Chapter 59

Tao Caiyan was dead.

Without their leader’s command, the remaining Demonic Sect minions instantly crumbled. The players struck them down in a few swift moves, sending them scattering to the ground. The entire Demon Sect Underground Palace had completely fallen. If there was anyone to blame, it lay with the Western Regions, where most of the Demonic Sect’s elites had already been transferred, allowing the dismantling of their forces to proceed so smoothly.

Only then did Ruan Xuezong have the leisure to examine the underground palace’s layout. He noticed that the palace bedroom was lavishly decorated, its shelves lined with countless bottles and jars—all poisons the Demonic Sect specialized in, such as Qianji Yin, Duanchang Powder, and Ten Days Red. In some of the jars, bugs writhed restlessly, driven mad by the scent of blood. They looked like gu poison the Demonic Sect had cultivated with blood.

“These things are a blight on the world if left here. Better to destroy them all,” Ruan Xuezong said coldly without a second thought. He naturally left the task of destruction to the players.

He focused instead on searching for one particular item: sheepskin paper—or more precisely, the treasure map.

It did not take him long to find it.

Ruan Xuezong could tell at a glance from the paper’s yellowed hue that this cowhide map was not the original but a rubbing. Still, something was better than nothing.

Meanwhile, the players had their own gains. While destroying the bottles and jars to complete their task, several books dropped in their game interfaces. No, they were not quite books—more like fragments of some character’s biography.

“Fam, I just got a biography fragment. The title’s Demoness Biography One.”

“Mine’s Demoness Biography Three…”

“This is interesting. Must be a new mechanic in the Jianghu Game—random drops of biography fragments so we players don’t have to dig up intel ourselves later.”

“Who got Two? Let’s piece it together!”

Five-Colored Mottled Black was baffled. He held a book in his hand too, but its cover was a different color from the others’. He scratched his head. “Why didn’t I get a Demoness Biography drop? Zongzong told me to smash a statue, and after I did, I got a biography fragment about some guy named Huo Chonglou. Who’s this Huo Chonglou anyway?”

“You again!” The players fumed. “Hand over my knife—let’s kill this lucky dog!”

Ruan Xuezong had picked up Two. Seeing the players’ noisy excitement and barely concealed thirst for knowledge, he walked over.

[Huo Chonglou Biography]

That year, the Northern Frontier cavalry tore up the treaty and swept southward, burning and plundering everything in their path. A young girl witnessed it all—not just grown women, but even little girls fell prey to those beasts, no matter how malnourished she looked. The new emperor ascended the throne powerless to stabilize the chaos. Amid the wartime devastation, refugees could only flee for their lives.

Tao Caiyan’s heart burned with rage. Where were all those wandering heroes who preached about righteousness, the greater good for the nation and its people, when ordinary folk suffered in torment?

It was Huo Chonglou who found this girl in the Northern Frontier. She hid in the tall grass, half a man’s height, which even the sharp-eyed cavalry overlooked at first.

Huo Chonglou saw a gaze of unyielding resilience and seething hatred in her eyes. Her body was covered in wounds, yet as hooves thundered perilously close, she trembled without a sound. She even set traps, seizing the moment a barbarian rider fell from his horse to swing a sickle and sever his head.

Beneath her frail frame lay a physique perfectly suited for yin cultivation.

He eyed her cautiously, reminded of his own daughter who had died young. If that child had survived… she might have been about this girl’s age.

“Saving a life is better than building seven stupas,” he thought to himself. And so he rescued the girl from the barbarians.

He began to nurture her carefully, perhaps projecting his own affections. She called him foster father, desperately trying to prove her worth, and Huo Chonglou taught her everything, letting her choose the most vicious weapon: the long whip. He allowed her to kill without restraint, to revel in bloodlust. He could see her temperament had twisted beyond repair, but he did not care. As long as Huo Chonglou lived, his foster daughter Tao Caiyan would forever be the Demonic Sect Saintess, free to rampage as she pleased.

[Tao Caiyan Biography One]

My foster father gave a wandering girl like me a home, and I depended on him utterly. He was a infamous overlord who built Nevernight City, gathering Western Regions Demonic Sect members, Central Plains assassins, and rivers-and-lakes bandits. He set up the Linglong Treasure Ship in various places and built this underground palace beneath Jiangnan City. He schemed for half his life toward one earth-shattering ambition.

He never laid a hand on women. He said only worthless men treated them like goods, the way those Northern Frontier barbarians did.

I admired him deeply.

That was how a real man should be.

My foster father also said: Treat the world as it has treated you. Kindness cannot save the masses—like those bloodthirsty, inhuman barbarians; no amount of education works. Only evil for evil, violence for violence, is the truth of this world.

