Chapter 290

Chapter 290: Return

The Bei Dou bridge-pillar spanned four great nebulae—an immense territory where resources might surface at any moment. Because of that, it was impossible to divide those resources neatly by region.

No one would ever stop coveting them.

But it also couldn’t all be settled by war.

“In that case,” Wang Jie asked, “wouldn’t the powerful clubs take all the advantage?”

Wu Yuan actually smiled. “That’s why there’s human feeling beyond the rules. Wherever you seize resources, you leave the locals at least a bite.”

Wang Jie understood.

“And the universe has more resources than anyone can count. Even the strongest club can’t monopolize everything. Our Black-White Heaven club hasn’t gathered all its top experts in one place for a long time. Other clubs are the same.”

He spoke with unusual patience, as if he meant every word.

“A club that’s spread out—how much can it really grab? Just the travel alone would grind you into the dirt.”

Wang Jie lowered his head. “Thank you for the guidance, Elder.”

Wu Yuan glanced at him. “No matter how the rules are written, someone will always find ways to break them. Any action a club takes has to be careful.”

His voice softened, turning distant. “I came from Slaughterstone Planet too. I wanted to protect my family and friends as well. But by the time I had the ability to protect them… it was already too late.”

Wang Jie froze.

Wu Yuan turned and walked away. “I hope you won’t be left with regrets.”

Wang Jie clasped his fists and bowed deeply to Wu Yuan’s back. “Thank you, Elder.”

With the Lakeside Residence’s clearance, the Fei Yue was assigned a private route straight to the Silver Radiance Imperial Capital.

In the end, it docked outside Imperial Capital Star.

Wang Jie stepped onto the planet and took in the familiar streets and skyline. He was back.

After leaving Blue Star, this had been his first home.

Cheng Qian rushed out to greet him. “Welcome back, my lord!”

“Greetings, my lord!”

The crowd behind him bowed as well.

Wang Jie grunted and strode into the Lakeside Residence—then, laughing loudly, pulled a maid against his side and wrapped an arm around her waist.

Cheng Qian blinked, stunned. Had his lord… grown up?

Inside the Imperial Palace, Lan Qi sneered the moment she saw it.

She had been watching the Lakeside Residence nonstop. The instant Wang Jie returned, he was already showing off—hugging a maid as if he owned the world.

Disgust twisted her features.

A lockforce cultivator thought he deserved status?

Only in a backwater like this.

In her Falling Bow Hall, he would be cannon fodder at best.

Jun Hua and Yu Dong saw it too. They exchanged a look, equally baffled.

They knew Wang Jie well enough. Since when was he this… impatient?

Either his personality had changed, or—

Jun Hua silently prayed it was the latter.

Back inside the Lakeside Residence, the maid’s face was burning red. She was excited, trembling with anticipation.

Wang Jie, as master of the Lakeside Residence, held immense prestige within the Silver Radiance Empire—second only to one. He was young, carried himself well, and cultivation had left him with refined features and a calm aura. By any standard, he was the sort of man countless people would fight to cling to.

“Sorry,” Wang Jie said. “Go back for now. But don’t leave.”

He released her.

The maid stared at him, stunned. Her eyes were so wet they seemed ready to spill, brimming with grievance.

Wang Jie coughed, awkward. “I’m exhausted. Go rest.”

Then he called Cheng Qian over and told him to raise the maid’s stipend and treatment.

Cheng Qian stood there, dumbfounded, completely unable to understand what his lord was doing.

Wang Jie went to rest—for real.

Only at dusk did he leave again, heading straight for the Star Vault Materials Exchange.

Su Ying Yu was busy receiving guests.

Wang Jie didn’t rush her. He wandered through the halls, browsed a while, and even picked up several pieces of lockforce materials along the way.

That, too, reached Lan Qi. She hadn’t relaxed her surveillance for even a moment.

When she heard Wang Jie was buying lockforce materials, she cared even less. Of course. A lockforce cultivator was still a lockforce cultivator.

Before long, Su Ying Yu spotted him and her face lit up. “My lord! When did you return?”

“Today.”

