# Chapter 158: The Foremost Estate Under Heaven
The agreed meeting place was a tavern.
Jiang Wang found it without difficulty, and with a crooked finger knocked upon the door of the Heaven-Number-One private chamber. From within came a voice. "Enter."
It was the voice of Zhen the Invincible.
Jiang Wang pushed the door open and stepped in, and found his first sight oddly reassuring. The trembling flesh, the eyes squeezed into single slits, the leering smile—who else could it be but Zhen the Invincible, with whom he had crossed swords through countless rounds within the Taixu Illusory Realm? The realm had hidden their faces, it was true, yet such a bearing and such a bulk were not easily imitated.
Even so, Jiang Wang asked cautiously: "Chongxuan Sheng?"
"Brother Lone?" the youth asked in the same breath.
They both burst out laughing.
But Chongxuan Sheng laughed louder and louder, until the flesh of his face quivered with every burst. "Wah-hahaha, all this time you put on that air of brooding depth—who would have thought! You enter the Taixu Illusory Realm and fake everything, burning effort to make yourself handsome! And what's more, you're this old! Hahaha..."
His appearance ran a little different from the Taixu Illusory Realm, and only his infuriating manner remained unchanged—infuriating, yet somehow affectionate.
Jiang Wang, to be sure, had not the comeliness of his own illusory image. Travel-stained after the long road, his mind fixed upon cultivation, he had had no chance to tidy himself; add the years of life the White Bone Escape Art had consumed, and his long hair had withered to a dull white. The contrast was stark.
Even so, this fat man was simply too aggravating...
Jiang Wang curled his lip and said, flat and dry: "And weren't you a good deal cuter in your fat in the Taixu Illusory Realm?"
"Ah, that's what you don't understand." Chongxuan Sheng waved his hand carelessly. "To disguise, you must disguise thoroughly. Who would ever think that Zhen the Invincible—so mighty yet so unkempt—would turn out so handsome in reality?"
Heaven alone knew where such confidence came from. Did the Qi Kingdom revere plumpness as beauty? He had never heard of it.
Jiang Wang felt bound to remind him: "If you keep shouting like that, anyone will know who you are."
Chongxuan Sheng burst into laughter again. "This tavern, this whole street—all of it belongs to my Chongxuan clan! Who could hear?"
To hold an entire street in Heavenly Treasury City, where mighty powers gathered, the depth of the Chongxuan clan stood far vaster than Jiang Wang had imagined. But why could this fellow brag about his wealth in a way that made one itch to strike him?
Jiang Wang reminded himself again that this was not the Sword-Forum Platform. So he smiled a courteous smile.
Chongxuan Sheng went on: "I was afraid you wouldn't recognize me!"
Jiang Wang was genuinely puzzled: "Your plumpness is close enough to match!"
"That's not what I love to hear! Look here!" Chongxuan Sheng leaned in. "Look closely. In the Taixu Illusory Realm, I had one-line eyes. In reality, though, I have crescent-moon eyes!"
"Hah, really." Jiang Wang gave a dry laugh. "I see it now, I see it. Sit back down and don't get excited."
Only then did Chongxuan Sheng sink back into his specially-made great chair. "Then let's begin with the matter of the Heavenly Treasury Secret Realm!"
The two were already thoroughly familiar from the Taixu Illusory Realm, and in reality they felt no strangeness toward one another. Jiang Wang at once assumed a posture of rapt listening.
"Then, Brother Lone..."
Jiang Wang cut him off: "Still calling me Brother Lone?"
All he had meant was to mask his identity within the Taixu Illusory Realm, and to have Chongxuan Sheng address him by his name in reality.
"Then..." Chongxuan Sheng hesitated a moment. "Uncle Jiang?"
"..." The words came out through clenched teeth. "I've only just turned eighteen!" His birthday had come in the first month and passed in silence on the road. Once, Ling He and the others would have celebrated it; but now that day had been no different from any other on the journey. In truth, had Chongxuan Sheng not spoken of age, he would nearly have forgotten he had passed another birthday.
