What happened next could only be described as "when immortals fight, the little ghosts suffer."
The elder from the Kongtong Sect was undoubtedly a scoundrel through and through, but his cultivation was genuine—a formidable opponent in every sense. The moment he clashed with Jiang Xuesheng, the air in the hall surged violently. Tables, chairs, and furnishings were sent flying in all directions, while bursts of colorful light exploded like fireworks, dazzling to the eye.
Qi Feng wanted to intervene, but mindful of Lingxiao City’s overwhelming influence, he reluctantly retreated a step, raising his sword to shield the young masters and family heads behind him.
Those minor family heads were somewhat capable, stronger than Third Master Qi, but compared to the elders of Lingxiao City and the Jiuhua Sect, they were little more than ants facing a mantis.
The Kongtong elder had clearly prepared in advance. Beyond the teleportation array, he had secretly laid out numerous smaller formations. To Shu Fu’s eyes, it looked like he was stacking buffs on himself while pelting his opponent with debuffs.
Yet Jiang Xuesheng’s zither music seemed capable of dispelling every debuff.
Talk about a hard counter.
Liu Ruyi shielded Shu Fu as they retreated to the side, sighing in admiration, "As expected of the master. No wonder he insisted on coming this time. If it were me, I doubt I could escape unscathed."
Shu Fu clicked her tongue. "That old monster’s pretty strong."
Liu Ruyi frowned, his disgust undisguised. "Of course he is. The women he’s ruined number in the hundreds, if not thousands—all reduced to fuel for his cultivation. And because he has Lingxiao City backing him, no one dares resist. Some bootlickers even offer their own daughters to him as tribute."
At this, he glanced at the disheveled Qi Xinlei and smirked. "This little miss from the Qi Family still thinks marrying into Lingxiao City is some grand fortune. Those three from the Ling family—Ling Fengqing is ruthless and scheming, Ling Xiyue is cold and ungrateful, and Ling Fengming barely has two brain cells to rub together. Which of them seems like they’d cherish a delicate flower? One day, when Lingxiao City no longer needs the Qi Family, they’ll probably toss her to the Kongtong elder as a cultivation furnace."
"By then, she’ll find herself wishing for death but unable to escape suffering."
He didn’t lower his voice, and every word struck Qi Xinlei’s ears like thunder, leaving her dizzy and seeing stars.
Trembling, she shrieked, "What?! No—I don’t believe you! You’re lying! You monster! You’re just jealous I’m marrying well, so you’re making up these lies! Lingxiao City—Young Master Ling Fengqing values my father highly! They wouldn’t—!"
Liu Ruyi curled his lip. "Value him? They only see the Qi Family’s reputation and influence in Qingcheng, with the family master in seclusion and a young ‘genius’ like Qi Yuxuan who’s easy to manipulate. They want to use your father to swallow up the Qi Family and Qingcheng’s territory."
Then he turned to Qi Yuwei and sneered, "And you—I thought you were clever. You heard that Ling Xiyue was visiting tonight and assumed he came to propose to your sister, so you panicked, didn’t you? You envied your sister’s ‘good fortune.’ Now think again—was she ever worth your envy?"
Qi Yuwei’s face turned deathly pale, the last trace of color draining away. "N-no… Father… Father wanted to marry Sister into Lingxiao City so she could live in wealth and honor!"
Shu Fu couldn’t help cutting in, "Yeah, he was dreaming."
Qi Yuwei: "..."
Shu Fu: "No offense, but I think your entire family—except the Master of the Qi Family—is collectively dreaming."
Including Qi Yuxuan.
"Speaking of which, I still owe Miss Qi a word of thanks."
Liu Ruyi added with a cool, cutting remark, "If not for your desperate flailing, our journey wouldn’t have gone so smoothly."
As for the center of the conversation—Ling Xiyue, the "Young Master of Lingxiao City"—he didn’t bother hiding his amusement. "To be honest, if Miss Qi had really married into Lingxiao City, I’d probably have to go into seclusion for three to five years. Then, once the Qi Family was no longer useful, I’d find some excuse to send her away. Ah, to ruin Miss Qi’s life for nothing—I’d hate to do such a thing."
He sighed dramatically, then turned his charming, flirtatious gaze toward Shu Fu, letting it linger lightly on her face. "However, I’m not entirely incapable of cherishing beauty. For instance, this Miss Jiang—righteous, elegant, and striking—has captured my heart at first sight."
Shu Fu: "Piss off. Don’t touch me."
Ling Xiyue: "..."
This was the first time he’d been rejected by a woman, and the rejection even carried a Sichuanese flair.
But as a man with the qualifications of a male lead’s rival, he refused to collapse like the sect elders of Mount Kongtong. Facing the heroine’s rejection, he pressed on: "Miss Jiang, I know you’re upset, but I truly had no part in the Tong Family affair. And as for my elder brother, I—"
Shu Fu frowned, sensing an attempt at familiarity. Her internal alarms blared as she silently repeated, Don’t heal him. Don’t let him feel sunshine, tenderness, or love. She then shot him a sarcastic sidelong glance. "Oh, I get it. You’re so pure, so unpretentious, totally different from your flashy, trashy brother."
