Far from the noisy crowds, by the riverside, a black flood dragon lay dead on the bank.
A pair of hands covered in pitch-black gloves casually gestured a few times with a short blade, and just like that, they sliced open its hide and peeled it off. Bright red blood splattered, like scarlet snakes coiling and winding across a pale face.
The hand beneath the black glove lifted, wiping some of the blood from the face.
A sharp dagger pierced into a red crystal that shimmered with a pigeon's-blood-like dark glow, lifted leisurely like a fork spearing a fine cut of red meat.
Shang Daoling breathed in the scent of blood so close at hand, his Adam's apple rolling up and down.
This flood dragon's flesh and hide—he'd peel them off and trade them for a few Spirit Stones. As for the dragon core, he'd enjoy that himself.
He happened to have skipped breakfast, and couldn't be bothered to refine it—he'd just eat it directly.
The handsome, tall man was not in Daoist robes at this moment, but wrapped entirely in sharp, tight-fitting combat attire. The fabric was taut and close to his body, outlining his undulating, well-proportioned contours—a slender neck, broad shoulders, the two ends of his collarbones slightly protruding like small peaks, a leopard-like, powerfully narrow waist, and two long legs.
A set of daggers hung in the knife sheath at his thigh, silver light flickering, like the cold chill of early spring. His entire being was like a bewitching steel blade—pale, sharp, flowing with an exotic force and beauty.
Shang Daoling planted one foot on the flood dragon's corpse, his arm casually resting on his bent thigh, leaning slightly forward, more intoxicated, more up close, breathing in the bloody scent emanating from the dragon's corpse.
Rong Chunsong thought to herself, the smell of blood to this male lead is simply like catnip to a cat.
In the scene, the handsome and eerie figure extended a bit of his crimson tongue, gently licking the demon core, like a big cat tentatively tasting the flavor of food. Then, with a flick of his tongue, the demon core swiftly disappeared behind lips dyed bright red with blood. The man closed his eyes, sighed deeply, and swallowed the pomegranate-red demon core into his belly.
Although she knew this guy would later love to show off, be all gorgeous and flashy, she hadn't expected that even now, killing a flood dragon and eating a demon core, he'd be this extra.
She found it quite amusing. In the early stages, he mixed in with the Immortal Alliance pretending to be innocent and gentle; in the later stages, his true form revealed—robed in red, killing left and right. That emperor-turned-author seemed to have inadvertently written a male lead who was both saintly and demonic, both pure and flaming—pure flame for short. After all, his purity was all just groundwork for the flame.
The comment section was too busy arguing over whether this little Shang was an antisocial criminal, a xianxia psychopath, or a sigma male lead who believed every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost—and yet nobody noticed how flaming he was.
After enjoying this little morning snack, Shang Daoling spoke quietly: "These past few days, I haven't heard Your Excellency the Cult Leader 'guiding' me by my ear." He had long since noticed the Ghost Immortal's gaze in the void.
Rong Chunsong grumbled inwardly—guiding? Judging by the male lead's expression, he probably meant nitpicking.
Busy organizing the Spring Hunt affairs and visiting relatives, she'd gone just a few days without watching this electronic pet's fairyland adventures, and he was already being this passive-aggressive.
Seeing as he'd just put on a sexy, spicy performance for her, she decided to kindly give him some career advice. Some little Tips!
Rong Chunsong said: "Although my powers are boundless, I don't have the time to watch you every moment, little Shang. You should learn to be self-reliant too—don't depend on me too much. A good subordinate should learn to solve problems independently. Don't report back on everything and memorialize about every little thing. Don't always think about making your leader give you resources."
Shang Daoling's brow twitched. "You…"
Having spent so much time together, he had more or less figured out what these strange expressions of the Ghost Immortal meant.
He smirked playfully, trying to turn the tables on her. "Oh, right. Last time I refined the corpse pill from that Demonic Entity I collected at the Li family's place. Chief, would you like me to present it to you?"
Before she could even reject that suspicious corpse pill, he had already pulled a clay pot out of his Storage Talisman.
"You refine pills like this? With a clay pot?"
"What's wrong with a clay pot? Once you channel spiritual power into it, it works just as well as a cauldron. Chief, I bet you're some noble-born high and mighty. For Rogue Cultivators like us who have to count every coin to get by, this is exactly how we refine pills."
This big-shot protagonist was even trying to fish for information, hoping to pry out her identity through this little exchange.
Rong Chunsong shot right back at him. "You've already made who knows how much money. Why are you still so stingy?"
