Recruiting from the Immortal Alliance was impossible. Yan Huirou wasn’t that overconfident. She planned to start with smaller, unknown sects. She asked Bi Luo, since the young girl often went out to play and was likely more familiar with the outside world’s factions.
Unexpectedly, Bi Luo’s eyes widened. “What are you thinking? Because the Shasheng Sect is entrenched near Wugou Mountain, anyone with any sense has already been scared off and moved away. The remaining mortals are sparse, barely enough for a small market town. As for any sects, that’s even more impossible. You want to find someone with good innate talent among the mortals? That’s also unlikely. Those major sects have specialized personnel who travel everywhere to search for lost geniuses. How could there be any left for others to find?”
“…”
The Sect Master’s deterrent power seemed even stronger than she had imagined. Yan Huirou frowned in thought, wandering around, and finally sat back down in Qionghua Hall, feeling helpless.
A bright red butterfly flew towards her, carrying a familiar dark fragrance, and fluttered past her eyes. She instinctively reached out to catch it. The butterfly circled her once, passed through her fingers, and stirred up a gentle breeze. The butterfly circled back, its wings lightly closing, and landed on the woman’s hair at her temple.
Jiang Xidai’s gaze followed the butterfly, circling Yan Huirou, and she smiled. “How does it feel to be the Sect Master?”
Pfft. Someone in Yan Huirou’s mind suddenly laughed, giving her a headache. Yan Huirou quickly turned down the System’s volume and asked in her mind, “Did you find any neutral sects in the settings… how did it go?”
Yes. Plenty of them. West of the Bamboo Forest Temple’s secret realm, after crossing two mountain ranges, there’s a bunch of motley sects. Those people hate the mainstream righteous Immortal Alliance the most—they heard the Lingshan Sect was gone and have been admiring Jiang Xidai ever since. They even traveled from afar to try and befriend her.
A sliver of hope kindled in Yan Huirou’s heart. “That’s great…”
Don’t get too happy yet. But guess what? Chen Cha’an laughed. Hahahahaha, your daughter thought those things were a bunch of scoundrels, with crude methods that lowered her status, so she cut down all who dared to come to her door.
“…”
Yan Huirou, not giving up, asked, “It doesn’t have to be limited to humanoids. In this kind of fantasy world, shouldn’t there be demons, monsters, and various races?”
You mean demons and monsters? The grudge there is even bigger. You know Jiang Xidai has been slaying demons and monsters for nearly six hundred years. Chen Cha’an coughed lightly. I just checked the setting collection. The demon lords and great demons of all factions now call her the ‘God of Slaughter’. It’s to the point where even a baby demon in its cradle would cry in fear at the mention of her name.
“…”
“Tired?” Jiang Xidai’s voice sounded by her ear, her fingertips lifting Yan Huirou’s chin. “How come you’re not answering?”
Yan Huirou’s gaze focused, and she slowly came back to her senses. The ‘God of Slaughter’ from others’ stories, when looked at closely, seemed to be just a beautiful and elegant little cat. Coddled, lazy, and a bit clingy. And this sense of separation affected her judgment, seemingly making Yan Huirou overestimate the current situation before.
The only plan now was to try her luck in the west. Hopefully, the people there had forgotten… what Jiang Xidai had said. But the possibility of amnesia was very small.
Yan Huirou sighed. “I have a bit of a headache. If the Sect Master is free recently, would you like to take a long trip with me?”
“To get some usable people for the Shasheng Sect.”
“What?” Jiang Xidai frowned. “This Seat doesn’t want to meet with strangers.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll do the meeting.” Yan Huirou plucked the butterfly that was like a hairpin from her temple. “Sect Master just has to accompany me.” After some sweet talk and gentle coaxing, she finally managed to persuade this ancestor to step out of her territory.
The next day. Yan Huirou had packed her belongings. Jiang Xidai, however, seemed to be preparing a bit more slowly. Yan Huirou sat obediently on a chair, watching as the Sect Master—packed about a dozen types of poison, most in her storage ring, a few hidden in various parts of her body. Apart from her two usual weapons, she wore a beautiful silver ornament on her hand, its chains covering her entire fair hand.
“This is…?”
“Is it pretty?” Jiang Xidai showed it off to her, turning it a few times. Just as Yan Huirou was about to nod, she smiled and inadvertently pressed the back of her hand. A sharp, poisoned blade shot out from the ornament, neatly cutting off a strand of Yan Huirou’s hair and embedding itself in the wooden dressing table behind her.
Yan Huirou was startled and straightened her back.
“An interesting little trinket. I loved to play with it as a child, but now it’s just a decoration.” Jiang Xidai commented with a lack of interest, then thought for a moment and stuffed a few bags of unknown powder into her storage ring.
“What’s that?” Yan Huirou shivered.
“Poison.” The woman took out a bag. “Aren’t you going to some sect? This is a large enough quantity. We can put it in their river, and this Seat will be saved the trouble of acting.”
“Wait—” Yan Huirou quickly grabbed her hand as she continued to stuff poison bags. “But we’re not going to slaughter their sect.”
“Of course.” Jiang Xidai glanced at her in confusion. “Otherwise, why bring these things? I could just cut them down directly.”
“Doesn’t Yan Yan want people? We can just drug them and tie them up.”
“Knocking them out one by one is a bit tiring. Knocking them all out at once, I’m afraid I might not control it well and kill them.” Jiang Xidai said meticulously and familiarly, “Drugging them is indeed the most convenient method.” With that, she took out a long, rope-like magic artifact, admired the vicious barbs on it, and stuffed it into her storage ring as well.
