Chapter 67: Chapter 67 - The Ancient Tang Clan and the Overprotective Aunt

An hour earlier, in the Blackwater City.

The two figures following Su Bai stood completely motionless on the tiled roof of the Righteous Bureau.

They blended perfectly with the shadows. Their breathing was so shallow and their Qi was so flawlessly concealed that even Elder Han, a Golden Core expert pacing angrily in the courtyard directly below them, didn’t sense a thing.

They were ghosts. And gathering intelligence was one of their trade.

"The Righteous Bureau is in a frenzy, Aunt," the younger woman whispered through a specialized sound-transmission technique. Her eyes tracked the guards below. "They are hunting a supposed Demonic Cultivator who uses Yin needles, corpse puppetry, and spatial repositioning. He slipped right through a Golden Core elder’s fingers, and the Bureau doesn’t even know his name or what he looks like."

The older woman, whose elegant, mature features were partially obscured by a dark veil, let out a soft, dismissive scoff.

"They are fools," the Aunt replied. "To the untrained eye, needles and corpses scream ’demonic.’ But look at the trajectory of the structural damage he left behind, the precision of the strikes. A true demonic cultivator is erratic and bloodthirsty. This unknown escapee... his movements are highly disciplined. He isn’t a demon. He’s a professional."

The younger woman nodded. They had gathered intelligence for a living long enough to develop a terrifying sixth sense for narratives. When a story didn’t add up, they could smell the lie.

And the biggest lie in Blackwater City was Inspector Zhao.

It had taken the two women less than half an hour of stealthy observation to notice the discrepancies in the Bureau’s ledgers and Zhao’s overly anxious behavior. He was covering tracks.

"Inspector Zhao is colluding with the Demonic factions," the younger woman concluded. "This information could sell for a mountain of spirit stones."

"Indeed," the Aunt agreed mildly. "But we are not here to play hero."

They belonged to the Ancient Tang Clan.

In the cultivation world, the Tang Clan was an infamous, Unorthodox Faction. They weren’t righteous crusaders obsessed with saving the world, nor were they demonic madmen trying to destroy it.

They were strict pragmatists. They cared only about their clan’s survival, their immense wealth, and their terrifying secrets.

They were the undisputed masters of poison, hidden weapons, and espionage. A Tang Clan assassin wouldn’t stab you in the back for fun... but they would absolutely do it for the right price. Facing the Tang Clan meant dying without ever knowing how, when, or why.

"Let’s go," the Aunt commanded smoothly. "Righteous cultivators being evil is not new. But the mysterious cultivator who spent mortal silver to buy supplies earlier? He smells like an incredibly high-profit asset. Let’s continue tracking him down."

It didn’t take long for the highly skilled trackers to trace Su Bai to the distant, dilapidated village at the edge of the region.

When they landed gracefully outside the village gates, they didn’t find the handsome, pale cultivator. Instead, they found the wooden wagon be bought in the center of the square, with the village chief happily distributing supplies to the weeping residents.

The two women approached the chief. Seeing them descend from the sky on flying swords, the old man immediately assumed they were companions of his great benefactor.

"Ah! You must be the Lord’s friends!" the chief greeted them reverently.

"We are looking for him," the younger woman smiled politely. "Do you know where he went?"

"The Lord has a heart of boundless mercy," the chief sighed with reverence. "He went into the woods to check on Ziyan."

"Ziyan..." the Aunt’s brow furrowed slightly. Something about the specific naming convention struck a deeply familiar chord. "Tell me who is that?"

The chief explained the tragic tale of the cursed child. He spoke of how her mother died the moment she was born, how her father succumbed to her toxic exposure, and how she had lived in isolation for twenty years.

As the chief spoke, the two highly trained, unflappable Tang Clan cultivators completely lost their composure.

The younger woman gasped. But the Aunt... the Aunt turned as pale as a sheet of paper. It was as if she had been struck by a bolt of heavenly lightning.

A girl with a poisonous constitution. A mother who died in childbirth twenty years ago. Living in the remote south.

"Could it be..." the Aunt fell silent.

Without another word, she summoned her sword and shot toward the forest like a streaking meteor.

"Wait for me, Aunt!" the younger girl cried out. Before she leaped onto her own sword, she hastily tossed a pouch of high-grade dried meats to the chief. "Thank you for the information!"

As the two women flew over the dense western forest, the vibrant green trees gave way to blistered bark. A heavy, purplish miasma hung in the air.

They took deep breaths, completely unaffected. As elite members of the Tang Clan, they were practically immune to poison. But feeling the sheer potency of the ambient mist only confirmed their deepest suspicions.

They didn’t rush blindly into the clearing. Old habits died hard. They landed silently on a thick, half-wilted branch overlooking the ruined hut and peered through the broken roof.

What they saw made their hearts stop.

Sitting on the floor was a frail, beautiful girl with ethereal violet skin. She bore a striking, undeniable resemblance to the Aunt. But the girl was in terrible shape, clearly suffering from the violent backlash of her own uncultivated constitution.

The Aunt wanted to leap down, to sweep the girl into her arms and save her.

But she froze.

Sitting directly behind Ziyan was the young man they had been tracking. And what he was doing completely shattered the Tang Clan’s understanding of common sense.

He had his hands pressed against Ziyan’s back, and he was actively absorbing the deadly poison straight into his own body.

"He’s insane," the younger girl whispered in absolute horror. "He’s drawing the toxins directly into his meridians! That method provides immediate relief to her, but it’s suicide for him!"

But strangely... the young man wasn’t dying. He wasn’t even sweating. He looked incredibly calm, casually chatting with the girl to distract her from the pain.

The Aunt’s sharp eyes narrowed. She forcibly stopped herself from intervening.

They could certainly help Ziyan, but they couldn’t offer the instantaneous, physical extraction this young man was performing. With Ziyan’s frail mortal body at its breaking point, this unorthodox method was actually the absolute best medical relief possible.

They breathed a collective sigh of relief, realizing the man meant well.

But the Aunt’s gaze grew heavy. ’He is completely immune to poison,’ she thought. Her clan instincts kicked in.

To the Ancient Tang Clan, a cultivator immune to poison meant one of two things:

If he was a friend, he would be treated as the highest-tier VIP, a treasured ally.

If he was an enemy, he was an existential threat to their entire clan’s arsenal, and he had to be assassinated at all costs.

Fortunately, he might fell into the VIP category.

They watched in silence as the extraction finished. They saw Ziyan break down into heavy, silent tears as the emotional weight of years of isolation finally washed away. It was a beautiful, heartbreaking scene.

They watched the young man kneel in front of her. They saw him smile gently and reach out to wipe a highly acidic tear from her cheek.

And then... they saw him bring his thumb to his lips and suck the tear right off his own skin.

"This is the payment for the remedy."

Up in the tree, the emotional atmosphere instantly shattered.

The younger Tang girl physically recoiled. Her face scrunched up in absolute disgust. "Ew! What a smooth-talking pervert! Who licks tears?!"

But the Aunt?

The Aunt’s face didn’t show disgust. It showed pure, unadulterated fury.

As she stared at the young man’s incredibly handsome face, his smooth words, and his shameless flattery toward a vulnerable girl, a furious memory resurfaced in her mind.

"That face... that shameless demeanor..." the Aunt ground her teeth together. "Why does this flirty little bastard look exactly like Su Qingshan?!"

She couldn’t take it anymore. She refused to let this smooth-talking carbon-copy of a man she despised bully her fragile niece any longer!

Bang!

The branch beneath her shattered into splinters. The Aunt descended from the canopy like a vengeful hawk.