Shang Daoling replied with a beaming smile. "That word 'stingy' sounds so harsh. Practicing frugality—that's one of my fine virtues."
Fine virtues, her foot. This guy didn't have a single thing in common with the word "virtue."
She seriously suspected that if they ever met in person, he'd be the type to say "I'll Venmo you for my share of the coffee later." Though Cloud Capital didn't even have coffee beans as a plant yet—well, at least he'd better not forget to split the bill for the pu'er tea.
This guy was genuinely stingy.
A complete, nearly flawless flood dragon hide had, without question, fetched a handsome price from the merchant who bought spirit beast pelts and flesh.
Money in hand, and mealtime rolling around, this big-shot protagonist found a nearby stall to grab a bite—and he still ordered the cheapest plain noodle soup.
Come to think of it, after observing him for this long, aside from the day he attended the feast at the Jiang family's and that time he mooched a bowl of generously loaded wontons from the family running the wonton stall, she'd never actually seen him eat anything proper. Every day it was just a few bites of plain noodles or white congee to get by.
If you said he had no appetite for good food, well, in the future he'd refine immortal pills and feast lavishly. If you said he appreciated the art of fine dining, well, look at how sloppily and carelessly he ate now.
She tentatively concluded that this young man had been living this kind of ascetic, puritanical, penny-pinching life for so long that his cravings had been suppressed for way too long.
She genuinely wanted to know why, in the past of Shang Daoling that the original story hadn't elaborated on much, he'd turned out to be such a cheapskate—but even if she asked, he probably wouldn't answer.
At the neighboring table of the stall, a couple was also bringing their little boy to eat noodles.
The couple spoke to the child in a cheerful tone. "Maomao, eat up. Today's your birthday. Let's all celebrate your seventh."
The bowl in front of the kid was piled with braised pork, fried fish, and snow cabbage with edamame—three toppings, which counted as a very luxurious bowl of noodles.
Other diners overheard that it was the kid's birthday and teased him too. "Little buddy, make a wish while you eat your birthday noodles. Who knows, it might just come true."
The kid immediately pressed his palms together and declared, "I want to become a cultivator when I grow up, flying around in the sky, slaying demons and vanquishing evil, upholding justice."
Hearing such an innocent grand ambition, everyone around smiled with fondness.
But after the scattered laughter faded, the noodle stall fell silent for a moment, and then another low, mocking laugh rang out, like a specter's whisper.
Shang Daoling, who had been sitting with his back to the family of three the whole time, was laughing without stopping.
"Big brother, what are you laughing at?" The kid was very confused.
"Laughing at how naive and foolish you are, little brother." Shang Daoling turned around, his slender arm resting casually on the edge of the table, smiling as he spoke.
He then interlaced his fingers and placed them on his lap, leaning slightly forward to gaze at the child, his posture relaxed—at first glance, he looked like some elegant young gentleman from a distinguished family. But from his thin lips came the whisper of a demon:
"Cultivators are terribly dangerous, you know. One day you might wake up from sleep and find yourself tied up, your eyes gouged out, your tongue cut off, your hands chopped off—and looking down, whoa, your innards are spilling out too!"
The couple had already reacted and hurried to stop him: "What kind of things are you saying to a child?"
Shang Daoling merely smiled indifferently.
Two yellow talismans flew from his sleeve, folded a few times in his well-defined hands, and immediately transformed into a small yellow talisman figure and a yellow talisman dragon.
"Slaying demons and upholding justice—little brother, you're just so passionate, so enthusiastic, just like… this!"
In an instant, the yellow talisman dragon had run the yellow talisman figure through, and countless bright red paper scraps burst from the figure's belly, scattering down like heavenly maidens strewing flowers.
The people around had already realized he was a cultivator.
Ordinary people didn't dare challenge a cultivator. In the silence, only the young couple—tightly covering their child's eyes—spoke up: "Daoist master, a child casually made a wish—what does it have to do with you? Is there any need for this?"
"Wow, you really don't appreciate good intentions. I merely saw at a glance that this child's spiritual aptitude is poor, so I told him in advance how cruel the world of cultivation is, so he wouldn't go astray and end up with no place to bury his corpse."
The child, whose eyes were covered, changed his tune: "Then when I grow up, I'll just open a noodle shop and make noodles." Perhaps he sensed the silence of the people around him and was afraid his parents would clash with this difficult older brother.
