Yang Ye’s face darkened. What’s she trying to say? Is she playing a trick on me?

Ding Shaoyao continued, “The Ding Clan has placed all its hopes on you, so it can only truly be at ease with a marriage between you and me. Because my Ding Clan would be completely tied to you then. Of course, their true motive is to obtain even more benefits through me!”

“You’re quite frank about all of this!” said Yang Ye.

Ding Shaoyao said, “Since we’re working together, then we naturally have to be frank with each other.”

“Then why didn’t you agree?” Yang Ye suddenly asked this question, but he immediately regretted his decision.

“Are you willing to spend your entire lifetime with someone you have no feelings for?” Ding Shaoyao gazed at him and said, “Of course, I don’t hate you, but I don’t feel anything special about you. You aren’t my type because you’re a real player.”

Yang Ye rubbed his nose and felt rather embarrassed. So, he hurriedly changed the topic and said, “Go back and tell the Ding Clan that I, Yang Ye, will never forget the Ding Clan’s timely assistance in a time of difficulty. Thus, so long as the Ding Clan doesn’t betray me, then I’ll never betray the Ding Clan.”

Ding Shaoyao glanced at Yang Ye and spoke indifferently, “I’ll deal with the Ding Clan, and I’ve even helped you deal with the problems between your women for now. All you have to do is attain the Monarch Realm as soon as possible. You should realize that you’re like the rope that ties all the powers in the southern territory together, and the entire southern territory will definitely collapse if you were to perish. Because everyone is following you out of consideration for your future. They believe that you’ll definitely become a figure comparable to the Sword Sect’s Founding Ancestor. So if you die, then their hopes would be lost. Understand?”

Yang Ye nodded and said, “Don’t worry, I still have many things to do, so I won’t die that easily!”

Ding Shaoyao nodded, and then she suddenly said, “Why didn’t you take An Nanjing as well?”

“Huh?” Yang Ye was stunned.

Ding Shaoyao spoke seriously, “She’s so formidable. If she were to join forces with you, then I presume your joint forces would even be sufficient to kill a Monarch Realm expert, right? I would think that there’s no chance at all if it was any other person, but I think that you might be able to take the Martial God of this era as yours if you worked hard on it.”

Yang Ye’s face darkened and said, “We’re friends. It’s a pure friendship!”

Ding Shaoyao chuckled and said, “Is pure friendship even possible between a man and a woman? Perhaps it is, but I don’t think that’s possible for you!”

Yang Ye suddenly said, “Are we not pure friends?”

The smile on her face stiffened a little, and then she turned around and walked towards the door. She was merely halfway there when she spoke again, “Right, the Madam of the Southern An Clan wishes to see you. Should I bring her to you?”

“No!”

“Why?”

“I’m cultivating!”

Ding Shaoyao nodded, and then she left the room.

After that, the only thing Yang Ye did every single day besides cultivating bitterly was to accompany Su Qingshi, Xiao Yuxi, and Little Yao. The little girl had burnt away almost 20,000 extreme-grade energy stones that day. In other words, Yang Ye had less than 10,000 left now. But that was quite sufficient!

The amount of energy required for the advancement of every single rank of cultivation from the fifth rank of the Exalt Realm was enormous, but since he cultivated within the Primordial Pagoda and supplemented it by madly consuming extreme-grade energy stones, he’d advanced into the sixth rank of the Exalt Realm in just a short period of half a month.

Yang Ye had intended to continue cultivating but something gave him no choice but to stop cultivating for now — Su Qingshi was giving birth!

Su Qingshi gave birth to a baby girl, and they named her Yang Nianxue. She looked very much like her mother, and Yang Ye loved her to bits. He was constantly holding her in his arms and showing her off to everyone.

Su Qingshi held Yang Nianxue in her arms within her room, and her eyes were filled with a gentle expression. Yang Ye was sitting by her side, and for the very first time in his life, he felt slight detest towards slaughter and battle as he gazed at Su Qingshi and his daughter.

An Nanjing’s objective was the end of the path of cultivation; Yang Ye’s objective was merely to live a peaceful life with his family. Of course, such a simple objective was clearly not easy to achieve at all.

It was like that sometimes. Even if you didn’t cause any trouble, it didn’t mean that others wouldn’t cause trouble for you. Moreover, in this world where the strong were respected, one without strength was bound to be bullied and oppressed. But one’s lack of strength made it so that one could only endure when suffering such a situation.

Yang Ye understood all of these principles. So, he’s figured out a principle. If he wanted to live a peaceful life, then he had to obtain absolute strength first. Because only absolute strength would make it so that others wouldn’t dare disturb his peace.

Yang Ye enjoyed a rare period of peace during this month.

The reason Luo Jun hadn’t attacked Ancient Domain City was mainly because he was waiting for the Hallowed Grounds to attack. Before this, he’d thought that Yang Ye was dead and hadn’t taken any precautions, and that was why Yang Ye had an opportunity to take advantage of and slaughter his army. Now, it was utterly impossible for Yang Ye to sneak into his army again.

The overall strength of the central territory was multiple times stronger than Ancient Domain City. So, if he were to launch a full-scale attack, then he was confident in his ability to breach Ancient Domain City. Because no matter how abnormal Yang Ye’s strength was, it was impossible for Yang Ye to annihilate the entire army. However, even if he won such a battle, it would be a pyrrhic victory!

Thus, he hadn’t chosen to launch a full-scale attack, and chose to wait for the Hallowed Grounds’ forces instead. He intended to rely on them to eliminate Yang Ye before he launched his full-scale attack. Because the alliance formed by the powers of the southern territory would definitely fall apart once Yang Ye was killed!

After waiting and waiting for an entire month, they finally arrived.

Qing Feng and Lan Ling led an old man, four men, and a woman to Profounder Continent.

“As expected of an abandoned world. The density of spirit energy here isn’t even a fifth of what it’s like at our Hallowed Grounds. Moreover, it seems like the spirit energy here will be drying up soon!” A man with a small sword shaped mark at the center of his forehead frowned as he spoke in midair.

“It has nothing to do with us!” The old man by the man’s side spoke indifferently, “All of you go look for Yang Ye. I’ll be heading to the demon territory. I’m really curious to see who the current Demon Emperor is as he actually dared to refuse the summons of my Hallowed Grounds. I’ll be sending him off on his way if he’s too weak!” The old man vanished on the spot once he finished speaking.

Once the old man left, the man looked at Lan Ling and said, “Take us to Yang Ye. I hope he’ll be a little stronger. Otherwise, it would truly be too boring!”

“Senior Brother Jian Kuang, it’s best if we don’t underestimate our enemy!” said Lan Ling softly.

A wisp of disdain appeared on the corners of Jian Kuang’s mouth as he said, “Underestimate our enemy? I sincerely hope he isn’t too weak.”

“I heard he’s called the Sword Emperor on this continent?” Meanwhile, the woman who looked quite similar to Lan Ling spoke abruptly.

Lan Ling nodded, “Indeed.”

The woman revealed a ridiculing smile when she heard this and said, “Jian Kuang, you’re called the Young Sword Saint in our Hallowed Grounds. I really look forward to the battle between the Young Sword Saint and the Sword Emperor of Profounder Continent!”

“I’ll make him realize that he isn’t worthy of being called the Sword Emperor!” Jian Kuang spoke flatly.

In next to no time, their group arrived outside Ancient Domain City.