Chapter 23

Luo Han had never been more certain: people should talk more, make more friends, and avoid long-term isolation. Otherwise, they’d wind up like this.
Like Ling Qingxiao.
The library was silent and orderly, tall shelves standing in rows beneath the soft rays of light filtering through the tall lattice windows. Dust motes floated in the beams, slow and dreamy.
Luo Han opened a book with spiteful defiance. It’s just a book. What, does this world think I can’t read? she thought.
But after a while of reading, her confidence took a massive hit. Cultivation texts weren’t like normal books. Forget fonts and formatting—just the obscure metaphysical jargon about what was Dao and what wasn’t was enough to make her dizzy.
She tried, she really did. But by the time she realized she was still stuck on the prologue, a deep sense of despair settled in.
The library’s seating was as formal as its atmosphere, and after sitting upright for a while, her back began to ache. She shifted sideways, slouched, tried half-lying. Still uncomfortable.
Ling Qingxiao remained as unmoving as a mountain. Even as she fidgeted, twisting into odd positions, he bore it all with mild frowns and forced patience—until she sprawled forward and lay face-down on the table. That was the final straw for his aesthetic sensibilities.
A burst of spiritual energy tapped the table beside her. Luo Han startled and looked up to see him staring at her solemnly.
“Sit properly.”
Even posture control? She grumbled, but climbed back up and flopped onto the chair like a listless spirit, chin in hand. “There’s spiritual energy here, my eyes won’t rot or anything.”
“That’s not the point.” Ling Qingxiao sighed. “One must show reverence when seeking knowledge. Your attitude matters.”
Luo Han nodded slowly—very clearly not listening. She turned a few more pages, found the content still unfathomable, yawned, and finally gave up.
Ling Qingxiao glanced at her sideways. “What is it that you want to do?”
“I’m tired.”
“And?”
“I want to use my tablet.”
He knew it.
Ling Qingxiao had originally planned to deny her. She hadn’t even finished the preface—barely two pages in—and already wanted to rest? But looking at her pitiful slump across the chair, he relented with a quiet sigh.
“Just this once. Don’t make it a habit.”
Luo Han shot upright like a spring, instantly energized as she pulled out her device and started scrolling with practiced glee.
Bringing a perfectionist to their limit? Easy.
With a cheerful grin, Luo Han opened her interface and started browsing the Heavenly Dao System. Time to stop worrying about small matters like beast attacks and go back to managing the grand affairs of the six realms.
She dove into the human realm first, pulling up a population curve and checking the declining birthrate. While cultivators and demons often stole the spotlight, humans were the foundation of the six realms—her base, essentially.
She zoomed in on regions with the steepest decline. As expected, the kingdoms were either at war or suffering from natural disasters. After examining the spiritual metrics and confirming there were no external interferences, she moved on.
Luo Han was the Heavenly Dao—impartial, supreme, and emotionally detached. All living beings were equal in her eyes. Be they gods or mortals, beasts or trees, their rise and fall was part of nature’s design. She would not intervene in human life and death, nor meddle with the rise and fall of dynasties. So long as there was no outside force disrupting the balance, the fate of the living world had nothing to do with her.
This was the law of nature—survival of the fittest.
Once she confirmed that her main dominion was free of disturbances, Luo Han turned her attention to the state of the Immortal Realm’s environment. Cultivators had always revered ascension and spiritual refinement, and drawing upon spiritual herbs and resources from the outside world was a common practice. However, all things had their limits. If these blessed lands were overexploited, they would inevitably be sealed off and fall into slumber.
From concerns like population aging to ecological balance, Luo Han had to worry about everything. Even the personal affairs of several demon kings in the Demon Realm landed on her desk. A few of them had remained childless for centuries—was it by choice, or because they simply couldn’t?
After scanning through all six realms, Luo Han leaned back with satisfaction.
Good. The world was at peace. No great catastrophe looming overhead.
Just another peaceful day in the Six Realms.