"Ahaha." This time it was Chongxuan Sheng who gave a dry laugh. "Then your hair is dyed with quite the flair."
"Yes, yes." Jiang Wang could not be bothered to explain to this aggravating wretch, and only urged: "Tell me of the Heavenly Treasury Secret Realm first. I still don't know its workings!"
"When the Secret Realm opens, my clan holds three slots. As its most outstanding talent, I lead the expedition party with myself at its core. First let me tell you what one can gain there, and why so many flock to it like moths to flame. Though word of it flies about everywhere, not all is true."
Chongxuan Sheng settled comfortably back. "Heavenly Treasury—a mansion that pierces the heavens! Do you know why the Old Man of the Heavenly Treasury is renowned? Because he reached divine power in all five prefectures, in every one of them! And so his Inner Prefecture came to be called the Heavenly Treasury, the foremost estate under heaven.
"In his Inner Prefecture realm he once slew three Outer Tower realm masters in a storm of violence—without equal there. Pity that afterward, by means unknown, he left behind the Secret Realm and vanished; whatever the truth, no one has seen him again.
"And men guess he possessed a way of plucking inerrant divine power at the Inner Prefecture realm, and that it lies hidden within the Secret Realm! Only those of the Dragon-Rising Realm or below may enter."
"So many years, and so many coming out—surely someone must have obtained that way?" Jiang Wang asked. "Why has it not been passed down?"
"Because all who leave remember nothing of what happened within," said Chongxuan Sheng. "But those who gained fortune there, should they only live, afterward plucked divine power at the Inner Prefecture realm."
"So no one can say what barriers lie within, what it tests, what dangers it holds?"
"The one thing we can be sure of is that it is dangerous. In all its years, the most who walked out alive numbered but seven; at the least, none did." He said it seriously. "And yet nobody knows what the danger is."
"..." Jiang Wang was left speechless. "Then why would the Chongxuan clan send its most outstanding talent into so dangerous an expedition? For fear you could not pluck divine power? Surely your clan's secret arts are no lesser than divine power." He eyed the fat man with a faint smile. "Is it possible the present generation holds more than one such outstanding talent?"
"Err..." Chongxuan Sheng said, without a trace of embarrassment: "Perhaps, possibly, roughly speaking, there are a few of us. So some competition is natural. Though of course the point is that I fear no danger, but press boldly forward and dare greatly!"
"You've come all this way—you won't leave, will you?" he asked, a little anxiously. "This slot is most precious; countless people break their heads fighting for it and yet cannot have it!"
There was no falsehood in this. The Secret Realm was dangerous, but its rewards were supreme. Those who could pluck the seed of divine power were, to a man, absolute powerhouses at the Inner Prefecture realm; a divine-power Inner Prefecture stood almost a whole level above an ordinary one, and a mighty one could even contend with a master of the Outer Tower realm. And across the whole world, how many could be certain they would pluck divine power at the Inner Prefecture realm?
Naturally Jiang Wang would not draw back. Danger was never the most fearful of things; the most fearful thing was always to see no hope at all. And a chance to attain a divine-power Inner Prefecture was, without question, a light that could kindle that dim and fading hope.
"Then, for a slot so precious—what must I pay?" Jiang Wang asked.
Chongxuan Sheng made no attempt at evasion, and said directly: "I hold a Heart Demon Curse. My party must, before entering the Secret Realm, swear upon it that the first fortune by which a seed of divine power may be gained must be given to me. Only afterward may each seek his own fortune."
This was entirely reasonable. In this world there was no fortune that came without cause; to gain a thing, one must pay a thing.
Jiang Wang did not hesitate, and said directly: "I agree."
And then, at that very moment, a clamor arose beyond the door.
A voice shouted: "Get out of my way! Let me see who it is, so mighty, that could steal away my slot!"