Li Yin shot up from the ground.
The female cultivator jumped at her sudden movement and hastily stood up as well.
Li Yin steadied her mind and looked up at the immortal boat overhead. “I know which sect I want to join.”
The female cultivator grew even more flustered. “Which one?”
“Myriad Beasts Sect,” Li Yin said firmly.
As for where those two inside agents were, it didn’t matter.
What truly counted was an easygoing atmosphere, low pressure, no cutthroat competition, and no messy personal relationships—especially not with exes.
Hearing this, the female cultivator let out a huge sigh of relief.
Success! She was practically a genius!
“Ahem, to be honest, I’m one of the Myriad Beasts Sect disciples in charge of recruiting this time,” the female cultivator said with a light cough, covering her mouth. “My name is Xia Erruo. You can call me Senior Sister Xia.”
Li Yin had already guessed as much. The subtle vibe of badmouthing the rival sects was all too obvious.
After exchanging names with Xia Erruo, Li Yin introduced herself as a rogue cultivator. By a stroke of luck, she had stepped onto the path of cultivation and wandered around ever since. She had happened to arrive in Northern Delusion City just as the Three Sects were recruiting disciples.
Cultivating alone was too tough, so she wanted to find a sect to band together with for mutual support.
Li Yin urged her on. “Senior Sister Xia, no time like the present. Let me join Myriad Beasts Sect right now.”
Xia Erruo wondered why this little junior sister seemed more eager than she was, but joy had clearly clouded her judgment. She strode forward happily. “Alright, let’s go test your spiritual root first.”
Li Yin agreed twice and hurried after her.
Sensing her unease, Xia Erruo reassured her. “Don’t worry, Little Junior Sister. Our sect doesn’t place as much emphasis on disciples’ spiritual roots as the others do. We value their affinity with spirit beasts more. As long as there’s chemistry, everything will be fine.”
She blinked. “I spotted you squatting in the plaza at first glance. You seemed like a good fit, so I came over to chat you up.”
Li Yin smiled at her. “I think Myriad Beasts Sect suits me perfectly too.”
Xia Erruo beamed with delight. “That’s great! We’ll test your spiritual root first, then have you interact with the spirit beasts…”
Li Yin listened to her plans while quietly taking a deep breath to calm her racing heart. She also sorted through her memories of those save files.
She quickly recalled the details of those nine bad ends, only to find her memories a bit fuzzy.
But she remembered that nearly every ending had ended in disaster.
A prime example was Route 4. After she tried juggling two love interests and got caught, their favorability levels—which had maxed out at 99—plummeted straight to zero.
The beautiful, strong, yet pitiful half-demon rejected her plea to elope and fell to the demonic path instead. The aristocratic young master, upon learning of her elopement plans, immediately called off the marriage. She had even just overheard them becoming sworn enemies.
Ha, good thing she had died. Otherwise, the world would have gained one more stable love triangle.
Li Yin remembered that in Route 4, she had died of rage.
After the player got exposed for two-timing and her reputation hit rock bottom, she succumbed to qi deviation from sheer fury.
The random judgment was: “The self-control needed for the player to calm down in time is at least 60.” Unfortunately, she had rolled only 9 points—far short of the requirement. The outcome: death by rage.
It was so absurd that she remembered it crystal clear.
However, on this timeline, for the capture targets, the player had probably been dead for centuries.
She had no idea if this crappy game had been programmed from the start with code for what happened to the capture targets after the player’s death…
Nor was she sure if, after transmigrating here, the world would generate new developments on its own—
Would capture targets whose favorability had dropped to zero hold grudges? How deep were those grudges? What did the ones whose favorability hadn’t hit zero think of the long-dead player? Would they even recognize her? And if they did, what then…
There were too many unknowns. Not to mention her current identity as a Demon Domain spy with pitifully low cultivation—anyone who came along could crush her flat.
With that in mind, Li Yin quickly set her course of action:
Keep a low profile and develop stealthily.
As for her master’s mission… as long as the green hills remained, there was no fear of running out of firewood.
She followed Xia Erruo onto Myriad Beasts Sect’s verdant wooden immortal boat. The spacious deck held a few cultivators chatting in small groups.
True to the sect’s name, there were all sorts of spirit beasts milling about alongside the people. Some nestled in their cultivators’ arms, acting spoiled. Others frolicked and chased each other across the deck and skies overhead.
