Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Chapter 122: Chapter 122: Choice

The golden light of the afternoon sun filtered through the lush, weeping branches of the ancient tree, casting long, skeletal shadows across the emerald robes of the Willow Spirit.

Shen Haoran did not let go of her chin; instead, his grip tightened slightly, his thumb grazing the soft line of her jaw as he watched the flickering emotions behind her green eyes.

He could feel the fine tremors running through her spiritual essence—a resonance of pure, unadulterated fear that had been marinating for tens of thousands of years.

He stared at her, watching the way her resolve warred with her survival instinct, and finally, he let out a low, melodic chuckle that lacked its usual edge of cruelty.

”Good,” Haoran murmured, his voice softening. ”I think I like you more now. A creature that knows when to bite even while trembling is far more entertaining than a mindless slave.”

The Willow Spirit looked deeply troubled, her breath hitching as she tried to pull back from his overwhelming presence.

”Like? That... young master, please,” she stammered, her voice thin. ”You must understand... although I manifest in this form to speak with you, this body is merely a projection of solidified Qi and life-essence. In other words, it is just a shell. It doesn’t have... it doesn’t possess the things a human woman does. I am still, at my core, a tree. People shouldn’t... at least, they really shouldn’t look at me with such inten—.”

Haoran let go of her chin and raised his now free hand, palm out, silencing her mid-sentence as the playful glint in his eyes vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating vacuum. ”Enough of the deflective chatter. You... you know of me, don’t you? Not just the ’Shen Clan,’ but me specifically.”

The Willow Spirit flinched, her eyes darting to the side as she tried to find a gap in his logic. ”That... is that truly important in the grand scheme of the heavens?”

”It is,” Haoran replied, his voice dropping into a dangerous register.

”Can I... can I choose not to answer?” she whispered, her green eyes pleading.

”You must.”

The Willow Spirit found herself utterly speechless.

The insistence of this boy was like a physical weight, a spear-tip pressed against her throat.

How come you’re still so young and already so domineering? She complained. What will happen when you grow up a bit more?

”That... who in the vastness of the three thousand worlds wouldn’t know about the Young Master of the Shen Clan?” she finally admitted, her shoulders slumping in defeat. ”The birth of the ’Infinity Dragon God Physique’ was a phenomenon that shook the foundations of the stars. Even in this lower realm, the echoes reached my roots.”

”Oh?” Haoran smirked, taking a deliberate step forward, invading the last of her personal space and forcing the Willow Spirit to take a frantic step back until her spine pressed against her own trunk.

He lowered his head, bringing his face so close to hers that she could see the golden sparks dancing in his pupils. ”But you fell down here, hiding in the cracks of the dimensions, long before I was even a thought in my mother’s mind. My birth happened only two decades ago. How would a ’secluded’ tree in a ’trash’ realm have such up-to-date intelligence?”

Crap. I miscalculated! the Willow Spirit cursed in the silent sanctuary of her own mind.

In her panic, she had revealed too much, and had forgotten that to the Shen, a slip of the tongue was like a confession.

”Does that mean...” Haoran’s voice was a mere breath against her skin, ”that you have met other members of the Shen Clan recently? People who arrived here after your self-exile?”

”I...” The Willow Spirit’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

She was trapped in a web of her own making.

”So you did,” Haoran concluded, his smirk widening into something truly predatory. ”It all makes sense now. Aunt Shuang guards her territories with such ferocity that she doesn’t even let my mother or Aunt Yuyan enter her territory without a formal decree. If you have news of the clan, it means the people you met were either traitors who fled into the void, or... they were banished. Banished and somehow ended up in this backwater village.”

The Willow Spirit couldn’t even utter a word.

The silence in the clearing was absolute, save for the rhythmic chiming of the tree’s leaves.

Under the heavy, inquiring, and soul-piercing gaze of Haoran, her final layers of resistance began to crumble as she looked at him—at the gold in his eyes and the ruthless curve of his smile—and saw the inevitable end.

”Boy,” she finally relented, her voice cracked with emotion. ”They are just a pair of crippled, broken people. They are a couple who have lost everything. Their foundations are shattered, their spirits are dim, and they have no way of ever returning to the High Heavens. They won’t pose a threat to you, to your mother, or to your clan. They are simply trying to live.”

”But their child can,” Haoran countered, his voice flat.

”I will make sure he wouldn’t!” the Willow Spirit cried out, her protective maternal instincts finally overriding her fear. ”I will keep him here! I will bury his destiny under my roots!”

