"That really is Lord Void?" The woman stole another glance at Yang Kai and asked in a low voice.
Hua Qingsi smiled. "You've kept his portrait enshrined at home — how can you not recognize him in the flesh?"
The woman's cheeks flushed slightly. "I just… can't believe it."
She had spent her entire life toiling in the fields, her status humble and lowly. For a figure of such towering importance to suddenly appear before her eyes — it all felt unreal, like some fleeting dream.
"Then doesn't that make you the great Steward Hua of Lingxiao Palace?" The woman suddenly remembered something, staring at Hua Qingsi in surprise.
Hua Qingsi raised an eyebrow. "You know of me too?"
"It really is you?" The woman clapped a hand over her mouth, her face a mixture of shock and reverence. She then hurried to explain: "Lingxiao Palace's Lord Void has a most capable right hand — a woman, no less, who manages affairs on his behalf across the entire realm. Even someone like me has heard tales of it. These years, the Star Realm has enjoyed peace and stability in no small part thanks to that great Steward Hua."
Hua Qingsi offered a modest smile. "So I'm rather well-known after all."
The woman smiled along deferentially, then sat back down with a fidgety air, clearly ill at ease. Having suddenly encountered the legendary Lord Void himself, and then the great Steward Hua on top of it — the whole thing felt like a dream.
She bit her lip and hesitated for a good while before finally asking in a small voice: "Steward… could my child be admitted to Lingxiao Palace?"
Hua Qingsi's expression turned serious. She gently patted the woman's hand. "With this child's aptitude, there's no master under whom he couldn't study." Even a Seventh Order Open Heaven wanted to take the infant as a closed-door disciple — what sect would turn away such talent? Though Hua Qingsi herself couldn't detect anything particularly extraordinary about the baby.
The woman gritted her teeth, stood up, turned to face Yang Kai directly, and dropped to her knees, pressing her forehead to the ground. "I beg Lord Void to accept my child into Lingxiao Palace, so that my husband's dying wish may be fulfilled! This humble woman will serve as a beast of burden to repay your kindness!"
Yu Changdao, who had been amusing himself with the baby, whipped his head around and glared at Yang Kai, his aura flaring with unmistakable menace — the unmistakable look of a man who would make Yang Kai regret it if he dared accept.
Yang Kai pretended not to notice. He shot Hua Qingsi a look and said, "Please, get up." The woman had a habit of dropping to her knees at the slightest provocation, and it left him at a loss.
Hua Qingsi helped the woman to her feet and tidied her clothes for her.
Before Yang Kai could say anything, Yu Changdao spoke up. "Nephew Yang, allow me to have a word with her."
This was a minor matter, and Yang Kai naturally had no objection. He gestured for him to proceed and picked up his teacup to drink at his leisure.
Yu Changdao walked over to the woman and began explaining in a low voice about the Universe World, the Three Thousand Worlds, the Thirty-Six Caves of Heaven, the Seventy-Two Blessed Lands…
The woman listened with a completely blank expression. She didn't speak, didn't ask questions — as though a chicken were talking to a duck.
She had spent her whole life hemmed in within a few dozen li, probably never even leaving the small town where she was born. Now someone was suddenly whispering in her ear about three thousand worlds, caves of heaven and blessed lands — how could she possibly comprehend any of it?
All she knew was that this white-bearded old man was going on about things so abstruse and mystical that no ordinary person could be expected to understand.
She kept sneaking glances at that magnificent white beard. The once pristine and orderly whiskers had been thoroughly mangled by the baby's tiny fists. Would the old man be angry about that?
Yu Changdao had clearly noticed as well. A mighty Seventh Order Open Heaven who could snuff out stars with a flick of his finger, whose fury could overturn heaven and earth — yet he was utterly helpless against one ordinary woman who had never cultivated a day in her life. There was no one he could vent to; he could only feel a surge of blood backing up into his chest, the discomfort almost unbearable.
"So, having heard all that — do you understand?" Yu Changdao was, after all, a cultivator of the Heavenly Dao, and his patience was extraordinary. He regarded the woman with a genial smile.
The woman shook her head, then nodded, then shook her head again.
Xu Linggong, watching from the side, nearly fell over laughing.
Even Yu Changdao's legendary patience had been thoroughly short-circuited by this dense woman. If not for the fact that she was the birth mother of his future closed-door disciple, he might well have erupted into a tirade.
He glanced up at Yang Kai, seated in the place of honor, and then — as if struck by sudden inspiration — asked: "Tell me, what do you think of Lingxiao Palace?"
The woman answered without a moment's hesitation. "It's the finest place there is! My husband said so right up until the day he died. He once came to Lingxiao Palace himself to study the martial arts, but unfortunately his aptitude wasn't enough — he failed the entrance trials and never made it through the gates!"
Yu Changdao smiled faintly and held up a single finger. "This place you consider the finest of the fine — I could crush it flat with one finger."
The woman's eyes went wide with horror, and she stared at the white-bearded old man as though beholding one of the demon lords who had plunged the Star Realm into chaos a century past.
Yu Changdao, oblivious to what she was thinking, pressed on. "And what do you think of him?" He pointed at Yang Kai.
The woman's face filled with reverence. "If Lord Void and the other lords hadn't fought so bravely and selflessly all those years ago, there would be no Star Realm — and none of us."