The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System fan fiction

Don't worry they are nothing special just a pic of heaven and SQQ personally made village for his little buns family and relatives...

 

Pffft. No. That's not what G's village-town-and-now-city looks like at all.

 

Don't worry I know his will look more like *naruto first hokage building houses* but I personally like the look of this fairy tale village more... other pic that may suit is

https://fu-reiji.deviantart.com/art/Uzumaki-House-547345251 ...

 

Yes, that does suit, as does this.

 

@heartantares or anybody else who has compiled all the stories separately in docs please send me links of them all... I am currently in the middle of thread pg 300 and they are too many stories... keeping track of them is making my head spin

 

You... do know the docs are all on page 1 post 1, right?

 

Oh yeah sorry... when I first found this thread I was sleep deprived I just saw your trans dimensional ones... Didn't realize the other authors works was there as well and that it was complete collection... I was busy reading your stories and other people comments... I just saw *heartantares* complied docs but they didn't appear to be complete...

Will go read it now..

 

There will be new posts tomorrow, I need my sleep right now, before I start on Yang Dewei's arcs.

 

hohoho!!! Good night dear... may you have many pleasant dreams full of new plots for stories... Can't wait for tomorrow actually I should go to sleep its after midnight... but nah will sleep in a while....

 

RED ENVELOPES

Spoiler

ATDSVT-Wang An's Honeymoon
***
Ziming was an absolutely adorable wife. He was sweet, always eager for physical affection, and always oddly grateful for it.

Wang An's favorite thing to do was to dress his sweet and adorable consort in gauze clothing and jewelry before utterly ruining that gauze in the bed. Or over every single piece of furniture in their quarters.

There was something about the glint of jewels and precious metals on that pale skin or contrasted against the dark hair, the red of the gauze bridal clothes only enhancing the rosy tint of flushed skin, the inviting red fruits, the soft pink petals of an eagerly contracting chrysanthemum, the crystal-clear drops of sweat gliding over lean muscle that really, really turned Wang An on.

It was even better, because Ziming tended to blush cutely, and his eyes were always full of the kind of adoration that made Wang An want to cuddle him and stroke him over and over all night.

Wang An had always had a... very strong attachment to the idea of having a bride- in a way, it was completely his... fetish, one might say. He didn't remember having a mother or father, couldn't ever remember having a family other than Shifu, but nevertheless, there was something about that phrase, 'husband and wife' that made him feel avaricious towards it.

And now his sweet wife didn't mind wearing all the things which had erotically arousing connotations such as that phrase. He really, really liked calling Ziming his bride or his wife. Both of those words, like being able to use phrases like 'between husband and wife, these are meat on the chopping board' to smooth over arguments, brought an unusual amount of satisfaction.

Sweet, cute and adorable, thinking of Ziming in such ways because of the way he reacted when Wang An took him to bed or the way he doted on Wang An constantly, only whetted Wang An's appetite to spoil him.

It was a very different reaction to the way his previous three lovers had to his visits and his efforts to dote on them. Those three tended to be proud and sulky and often pouted and struggled and..
Also very cute. So cute he wanted to bully them until they were reduced to mewling.

But it was a different kind of cute and they didn't seem to like the references to conjugal bliss. If he said, 'between husband and wife' to them, Wu Guen and Ao Jiang would turn bright red, choke and sputter and decry being called the wife. Also very,very cute. Lian Yunying on the other hand was like a little rabbit, so easily scared that he wanted to scare him some more and then bully him in bed.

None of the three had been happy that he sent them bride gifts but they were even more unhappy that he had gotten a first wife! Such a contradictory trio, could not stand to be the brides, could not stand to watch him take a bride!

Spoiler

ATDSVT-Shang Bo's Family
***
It is never easy to recover from a traumatic event. Sometimes the recovery takes months, sometimes it takes years. Even when a person recovers from trauma, there will always be signs, changes in their personality or their behavior. For instance, Huang Enlai, having been sold to a brothel once, had never been able to truly get over it, developing an innate hatred towards perverts and parents who sold their children into such slavery. Even if they made the excuse that they could no longer feed their children, Enlai despised them.

Of Shang Bo's adopted family, his eldest sister, Shang Ling Mei had adjusted the quickest and fared the best. His brothers, Shang Li Jia, Shang Tao Hai and his youngest sister, Shang Bai Yu were far more reticent. In truth, it was not a lack of fortitude, nor was it a lack of adaptability- they had grown up on the streets, such things were necessary to survive. They had seen the red lights district through the eyes of street urchins and pickpockets, and had seen slavers occasionally pick up street urchins before to make them whores. As pickpockets, they had nominal protection from an older man who had taken a portion of their profits and used part of that to bribe the slavers and law enforcement to avoid them, but even that protection had ended. They had been sold out.

