Chapter 70

Ruan Xuezong hadn’t expected the situation to be even worse than he’d imagined.

Through a beaded curtain, the Chasang King appeared to whisper intimately with the queen, the picture of devoted love. But in private, he presented this horrifying sight—clad in a white nightshirt for bedtime, the skin above his neck deathly pale and waxen, dotted with dark brown spots like a constellation of decay. It didn’t look human at all. His head lolled at an unnatural angle against the jade pillow, his neck twisted as if nearly severed, held together by only the thinnest layer of flesh and skin.

Beneath the brocade quilt lay an emaciated, rigid, withered frame, reminiscent of the Central Plains nobles interred in their gold thread jade clothes. The sight sent chills racing across the skin—who could believe this was still a living man?

Yet this body retained some awareness. The king could still move, still seemed conscious.

When Wu Yao lifted the beaded curtain and approached in confusion, the king’s vacant, scattered pupils swiveled toward him, making the scene all the more terrifying.

Five-Colored Mottled Black let out a sharp scream, injecting a fleeting spark of life into the youth’s refined features. Wu Yao said coldly, “You impudent servant, howling like a ghost in my father’s bedchamber! If you disturb his rest, I’ll see you punished later!”

Blind as he was, Wu Yao drew near without any reaction.

Ruan Xuezong had meant to intervene, but he noticed the king’s corpse-like, pitch-black, empty eyes stir with a glimmer of spirit as Wu Yao approached.

It was as if the inky void had receded slightly, revealing the true color of his pupils.

To Ruan Xuezong’s surprise, the Chasang King’s eyes were golden.

Father and son both possessed those striking golden eyes—bright as the rising sun in the dawn, dim as the burning sunset skies—colors perfectly suited to the exotic allure of the desert.

“Holy Son,” Ruan Xuezong said, “the king is ill, gravely so. Touch his body; you might uncover some secrets yourself.” He had considered describing the horror outright but thought better of it, opting to let the young man explore for himself.

Eyes could deceive, and ears might hear lies. The Chasang King rarely appeared in public, and when he did, he passed for a living man. Without lifting this veil that blinded the world, no one would dream he had become a walking corpse.

“That wouldn’t be right,” Wu Yao replied. “If I touch Father and he wakes, he might get angry.” Yet that didn’t stop him from extending a hand to caress his father’s face.

The youth’s palm was fair and soft, vibrant with the freshness of youth and pampered by a life of luxury. As he traced the king’s protruding cheekbones, the nearly severed neck, and the skeletal hand, he fell silent. His expression grew darker by the moment…

“Agu Ling, are you lying to me? This isn’t my father—where did this corpse come from?” Wu Yao exploded, his voice hysterical.

As he raged and tried to fling away the dry, corpse-like grasp from his arm, the withered, bony fingers tightened around his wrist. A rasping voice emerged from the king’s parched throat. “Wu… Wu Yao…”

“It’s really you, Father?” The white-haired, golden-eyed youth froze, his lips trembling. He called out instinctively, his mind blank with shock and confusion. “Father, is that really you? Why are you so ill? …Your grip on my hand is so tight—what are you trying to tell me?”

“Wu… Wu Yao… Your eyes weren’t afflicted by illness from birth. You were poisoned. Father has always loved you… As the Holy Son, protect that secret well… And… run…” The words spilled from the king’s mouth like a dying man’s last testament. Wu Yao listened in dazed bewilderment.

The final command—”run”—struck him like a thunderbolt, but he hadn’t processed it when intruders burst into the bedchamber. The jingle of jewels announced the queen, flanked by a band of Demonic Sect assassins.

Taking in the scene, Du Qing’e smiled radiantly, her palace gown accentuating her alluring figure. Her beautiful eyes fixed on Ruan Xuezong with a chilling gaze. “My instincts were spot on after all. You’re no ordinary man—who sent you to meddle? You Central Plains folk are such a nuisance. I just want a peaceful life in the Western Regions, yet you yapping little dogs keep barking at my door… Now that you’ve seen this, leave your lives behind.”

With the plot exposed, Du Qing’e’s first instinct was to slaughter them all—no surprise from the world’s most infamous venomous beauty.

Five-Colored Mottled Black jumped in fright. He hadn’t expected this infiltration to hook a major BOSS—and none other than Du Qing’e, the shadowy mastermind from the Peacock Manor chapter who had colluded with Qu Tianwei and the Demonic Sects to orchestrate the Grand Banquet of Sixty!

At the same time, the assassins advanced, pinning the king’s gaunt face and forcing a bowl of medicinal soup down his throat.