Su Ying Yu smiled, eyes bright. “And you came to find me the moment you arrived? Do you have instructions for this humble woman, my lord?”

As she spoke, she led him into a private reception room.

Wang Jie sat across from her, took a sip of tea, and went straight to the point. “I want intelligence. Information about Roaming-Star Realm cultivators entering the Silver Radiance Empire.”

Su Ying Yu’s gaze flickered. “I’m sorry, my lord. I don’t sell intelligence here, and I don’t have it. I can’t help you.”

“Aren’t you the one in charge of Star Vault Vista in the Silver Radiance Empire?” Wang Jie asked calmly.

Su Ying Yu looked at him, startled. “How did my lord know that?”

“I guessed.”

A soft laugh escaped her. “Congratulations, my lord. You guessed correctly. But some intelligence is sold publicly. Some intelligence isn’t. What I hold belongs to the second category.”

Wang Jie set his cup down. “You helped me a lot before.”

Su Ying Yu sighed. “That doesn’t mean I can smash my own rice bowl, my lord. You’re asking me to violate the rules.”

Then she leaned in slightly, studying him. “To be honest, I’m curious too. How did you confirm my identity? If my lord tells me, I can give you some intelligence for free.”

Wang Jie chuckled. “You think someone told me?”

“Wasn’t that it?” Su Ying Yu’s eyes were sharp, almost burning. “The Silver Radiance Empire has the Star Vault Materials Exchange, pills, weapons, even the Star Fusion Center. Why would my lord guess that I’m the one responsible for intelligence?”

Wang Jie didn’t blink. “Then answer mine. Why did you help me so much back then? Star Vault Vista didn’t need a lockforce cultivator customer like me.”

His tone stayed mild, but the words pressed like a blade.

“Don’t feed me some line like ‘guests are heaven.’ That’s not the reason. You had another motive.”

Su Ying Yu’s lips curved. “Fine. The answer is simple. I couldn’t trace my lord’s background.”

Wang Jie felt a grim satisfaction. So it was exactly what he’d suspected.

Back then, Su Ying Yu had gone out of her way to help him, again and again. At the time, he’d assumed it was because he lived in the Lakeside Residence and held a special identity.

Looking back now, it was absurd.

Someone from Star Vault Vista—someone who could manage regional intelligence—stood far beyond the Wang Jie of that time. Even Jun Hua, standing beside her, would be ordinary.

For a figure like that to approach him with warmth and patience was unnatural.

Money?

A joke.

Even a random Star-Breaking Realm starforce cultivator could bring Star Vault Vista more profit than he ever could back then, and such cultivators were as numerous as ants.

“Grains of sand make a tower” only mattered when the tower could actually reach something.

Star Vault Vista was the sky.

No tower built from sand could touch it.

They had no reason to be that attentive to a lockforce cultivator—unless he was strange enough that even their network couldn’t find where he came from.

That was the only thing that could draw Su Ying Yu’s interest.

Wang Jie met her gaze. They were both staring at a mystery they wanted.

“So now?” he asked. “Have you found it?”

“Still no,” Su Ying Yu said quietly. “Can my lord satisfy my curiosity?”

Wang Jie smiled faintly. “All right. I’ll tell you.”

Su Ying Yu leaned forward, breath held. To be someone Star Vault Vista couldn’t trace was… eerie.

She knew Wang Jie came from Blue Star, but where had Blue Star come from?

That region hadn’t contained a Blue Star before.

She had the ability to sit in this position, but her clearance was still limited. She couldn’t mobilize intelligence beyond the Silver Radiance Empire. If Star Vault Vista’s intelligence officers were ranked by status, she was near the bottom.

Wang Jie took out a jade token and slapped it onto the table.

Su Ying Yu stared.

Her mind went blank.

She had imagined countless possibilities, but never this.

An observer?

He was a Star Vault Vista observer—one of their own?

Wang Jie watched her expression with open amusement.

Su Ying Yu lifted her eyes and let out a bitter laugh. “My lord… you really are teasing me.”

Wang Jie put the token away. “I just wanted to know whether someone could buy our intelligence through you.”

