Yesterday.
On a forum platform crowded with games vying for attention, a new game called Jianghu quietly made its debut. It posted an announcement: “The ultra-realistic holographic game Jianghu opens its closed beta today for the first ten thousand players. All you need is a virtual helmet to play. Here, you’ll find youthful heroism and tender affections between wanderers, as well as righteous battles against evil and thrilling vendettas. From noble knights to humble chefs and street vendors, everyone possesses extraordinary potential and brims with adventures. As long as you take the initiative, we’ll guide you through a world of blooming flowers and singing birds, faithfully recreating the most authentic rivers and lakes from ancient Earth…”
The forum had massive traffic, so the post quickly drew comments from players—though they were anything but harmonious.
“Nice pitch, but the hype is off the charts. The last game that marketed itself on realism tanked hard.”
“Let’s see… the developer is some outfit called White Cloud Studio? Never heard of that no-name crew. I only play NetEase and Tencent games—other indie trash? Pass.”
“Upstairs, you got some superiority complex over games now?”
Starting from the second comment, the thread devolved into a full-blown argument. Thanks to all the bickering, the post shot to the top of the charts. A horde of bored netizens shrugged and thought, “Eh, nothing better to do—might as well give it a shot.” They dove into Jianghu and were hooked, unable to pull themselves away.
This first wave of players numbered less than ten thousand. They spawned randomly in small villages and relay stations near major cities. A few unlucky ones even landed in the Imperial Palace, waking up to the ceiling of a cleansing chamber and the sinister grin of a eunuch overseer.
Only a handful of players, thanks to the 007 System’s intervention, were assigned to Heart Washing Manor.
Linghu Xiao was one of them. He had no idea how privileged his spawn was—it was the result of some behind-the-scenes rigging.
After claiming his “New Arrival” achievement, he poked around his room. He leaped up to tap the ceiling beams. “Holy crap, this wooden framework matches ancient Earth blueprints to a T. The designers put real effort into this.” Spotting a slender-necked vase in the corner, he hoisted it up. “Whoa, this looks just like an antique—I saw one like it at an auction.”
He rummaged here and there until he found a tarnished full-length copper mirror. In an instant, he was captivated by the handsome face he had so meticulously crafted.
The man in the mirror looked to be in his early twenties. Though he wore the plain newbie robes—nothing fancy compared to the little maid NPC’s outfit earlier—his sword-sharp eyebrows and starry eyes, high nose bridge, and hair tied up high made him strikingly handsome.
…Holy shit, I look good.
If I had a face like this in real life, who’d bother going to work? Linghu Xiao thought. Then he heard movement at the door—the familiar line about “Heart Washing Manor is your home; building it up takes all of us.” He looked up and locked eyes with a female player whose ID floated overhead: Sichuan Pepper Little Bunny. They had bumped into each other right at the doorway.
It was love at first sight, a spark of admiration in each other’s gaze.
“Wow, brother, your face is so dashing! How’d you get those eyes so lively and that nose so perfect? Share your character creation data, please!”
“Nah, yours is just as good. Those pink eye tails and cherry lips—I couldn’t pull that off in an hour.”
The guy who had spent ten hours on his face and the girl who had spent eight traded compliments on the topic, both blushing and beaming when they finished. Neither wanted the conversation to end.
They had no clue that the manor’s lord, Ruan Xuezong, had waited for guests like them until he fell asleep.
They didn’t get much more chat time anyway. As they lingered in the corridor, a portly man in chef’s whites bustled over with surprising agility. He casually ordered them around. “Perfect timing. Dawn’s about to break, and the master will be rising soon. His appetite’s been poor lately, so I’m brewing an appetizing perch soup. You two head to the back mountain and gather some ingredients for me.”
It was four in the morning. The manor’s servants and kitchen hands were all fast asleep, leaving Chef Shao shorthanded. He had planned to go netting fish himself when he rounded the corner and spotted the pair.
Seeing their ragged newbie gear, he assumed they were fresh hires for the manor. He expected some reluctance, but the man and woman perked up at his words, their eyes gleaming with excitement.
To the players, Chef Shao’s offhand command popped up as this in their interfaces.
