Watching the woman struggle upon the stone slab as she spat foul vitriol, Xu Yuan suddenly felt that the world was, at times, remarkably small.
The world held hundreds of millions of souls, yet he somehow kept running into these familiar faces.
Still, as soon as the thought crossed his mind, Xu Yuan dismissed it.
Crossing paths with these former heroines from Cangyuan was likely just survivorship bias. After all, his current social circle was only so wide, and the people within it were limited.
Had they been grass-roots heroines, without the protagonist Qin Mo intervening in their fates, their peerless natural talents would most likely have been squandered away in some obscure provincial marketplace for the rest of their days.
Xu Yuan let out a soft, long breath and murmured,
"Jing Xuelan?"
"You know her?"
Accompanied by wisps of fragrance, Lou Ji stepped up beside Xu Yuan.
"Mmm... Changtian, you seem to know an awful lot about these women."
Xu Yuan shook his head without confirming or denying it, explaining softly, "Not just women. Because of that Qin Mo back in Jingjiang Prefecture, once I arrived in the Imperial Capital, I read quite a bit of intelligence regarding Burial Village in Father's study."
Lou Ji blinked at that. Smiling, she tucked a few stray locks of hair behind her ear and turned her lovely eyes toward him in slight surprise. "You're interested in Burial Village?"
Xu Yuan gave a quiet chuckle. "After all, that village was packed with so many old monsters. Having slaughtered their young, one ought to know a thing or two about them."
"Old monsters?"
A flicker of disdain passed through Lou Ji's eyes. "You certainly hold them in high regard, Changtian. A mere pack of stray curs, nothing more. Now that their den has been smashed, can they still come back to bite anyone?"
As she spoke, Lou Ji seemed to find Jing Xuelan's foul cursing rather noisy, and she casually raised a hand toward her.
*Clatter—*
Her gesture seemed to trigger a mechanical formation. An iron chain abruptly shot out from beneath the stone slab, directly gagging Jing Xuelan's open mouth tight.
The curses that had echoed through the room instantly turned into the clatter of iron links and muffled, indistinct whimpers.
Only then did Lou Ji look back at Xu Yuan with satisfaction, asking in a low voice, "Still, if I remember correctly, there didn't seem to be any mention of Jing Xuelan having ties to Burial Village in the Prime Minister's Manor's intelligence reports, did there?"
Xu Yuan did not mind in the slightest. Walking toward the stone slab, he murmured, "The chief of Burial Village bore the surname Jing, and he happened to have a daughter who was placed in the care of a friend to be raised outside."
Lou Ji leisurely kept pace with him. "Based on just that?"
"Of course not."
Xu Yuan shook his head, then curved his eyes at her with a grin. "Though if you want to know the rest, beg me~"
Lou Ji blinked her bright, crystalline eyes twice and let out a soft huff of feigned grievance. "Hmph. Keep it to yourself, then."
Xu Yuan chuckled under his breath and offered an easy explanation: "Naturally, a mere surname wouldn't be enough. But didn't the reports also state that the Burial Village Chief, Jing Tingxi, had a romantic companion named Jiang Lingchen? She just happens to serve as an elder in Lingshui Palace up in the Northern Border. Furthermore..."
By then, Xu Yuan had reached the side of the stone slab. He gently reached out to sweep aside her disheveled long hair, revealing the face beneath.
"Combine that with features and cultivation techniques resembling Jing Tingxi's, and deducing this shouldn't be difficult."
Wiping out Burial Village had been the only time in recent years that his father had personally departed the capital to strike.
Every move had been meticulously planned before execution. The web of relationships spanning across Great Yan tied to the great demons and scoundrels concealed in Burial Village had basically been investigated down to the last thread.
"Mmph! Mmmph—!"
Suddenly, as Xu Yuan's fingertips brushed past Jing Xuelan's tresses, the woman seemed to go mad, lunging upward to sink her teeth into him. Unfortunately, the iron chains appeared to be specially forged; try as she might, Jing Xuelan could not break free.
Though her frenzied struggles failed to shift the chains by a hair, they caused ribbons of fresh blood to seep from her bound wrists and ankles. Even from her gagged lips, blood began to trickle.
She was gnawing on the iron chain—biting down recklessly without regard for the agony, her bloodshot eyes brimming with sheer lunacy.
Frowning slightly, Xu Yuan took half a step back.
He recalled that in *Cangyuan*, Jing Xuelan was an impeccably refined lady of noble breeding, gentle and demure.
How had such a delicate, sheltered daughter turned into what resembled a rabid dog?
Subconsciously glancing toward Lou Ji beside him, Xu Yuan furrowed his brow and asked softly, "Is this... the doing of that scarlet mucus?"
"Mm."
Lou Ji had also strolled up to the stone slab. Looking down at the woman's bound body, she called out in a clear voice, "Your Ladyship, we have arrived. Please come forth."
"......"
The moment the words fell, a gentle breeze swept through, and Luo Xiran's slender figure condensed beside Xu Yuan in an instant.
