Villain System in a Cultivation World-Chapter 47: Spreading News

The news of Jiang Zhongbai's death ripped through the Xuantian Sect like a wildfire devouring sun-scorched plains. Its searing tendrils reached every nook and crevice—from the opulent, gilt-trimmed halls of the Inner Sect to the shadowed, yet lavish chambers of the Outer Sect.

In one such chamber of the latter, flickering oil lamps waged a defiant war against the gloom. Their golden flames glinted off jade-inlaid walls and cast a warm sheen over polished stone floors.

Around a fine mahogany table—its surface carved with intricate cloud motifs and polished to a mirror's gleam—sat a huddle of grizzled men. Their robes, though faded with age, were woven of silk and edged with subtle threads of silver, draping over frames weathered by time yet cushioned by the spoils of their cunning.

These Outer Court elders, though scorned by the inner elite, clutched their wealth with iron fists. Their coffers brimmed with spirit stones and rare elixirs hoarded over decades of ruthless thrift. The air was thick with the spiced aroma of aged wine and the faint, luxurious musk of incense, their low voices weaving together in a taut, restless murmur.

At the head of the table loomed a figure swathed in faded yellow robes, the fabric shimmering faintly with embroidered runes. His presence was a quiet thunderhead—restrained yet brimming with unspoken power. Time had bowed his once-broad shoulders, but his grizzled beard and hands, rough as weathered oak, bore the scars of a life forged in battle and tempered by profit.

"Jiang Zhongbai's gone," one man grated, his voice coarse as millstones chewing gravel, gnarled fingers adorned with a single jade ring drumming a staccato rhythm on the table's gleaming edge.

"Cut down by Young Master Qin Ting in the Lian Yun Mountains," another confirmed, his hawkish eyes flashing beneath tangled brows. They were sharp and predatory as they caught the light of a nearby sapphire-crusted lamp.

"Good riddance, I reckon," an elder spat, his voice a creaking groan of old timber. His eyes slitted with contempt as he adjusted the heavy gold chain draped across his bony chest. "That Jiang Zhongbai strutted about like he was above us all, just 'cause he clawed his way to the Divine Platform Realm before us. A peasant's whelp, yet he bore himself like some anointed prodigy kissed by the heavens."

"The Holy Son's mantle falls to the Young Master now," a third voice hissed, dry as dust and edged with venomous envy. "The Qin Family's claws sink deeper into our sect," he added, his fingers tracing the rim of a jade wine cup worth more than a common disciple's yearly stipend.

A figure shrouded in tattered black robes—still subtly lined with threads of rare moon silk—leaned forward. His gaunt, sallow face split into a jagged smirk that twisted his features into something feral. "Elder Zhang crossed Qin Ting once, didn't he? That scheming, thieving rat of a deacon... He even groveled so low as to throw in with Jiang Zhongbai and that broken fool back then."

All eyes swiveled to the yellow-robed man. His robes pooled around him like molten honey spilled across the floor, their faint shimmer a testament to wealth undimmed by his Outer Court station.

He stroked his beard slowly, the coarse bristles rasping against calloused fingers adorned with a single, glinting ruby ring. When he spoke, his voice rolled out deep and measured, each syllable a heavy boulder plunging into a still pond. "Zhang Wu's no elder anymore—just a fallen wretch, mired in disgrace, scraping filth from floors and scouring pots. But his rot still festers. Hoarding treasures, bleeding the sect's lifeblood dry—it falls to us to carve out this corruption."

The men around the table bared their teeth in crooked grins, their spirits surging like hounds catching the first whiff of blood on the wind. "Aye," they snarled in unison, voices rough and eager, "let's purge the blight clean!"

They rose as one, their footsteps a deep, resonant growl against the polished stone floor. The sound reverberated through the labyrinthine corridors of the Outer Court.

The air grew sharper and colder as they descended from their lavish quarters toward Zhang Wu's dwelling. The slick, moss-slicked walls of the lower warrens gleamed with a sheen of moisture that caught the faint torchlight.

In the stifling stillness, the rhythmic drip of water echoed like a hushed omen. Each drop was a quiet tolling of fate.

At last, they reached his door—a gnarled slab of oak, its grain warped by time and banded with rusted iron. It was a pathetic barrier to the squalor within.

The yellow-robed man stepped forward, his scarred knuckles a map of old wars, etched in pale ridges across his weathered hands. He raised a fist and roared, "Zhang Wu! Your greed ends here!" His voice boomed like a war drum struck in fury, the sound shuddering through the frame and rattling the hinges in their sockets.

They stormed inside, a surge of righteous wrath tempered by the creak of aging bones. Fists knotted and eyes blazed with purpose—only to halt midstride, breath snagging in their throats.

