When Changtian heard her naturally say "we," a warmth rose in his heart; he knew she truly regarded him as one of the Hidden Stream. He chuckled twice. "That’s where you’ve guessed wrong. Setting aside the effort spent on the long‑distance raid, the ones most eager to wipe out the Jiuxiao Sect weren’t the Hidden Stream, but those two Immortal Sects."

What?! She was shocked; the hand gripping his robe tightened. "The Jiuxiao Sect wasn’t slaughtered by the Hidden Stream?" Before looking up, she still didn’t forget to cast a Cleaning Technique on her own face.

Her eyes and nose were as red as a rabbit’s, making her look rather comical. Changtian’s lips curved up; he couldn’t resist pinching her delicate little nose. "After you fell in Bai Yujing, I did indeed swear I’d slaughter every last soul in Jiuxiao Sect. But after I spent so much effort uprooting the Jiuxiao Sect, how could I possibly let the other Immortal Sects take advantage of it for nothing?"

She froze at that, and a thought slowly surfaced in her mind: "So when Changtian destroyed the Jiuxiao Sect, he really did have other plans in mind."

The Jiuxiao Sect sat atop the finest Cave Heaven Blessed Land on the East Sea Coast, and it had rare special products like Fortune Gold; their days were so comfortable it defied description. With such a wealthy neighbor, the nearby Sects that were living like dogs had long envied them till their eyeballs turned green. But the Jiuxiao Sect’s strength was formidable, supported by millennia of accumulation; it was a bone that was extremely hard to gnaw. None of the surrounding Immortal Sects dared set their sights on it.

At least, they didn’t dare before the Hidden Stream appeared.

Changtian said slowly, "The Guanghui Sect and Zhu Tao Palace, those two Demon Sects, aside from the Jiuxiao Sect, are the largest Sects near East Sea Mysterious Dragon Bay. In fact, I arrived at the East Sea more than a month earlier than the time of the massacre. During that period, I reached an agreement with the leaders of those two Demon Sects: they would join forces with me to send troops and bathe the Jiuxiao Sect in blood. Afterward, the infamy of the massacre could be borne by the Hidden Stream alone, but once the two of them had carved up the Jiuxiao Sect’s territory, they would each have to hand over thirty percent of the annual output of resources—especially the Fortune Gold—to me."

You can do that? Her rosebud lips parted in shock, and even her eyeballs stopped moving. That dazed look was very pleasing to Changtian’s eyes, and he lowered his head, about to bite her lips.

She reflexively raised a hand to block him, then let out a small gasp—the shameless bastard had actually stuck out his tongue and licked her palm. That soft, slick, tingling sensation drilled straight into the bottom of her heart.

"Talk business!" she hissed, snatching her hand back. This soulless man had just hit her, and now he thought he could turn right around and flirt with her like nothing had happened?

"All under Heaven bustle for profit. The Hidden Stream is in the Southwest; the Jiuxiao Sect is on the East Sea Coast. After I destroyed the Jiuxiao Sect, sooner or later I still had to return to the Bashe Forest. Even if I could sweep away all the wealth inside the sect, those various resources sitting out on the sea, especially the Fortune Gold produced regularly every year, would be out of reach for the Hidden Stream and would only end up cheapening the other nearby Sects." When Changtian finished speaking, a faint cold smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

She understood in a flash. In Changtian’s plan, the Jiuxiao Sect was doomed to be annihilated no matter what; he just needed to find two allies who could continue to funnel the spoils to him after the sect was slaughtered. Since the Hidden Stream couldn’t stay stationed on the East Sea to mine Fortune Gold, what about the local Immortal Sects? That was exactly in line with the kind of thing she believed Changtian would do. This man might be ruthless and expressionless, but that didn’t mean his brains weren’t sharp. As for doing the wedding dress work for others, leaving all the benefits behind for someone else to reap, he would never accept that. It wasn’t like his surname was Lei.

"You’d never have guessed, right? In the process of exterminating the Jiuxiao Sect, those two Demon Sects were even more enthusiastic than the Hidden Stream. Of the Jiuxiao Sect disciples, six or seven out of ten died at their hands. They even handled the aftermath with extreme care, making sure not even the cook in the kitchen was left out." In the golden eyes before her, a cold light gleamed. "That time, I only brought three thousand Demon Soldiers to the East Sea, but the Guanghui Sect and Zhu Tao Palace mobilized over twenty thousand people, determined to ensure the Jiuxiao Sect didn’t have a single survivor."

This was a massacre that wiped out an entire Sect, and the motive was utterly devoid of any righteousness, purely to openly seize territory and split up the mines. Even if only one eyewitness escaped, the Guanghui Sect and Zhu Tao Palace would become targets of public condemnation, carrying infamous reproach on their backs for who knew how many ages before they could wash it clean. How could they be willing to take such a risk?

But the Jiuxiao Sect had been monopolizing an Immortal Mountain Blessed Land for thousands of years, while the other Sects hadn’t even gotten a single hair out of it. The chance Changtian offered was a once‑in‑a‑lifetime opportunity; how could those two Demon Sects possibly resist such temptation? If you can hold the position of sect master, who among you is an idiot? The Hidden Stream was obviously dragging them into the water, tying them all onto the same rope as grasshoppers. But people die for wealth, birds die for food—even knowing it was bait, could they really bear not to bite?