I gain ten years' worth of cultivation every day, and even geniuses will only see my doorstep!

Qin Yuan's pupils contracted slightly. There was indeed a connection between the ladder guardians and the Seven Star Guardians.

"He is my junior brother." The guardian's voice was hoarse and calm, as if he were talking about something from a very, very long time ago. "We came from the same sect, and were apprenticed to the last national teacher of the Chaos Holy Dynasty. He was more talented than me and was chosen to become one of the Seven Star Guardians. My cultivation was inferior to his, so I was assigned to guard the entrance to the Heavenly Ladder. Later, he went to the outer realm to sever the passage, and I waited for him to return at the gate tower. I waited for a hundred thousand years."

"He asked me to pass on a message to you," Qin Yuan said.

The ladder keeper whirled around, a glint of light flashing in his dim old eyes: "What did you say?"

"He said the guardian's name isn't important; what matters is whether the next guardian can protect what they want to protect. He made me do that." Qin Yuan looked into the guardian's eyes. "He also said that the bell of Seven Star Ruins will never ring again. He meant that he could finally rest. And you've waited here for a hundred thousand years; it's time to find a place to sit."

The ladder keeper remained silent for a long time. The last wick of the oil lamp burned out, the flame extinguished in the night wind, and darkness descended upon the area below the gatehouse. In the darkness, only the ladder keeper's heavy breathing and the sound of the wind blowing through the distant starry sea could be heard.

"Which way does the gate to Guixu Palace face?" The guard's voice rang out again, his tone lighter than before.

"Facing south," Qin Yuan said.

"The south is good. It's not cold in winter." The ladder keeper stood up from the bluestone, put the ancient book into his pocket, and stretched. He was old, his back was a little hunched, but his stretching was as relaxed as a young man's. He bent down and picked up an old bundle under the gate tower, which contained all his belongings—an ancient book, an oil lamp, and a wine gourd with peeling paint.

"Have you found the next guardian of the Heavenly Ladder?" the guardian asked.

"Someone has already been chosen," Qin Yuan said.

The Elder Wandao took over the position of ladder guardian. The old steward of Guixu Palace volunteered, saying that he had guarded Guixu Palace for thousands of years and a change of environment would be nice. His cultivation was not as high as the ladder guardian's, but the Heavenly Ladder itself did not have high requirements for the guardian's cultivation level—what was important for the guardian was not combat power, but the composure to not be swallowed by loneliness over the long years. And what the Elder Wandao had in abundance was composure.

The handover ceremony was simple. The ladder keeper left the ancient book, oil lamp, and wine gourd to Elder Wandao, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "The scenery on the Heavenly Ladder is quite nice; you can count stars when you're bored." Then he followed Qin Yuan to the Guixu Palace.

The new gatekeeper displayed the aura befitting an Immortal Realm cultivator on his very first day in office. He sat cross-legged before the gates of the Guixu Hall, concealing his outward cultivation perfectly, appearing like an ordinary old gatekeeper. However, when Ye Wuji came specifically to visit, he sensed that unfathomable aura from three miles away, turning to Qin Yuan and saying, "Where did you dig this up from? This old man was at least at the fifth level of the Immortal Realm in his prime."

"I picked it up on the Heavenly Ladder," Qin Yuan said.

The ladder guardians—now they should be called gatekeepers—sat down at the entrance of the Guixu Palace, officially completing the palace's defensive system. The outer perimeter, set up with Ye Wuji's assistance, covered the entire summit of Wandao; the middle layer was operated by the seven women in rotation; and the core area was guarded by the gatekeepers. Qin Yuan himself returned to the taro field on the back mountain.

Thirty days after the Chaos Conference ended, an uninvited guest arrived in the Eternal Heaven.

