Tang Lici, dressed in blue robes, walked toward the deep forest without looking back.

Blood slowly seeped from his waist through the pale blue plain gauze, spreading along the dark-patterned gold threads, as if the curling grass and intertwining peony pattern on his entire outfit was blooming in succession. Deep in the dense forest were many old trees, their leaves yellow-green, poisoned to near death by the toxic powder scattered by winds from Piaoluo Mei Yuan. Under these old trees was a fresh grave.

No tombstone stood before the grave—just an extremely simple earthen mound.

He looked at that pile of earth for a long time, then smiled.

“Supreme under heaven—so what?”

Kuanglan Wuxing had wielded an eight-foot sword to sweep across the martial world, cultivated the Demon Breath Spitting Pearls technique to be invincible under heaven. He was exceptionally gifted, had outstanding character, and extraordinary comprehension—so what?

From some unknown time, apart from killing, he had become capable of nothing else.

Everyone would die.

Being a supreme master who could determine life and death with a single step only meant dying faster.

Tang Lici spread his palm, looking at the blood on his fingers and palm.

His blood was as bright red as any ordinary person’s.

The only difference was that with his constitution, such a minor wound at his waist should have healed itself long ago.

Even with an ordinary person’s constitution, such a superficial wound should have stopped bleeding.

But his wound continued to bleed. Though not much, it hadn’t stopped.

Tang Lici stared at the grave mound before him. He and Kuanglan Wuxing had no friendship—they were formidable enemies, and he had never appreciated a single aspect of this man’s words, actions, or character.

But he was dead.

Kuanglan Wuxing’s death was largely Tang Lici’s doing.

He had been killed by Tang Lici’s own hand.

But with him dead, as Tang Lici looked at his grave, it was as if he were looking at a friend.

Those who cultivated the “Rebirth Manual” often carried too heavy a karmic burden of killing and died in madness.

Bai Nanzhu was dead.

Kuanglan Wuxing was dead.

Yu Konghou… was also near death.

Who else?

Tang Lici turned around. Yellow leaves rustled all around as the old trees gradually died.

Who else?

Yu Konghou had been locked by Bai Suche in the most mysterious prison cell deep within Piaoluo Mei Yuan.

This was the refuge the City-Breaking Eccentric had designed for himself in years past. Because of his passion for mysterious arts, the Eight Trigrams, mechanisms and hidden weapons, this man had secretly infiltrated numerous scholarly families with profound learning in his youth, stealing countless secret techniques. Before his martial arts reached maturity, he was constantly pursued. It wasn’t until he was thirty-eight that the City-Breaking Eccentric completed his mechanical arts sanctuary and gradually found peace.

The City-Breaking Eccentric’s mechanical arts sanctuary was originally called “Yellow Family Cave” because his surname was Huang. Later, Yu Konghou found this name too unpleasant, so after killing the City-Breaking Eccentric and seizing “Yellow Family Cave,” he renamed it “Piaoluo Mei Yuan.”

The mechanisms of this place were wondrously complex, and the City-Breaking Eccentric’s refuge was even more sinister. Once Yu Konghou was brought into the secret chamber, the great door closed automatically. Then mechanical sounds rang out as countless springs and mechanisms outside creaked and turned for quite some time—at least five or six different mechanisms locked the door tight. Inside the secret chamber, beds, tables, and chairs were all present. The only problem was that the escape route the City-Breaking Eccentric had prepared had been blown up with gunpowder.

The one who had deliberately severed this lifeline years ago was none other than Yu Konghou himself.

Since he wanted to use this as his base, he naturally couldn’t leave a secret passage under his nose that could provide communication between inside and outside. After destroying the secret passage, he had tested it multiple times to confirm it was completely ruined and absolutely impossible for anyone to use for entry or exit before he was satisfied.

After the secret chamber’s great door was locked, Yu Konghou supported himself on the table and slowly sat down, letting out a long breath.

He was still alive—he hadn’t died under Kuanglan Wuxing’s halberd, hadn’t died at Tang Lici’s hands, and surprisingly hadn’t died at the hands of Chai Xijin or Bai Suche either.

That was his great fortune.

Everyone else’s misfortune.

After regulating his breathing for a while and confirming that his meridians were damaged and his remaining half-crippled martial arts could never be recovered, Yu Konghou laughed loudly.

He lit the oil lamp in the secret chamber. The lamp’s warm flame flickered slightly in the darkness.