Having confirmed the absence of any emergencies, Luo Han finally turned to her daily duties. Each day she received countless petitions—akin to the memorials mortal emperors reviewed. If she ignored them, she risked missing important developments. But if she did go through them all, she’d be buried in a flood of messages like “Have you eaten, Your Excellency?”
With visible reluctance, Luo Han tapped into the Prayer Interface, only to be nearly blinded by the barrage of messages flooding her screen. Sighing, she activated the filters and began sifting through kingdom-level petitions first.
The first was from a high priest divining the fate of their king, who was about to march off to war. They were seeking a celestial omen. Luo Han gave them a swift “ominous.” Enough fighting. Go home, farm, raise the population—it’ll serve you better.
The second came from a nation praying for rain. Luo Han checked the map: clouds were already forming above them and, judging by the wind speed, would reach the capital in five days. Issue resolved. Deleted.
The third was an aging emperor begging for immortality. Luo Han pulled up his administrative track record—no accomplishments, plenty of debauchery.
Heaven denies you. And frankly, Heaven wants to curse you out.
She quickly flipped through a few more. They ranged from the trivial to the ridiculous. One emperor was even praying at the Celestial Altar, asking whether to crown the mother of his firstborn prince or elevate his beloved consort instead.
Ugh. You’re seriously asking me that? Do you think the Heavenly Dao has time for your romantic drama?
After cleaning up the state-level and temple-class petitions, Luo Han already felt mentally drained. She expanded the filters to include common folk’s prayers.
Instantly, a blinding wave of gold-colored messages surged forward—overwhelming pleas for wealth.
Compared to the bizarre and foolish mortal kings, the people’s wishes were refreshingly simple. Seventy percent prayed for fortune, twenty percent begged for children, and the last ten percent for love.
Gold for wealth, red for children, pink for romance. Color-coded and easy to sort.
Luo Han marked the golden messages as “read” in one go. Childbirth petitions she reviewed on a case-by-case basis, while romance requests she treated as entertainment gossip.
Mechanically reviewing dozens of fertility prayers, she occasionally tapped “approved”—gender randomized. At one point, she began to wonder: had she somehow transmigrated into the role of the Goddess of Childbearing?
One particular prayer caught her eye. A wealthy landowner’s wife, who had just abandoned her newborn daughter, was now kneeling in the family shrine, trembling with sickness as she prayed fervently:
“Heavens above, merciful gods, please bless me with a son. If any wandering soul hears this and is willing to enter my womb, our family fortune shall be yours. But it must be a boy—if another girl comes, she’ll meet the same fate as the last.”
Luo Han laughed out loud—furious and amused in equal measure.
So desperate for a son? Fine, let me help you.
She selected a soul from the Netherworld: one condemned to repay a triple karmic debt—a vile man who, in his past life, had preyed upon three innocent women. He was to endure hardship across three lifetimes as atonement. This soul was now fated to bring misfortune and grief to his parents, squander their wealth, and lead them to ruin.
Let him be reborn as that woman’s son. It was karmic balance—sin repaid with sin.
Then, Luo Han turned her attention to the abandoned infant girl. Thankfully, the child hadn’t frozen to death on the streets—someone had taken her in.
A flick of her finger and the girl’s current situation floated before her eyes. The family who rescued her lived in a modest thatched hut. Elderly parents above, three children below, and little more than scraps to get by.
The mistress of the house wore coarse homespun clothes, scolding her husband for bringing back another mouth to feed even as she mashed grain into porridge for the baby.
Luo Han sighed.
A poor household, struggling just to survive. Yet when faced with a helpless, discarded child, they couldn’t bear to leave her. So they took her in.
By contrast, the infant’s biological mother was worse than useless.
Heaven does not favor the unjust. You reap what you sow. Luo Han reduced the landowner’s family fortune and shifted that luck to the adopted child instead.
Wherever this girl went, blessings would follow.
After handling several such cases, Luo Han felt her mood sink a little. She glanced at the ever-growing number of unread prayers and despaired—it was clear she could never catch up.
Her work...would never end.
Ling Qingxiao, seeing her sighing and visibly troubled, gently knocked on the table. “Enough. Time’s up.”
