Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The secluded private quarters of the Saintess were nestled deep within the highest pavilion of the Lotus Peak, secluded from the prying eyes of ordinary disciples by three layers of ancient, sound-dampening mist arrays.

The chamber was bathed in the soft, cool luminescence of moonlight filtering through carved lattice screens.

The furnishings were opulent yet understated—screens of dark sandalwood etched with blooming celestial lotuses, floor cushions woven from cloud-silk, and a delicate bronze censer resting upon a low table, lazily exhaling curls of sweet, calming white-tea incense.

Outside the high balcony, the rolling clouds of the demonic marsh drifted in absolute silence, completely insulated from the room.

At this moment, Su Xishi sat upon the bed.

She had kicked off her soft, embroidered cloth shoes, tucking her slender, porcelain pale legs beneath her voluminous skirts.

The loose peach and white silk of her robes pooled around her lithe waist.

From her storage ring, she retrieved a palm sized object.

It was the Imperial Academy token.

HUMMM—

She injected a strand of her qi, and a delicate, translucent blue interface flickered to life in the dim room, casting a cool, modern light across her sharp, exquisite cheekbones.

The array hummed with an ultra-high frequency that completely bypassed the localized spiritual tracking arrays of this lower mortal plane, instantly connecting through the academy’s dimensional network.

With a gentle swiped of her fingers, the holographic interface expanded, rendering a detailed, three-dimensional topographic projection of the entire Ancient Heaven Star.

She zoomed in, and the map showed the winding gorges of the marshlands, and the jagged perimeter of the Demonic Lotus Sect’s mountainous territory.

Across the vast map, several faint indicators pulsed, but her eyes focused specifically on the immediate vicinity.

Just past the walls of the sect, nestled within the dense, forest that skirted the northern ridge, two distinct, emerald-green pulses hovered in tandem.

They remained perfectly stationary, blending their auras with the ambient so perfectly to avoid alerting the border patrols.

These two are members of her sect.

One is her senior who is at the peak of Nirvana Rebirth Realm, and the other is another senior at the 4th stage of Nirvana Rebirth Realm.

Su Xishi curled her lips into an amused, satisfied smile.

A Peak Nirvana Rebirth powerhouse was an apocalyptic entity in a backwater region like this—a master whose physical body, spiritual soul, and conceptual dantians had survived all nine cycles of heavenly immolation, standing just half a step away from touching the Saint realm!

And a Fourth Stage Nirvana expert was more than capable of flattening an entire empire within a single afternoon.

With two such monstrous martial sisters stationed right at the gates, her safety in this den of foxes was as unshakeable as an imperial fortress.

She tapped the glowing interface with her manicured index finger and chose to contact them.

”Senior Sister Mei, Senior Sister Ruo. Report your status. Have you finished setting up the auxiliary disruption nodes along the outer gorge? Has everything been put in place according to the plan?”

A soft, static chime hummed from the blue screen before a sultry, breathy voice echoed directly into the receiver, carrying a playful, lazy lilt.

”Aiya, little Xishi, you truly have no heart. We’ve been squatting in this mosquito infested swamp for three weeks, eating dry rations and smelling like rotten flesh and mud, and the first thing out of your sweet mouth is work? You haven’t even asked if your poor seniors are cold.”

Su Xishi chuckled, rolling her eyes with affectionate exasperation.

”If a Peak Nirvana Rebirth expert catches a cold from a bit of swamp vapor, Senior Sister Mei, then I’ll personally write a letter to the master asking her to strip your cultivation title. Stop fooling around. Are the formations complete?”

A second voice, slightly huskier and dripping with thick, honeyed amusement, joined the line.

”Relax, little Saintess. Everything is ready. We buried the eight Space Locking Anchors beneath the outer perimeter wards yesterday while their patrol elders were distracted by the full-moon feast.”

”The moment you give the signal and activate the primary matrix from the central peak, their entire protection grand array will turn inward and lock them in a birdcage. Not a single message will be able to pass through, and not a single soul will be able to tear through the spatial fabric to flee.”

