Shameless

Fu Province, Yue City. The current head of the Zhu family was an elegant, remarkably handsome man past forty. He had phoenix eyes, prominent undereye contours, thick eyebrows, thin lips, and a neat beard around his mouth that accentuated the charm of a mature gentleman. An older man of this caliber taking a stroll through a nightclub could easily reel in a flock of young, beautiful women. Inside the brightly lit council chamber, the atmosphere was solemn. Zhu Yangqiu picked up his teacup, blew gently on the scalding tea, took a sip, and looked across the table at the person and the dog. The person was a man; the dog was a toy poodle. The man had a burly build, a crew cut, and a gaze as sharp as a blade. His expression was stern and humorless. His Spirit Realm ID was "Datang Junshen," one of the four Elders of the Five Elements Alliance's Fu Province Branch, belonging to the White Tiger Battalion. The toy poodle was Elder Gou of the Songhai Branch, belonging to Baihui. Besides the two men and one dog, there was another person in the chamber—Zhu Rong, plump and radiant as a blooming peony. The crew-cut military god—no, Datang Junshen—rubbed two ruby-translucent leaves between his fingertips, while Elder Gou lowered his head to sniff the medicine-grinding mortar in front of him. Datang Junshen said in a deep voice, "Is everything here?" His voice seemed imbued with a magical power that compelled obedience. Gritting her teeth, Zhu Rong nodded grudgingly. Datang Junshen looked at Elder Gou, who gave a slight nod. According to Qingsongzi's confession, three leaves in total had been condensed from Yuanshi Tianzun's blood. Zhu Rong had used one, leaving two behind. The count matched. Datang Junshen continued his interrogation: "What was your purpose in cursing Yuanshi Tianzun?" Hearing this beneath the bright fluorescent lights, a trace of morbid longing flashed across Zhu Rong's alluring face. "To train him, to defile him, to make him sink into an abyss of desire, turn him into my plaything, and make him obey me forever." Watching Zhu Rong grow increasingly excited with a morbid expression, Elder Gou and Datang Junshen fell silent. This woman's mentality is completely twisted... Elder Gou shook his head slightly. Before arriving, he had heard some classified gossip from Datang Junshen. Though this daughter of the Zhu family had always been willful and arrogant, her reputation had not been this infamous in the past. That was until a few years ago, when she gathered friends and companions to hunt down and kill the Demon Lord, only to never return. A month later, she returned alone to the Zhu family. From then on, her temperament drastically changed. Her behavior grew ever more depraved, and she began keeping male paramours. Later on, she simply divorced her husband, Chi Yue'an. What Zhu Rong experienced during that month was not hard to guess for anyone familiar with the Demon Lord's style. A flash of fury appeared on Datang Junshen's stern face. "Has the Five Elements Alliance been too friendly toward you Spirit Realm clans? Since when did you get the idea that a seed cultivated with great care by our Alliance could be stifled at your whim?" As an Elder of the White Tiger Battalion, his anger was predictable. Throwing caution to the wind, Zhu Rong wore a neurotic smile. She didn't care! Elder Gou stowed away the mortar and said in a heavy voice, "Don't waste words on her. Ask about the Bronze Sparrow Tower." Datang Junshen's gaze sharpened instantly, his voice once more growing majestic and ethereal: "Did the illicit gains from Chi Yue'an's operation of the Bronze Sparrow Tower go into your pockets?" Zhu Rong's expression remained calm. "Yes. But I only required him to transfer eighty million into my overseas account every year. As for how he amassed that wealth, I didn't care. What happened at the Bronze Sparrow Tower had nothing to do with me." Datang Junshen looked at Zhu Yangqiu and said, "Patriarch Zhu, Zhu Rong attempted to murder Yuanshi Tianzun and instigated Chi Yue'an to illegally amass wealth. We are taking her away." Zhu Yangqiu, who had been quietly sipping tea with his head down, raised his head and said slowly, "Regarding Zhu Rong instigating Chi Yue'an to illegally amass wealth, the Zhu family has nothing to say. But as for attempting to murder Yuanshi Tianzun, I do not accept that. 