Ruan Xuezong hadn’t held back with that strike. A trickle of blood leaked from the corner of Du Rulan’s mouth, and his pair of amber eyes instantly turned red. That white kasaya robe was now unmistakably stained with blood.
With a sharp snap, one of the qin strings broke. The red-clothed puppet plummeted from the air like a kite with its line severed. The quick-handed players rushed forward at once to catch him.
No one had expected a single palm strike to grievously wound a powerhouse from the Demonic Sects. The people from Clear Wind Fishing Ground were shocked and dumbfounded, as though after enduring a night of beatings, the tide had turned dramatically in the final moments.
Terror filled Tao Caiyan’s eyes above all else. Her lips trembled as she stammered, “Ruan Xuezong, you actually dared to hurt him. B-be careful with that head on your shoulders!”
In her eyes at that moment, Ruan Xuezong—who had inflicted such grave wounds on Du Rulan—seemed even more terrifying than any ghost.
She seemed poised to hurl more threats, but as Ruan Xuezong’s palm swept toward her again, she let out an instinctive scream. Abandoning Gong Mingzhu on the spot, she turned to help her own people retreat.
Ruan Xuezong tugged at the corner of his mouth.
He knew full well that landing that palm strike had been pure luck. He chose not to give chase, instead maneuvering with a few leaps back to the surface. Flames licked across the ground, setting his white robes aglow in a brilliant, dazzling light. His descent from the sky made him resemble a divine figure.
No one had recovered from the shock yet. They stared blankly as Ruan Xuezong walked toward them, that white-clad figure amid the night’s blaze becoming the most radiant hue in the world.
Ruan Xuezong said coldly, “What are you all staring at? Is there a flower on my face?”
He nearly thought his mask had slipped off while he was saving people. Why else would this group be gawking at him like fools?
The players fought back their urges to scream, shaking their heads furiously like rattlers. Shen Jiangling coughed dryly. “Young friend, your martial arts are truly stunning and peerless.”
“You’re too kind. It was just a spur-of-the-moment stroke of genius.” Ruan Xuezong replied. He crouched down to check on Gong Mingzhu’s condition.
Several players were supporting Gong Mingzhu. Her delicate face was pale, her breaths coming in shallow gasps, but she appeared otherwise unharmed.
Ruan Xuezong took her pulse, his fingers resting lightly on her wrist. In mere moments, he reached a diagnosis: exhaustion from depleted qi, leading to unconsciousness.
Old Lord Gong shoved his way through the crowd, heedless of the blood flowing from his own wounds. Seeing his daughter safe and sound, he let out a long breath of relief.
“We saved the young lady, but it’s a pity the sword was still taken.” Ruan Xuezong frowned. He hadn’t imagined he’d sleep so soundly. It was likely that not only had Gong Mingzhu fallen victim to an illusion technique, but he himself had been drugged into slumber as well.
“It’s all this old man’s fault for being so useless…” At the mention of it, Old Lord Gong’s temples seemed to gray even further, as if he’d aged a decade overnight. “An ordinary man shouldn’t carry jade—it’s a curse. Bah, whatever. Since the Demonic Sects are dead set on claiming the Sea Roar Sword, we might guard it for a moment, but we can’t protect it forever.”
In his youth, Old Lord Gong had been a renowned wanderer of the rivers and lakes. He had roamed south and north alone, a solitary rider traversing the horizon. He was the untamed wind off the seaside, the drifting cloud over the grasslands—boundless and carefree, with no attachments to hold him back. He acted without a thought for consequences. It wasn’t until he passed thirty that he finally settled down. He lived in harmony with his wife, established a grand estate at Clear Wind Fishing Ground, and fathered a daughter. With a family to anchor him, that reckless wanderer had faded into a mere shadow of time. Now he was nothing more than a hesitant old codger.
“It’s all my fault, clinging to false hope. If Mingzhu had truly died, what would become of this worthless old sack of bones?”
Gong Xiao ignored the sword wound in his chest and insisted on cradling his daughter himself. Hot tears streamed from his eyes, no longer concealable beneath his shock of white hair.
Ruan Xuezong let out a low, drawn-out sigh and subconsciously touched the bronze mask on his face.
The familiar conflagration brought to mind the blaze at Heart Washing Manor five years prior. The players on site had dissolved into tears one by one.
【Wuwuwuwu, plot kill! It’s so damn heartbreaking.】
【Those goddamned Demonic Sects are utterly vile and shameless. They nearly tore that father and daughter apart forever.】 It was easy to imagine the profound psychological scars left on these players—whether from Gong Mingzhu attempting to slit her own throat with the Mandarin Duck Swords or from the sight of her on the verge of following the Demonic Sects away.
Fortunately, the heavy atmosphere didn’t linger for long. Soon, a series of system prompt chimes rang out—ding ding ding.
