Chapter 37: Diverting the Waters of Disaster

Outside the city, in a villa at Huajiang Bay.

On a riverside terrace stood a painting desk, empty all around; behind it, in the room where the old man sat in meditation, a white-haired elder in scholarly robes paced back and forth, face dark with rage:

“I told you to destroy the corpse and erase all traces—what in heaven’s name have you been doing outside?”

“The government was still searching for the great demon of Zihui Mountain, yet after you went out, Lu Ming died out there, three hundred Wu Zu returned to the city, and every named person from the Dan Wangfu , Zihui Mountain, and Danyang Academy took up weapons and wandered the streets.”

“Now when I step out to piss, I bump into two third-rank powerhouses—I’ve been a villain my whole life and never seen such a spectacle…”

Most of the martial world’s main forces are sixth-rank or higher, but Danyang isn’t the capital—the density of those above third-rank is low; saying you can bump into two just by stepping out is clearly an exaggeration.

Yet these high-ranking figures are all loitering inside and outside the city, each hunting the demon bandits who cultivated the Mad Corpse Flowers!

He Can sat on a cushion, his chest wrapped in bandages, eyes equally bewildered:

“I don’t know! When I reached Jiguan Ridge, Xie Jinhuan blocked me—he was brutally violent, and I barely escaped with my life.”

“Master, I think Xie Jinhuan has serious issues—he holds a magic treasure that suppresses evil, yet he’s mixed with the Witch Cult, and like a ghost, he somehow found Jiguan Ridge.”

“Could he be from the ancestral temple of the Poison Cult? Has he come specifically to purge you, a traitor?”

“He got there first—I arrived to find he’d already opened the corpse pit…”

The old man’s name was Taishu Dan, He Can’s master, but now he only wanted to purge his own sect—he stomped his foot and glared:

“I left the Chi Dragon Cave thirty years ago—if anyone’s to purge the sect, it should be the Corpse Witch Cult—why is the Poison Cult now coming after me?”

“And according to my brother in the city, the blood traces in the corpse pit reach transcendent mastery.”

“To forge such traces, one must first possess the corresponding skill—Xie Jinhuan is a straightforward martial cultivator; even if he wanted to frame me, how could he possibly forge such traces?”

He Can, hearing this, agreed.

From today’s clash, neither Xie Jinhuan nor the witch possessed the transcendent skill needed to forge such traces.

And the fact that he escaped alive meant there were no high-level figures nearby—killing him outright would’ve been far less risky than hiding and staying silent.

“If it wasn’t Xie Jinhuan who set the trap…”

He Can thought carefully, then asked:

“Could it be that the great demon of Zihui Mountain accidentally found the corpse pit and is using its yin-corrupted corpse energy to restore its vitality? Xie Jinhuan tracked the location via the poison flower, then mistakenly assumed you were the source of Zihui’s demonic aura and came straight for you?”

Taishu Dan found this plausible and sat down beside him:

“Even above, no one has determined the origin of the blood-slaughter aura. If this is true, we can’t just step forward to clear our names with the government—even if we did, without proof, they wouldn’t believe us.”

He Can frowned—he realized the trouble was serious.

His master had once belonged to the Witch Cult’s Poison Sect, later defected to the Corpse Witch Cult, and now had betrayed both, joining the Cult of the Mingshen and secretly crafting the “Blood Demon Pill” in Danyang.

As a triple-family slave, his master knew a bit of everything—he was a formidable, deeply rooted evil cultivator by any standard.

But the imperial court’s current forces were absurdly overwhelming: all the warlords of Danzhou had mobilized, and behind them stood state powers like the Imperial Astronomical Bureau—if the court wrongly identified them as the source of Zihui’s demonic aura, he had no idea how they could survive.

“So what do we do now? If the Wang Fu keeps investigating like this, we won’t be able to do anything—we’ll be dug up in less than two days.”

Taishu Dan rubbed his fingers, thinking deeply for a long while:

“The government now believes the ‘Zihui demonic aura’ is tied to Dongcang Alley and Sanhe Pavilion—but they don’t yet know our identities.”

“Since we’ve already diverted the water of disaster eastward, we must keep framing others—make the Li family take the blame, and buy time until after the Mid-Autumn Festival.”

He Can, hearing this, thought it made perfect sense!

The court mistakenly believed they were the great demon of Zihui Mountain—but didn’t know who they were.

Yesterday they’d already framed the Li family; now, if they added more “Zihui great demon” evidence to the Li family’s name, wouldn’t the Great Qian’s iron fist naturally smash down on the Li family?

The Li family would deny everything anyway, and they had heavenly connections to back them—once they clashed with the Wang Fu, our time would be bought.

“Brilliant—let the Daoist die, not the poor monk! I’ll dig a pit for the Li family right away and quickly shift the government’s attention their way.”

“This requires help from that brother of mine. Remember—don’t expose yourself again. Mid-Autumn is barely two days away—if you botch this, there’ll be no place left in the world for my master and disciple.”

“Understood…”

…

—

Night deepened; the area near Qingquan Alley’s government office still echoed with hooves, and patrols could be seen coming and going.

Xie Jinhuan walked down the street, shouldering the sleeping Meiqiu; seeing the doubled number of constables and Wu Zu, he felt somewhat reassured.

These officers had originally been scouring the mountains; though the Zhenyao Tomb lay deep in the peaks and hard to find, inch-by-inch searching would eventually uncover it—and perhaps even trace signs of him.

Now that everyone’s attention had been pulled back, their focus shifted entirely to hunting the demon bandits—his chance of exposure dropped to near zero.

Though it was only a temporary fix—if the Wang Fu realized the bandits weren’t this powerful, they’d still come for him—it had at least bought him time to find a way out.