'A fair maiden is a fine match for a gentleman,' and the reverse holds just as true. Zhu Rong fancied Yuanshi Tianzun, and failing to win him over, she resorted to these crooked tricks. She was indeed in the wrong, but to claim she tried to murder Yuanshi Tianzun—on what grounds?" His tone was leisurely and his demeanor gentle, like a scholar endowed with inner calm. Elder Gou chuckled. "And if I insist on charging her with attempted murder? Go ask the Zhu family's ancestor whether they are willing to break with my Five Elements Alliance for her sake." A chill flickered within his black, button-like eyes. At that moment, the doors to the council chamber pushed open, and an enchanting, alluring woman stepped inside under everyone's gaze. Wherever she stepped, fresh flowers and green grass sprang forth, brimming with vitality. She swept her eyes over the toy poodle and smiled softly. "Elder Gou, it's not that big a deal. There's no need for that." *** At nine-thirty in the morning, in the arena. Sitting next to Fu Qingyang, Yuanshi Tianzun said in shock and fury, "A fine of one billion, placed on the official blacklist, and banned from leaving Yue City for three years? How does she get off so lightly? Is my life, Yuanshi Tianzun's life, worth less than a direct descendant of a Spirit Realm clan?" These were the penalties the Five Elements Alliance had handed down to Zhu Rong. The result of debate and maneuvering between the Elders of the Songhai Branch and the Elders of the Fu Province Branch. Although these penalties were not light—especially being placed on the official blacklist, which meant Zhu Rong's status in the Zhu family could hardly rise any further, barred her from becoming a figure who held sway on her own, and guaranteed severe punishment if she ever offended again—he still felt the punishment was too light. With his legs crossed and a hand in his trouser pocket, Fu Qingyang leaned against his chair's backrest, watching the fierce combat inside the arena as he said calmly, "Your life, of course, cannot be equated with that of a piece of trash." Beside them, Ling Jun slung an arm around Zhang Yuanqing's shoulder and clicked his tongue. "I know Zhu Rong. That figure and those looks—top-tier at a glance. Pity I later found out she was a yandere, so I didn't dare hit on her. Now I realize she's also an idiot. Couldn't she tell you're a horny little bastard? Hooking up with you would be a piece of cake. Why did she have to use such a stupid method?" Zhang Yuanqing was in the middle of a fit of temper, so he fired back immediately, "Get lost! Just get lost!" Zhu Rong didn't simply want to sleep with him; she wanted to train him, torment him, and tame him into some kind of slave—a pet without an ounce of dignity. Zhang Yuanqing had thought about it all night, and combined with Fu Qingyang's description just now, he finally understood. Zhu Rong's desire to train him into a male paramour had very little to do with her grudge over Chi Yue'an. The main blame lay with the Demon Lord! The Demon Lord was a Night Wanderer, and he was also a Night Wanderer, both young and accomplished. The Demon Lord had destroyed her dignity bit by bit, breaking her into that sort of slave. Unable to do anything to the Demon Lord, the woman redirected her twisted desire for revenge onto him. By humiliating and training him, she would feel as though she were humiliating the Demon Lord, deriving immense gratification from it. Ling Jun shrugged. "There's a difference in sentencing between attempted murder and intentional homicide. We're the authorities, so we have to abide by the law. We can't execute someone just because they wanted to harm you. If the authorities acted like that, the credibility of the law would vanish completely. Procedural justice above all, after all. "Besides, I heard that Patriarch Zhu Yangqiu of the Zhu family has a lover relationship with the Baihui Elder of the Fu Province Branch. Zhu Rong is a Spirit Realm walker under the Fu Province Branch's jurisdiction, so the matter fell under their handling. The Zhu family has operated in Fu Province for over a century; their roots run deep. Getting an outcome like this is precisely because the Five Elements Alliance values you. If it had been anyone else, it probably would have been swept under the rug." "What about the Bronze Sparrow Tower case?" Zhang Yuanqing frowned. Ling Jun chuckled. "Come on, surely you didn't think an already-settled case could tear a direct descendant of a Spirit Realm clan to pieces? Bringing down a great clan is never done through evidence of crimes, but through power