”So they really do have a child,” Haoran said, his voice laced with a dark satisfaction. ”A son, even. Let me guess... He is your ’disciple’?”

The Willow Spirit bit her lip and decided to shut her mouth as ber mind was now a whirlwind of frustration.

’It’s one thing for you to be a monster of talent,’ she thought bitterly, ’but why the hell are you so terrifyingly smart as well!?’

You and your damn clan really like to torment a poor, ignorant, little old tree like me! Do you and your clan have anything against trees!?

She felt a small, cold comfort in the fact that she had already sent Shen Hao away on his journey.

Even if Haoran turned the village upside down or burned every hut to the ground, the boy was gone.

”Where are they?” Haoran asked.

The Willow Spirit remained silent, her eyes fixed on the ground.

”Listen to me carefully, Spirit,” Haoran said, his voice becoming eerily calm. ”I can promise to spare you and your disciple. I have no interest in killing a tree or a boy who knows nothing of the world. But the parents... the ’banished’ ones... they must die. A weed that is left to grow in the dark will eventually find the sun.”

He took out a familiar looking knife from his storage ring, the supreme aura radiating from it was enough to actually make gravity itself feel heavier.

Willow Spirit eyes went wide seeing that, her breathing became hurried and uneven as she sensed death itself from that small knife.

Haoran smiled seeing her reactions and continued, ’You must understand, in this life, there comes a time where a choice is forced upon you. Either you die, or the other dies. So, what will you choose? Your own existence and the boy’s future, or the lives of two cripples who have already reached their end?”

Hearing this, the Willow Spirit looked utterly devastated as the conflict in her soul was becoming visible in the way her green robes shimmered and faded.

She looked at Haoran’s face again.

Similar. So similar! her mind screamed. He and that monster Feng Yuyan look exactly the same!

Even the way he looked at her, as if looking at an interesting object to be disassembled and studied, was a perfect mirror of the woman who had hunted her through the star-fields.

It was triggering a level of PTSD she hadn’t felt in eons.

Eventually, she opened her mouth, her voice barely a whisper, and made the choice that would haunt her for eternity.

*

*

*

Half an hour later, the oppressive weight lifted from the Stone Village as Shen Haoran and Qing’er ascended into the sky, leaving the willow tree behind.

Haoran stood effortlessly upon a flying sword of golden light, while Qing’er glided beside him, her feet stepping on invisible spatial ripples.

”Young master,” Qing’er said, her eyes glancing back at the receding village. ”Why did you agree to spare that tree and her disciple? The Shen Clan’s way is to pull the roots when we clear the forest. Leaving them alive is a variable we don’t need.”

”I gave my promise to spare her, didn’t I?” Haoran replied, his gaze fixed on the northern horizon. ”Besides, she was quite cooperative. She provided the exact coordinates of where I can find those two ’banished’ relatives of mine. A trade is a trade.”

”But... what if that tree and the disciple cause you trouble in the future?” Qing’er pressed, her red eyes narrowed. ”If the boy finds out you killed his parents, he will become an anomaly of vengeance. We should have just eliminated the entire village.”

”Hehe.” Haoran chuckled, the sound rich and genuinely amused. ”Trouble? Good. I like trouble, Qing’er. It’s one of the few things in this stagnant world that actually gets my blood pumping. The more trouble they try to bring, the more interesting the path becomes. Worst case scenario, I’ll just form a mountains of corpses and a rivers of blood. It changes nothing.”

Qing’er stared at his side profile—at the absolute, unshakeable confidence that bordered on insanity.

She eventually nodded and said nothing more. If her master wanted a challenge, then she would simply be the blade that cleared the path until the challenge arrived.

*

*

*

Back in the Stone Village, the festive atmosphere of the morning had been replaced by a heavy, funeral silence.

The Willow Spirit stood before her tree, her green robes tattered and her aura dim as she watched the departing golden silhouette of Haoran until it vanished into the clouds, then she slowly collapsed against the trunk, her hands covering her face.

”Forgive me, Shen Hao,” she sobbed into the quiet wind. ”Because of my cowardice... because I wanted to save you... you will no longer meet your parents in this life.”

She looked at the empty bowl of beast milk lying in the dirt, a reminder of the boy’s innocent laughter not too long ago.

”I’m sorry... I’m so sorry.”

The lush leaves of the tree wept, falling like metallic tears onto the soil, as the shadow of the Shen Clan finally left the valley, leaving behind a wound that time would never heal.