To be specific, they had been sold out because several members started turning to violence to make a living, breaking and entering houses, killing merchants and unfortunate travelers. The bribes couldn't make up for their misdeeds, thus, their hideouts were taken down and burned by the forces of law enforcement led by officials with a few members of the military. Everyone who survived was either sold off as a slave for mines or thrown into jail.

In the ensuing carnage, they had hidden in place after place. Eventually, no matter how hard they tried, they were still caught. Stragglers were, after all, preyed upon by slavers, brigands- there was no end to it. Lei Jun had fought like a demon to try to protect his younger friends. He managed to buy time before he was slain, but despite this, their sister, Li Hua, still was raped and murdered. Bai Chun was slain while trying to stop the rape. Li Jua, Tao Hai and Bai Yu were all thrown into the prison with Shang Bo.

When Li Jua was nearly assaulted by the jailor who made him sleazy promises of extra food and a better pile of rush bedding if he'd bend over and let himself be taken, Shang Bo pushed past his limits and went on a rampage.

After Shang Bo was taken away, the other remaining jailor sold them all to the brothel, to make a profit and to make sure that Shang Bo would have nothing to come back to.

If Shang Bo's Shifu hadn't been willing to shell out the money to redeem them, they would never have been able to free themselves. The brothel was an education- it trained some talented people in the four noble arts to make courtesans and turned street rats into prostitutes. If it hadn't been for the fact that Ling Mei had taught them writing before they had been separated, they would likely have been turned into prostitutes immediately afterwards.

Having seen the lives of the prostitutes in that brothel, it wasn't surprising that the two boys and their younger sister huddled in the home Shang Bo's Shifu had built and refused to leave it for literally months. Fortunately, they didn't lack for food, clothing or anything. The house was completely stocked with anything anyone could need and the garden could produce plenty of food- it had ducks, geese, rabbits, doves, plenty of fruit trees and vegetables planted, it was complete even down to the last few herbs.

Thus they could afford to stay in and hide.

Fortunately for their peace of mind, Shang Bo's Shifu allowed Shang Bo to visit them when he wasn't training, and later, eventually even brought Ling Mei back.

Under the protection of their elder brother and elder sister, the remaining three former pickpockets could relax, but that didn't mean they had recovered. It meant they could go out into the town because the town was safe. There were no slavers allowed in this town, and the citizens had the protection of the nearby immortal cultivator sect to the point that Shang Bo's Shifu was constantly upgrading its defenses and anyone who thought to wreck the place or kidnap people to sell them off would die. None of Shang Bo's disciple brothers were willing to tolerate slavery in their territory. In addition, any corrupt law enforcement people were beaten to near death and evicted with a record of their crimes, by vigilantes in midnight black.

 

I was hoping you’ll write about the honeymoon! Wang An’s brides (especially Ziming~) are all very cute, yes. Wang An must be constantly cooing internally. So moe~
When are the other three going to give in (they sound like they’ll make one interesting household...)?

Poor Shang siblings. I hope they do eventually recover. And G’s village is starting to sound like a pocket paradise.

 

RED ENVELOPE

Spoiler

ATDSVT-Shang Bo's Family
***
One of Shang Bo's problems was that his siblings, being both in possession of some prime real estate, as well had having their appearances refined by the medicine that his Shifu had given them, were now considered to be high quality goods. Their relationship to him lent them prestige, his obvious care for them made them perfect for leverage or influence on him, and the younger three (at least two of whom were still probably older than he was) of his siblings were all shut ins. That is, they had taken more time to acclimate themselves to their new home, and in fact, had hidden themselves for months which lent them an air of mystery.

The matter of Shang Bo's surviving siblings as well as Enlai's own surviving siblings having been brought back from brothels were in essence, secrets known only to those who were on scene at the time of the purchases and in the case of Enlai's siblings, any past customers.

That was remarkably sensitive information, and if anyone got hold of it, they would be looked down upon.

Naturally, while Enlai was blissfully oblivious to this problem, Shang Bo and his Shifu certainly weren't.

As a direct result, Shang Bo had enlisted some help from his other brother disciples to help him look after his family, while his Shifu had begun tracing all transactions involving the people in question, such as, say, tracking down former customers with drones.

It was said that two people could keep a secret if one of them was dead. In this case, Shang Bo could keep his family's origins a secret through silencing the people who had an inkling of what had happened by drugging people with potions that had amnesia as an effect. It wasn't as if such things were beyond them now that they had all the resources they could possibly need, and it was certainly more ethical than murder.