“I’m not playing,” Luo Han retorted, righteously. “This is work!”
Ling Qingxiao looked at her silently, gaze calm yet piercing, but said nothing more.
Luo Han decided that was fine. She could use her tablet freely, and Ling Qingxiao never asked questions. Sometimes, he even quietly shielded her from others’ curiosity. Since he didn’t push, she wouldn’t pry into what he might already know. Better to leave that veil untouched.
As a novice, Luo Han still found it difficult to judge some matters by a single petition alone. Every now and then, she would turn to Ling Qingxiao.
“Guangping Prefecture in the Chu Kingdom, one of the Sixteen Prefectures of Eastern Lin...is there a river called the Dan River there?”
“Yes. It originates from Mount Qingwu, flows through ten human kingdoms. It’s the most vital water source in the region.”
Luo Han nodded, then asked, “If someone blocks the river upstream, will the downstream regions run dry?”
Ling Qingxiao still didn’t look up. “Yes. The upper Dan River is narrow and turbulent, while the lower reaches are gentler. The Sixteen Prefectures rely on it entirely. Without a unified empire to manage it, the smaller kingdoms often fight over water. If a dam is built upstream and the river diverted, it would indeed cause severe shortages downstream.”
“Oh.” Luo Han finally understood. It seemed that the villagers’ sacrificial words weren’t lies. In the mortal realm, rituals were of great importance, especially for the country’s major affairs—rituals and warfare. Among them, rituals were under Luo Han's jurisdiction.
Unless specified for one's ancestors, whether it was to sacrifice to heaven, mountains, or rivers, everything would ultimately be overseen by Luo Han.
Now that Luo Han knew the villagers hadn’t deceived her, it was time to deal with the situation at Dan River. She wouldn’t interfere with natural decay and change, but any actions that caused rivers to change course and threatened the lives of many beings were not permissible.
After sending a warning dream to the priests upstream, Luo Han’s task for today was nearly complete. She looked up and saw Ling Qingxiao still intently flipping through the pages of a book. His posture was upright and composed, the white clothes around him radiating an aura like snow and ice.
Luo Han glanced at Ling Qingxiao’s form, then at her own. She finally realized the stark difference between a normal person and a freak. Ling Qingxiao’s terrifying self-control and initiative would make him the apex of any field, even without cultivating immortality.
He was so familiar with the geography of a remote mortal continent that it seemed impossible. Was his mind really structured the same as everyone else's?
That said, having Ling Qingxiao, a walking encyclopedia, made Luo Han's daily tasks much easier. After all, she couldn’t even name all the 36 layers of heaven in the immortal world, and managing the myriad small affairs of the six realms by herself was simply beyond her.
Ling Qingxiao hadn’t forced her to study before, and now Luo Han, feeling a little thankful, said, “Thank you. Do you have any wishes?”
Ling Qingxiao didn’t even shift his gaze: “None.”
Luo Han’s frustration grew. Was she the mighty Heavenly Dao, and yet couldn’t even offer a little luxury like a wish? Still, she persisted: “Speak up, if there’s something you want, you can make a wish.”
Ling Qingxiao found it amusing. He closed the book, his fingers lingering on the cover, smiling slightly as he asked, “And then?”
Luo Han, dazed by his charm, blurted out, “Uh...you can make a wish. Who knows, maybe it’ll come true. But not everything can be fulfilled, of course, there are principles.”
As soon as she said it, she realized how insincere she sounded. Whatever Ling Qingxiao wished for, she knew it wouldn’t be ordinary. And the ordinary things didn’t need wishing for—he didn’t need her to fulfill them. In the end, she hadn’t said anything at all.
Trying to salvage her image as the domineering Heavenly Dao, Luo Han added, “Although it might not come true, you’ll become lucky.”
“Lucky?” Ling Qingxiao found the little one amusing at times, and at others, very cute. He smiled again, this time more genuinely than before. He glanced at her and said, “Don’t rely on luck. Now that things are settled, go study. I won’t forget this.”