Ling Xiyue’s eyes brightened. "Exactly. I wouldn’t plead for my brother’s sake—in fact, I hope he—ahem. So, Miss Jiang, you’re free to despise Lingxiao City, but there’s no need to—"
Shu Fu: "But what kind of person you are, whether you’re cut from the same cloth as your brother—what’s that got to do with me?"
Ling Xiyue: "What?"
This wasn’t the reaction he’d expected.
Shu Fu: "Let me be clear, Second Young Master. Just because you didn’t meddle in the Tong Family affair this time, you think you’re some untainted white lotus? Zhao, Qian, Sun, Li, Zhou, Wu, Zheng, Wang—dare you claim you’ve never messed with any of them? That you’ve never done a single shady thing? Sure, maybe you’re stuck in the mud, ‘helpless’ and all. Well, I’m stuck in a cesspit, but I didn’t go flinging shit at innocent bystanders just to get back at the Jiang Family."
"No, I just—"
Ling Xiyue had always considered himself a victim of circumstance, burdened with grievances waiting to be aired. Now, his carefully prepared speech lodged in his throat, leaving him with nothing but a strained, humorless smile. "Miss Jiang, you’re truly fascinating. If not for this feud, I’d love to take you back to Lingxiao City—to dilute its foul air."
Just like all the things he treasured, he’d take her back, seal her carefully in a crystal cabinet, and lock her away with an exquisite key.
In some forgotten corner of Lingxiao City, she’d belong to him alone.
But Shu Fu wasn’t having it. Hands on her hips, she declared loudly, "Yeah, I’m fascinating. I can even perform a heroic dive into a cesspool."
"Take me to Lingxiao City? Oh, just you wait. This isn’t over. One day, I’ll blow your whole damn Ling Family sky-high. Your brother’s going down, and don’t think you can just step into his shoes to fulfill his grand ‘unification of the immortal realm.’ This world isn’t your brother’s—and it sure as hell isn’t yours. It belongs to the people."
Shu Fu wasn't sure how to deal with a pervert. Maybe she could just recite the Communist Party Constitution to him.
Let him be strong if he wants—no matter how twisted he was, she could always shove a pot of chili water down his throat before he could act out. She refused to believe he’d still be in any condition to cause trouble after that.
To ensure the other party fully experienced the warmth of socialist care—no, wait, the iron fist of justice—Shu Fu added one final remark:
"Second Young Master, if you don’t want all your scheming to end in nothing, I suggest you stop stirring up trouble and repent. Better yet, renounce the world and become a monk. That way, when I blow up your entire family, I might just spare you like the insignificant fart you are."
Ling Xiyue: "..."
Wait, aren’t you supposed to be the righteous one here? Why do you sound more like the villain than I do?
Liu Ruyi: "..."
I was planning to help my junior sister shoo away this homewrecker, but turns out she’s the wildest one here. I couldn’t even get a word in.
Meanwhile, the Qi sisters, left ignored on the sidelines, had faces twisted in anguish. They glanced at each other, then at their father lying bloodied and barely breathing on the ground, until their spines finally gave way, collapsing in despair like children waking from a nightmare.
In just one day, they had fallen from the clouds into the mud, stripped of the haughty arrogance they once flaunted in teahouses. Their plight was even more pitiful than Jiang Ruoshui, the girl they had once scorned.
Arrogance and schemes—what you sow, you reap.
As for Shu Fu? She felt no sympathy. If anything, she was tempted to laugh.
On the other side, the elder from the Kongtong Sect was locked in a heated battle with Jiang Xuesheng. Realizing he couldn’t gain the upper hand—and was even being slightly suppressed—he suddenly noticed Shu Fu standing idly by and instantly hatched a vile plan.
With a feint, he abruptly shifted direction, bypassing Jiang Xuesheng entirely and charging straight for Shu Fu, laughing loudly:
"What a waste of a trip. Might as well take this girl back with me—consider it compensation. Tong Yao’s daughter, Tan Hua’s disciple, and at such a tender, delicate age… I bet she’ll be quite the treat."
Shu Fu suddenly understood why the elder had dragged her into the teleportation array earlier.
It wasn’t about treasure—it was about kidnapping her.
"Sorry, I take back what I said earlier."
She didn’t get angry. Instead, she smiled, her cold gaze flicking upward. "Not just those Qi family idiots—you old turtle are also dreaming."
Without dodging, she pulled out the poisoned needles she’d confiscated from Qi Yuwei, clenched them in her palm, and hurled them with full force straight at the elder’s withered hand.
The elder caught sight of the glinting blue needle tips and recoiled in alarm—only to meet Jiang Xuesheng’s strike from behind. A surge of energy slammed into his face, sending him coughing up a mouthful of blood.