【Ding! Major Plot: Clear Wind Tribulation completed. Congratulations to all players for earning substantial experience and gold.】
【Congratulations to all players: +1000 Faction Favorability. Individual Favorability gains: Gong Xiao +200, Gong Mingzhu +300, Shen Jiangling +200, Ruan Xuezong +100. Relationship advanced to ‘Shared Tribulations’.】
【Congratulations to all players: Received ‘Honored Guest’ title from Clear Wind Fishing Ground. Equipping the title grants the following privileges: 1. Access to fishing at East Sea Bay. 2. Seek aid from Clear Wind Fishing Ground when traveling the rivers and lakes proves inconvenient. 3. Clear Wind Fishing Ground NPCs will proactively greet you…】
“Holy shit!!!” Whether they were players rushing back from the respawn point or those still dazed amid the flames, all of them were stunned by the barrage of rewards. Exhausted from the battle and ready to call it quits, they leaped to their feet one after another. “Let me go—I can grind some more!”
Before long, the players were cleaning up the battlefield. They rushed to extinguish the fires and even treated the wounded in the blaze, dark circles under their eyes notwithstanding.
The next day, Ruan Xuezong awoke to find a player stationed at his door. The man eagerly reported that Miss Gong had woken up.
The errand boy was beaming with joy. With the bronze mask still covering Ruan Xuezong’s face, no one could tell it was utterly expressionless.
Ruan Xuezong knew that saving someone’s life was often merely the first hurdle.
From his knowledge of the Demonic Sects in his previous life, things were never that straightforward. Whenever calamity struck, the rivers and lakes’ famed physicians could drag a person back from the gates of hell. Yet while the body might recover, the mind often harbored lingering illnesses.
What the common folk called heart demons.
Take, for instance, Ruan Xuezong himself after the Heart Washing Manor fire—orphaned overnight and scarred across the face. Or now, Gong Mingzhu. She had been turned into a puppet, manipulated by someone she cared for—or rather, by the Demonic Sects. The severity of her trauma hinged on how much she remembered of her possession.
If she recalled the full sequence—slaying her own father, seizing the sword, and letting the Demonic Sect Saintess escape—then her condition was dire. A lifetime of guilt could easily drown a young woman like her. Since Ruan Xuezong had gone to the trouble of inserting himself into this plot and saving her, he had no intention of letting her throw her life away now.
With that in mind, Ruan Xuezong queried 007.
“In the original plotline, what was Clear Wind Fishing Ground’s fate?”
007: 【There were originally two endings: Ending A, ‘Clan Annihilated’—Clear Wind Fishing Ground wiped out entirely, Gong Mingzhu slays her father and seizes the sword before taking her own life under Demonic Sect control. Ending B, ‘Eternal Red Puppet’—she follows the Demonic Sects into exile, wandering the world forever. Now, with player intervention, there’s a new Ending C: The Sea Roar Sword is still taken, but Gong Mingzhu neither slays her father nor dies. Clear Wind Fishing Ground suffers a devastating fire at the Demonic Sects’ hands, with heavy losses but a spark of life remaining. The Demonic Sects took severe damage too—a case of damaging the enemy by a thousand while losing eight hundred themselves…】
Ruan Xuezong listened through it all, his expression turning peculiar. “These A, B, C endings of yours—you’re not worried about players mailing you razor blades?”
He had picked up the phrase “mailing razor blades” from player posts on the game forums. At first, he’d been baffled; now, he was part of the story.
007: 【……】
The next day, a player uploaded their screen recording to the forums, detonating traffic in an instant.
[Clear Wind Fishing Ground Fishing Guide: Latest Strategy Share. Four gathering spots: A—cliffside, B—black rocky beach, C—fishing village, D—triangular bay… Sea fishing probability peaks seasonally: early spring and late autumn best. Heat: 1000]
[Clear Wind Fishing Ground Fish Compendium: Collected octopus, oysters, grouper, jellyfish so far… Slow grind for completionists. Heat: 2000]
[(Explosive) Full Clear Wind Fishing Ground Plot Recording: Includes initial Black Eagle assault on landing, Demonic Sect Demon Monk bewitching the crowd, Ruan Xuezong’s moonlit palm strike stunning all, and finale with Old Lord Gong tearfully embracing his daughter. OP’s blood-sweat-tears magnum opus as wartime reporter—don’t miss the backstory and aftermath! Heat: 1,000,000+]
From the video, it was clear that the moment the Heart Washing Manor carriage arrived at East Sea Bay and Ruan Xuezong suffered the Black Eagle attack, the Demonic Sects’ spies had never let up.
“Zongzong’s one cold-hearted bastard, using hostages as shields!”
“That demoness must’ve been cursing up a storm inside, lololol.”
“No one saw that Black Eagle intro as foreshadowing at first.”
Next came Du Rulan’s debut. The chat went silent for ages before someone posted, “Demon Monk’s peerless allure.” Likes broke a thousand in a minute.
“Pity he’s a demon monk, not a holy one! My CP ended in tragedy after all—and at such a brutal cost. Turns out the red-clad lady was just a tool puppet for the Demonic Sects. Dogshit devs going for the kill shot!”
“Timestamp 17:43—check Zongzong’s eyes!”