struggles." You're so damn sarcastic, Zhang Yuanqing thought sourly. At this point, the chiseled, handsome Centurion chimed in, "Ling Jun's words are a bit blunt, but he's not wrong. If you aren't satisfied, strive to climb higher and crush the Zhu family within the rules." *** The Zhu family villa complex. At a long dining table draped in a white cloth, Zhu Yangqiu and Zhu Rong ate dinner in silence. Aside from the attendants waiting on either side, no one else was present. When Zhu Yangqiu was sixty percent full, he set down his chopsticks, elegantly dabbed the corners of his mouth with a napkin, and said calmly, "The Demon Lord has already perished. As for what happened to you back then, let ashes return to ashes." Zhu Rong sneered. "Ashes to ashes? The scars left in my heart will never heal." Zhu Yangqiu did not dwell on the topic, but said sternly, "Play however you like on normal days, but stay away from Yuanshi Tianzun. A figure like him is not someone you can lay hands on. If you persist blindly, don't blame me for disregarding our bond as brother and sister." Zhu Yangqiu had many younger sisters, but only Zhu Rong shared the same mother. He doted on this sister. Forbidding her from targeting Yuanshi Tianzun was not out of fear that the Zhu family would be implicated, but out of fear that the Zhu family would be unable to protect her in the future. Zhu Rong remained silent, the knuckles of the hand clutching her chopsticks turning white. After dinner, Zhu Rong left the villa in an irritable mood. Beside the luxury car parked outside, a suited chauffeur stood at attention, waiting. Seeing her emerge, he bowed hastily and opened the car door. The luxury car sped along the wide roads of the villa complex. The night was dark, illuminated brightly by streetlamps. This villa development was the property of the Zhu family, as well as their headquarters, where clan members resided. Zhu Rong's villa lay on the eastern side of the compound, consisting of a three-story main building and two two-story annexes. Besides servants, the villa housed the eight male paramours she kept. The luxury car rolled through the wrought-iron gates and came to a stop in a lush, verdant courtyard. The driver hurried out to open the door. Stepping out of the vehicle, Zhu Rong took a deep breath. With a gloomy expression, she said flatly, "Have Number Six come to my bedroom!" Stepping forward in her high heels, she crossed the courtyard and entered the main building under the glow of the streetlights. Taking the elevator to the third floor, Zhu Rong took off her coat, let down her hair, kicked off her high heels, and padded barefoot on tender, delicate feet across the bedroom into the walk-in closet. Hanging in the closet were not clothes, but whips, handcuffs, and various plugs. Zhu Rong picked out a black leather whip, sprayed chili oil onto it, and ran her jade-slender fingers along its length. A morbid smile spread across her enchanting face. She needed to lash a young man to vent the fury and stifled frustration in her heart. Back when she silenced Chi Yue'an, she had known that once the case was concluded, it would be difficult to implicate her. Sure enough, while the Five Elements Alliance's punishment was severe, it had not harmed her fundamentally. Yet Zhu Rong remained unsatisfied. She did not want to let Yuanshi Tianzun off so easily. Over the past few days, she knew with absolute clarity that both mentally and physically, she craved Yuanshi Tianzun. That young man was just as brilliantly gifted as the Demon Lord, and just as shameless. The only difference was that the Demon Lord had been far more wicked. In Yuanshi Tianzun, she saw the shadow of the Demon Lord. For that alone, she would never let him go. Zhu Rong twisted open a tube of lipstick, applied it to her lips, and curved her fiery red lips into a smile. "Sooner or later, you'll be mine, Yuanshi Tianzun..." Grasping the whip, she returned to the bedroom. Her pupils suddenly contracted as her gaze locked onto the armchair by the window. There sat a fiery red figure. This uninvited guest wore a Song-dynasty-style dress, its chest and sleeves embroidered with intricate cloud patterns in gold thread, and half of her face was concealed beneath a silver mask. She sat with her legs crossed, lounging languidly in the armchair. Beneath the mask, her eyes gazed coldly at Zhu Rong, like an empress perched high on her throne inspecting a subject without an ounce of warmth. "Who are you?!" Zhu