Presumably due to the need for testing remedies, injecting medicinal fluids, and conducting similar experiments, Jing Xuelan's seductive, curving figure was clad only in a tattered cloth garment over a breast band and undershorts.
The dim light cast by the inscribed lantern plunged part of Jing Xuelan's body into shadow, yet the shadows only emphasized her exquisite face and taut, shapely upper torso.
Her slender waist and pale, jade-smooth legs twisted and thrashed incessantly under the gaze of the three onlookers.
"......"
A stretch of silence hung in the air.
Amid the quiet of the two women beside him, Xu Yuan secretly began circulating the Blood Yuan Heart Calamity Art to suppress his rising lust.
Now that the game had become reality, every single heroine in *Cangyuan* was a peerless beauty.
Jing Xuelan in battle-damaged attire, squirming and writhing without pause, was an image that tested his resolve severely.
Noticing his subtle shift, Lou Ji cast him a knowing, amused glance.
Xu Yuan caught it, but his expression remained impassive. While keeping his cultivation technique churning, he continued watching.
After several breaths of silence, Xu Yuan asked in dead earnest, "This Jing Xuelan's cultivation should be at the Grandmaster level, correct?"
"Yes," Luo Xiran replied softly. As she spoke, she raised a hand and pressed it onto Jing Xuelan's exposed abdomen.
The black death creep, transformed into sheer silk ribbons, seeped directly into Jing Xuelan's body through her wounds.
With this foreign substance invading her flesh, Jing Xuelan, lying flat upon the stone slab, seemed to receive a sharp shock. A flushed rosiness washed over her fair skin, her jade toes curled tight, and her slender, willow-like waist arched into a taut bow.
Subconsciously speeding up the circulation of his art, Xu Yuan continued in a low voice, "Even a Grandmaster cannot escape this concoction?"
"Isn't the living proof right before your eyes?"
Lou Ji raked her eyes over him from head to toe and offered a teasing smirk. "And don't you go entertaining any wicked notions, Changtian. If you were to couple intimately with her, with your cultivation, you would undoubtedly contract this plague..."
"Crude and shameless."
Before Lou Ji could finish, Luo Xiran's icy gaze shot across, her voice ringing clear and crisp: "With matters so grave, does Chief Lou still have the mind to spout such disgraceful remarks?"
"Oh?"
Lou Ji raised an eyebrow, the corners of her lips curling.
Catching that expression on the elder woman's face, Xu Yuan sighed inwardly.
Here they went again...
He should have anticipated this long ago.
Luo Xiran and Lou Ji possessed personalities that were absolute polar opposites.
One was an old-fashioned antique clinging to ten-thousand-year-old rules, while the other was an unorthodox pleasure-seeker living for amusement.
It would be a miracle if they didn't clash.
Just as Xu Yuan was thinking this, Lou Ji suddenly reined in her playful smirk.
"Your Ladyship... it seems you have discovered something?"
Though she enjoyed her fun, she understood priorities very well.
Rather than bickering, the priority right now was undeniably Jing Xuelan, who had succumbed to that bizarre drug.
Luo Xiran did not press the rebuke of Lou Ji's looseness, stating softly, "This scarlet mucus differs somewhat from what I originally presumed. It does not act directly upon a cultivator's intent-soul. That earlier rift between the intent-soul and the physical flesh is merely a secondary symptom."
With that, Luo Xiran calmly extended a finger and gently lifted the ragged fabric hanging from Jing Xuelan's shoulder, exposing the smooth, pale skin underneath.
What entered Xu Yuan's sight was a scorched, reddish macula.
Round, small, and measuring barely half an inch across.
Xu Yuan's narrow eyes narrowed slightly. "Was Jing Xuelan forcibly implanted with this drug?"
"If it were merely planted intentionally by someone, it would hardly cause me such worry."
Lou Ji shook her head, yet her eyes were laden with solemnity. "She merely got splattered by the blood of an infected person while slaying him, and she descended into this madness."
"......"
Silence fell. Xu Yuan subconsciously licked his lips.
The Ten-Thousand-Corpse Pit dungeon in *Cangyuan* had contained descriptions of this sort, but back then, the bizarre concoction had infected mostly low-tier cultivators.
After all, the Ten-Thousand-Corpse Pit had not been an exceptionally high-level instance, only a bizarre dungeon around level forty.
Yet now, it could directly corrupt a mighty Grandmaster.
This matter was spiraling out of hand.
Lou Ji did not stop speaking. Looking at the splayed body before them, she murmured, "From the moment she came into contact with the blood to her total corruption, only five days passed.
"Furthermore, Changtian...
"This woman could actually have used her cultivation to resist the plague's spread, but she chose not to."
"......" Xu Yuan froze.
The light was dim; the storage room, hollow and still.
Lou Ji narrowed her eyes and slowly voiced four words:
"She revels in it."
"......"
Xu Yuan was struck speechless.
After a long pause, he asked softly, "How do you know this?"
Lou Ji pointed at Jing Xuelan, who had finally ceased thrashing on the stone slab.
"She said it herself."
