That's Not Going Too Far, Right?

“You want to wear a mask for the livestream?” Upon hearing Zhao Xing'er's idea, Yue Wen's first reaction was that it was a bit of a shame; after all, her looks would surely attract a lot of fans. However, since she had said she ran away from home and was worried her family would find her, Yue Wen couldn't press the matter. He merely said, “In that case, talk it over with the media company's people. If they're fine with signing the contract under those terms, you can go ahead with the project.” “Mm.” Zhao Xing'er nodded. “That's all I can do.” Yue Wen asked tentatively, “If you don't mind me asking, what exactly happened between you and your family? Why did things get so strained? If it's not a big deal, wouldn't it be better to talk things out? They're your family, after all.” “Boss, you don't have a family. You wouldn't understand.” Zhao Xing'er shook her head with a solemn tone. “I was a fool to care.” Yue Wen rolled his eyes, thinking, *Did she really have to hit me right where it hurts?* “My relationship with my father is completely beyond repair,” Zhao Xing'er said. “How should I put it... It's practically on par with the blood feud of having murdered his father.” “What?” Yue Wen asked. “Did you piss him off so badly he wanted to kill himself?” “Huh?” Zhao Xing'er blinked. “How did you know?” Yue Wen shook his head. “If I were your father, I'd probably get that urge several times a day too.” “You have no idea how unreasonable he was.” Bringing this up rekindled her righteous indignation. “Back then, my girlfriends and I were on a graduation trip, happily rowing a boat on a lake, when suddenly a snake demon burst out of the water and gave them a fright. I caught the snake demon with my bare hands and ripped out its sinews. That wasn't going too far, right?” “Um...” Yue Wen judged cautiously, “while the scene sounds a bit gory, there's nothing wrong with killing an evil entity...” “Later, I found out the snake demon had been released by a few cultivators on a neighboring boat. They were from some local minor clans and had deliberately let the demon beast loose to scare us so they could come over and hit on us. Since I killed their snake demon, they actually had the nerve to demand compensation and wouldn't let us leave otherwise.” Zhao Xing'er continued, “So I broke eight legs between the three of them. That wasn't going too far, right?” Yue Wen counted on his fingers, a trace of dread showing on his face. “Your methods might have been a bit ruthless, but punishing the wicked is still doing good.” “Their families came looking for my family, and my father actually told me to go apologize! When I refused, he even chewed me out!” Zhao Xing'er's eyebrows shot up. “In a fit of rage, I smashed the bed to pieces. That wasn't going too far, right?” “Haha,” Yue Wen chuckled. “Given what you did before, merely smashing a bed is nothing. Even if you trashed the entire bedroom, that wouldn't be going too far.” “Well, it wasn't the bed in my bedroom,” Zhao Xing'er said. “It was the hospital beds those guys were staying in.” “?” Yue Wen fell silent for a moment before asking slowly, “Don't tell me you smashed the beds with them still in them?” “Just bad timing.” Zhao Xing'er shrugged. “How novel. People with all their legs broken actually lying in hospital beds—what an astonishing coincidence,” Yue Wen said, holding his forehead. “Even when mafia gangs fight, they don't hunt people down to hack them in the hospital so easily, do they?” “Over such a tiny thing, my father actually wanted to put me in solitary confinement!” Zhao Xing'er said furiously. “That really is going too far,” Yue Wen said. “It's not like the Supernatural Management Bureau doesn't have a prison.” Zhao Xing'er said, “I had no choice. To escape, I could only create a little chaos. “Basically, I detonated a demon-slaying talisman bomb stored in our armory, which only collapsed half a mountain... Then, amidst the chaos, I quietly swiped a few weapons; blew open the barrier of the demon beast enclosure so their main focus would be on catching beasts; set fires across the residential quarters, hid a few younger kids in a cellar and told them not to come out until nightfall, leaving behind a ransom note to divert attention... Also got my Third Uncle drunk on spiritual wine, took his phone to summon all his mistresses and my Third Aunt together for a ‘meeting’... swapped the virgin boy urine my uncle uses for elixir refining with Fourth Grandpa's ginseng wine... went back and kicked my Third Uncle square in the face... chewed up and ate a few of Second Aunt's cultivated spiritual plants... went back and slapped my Third Uncle across the face a few times...” “Hold on a second.” Yue Wen held up a hand. “Everything else was to create chaos, but did you just harbor pure, unadulterated hatred for your Third Uncle?” Zhao Xing'er reminisced about her exploits before leaving, talking for nearly half an hour before wrapping up. “That was pretty much all. Once I was done, the entire household was in utter turmoil. It probably took them a few days before anyone even noticed I had run away.” At the end, she looked up at Yue Wen. “That wasn't going too far, right?” “Not going too far in the slightest,” Yue Wen nodded. “You're completely right. You can never go home for the rest of your life. Even if your family goes on TV crying and begging you to return, they're definitely just trying to lure you back so they can slice you into a thousand pieces.” Good grief. Just the other day, Yue Wen was wondering what the demon race was like, but now it felt like he had a concrete picture. Even the advent of a demon king wouldn't be much worse than this. Still, as Zhao Xing'er spoke, a thought occurred to him. He remembered seeing a post on the Cult Chat forum where the Zhao family's clan head publicly apologized to his runaway daughter, begging her to come home soon. Looking at it now, Zhao Xing'er was overwhelmingly suspicious. So he asked, “Don't tell me you're the eldest