With So Many Lives Already on My Hands, One More of You Makes No Difference!

"Whoa..."

Every prisoner looked at Ning Que with deep wariness and fear, unconsciously putting distance between themselves and him.

The prisoners exiled to the Skeleton Desert were, naturally, all vicious beyond measure.

But this was their first time seeing someone with thirty-six lives on his hands.

Seeing the terror in their eyes, Ning Que merely smiled and said nothing.

He simply leaned in a corner, drinking alone.

Ever since the Great Li Dynasty had made the Skeleton Desert a cage for exiles, it had also maintained a system of ranks.

The desert's interior was divided into three layers.

The outermost desert had oases, making survival possible. The prisoners assigned there had committed the lightest crimes.

The middle desert was hot and dry, with drastic temperature differences between day and night. Without suitable equipment, one might not survive three days in its central reaches.

The prisoners exiled there had committed more serious crimes.

The northernmost stretch of desert bordered the enemy nation, the Mara Dynasty.

Besides the lethal factors already mentioned, there was one more: facing slaughter at the hands of Mara Dynasty soldiers every day.

Perhaps they, too, knew that the Great Li Dynasty used this desert as a cage for exiles, so they treated its prisoners as prey to hunt at will.

Sometimes, when the mood struck them, they even held killing games. Whoever hunted down the most prisoners within the allotted time could drink strong liquor and eat venison that night.

Conversely, any prisoner who survived the hunt could enter the Mara Dynasty.

Although death awaited either way, joining the killing game at least offered a thread of hope.

Though the prisoners around Ning Que feared him, a trace of pity crept into their gazes.

After all, anyone exiled to the deepest part of the desert could essentially be declared dead.

And it was even crueler than beheading.

The latter at least involved only an instant of pain, but the former meant facing endless terror!

Even if you survived the first day by luck, tomorrow, the day after, the day after that... every day that followed would bring a different threat.

There was simply no end!

[Ding! Host has completed the second Background Editing: Fallen Star Pavilion legacy disciple. Background items are now being issued!]

[Ding! Congratulations, Host, on receiving the Fallen Star Pavilion legacy disciple token and the pavilion's supreme treasure, Fourfold Azure Cloud!]

[Ding! Congratulations, Host, on receiving the Fallen Star Pavilion cultivation art, "Four Divine Constellations Scripture"!]

[Ding! Congratulations, Host, on receiving the ability: Astrological Divination!]

"..."

But Ye Yunshen did not panic in the slightest.

Why?

Because the system's background rewards had arrived!

Ning Que checked his system inventory and found many new items.

An antique token bore the character for "star."

A longsword, silver from end to end, shimmered faintly, with a rune branded on each face of its blade.

At the same time, dense, cryptic text surfaced in Ning Que's mind, forming a mysterious cultivation art.

A gleam of excitement burned in Ning Que's eyes.

With these cultivation arts and weapons, why should he fear the Skeleton Desert?

Originally, Ning Que had intended to play things by ear when entering the Skeleton Desert to rescue his father, meeting every change by holding steady.

After all, with thirty years of cultivation and his highly proficient Demon-Subduing Saber Technique and Back-Penetrating Fist, he would hardly be at anyone's mercy in the desert.

But he had never expected to unlock the identity rewards for his second background before even entering the desert.

This instantly dropped the Skeleton Desert's difficulty from hard to easy.

Whether they were other vicious prisoners, soldiers guarding the desert, or soldiers of the Mara Dynasty, none could pose a threat to him.

The real danger came from the environment—the desert's harsh conditions.

He had no wilderness survival skills.

"Time to set off..."

After resting at the way station for a while, the officers continued escorting the prisoners onward.

This was the last way station on the road to the Skeleton Desert, which meant that once they left it, they would draw ever closer to the desert.

The scorching sunlight beat down on the land, and even the ground was burning hot.

The extreme heat warped their vision, and amid the haze, a mirage actually appeared.

"Hey, did you hear? There's a special prisoner being held in the deepest part of the Skeleton Desert this time... He's the court's greatest thorn in its side, the leader of Flowing Sand!"

"I heard. Ning Yuanzhou, right? Wasn't he captured by Minister Wang's son?"

On the road to the Skeleton Desert, the soldiers began discussing it.

"Right. That Ning Yuanzhou has it worse than any other prisoner. Every day, they subject him to crippling torture, but they won't kill him!"

"And why won't they kill him? Because he's still keeping secrets. Young Master Wang wants to pry the location of Flowing Sand's headquarters out of him. That's the only reason he's still alive!"

One officer clearly knew a great deal and spoke with a smile.

The other officers widened their eyes in shock. "Wanting to die but being unable to—isn't that agonizing?"

"Of course it is! They torture him all day, then heal him at night, over and over again. Anyone would go mad... But Ning Yuanzhou has actually held on through it all. He really is a tough one."

The officer clicked his tongue in wonder.

"Doesn't he have a son, too?"

Someone else asked.

"Yes. Young Master Wang has been searching for him all these years! Unfortunately, he still hasn't found him... Once he does, he'll definitely meet the same fate as Ning Yuanzhou—dead without even a place to be bur—"

Before he could finish the word "buried," the officer felt a chill behind him, and an icy dread instantly spread through his body.

He turned around, only to find a disheveled prisoner staring coldly at him.

Though the prisoner's hair was a tangled mess, they could distinctly feel a pair of icy eyes staring at him.

Even at the desert's edge beneath the blazing sun, they could no longer feel the heat.

Instead, there was only an endless chill.

"Dead without even a place to be buried? I wouldn't be so sure."

Ning Que chuckled.

"You little brat, we're almost at the Skeleton Desert and you're still this arrogant! You think killing thirty-six people makes you something special? There are men in the Skeleton Desert far crueler than you, and didn't they all end up as meek as little lambs!"

Rather than showing fear, the officer barked a harsh rebuke.

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..."

A sandstorm seemed to be approaching from ahead. The windblown sand grew noticeably heavier, obscuring everyone's vision.

When they opened their eyes again, Ning Que had vanished.

Suddenly, a cold gleam flashed, and a bloodied head fell.

It belonged to that officer.

His expression remained exactly as it had been while he was speaking—perhaps, when he died, he had not even realized he was dead.

The other escorting officers were dumbstruck. In the space of an instant, their leader had died?

"Y-you actually dared to kill an officer of the imperial court?"

The commotion also caught the attention of the prisoners up ahead, and they all turned to look.

Ning Que smiled faintly. "I've already got thirty-six lives on my hands. One more of you makes no difference, and neither does one less."

"Die together, then..."

The moment he said "die," a thunderous crash rang out!

The shackles on Ning Que's hands shattered at the sound. Through the windblown sand, everyone could just make out a blurry figure.

Like a guide along the road to the underworld.