, aren't I amazing!"
Pomegranate shook his head with great flair, his dark red mane tracing a beautiful arc.
"Amazing, incredibly amazing!"
Xu Yi did not spare her praise.
If not for Pomegranate, who would have thought that the exquisite patterns on the pillars in the side hall were actually a hidden teleportation array?