Chapter 144: Love Rivals Meet, Seeing Red

Chapter 144: Chapter 144: Love Rivals Meet, Seeing Red

Su Han was completely bewildered. "How did he know I’m a bastard... Bah, no! Who even is he? What did I ever do to him to deserve being called a bastard? Does he think he can just curse at people because he’s old? He shouldn’t assume I won’t hit an old man just because I believe in respecting the elderly. Reasonable, well-mannered elders are worthy of respect, but cursing at people for no reason just because you’re old is just flaunting your seniority. Look at his age. Opening his mouth just to call people bastards—who’s the real bastard here? People say the elderly these days have gone bad. This guy is probably the biggest bastard of them all. It’s not that the elderly have turned into bastards; it’s the bastards who have gotten old!"

Muttering to himself, Su Han refused to be outdone and glared at the old man next to him. "Old man, who are you? And who are you calling a bastard?"

The Qiye Demon Monarch was furious. *You abducted my most beautiful and talented junior sister, and you’re telling me you don’t know who I am?*

"I am Qiye!" With that said, the Qiye Demon Monarch raised his chin, waiting for that bastard named Guo Jing to show a look of guilt.

However... the anticipated look of guilt never came. Instead, he was met with utter bewilderment on "Guo Jing’s" face.

"Qiye?" Su Han blinked. "Who’s Qiye? Is he famous?"

"Wait! He actually does seem pretty famous," Su Han thought. "May I ask if your surname happens to be Li?"

The Qiye Demon Monarch faltered. "...My surname... Li?"

The aggressive atmosphere—the intense, fiery tension of two romantic rivals meeting—was instantly shattered by Su Han’s single question. The Qiye Demon Monarch looked at Su Han in utter confusion, completely failing to understand why he would ask such a thing.

Su Han frowned. "Are you not the famous King Bi, Li Qiye?"

The Qiye Demon Monarch was speechless. "King Bi, my ass!" he thought. "I am the Qiye Demon Monarch! Did Junior Sister Rong never mention me to you?"

"Junior Sister Rong?" Su Han froze for a moment before finally realizing where this unwarranted hostility was coming from. It turned out... this was the price he had to pay for bluffing.

"But... bro... wait, no," Su Han thought. "If I go by the story I made up... If this Qiye Demon Monarch is Senior Gongyang Rong’s senior brother, he has to be at least eighteen or nineteen thousand years old by now, if not twenty thousand. Then again, he’s nearly twenty millennia old—older than my earliest ancestors by who knows how many generations. How is his temper still so explosive? Judging from this alone, this guy was definitely a bastard in his youth. No wonder Rong... No wonder Senior Gongyang Rong never fancied him. Serves him right!"

Cursing inwardly, Su Han cast a sidelong glance at the Qiye Demon Monarch. "The Qiye Demon Monarch...?"

The Qiye Demon Monarch raised his chin. "That would be me."

Su Han shook his head. "Never heard of you."

"You..." The Qiye Demon Monarch pointed an accusatory finger at Su Han. "You shameless old thief! You go too far!"

Su Han curled his lip. "Who’s bullying whom? I guided your junior disciple in breaking through to the Creation Realm. Instead of thanking me, you call me a bastard the moment we meet.

"Tell me... who is the one going too far here?"

Su Han’s words only served to pour oil on the fire. The Qiye Demon Monarch’s face twisted with even greater fury.

"Old Guo, you still have the gall to talk about guidance?

"Breaking through from the Celestial Being stage to the Creation Realm without any preparation—do you not know that this will attract weird and ominous forces? One slight misstep, and he’ll end up dead, his cultivation entirely erased!"

Hearing the Qiye Demon Monarch’s outburst, Su Han was visibly taken aback.