Those words brought me sudden enlightenment. From then on, I wielded the long whip, becoming the cruel and ruthless demoness of the rivers and lakes, the seductive fiend despised by the righteous.

My foster father cared for me, but he was always busy. Beyond me, he had taken in other children over the years in the, all of whom excelled and monopolized his attention.

The glances he spared me grew fewer and fewer. I panicked, desperate to prove myself.

Harried by my pleas, my foster father relented with a sigh. “Your body is frail, your strength lacking—don’t force yourself with martial arts… But there is a technique suited to your constitution. The manual has severe side effects, which is why no one dares practice it to this day. If you want to learn, think carefully.”

What side effects could outweigh my reverence and gratitude for him?

Oh. The pain of an ice cellar, and the inescapable cravings of male-female desire…

Reading these two biographies back-to-back left countless players shaken. The father-daughter bond seemed warm on the surface, but it masked a grown man’s bloody, sordid machinations, with Tao Caiyan as his warped tool.

[Tao Caiyan Biography Two]

I couldn’t take it anymore. My strength had surged, making me unstoppable, but yin chill rampaged through my body, leaving me drenched in cold sweat.

For years, I had stalled at the seventh layer’s bottleneck. Disappointment filled my foster father’s eyes, filling me with dread. I wondered if I needed more men. I volunteered for the Peacock Manor affair and retrieved countless sub-swords, but at the cost of grave wounds. Not only did I fail to break through to the seventh layer—my cultivation fell back to the sixth.

My foster father examined the treasure map I offered, lost in thought, a gleam of determination in his gaze.

“Foster father, let me join the journey west,” I pleaded.

His eyes finally settled on me. He shook his head slowly, heavily. “No. You’re badly injured. Guard the underground palace for me instead. It’s lonely here, true, but it’s one of the few places that still belong to me alone. Jiangnan City will have its uses too.”

I felt utter desolation.

For a moment, his gaze seemed devoid of warmth, as if he had abandoned me.

One night, Chen Lu told me the nectar I drank was poison—that I had mistaken poison for nectar all along.

I lashed him with my whip and snarled, “What are you, to slander my foster father? I chose that technique myself. It has nothing to do with him. If you don’t want to serve me, get out.”

Chen Lu fell silent. Then he embraced me again.

Feeling the yin chill in my body recede, I thought: A man’s warmth was truly intoxicating.

[Tao Caiyan Biography Three]

My greatest pleasure in life was conquering and enslaving handsome men, pursuing those lofty prizes and savoring the sight of their spines and knees shattering under me.

Jiangnan was too humid. The plum rain season approached, and the underground palace dripped constantly, fraying my nerves. If I didn’t stir up some trouble, I couldn’t bear to stay.

I needed men, I declared. Jiangnan had plenty of handsome ones.

That much was undeniable. Even after Ruan Xuezong removed his mask—despite my hatred for him—I had to admit his peerless features outshone all in Jiangnan and beyond. If only Lan-ge could turn Ruan Xuezong into a mindless puppet. I’d use him for cultivation day and night, then kill him to vent my rage!

Chen Lu warned that kidnapping only men would tip off the to a female thief. Few women made waves there; suspicion would fall on me quickly.

“Then what?” I asked.

Chen Lu replied, “For every man you take, I’ll help you snatch ten women. Eyes will turn elsewhere.”

I burst out laughing. What a brilliant idea. Missing women always caused a stir; missing men barely merited a footnote.

I loved fooling the masses. No one would ever guess the flower-plucking thief terrorizing Jiangnan—driving folk to bolt their doors—was a woman. Ha!

Chen Lu mentioned some irrelevant tunnels had been exposed, adding to the thief’s fearsome reputation. The whole city languished in desolation because of me, ghostly even in broad daylight. Hearing that, I couldn’t help laughing maniacally.

This was too much fun.

How long could I fool the world? Forever, I hoped…

The biographies ended there. This brief account of the Demonic Sect demoness’s life left the players with profoundly mixed feelings, an indescribable aftertaste.

Ruan Xuezong closed the pages. “Let’s go. Our business here is done. Jiangnan City should enjoy some peace now.”

He gazed at the underground palace, thinking that whatever the Demonic Sect’s purpose in building it beneath Jiangnan City, this den of evil had to be eradicated.

He had not yet decided whether to burn it or flood it with mud and water. Burning risked the Demonic Sect regrouping easily, while filling it would take too much time and effort. As Ruan Xuezong pondered, the ceiling suddenly began to collapse.

The violent shaking was unmistakable; everyone felt it. The players’ eyes widened, and they started screaming a beat late. “Aaaah, what’s happening? The ceiling’s caving in!” “Earthquake? Aaaah, the kid’s scared!” Dust rained down as they clutched their heads and fled, the scene descending into chaos.