Rong shouted sharply. Before the words had even faded, and before she could pull out any items or shout an alert, crimson threads shot out from behind the woman in red. They meandered and surged like rivers of bright scarlet, binding Zhu Rong's limbs and hoisting her into midair. "If you are smart enough, you will know that keeping quiet right now is your best choice," the woman in red said indifferently. "An Arbiter of Fate..." The instant she saw the red threads, Zhu Rong's eyes widened, her face full of terror and shock. "The Arbiters of Fate in the Zhu and Xie families can be counted on one hand. You aren't from either family. Who are you?" Zhu Rong completely abandoned any thought of resistance. Before an Arbiter of Fate, her life was no different from an ant's. The woman in red chuckled softly. "Isn't there also the Chu family? Speaking of which, our families are old acquaintances. I ought to call you 'elder sister.'" "You're the Palace Master of Halting Slaughter!" The corresponding information instantly surfaced in Zhu Rong's mind. Frowning, she said, "If you've come for the Zhu family, you should go see my brother. If you've come for me, I'm sorry, but I don't know you." The Palace Master of Halting Slaughter slowly rose, her dress draping like flowing water. Walking barefoot, she stepped leisurely toward Zhu Rong and smiled. "You don't need to know me, and I didn't come here to catch up on old times." Then what did you come to me for...? Just as Zhu Rong was about to ask, she felt the red threads around her arms and thighs tighten, digging into her tender skin. Dark red blood instantly seeped out, coursing down the crimson threads and dripping to the floor. "Ngh..." Her brows knit tightly in agony as she let out a muffled groan. "I came to settle a score with you," the Palace Master of Halting Slaughter said, her voice cold as an icy blade. "Out of all the people to mess with, dear sister, why did you have to provoke Yuanshi Tianzun? He's my male paramour, and I hate it most when people touch my belongings." Zhu Rong's heart sank. The Palace Master of Halting Slaughter seemed in no hurry to finish things. Her demeanor shifted, and she began laughing to herself. "I heard that years ago, dear sister, you were captured by the Demon Lord and served as his lowly slave for a whole month. You've been unhinged ever since. Why you targeted Yuanshi Tianzun—I can guess with my toes. "Is your hatred for the Demon Lord simply impossible to quell, or do you still harbor lingering feelings for him?" She adopted an exaggerated look of astonishment. "Dear sister, you really are a glutton for punishment. He treated you like a worn-out shoe, yet you fell in love with him instead." These words seemed to strike at the deepest wound in Zhu Rong's heart. Her face turned stark white, only for a feverish flush to rush in right after. A neurotic smile formed on her lips. "No matter how wretched I am, I'm not as pathetic as a wretched creature whose whole family was wiped out." The Palace Master of Halting Slaughter's eyes turned arctic, and the temperature in the room plummeted drastically, plunging it into midwinter. A few seconds later, she burst into laughter, shaking with mirth. One was a yandere, the other a psychopath—both utterly unhinged. The Palace Master of Halting Slaughter raised a hand. The wide crimson sleeve slid down, exposing a forearm as pale and delicate as lotus root. Her slender fingers tilted Zhu Rong's chin up as she said sweetly, "Dear sister is so pretty, but such a pity that you're so shameless. Since you don't want face, little sister will just peel it off." The red threads slithered up Zhu Rong's cheeks, wriggling swiftly like loaches and burrowing into her flesh. "Aaah—!" Zhu Rong's shriek echoed through the entire villa. *** Having received a report from clan members, Zhu Yangqiu rushed over to his sister's residence. Pushing open the bedroom door, he saw Zhu Rong collapsed on the floor covered in blood, her body twitching convulsively. Her face was a mangled mess of blood, revealing raw, tender red flesh. Lying beside her was an intact face of human skin. Her limbs had all been broken, bones protruding through flesh in a horrifying display. Zhu Yangqiu stood frozen for a few seconds before crying out, "Quick! Go get the Life Essence, hurry...!" *** Ink-black clouds churned across the sky, and a freezing wind howled through every corner of this realm. This was a battlefield, and also a graveyard. As far as the