"Breaking through from the Celestial Being stage to the Creation Realm attracts the attention of weird and ominous forces? How did I not know about this? Bah, wait! Was I supposed to know? I’ve only been cultivating for less than three months. My true cultivation base is barely at Spirit Platform Perfection, and my Divine Thought is only a paltry few thousand or tens of thousands of times stronger than an ordinary perfected Divine Sea cultivator. Even if I use every trick up my sleeve, I can only kill a dozen or so Creation Realm cultivators. I’m just a newbie in the Cultivation Realm! Should someone like me really be expected to know these hidden secrets reserved for the big shots of the Cultivation Realm?"

After a brief moment of bewilderment, Su Han tucked away his guilty conscience.

"Heh! Weird forces? Ominous forces? Does he not know who my mighty backer is? With my Su Yi standing right here, what weird or ominous force would even dare to glance in this direction? Attract their attention? I’d lend them some liquid courage, just to see if they’d dare try!"

Glancing at Su Yi, who stood calmly by his side, Su Han felt an unwarranted—no, a completely justified—surge of confidence. He shot the Qiye Demon Monarch an arrogant look.

"Well, do you see any weird or ominous forces descending right now?"

The Qiye Demon Monarch was speechless. As much as he hated to admit it, this was exactly what baffled him the most.

Even back when he had broken through from the Celestial Being stage to the Creation Realm, he had made extensive preparations and set up over a hundred Arrays. Yet, despite all that, he had nearly failed and died. How was it that Nine Destructions had made zero preparations, casually deciding to break through on a whim, yet appeared to be in absolutely no danger?

However, as the saying goes, when facing a romantic rival, one might lose the girl but never the pride. Even though he could never win back his junior sister’s heart, and even though she was no longer in this world... when facing his rival, there was no way the Qiye Demon Monarch would allow himself to lose his imposing aura.

"Hmph! Just because there are no problems now doesn’t mean there won’t be any later!

"In any case, as a Creation..."

Suddenly, the Qiye Demon Monarch’s expression stiffened. "Wait... What is your cultivation realm? Why can’t I see through it?"

He was at the peak of the Creation Realm. If it weren’t for the accident back then, he could have broken through to Creation Perfection at any time, and who knows, perhaps even stepped into a higher realm. With his level of strength, even if a cultivator at Creation Perfection stood before him, it would be impossible for him not to gauge their cultivation base to some degree. Yet, to his eyes, the man standing before him felt like a bottomless abyss—completely unfathomable.

Su Han smiled. "Take a guess."

The Qiye Demon Monarch stammered, "...Have you... Have you already broken past the Creation Realm?"

Su Han smiled again. "Guess again."

The Qiye Demon Monarch hesitated. "...Are you already in the Yin Yang Realm?"

Su Han’s smile remained. "Keep guessing."

The Qiye Demon Monarch was utterly speechless.

"Guess my ass! Damn it, what should I do?" the Qiye Demon Monarch wondered. "If this guy is really in the Yin Yang Realm, should I treat him a little better? If he were just at Creation Perfection, I wouldn’t cower. I, the Qiye Demon Monarch, am no pushover. But this guy obviously doesn’t seem like he’s just in the Creation Realm anymore! A gap of an entire major realm isn’t something that can be easily bridged. If I keep up this terrible attitude, what if he pins me to the ground and beats the crap out of me...? The pain would be a small matter, but getting pinned and beaten by my romantic rival right in front of all my disciples and grand-disciples... I can’t afford to lose that kind of face!"

Contemplating whether he should just swallow his pride and follow his survival instincts, the Qiye Demon Monarch glanced at Su Han. However, seeing Su Han’s nonchalant expression, a surge of irritation washed over him.

"Why should I cower?! A true warrior must dare to face the bleakness of life head-on, and dare to stare directly into the face of dripping blood! Even if I, the Qiye Demon Monarch, get pinned to the ground and beaten—even if I jump off this main peak and fall to my death—I will never cower before my romantic rival!"

With this fierce resolve burning in his heart, the Qiye Demon Monarch looked Su Han straight in the eye.

"Since Fellow Daoist is a mighty expert of the Yin Yang Realm, I suppose you must have made ample preparations long before guiding Xiaojiu’zi’s breakthrough."