”Indeed,” the first voice, Senior Sister Mei, giggled softly, a sound like silver coins rolling across jade. ”The grand hall, the treasury... all of their spiritual veins have been tapped. We can flip this entire sect upside down within half an incense stick’s time. So tell us, junior sister, when do we strike? We’re itching to stretch our limbs.”

Su Xishi’s eyes narrowed slightly, a cold, calculating brilliance flaring within her pupils.

”Soon,” she whispered into the screen. ”Da Xiaomi is getting impatient. She tried to push a marriage alliance between me and her son today.”

A sharp, collective gasp of theatrical outrage burst through the communication line, followed by a chorus of manic, breathless laughter.

”Marriage?! To that half-fox, half-lizard brat?!” Senior Sister Ruo snorted with derision. ”What kind of toad dreams of eating swan meat? A backwater hybrid dares harbor delusions of touching our Palace’s saintess?! If her son so much as brushes the hem of your sleeve, we’ll peel his skin and use his bones to make teacups!”

”He actually rejected the arrangement himself,” Su Xishi corrected smoothly, a faint smirk playing on her lips. ”The boy has some wits. But Da Xiaomi’s patience won’t last forever. She wants my Nine Tailed Demon Fox bloodline to secure her sect’a future. Instead of waiting for her to drop her mask and attempt to force me, we strike first.”

Her voice turned firm, laced with the ambition of an imperial conqueror.

”We take the sect. We capture Da Xiaomi alive, seal her dantians, and purge any elder who refuses to submit to our will. The geographic location of this valley is ideal, is rich in natural resources, and shielded by natural miasma. I plan to turn this sect into my own and make it a permanent base of operations in this world. Once we secure this stronghold, our Palace will have an unshakeable foothold in this realm.”

”Oh, an entire sect under our thumb? How magnificent!” Senior Sister Mei purred, her tone suddenly shifting into a shameless, sultry drawl. ”That means the mountain is ours, right? Little Xishi, if we take over, can we pick some of the men from the inner court? We noticed that the Demonic Lotus Sect keeps quite a few handsome young attendants and disciples... Some of those silver-haired youths look so deliciously tender!”

”Yes, yes!” Senior Sister Ruo chimed in eagerly, giggling like a wanton maiden in a wine house. ”It’s been so long since we had fresh dual-cultivation furnaces! We’ve been so well-behaved out here in the dirt. You must let your seniors pick a few vigorous ones to warm our beds! We promise not to drain their marrow completely dry on the first night, we’ll leave them at least enough breath to sweep the courtyard!”

Su Xishi pressed two fingers against her temple, letting out an exhausted, amused sigh at her seniors’ shameless antics.

”Do whatever you like with the prisoners, so long as you don’t compromise the plan or leave a mess. Just make sure they are sealed before you touch them. I don’t want an uprising while we’re establishing our base.”

”Understood, little saintess! We’ll prepare the ropes and the pleasure pills right away!”

”Maintain your concealment and wait for my message,” Su Xishi concluded firmly, cutting off the increasingly scandalous banter. ”When the moon hits the zenith tomorrow night, be ready.”

Soon, Su Xishi ended the message.

CLICK.

The blue holographic screen folded upon itself, collapsing into a singular spark of azure light that sank back into the academy token.

Su Xishi stored her academy token back into her storage ring, smiling to herself as she rested her chin upon her palms, her long hair spilling across her shoulders, her eyes sparkling with quiet anticipation.

The pieces were all arranged across the board.

The Demonic Lotus Sect believed they had captured a helpless, noble stray; in truth, they had welcomed a viper into their innermost sanctuary, and the venom was about to swallow the entire mountain whole.

*

*

*

At this exact moment, down within the cavernous depths of the central palace...

The Gothic Throne room was smothered in a heavy, suffocating silence.

The tall wrought-iron candelabras flickered with sickly violet fire, casting long, grotesque shadows against the ribbed obsidian arches of the vaulted ceiling.