Su Ying Yu exhaled slowly. “Intelligence is a weapon, my lord. And weapons can bite back.”

Many people could find channels that claimed to sell Star Vault Vista intelligence. That didn’t mean anyone truly trusted those channels.

Then her expression turned solemn. “This time, the ones who entered the Silver Radiance Empire and controlled Jun Hua and the others were twenty-eight people from Third Nebula, united under the Xuan Gate club.”

She didn’t hesitate as she spoke, as if reciting a report she’d memorized.

“The strongest among them should be Yan Long—Xuan Gate’s top disciple—comparable to a Black-White Heaven Six-Path Roamer. The rest are Roaming-Star Realm cultivators. There were no Hundred-Star Realm experts.”

Wang Jie frowned. Twenty-eight.

That was a lot.

Led by Xuan Gate—meaning they were all forces opposed to the Nan family.

This was Third Nebula. It wasn’t strange they arrived first.

“Any Hundred-Star Realm disguised among them?” Wang Jie asked.

“I can’t confirm that,” Su Ying Yu admitted. “Star Vault Vista has reach, but we’re not omnipresent.”

“Did they try to buy information from you?”

Su Ying Yu shook her head. “They don’t know I can sell intelligence here. And even if they did, they wouldn’t come. Buying intelligence also exposes the buyer.”

Wang Jie realized the obvious flaw in his own question.

Right. The moment you buy intelligence, you become intelligence.

He stood to leave.

Su Ying Yu didn’t ask about his secrets. As an observer, he was Star Vault Vista’s own—and even among their own, there were rules.

Still, she couldn’t help wondering how a lockforce cultivator like Wang Jie had joined Star Vault Vista in the first place.

Wang Jie returned to the Lakeside Residence and shared what he’d learned with Wu Yuan and the others.

Yu Zhi stared at him. “How did Junior Brother Wang get this intelligence?”

“I have my own intelligence system in the Silver Radiance Empire,” Wang Jie said smoothly.

Han Ling and the rest were visibly shocked.

After a short discussion, they decided not to act yet.

Without a Hundred-Star Realm present, the group could be suppressed at any time. Wu Yuan alone was enough.

And with no immediate threat, leaving them in the open wasn’t a bad thing.

But plans never survived reality.

The ones controlling Jun Hua and the others rotated shifts.

Before, it had been Lan Qi.

Next, it was Xia Bei Yi.

Xia Bei Yi was a Frostglow Sect disciple. To deal with the mad clan of the Ninth Star Chain, he had cultivated outside for years, careful not to carry Frostglow Sect’s aura.

But on the Ninth Star Chain, Wang Jie had outmaneuvered him again and again until his efforts collapsed.

When Xuan Gate attacked Frostglow Sect, Xia Bei Yi betrayed them without hesitation. He had never held even a shred of loyalty.

Now, when Xia Bei Yi saw Wang Jie on the surveillance screen—

His expression twisted into something terrifying.

Wang Jie wasn’t disguising his face. When he’d contacted Jun Hua, his name had already been exposed. The Silver Radiance Empire would have his image on record. Disguising himself now would only look suspicious.

Wang Jie.

Wang Jie.

It was Wang Jie.

Xia Bei Yi’s eyes went bloodshot.

It was him.

The man he dreamed of tearing apart.

Wang Jie’s name had spread beyond Black-White Heaven, but the universe was vast. Even the four wandering god figures had people who’d never heard of them, much less Wang Jie.

Xia Bei Yi had been cultivating bitterly in Xuan Gate and paid no attention to the outside world.

And when Xia Xiao Nian returned from the ying yang battlefield, he never crossed paths with Xia Bei Yi.

Xia Xiao Nian had been forced into Xuan Gate. Xia Bei Yi had betrayed Frostglow Sect willingly. They despised each other.

So at this moment, Xia Bei Yi still believed Wang Jie was the lockforce cultivator who once scammed his way around by pretending to be a chen refiner.

His breathing quickened with excitement.

A savage grin spread across his face.

Good.

Finally, heaven had opened its eyes.

He thought he’d never get revenge in this life.

Now it was here.

He would make Wang Jie pay—slowly, brutally.