Chen Mansion, in the underground chamber.

Chen Mo brought Yue Yuxi to stand in front of Hu Mei’Er.

Hu Mei’Er’s face was sallow, her body filthy, hair disheveled and greasy. Her cultivation had been abolished, and in the days spent locked in the underground chamber, she hadn’t bathed or changed clothes, leaving her in this state.

Hu Mei’Er had attempted suicide, but each attempt was thwarted by the female warriors who constantly monitored her.

The darkness of the underground chamber was relentless, and recalling her humiliations and recent experiences was pushing Hu Mei’Er to the brink of mental collapse.

The most critical thing was that for several days straight, Chen Mo hadn’t come to see her. This "neglect" made her even more uneasy.

She originally wanted to use the Nan Zhou Treasure as leverage against Chen Mo, but now even she was close to breaking down.

Unlike Heiying’s assassins, she hadn’t undergone interrogation trials and had never experienced anything like this. If this continued, she felt she would inevitably confess.

Just at this moment, she heard footsteps, and Chen Mo appeared in front of her, with a cold and exotic-looking woman.

"Hu Mei’Er, have you thought it over? I’ll give you one more chance. If you don’t confess, you’ll lose your opportunity," Chen Mo said indifferently with a glance at Hu Mei’Er.

"Pah." Hu Mei’Er spat fiercely and said, "As I said before, kill or maim me if you want, but anything else, don’t even think about it."

"Very well." Chen Mo patted Yue Yuxi on the shoulder, lifted the seal, and then moved behind Hu Mei’Er, locking her body in place, and said to Yue Yuxi, "Begin!"

With the seal lifted and feeling the abundant True Qi within, Yue Yuxi still considered resisting, but at the thought of Chen Mo’s prowess, she abandoned the idea. She knew that failure would only bring a storm of humiliation.

However, she still had some small schemes in mind.

Hu Mei’Er struggled, unsure of Chen Mo’s intentions. Could it be that he wanted to humiliate her in front of this woman...

Chen Mo grabbed her chin, forcing her to look up. The moment she saw the woman’s eyes, her expression froze, as those sapphire eyes suddenly turned pink, and she saw an unfathomable whirlpool within them.

"Your charm skill doesn’t work on me." A flash of golden light passed through Chen Mo’s eyes as he noticed Yue Yuxi was desperately trying to charm him as well.

Her small ploy detected, Yue Yuxi snorted coldly as Chen Mo said, "Make her obey your orders."

Yue Yuxi used her charm skill, making Hu Mei’Er utterly obedient to Chen Mo.

"Done?" Chen Mo asked.

"You can try?"

Chen Mo suspiciously asked Hu Mei’Er, "What’s your name?"

"Ji Xi’Er." Hu Mei’Er replied.

"Ji Xi’Er, is that your real name?" Chen Mo was taken aback.

Ji Xi’Er nodded: "Ji Xi’Er is my true name; Hu Mei’Er is an alias."

Chen Mo recalled that indeed, the royal lineage of Nan Zhou had the surname Ji.

He released Ji Xi’Er and then walked over to Yue Yuxi, sealing her cultivation again, and said, "You should leave first."

Chen Mo didn’t want Yue Yuxi to hear about the Nan Zhou Treasure.

"You scoundrel." Seeing Chen Mo discard her after using her, Yue Yuxi couldn’t resist cursing him, suspecting he might still take liberties with Ji Xi’Er, and cursed further, "May you be impotent soon."

Chen Mo’s face darkened: "If you don’t leave now, I’ll show you why the flowers are so red."

His gaze meaningfully shifted to Yue Yuxi’s behind.

Frightened, Yue Yuxi squeezed her legs together and quickly left the underground chamber, with Chen Mo’s voice following her: "Keep an eye on her."

Afterward, Yue Yuxi saw a female warrior approaching, furious, she cursed Chen Mo again, calling him a scoundrel.

Chen Mo ignored her, and questioned Hu Mei’Er, asking her to tell him everything she knew about the Nan Zhou Treasure.

It turned out that the founder of Nan Zhou was a Golden Core Cultivator from the Immortal Cultivation Realm, named Ji Yuanqing. He, along with a friend, discovered a Top Grade Magical Artifact in a ruin.

For the sake of this Top Grade Magical Artifact, Ji Yuanqing had a major fight with his friend, ultimately obtaining the artifact himself, while his friend acquired the Activation Technique.

But without refining the Top Grade Magical Artifact, having the Activation Technique was useless for his friend.

During the fight, Ji Yuanqing was severely injured and fled to the Canglan Continent with the Top Grade Magical Artifact, where he started a family.

However, his good days didn’t last long, as his friend eventually tracked him down.

The two fought fiercely again. Although his friend couldn’t activate the technique, Ji Yuanqing had managed to refine a sliver of the artifact’s power over time.

Using this minuscule power, Ji Yuanqing gravely injured his friend, planning to force him to reveal the activation method. Unexpectedly, his friend chose to self-destruct.

Ji Yuanqing’s foundation and origin were hurt in the explosion, and his cultivation waned daily, while his friend’s lingering soul narrowly escaped.

Ji Yuanqing knew a mere soul fragment couldn’t leave the Canglan Continent, so he established Nan Zhou and leveraged its power to seek his friend’s whereabouts.

But he never saw that day; within a few short years, he fell from the Golden Core Stage to the Qi Refining Stage, and his body withered rapidly. A few more years passed, and he died.

After he passed, his descendants continued searching for the friend’s whereabouts.

Eventually, after Nan Zhou’s downfall, the royal bloodline of Nan Zhou managed to find his friend’s soul fragment, or more accurately, the friend who had successfully seized a new body.

From the friend’s lips, they finally learned the Activation Technique for the Top Grade Magical Artifact.

However, having obtained the technique, they had lost three of the Red Sun Bells...

After further investigation, they discovered a Red Sun Bell was in the hands of the Great Song Imperial Family.

Hence, Ji Xi’Er, disguised as Hu Mei’Er, infiltrated the palace and by chance, truly found one Red Sun Bell within the Imperial Palace, but the other two remained elusive.

This led to the subsequent events of using the Red Sun Bell as bait.

"Where did you place the last Red Sun Bell?" Chen Mo eagerly inquired.

"In... Jiangnan, we hid it in the ruins of the Nan Zhou Ancestral Temple," Ji Xi’Er said.

"Jiangnan?" Chen Mo was taken aback; Jiang Ruoqing’s enemy was also in Jiangnan, so once there, he could handle both matters at once.