At the same time, Shu Fu thrust her sword forward, steady and unshaken. The blade pierced through the elder’s ribs like splitting bamboo, neatly puncturing one of his kidneys.
Jiang Xuesheng, clearly an expert in "beating a drowning dog," flicked his wrist, and another gleaming guqin string shot from his sleeve—
From Shu Fu’s angle, she saw it perfectly: the string pierced through the elder’s extravagant robes, skewering a certain unmentionable area before embedding itself straight into the ground.
At that moment, every man present sucked in a sharp breath, and even the women felt a phantom tightening in their nether regions.
"..."
Faced with imminent disaster, the elder of the Kongtong Sect froze for an instant.
But before he could escape reality for even a second, an indescribable pain shot up his spine, violently jolting his stalled consciousness and dragging him out of his shock and confusion.
"Ah—!!!"
The next moment, every wrinkle on his face twisted grotesquely, his eyes bulging like a dying goldfish. His throat and facial muscles stretched to their limits as a shrill, inhuman scream tore from the depths of his chest.
"#@$%^&!"
The sound was so horrifying it transcended human comprehension, leaving no choice but to represent it with garbled text.
"What a shame. Master still stole the spotlight."
Liu Ruyi stood idly by, twirling a lock of dark hair between her fingers, utterly indifferent to the elder's suffering. "At least 'that thing' is still intact. Third Brother can still chop it up and feed it to the fish."
Shu Fu: "..."
Is your entire sect made up of demons?
And what did the fish ever do to deserve being fed such filth?
"You bastards! How dare you act so brazenly?!"
As the saying goes, "A centipede dies but never falls down." Though the Kongtong elder had lost his manhood, he refused to accept defeat. His eyes bloodshot, he wiped the blood from his mouth with one hand while muttering incantations under his breath. With a blood-stained finger, he began frantically drawing symbols on the ground.
Seeing this, Shu Fu instinctively tensed, her hand gripping her sword hilt as she braced for battle.
Generally speaking, when a boss is on the verge of death, they unleash their ultimate move—either a mutual destruction attack or their trump card, like "Final Technique," "Unity of All," or "Great Shift."
The fiercest life-and-death battles often begin at this very moment.
The Kongtong elder's mouth was full of blood, his yellowed teeth stained crimson, resembling corn kernels drenched in ketchup—a sight horrifying in every sense.
With a ghastly grin stretching his bloodied lips, he sneered, "I offer my essence as sacrifice! Today, none of you will leave here alive!"
"Water, fire, wind, thunder—heed my call! Heaven as Qian, Earth as Kun, Thunder as Zhen, Wind as Xun—"
Splash.
Just as the elder was reciting the crucial incantation in his last-ditch effort, a surge of spiritual water cascaded from above, washing away the blood-drawn array in an instant.
"..."
His final hope for a comeback vanished. Trembling in disbelief, the elder looked up to see Bai Tian standing before him, one hand on his hip and the other spinning a water orb between his fingers.
"Only an idiot would wait for you to finish," Bai Tian scoffed.
The elder nearly choked on his rage. "You insolent brat! How dare you interrupt—?!"
Bai Tian puffed out his chest unapologetically. "What, should we wait for you to unleash some overpowered array and then painstakingly dismantle it? This isn't a fair duel, and you're no righteous man. Why should we play by your rules?"
Turning to Shu Fu with a bright grin, he flashed a row of neat white teeth. "Fellow cultivator, I’ve mastered water-based spells now! Truly, experience breeds progress!"
Shu Fu: "..."
Oh.
Now that I think about it, you can interrupt a boss’s death move.
Because in literary works, the protagonist often waits for the boss to "cast their spell," and sometimes the boss waits for the protagonist to do the same, she almost forgot—in real combat, interrupting the cast is the right move.
So she gave the clever Bai Tian a thumbs-up, flashing a bright grin. "Nice one, bro. Solid."
Meanwhile, Jiang Xuesheng wore a regretful expression. "Honestly, I was hoping Kongtong would unleash his so-called unbeatable formation, just so I could shatter it right in front of him. His reaction would’ve been priceless."
Liu Ruyi chuckled. "No worries, the current look on his face is pretty entertaining too."
"Passable, I suppose." Jiang Xuesheng raised a critical eyebrow. "But that last strike of mine pierced his weak point. Soon, he’ll be nothing but a frail, powerless, and impotent wreck. When that happens, the show will get even better."
"Oh? Sounds perfect." Liu Ruyi’s smile turned sweeter. "Once we’ve squeezed all the intel we need about Lingxiao City, we’ll toss him into the streets and let every family whose daughters he’s ruined know exactly where to find him. Let’s see how he ends up."
Shu Fu sighed. "I often feel out of place here because I’m not vicious enough."
But damn, it feels incredibly satisfying, and she’s more than ready to join in.
Just thinking about her future life in the sect has her a little excited.
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