Chu Hongshang

Myriad Connections Tavern held much the same position in North Sea Market as Worry-Free Tower did in Linked Mountains City. Both were places frequented by low-ranking wanderers of the martial world.

The tavern's wine and food were affordable. People chatted, boasted, and shared gossip and intelligence here, making the place exceptionally lively.

Compared to Worry-Free Tower, Myriad Connections Tavern served another purpose as well: there were quite a few hired blades here. One could post assignments or accept them.

Originally, "hired blades" referred to martial artists who took government bounties and worked for the imperial court in exchange for rewards.

When Great Xia had first established its rule over the realm, the martial world was still far from settled. Rebels and bandits were everywhere.

Great Xia lacked manpower, so it issued bounties and recruited hired blades to serve the court.

Back then, hired blades held considerable status. Even the imperial court treated some particularly powerful hired blades with great courtesy.

Later, as the realm stabilized and Great Xia gradually grew stronger, it no longer needed hired blades to work for it and slowly abolished the system.

Yet hired blades still existed throughout the martial world. They were mostly low-ranking wanderers with no sect or school, drifting wherever life took them and willing to work for anyone who paid.

The more ordinary jobs included escorting caravans, guarding homes and estates, or sailing out to sea with merchant fleets.

The more dangerous ones involved participating in conflicts between gangs and sects as unaffiliated fighters.

Or they might be hired as thugs, even paid to kill as assassins.

In short, hired blades were now a motley lot. Generally speaking, ninety-nine percent of them were martial artists with little skill, scraping by as hired blades.

Chen Yuan stepped into Myriad Connections Tavern. The place was far larger than Worry-Free Tower, several times its size.

However, its atmosphere was not much different from Worry-Free Tower's.

A massive wooden board stood in the center of Myriad Connections Tavern, divided into upper and lower sections, both covered in wooden plaques.

The plaques on the upper section listed all manner of assignments.

Anyone wishing to hire a hired blade could write down their requirements on a plaque and hang it up.

If one of the hired blades in the tavern was interested, they would take down the plaque and go to the listed address to make contact and negotiate the price.

The plaques on the lower section contained profiles of various hired blades, describing their abilities and specialties. Those wishing to hire them could take down a plaque and contact them.

All in all, it was somewhat like a martial-world version of a job market.

Chen Yuan sighed inwardly. The owner of Myriad Connections Tavern was quite clever to have come up with something like this.

Posting or accepting assignments in the tavern was free. Anyone could hang up a plaque as they pleased.

However, hired blades who wanted to accept assignments had to remain in the tavern for long stretches to watch for them. Otherwise, any good job would certainly be snatched up by someone else.

Could they really linger in a tavern all day without ordering anything?

Besides, martial artists consumed a great deal of energy. They would be hungry again after only a few hours, and nearly all three daily meals had to be taken at the tavern.

That was why other taverns only prospered during mealtimes, while Myriad Connections Tavern had an endless stream of customers at all hours, even deep into the night.

Chen Yuan stood before the board and examined it for quite some time, yet failed to find the assignment he wanted.

Had the person not arrived yet? Or had that part of the plot already passed, meaning he had come too late?

Chen Yuan could not quite judge.

He had skimmed through these plotlines that existed only in the background, so there was no way to pinpoint the timing precisely.

Still, since he was already here, he might as well wait a few days.

Chen Yuan found a seat and ordered several local seafood specialties.

Linked Mountains City was inland, so fresh seafood was practically impossible to find there. Only in winter could one eat some frozen or dried goods.

The seafood in North Sea Market was fresh and plump, and it truly tasted excellent.

After eating, Chen Yuan remained in the tavern, waiting until nightfall, when a red-clad girl of seventeen or eighteen entered.

The girl's features were clear and beautiful, and her figure was tall and graceful. Though she was still young, it was obvious that she would grow into a stunning beauty.

Yet her eyes were vacant and lifeless, occasionally flashing with a bone-deep hatred.

The girl took out a wooden plaque and hung it on the upper board, but she did not leave. Instead, she crouched beside the board and waited for someone to accept her assignment.

Chen Yuan narrowed his eyes and read the contents of the plaque.

"Kill every member of the Zhu Family of Lone Mountain City!"

Most assignments at Myriad Connections Tavern involved hiring martial artists to engage in overseas trade or explore ruins beyond the sea.

A small portion concerned conflicts between gangs and sects. Assignments involving murder were exceedingly rare.

After all, these hired blades sounded impressive by name, but they were really just impoverished low-ranking wanderers, not professional assassins.

An assignment to wipe out an entire family was almost unheard of.

Seeing the girl, the martial artists in Myriad Connections Tavern immediately began discussing her among themselves.

"That child is here again. How many times has this been now? No one will accept that assignment."

"Ah, that girl really is miserable. I heard she had just become engaged to a direct descendant of the Wang Family in South Mountain City, but now the marriage is off and her whole family has been slaughtered. The Zhu Family truly was ruthless."

"If the Zhu Family were not ruthless, how could they have dominated Lone Mountain City in less than thirty years? The Zhu Family's Five Tigers are no pushovers.

"Especially the fifth one, Zhu Chengzong. He has already entered the great Yongzhou sect, the Radiant Extreme Sect. Naturally, the Zhu Family has risen along with him."

Amid the murmurs, an old man in his fifties or sixties, dressed in a shabby sheepskin coat, walked up to the girl. He sighed and advised her, "Miss, leave quickly. No one will accept your assignment. That is the Zhu Family, the tyrants of Lone Mountain City. Who would dare provoke them?

