CHAPTER 458: CHAPTER 458: DON’T MAKE EXCUSES FOR FAILURE_1

Hearing the familiar female voice, Ji Gui’s scalp prickled with fear. The hand holding his wine glass trembled slightly before he quickly concealed it.

He placed the wine glass down with a calm expression. "Ji Jie, you should be accompanying Father in the Royal Clan. What are you doing here?"

The Moon King had four children: two sons and two daughters.

Ji Gui was the Moon King’s second child.

His elder sister Ji Jie, three years his senior, had once been rumored to be the heir to the Moon Clan before he was even born. For some unknown reason, however, the position of Crown Prince was ultimately passed to Ji Gui.

His younger brother and sister were still too young and lacked any cunning, so Ji Gui paid them no mind. But this sister of his...

She’s vicious and cruel. So ruthless, in fact, that she had become his worst nightmare.

After all, it wasn’t Ji Gui, the Crown Prince, whom the Moon King doted on the most, but his eldest daughter, Ji Jie. Thus, even though Ji Jie was of age and had her own fiefdom, she always remained by the Moon King’s side.

"Little brother, to think you’d address your own sister by her given name."

Ji Jie said sorrowfully, "When did our relationship become so distant?"

She sighed with deep regret. How could this delicate, fragile woman possibly be the same demoness who had once buried thirty thousand men of the Moon Clan alive?

And all thirty thousand of them had been men!

The name Ji Jie once made every male Cultivator on the Moon turn pale with fright.

Ji Gui felt sick to his stomach. There had never been any sibling affection between them, so where did this talk of distance even come from?

And what about his two younger siblings? They acted timid, but in reality, they were devious and cunning. Weren’t they all coveting his position as Crown Prince? Even Ji Jie was no different.

Ji Gui’s face remained impassive as he said, "Just say it. What business do you have with me?"

"Your operations have been failing one after another recently, causing our Moon Clan to suffer heavy losses. We’ve even lost our eyes and ears on Earth."

Ji Jie said with a faint smile, "Father thinks you’re a bit short-sighted and has sent me, your elder sister, to teach you a lesson."

"You?"

Ji Gui scoffed. "What can you do besides kill?"

"And you only know how to kill, don’t you? But there are some differences between us," Ji Jie continued to smile. "You only take the lives of those maids to satisfy your own twisted desires. I, on the other hand, only enjoy killing those wretched men who won’t listen. And little brother... you’ve been rather disobedient lately."

As she spoke, Ji Jie reached out and gently caressed Ji Gui’s cheek, a wanton flush on her face.

"This face of yours truly resembles Father in his youth. Little brother, have you ever considered that someone might want to flay the skin from your face?"

"..."

Ji Gui’s pupils shrank abruptly.

Despite his sister’s breathtaking beauty and orchid-like breath, Ji Gui only felt an icy chill pervade the grand hall, a cold that bit deep into his bones.

"GIGGLE..."

Ji Jie let out a coquettish laugh. "My foolish little brother, don’t be afraid. How could your sister bear to see you get hurt? I was only joking."

A cold shiver ran down Ji Gui’s spine.

He knew. Her words just now were definitely not a joke. She had genuinely considered flaying him alive.

That madwoman. That crazy bitch!

Ji Gui cursed endlessly in his mind, his heart ablaze with fury. Father was making it clear he didn’t trust him and was sending a supervisor. Yet he was the Crown Prince of the Moon Clan, the future Moon King!

The ridiculous part was that Father, despite being the strongest expert of the Moon Clan, was cowering behind his Formations, too afraid to show himself. All because he feared that mysterious powerhouse from Earth.

Ji Gui sneered. "Please be so kind as to inform Father that I can handle my own affairs. There’s no need to trouble my esteemed sister."

My esteemed sister...

Those words made Ji Jie’s eyes narrow into smiling slits. "Little brother, are you questioning my abilities? Who has been holing up and drinking themselves into a stupor for the past two days?"

"Do you have any idea how important the Ji Wuming connection was? Father laid the groundwork for that four hundred years ago, and it was meant for a great purpose!"