Li Yin noticed two pairs of eyes on her: a young man and a fat senior brother.
“You actually managed to recruit her,” the fat senior brother said, eyes wide as he glanced between Xia Erruo and Li Yin. The young man beside him looked equally shocked.
Xia Erruo huffed at him and turned to introduce them to Li Yin. “He’s Senior Brother Zheng Qian, our big senior brother. And that’s Zhang Baille, your little senior brother.”
A friendly smile spread across Zheng Qian’s chubby face. Zhang Baille happily called out, “Little Junior Sister!”
Li Yin greeted each of them as her senior brother in turn. After a brief round of introductions, she followed Xia Erruo to test her spiritual root.
She placed her hand on the testing stone. The colorless, transparent rock immediately overflowed with green light, releasing a gentle wave of wood spiritual energy.
“Wood spiritual root!” Xia Erruo exclaimed in surprise, clutching the jade token and forgetting to record it for a moment. “No wonder you look so young but already have foundation establishment cultivation.”
Single spiritual roots allowed for faster cultivation than mixed ones.
Li Yin smiled faintly. “I’m just a bit luckier than most.”
This luck had drawn her a good identity card—though it came with some serious baggage mixed in.
She then asked, “By the way, Senior Sister Xia, how do we test affinity later?”
Xia Erruo snapped back to attention and entered her information into the jade token while answering, “We use young, innocent cubs for affinity tests. Generally speaking, with your wood spiritual root, spirit beasts of the same affinity will take to you more readily. As for the rest… it depends on whether they like you.”
“Come with me. The cubs are kept in the quiet room so they don’t wander off.”
Li Yin followed, but after just a few steps, the immortal boat shook violently. The defensive runes floating around the hull briefly lit up, blocking a shockwave of pressure radiating from the plaza.
Startled spirit beasts scattered in panic, chirping and squeaking noisily. The people on board scrambled about chaotically. Amid the din, a shrill scream pierced the air, making Li Yin’s heart skip a beat.
What was going on?
She stumbled a few times before steadying herself and peered outside in confusion. Faintly, she glimpsed a figure cloaked in deep night-purple.
“What’s happening? An enemy attack?” Xia Erruo asked loudly, steadying herself against the wall.
People gathered at the railing, including Zheng Qian and Zhang Baille, who stared intently at the sky beyond the boat.
Zhang Baille snapped out of his daze at her voice, his own trembling slightly. “N-No, it’s not an enemy attack…”
His face had gone pale, just like Zheng Qian’s beside him. They both looked as if they had witnessed something shocking and terrifying.
Li Yin’s instincts screamed trouble. “Senior Sister Xia, let’s go take a look.”
Xia Erruo wanted to know what was happening too. She nodded and led the way, with Li Yin hanging half a step back to deliberately keep out of sight.
A crowd had gathered at the railing. Li Yin peered through the gaps, and her breath hitched for a moment.
High in the sky, a cultivator was bound by gleaming white-jade branches, hanging half-dead. The jade branches slithered and tightened like snakes, emitting the teeth-grating crunch of bones being crushed.
Blood oozed from his fractured joints, dripping down like tilted rain threads toward the ground.
The male cultivator’s face had drained of all color as he struggled desperately. “Who are you? What do you want? I only came here to join a sect—why are you doing this to me?”
Across from him, the deep night-purple figure stood in midair with one hand behind his back. Hearing the man’s words, he narrowed his eyes slightly, his voice laced with contempt and loathing. “Cut the nonsense. Where are your accomplices.”
The cultivator had sharp ears. Li Yin not only heard their exchange clearly but also the ensuing crack of breaking bones, followed by the man’s agonized scream.
Her heart pounded in terror. She no longer watched the blood dripping down and instead quietly shifted her gaze to Elder Shen’s face.
From his handsome, coldly alluring features, she faintly glimpsed traces of his youthful self and confirmed his identity.
He was indeed one of her capture targets from Route 4—a noble, arrogant aristocratic young master. Li Yin vaguely recalled as much.
His adult frame had fully matured, and his personality had shifted too, so she hadn’t recognized him at first glance.
Li Yin racked her brain for his name while covertly observing how events unfolded.
A jade slip-like magic artifact hovered beside Elder Shen. The jade branches had sprouted from it.