In mere seconds, the king’s skeletal form plumped up unnaturally. His golden eyes dulled once more, that fleeting spark of awareness vanishing entirely.

Ruan Xuezong closed his eyes, unable to bear the sight. He said coldly, “Blood feeds blood, form nourishes form. You’ve turned the Chasang King into a puppet for the Demonic Sects. Those blood grasses must serve as the primer… No wonder the rear garden ran red with rivers of blood—maintaining a battered puppet desperate to break free must drain tremendous effort.”

“Young man, you know far too much. I underestimated you,” Du Qing’e said with a light laugh. She was a peerless beauty, her smile captivating as a peony heavy with dew. But that wicked, unrestrained laughter echoing through the palace sent shivers down every spine.

For a moment, even Five-Colored Mottled Black felt mesmerized, only snapping out of it when he spotted the “Soul Bewitching Heart Seizure” debuff overhead. He paled and slapped himself hard across the face.

【Soul Bewitching Heart Seizure: The peerless seductress bewitches the eyes and muddles the mind—rationality drops 70%, attack power falls 40%. The weaker the martial arts, the more susceptible one is. A debuff effect.】

Once her laughter faded, Du Qing’e’s face hardened. “Young man, let me tell you—don’t be too curious. The more secrets you know in this world, the faster you die.” Her smile vanished as she turned hostile, and her black-clad minions drew their weapons in a flash—shing, shing, shing.

The Holy Son was likely the most baffled of all. He frowned. “Mother?”

At the word, Du Qing’e’s brows knit, and she shot him a murderous glance. “Don’t call me Mother. I have no son like you.”

Without needing her order, a black-clad archer nocked an arrow and loosed it at the blind Wu Yao.

The arrow whistled through the air.

Ruan Xuezong, surrounded by Demonic Sect forces, drew on his experience—even after twenty years, even with Du Qing’e now at half-step grandmaster realm, he didn’t flinch. He slapped the arrow aside with a palm strike.

Du Qing’e’s intent to kill her own “son” hit Wu Yao like a blow.

In that instant, his world shattered.

His heart felt hollowed out, filled with numb void. He could only ask, “Agu Ling, what in the world is happening?”

Ruan Xuezong sighed softly and explained. “Holy Son, the queen’s true name is Du Qing’e. She once plunged the Central Plains martial world into bloodshed. She’s likely not your birth mother. Your father was probably under her control long ago. The disbanded harem, her sole favor, sharing royal power—the fairy-tale romance praised across the kingdom? All a one-sided play by the Demonic Sects…”

It made the power transition seem natural: the king bedridden, the young Holy Son frail, allowing the queen to rule from behind the curtain.

Turning his gaze to Du Qing’e and the stiff, shambling puppet behind her, Ruan Xuezong said mockingly, “Am I right, Queen Du? The fracture at the king’s neck shows he regained awareness once. He must have understood everything and, unwilling to remain your thrall, slit his own throat to sever head from body. Yet the Demonic Sects even have means to mend such ruin, stitching his remains back together—not wasting even a dead man’s final value…”

Among the Demonic Cult’s three great powers, the Life-Death Sect excelled at trafficking with corpses. Their arts defied life and death in eerie, sinister ways, “reviving” the dead at the cost of endless human blood as sustenance.

“Holy shit! The Demonic Sects are terrifying!” Five-Colored Mottled Black blurted, mouth agape. Wu Yao went ashen, thunderstruck, standing frozen in place.

What exactly had transpired back then, Ruan Xuezong couldn’t say—the key players had become puppets bereft of self-will.

Still, he surmised that Du Qing’e, wielding her beauty like a weapon to toy with the entire jianghu, must have been stunning. Perhaps the Chasang King had truly fallen for her at first sight, bringing her into his harem, only for the wolf in beauty’s clothing to bring disaster upon him. Countless Central Plains heroes had become her loyal hounds for that allure.

Yet as a king, the Chasang King had clung to some rationality amid his obsession. He had resisted—and paid for it by becoming this shambling corpse.

“Young man,” Du Qing’e said in honeyed tones, “I’ll say it again: you know too much. I don’t like chatty people.”

Everyone could see she was gearing up to strike; she was leisurely peeling off her long, painted nails.

Ruan Xuezong scoffed. “You’re old enough to have a son my senior—drop the ‘little sister’ act.”

No woman of peerless beauty tolerated mention of her age, no matter her youth-preserving arts.

