Four Realms

Early on the same morning, in the dining hall.

Madam Ye sat at her leisure, sipping a cup of milk coffee while Maid Ya was busy scurrying about, arranging breakfast.

Maid Ya then stood behind Madam Ye, murmuring, "The maintenance for the Antique Night Auction website is about finished, would you like to check it?"

Madam Ye placed the cup of milk coffee on the table, reaching over to grab hold of a newspaper to the side. There was yet another front-page article related to the weekend's incident on full display, and reading the article, Madam Ye furrowed her brows.

Maid Ya spared the article a look before commenting lightly, "Another divorce? Hm, why would a divorce case occupy the front page of a newspaper?"

Although Maid Ya wasn't a cultivator, she was very intelligent and enjoyed quite impressive eyesight and processing capacity, not to mention her photographic memory. With a glance, she summarized the entire article and understood the gits of it.

"That poor mother and child pair," she sighed. "This is quite offbeat coming from you, Madam— since when did you grow interested in reading newspapers?"

"I wasn't really interested per se," Madam Ye replied softly. "Ye Qing invested a lot of money into buying real estate to lay the groundwork for building a new headquarters, almost 10 billion yuan, to be specific. I checked the newspaper agencies to recruit some staff to be stationed in my new private mansion close to the headquarters, and this article caught my attention."

Maid Ya seemed to understand, nodding her head.

After some consideration, she said, "Why not hire those two? I'll personally come over and help guide them around the ropes, and the little girl can attend elementary and middle school in the city too."

Madam Ye's hands shook slightly— was this okay?

Maid Ya might not know, but how could Madam Ye not know that these mother and daughter pair were Ye Qing's relatives? Barely a few days passed since Ye Qing's supposed funeral and his parents have gone through the motions for divorce.

Of course, the family on his father's side tried to obstruct the motion with their influence on the government, but Madam Ye pulled some strings from the background, allowing things to progress smoothly. At one point, Ye Qing's father almost beat the woman to death, but a few agents lurking in the shadows 'happened' to pass by, helping the poor woman relocate together with her daughter somewhere else.

This was the piece of news Ye Qing saw in the newspaper the other day, and he immediately figured out that the kind young men who interfered to uphold justice were dispatched by Madam Ye to keep a close watch on his mother, Liu Rouxi, and his sister than now goes by his mother's surname, Liu Yanzi.

Protecting them from the shadows was one thing, but actively bringing them under her umbrella was something else entirely. However, Madam Ye had also run her secret investigations about Ye Qing's father, Ye Wushang, and his real identity was Wang Wushang, a cast-off member of the Wang family in the central regions.

After losing the war for inherence for the major shares of the Wang family's business, he left the central regions and arrived at the topical Hainan Province to start a small business of his own, and changed his surname to Ye.

If this man wanted to cause trouble for Liu Rouxi, even with the vestiges of power and connections he had with the Wang family, it wouldn't be very difficult to bully a helpless pair of mother and daughter.

After giving the matter some consideration, Madam Ye replied, "If that's the case, then I will head over to my new private mansion today. I'll pick them up on the way, and you can come over tomorrow morning when Ye Qing leaves for school."

Maid Ya was surprised. "Are you planning to leave the entire mountain villa to Young Master Ye?"

When Madam Ye asked earlier about why hadn't Ye Qing arrived for breakfast yet, Maid Ya came up with the conjuncture that Ye Qing was still working on the website. Thus, they made a few calls to inform the school about Ye Qing's absence for today. Maid Ya didn't ask why can't the two new maids come to the mansion villa and learn how to perform their tasks dutifully, she was more drawn to the notion of Madam Ye relocating on her own.

Madam Ye said, "The climate of an industrial city isn't suitable for Ye Qing to cultivate, and although Haikou is a metropolis in and of itself, the natural mountainous terrains allow for better cultivation conditions. Since that's the case, I would rather keep him behind to focus on his cultivation, and I will take to the central stage with my company in the meantime."

Madam Ye can get pretty talkative when it comes to her business and cultivation.

Maid Ya chuckled. "The bigger the headquarters we build, the more attention it would draw and no one would expect that the true master computer to control our network is located in some mountain villa in a tropical province. Don't you think?"

Madam Ye's eyes sparkled as she hadn't tackled the issue from that perspective.

She nodded her head and said, "I will make them build something extravagant, then."

Maid Ya interjected. "Building something on that scale would take a lot of time, why don't you buy an entire building in the central regions instead? You have the money, after all."

Madam Ye furrowed her brows. "The central region is quite far, you'd have to take a flight over and might not make it back here for days…"

Madam Ye didn't want to leave Ye Qing in this villa all on his own, let alone leave him behind in a corner of this large country. Maid Ya rolled her eyes.

"You underestimate the young master far too much, Madam," Maid Ya said. "He will be quite busy with school, the online site, playing his game, and cultivating. Even if I wanted to stay behind, I doubt he would have the time of the day to spend talking to me…"

Maid Ya didn't say it, but she dreaded staying in this large villa all alone with Ye Qing.

Madam Ye didn't see through Maid Ya's intentions. However, the more she thought about it, the more she realized this might not be fair for Maid Ya.

She sighed, then said helplessly, "Fine, get me a few stacks of paper so that I write a few of my cultivation experience to Ye Qing, I should also include some of my plans for the future and my contact information."

Maid Ya heaved a sigh of relief and rushed off, bringing a stack of papers, a pen, and Ye Qing's new iPhone case and placing them on the table. While Madam Ye busied herself with writing her cultivation method and hints, Maid Ye busied herself with getting the luggage ready and cleaning.

Around 10 AM, the two left the villa in the black Maserati.

…

When Ye Qing finished his gaming session, took a shower, and descended the staircase from the upper floors, he was already feeling weird about how desolate and empty the villa felt.

It wasn't too long before he found the notes and the new iPhone case, quickly coming to terms with what happened.

"They left?" Ye Qing muttered to himself as he held the cultivation notes, browsing through them. This was Ye Qing's first time coming in contact with such detailed, explanatory knowledge about the internal force cultivation system of the real world.

Even though he attempted to practice them in-game, that was merely Ye Qing following his intuition, it had nothing to do with systematic cultivation or understanding the pathways of channeling force throughout the human body and its meridians.

Each cultivation level had its small and large circulation pathways of internal force, and it was impossible to move to the next circulation path without tempering the former to an adequate level, lest the excessive force might destroy the meridians.

The notes mentioned that according to legends, there exist four profound realms of internal force cultivation; Profound Unity, Profound Duality, Profound Trinity, and finally, Profound Heaven. However, very few had stumbled into the second realm, as each realm was further subdivided into nine minor realms.

In a sense, the cultivators in the real world have been invested in the Profound Unity realm, but these nine realms were already more than enough to nurture frightening powerhouses.

Nevertheless, these notes were very useful to Ye Qing as at the very least, he wouldn't need to stumble blindly in the dark. According to the notes, the Unity Realm is about building a foundation for the cultivators, where they gather their all-encompassing comprehensions into their internal force cultivation.

It was also assumed that the more powers you comprehend in this realm, the higher your chances of achieving greater power in the future. Sadly, humans were limited by their lifespan and the destitute environment, thus, they literally lacked both time and energy to slowly build solid foundations for the future.

The more Ye Qing read from these notes, the weirder his expression became…