Ji Jie’s expression suddenly turned cold. "Because of your mistake, that connection has been completely severed. You even played your trump card—the one that sealed the Taotie. If the Taotie Clan in the Immortal Domain finds out, tell me, what kind of threat will you have brought upon this world? The Taotie Clan has a Quasi-Emperor among them!"

Ji Gui’s expression shifted. "Accidents can happen at any time. I didn’t want this outcome either."

"A loss is a loss. Never make excuses for your failures."

Ji Jie tilted her head, her smile turning ice-cold. "What you need to do is watch quietly as I revitalize the chessboard that is Earth."

"You?"

Ji Gui suppressed the rage in his heart and gradually calmed himself. "Fine. I’d like to see just how you plan to ’revitalize’ it."

The corners of Ji Jie’s lips lifted. Her icy demeanor vanished, replaced once again by her charming allure. "Men... they’re actually quite easy to deal with."

* * *

The New Year is one of the most important holidays in Hua Country, a time for families to celebrate together.

Compared to the cities, visiting relatives and neighbors was perhaps even more common in the countryside, with a non-stop stream of guests from the first to the seventh day of the new year.

But for Xu Lai, these past few days had been very peaceful, no different from usual. If he had to point out a difference...

It would be that he could now openly call Ruan Tang his wife.

And Ruan Tang would occasionally, in the privacy of their room, softly call him husband.

Of course, Ruan Tang would deny it every time, insisting that Xu Lai had misheard.

Xu Lai knew of her prideful yet shy nature, so he would only smile each time and continue to draw little turtles on her, which never failed to earn him an indignant pout.

On the afternoon of the eighth day of the first lunar month, not only had the First Divine General arrived, but Yun Jin, the Little Glutton from the clan, was also here.

Yiyi was ecstatic. She held her good friend’s hand, chattering away endlessly, and even insisted on calling Qian Xiao over to join them.

"What’s wrong?" Xu Lai asked, noticing the grave expression on the Taotie’s face.

"Supreme Emperor," the Taotie began cautiously, "after I returned to the Immortal Domain, I mentioned the matter of your senior sister, Yu Guiwan, to Divine General Baize. She... she took a great interest in it."

Seeing that Xu Lai wasn’t angry, the hulking Divine General breathed a silent sigh of relief and continued, "Then, at the cost of ten thousand years of her lifespan, she managed to catch a faint clue."

"Oh?"

Xu Lai was taken aback.

When it came to strategic games, he and Divine General Baize were evenly matched. But when it came to the path of a Fate Master, Baize was his inferior. After all, he was in the Emperor Realm and was subjected to far less interference from the laws than a Quasi-Emperor was.

And yet, Baize had actually found a trace?

"To be precise, it wasn’t a trace of your senior sister," the Taotie said solemnly. "It was a trace of the beautiful woman who wore your senior sister’s waist token."

"Her ancestor was once a disciple of Hehuan Valley. However, her talent was lacking; after three years of Cultivation, she had only reached the first layer of Qi Condensation and was subsequently expelled from the Sect Gate."

Years ago, when the old Sect Gate of the Heavenly Court fell, Xu Lai was pushed off a cliff and into a raging river by his senior sister, Yu Guiwan. He miraculously survived. Later, he infiltrated Hehuan Valley to investigate the whereabouts of his master and senior brothers.

But he learned that they had been thrown into the Mass Burial Mound.

Xu Lai then spent nine years searching the Mass Burial Mound. He found nothing but a piece of his senior sister’s blood-stained sleeve.

After that, Hehuan Valley was annihilated by Xu Lai.

However, Xu Lai only killed the Cultivators whose hands were stained with innocent blood. Those who had just joined the sect and had clean hands were spared.

Xu Lai frowned. "Continue."

"Baize speculates that the beautiful woman’s ancestor was the Outer Sect Disciple who threw your senior sister, your master, and the others into the Mass Burial Mound."

After saying this, the Taotie fell silent, giving Xu Lai time to process the information.