When the male cultivator kept playing dumb, text began to materialize on the open jade slip. Thorns rapidly grew along the branches, piercing into his body. Blood gushed out as his screams filled the air.
The sight sent phantom pains through Li Yin. She halted her recollections and couldn’t help asking, “What kind of magic artifact is that?”
Xia Erruo provided commentary from the sidelines. “It seems to be Elder Shen’s natal magic treasure.”
Before she could say more, the male cultivator could no longer maintain his facade. Demonic qi erupted from his entire body.
The watching Myriad Beasts Sect disciples cried out in shock. “A demonic cultivator!”
Zhang Baille muttered softly, “It’s my first time seeing a demonic cultivator.”
Li Yin’s eye twitched, but she said nothing.
Counting her, it was actually the second time.
“Elder Shen wouldn’t strike without reason. Nothing to be surprised about,” Zheng Qian said. As the big senior brother, he knew more than the others.
Still, the sudden incident had startled him too.
Elder Shen had moved like lightning, binding the man from the ground to midair in the blink of an eye. If not for the immortal boat’s protections, they would have been knocked flat by the sudden burst of pressure and spiritual power, just like the people below.
Now that he understood the situation, Zheng Qian cleared his throat and began explaining to the clueless junior disciples.
“You all saw that magic treasure, right? It’s called the Criminal Prison Codex—quite famous. It can judge evil thoughts and sins. Elder Shen must have detected evil and sin on that male cultivator, so he acted.”
“You’ve heard of the God-Beating Whip, haven’t you? See those thorns?”
“They’re just like it. They say the thorns not only damage a cultivator’s body but also scour their spiritual sea, inflicting agony on both body and soul—total annihilation of form and spirit. Normal demonic cultivators can’t withstand it.”
Li Yin thought calmly. She was a normal demonic cultivator too, and she definitely couldn’t withstand it—really couldn’t.
In the game, death meant a reload. Now that she had transmigrated, that might not be the case.
Fortunately, she was the type who grew calmer on the surface the more nervous she felt inside. Blending into the crowd, she watched the events outside play out.
Once the demonic cultivator revealed his true nature, he squeezed out a few words through gritted teeth. “Kill me…”
He clearly couldn’t endure the natal magic treasure’s power any longer. Elder Shen granted his wish.
The shattered remains were tossed down like trash, plummeting straight from the sky. He didn’t spare it a second glance.
He killed without batting an eye.
Li Yin’s hairs stood on end. The man’s hatred for demonic cultivators was plain to see.
It wasn’t hard to guess that his arranged marriage partner eloping with a demonic cultivator had humiliated him deeply, birthing this cruelty toward them.
Now she was in a pickle. She was both that marriage partner who had humiliated him back then and a demonic cultivator herself.
If Elder Shen discovered her, he could fulfill two wishes at once.
Li Yin figured she might die even more miserably than that demonic cultivator just now.
With the execution over, a disciple in sky-blue robes from Azure Profound flew over. Li Yin spotted the vivid red hair ribbon trailing behind his head, fluttering in the wind.
She heard him call out respectfully to Elder Shen: “Master.”
But Elder Shen gave him no warm reception. His voice was icy. “Go find his accomplices. Don’t stand there like a useless eyesore.”
Hearing “accomplices,” Li Yin snapped awake. She suddenly remembered something crucial.
Wait—the guy who just died… he wasn’t one of the inside agents sent to link up with her, was he!? Was her master sending such unreliable people?
Li Yin’s heart pounded wildly. Her hands clenched tightly at her sides.
She stood on the Myriad Beasts Sect immortal boat’s deck, surrounded by the sect’s disciples.
Having just joined, she still wore her own clothes, while most Myriad Beasts Sect disciples donned uniform ink-green magic robes.
Better safe than sorry. Standing out like this was way too conspicuous. What if they came looking for accomplices and zeroed in on her?
Especially since she really did have a guilty conscience.
Li Yin tugged at Xia Erruo’s sleeve. “Senior Sister Xia, let’s keep going.”
Xia Erruo’s face had paled from the execution. She clutched her chest, steadying her breathing. Hearing Li Yin, she quickly agreed and turned to lead her to the quiet room for the affinity test.
In her peripheral vision, however, Li Yin glimpsed the Azure Profound disciple with the red hair ribbon finishing his arrangements and flying over with a few others. Her heart leaped into her throat.
It was over. In the Cultivation World, death loomed at her doorstep.