I, Too, Am Evil

On the twenty-third day of the seventh month, the sky was overcast.

Lead-gray clouds hung low over the mountains of the Southern Border, with not a sliver of sunlight in sight. Mountain winds bore down heavily from Filth Mountain, pressing all the vegetation into a bow.

The aristocratic clans of the Southern Border's four mountains turned out in full force. Their processions filed through the mountain passes from every direction, banners snapping and carriages rumbling as they advanced in great columns into the depths of Filth Mountain.

Seen from afar, they resembled four gray-brown, muddy currents slowly converging along winding mountain roads toward that monstrous peak.

At the head of each procession were the clans' cultivators.

Some rode horses; others sat in palanquins, their clothing sumptuous and their bearing composed.

Some wore swords, some carried banners, and a few were faintly shrouded in gray mist, their depths impossible to gauge.

When they spotted one another from afar, they inclined their heads in greeting from their palanquins, wearing perfectly courteous smiles, as though they were attending an ordinary elegant gathering between aristocratic clans rather than a Monster's ceremonial observance.

In the middle of each procession were the "offerings" they were delivering to Filth Mountain on this occasion.

They were densely packed ranks of young, able-bodied mortals, both men and women, ranging from fourteen to thirty years old. Barefoot and dressed in rags, they were roped together in string after string, stumbling forward amid the cultivators' rebukes and the crack of whips.

Bringing up the rear were each clan's Clan Troops and stewards.

Some had long whips hanging at their waists; others held iron rulers. They stared coldly at the backs of the mortals' heads, like herdsmen watching the cattle and sheep in their pens.

When they occasionally whispered among themselves, their talk concerned nothing more than whether a clan had met its quota of offerings, or how many old and weak people another had slipped in to make up the numbers.

"Move! What are you dawdling for?" A man dressed like a steward cracked his whip across the shoulder of a limping woman ahead of him.

The woman staggered in pain and pitched to the ground, dragging down the two people roped immediately before and behind her.

For a moment, the entire line of rope-bound captives descended into chaos. Those behind could not stop in time and trod on those ahead, screams rising one after another.

The steward frowned, strode over, and lashed them indiscriminately until their skin split and flesh tore, only then straightening out the rope. He bent to lift the broken end and inspect it, then looked at the woman on the ground.

One of her legs had already been injured. The fall had opened another wound on her knee, deep enough to expose bone, and blood mingled with mud across the ground.

"Useless now." He clicked his tongue and casually drew a short knife from his waist.

The woman's eyes widened, her lips moving as she tried to say something, but before she could make a sound, the blade had already swept across her throat.

The procession stirred briefly, then quickly fell quiet under the intimidation of the Clan Troops.

The mortals behind lowered their heads and skirted the corpse, averting their eyes from the still-spreading pool of blood. No one dared spare it another glance.

The steward crouched, cut the hemp rope from the woman's hands, and searched her body. Finding half a moldy flatbread, he casually tucked it into his own robes.

He rose and spat on the ground. "Lost one after only half a day's walk. We'll have to replace her later."

As he spoke, another commotion suddenly broke out farther ahead. A boy of fourteen or fifteen had somehow freed his hands from the rope and darted out of the procession's flank, racing toward the woods beside the road like a startled rabbit.

He moved extremely fast, his bare feet becoming a bloody mess on the gravel, yet he never looked back.

Several Clan Troops chased him with harsh shouts, but the mountain road was rugged, and the boy plunged onward with all his might. For a time, they could not catch him.

The fleeing boy had covered barely a hundred paces when a shrill whistle suddenly sounded beside his ear.

His body abruptly stiffened, as though an enormous invisible hand had seized the back of his neck. He fell rigidly to the ground, limbs convulsing and mouth foaming.

A black thread as fine as a hair had somehow crept around his neck and was slowly tightening.

On a carriage at the head of the procession, a gray-robed cultivator extended two fingers and casually curled them back.

Like a fish hauled ashore, the boy was dragged back along the ground. Gravel tore through his chest and cheeks, leaving a long bloody trail behind him.

The gray-robed cultivator withdrew his hand without so much as lifting his eyelids, merely giving a flat command. "Hang him up."

Two Clan Troops stepped forward and hung the boy from a dead tree beside the road. He was not dead yet, his legs kicking feebly in midair.

The procession continued onward, the mortals behind filing beneath the tree. Some stole an upward glance, then quickly lowered their heads again.

Deep within the procession, among the Fei Household's ranks, Li Fuchan sat astride a blue-gray gelding and watched the entire scene.

His expression did not change.

Beside him, Fei Yangxie stole a glance at him. Seeing his gaze as still as water, betraying neither pleasure nor anger, he grew even less certain what this senior was thinking.

Li Fuchan's understanding of this world was not profound—from Flying Earthworm refining pills with human beings in Flying Earthworm Cave, to Xu Xuan killing his father beneath Black Mountain, to the Great Compassionate Venerable Wisdom King approaching attainment of the Dao, when nearly ten thousand people within a hundred li became novice monks, gouging out hearts, splitting bellies, stripping out intestines, and scraping away bones as offerings to the Wisdom King...

He had never considered himself a good person. He even thought of himself as a demon, since he had already prepared to minimize his entanglements with the Fei Household and flee with the Spirit Object and cultivation formulas.

Thus, he had never saved anyone beyond the limits of his ability—not Mu Xiaoliang, not Ning Xiuqing, nor those mortals he had encountered upon first entering the Southern Border.

"Herding people as livestock..."

He murmured the words, finally understanding what they meant.

