The once flourishing and wealthy Divine Jade Realm no longer upheld its status as the most dandy and rich divine realm of immortals, divine beasts, and gods.
All because of their Divine Jade Emperor's negligence upon maintaining the Spirit Realm, and the fact that an immortal soldier became a demon who killed the only son to the prestigious Mirror Family and the kind god whose body was destroyed while his soul scattered into pieces throughout the Mortal Realm because of his plot with demons to overthrow the realm of gods were known outside the jade realm.
The first half was spoken by Phoenix God while the latter half was a cover-up scheme by those who were the ones that did the deed.
The divine realm's crimes were known and their ownership of the Spirit Realm was transferred over to the Divine Magic Realm for their irresponsibility.
After that day, not one would wonder about how that infamous realm has been doing all these years.
Silver Forest and Phoenix God however, had to know about the realm's condition in order to proceed with their plans.
Thus they both step onto the jade-tiled floral surface out of the Divine Jade Realm's portal.
Upon seeing the familiar scenery, Silver Forest closed his eyes and imagined his past self's silhouette laughing with two gods besides him as they walked across the glass bridge to the gold and jade palace in the distance.
Memories with the betrayed were left in bitterness at the end of his first life.
"Silver."
Phoenix God's voice gets him back to his senses, nodding to the fire god that he's fine. Even if the forest immortal misses the days of his former life as the kind god, there was no way to go back to those innocent days anymore.
So he mustn't be too sentimental about it.
Both of them walked along the bridge now seen with small cracks at the borders as they head towards the golden jade palace, where the shiny gold luster had been rusted for a long time.
They enter inside and walked to the meeting hall where Silver Forest sees the Divine Jade Emperor on top of his dull throne for the first time in years.
Oh dear immortal. . .is that white in his hair? The ruler of the Divine Jade Realm has been very stressed to this point that most of his black hair were almost no longer seen?
Even our Divine Magic Emperor has better vitality than him!
"I, Phoenix God of the Divine Magic Realm greets the Divine Jade Emperor."
"I, Silver Forest of the Divine Magic Realm greets the Divine Jade Emperor."
Both men greet the stressed jade emperor, sensing that his mood became a lot calmer than they first arrived.
"As usual, other divine realms' people have better respect for me than my own people nowadays. It's rather sad don't you think?!"
The jade emperor slams his fist hard on his throne's handle, making it snap apart. The people he was looking at was none other than the gods and immortal officials sitting around at the left and right sides without saying anything.
"You see here? These guys only know how to mess around with the fairy immortals and commit heinous crimes on each other to usurp my throne, so they don't have the utmost respect for me anymore because of that!"
"Your Majesty, it isn't so!"
One immortal official stood up and bowed towards his direction.
"I, Sky Broker, have been serving Your Majesty since the day you've been crowned the heavenly emperor of our realm. I have done nothing but given you my loyalty and done my responsibility in handling civil matters to make sure our divine realm thrives in glory. Please believe me, Your Majesty!"
"Lies! You've done nothing at all! You carelessly let civil matters get more heated while you indulged yourself in greed and women at your age! How shameless of you!"
Another immortal official spoke up and points at Sky Broker.
"And you know who always had solved them for you that you take all the credit for? It's your son!"
The official turns to the jade emperor and bows.
"Your Majesty, Sky Broker's son had always fulfilled his duties for his father in fear that his father would lose his standing and that their family would be implicated if he didn't help out his citizens on Sky Broker's behalf. Sky Wing has contributed much more than his father, Sky Broker!"
"You!!"
"Sky Broker, is that true? You let your own son carry your burdens? What are you, a child?! I don't see you being old enough to retire yet!!"
The jade emperor lashes out at the speechless official as Phoenix God and Silver Forest both watch on with deep sighs.
'Ah crap, here we go again. . .'
The two of them just wanted a straightforward meeting, not a drama escalating in chaos. They had enough of that already.
Yet in one of their conversations spoke of someone that Silver Forest was familiar with.
Sky Wing.
A twilight sky immortal who tried to convince his past self that not all gods and immortals in the Divine Jade Realm were trustworthy in the slightest.
If only the naive him had believed his words more than his worldview of seeing everyone bad with good in them.