Hearing the child abandon his "grand" ambition, Shang Daoling seemed satisfied. He stood up, patted the child's head, and said slowly: "That's more like it. Mortals should have mortal ambitions—but even opening a noodle shop requires caution. After all, daoist masters as kind and as un-picky as me are rare. If someday your noodles don't taste good and you run into a fussy cultivator, disaster will still befall you."
"You—" You're sick in the head! But fearing his cultivation level, the couple swallowed the rest of the sentence, picked up their child, and left.
Rong Chunsong was truly speechless. It happened to be mealtime, and she had just gone to eat. When she came back, she saw this guy bullying a little kid?
Fortunately, the child had already finished the toppings on his noodles. Otherwise, it would have been such a pity if a bowl of three-topping noodles couldn't be properly enjoyed because this guy scared him.
[Skill "100% Chance to Fall onto Target" activated.]
As it happened, a pair of stone lions was placed at the entrance of the embroidery shop ahead.
Shang Daoling tossed down a copper coin, settled the bill, and had only walked a short distance when he immediately fell forward, his head heading straight for the stone lion's round, bulging head, producing a crisp bang.
Quite crisp, quite pleasant to hear—truly a good head. Rong Chunsong commented aptly.
A few passersby who didn't know what was going on snickered maliciously at the sight, but upon seeing his sinister gaze, they immediately stopped laughing and pretended to be casually on their way.
Just this one bump, for someone who had cultivated for years and was impervious to a hundred poisons, it didn't even register as pain. But the humiliation was beyond measure…
Shang Daoling gnashed his teeth: "Sect Master, do you have some instruction for me?"
"No instruction, really. I just saw you teasing that child earlier and found it quite amusing, so I thought I'd replicate it on you—give you a little tease."
So she was once again overflowing with kindness, wanting to stand up for some random passerby she didn't even know.
She asked: "You really hate children?"
"That's not it. I just particularly despise little brats with happy families."
"If a child came from a broken family, would you still sympathize with them and help them?"
Shang Daoling laughed: "Of course not. It would just drop from 'particularly despise' to 'despise nine parts out of ten.'"
Rong Chunsong thought this guy really had a severe case of chuunibyou—all kinds of edgy, antisocial remarks just rolled off his tongue.
Oh wait, no. He probably really was an antisocial villain to begin with.
This man surnamed Shang seemed to really dislike people with happy families.
In this dark male-oriented web novel—flooded with water, mountains of corpses, seas of bones, all just padding the word count—a casual search for keywords like "parents," "father and mother," "family" would turn up plotlines that were all very heartwarming.
One instance: someone cursed him for having no parents, and he hacked them to death.
Another instance: someone cursed him for having a father who didn't teach him and a mother who didn't raise him, and he ran them through.
Yet another instance: someone said that this Nightmare Nest Path Lord must have sacrificed his family to heaven to gain such boundless power—and sure enough, he was subsequently captured to experience the Nightmare Nest Path Lord's boundless power firsthand, thrown into a furnace, and refined in an instant.
Rong Chunsong found herself getting reading fatigue just going through it all. The same plot—how many times was the author going to write it?
Finally, she jumped to a chapter where the writing wasn't quite so bloody.
In a certain Illusory Realm dungeon that could manifest a person's deepest memories, what Shang Daoling saw was the following scene.
Hazy and indistinct, faintly discernible as a garden within a magnificent palace.
In the garden, a group of attendants followed behind a little boy, accompanying him as he strolled, played, and roughhoused. Deep green shade, and not far away, a man and a woman watched the child. Though their faces were unclear, one could feel the gentle smiles contained in their gazes. This Illusory Realm seemed to suggest that Shang Daoling also had a family, also had parents, and was even of extraordinary origin.
However.
At the time, it was right in the middle of a flood of negative reviews. The comment section was full of people cursing this "author-emperor" for thinking he was some niche darling while actually writing the same clichéd trope of the protagonist inevitably having a hidden family background. Who knows if the emperor got triggered by the criticism—this tiny foreshadowing never appeared again afterward.
Back when Shang Daoling's humanity and human nature hadn't been completely extinguished, he was indeed easily triggered when people called him an orphan.
But in that Illusory Realm dungeon, it was also one of the very few moments in the entire text where he said nothing at all, his expression quiet and serene, his whole being settling into stillness.
Considering that a few days ago he had helped her make Lotus Heaven's name known at Gusu Terrace, she'd give him a beautiful dream.
Besides, the main thing was that the Favorability Value hadn't gone up in days.
If the Favorability Value didn't rise, she had no chance to draw lots. For a player addicted to gacha pulls, what greater torment could there be!