"A bunch of NPCs."

Li Fuchan yawned.

Boom.

Lightning seeped from the seven openings of the steward who had killed the woman. His entire body turned to charcoal, collapsed, and shattered into blackened chunks.

The Clan Troops who had hung the boy met the same gruesome end.

The cultivator, however, noticed something amiss and prepared to flee without even uttering a threat.

Someone with cultivation could not be killed with quite such casual ease.

Li Fuchan glanced at him, and within his sea of qi, Light-Deceiving stirred.

[Jiao-Driving Lightning]

A nearly imperceptible flash of lightning instantly pierced the Aperture Opening cultivator between the brows.

"A flying sword?"

"No, a Thunder Cultivator!"

"What realm is he in? Could he have already opened the Hall Chamber and Noon Peak apertures?"

"No, higher still."

"How could there be such a formidable expert on the outskirts of the Southern Border?"

"Where on earth did the Fei Household find someone like him?"

Li Fuchan had brazenly struck and killed them. One had even possessed cultivation—some clan's young master, some elder's beloved descendant, some junior's cherished senior—and yet he had died effortlessly at Li Fuchan's hand.

Once they returned, who knew what words their clan history would devote to him? Perhaps two or three centuries later, someone from that clan would become a Purple Mansion Lord with divine abilities, seek out Li Fuchan with centuries of hatred, and swear to make him join the dead.

For now, however, no one dared question him aloud.

In this world, mortals were livestock in cultivators' eyes, and lesser cultivators were livestock in greater cultivators' eyes as well.

"Senior..."

"What, Young Master Yangxie? Do you intend to protest this injustice?"

Li Fuchan turned, his narrow eyes settling on Fei Yangxie's face.

Under that look, Fei Yangxie's heart leapt into his throat. Terrified that Li Fuchan might casually dispose of him too, he spoke in a trembling voice. "I wouldn't dare, Senior. I wouldn't dare."

Li Fuchan nodded expressionlessly.

He returned his gaze to the procession ahead and suddenly asked, unhurriedly, "Didn't you say your household only needed to provide six hundred people? I made a rough count. Why are there over a hundred and eighty extra?"

At that moment, Fei Yangxie wanted nothing more than to hide at the very back of the procession.

He truly feared that once he explained the reason, this deadly scourge would send him after those people who had just died.

Yet he did not dare refuse to answer. Gritting his teeth, he could only steel himself and say, "We... we feared some might die along the way, or escape, so we added more to make up for any losses. If there are a few more than six hundred when we reach Filth Mountain, the monster will... will be pleased to see them."

After saying this, Fei Yangxie felt as though a ball of thunderfire had ignited among his organs, scorching him until his face alternated between ashen and pale, leaving not a single part of his body comfortable.

But that was only his imagination.

Li Fuchan had not yet descended into a murderous frenzy or decided to slaughter them all.

As for saving them?

What would happen after he saved them?

Would he take them out of the Southern Border, to South of the Yangtze?

Li Fuchan was no saint, nor could he perform such a charitable deed.

Born into a world like this, everyone was livestock. I, too, am evil.

Still, the monsters here in the Southern Border were indeed rather crude.

Even their methods of consuming blood qi were this primitive, relying solely on eating people—and eating so many at once.

As for those immortal sects and aristocratic clans South of the Yangtze, whatever sordid intentions lurked behind their shepherding of mortals, they managed farming and sericulture, valued education, investigated wrongdoing, and rewarded good deeds. The mortals under their rule were plainly penned livestock too, but at least appearances were maintained: their cheeks were rosy, not sallow with hunger.

At the very least, they were not so openly bloody, and fewer of them practiced Blood-Consuming Cultivation.

Set side by side, the superior and inferior were immediately apparent.

Still, this affair had also given him a glimpse of Flying Light's true caliber.

It seems the cultivation method Flying Light practices really isn't very sophisticated.

Li Fuchan silently weighed things up.

The whole of Filth Mountain probably lacks any coherent system. Otherwise, they wouldn't be crude to this extent, sinking helplessly into their appetites, ignorant of how to govern mortals to support their cultivation. A monster like this poses far less of a threat. He's merely a stupid creature built up by eating people, hardly any better than Flying Earthworm.

As he pondered, he caught sight of Fei Yangxie still frozen in place, looking as though he awaited judgment. Li Fuchan drew his gaze back and instructed him evenly, "Sorry for the trouble, Young Master, but send someone to take down that boy they hung from the tree. Whether you send him to be eaten by Flying Light or release him to fend for himself, either would be better than leaving him hanging there to die in despair."

"As you command, Senior."

Fei Yangxie left as though fleeing for his life.

The various aristocratic clans' gazes also shifted discreetly over him.

Voice transmissions flew back and forth among them.

Some minor Aperture Opening cultivator had apparently failed to control his transmission, for it even reached Li Fuchan's ears.

But it was not really that person's stupidity. His Outer Scenery could now manifest, and on such a gloomy day, perfect for lightning to descend from heaven, many things would unwittingly stray into his Outer Scenery, allowing him to hear or see them.

Their discussions were all about who he really was and whether they ought to change their attitude toward the Fei Household.

Unfortunately, they ultimately decided to proceed according to plan.

Seated in a palanquin not far away, Fei Cai lifted the curtain and glanced back. From a distance, he saw the black-clad man riding a tall horse, and a venomous gleam flashed through his eyes.

"For the Fei Household, for our bloodline, for the ancestor, there is no one who cannot die. Flying Light can die, Li Fuchan can die, and so can I!"