daughter who ran away from the Tianfu Zhao family?” “Aiya!” Zhao Xing'er suddenly covered her face, stomping her feet as she backed away. “Why're ya talkin' like that! Bullcrap! I ain't no Zhao family eldest daughter!” You big idiot Star! Your accent completely changed, hey! … Zhao Xing'er fled downstairs like the wind. It truly came as a surprise to Yue Wen that she was actually that aristocratic eldest daughter. For his run-down little agency to recruit someone trending on Cult Chat felt rather magical. Although the Zhao family was only considered a second-tier power in the broader cultivation world, compared to the immortal sects and clans of Jiangcheng City, they were a colossal powerhouse. However, after hearing about her antics, Yue Wen figured her future relationship with the Zhao family wouldn't necessarily be any closer than his own with them—while he was a negligible stranger to the Zhao family, she was a sworn, irreconcilable nemesis. From that perspective, she was right not to show her face. Smiling to himself, Yue Wen turned around, closed his room door, and went back to contemplating his newly acquired visualization diagram: The Shadow-Gliding Talisman Art. Sitting cross-legged, he flipped his hand and summoned the three palm-length shadow talismans. Heavy to the touch with chilling edges, their surfaces flowed with a perilous sheen. Compared to the images in the projected demonstration, holding them in reality made their sharp, piercing aura all the more tangible. The destructive power of these shadow talismans was likely even greater than he had imagined. With the shadow talismans in hand, the visualization diagram surfaced in his mind, and he instantly immersed himself within it. *Boom—* A vast hall composed of dark-purple runes hung suspended high in the heavens. Yue Wen stood inside the hall, clutching the three shadow talismans. In the sky beyond the hall, countless black-armored monsters, clad in linked armor like ancient soldiers, with wings sprouting from their backs and holding halberds and spears, were charging toward him with menacing ferocity! Though he had meditated on visualization diagrams several times before, this was the first time he had witnessed such a spectacle. Everything felt terrifyingly real. For a fleeting instant, he had the feeling that if run through by one of these black-armored monsters' spears, his divine soul would genuinely be snuffed out right here! He tried to activate his sword-control art to fight back, only to find that no flying sword emerged; it was as if all connection to it had vanished from this world. Desperate, Yue Wen flicked his wrist and sent a shadow talisman spinning out. *Whoosh—* The shadow talisman's blade was razor-sharp, instantly bisecting the foremost black-armored monster. With a muffled bang, the black armor exploded into a cloud of black sand that drifted down through the air. Yet that was only one. Dozens of black-armored monsters were closing in from all directions. Yue Wen had no choice but to hurl his remaining two shadow talismans, dispatching the two in front. As the rest swarmed forward in a life-or-death crisis, Yue Wen sensed three faint spiritual resonances answering him from afar. It was the three shadow talismans! He immediately activated one of them. In a sudden flash, he materialized in midair right where the shadow talisman was. So this was how the position swap worked. However, after being thrown, that shadow talisman had been plummeting through the high altitude and had not yet hit the ground. Yue Wen tried to ride the wind and take flight, only to realize he couldn't even manage the simplest trick of channeling true qi to stay aloft. In this world, it seemed only the shadow talismans worked. Wait... Flailing his arms and legs, he tried to grab onto anything, but alas, all three shadow talismans were plummeting from the sky, leaving him no way to save himself. *Thud!* His final sensation in this world was a dull popping sound ringing in his ears—seemingly the sound of him bursting like an overripe melon. “Ah.” Yue Wen snapped his eyes open in his room and looked around, heart still pounding with lingering terror. The sensation of plunging ten thousand meters to his death had felt far too real. He had almost thought he was a goner for good. The visualization diagram of the Shadow-Gliding Talisman Art seemed different from the others. It lacked complex Dao rhymes, functioning instead like a continuous trial to drill the user into mastering how to handle the shadow talismans. Or rather... this supernatural power was built entirely upon the profound mysteries of the shadow talismans, and wasn't inherently arcane itself. Fingering the heavy shadow talisman, Yue Wen felt its inner essence resembled the polar ice of the Northern Sea, deep and profound. The talisman-crafting technique behind it was entirely distinct from the talismans sold on the market. All the elixirs and talismans available from Da Long were like this—their refining methods and efficacy differed drastically from the modern era, packing plenty of unexpected effects. If you wanted ordinary elixirs or talismans, Da Long didn't carry them at all; otherwise, Yue Wen wouldn't have had to scour the internet looking to buy Blazing Flame Powder. At times, Yue Wen wondered if that dragon's true form was actually some mystical shop connected to another world, or perhaps an evil-entity-slaying redemption system straight out of a novel... merely taking on such a cool manifestation to meet with him. After all, the history books stated that the Four Seas Dragon Hall only housed a few dragonblood humans descended from the ancient interbreeding of the two races, representing the purest living true dragon bloodlines today. There were no living true dragons in the human realm. If it really was an illusion, maybe he could negotiate next time and ask it to change its form into a five-foot-seven curvaceous mature beauty with long hair, sheer black stockings, and a pencil skirt. That's not going too far, right?