"Is she credible?"
"Judging by the messages sent back by Zong Qingsheng and Yuan Hao, as well as the symptoms shown by the other afflicted individuals, what Jing Xuelan said should be reliable."
"......"
After a beat of silence, Xu Yuan's expression grew somewhat odd. "Then why would she tell you this?"
Lou Ji paused thoughtfully, sounding a little uncertain: "Mmm... probably because she found it amusing."
"......" Xu Yuan had no words.
"Amusing, is it..."
Hearing that deduction, Luo Xiran's eyes remained unruffled.
Pondering briefly, she manipulated the fungal creep to analyze the discrepancies between Jing Xuelan's constitution and that of an ordinary person, murmuring under her breath, "If what Chief Lou says is true, then do these afflicted individuals all retain their intellect, only with emotional desires overwhelming their inner reason?"
Lou Ji inclined her head slightly. "You could put it that way."
Luo Xiran lifted her hand from Jing Xuelan's lower abdomen and glanced at Lou Ji.
"I have a general grasp of it now.
"From my inspection just now, this strange medicine is not overly complex in principle. It merely induces a pathological transformation in the subject's physical body, which alters their consciousness and subsequently deranges their intent-soul."
"......"
Xu Yuan stroked his chin. A moment of thought allowed him to understand what his adoptive sister meant.
Altering physiological mechanisms to induce a shift in cognitive perception.
A demon of lust beforehand, a saintly Buddha thereafter.
The state of one's body could entirely dictate one's cognitive judgment.
He subconsciously glanced at Lou Ji beside him, only to see a strange flicker in her eyes.
Lou Ji had not expected that a conclusion she had reached only after exhausting numerous methods along the way could be deduced by this ten-thousand-year-old woman so casually in the middle of a light conversation...
Narrowing her eyes under her Dao domain, Lou Ji could clearly perceive the fine, brownish-red ribbons belonging to Luo Xiran coursing rhythmically through Jing Xuelan's body.
Sensing this, Lou Ji understood at once.
This was something she could not replicate.
Because this bizarre drug originating from Wanyao Valley was exceedingly contagious.
Though she could forcibly inject vast amounts of Source Qi into the woman's body for inspection, that Source Qi would end up tainted afterward.
If she were to draw it back into her body, she would inevitably be affected as well.
Closely sensing Luo Xiran's methods, Lou Ji suddenly gave a light laugh and asked, "Your Ladyship's methods are truly peerless. Would you be willing to strike a deal with me?"
"Does Chief Lou wish to learn my art of controlling this medium?"
Luo Xiran saw straight through the seductive woman's intent. Without outright refusal, she said plainly, "Learning this method is simple enough. First, Chief Lou may willingly become an aberrant ghost. Second, like myself, you may become a spiritual essence spirit."
*An aberrant ghost...*
Lou Ji's eyes sharpened like crescent blades as she sensed the crimson ribbons, her tone turning solemn. "This substance is... the black death creep?"
Luo Xiran made no effort to deny it, confirming the suspicion: "It is."
"......"
Lou Ji's bright eyes flickered for a few moments, and then she let out a faint sigh.
The black death creep, a substance born alongside aberrant ghosts, naturally could not be harmed by the toxins of this drug.
What a pity...
She was well aware of how immense a boon this creep would be to the study of pharmacology.
Not only could it precisely manipulate pharmacological variables, but it could also ignore virtually all medicinal effects. As an instrument, no mundane apparatus could ever compare to it.
Reflecting on this, an involuntary flicker of disappointment crossed Lou Ji's alluring eyes.
At that moment, Xu Yuan suddenly chimed in, "Sister, ordinary people can refine and cultivate this creep as well. It simply requires a continuous supply of Source Qi as nourishment for it to devour."
Upon hearing this, Lou Ji glanced toward Luo Xiran.
Luo Xiran concealed nothing either: "While what this brat says is true, that rudimentary method of refinement would hardly satisfy Chief Lou's demands."
Saying so, she looked at the scantily clad, voluptuous woman and added seriously, "You and I both know just how rigorous the precision required for pharmacological research must be."
Xu Yuan pondered the process he had undergone when refining the black death creep back then, as well as the effortless mastery he had felt over it once it entered his body after his aberrant ghost transformation. He murmured, "The refinement technique should be improvable..."
"Changtian."
Lou Ji suddenly reached out a slender jade finger—adorned with a ring fashioned like a parrot and phoenix—and poked the man's cheek, smiling radiantly. "I appreciate the thought, but let us leave this matter here for now~ You go up and handle those two little maidens upstairs first. Leave the rest of what needs doing here to me and this adoptive sister of yours~"
"......"
Xu Yuan looked at Lou Ji, then at Luo Xiran, and finally at the barely covered Jing Xuelan.
After a brief silence, knowing that lingering would be of no help, Xu Yuan turned and walked toward the door.
Yet in his heart, he made a mental note of the creep.
Having experienced a complete aberrant ghost transformation, perhaps one day he might just be able to give this elder sister a pleasant surprise.
Chapter 360