Everyone paused at once. Behind Ruan Xuezong’s mask, those eyes were exquisite: lashes thick as fans, black pupils deep as gods. But the instant Du Rulan entered his view, Ruan Xuezong’s pupils contracted for several seconds. That fleeting glint was heart-stirring.
“I’ve looped those eyes N times—slurp slurp slurp—”
“Zongzong must’ve spotted something off and grown suspicious!”
“OMG, how’d he even notice?”
Whether preaching sutras in the hall or playing qin under the moon, no one at Clear Wind Fishing Ground—NPCs or players—had ever suspected Master Rulan. Not only had he infiltrated before the players arrived, but his bearing was ethereal, his Buddhist knowledge profound, and he even buffed players. No one could associate him with “demon.”
The recording group’s video addressed the question. Du Rulan himself posed it to Ruan Xuezong in a Q&A. Falconers always decorated their shoulders for their birds—and that was what sparked Ruan Xuezong’s suspicions. A Buddhist high monk keeping a Black Eagle? That “saintly monk” deserved skeptical quotes.
“Zongzong lives up to protagonist status—so smart! awsl!”
“These two together? Aura maxed. Recording crew risked life and limb—shoutout to the cameraman, chicken dinner tonight!”
Later, when Gong Mingzhu was in peril, Ruan Xuezong pursued with peerless lightness skill and struck the enemy squarely in the shoulder and back. Under the pristine moonlight, the palm’s illusory afterimage blended with the stardust in the air, blurring reality and illusion.
“Lmao fam, check the Demonic Sect assassins’ faces. Brows furrowed under those masks—they never expected Zongzong to be so bold as to actually chase.” That palm strike caught everyone off guard, costing the Demonic Sects dearly.
Replay bots returned: “Push Heart Palm is the GOAT—Ruan Xuezong’s the king!”
“Clear Wind Fishing Ground arc is hype AF!”
The finale was Old Lord Gong’s tearful embrace. True men don’t cry easily—only when hearts break. Countless players were moved to tears.
The recording ended there, leaving players thoroughly satisfied. But in the real world, the grudges and grievances were far from settled.
Clear Wind Fishing Ground failing to keep the sword was a done deal. Shen Jiangling, still recovering from grave wounds, had rushed into battle and reopened them. Gong Xiao had a bloody hole from the Mandarin Duck Swords in his chest; at his age, healing would take even longer. He would be sidelined for a while. But people alive were better than total ruin—Clear Wind Fishing Ground wouldn’t be leaderless.
As Ruan Xuezong had foreseen, Gong Mingzhu’s mental state was the worst off.
Ever since the red-clad swordswoman awoke, her demeanor had changed utterly. She clutched her head in agony, curling up on the bed. She rambled about inviting wolves into the fold, about slaying her own father… Guilt washed over her like a tidal wave. She wished only to end it all with her own blade.
When Old Lord Gong heard the news upon waking, he spat up blood, at a total loss.
Ruan Xuezong had no choice but to visit her.
The moment he entered the room, he saw Gong Mingzhu’s face drained of color, robbed of its stunning beauty by fear. Spotting him, tears overflowed from her lovely eyes. “I’m sorry, Manor Lord Ruan. It was all my fault. I deserve to die most of all…”
Ruan Xuezong softened his tone. “You did nothing wrong. The Demonic Sects are the ones at fault.”
Those gentle words failed to reach Gong Mingzhu’s ears. Trembling all over, she hugged herself. “Manor Lord Ruan, there’s no need to comfort me. I clearly remember it—I killed so many people… I’m beyond forgiveness…”
“That was all an illusion realm!” Ruan Xuezong interrupted calmly. “When you were controlled, you lost consciousness. You had no idea you were trapped in an illusion realm. Everyone you killed was just a puppet within it. See for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“Impossible.” Gong Mingzhu gave a bitter smile. She remembered all too vividly the Mandarin Duck Swords plunging into those chests—the warm, visceral sensation. How could it have been an illusion?
But Ruan Xuezong spoke with utter conviction, so she followed his gesture and looked outside her boudoir. It was packed with people, every familiar face lively and animated. Some were even drooling and shouting, “Red-clad lady’s model is top-tier!”
Gong Mingzhu’s eyes rolled back, and she fainted dead away from the shock.
“We came to check on the young lady out of kindness, and she passes out on us?” The players buzzed with confusion before going to visit Old Lord Gong next. Soon enough, he fainted too.
Ruan Xuezong remained utterly unflappable. With Clear Wind Fishing Ground’s crisis tentatively resolved, he took his leave.
Meanwhile, in some dark, damp place devoid of light…
A man stirred groggily awake. His body soaked in a pool of blood for recuperation, he resembled a black sandflower blooming amid the hellfire on the other shore from Buddhist scriptures. Perhaps from excessive blood loss, his face was ashen as paper. He weakly lifted an arm from the sanguine mire and touched his chest, where a crisp handprint stood out.
He knew perfectly well that the young man who had delivered that palm strike wanted him dead.
![The Tower Will Fall [Apocalypse]](https://i2.wp.com/dobynovels.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/93.jpg?resize=151,215 "The Tower Will Fall [Apocalypse]")
