"..."
"What did you say?"
Yang Hong shouted to Xi Miaohua, who was hovering in the air on her sword.
He hadn't heard the last sentence.
Even with his ten million years of cultivation in the Fusion Realm, he still hadn't heard it.
Xi Miaohua in the air looked at Yang Hong with affectionate eyes. Her veil fluttered again, as if she had spoken again, but Yang Hong still couldn't hear her.
"What? I didn't hear you!"
Yang Hong suspected Xi Miaohua was playing a trick on him.
Xi Miaohua looked at Yang Hong on the ground with a confused expression and then at her surroundings.
Leaving Shi Feixuan on the flying sword, she flew to Yang Hong's side.
Her watery eyes stared fixedly at Yang Hong until he became uneasy.
Only then did she raise her hand and slowly lift the veil from her face.
It was a face that could not be described with words.
Yang Hong could only think of one word at that moment: "fairy."
Words like "overwhelming beauty," "natural grace," and "ethereal elegance" were all inadequate.
Only "a fairy descending to earth" could describe her.
"Junior brother, live!
Live well, and wait for me to return."
Xi Miaohua left behind a cryptic message, then put on her veil and flew away on her sword.
"Nonsense, of course I'm going to live."
Yang Hong scratched his head, a little bewildered.
"What a shame, though. Such a beautiful face, it's a pity she's not acting in movies.
If she were on Blue Star, she could definitely outshine all the stars in the world."
The face, with its celestial aura and fairy-like beauty, kept reappearing in Yang Hong's mind, making him almost lose track of time.
"I should hurry back to the palace. I haven't had time to sort out my previous gains yet.
And I don't know how my spiritual plants are doing either?"
Shaking his head, he cast the face out of his mind and strode towards the palace.
Since emerging from the Hongtong Secret Realm, there had been no safe environment, and Yang Hong hadn't had the chance to organize his gains from the secret realm.
Especially after Xi Miaohua found him, for more than five consecutive months, he hadn't even dared to open his storage embroidery.
After all, he had too many secrets and dared not expose them to cultivators from the Ten Great Immortal Sects.
Yang Hong's return to the palace was simple, and no one tried to stop him.
After all, before Yang Hong went to the Hongtong Secret Realm, he had taken a cultivator as his master, and his image and reputation had spread widely because of it.
Upon entering the palace, he was led by the Retired Emperor Yang Zhong to the Imperial Observatory on the west side of the palace.
He was to meet the new Director of the Imperial Observatory – Li Lianshan, a seemingly refined middle-aged man.
"Little friend, you truly have great fortune. To enter the perilous Hongtong Secret Realm and emerge safely,
this is immense luck."
"Thank you for your praise, Director Li."
Yang Hong deliberately showed a hint of proud humility on his face.
"Heh heh, little friend, there's no need to be modest.
According to the rules, I still need to examine your body."
Li Lianshan was very direct and made his request.
"Come on, I'm used to it."
Yang Hong stepped forward and spread his arms.
The examination naturally showed that Yang Hong had no cultivation and nothing unusual on his person.
"Little friend, please forgive me. This is a small token of my apology.
A mortal-grade Longevity Pill, which can extend a mortal's life by ten years."
"Thank you."
Li Lianshan was so thoughtful, and Yang Hong naturally accepted the jade bottle without politeness.
After a brief chat, Li Lianshan let Yang Hong leave.
...
"Imperial Grandfather, this is for you."
Leaving the Imperial Observatory, Yang Hong tossed the jade bottle in his hand to Yang Zhong.
Yang Zhong had been kept outside Li Lianshan's reception room and didn't know what was in the bottle, so he caught it casually.
"What is this?"
"A Longevity Pill, it can extend your life by ten years."
This made Yang Zhong a bit flustered, and the jade bottle in his hand almost fell to the ground.
"Longevity... Longevity Pill? Ten years?"
"Yes, it's a ten-year Longevity Pill. I already have one that grants 30 years, so this one is for you, Grandfather."
"Good... Good... Good! You are indeed my good grandson!"