The air was thick with the scent of bitter sulfur and stale, stagnant water, devoid of the sweet lotus perfume that usually masked the stone.

Da Xiaomi sat on her throne, frowning.

Her voluptuous silhouette remained leaned forward against the armrests of blackened bone, but the seductive, playful charm she had displayed earlier before Su Xishi was entirely gone.

Her high, regal cheekbones were taut, her sharp jaw clenched tight, and her plush purple fox ears twitched incessantly in agitation.

Her magnificent purple tail hung limply over the side of the dais, completely still, reflecting the dark, brooding turmoil churning in her chest.

”Any news about Bing Wuxian and Chen Feng’s parents?” she asked.

Her voice dropped into a cold, raspy pitch that echoed off the polished black-marble floor like a dull blade scraping against slate.

At that moment, the shadow behind her twisted.

From the pitch-black pool of darkness stretching behind the bone throne, the void rippled like disturbed ink.

The ambient light of the purple candles bent inward, and a figure cloaked in darkness appeared.

The shadow was draped in formless, cowl-like rags of silk that concealed every feature of its body, leaving only two pinpricks of dull, milky-white light glowing beneath the hood.

It knelt silently upon one knee on the cold stone, its presence so faint it barely disturbed the dust motes.

”None, Mistress,” the shadow said, its voice a hollow, sexless whisper that scraped against the eardrums. ”There is no trace. The only clue we have is Bing Wuxian gathering her sect to guard the entrance to the Celestial Dragon Vault.”

The cloaked scout paused, its milky eyes lowering further to the floor.

Da Xiaomi clicked her tongue, a sharp, bitter sound of profound irritation that snapped the silence of the hall.

Her manicured hand tightened against the bone armrest until the ancient fossil groaned beneath her grip, her eyes flashed with deep, gnawing anxiety.

”Useless trash...” she hissed under her breath, her chest heaving beneath her robes.

She stood up slowly, stepping down to the edge of the elevated dais, pacing with restless agitation across the black marble.

The dark qi swirling around her ankles chilled the stone, frosting the floor with thin, jagged lines of purple ice.

”Five years...” Da Xiaomi muttered, her brows knitting together into a deep, agonizing furrow. ”Five whole years without a single information!”

She stopped, looking toward the dark northern sky visible through the narrow lancet windows, her heart hammering with a cold, suffocating premonition.

She didn’t care about the pride of the White Dragon Sect elders, nor did she truly weep for Chen Feng’s parents.

But Chen Feng... Chen Feng was the pillar of her existence.

He was the father of her son, the supreme emperor whose terrifying dragon might held the world in an iron grip!

”Do everything to find them,” Da Xiaomi commanded, turning her gaze back to the kneeling shadow, her voice trembling with desperate urgency. ”Mobilize the Demon Fox Division. Empty the outer treasuries if you must, buy intelligence from the underworld sources, interrogate any rogue cultivators—I don’t care what methods you employ, I want answers!”

She clutched her own collar, her breath catching in her throat as a terrible dread seized her mind.

”If Chen Feng returns and he finds out that we don’t know what happened to his parents... he will definitely be devastated.”

She knew her husband’s temperament all too well.

Beneath that proud, invincible facade of the White Dragon Emperor lay an unyielding, fierce filial devotion.

Once he returned from his expedition and found his parents, and his beloved wife Xun Xie’er and Bing Wuxian missing without a trace...

His wrath would ignite an apocalyptic, self-destructive tempest that would drag the entire region straight into the abyss.

”He would go mad...” she whispered, her plush purple ears pinning flat against her hair in genuine, petrified dread. ”We must find them before he returns!”

”Understood, Mistress.”

The hollow whisper drifted into the shadows.

SHUUUUU—

The dark figure collapsed into a puddle of black mist, sinking back into the floor and vanishing completely from the hall.

Left alone in the cavernous, flickering gloom, Da Xiaomi stood motionless beneath the arches, her purple fox tail twitching nervously against her skirts, entirely unaware that the executioner who held the flayed faces of her in-laws was already marching south toward her mountain gates.