"You have posted this assignment here for two days. The Zhu Family may already have received word.

"With the Zhu Family's temperament, they will surely send people to eliminate you completely. If you leave now, you may still have a chance to escape with your life."

The girl shook her head, the hatred in her eyes nearly overflowing.

"I'm not leaving! It would be better if the Zhu Family sends someone. Even if I die, I'll tear a piece of flesh from them with my teeth!"

The old man shook his head and looked at the girl with pity, offering no further persuasion.

He could already foresee what would happen to her once the Zhu Family arrived.

Chen Yuan sighed softly at that moment. He had finally found her. Fortunately, he had come neither early nor late.

The girl before him was not a character from the first version of the plot, but one of the bosses from the third version: Chu Hongshang, the Scarlet Chain Demon Venerable.

Do not let her current harmless, pitiable appearance deceive you.

More than ten years later, she would stir up countless storms of bloodshed throughout the martial world, killing so many that "rivers of blood" would not be an exaggeration.

Chu Hongshang's background was only briefly introduced near the end of the third version of the plot.

She had originally been the legitimate daughter of the Chu Family, a minor clan in Lone Mountain City. Since childhood, she had been betrothed to a legitimate son of the Wang Family in South Mountain City.

Lone Mountain City also had another clan, the Zhu Family. It had not been particularly strong in the past, but over the last twenty or thirty years, it had expanded rapidly and become the foremost clan in Lone Mountain City.

The Zhu Family acted domineeringly and wanted sole control over Lone Mountain City. They did not want any second power to remain within the city.

Thus, the Zhu Family initially proposed marriage to the Chu Family, intending to marry Chu Hongshang. That way, the two families would become one, and they could take Lone Mountain City without spilling blood.

The Chu Family was not large. Even including its collateral branches, it had fewer than a hundred members. They held no great ambitions and had no desire to contend with the Zhu Family.

However, the Chu Family had upright family values. They believed that their daughter had been engaged to the Wang Family in South Mountain City since childhood. How could one woman marry two husbands? Thus, they politely declined the Zhu Family.

But the Zhu Family believed the Chu Family was refusing to give them face and merely making excuses.

How could one allow another to sleep beside one's bed? Refusing to marry into the Zhu Family meant choosing to become their enemy. So they found an excuse to launch a surprise attack on the Chu Family and exterminated every one of them.

Only Chu Hongshang escaped because the Wang Family had invited her over for a visit at the time.

Yet after learning that the Chu Family had been exterminated, the Wang Family immediately drove Chu Hongshang out, tore up the marriage contract, and severed all ties with her.

The Wang Family had agreed to marry into the Chu Family because the two families were of equal standing, both minor clans of average strength.

Now that the Chu Family had been wiped out, marrying Chu Hongshang would not only bring them no support from in-laws, but might also offend the Zhu Family. Thus, they decisively chose to break off the engagement.

The Chu Family had rather offend the Zhu Family than break the engagement, yet the Wang Family broke it off out of fear of offending the Zhu Family.

One wondered whether the Chu Family, if they knew in the underworld, would regret their choice.

By then, Chu Hongshang had nowhere left to turn. Her heart was dead and despair filled her, so she came to Myriad Connections Tavern to post an assignment and seek someone to avenge her.

Naturally, no one accepted such an outrageous assignment. Worse still, word reached the Zhu Family, and they prepared to send people to kill her.

Perhaps Chu Hongshang herself knew that the assignment was absurd and that no one could help her.

But she no longer had any hope and had already resolved to die. If the Zhu Family sent people after her, then even if she could not defeat them, she would drag them down with her to perish together!

A few days later, the Zhu Family sent people to eliminate her completely.

At the critical moment, Shi Xueyan, the Blood-Hand Fairy of the great demonic sect Myriad Demons Sect, returned from overseas and happened to pass through North Sea Market, where she witnessed the scene.

Shi Xueyan saw Chu Hongshang's fearlessness in the face of death and her earth-shaking hatred. Believing that she had potential, she took her as a disciple and brought her back to the Myriad Demons Sect.

The Myriad Demons Sect had a cruel system. Its disciples slaughtered one another, with the strong surviving and the weak being eliminated.

No one knew what Chu Hongshang experienced within the Myriad Demons Sect, but when she appeared again, she had already become the Scarlet Chain Demon Venerable, one of the Myriad Demons Sect's three great Demon Venerables.

Moreover, among the three Demon Venerables, Chu Hongshang had the most brutal and unpredictable temperament. Wiping out an entire family over a single sentence was commonplace for her.

Some sects and aristocratic families did not even know why they were dying.

In the original plot, Chu Hongshang did not even hold the Myriad Demons Sect's leader in her eyes.

The only person who could make her submit was Chen Jiutian, the extremely mysterious Martial Arts Alliance Leader from the final chapter of the plot.

He united the martial world, and the Daoist, Buddhist, and demonic lineages all submitted to him. In the final chapter's introduction, Chu Hongshang appeared once more as part of Chen Jiutian's backdrop.

Chu Hongshang could be considered the strongest person from the original plot Chen Yuan had encountered since transmigrating.

Of course, she was currently only a helpless, pitiful young girl filled with despair.

Chen Yuan rose and walked to the wooden board covered in assignment plaques, then took down the plaque Chu Hongshang had hung up.

Chu Hongshang's eyes widened as she stared at Chen Yuan in disbelief.

"Come on. I'll help you wipe out the Zhu Family."

Chen Yuan pulled the crouching girl to her feet and walked out of the tavern beneath the disbelieving gazes of every martial artist in Myriad Connections Tavern.