“Hahaha…”

Yu Konghou’s black hair hung loose, his entire body bathed in blood. He forcefully pulled the “Fragrant Orchid Smile” from his chest and threw the poisonous weapon aside. The heavy “Fragrant Orchid Smile” hit the ground with a faint clang and rolled to one side. Yu Konghou fumbled in his blood-soaked clothing and produced a small package thoroughly soaked with fresh blood.

The small package was rough and crude, seemingly made from dried leaves of some plant.

Opening the withered yellow leaf wrapping, inside this small package was a mass of pale golden silk-woven, semi-transparent egg sac.

One could vaguely see tiny, crystalline eggs inside the sac, and beside it, some already-hatched small creatures were slowly crawling.

They were extremely tiny spiders.

Each had a faint touch of golden-green color on its back.

They crawled onto Yu Konghou’s fingers and bit through his skin.

These were Gu pearls.

Yu Konghou sat at the table, allowing hundreds of tiny Gu pearls to bite through his skin and flesh. These semi-transparent little dots spat fine poison and spider silk, and under the candlelight’s reflection, it seemed as if iridescent clouds were rising from Yu Konghou’s blood-stained hands.

As the tiny Gu pearls spat their insignificant poison, something rustled in the secret chamber. Common underground crawling insects crept toward Yu Konghou’s vicinity, only to die one after another beneath his bloodied hem. Poisonous qi floated on Yu Konghou’s pale face, shifting between blue and purple. As the Gu pearl poison penetrated deep into his organs, he gradually lost expression, changing from fierce pain to numb calm, even achieving a touch of serenity at the end.

He couldn’t be a person who killed.

But he could be a blade that killed.

In any case, Yu Konghou would rather have his bones ground to dust than be beneath another person.

Whoever looked down on him would die.

Bai Suche and Tang Lici—these two must die most horribly.

At this moment, with a crack, a small hole opened in the secret chamber door, just large enough for one hand. Qing Yan’s figure flashed by outside, pushing food and water through the opening, along with a bottle of “healing medicine.”

What kind of medicine it actually was, Yu Konghou no longer needed to consider. With the Gu pearl poison circulating in his body, he didn’t even need food and water.

As the small hole opened and closed, several extremely tiny Gu pearls had already followed the drifting spider silk out through the opening, silently falling into the dark corridors of Piaoluo Mei Yuan.

Qing Yan hurried ahead. She didn’t know why Bai Suche had “invited” Yu Konghou into the secret chamber. The Executive said it was to heal Master Yu’s wounds. Though she didn’t quite believe it, she didn’t care. She only followed Sister Susu—whether it was Master Yu, Master Liu, or some other master made no difference to her.

Only Sister Susu looked after the life and death of sisters like them, managed their daily needs, arranged their shifts and rest periods, and cared for them through winter cold and summer heat.

She knew the Romantic Shop wasn’t a good place, and she knew Sister Susu wasn’t a good person either, but what did it matter? Though young, she knew life wasn’t long, and meeting someone willing to care for you through winter cold and summer heat was very rare.

Qing Yan walked quickly, her dress stirring a breeze. The extremely fine spider silk of the Gu pearls caught on her hem, following her into Bai Suche’s bedchamber.

The Central Plains Sword Association’s camp.

Wang Lingqiu lay bound hand and foot with seventeen or eighteen pressure points sealed in an earthen pit outside Cheng Yunpao’s tent. This old man was full of poison, and the “Lamp-Calling Order’s” secret techniques were impossible to guard against completely, so Miss Hong had ordered his outer robes removed, leaving only his undergarments. He was bound with iron chains, his pressure points sealed, and thrown outside the tent of Cheng Yunpao, who had the highest martial arts in the Central Plains Sword Association, to prevent any mishaps.

But Cheng Yunpao and Gu Xitan had failed in their attempt to assassinate Yu Konghou and had lost track—they still hadn’t returned.

Wang Lingqiu was thrown outside the empty tent, guarded by Dongfang Jian and Yu Furen together.

At midnight, the motionless Wang Lingqiu suddenly opened his eyes.

A surge of fanaticism rose in his murky, numb eyes.

The Gu spiders stirred.

Somewhere thousands of li away.

A bowl-sized old spider suddenly died, its eight legs curling as it fell from a pale golden web.

Someone sat in darkness, picking up a pair of ivory chopsticks to lift the dead spider, holding it over candlelight and burning it repeatedly until finally burning out a black Gu worm still wriggling from the spider’s belly.

He dipped the Gu worm into a cup of strong liquor.

The liquor was dark red as blood, thick and murky.

He swallowed the strong liquor and Gu worm in one gulp.

The Gu spiders stirred.

The child was born, the mother died.