Ever since entering the underground palace, Ruan Xuezong had faintly heard running water, but never so loudly. Now he realized a torrent was pouring in, rising swiftly from ankles to waists. The players scrambled madly for escape.

Soon they resorted to swimming.

Ruan Xuezong: “…”

Whoever had done this had perfectly solved his dilemma.

Amid the chaos, he looked up and saw the culprits: Tao Caiyan’s male favorites.

The man in pink pressed his hand to the wall, while the quarrelsome youth’s face showed profound relief.

Ruan Xuezong met their eyes, wondering why. They seemed thrilled to destroy the palace, yet their gazes held complexity. If they wanted to escape, why stand there, letting the flood batter their backs as if it were nothing?

Their eyes met his for mere seconds.

One smiled, bitterness twisting his face. “You’re the moonlit hero, untarnished by the world. You couldn’t understand. Locked away by that demoness for years, we have nowhere but this palace. The life of luxury crippled us. Even free on the surface, to others we’re her male pets—tainted by the Demonic Sect, with no place left under heaven… Better to die here!”

“Let this palace be our watery tomb!”

The group chose death. They even returned to the first level, reclining on their usual concubine couches in lazy, elegant poses—just as when Ruan Xuezong had first intruded.

Hearing this, Qin Xiang—who had been swayed toward life by Ruan Xuezong’s godlike arrival—froze. He fell silent for three seconds, his face caught between joy and sorrow, laughter and tears. “Young Hero Ruan, I’m the son of a wealthy Jinling City merchant. If I go back, can my parents accept me? Living amid rumors and gossip… they’d never hold their heads high again. They’re right—we’re better off dead and done with it.”

As he spoke, the underground palace collapsed further.

The sacred altar’s flames and candles flickered out in the frenzy, as if heralding the end of their lives.

Ruan Xuezong said gravely, “I don’t know if your parents can accept you, but I know I can. I own a place called Clearwater Pavilion that shelters the pitiful and destitute—men and women alike.

“Everyone who enters takes a new name, forgets their past, and starts anew. No one pries into your history there… I’m the owner behind the scenes, yet even I don’t know what some have endured. If you’re willing, come with me. As long as you forswear evil deeds, Clearwater Pavilion will be your home for life.”

Moments later, the players and Ruan Xuezong escaped. Trailing them came a string of jade-like handsome men, faces pale with lingering terror.

The underground palace was utterly obliterated.

Two days later, Clearwater Pavilion welcomed a batch of newcomers: Maple Seed, South Star, Honeysuckle, Magnolia… names of all sorts.

Only Fragrant Blossom Valley remained flooded. Passing players occasionally glimpsed the raging river and waterlogged banyan trees, recalling that heart-pounding battle—and Ruan Xuezong’s words that turned a group from death’s door to life’s embrace in an instant.

Ruan Xuezong stroked the treasure map rubbing in his hand.

The Demonic Sect had dared stir chaos in Jiangnan territory, then abscond west with the treasure map to grow rich in secret. Could he just let that slide?

Deep down, he harbored a wild streak. He would churn the entire into turmoil. Beckoning a few players, he said, “This treasure map came from the Demon Sect Underground Palace. The site’s in the Western Regions…”

Before he finished, the players gasped, wild fantasies flooding their minds. Ruan Xuezong arched a brow, his thin lips parting slowly for the rest: “…a rubbing of it.”

The players: “…”

Ruan Xuezong continued, “The real cowhide map was stolen by the Demonic Sect. They’ve already gone ahead to the Western Regions, leaving behind this incomplete rubbing—but it’s still useful. Treasure or not, whoever finds it shares in the glory. Tomorrow, copy this rubbing thousands of times and spread it throughout the jianghu.”

“I want everyone to know a grandmaster treasure will soon appear in the Western Regions. The incantation’s here—memorize it.”

The players gaped, stunned. “Holy shit!!”

Wealth moved hearts. Once word of the treasure map spread, the whole would erupt. Was this the prelude to the latest main storyline?

One puzzled player asked, “But why, Zongzong? We got the map—why not sneak off quietly?”

Ruan Xuezong gave him a profound, enigmatic look. “The Demonic Sect is too powerful. Only by rallying the entire can we tie their hands, letting Heart Washing Manor fish in troubled waters.”

He cared little for the treasure itself. Having never seen it in his past life, he felt no greed. But anything to thwart the Demonic Sect and foil their schemes? He was all in.

The Western Regions’ 36 Countries teemed with BOSSes great and small. Once treasure-hunters swarmed the great desert’s yellow sands, the Demonic Sect would be overwhelmed. The thought filled Ruan Xuezong with rare satisfaction.