The room was a festering pit, a dank burrow unworthy of even the lowliest servant. Its stagnant air choked with the cloying reek of decay—sweet and sour all at once—mingled with the stench of unwashed flesh and moldering straw.

The walls, cracked and streaked with grime, leaned inward as if to bury the disgrace of its occupant. A single, splintered stool and a chipped clay bowl sat in one corner, the pitiful remnants of a man who once grasped at grandeur.

Zhang Wu sprawled across his sagging bed—a rotting pallet of straw and tattered rags—limbs flung outward like a puppet dashed against the ground, strings slashed. His face was a grotesque rictus, frozen in a scream of torment, the deep furrows of his skin carved darker by time and treachery.

Black, tar-like blood seeped from his eyes and mouth, trickling in sluggish rivulets to pool in the hollows of his gaunt cheeks. Beside him, the serrated, emerald leaves of Soul Reaper Grass shimmered faintly in the lamplight's dying glow—a mute confession of his final, fatal choice.

The man in black let out a sharp, serpentine hiss, his breath cutting the silence like a blade. "Shrewd old bastard..."

Their scheme had been straightforward: kill Zhang Wu with their own hands and sever his head as a grisly offering. They planned to lay it at Qin Ting's feet to curry a scrap of favor beneath the ascendant might of the Qin family.

With the family's shadow stretching ever longer across the sect, even the meanest dregs of their fortune glittered brighter than the opulence these elders already clutched. But Zhang Wu, shaken by Jiang Zhongbai's bloody end, had outmaneuvered them in death, snatching their triumph with one last, cunning stroke.

His corpse, sprawled in the filth of his animal's den, left them nothing but the sour sting of anticlimax. It hung heavy as the damp mist that clung to the chamber's crumbling walls.

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At Hidden Sword Peak, the wind shrieked through jagged crags, a relentless gale laced with the biting scent of steel and frost. Luo Yuan perched cross-legged atop a weathered granite slab, its rough surface etched with scars of time.

His sword rested across his knees, its polished blade snaring the wan light of a crescent moon. It cast slivers of silver across the stone.

Beside him lay the crumpled remnants of Qin Ting's expedition report, its ink smeared into illegible streaks by the mountain's damp breath. 'Junior Brother Qin outstrips me yet again,' he mused, his fingers tightening around the sword's worn leather hilt. The cool, familiar texture bit into his palm, a silent taunt urging him onward.

'Still, our fates are entwined, roots knotted beneath the same ancient tree,' he thought. 'His ascent lifts me too—he must see me as a friend, perhaps the closest among us True Disciples.' A sly smirk curled his lips, mischief glinting in his shadowed eyes.

He pictured Feng Qianhan's inevitable reaction—a tempest of pride and barely veiled panic. The thought alone was a delight worth savoring, sharp as the wind whipping through the peaks.

At Winterfang Peak, the air shimmered with an eternal frost that seemed to suspend time itself. The snow-draped ground crunched softly underfoot, a delicate counterpoint to the towering silence of the frozen landscape.

Feng Qianhan stood poised at the edge of a training platform carved from ice. His crimson robes were a vivid slash against the endless white, his breath curling into fleeting clouds in the biting chill.

Shock flared in his widened eyes, rage clenched his jaw into a hard line, and a grudging acceptance gradually eased the deep furrows etched across his brow. The weight of the news settled into his very marrow.

Jiang Zhongbai—his unmatched rival, a behemoth whose power had collided with his in countless grueling bouts—lay defeated. Qin Ting had brought him down with startling ease.

After a silence that stretched like the endless winter around him, Feng Qianhan turned to the maid trembling in the doorway. Her slight frame was dwarfed by the cold grandeur of the peak. "Fetch my finest treasures from the vault—something rare, something exquisite, a gift befitting a conqueror. I'll meet Junior Brother Qin myself when he returns."

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The maid darted away, her hurried footsteps swallowed by the snow's muffling embrace. Feng Qianhan exhaled a long, slow breath, a plume of white unfurling into the crystalline night air before dissipating like a ghost.

A cynical smile ghosted across his lips, as fleeting and sharp as a shard of ice glinting under the moonlight. 'Fortunate I never crossed him,' he reflected, quiet relief melting the tension that had gripped him, unyielding as frost on stone.

'A touch of deference, a few carefully chosen offerings, and he'll have no reason to turn that ruthless blade my way,' he thought. He braced against the icy railing, the chill biting through his robes as though testing his resolve.

At last, the tempest of his thoughts ebbed, settling into a delicate, crystalline stillness. The unrelenting cold pressed closer, bearing silent witness to his measured surrender.