eye could see, withered bones littered the ground—human bones and warhorse skeletons alike. Rotted weapons lay half-buried in the black earth, alongside wrecked winches and catapults. In the sobbing gale, spirits of the slaughtered drifted and shrieked through the air, uttering ghostly wails that only a Night Wanderer could hear. Within this bleak, desolate expanse reminiscent of the underworld, a woman in a Ming-dynasty dress stood with her hands clasped behind her back beside a towering skeleton. She was breathtakingly beautiful, with an ethereal temperament that seemed to float like a heavenly goddess. "How tragic. A generation's God of War cannot even rest in peace after death, reduced to being stored in a Sumeru mustard seed," Lady Sandao mocked lightly. That towering skeleton was clad in armor and leaned against a saber, the sole corpse that remained standing even in death. "You are..." Two clusters of soulfire ignited within the hollow eye sockets of the skeleton. It twisted its neck slowly and with great difficulty, looking toward Lady Sandao. The soulfire flickered violently. "Third Princess? You... you haven't perished...?" Lady Sandao laughed softly. "Night Wanderers possess abundant vitality, so naturally I could survive. Relying on a secret slumber technique, I eked out an existence until now. Who would have thought that upon waking, fortune would follow calamity? This domain is detached from the world where you and I resided; one can cultivate here. I no longer need to worry about my lifespan—only, I cannot leave." The skeletal general said slowly, "Back then, the Third Princess was the peerless beauty of the world, wonderfully gifted, with suitors from countless foreign realms seeking your hand. For your humble subordinate to see the Princess again is truly mercy from the heavens... "Only... even you cannot leave?" Lady Sandao seemed to recall the past. Her exquisite countenance showed a brief lapse of composure before she quickly reined it in, returning to her aloof calm. "My yang soul was taken by a petty thief. I need to find him, but he is a person of the present world. Each time he enters this realm, his visits are exceedingly brief. Moreover, there are too many pocket worlds corresponding to the Night Wanderer realm; I cannot know when or where he will enter. Tracking him down is exceedingly difficult." "Your humble subordinate is willing to serve the Princess." Lady Sandao withdrew a sheet of human-skin parchment from her colored sleeve and said, "I cannot search him out, but I can make him walk right into my trap. This text records the secret method to offer sacrifices to me. I need you to dispatch your ghost legions to distribute the secret method to all instances corresponding to the Night Wanderer realm. Yes—in their parlance, these are 'instances.' "After spending this time exploring, I have grasped the rules of this realm. Once this secret method enters instances of the Night Wanderer realm, the instance will automatically adjust, transforming it into a quest item." She had roamed this world for months, encountering many powerful Spirit Realm walkers and interrogating them to extract many secrets. She had acquired a sufficient understanding of this realm—that is, the Spirit Realm—and of the Spirit Realm walkers. Upon obtaining the secret method to offer sacrifices to her, Spirit Realm walkers would inevitably hasten to perform the ritual, exchanging sacrifices for power. They wouldn't hesitate at all. Because to those people, such a thing was a potent consumable item. Lady Sandao smiled faintly. "Recently, I felt a sudden premonition. I sense he will soon enter the Spirit Realm." "Your humble subordinate will do everything to aid Your Highness. Has Your Highness comprehended the mysteries of this realm?" "I have fathomed a portion." "Could you inform your subordinate?" "I can." *** "Centurion, what did you say? Zhu Rong was nearly killed by the Palace Master of Halting Slaughter, and her face was peeled off?!" Hearing the news, Zhang Yuanqing was dumbstruck. That's brutal! Zhang Yuanqing had long known the Palace Master of Halting Slaughter was a psychopath, but he hadn't expected her madness to be this terrifying. Fu Qingyang said, "The Zhu family does not lack Life Essence; her injuries and appearance have likely already been restored. Now the Zhu family intends to sue you for malicious retaliation, and they are demanding that the Songhai Branch apprehend the Palace Master of Halting Slaughter."