Chapter 58: The Lord of No Return

In broad daylight, with her mind churning through countless scenarios and possibilities, Meng Ruji naturally couldn't find the peace required for sleep. Instead, she chose to meditate and enter contemplation, her breathing gradually steadying as she slipped into a hazy state of consciousness.

However, unlike her usual meditation sessions, this time Meng Ruji felt her mind unexpectedly, almost unnaturally clear—as though a veil had been lifted from her perception.

She watched herself consciously step into her own dreamscape. The surroundings resembled a vast, cage-like space, its background composed of gray fog clouds in varying shades and densities, each one containing something different.

Meng Ruji approached one of the fog clouds with casual curiosity and peered inside. Through the swirling mist, she could see the scenes within with startling clarity.

Those strange and magnificent visions were fragments of her past, yet somehow not merely her past—they were her memories refracted through the lens of trauma and regret.

She saw Zhan Ye. The scene displayed was the day she had saved him from certain death.

On the frozen lake, the young man had been dressed in thin, inadequate clothing, curled up on the ground, nearly frozen solid. Meng Ruji watched herself casting a warming spell over Zhan Ye. The magic emitted gentle golden light, enveloping him protectively and seemingly melting away the solid ice and biting wind that surrounded the lake.

She had saved him. She had made that choice.

But unlike her actual memories of that day, in this dreamscape, Meng Ruji saw another version of herself—a shadow self that lived only here.

That other Meng Ruji wore different clothes entirely—the garments she had worn on the day Zhan Ye destroyed Hengxu Mountain. Her robes were drenched in dark red blood, the fabric stiff with it.

Blood droplets had also splattered across her face in a macabre pattern. This bloodied version stood beside the Meng Ruji who was saving Zhan Ye, crying in raw anguish and screaming with desperate fury: "Don't save him! Don't save him! You'll regret it! He's not worth it! He should die here in the cold! Kill him!"

Every cry, every sentence was the painful inner screaming she had experienced on the day Zhan Ye had massacred everyone at Hengxu Mountain—the thoughts she could never speak aloud.

She regretted. She hated. All these emotions were magnified and given terrible form in the dreamscape.

Meng Ruji watched that hysterical version of herself in profound silence, observing the woman who wept and screamed without end.

This was the version of herself that would never, could never appear in reality, in her waking life. She couldn't allow it.

When she had told Zhan Ye that over the years, she had killed herself more than anyone else, she hadn't been speaking metaphorically. She had indeed killed such an out-of-control version of herself countless times in her heart, drowning her in reason and necessity.

Then she would open her eyes each morning and continue to face the years ahead with manufactured calm and rigid rationality, burying the screaming woman deeper.

"Oh my, Little Meng, this is quite difficult to witness, isn't it?"

A familiar voice shattered Meng Ruji's continued exploration of her dreamscape's darker corners.

She turned her head sharply and saw Mo Li standing behind her with his characteristic unsettling smile.

Mo Li looked at her with beaming, almost childlike delight. His overly pale face seemed to glow with an inner luminescence against the darkness. He waved his hand with casual dismissal, dispersing the gray mist immediately surrounding Meng Ruji. "Why are you so absorbed in watching nightmares? Let's look at something happier, shall we?"

Mo Li beckoned invitingly to the sky, and a slightly darker gray fog cloud descended obediently at his summons. Mo Li blew gently on the cloud, dispersing some of the concealing mist inside. When Meng Ruji glanced within, she saw herself as a small child, being led by parents whose faces had long since faded from her memory, playing completely naked by a riverside in summer…

Meng Ruji: "…"

She slapped away this mortifying fog cloud with one decisive palm strike.

"You're absurd!"

"I'm devastated, truly." Mo Li pressed a hand to his chest theatrically. "What an unfilial daughter, won't even let me see what you looked like as a child."

Meng Ruji fixed him with an irritated glare. "Time is extremely tight now. Don't waste what little we have with your idle chatter."

Mo Li's smile widened with infuriating confidence. "I'm a nightmare demon, Little Meng. In the dreamscape, isn't time entirely under my control? Don't worry yourself unnecessarily." He gestured expansively to the fog clouds floating overhead like captive stars. "If you truly wanted to look, you could finish watching all these dreams before returning to consciousness—there would still be time."

"I won't look anymore." Meng Ruji crossed her arms defensively and regarded him with suspicion. "Why have you been sleeping all this time, unable to wake no matter how desperately we called?"

Mo Li pouted with exaggerated sympathy for himself. "I was injured, naturally. Resting and recuperating, you know how it is."

