Yue Niang—the woman—had been on Xu Yuan's mind for a while. He'd been wondering whether she possessed cultivation, too.
It was clearly unrealistic for a woman to run the enormous Drunken Immortal Pavilion on her own.
Now that he'd seen her, it turned out she really was an expert.
The mystery of why the original body hadn't lasted three moves against her was solved.
Most likely, Yue Niang had been circulating a dual-cultivation technique at the time.
That was downright unsportsmanlike.
With Yue Niang's neck in his grasp, she naturally couldn't answer Xu Yuan.
He watched her increasingly pale face for a couple of seconds, then raised a hand slightly to signal.
Grandmaster Zhou was quite accommodating. He let go at once, gave Yue Niang a deep look, then slowly retreated behind Xu Yuan and stood with his eyes lowered.
Unlike the other experts who liked to put on airs, Zhou Chen had clawed his way up from the very bottom.
He could be a Grandmaster.
But he was also a professional lackey.
The garden lanes, blue bricks, and green tiles stood in utter silence. The pristine courtyard wall now bore a small dent where Yue Niang's frail body had struck it.
As soon as Zhou Chen let go, Yue Niang crumpled to the ground, limp and helpless. Paired with her pale face, she looked rather pitiful.
Xu Yuan was a little surprised. He glanced sideways at Zhou Chen.
Did you really hit her that hard?
Zhou Chen shook his head helplessly.
Yue Niang had only tried to appear suddenly and block the Third Young Master, giving him a show of force.
She hadn't made any move to attack, so Zhou Chen had merely returned the gesture in kind.
Xu Yuan understood. He looked back at Yue Niang, amusement glimmering in his eyes.
As expected of a woman who'd survived the fierce competition of the pleasure quarters. She could even act this convincingly.
"Yue Niang, why go to all this trouble?"
Yue Niang lowered her eyes for a moment, pressing her thin lips together. When she looked up again, a hint of grievance shimmered in her eyes.
"Third Young Master, if... if the Drunken Immortal Pavilion belonged to me, I would never refuse you what you wanted. But Mr. Qin set the rules, and I can only follow them."
"Mr. Qin?"
Xu Yuan murmured the unfamiliar name.
Though Xu Changtian had always acted without restraint, he was generous when it came to places like the pleasure quarters.
Jealous quarrels were commonplace, but given his status and willingness to spend lavishly, they'd never caused any major trouble.
So this was the first time Xu Yuan had heard the name Mr. Qin.
He was probably the Drunken Immortal Pavilion's hidden owner.
Xu Yuan tried to recall a character from the plot of Cangyuan who might match this Mr. Qin, but came up empty.
The name Mr. Qin sounded familiar, but he didn't think it was from Cangyuan.
In any case,
anyone who could bankroll an establishment like the Drunken Immortal Pavilion must have considerable influence.
After all, Xu Yuan remembered that there was a Drunken Immortal Pavilion in the Imperial Capital, too.
After a pause,
Xu Yuan glanced sideways at Zhou Chen, a questioning look in his eyes.
Zhou Chen hesitated briefly, then sent his voice into Xu Yuan's ear.
After hearing him, Xu Yuan had a rough idea of what sort of person this Mr. Qin was.
A scion of an aristocratic clan, born with a sword bone, renowned throughout Jiangnan. More than ten years ago, he'd even earned a reputation as someone who could rival the Prime Minister's eldest son.
A strange look flashed through Xu Yuan's eyes.
If Mr. Qin really was as Zhou Chen described, why had Xu Yuan never seen him in the plot?
"..."
Yue Niang couldn't hear their voice transmission, but she could read the expressions on their faces. After considering her words for a moment, she continued softly:
"Third Young Master, Mr. Qin personally brought my new girl here and gave me specific instructions himself. Surely you can't ask me to go against his wishes?"
Xu Yuan came back to himself and raised an eyebrow.
He paid no attention to the second half of what Yue Niang had said.
That woman had been brought here by Mr. Qin?