“You reminded me, there might not be a river. I’ll bring some of this just in case…” She took out a jade bottle emitting a dreamy, intoxicating smoke, the smell so strange it made Yan Huirou’s mind go blank for a moment.
Yan Huirou covered her nose and quickly interrupted her. “Sect Master, we’re not going to kidnap people either. This—what has this become?”
“Hmm?” Jiang Xidai: “Then how do we bring people back?”
…The point wasn’t to “bring back” by force. Of course, this wasn’t an unfeasible method, but forcible seizure was a last resort. It would add another blood debt to her already poor reputation, and whether the disciples brought back could be used effectively was also an unknown problem. If possible, Yan Huirou still wanted to talk peacefully first. Those bizarre little sects in the west were the ones the righteous Immortal Alliance called the “demonic path” before the Shasheng Sect was founded.
All factions were becoming more united, and if this continued, it would certainly be disadvantageous for them. Yan Huirou silently went to the storeroom and filled her storage ring with gold and silver, just in case.
For some reason, before leaving, Yan Huirou chose a dignified, dark black outfit, removing all her girlish accessories. The sunlight fell on the snake-shaped gold ring at her waist, glittering brightly. The black and gold complemented each other, giving her a rare sharpness.
Jiang Xidai held an umbrella and walked behind her, quite surprised, looking her up and down for a long time. Staring at the same person for a long time gave a strange feeling of discovering something new. She occasionally noticed that Yan Huirou seemed to have grown a lot taller, though still not taller than herself.
Mmm, the white lotus has completely turned into a black lotus. In the System’s words, she had also “bent.” From the current trend, there was not a single possibility with that Li Xinghe kid.
She had raised her. The results were good. Jiang Xidai thought with satisfaction, her head tilted as she looked at Yan Huirou.
Yan Huirou seemed to sense her gaze and smiled shyly, explaining first, “The Sect Master is always so imposing. I don’t want to seem too lacking in presence. When we visit other sects, they’ll think I’m just a junior accompanying you.”
Is that so? But black only made her look even fairer and more delicate, not at all mature.
“You were born without many sharp edges,” Jiang Xidai smiled. “You still look like a good person. Who could you possibly scare?”
Yan Huirou let out a light hmph, then smiled again. “Only you always say I’m a good person. Then I think the Sect Master looks like a good person too.”
Spring was deepening, and the vegetation was lush everywhere. Yan Huirou and Jiang Xidai planned to ascend to the summit of Sunlit Peak and then travel by cloud using magic, so they were in no hurry. Yan Huirou walked a little ahead, with Jiang Xidai loosely following behind. Yan Huirou was thinking about what to do next, but she didn’t notice that after hearing her words, Jiang Xidai’s grip on her hand tightened slightly.
What did that sentence mean…?
Actually, Jiang Xidai knew the System had been gone for many days. She should have been happy, but she always felt there was something fishy about it. That thing that endlessly pushed the plot forward had suddenly abandoned her without a word. It couldn’t have just disappeared like that… Where would it go?
And recently, Yan Huirou had suddenly become very proactive about the Shasheng Sect’s affairs. She had a guess. A deep-seated intuition gave Jiang Xidai a bad feeling. So she had agreed to Yan Huirou’s request to build up the Shasheng Sect, and while Yan Huirou was talking to Wen Xianyin, she had been watching her uneasily, keeping a close eye on her.
After returning from the secret realm, Yan Huirou was still the same Yan Yan, but she seemed to have thought things through much more… Jiang Xidai could keenly sense that Yan Huirou had unspoken depths, and occasionally, an inexplicable sadness. Also, since returning from the secret realm, her own System had disappeared.
Did Yan Huirou know about the past? But even when she casually mentioned avenging her, Yan Huirou’s expression was a little off. Jiang Xidai lowered her eyelashes, her peripheral vision still following Yan Huirou’s figure. She didn’t plan to startle her.
—Because, the System was most likely bound to Yan Huirou now. According to that cold thing’s logic, parasitizing the female lead was the proper way, wasn’t that better than forcibly controlling her, the vicious female villain?
Were Yan Huirou’s current actions an attempt to change the ending that Jiang Xidai herself hadn’t been able to ask about? Then Yan Yan would know she was just a supporting character, and a villain at that…
Whether it was what Jiang Xidai had experienced or what she had originally believed, the spotlight had never once shone on her. But it didn’t matter if she had to crawl in the gutter and survive in the darkness by herself. But if Yan Huirou knew, and might even know about her ninety-nine deliberate murder attempts, to Jiang Xidai, it was like tearing open an ugly scar in front of her beloved—after all, even “destiny” proclaimed their incompatibility.
Yan Huirou would always be the moonlight, shining brightly, the same with or without her. Who said intense love didn’t contain jealousy? This had always existed in her heart, a shadow she couldn’t shake since she was a girl.
She loved Yan Huirou, wanted Yan Huirou to be happy, and naturally enjoyed Yan Huirou’s love. The better Yan Huirou was to her, the more security she provided, seemingly healing her, but in reality, she still couldn’t let go of the dark emotions flowing in her heart.
I’m sorry… Recently, when she thought about Yan Huirou knowing, she no longer had such noble feelings, only able to pretend, only able to agree. The love was real, the tenderness was real, and a little bit of hatred… was also real.
Now, Yan Huirou was holding her hand, but at this moment, Jiang Xidai suddenly had a craving. She really wanted to drag her down to hell with her.