Upon hearing Yang Hong's explanation, Yang Zhong gripped the jade bottle even tighter and more carefully.
He looked at the small, thumb-sized jade bottle as if it were a rare treasure.
For mortals, the Longevity Pill in this jade bottle was indeed a rare treasure.
Mortal-grade Longevity Pills were actually failures in the process of cultivators refining genuine Longevity Pills.
However, not just anyone could refine a Longevity Pill.
Yang Jian had received over 200 pills from entertaining cultivators this time, but not a single mortal-grade Longevity Pill.
Only the dried-up old man from the Heavenly Secret Sect had rewarded him with one at the beginning.
As far as Yang Hong knew, only the Heavenly Secret Sect could refine Longevity Pills.
Therefore, it was truly a rare treasure.
After bidding farewell to the extremely excited Yang Zhong, Yang Hong hurried back to his Residence of Deliberate Neglect.
"Husband~"
"Your Highness~"
"Your Highness~"
As soon as Yang Hong entered the Residence of Deliberate Neglect, Song Yuzhi, leading a group of women, including ladies and maids, came to welcome him.
Seeing him, everyone was filled with excitement and joy.
"Husband, you're back. This consort was so worried."
Song Yuzhi tightly held Yang Hong's arm, tears almost reaching her chin.
"Alright, alright. You all know how capable your husband is. How could I be in danger?"
He gently patted Song Yuzhi's slightly cool jade hand, comforting her in a soft voice.
Having entered the Hongtong Secret Realm, Yang Hong had truly experienced the perils of the cultivation world.
He believed that Song Yuzhi and the others, who were of average strength but good-looking, must have also experienced hardships to survive.
Their worry for him was as eager as his worry for them when he entered the secret realm.
"Alright, three days of leave. Everyone should rest well for a while."
Yang Hong looked at Xiaocao, Lin Daiyu, and the others and announced loudly.
"Leave? What leave? We don't need leave."
"That's right, Your Highness. Do you have any tasks for us? We've been resting for a long time."
Unexpectedly, when Yang Hong mentioned leave, Xiaocao and the others were reluctant.
Thinking about it, it made sense.
When Yang Hong was away and didn't assign them tasks, their farming had become lax, and even their martial arts cultivation had relaxed considerably.
In other words, they had already been on leave for several months.
"Heh heh~ Just rest well. I'll give you plenty of tasks later."
Yang Hong smiled mysteriously and then pulled Song Yuzhi back to Ya Du Tower to listen to their experiences in the Hongtong Secret Realm.
Compared to Yang Hong's experiences, theirs were uneventful.
Although they encountered monstrous beasts and cultivators, and even fought battles, they always crushed their enemies.
Yang Hong simply attributed his own experiences to killing a few monstrous beasts.
If he were to tell them that he had killed over forty million monstrous beasts, he would likely scare Song Yuzhi and the others to death.
After a period of exchange, night had fallen.
However, Yang Hong did not rest. Instead, he went to the Treasure Lotus Pond to infuse plants with his energy again after six months.
"Ding~ You infused 480 days of true qi into the Pure Heart Lotus, gaining a thousandfold cultivation return, returning 480,000 days of true qi cultivation."
The return multiplier for the first infusion was not high, only a thousandfold.
However, it was much better than in the Hongtong Secret Realm.
"Ding~ You infused 480 days of true qi into the Pure Heart Lotus, gaining a five hundredfold cultivation return, returning 240,000 days of true qi cultivation."
The multiplier for the second infusion had actually decreased again.
This gave Yang Hong a bad premonition.
"Ding~ You infused 480 days of true qi into the Green Jade Grape, gaining a two thousandfold cultivation return, returning 960,000 days of true qi cultivation."
"Ding... 300-fold..."
"Ding... 100-fold..."
After eight infusions, the cultivation return had indeed decreased across the board. Previously, the highest was ten thousandfold, and the lowest was a thousandfold.
Now, the highest was two thousandfold, and the lowest had dropped to a hundredfold.
It seemed that the Treasure Lotus Pond had undergone some changes.