"And now you wake up with such convenient timing?" Meng Ruji's sneer was cold and sharp. "The situation outside is catastrophic. Someone carrying tremendous malevolent qi rose from beneath the Yinyuan Tree. He seized the position of Zhuliu City's lord through force and now wants to destroy the entire Land of No Return…"

"I know. Zhan Ye." Mo Li spoke the name lightly, almost carelessly.

"You know him?"

"Of course I do." Mo Li's smile took on a different quality—something older, more dangerous. "I was the one who sealed him there."

Four simple words, spoken so lightly, yet they fell with the weight of mountains into Meng Ruji's chest.

"You…"

"Me."

"You are the Lord of No Return."

"More or less, yes."

In this single instant, enlightenment struck Meng Ruji with the force of revelation, and suddenly everything made perfect sense!

Why his broken stone body could previously pulverize Luo Yingfeng's supposedly indestructible gold into powder, and why he could use his stone form to cast spells completely unaffected by the gold and silver rules that governed everyone else.

Because he was the one who had established those rules in the first place!

"Are you playing with me?" Meng Ruji seized Mo Li's collar in fury. "You even had the audacity to ask me to provide for your retirement! What retirement could you possibly need? Did you orchestrate my entry into the Land of No Return from the very beginning?"

"That's absolutely not the case." Mo Li wasn't angry in the slightest, still smiling pleasantly as he patted Meng Ruji's white-knuckled hand. "Your arrival in the Land of No Return resulted from your own deep obsessions and karmic ties—you truly can't blame me for that. As for retirement, who says that being the Lord of No Return means you don't require retirement? I don't trust other people, Little Meng. I only trust you. You have a genuinely kind heart."

Right now, Meng Ruji only despised her supposedly kind heart!

Forcibly suppressing her rising anger, Meng Ruji released his collar, turned away, took a deep breath, and deliberately calmed her turbulent emotions. "Fine, if that's the case, perhaps it's actually advantageous. Previously, when Zhan Ye first came to the Land of No Return, he carried overwhelming malevolent qi. You didn't want him to disturb this place, so you sealed him beneath the Yinyuan Tree, correct?"

"Little Meng is exceptionally clever."

"Then seal him again."

Mo Li sighed deeply and shook his head with apparent regret. "Can't do it."

Meng Ruji gave him a cold, penetrating glance. "Don't give me nonsense about Luo Yingfeng injuring you severely. You're the Lord of No Return. In your own domain, in the Land of No Return, how could that creature possibly injure you this badly?"

"Little Meng, you…" Mo Li's smile turned genuinely appreciative. "Sometimes you're just too clever for your own good. You're absolutely right—I really was injured, but indeed not because of Luo Yingfeng. During the time I was absent from here, I went to the mortal realm."

"You can still travel to the mortal realm?" Meng Ruji laughed in disbelief and anger, but didn't want to waste time arguing about this particular revelation now. "Fine, continue."

"I was injured in the mortal realm."

"What kind of injury could you possibly sustain in the mortal realm that would incapacitate you this severely?"

"Didn't my second son-in-law, Ye Dahe, mention before…"

Meng Ruji interrupted him with immediate vehemence. "He is not your second son-in-law!"

"Anyway," Mo Li continued undeterred, "Ye Dahe said that malevolent qi is running completely rampant in the mortal realm now, spreading like a plague. I wanted to personally assess the situation, and then in the mortal realm, I was injured by something—or someone—carrying profoundly deep malevolent qi."

Hearing this, Meng Ruji frowned and scrutinized Mo Li thoroughly, examining him from head to toe.

He stood straight with perfect posture, his expression natural and untroubled. From his outward appearance, there was absolutely no visible sign of injury, but given the current dire situation, Zhan Ye represented their common enemy—Mo Li had no logical reason to lie to her about this.

"When will your injury heal sufficiently?"

"Two to three hundred years, I estimate."

"You…"

Meng Ruji forcibly held back a string of curses in her throat.

Two to three hundred years—by the time his injury healed enough for him to seal Zhan Ye again, the mortal realm outside might be completely destroyed, might cease to exist entirely.

Meng Ruji quickly forced herself to calm down and think practically. "Teach me the method. I'll do it myself."

"That's exactly what I intended to propose!" Mo Li responded with immediate enthusiasm. "My injury is quite severe at present. I have no extra strength whatsoever to spare. It's probably because my power is so weakened that Zhan Ye managed to break through my seal and escape in the first place. I'll teach you the formation required to seal him. You should find it relatively simple to learn given your abilities, but there might be one rather difficult obstacle for you in this current moment…"

"Just get to the point."

"You have no money."