【Daily Quest Triggered: “Gather Ingredients”】
【Quest Description: Chef Shao is preparing a special appetizing bowl of perch soup for the manor’s master, whose appetite has been lacking. This delicacy, also known as Four-Gill Perch Soup, is a famous Jiangnan treasure. It requires: one lively perch and several fresh bamboo shoots. Hurry to the back mountain, young hero, and collect them.】
【Quest Rewards: 300 EXP, 10 Heart Washing Manor Contribution Points, +1 Chef Shao Favorability (Guaranteed), +1 Ruan Xuezong Favorability (Chance), Godly Chef Recipe (Chance)】
Awoooo! A quest! This early? And a godly chef recipe? Sounds epic!
Linghu Xiao and Sichuan Pepper Little Bunny grabbed fishing gear and nets and bolted for the back mountain. Heart Washing Manor sprawled across a vast area, its back mountain dense with trees and crisscrossed by rivers that stretched beyond sight.
Buzzing with excitement, they formed a two-player party with Linghu Xiao as leader. He found a prime fishing spot. Lady Luck smiled on them—a line appeared over the serene river: 【Daily Dawn 4:00-6:00 AM and Afternoon 1:00-3:00 PM: Rare Fish Catch Rate Up】
This was exactly their time slot! What a golden opportunity! The 007 System pinged them too: daily fishing hauls could be turned in to the manor for weekly contribution points or hauled to Jiangnan City’s docks to sell for copper coins.
Meanwhile, the sky was turning milky white with the first light of dawn.
Ruan Xuezong rose from bed. Frail and averse to cold even on this mild February day, he draped a heavy cloak over his shoulders, cradled an exquisite hand warmer scented with incense, and slipped into wolf-fur boots.
His expression was impassive, his ink-black hair cascading down his back as his deft-handed maid servant styled it for him.
That’s when Shuiyin arrived, her pretty face taut with grim resolve. “Master, another group of guests slipped away under cover of darkness.”
Ruan Xuezong knew exactly what she meant. Heart Washing Manor had once been a haven for all walks of life. His adoptive parents had loved mingling with rivers-and-lakes folk, so the manor teemed with retainers who had sworn undying loyalty. But with the manor’s glory faded, those same men were itching to bolt.
When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter—that was the way of the world.
At first, those self-proclaimed heroic gentlemen held back out of some misguided sense of honor, unwilling to abandon the orphan lord while he still drew breath. But as more started leaving in droves, the rest grew restless. In the end, on a pitch-black, windy night, they packed their bags and fled en masse.
“Those fawning wretches! They’ve forgotten every bit of kindness the old master showed them, and all the fine food and shelter the manor provided these years. Gone straight to the dogs!” Shuiyin spat bitterly, as if she were the one personally insulted. “Master, let me head down the mountain. I’ll drag them back. If they won’t listen… permit me to defend the manor’s reputation by slaying them—or tossing the lot into the dungeon.”
“No,” Ruan Xuezong turned to her, his tone cool at first but sharpening with sternness. “Heart Washing Manor is a righteous sect of the upright path. How can you talk of killing at every turn? What kind of example is that?”
Shuiyin froze, her eyes reddening with grievance. Ruan Xuezong showed no mercy.
In his previous life, he had let Shuiyin’s casual talk of murder and imprisonment slide—from initial shock at the brutality, he had grown numb to it. Only later did he realize it was the way of demonic cults.
And Shuiyin, that double agent, had mouthed off about protecting the manor’s honor while volunteering for the dirty work. He had believed her.
Now he knew better. If she truly meant to shield him, why flaunt the deeds? No body disposal after kills, no cleanup after captures—she practically broadcast it to the world: “All the evil is the work of Ruan Xuezong’s maid. Be sure to blame it all on her master.”
Ruan Xuezong’s reputation in the rivers and lakes had plummeted, drawing every slanderous accusation under the sun. A dog goes missing in the east? His doing. Flower plucking thieves rampant in Jiangnan City? Him again. The Imperial Palace loses a treasured sword? Naturally his fault.
With his name in the mud, whenever a crime went unsolved, the martial artists inevitably pinned it on him with pinpoint accuracy. They branded Ruan Xuezong a venomous viper, a fiend who would stop at nothing.
Fine, let the petty retainers go. But this lifetime, he wanted no part of the odious moniker “Heart Washing Manor’s Little Demon Head.”