He was a middle-aged scholar dressed in a gray robe, with a thin face and slightly graying temples, looking like a schoolteacher. He arrived alone at the gate of the Guixu Palace, cupped his hands in greeting to the gatekeeper, and introduced himself as coming from Taixu, wishing to see Qin Yuan. The gatekeeper glanced at him with his half-open eyes, and the immortal perception deep within his pupils pierced through the middle-aged scholar's disguise, seeing an extremely well-hidden golden rune within his body.

"Elder Jin Fu of the Myriad Arrays Dao Court." The gatekeeper immediately recognized him. "You rank among the top five in the Myriad Arrays Dao Court, and your cultivation is at the third level of the Immortal Realm. The Guixu Palace does not welcome uninvited guests, especially those forces that openly challenged the Guixu Palace Master at the Chaos Assembly."

The middle-aged scholar did not deny it, but instead took out a letter from his sleeve and presented it with both hands: "This is a letter from my sect leader, please pass it on to the Lord of Guixu Palace. The sect leader says that what happened at the Chaos Assembly was the fault of the Myriad Array Dao Court. This letter is an apology."

The gatekeeper took the letter, but instead of opening it, he held it to his nose and smelled it. His perception as an Immortal Realm cultivator allowed him to detect an extremely faint fluctuation of law on the envelope—not poison, not a restriction, but a remnant of an array pattern he had never seen before. He made no sound, simply nodded, told the middle-aged scholar to wait outside the mountain gate, and then took the letter and entered the Guixu Hall.

"A letter of apology from the Myriad Array Dao Court." The gatekeeper placed the letter on the stone table in front of Qin Yuan. "There are remnants of array patterns on the envelope, but they are of a very high grade. I can't tell what they are."

Qin Yuan picked up the envelope and activated his Chaos Eye. There was indeed a layer of extremely fine array patterns remaining on the envelope. It wasn't an offensive restriction, nor a tracking mark, but rather an extremely ancient communication array. Its only function was to transmit the aura of the person opening the envelope back to the array's creator the instant it was opened.

"It's not targeting me." Qin Yuan flipped the envelope over. "What they want to collect is the aura of the person in the Guixu Palace who is capable of opening letters. The higher the cultivation level of the person opening the letter, the happier they are." He handed the envelope to Su Yao. "You open it."

Su Yao took the envelope. Her Chaos Saint Body's perception scanned the envelope inside and out three times, confirming that no restrictions had been missed, before she tore open the seal. The letter was thin, a single sheet, with a few lines of text written neatly in the Tai Xu seal script:

"Lord Qin Yuan, Master of Guixu Palace: I apologize on behalf of the Wanzhen Dao Court for any offense I may have caused at the Chaos Assembly. To express our sincerity, the Wanzhen Dao Court is willing to offer you a complete copy of the 'Wanzhen Diagram Record,' the number one array formation of the Taixu Realm. This diagram record is the source of the Taixu array formations and the foundation upon which the Wanzhen Dao Court is founded. If you are interested, please come to the Wanzhen Dao Court's mountain gate on the first day of next month, and I will present it to you personally."

The inscription was signed "Zhou Yuanli, Headmaster of the Wanzhen Daoting".

After Qin Yuan finished reading the letter, he handed it to Su Yao. Su Yao read it twice, her brows furrowing deeper and deeper.

"Every word in this letter is a lie," she said. "The apology is fake, the offering of treasure is fake, and the invitation to meet you is fake. The real purpose is to lure you to the territory of the Myriad Array Dao Court. Once you step into the range of the Myriad Array Dao Court's protective array, your life and death will be in their hands."

"I know," Qin Yuan said.

Su Yao looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

"But the rubbing of the Myriad Array Diagram is genuine." Qin Yuan tapped his fingers lightly twice on the stone table. "I observed Zhou Yuanli at the Chaos Assembly. He's not the kind of person who would bow his head and admit his mistakes. For him to take the initiative to write a letter of apology, there must be someone pushing him behind the scenes. That person wanted the Myriad Array Diagram to fall into my hands, so they forced Zhou Yuanli to write this letter."