After a few seconds of thought, Xu Yuan asked with a smile:
"Yue Niang, you said Jinxuan was brought here by Mr. Qin. Is that true?"
A trace of confusion passed through Yue Niang's eyes, but she answered honestly:
"I wouldn't dare lie to the Third Young Master. Jinxuan was indeed brought here by Mr. Qin in person, half a month ago."
"..."
Thoughts flickered through Xu Yuan's eyes.
If the woman really had been brought here by Mr. Qin, that was certainly worth pondering.
In Cangyuan, Xu Yuan had controlled the protagonist through several storylines in which the protagonist killed his original self, the Third Young Master. They hadn't been easy, but he'd never encountered an enemy he couldn't overcome.
The strongest boss had been a guard like Xue Yong, at the peak of the sixth-grade Iron Body realm.
Now that the plot had become reality, the problem was much bigger.
After beating a boss on Xue Yong's level, the protagonist Xu Yuan controlled had simply slit the original body's throat.
At the time, Xu Yuan hadn't paid it much attention.
After all, it was common knowledge that brainless young masters sent their underlings one by one to their deaths. Besides, that Iron Body peak boss had been genuinely difficult to beat.
But thinking it through now, Grandmasters Zhou Chen and Ying'er had both been watching nearby. With the protagonist's current strength, how could he possibly kill the original body?
Even a slightly-too-quick approach from an expert like Yue Niang had gotten her taken down in one move by Zhou Chen. At this point in the plot, if the protagonist wanted to kill Xu Changtian—
Zhou Chen could kill him with a single glare. Believe it or not.
Granted,
perhaps Xu Yuan's Innate Dao Body had caused a butterfly effect, prompting Xu Changge to beef up the guards around him.
But after what had happened with Ran Qingmo kidnapping him, Xu Changge should at least have left a Grandmaster behind to protect him, right?
Yet the plot had never mentioned one.
Perhaps the Grandmaster assigned to protect the original body in the plot had been tied up with something else.
At the thought,
a strange look came over Xu Yuan's face, and an absurd notion slowly crept into his mind.
Or perhaps... this section of the plot was simply a bug?
After all, no matter how carefully crafted a fictional world was, there would always be some logical inconsistencies—especially when the game also had to account for the players' experience.
Once the thought occurred to him, the strangeness in Xu Yuan's heart only grew.
By now, he was used to the world filling in the gaps.
If that really was the case, then he could completely understand why this Mr. Qin had suddenly appeared.
The protagonist-kills-the-Third-Young-Master plot had a bug, so the world had filled in the missing piece by creating someone to fix it.
Assuming that premise was true, he could follow the thought further.
What was Mr. Qin's motive? Which faction from Cangyuan did he belong to?
The Marquis of Martial Achievement?
Though that lord's relationship with the Prime Minister's Estate was tense, he'd always acted honorably. He wouldn't go so far as to target the Third Young Master.
The Crown Prince Faction?
His father was a Prime Minister, one of the Three Excellencies and the Crown Prince's tutor. With the Emperor gravely ill, the Prime Minister's faction had consistently backed the Crown Prince.
At this point in time, the Prime Minister's Estate and the Crown Prince's pro-imperial faction were still in their honeymoon period.
The local sects?
If they were behind this, why had Ran Qingmo, the Sword Sect Master's sole disciple, risked kidnapping him in the first place?
"..."
The tangled web of factions in Cangyuan flashed through Xu Yuan's mind, but he came up with nothing.
The factions with a motive lacked the strength.
The factions with the strength lacked a motive.
And those with both strength and motive, like Ancient Abyss, couldn't reach into an important provincial capital like Jingjiang City.
As usual, when he couldn't figure something out, he stopped trying for the time being. He could meet Mr. Qin himself and make a better guess after getting more information.
Xu Yuan was about to set the matter aside when the corner of his eye twitched.
A sudden thought surfaced in his mind.
If this world could fill in the gaps by creating a Mr. Qin,
could it also create a faction lurking in the shadows?
Before you continue