“!!!” Five-Colored Mottled Black watched as Ruan Xuezong’s taunt landed. Du Qing’e, this Demonic Sect BOSS, changed complexion in an instant, radiating killing intent. Her pace at removing her nails doubled as her red lips parted. “Loose the arrows!”

Ruan Xuezong stood watertight amid the Demonic Sect assassins, utterly calm. After so many lice, what was one more itch? This Western Regions trip had already riled no small number of half-step grandmasters— one more wouldn’t faze him.

“Zongzong!!”

As Five-Colored Mottled Black fretted over Ruan Xuezong’s recklessness, his system panel pinged with a new quest.

【Secret plot quest triggered: “Steal Chasang King’s Corpse”】

【Quest Description: The noble sovereign of Chasang Kingdom reduced to a tool in the Demonic Sects’ hands, a puppet jerked by strings—pitiable indeed. To shatter the Demonic Sects’ scheme and end this fated tragedy, Ruan Xuezong plays the bait riddled with openings, drawing the bulk of their attention. Young hero, seize the moment and steal away the Chasang King’s corpse. Note: Failure means no second chance.】

【Rewards: One special title, one CG cinematic, 5000 experience, assorted silver shards, member favorability—Chasang King +50, Holy Son Wu Yao +30, Ruan Xuezong +10…】

“!!!” Five-Colored Mottled Black reeled in shock. His gaze locked on Ruan Xuezong, facing down the Demonic Sects with a faint, knowing smile. His heart clenched—he grasped the calculated intent behind the provocation.

Don’t worry, Zongzong—I’ll get this done! Leave your back to me (us)!

Seeing Five-Colored Mottled Black catch on, Ruan Xuezong struck.

Dazzling golden palm shadows erupted in a flurry, hovering over the hall. When the glow gathered, it blazed like the sun bursting forth; when it dispersed, it gleamed like a flawless crescent moon in the sky—stunning and peerless, scattering the nearby Demonic Sect assassins.

Yet Ruan Xuezong’s palm spared Du Qing’e.

She smiled, her delicate hands channeling profound inner force to dissipate the palm intent. She was about to remark that the youth was nothing special when another wave of palm wind assailed her—fierce and tyrannical this time, like a gale-storm ravaging mountains and rivers, its power far surpassing the first. Though his inner force fell short of half-step grandmaster level, in form and spirit it touched grandmaster realm.

The display jolted Du Qing’e; her mind churned like a stormy sea. She realized she’d gravely underestimated him. How could this young man wield such formidable martial arts—and at his age?

Shaken, she dropped all underestimate, her focus wholly on Ruan Xuezong, heedless of her surroundings.

But Ruan Xuezong had no interest in fighting her. He leaped skyward, robes fluttering. With the Peach Grove Phantom’s nine fakes and one true amid the Wind Spreads’s wind-borrowing feints, he scooped up a figure and vaulted out.

“Not good! He’s taking the Holy Son! All Demonic Sect hands—loose arrows!” Du Qing’e saw through his plan, her face twisting.

The Chasang Holy Son guarded a secret generation after generation, something the Demonic Sects craved yet could never seize. She couldn’t let outsiders claim it!

Wu Yao, dazed, was dragged along as they soared from the Chasang Royal Palace like an eagle in flight. Sightless, he had no sense of the height. The whistling wind told him it must be far.

After the shattering betrayals and numb disillusionment, he felt unmoored—like an insect thawed from amber, unfit for the modern world, or a lone skiff adrift on vast seas, adrift and lost, grasping for driftwood.

An arrow sliced the air lethally, forcing him from Ruan Xuezong’s grasp.

It all happened too fast. As he braced for a skull-crushing plunge, fragmented memories flashed. Before full terror could grip him, a hand hauled him back—like a drowning man saved anew by flotsam.

Pursuers dogged them relentlessly.

As the gap narrowed and the young experts’ stamina waned, the assassins’ eyes gleamed with imminent victory, blades raised—only for Ruan Xuezong to unveil his final gambit.

Amid swirling yellow sands, a snow-white steed charged toward Ruan Xuezong, hooves kicking up dust. Though just one horse, it thundered like an army on the march. The Demonic Sect foes recoiled; they recognized a Western Regions treasure horse, capable of a thousand li a day.

Ruan Xuezong’s lips curved in a grin. He vaulted aboard with his charge and bellowed, “Chase if you dare—catch us, and you win!”

The sun dipped westward, bloodying the sky.

Ruan Xuezong’s dark eyes took on a crimson tint, his mouth arched in wild arrogance as he spurred the horse into the endless dunes. His receding silhouette evoked a grand epic, stirring boundless heroism in the heart.