As he pondered this, Xie Jinhuan returned to his residence in Qingquan Alley—the landlord’s noisy, melodious lute music still played on:

“Swallows whisper, orioles sing sweetly~…”

“That young master who slaughtered everyone at the Peony Pool is so handsome—does anyone know who he is?”

“He goes in and out with Dr. Lin—he’s got no chance! Dr. Lin’s as beautiful as a flower, and her bed arts reach transcendent mastery…”

…

These little vixens…

Xie Jinhuan muttered a silent curse, laid Meiqiu on the bed to sleep, then filled the bathtub with water and poured in the powder Lin Wanyi had given him.

As he stirred it with his hand, the rich herbal scent spread, turning the water milky white—more like a milk bath.

Xie Jinhuan shed his robe and leaned back into the tub, pulled out a small vial, and poured out a red pill.

The Dragon Blood Pill looked more like a hawthorn pill, faintly fragrant, dissolving instantly on the tongue with no remarkable taste.

Xie Jinhuan soaked in the tub, carefully sensing his body’s changes—soon he felt a warm current surge through his lungs and organs, flooding his limbs and extremities; his muscle aches and fatigue visibly vanished—he exclaimed in surprise:

“This pill, worth nearly ten thousand taels of silver, is truly extraordinary.”

He spoke this to the ghost bride—but Xie Jinhuan hadn’t expected how the ghost would appear.

No sooner had the words left his lips than he noticed something wrong.

Looking up, he saw a woman standing opposite the oval tub.

She had a plump, supple figure, long black hair cascading down her back, snow-white shoulders like goat’s milk, a radiant face leading to a fair neck and magnificent bosom—unfortunately, her breasts vanished into the milky water, leaving only faint outlines…

Fuck…

Xie Jinhuan, startled by this intense sight, widened his eyes and stared up and down:

“What are you doing?”

Ye Hongshang leaned against the far end of the tub, shrugging slightly:

“I said I’d give you candy—don’t you like a Yuanyang bath?”

Xie Jinhuan liked it fine—but at least show up as a real person!

Seeing but not touching—wasn’t that torture?

He tried kicking toward her with his foot—of course, it passed through as usual—he sighed helplessly:

“If you’re going to sweeten the deal, give me something real. I’m soaking to nourish my body—my qi is unsettled, my Dao heart unstable—if I ruin my cultivation, what then?”

“The Buddhist say ‘Emptiness is form, form is emptiness’—if you can’t control your mind before a phantom, how will you ever reach the mountain’s peak?”

As Ye Hongshang spoke, she flicked water with her hand, sprinkling it down her neck.

Splash splash~

Though it was only an illusion, the physics engine was terrifyingly real—so long as he didn’t touch, it looked exactly like a real woman.

Faced with a ghost, Xie Jinhuan couldn’t even muster lust—he felt genuinely pained, so he grabbed a wine flask from beside the tub, hoping to drink a little to calm himself.

But the ghost bride’s service was top-tier—she promised candy, and delivered “full-service”—pouring wine, bathing, and sleeping—all in one. With a flick of her wrist, she produced a wine cup:

“Drinking plain wine is boring—how about a game of rock-paper-scissors? If I lose, I stand up. If you lose, you drink a cup.”

Xie Jinhuan thought this had potential—even an illusion could be a visual treat—but he set ground rules:

“No cheating. When you stand up, no clothes. No turning into a spider body. No turning into a man with smaller tits than mine but bigger ones when pulled out.”

Ye Hongshang raised an eyebrow, holding the cup:

“Naturally. If I win three rounds in a row, I’ll let you touch—guaranteed, you’ll feel it.”

“Really?”

Xie Jinhuan was genuinely intrigued—he poured himself a cup and placed it on the small table beside the tub:

“How do we play?”

Ye Hongshang gestured toward the back wall:

“That bunch of girls play fifteen-twenty—know it?”

Xie Jinhuan couldn’t not know—he sat up straight, hands behind his back, waiting.

Ye Hongshang sat up too—but her illusion shifted freely; her white chest remained submerged, only drawing closer, hands hidden beneath the water:

“Begin. Fifteen, fifteen…”

“Ten (twenty-five)!”

“?!”

Xie Jinhuan, hearing the ghost’s random shout, smirked slightly.

But instantly, he saw four arms—four pale hands extended…

Total fingers: exactly twenty-five!

??

Xie Jinhuan’s smile froze—he thought he’d drunk too much without drinking, rubbed his eyes—but still, four arms remained.

“La la la~”

Ye Hongshang beamed, waving all four hands:

“I won. Drink up.”

“No, you can’t handle this, can you?”

Xie Jinhuan realized he was being outclassed by a demonic force, and immediately grew displeased:

“You’re an illusion—you can shift forms at will. If you wanted, you could turn into a thousand-armed Guanyin. How am I supposed to play?”

“Let’s get this straight: only numbers under twenty, and only zero or multiples of five. No negatives, no decimals…”

Night Red Shang laid out a long list of rules, yet his eyes showed utter indifference as he placed his hands behind his back:

“Fine~ I’ll follow your rules. Continue. Fifteen, fifteen… fifteen!”

“Twenty!”

Xie Jinhuan strained with all his mortal strength to contend with a transcendent demon, but the outcome was obvious.

Night Red Shang was an illusion born from his own mind; from the moment it appeared, he had already fallen under its illusion, perpetually under its enchantment.

You cannot win a game of rock-paper-scissors against an illusionist within an illusion—unless the opponent deliberately lets you win.

Though he had exerted every ounce of effort and still failed to make the ghost bride rise, at least the ghost bride knew how to flirt, and the wine truly tasted exquisite—until he passed out, Xie Jinhuan had been thoroughly delighted…

(End of Chapter)