Emperor’s Domination

The melting process took several months to even begin. 

“Crack.” The girl watching over it felt her soul leaving her body from horror when there was movement from the young man inside.

She has been here all along. Looking over a potential corpse was naturally scary. What if the corpse came back to life as a monster and jumped out?

Fortunately, there was no reaction at all so she eventually felt at ease - until this moment. Nevertheless, the corpse didn’t break out of the ice.

After regaining her wits, she immediately went to report to the sect master.

Zhu Qi and several elders were alarmed and ran over. They saw Li Qiye waking up from his slumber and slowly sat up.

In the beginning, the others thought that Li Qiye was just a corpse inside the ice. Seeing him coming back to life made them lost.

He glanced at the group and calmly spoke: “Who is in charge of Insane Court right now?”

This comment was more than telling enough and shocked the entire group. Grand Sword had fallen to the level of an unknown sect and had no contact with the central power. The lord of Insane Court was an unreachable character for them.

Thus, they were rightfully horrified after hearing this and didn’t know how to answer.

“S---ir, Insane Court is, isn’t under anyone’s rule right now.” Zhu Qi felt his mouth parched, unable to speak clearly.

This youth was very young but instantly asked a loaded question. Could this really be an ancestor of Insane Court? Li Qiye gave him a leisure stare but his free attitude shocked everyone once more.

“May, may I ask how to address you, Sir?” Zhu Qi mustered all of his courage and asked, still feeling afraid inside because he didn’t know of this youth’s identity.

Any provocation might end with the destruction of their sect.

“Oh? Want to find out who I am? When I discussed the dao with Insane Ancestor, your ancestors have yet to be born, so you won’t know even if I tell you who I am.”

The group turned pale while their legs trembled like crazy. Insane Ancestor was the progenitor of this region. The entire court and dao system were created by him.

Now, this youth claimed to have discussed the dao with Insane Ancestor. It meant that he was either someone close with Insane or another ancestor on the same level! The group all thought that they were meeting an old ancestor from Insane Court right now. 

In fact, Li Qiye wasn’t lying about this at all. Insane Ancestor was the old man beneath Drystone.

Back in his own epoch, he had come to Three Immortals in order to find a few answers.

For some unknown reasons, he decided to return back to his epoch. During his time here, he experienced many things on the cultivation path, resulting in this dao lineage named Insane.

Of course, he wasn’t called Insane Ancestor in his epoch, only in Three Immortals.

Later on, he caught the Dark Crow and the two shared memories. During that long and boring period, he did indeed talk to the Dark Crow about the grand dao of Three Immortals. 

Li Qiye decided to erase the memories of these conversations in order to avoid the grotto from knowing about it. Only when he actually made it to Three Immortals did these memories resurfaced.

Zhu Qi and the elders, frightened, all got on their knees: “Your descendants didn’t know you are back, Venerable Ancestor, please forgive our impropriety…”

They were stammering, too afraid to even lift their head and look at him.

He waved his sleeve and said: “Leave, I’m a bit tired and need to rest.”

These guys were completely obedient and bowed their head again, not daring to interject before quietly leaving in fear.

Li Qiye meditated because too many things have popped up in his head - memories of Insane Ancestor and more information about Immortal Demon Grotto and even Samsara Wild Ancestor.

When he defeated Samsara, he took his everything. Thus, hidden knowledge of Samsara also surfaced after coming here.

From this massive trove of intelligence, Li Qiye had a good understanding of Three Immortals and the current situation here.

Meanwhile, Zhu Qi and the elders met again in another room for a discussion.

They didn’t have a good plan to deal with this. An ancestor with a shocking identity appeared out of nowhere so the inexperienced group was lost.

“We, we should really report this to Insane Court.” One elder suggested: “This is a huge matter, if we don’t report it, we won’t be able to bear the consequences if something happens later.”

The other elders agreed. They had no excuses not reporting the resurrection of an ancestor from the court.

“Well, this is also a huge opportunity for our sect.” A different elder became excited: “We’re the ones who found him, so we are at the top of the contribution list, maybe this could even be our chance to rise.”

The rest of the group became excited. Their sect had fallen beyond repair, only an old ancestor coming back to life could solve this.

“But what if, just what if, he is a fake?” A relatively cautious elder quietly said.

The rest felt that someone had poured cold water over their head; their excitement extinguished right away.

The group became skeptical. Of course, they wanted Li Qiye to be the real thing, but what if he wasn’t?

“Maybe we can try to find out?” One elder began to plan.

“How? How do we figure out if he’s real or fake? If it’s the former, he’ll be angry if he knows what we’re up to. Just one finger of his alone would destroy our whole sect.” Zhu Qi said.

The elders became quiet because they had no method of verification. Zhu Qi was right; they couldn’t afford to provoke the real thing. 

“We have to ask Ancestor Yang then.” An elder came up with this.

“No, we can’t. Ancestor Yang is our only backing, the only person who could speak for us at the court. If we were to involve him and fail, we’ll lose everything.” Another elder said.

“Then you have other ideas? Plus, you think the court will believe just us if we tell them we found an ancestor coming back to life? If Ancestor Yang stepped up, he could at least talk to the court. He’s much more experienced too, maybe he can tell if the guy is real or not.”

They deliberated for a while before Zhu Qi made up his mind: “Alright, go invite the ancestor, at least there’s hope in this.”

An elder was sent to personally invite Ancestor Yang afterward.