Thinking of the basement jogged his memory of something else.
Perhaps every villainous faction had secret passages and dungeons. Heart Washing Manor hadn’t before Shuiyin arrived—but it did now.
The manor’s basement was cleverly hidden and surprisingly spacious, littered with torture instruments and shackles. It held one man dosed with Soft Tendon Powder.
The rivers and lakes ran on personal ties. Everyone had parents; martial artists had masters and brothers-in-arms. The well-liked had friends willing to die for them.
In his last life, Ruan Xuezong had jailed someone’s senior brother, stirring up a hornet’s nest. No wonder the manor was later stormed, leaving him crippled. Those intruders had followed clues to the basement: walls lined with gleaming tools of torment, a sizzling fire basin below holding a glowing branding iron, and a weakened man shackled in chains to the shadows.
The scene burned into their minds. Even if those tools had never touched the prisoner, the righteous experts who saw it flew into a rage.
It spawned an instance dungeon.
【Raze Heart Washing Manor. Select Difficulty: Normal / Hard / Nightmare】—as if the manor were some deadly lair, drawing heroes to their doom just to slay him, the demon.
The mere thought gave Ruan Xuezong chest pains.
Good thing Shuiyin had only held the man three days. Release him now, before his brothers noticed, and damage control might still be possible.
With that, Ruan Xuezong dismissed his maid and headed to the basement alone.
A chill touched his face. Hua Bailian slowly opened his eyes, adjusting to the dim light. He tugged weakly at his bonds; the iron chains clinked faintly. He had been imprisoned for three days… all because he showed up at the wrong place at the wrong time. It was the old master’s death anniversary, and he had been alone at the original manor house—the site of the fire—when they pegged him as some shady figure tied to the past events.
If not for these three days, Hua Bailian never would have suspected that beneath Heart Washing Manor’s pristine facade lay such a vast prison. And Soft Tendon Powder, stripping away inner force? Did upright sects really keep such things?
A figure in white stood before him, holding a damp cloth—the cool touch that had roused him, no doubt.
Seeing the man’s face, Hua Bailian went slack-jawed.
Hua Bailian could say without false modesty that he hailed from a famed Central Plains clan. At twenty-two, with five years roaming the rivers and lakes, he had seen his share of beauties. His own sister, Hua Zhanlu, was the top beauty of the Central Plains. He had even met Qu Wangshu, the famed Righteous Path Fairy of Peacock Manor. Yet only now did he grasp the true meaning of transcendent beauty, radiant as sun and moon.
He lost himself in those clear, pitch-black eyes.
The man approached, his boots whispering almost soundlessly across the cold stone floor—yet each step thundered in Hua Bailian’s ears, shaking his soul.
Every gesture evoked those words: peerless elegance.
The figure drew a sword and severed the shackles in two strokes, then offered a pill. Hua Bailian realized instantly it was the antidote for Soft Tendon Powder. His heart stirred; he swallowed it without hesitation.
“Hero Hua, I apologize for the offense these past days. Allow me to escort you out. In light of no real harm done, please consider it poor hospitality from Heart Washing Manor.” The white-clad man cupped his fists in apology, his otherworldly face mere inches away.
If not for the pill surging through him, restoring his inner force and skills in full, Hua Bailian would have thought it a dream.
A white-cloaked immortal had saved him—and hoped for his forgiveness.
The exit loomed close, outer light growing brighter. Three days without water had left Hua Bailian’s throat raw and rasping, but he pushed through the searing pain and mustered his courage. “You must be one of that demon’s men. You’re releasing me on your own—aren’t you afraid of his punishment when you return? Why not come with me?”
As a righteous and upright hero, Hua Bailian couldn’t bear to imagine what the rumored disfigured monster might do to someone so beautiful.
To Ruan Xuezong, though, the scene bordered on the absurd.
The dashing hero before him—pale but handsome even after three parched days—exuded the candid boldness from the tales. Those deep eyes burned with earnest concern as he offered to whisk Ruan Xuezong away.
“Oh, I forgot to mention, Hero Hua… I am the demon you speak of.” Ruan Xuezong smiled faintly, enunciating each word. Ignoring Hua Bailian’s stunned gaze, he flipped his hand and produced the familiar Bronze Mask, affixing it perfectly to his face.