"…"

Mo Li looked at Meng Ruji with genuine pity, speaking with melancholy on her behalf. "Setting up this particular formation requires luring him into it through careful positioning, then using sustained magical power to seal him after he enters the trap. But using magical power in the Land of No Return costs money—significant amounts of money."

By the end of this explanation, Meng Ruji felt waves of splitting headaches washing over her—the real, crushing suffering brought by poverty pressed down on her shoulders like an impossible mountain.

Even here in the dreamscape, Meng Ruji felt her body physically trembling…

Because of poverty. Because of money.

Never in her entire life had she imagined that one day, when she desperately needed to confront world-destroying evil and prevent apocalypse, she would first be constrained and defeated by…

Money!

"Can't you simply change this ridiculous rule?" Meng Ruji forced the words through gritted teeth.

"I can exist beyond and outside this rule, but I cannot help you circumvent it."

Meng Ruji felt utterly exhausted, truly worn down to nothing by this wretched place and its impossible restrictions.

"Mu Sui…" She used her last bit of mental energy to think of a possible solution. "Zhuliu City was originally built by him. People say his accumulated wealth could pile up into a thousand mountains—he must still be able to find extra money somewhere, must have resources. If we can successfully contact Mu Sui, there might be a way forward."

"Hmm…" Mo Li pondered for a while, his expression thoughtful. "It would be quite easy under normal circumstances, but my power is severely weakened now. To contact him out of thin air, across realms, would be somewhat difficult. Do you have anything on your person that's directly connected to him? Something that carries his essence?"

Meng Ruji instinctively touched her wrist. In the dreamscape, she wore that branch bracelet on her wrist just as she did in waking life.

"Mu Sui cast a protective spell on it. Although it's not actively working now, it should still carry his residual aura. Can you use this as a medium to contact him?"

"Yes, I can use this object to enter his dreamscape and connect your dreams together." Mo Li smiled with returning confidence and pride. "Unbeknownst to gods or ghosts."

"Excellent."

Finally, some news that wasn't terrible. Meng Ruji visibly perked up and extended her wrist. "Right here, can you do it immediately?"

Mo Li smiled with absolute confidence. "Of course. I am, after all, Yan Tianjun. Even Heaven itself cannot escape my reach."

Mo Li reached out and touched the branch bracelet on Meng Ruji's wrist within the dreamscape, his fingers surprisingly warm.

Layers of thin, gossamer mist rippled outward concentrically from where his finger made contact, just like the mist that had previously concealed Meng Ruji's dreamscape fragments.

The mist scattered and multiplied, and soon the surroundings were almost completely obscured by fog. At such close distance, Meng Ruji could barely make out Mo Li's pale face through the thickness.

Time passed bit by agonizing bit.

Meng Ruji's emotions shifted from excited anticipation to forced calm and finally settled into profound speechlessness. Her mouth turned down in a severe frown as she stared at Mo Li before her.

"Yan Tianjun?" Meng Ruji's tone now carried unmistakable contempt and mockery. "Even Heaven itself cannot escape, you claimed, so how exactly did Mu Sui manage to escape? Can't you summon him?"

Mo Li coughed lightly, poorly covering his obvious embarrassment. "Well… he actually needs to be asleep for this to work. If he doesn't sleep at all, how can I possibly call him over from the dreamscape? I can't reach someone who isn't dreaming."

Meng Ruji withdrew her hand abruptly.

In the next instant, the surrounding haze faded rapidly, and Meng Ruji's eyes snapped open.

Finding herself back in this peculiar room with windows on all four sides, Meng Ruji took a deep, steadying breath.

Really…

She had been literally awakened by sheer anger!

This Mo Li was completely unreliable, and that Mu Sui wasn't any better!

She had been kidnapped and held prisoner for at least an entire night! Including yesterday's events, at least a full day and night had passed—how could he possibly not have slept?

What was he staying awake for? What could be so important?

"Thud"—a light sound interrupted her spiraling frustration.

Meng Ruji was currently drowning in her irritation with everything going wrong. She assumed Zhan Ye was returning to torment her with more world-destroying theories that would only annoy her further.

But when she lifted her head and looked, she saw that outside one of the windows, suspended amid flowing clouds and rosy dawn light, stood a person—the very person she couldn't even summon in her dreams…

"Mu Sui?"

Meng Ruji stared in complete amazement, barely believing her eyes.

"Meng Ruji."

Mu Sui hovered outside the window, suspended impossibly in mid-air, but his expression remained indifferent and calm, as steady and untroubled as if he stood on the first floor with solid ground beneath his feet rather than floating hundreds of feet above the earth.

"If you don't hurry over here, do you still want to stay and reminisce with your old friend?"

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