In truth, of Enlai's brother disciples, the only ones who knew where his siblings had been hidden were Heiying, Sun Jin and Shang Bo. Aoguang didn't care because Enlai didn't want to know. Wanyong and the others hadn't asked, for the same reason. To the others, the location of those people was irrelevant as long as Shifu was handling everything and Enlai didn't want to know where they were.

Shifu was handling the problem? Then it was solved- that kind of thinking.

Sun Jin, of course, knew where they were, because they were in the same town as his father and mother were, with the remnants of the Suli clan.

Daomei knew, for the same reason.

The Huang siblings were confused as to why they had been taken under the black wings of Zixie and Moxie, but no one was telling them anything unless Enlai indicated otherwise.

Of course, while no one was going to interfere with the Huang siblings' finding their own spouses, those same Huang siblings weren't in the limelight unlike the recognized siblings and family of the other disciples, and Moxie had the 'murder all the rapists' part pretty much covered for them, that left Shang Bo's siblings, who needed to fend off suitors who might be too pushy.

That was where Shang Bo's vigilante tendencies and overprotective instincts came in. Having a good understanding of his siblings' shut in tendencies and their need for safety, as well as their completely justifiable fear after having been rescued from the brothels, Shang Bo was now very, very picky about who was allowed to be near them.

Shang Ling Mei wasn't having a problem. She had simply bought herself some male beauties from the slave markets to enjoy herself with. As her status as his eldest sister was high enough to cover her, no one was going to comment about it or notice it (if they wanted to keep living). As long as she kept it low key, she could roll around in the sheets with her beauties.

Of course, she had plenty of suitors. Her siblings all did, now. The question was, how many of those suitors could make it past Shang Bo.

 

*sneakily takes all the money and runs away*

 

RED ENVELOPE

Spoiler

ATDSVT
***
It is a fact that the world that a certain transmigrated GM found himself living in had myriad small and large human kingdoms. The largest of the human kingdoms was the Empire, but it was not the entirety of the world, no matter how this dynasty's rulers thought of it, and emphasized what they felt was its role, as the biggest, strongest of all human kingdoms this far.

The Empire considered itself to be the center of the world, the Middle Kingdom, and it considered all the surrounding countries to be subordinates or to be barbarians. Their closest neighboring kingdom of high strength and wide territory had been the Nomads' Empire which it had eventually crushed. Right now, it was well known that it would take a long time, at least three or four mortal generations, to fully integrate that much land into the Empire's current infrastructure and administration. In the first mortal generation it was likely that the largest number of errors and ironing out of mistakes would be happening.

That in itself meant anywhere from three to seven generations before the Empire was secure enough to consume more land and or assimilate more new kingdoms. Right now, the current generation was only beginning to put down roots thus giving the Empire's smaller counterparts and adversaries time to prepare themselves into a position formidable enough to remain unassailed.

In addition, the Empire's subordinates, which it had sent out to take possession of the place, were also prone to backstabbing, embezzling and sabotage.

Thus, taking over the place would inevitably be delayed even further.

It was a historical fact that many of the smaller countries in history were once puppets for some sects of immortal cultivators or were even owned by the occasional single, remarkable cultivator who was a genius.

The Empire itself had once belonged to the Yellow Emperor, the ruler who had founded it who was also an immortal cultivator who had slain a demon god at the time and eventually 'ascended to a higher realm to become a god'.

Even now, the Yellow Emperor and his descendant, the Jade Emperor, were both considered to be the venerated deities of the Empire. The current Imperial family claimed descent from both of them but pathetically few of the Imperial family members had ever been lucky enough to cultivate to become like them. Most of the members of the Imperial family in the past dynasties failed and died in the attempt to unlock cultivation, preyed upon by charlatans or quacks who sold them dubious potions, the few who succeeded never attained similar levels of power, staying far weaker before they vanished from the mortal world, supposedly to have ascended.

This was why the moment that so many Imperial Family members had been able to unlock the ability to cultivate because of the Pavilion of Past Lives, they had immediately gone to get themselves some masters who were willing and capable to teach them to cultivate. A sudden glut of high ranking students meant a sudden large number of satisfied teachers.

This was also why so many immortal sects were full of proud cultivators who thought of their fellow human beings as ants or livestock or cultivation resources.

In the past, there had even been sects who took in refugees from this or that disaster and used them as human targets in exchange for protecting and settling them on new land.

Whether they considered themselves to be righteous cultivators or not, they still disregarded the inherent value of human lives. Some of the righteous cultivators even simply focused upon killing demons and demonic cultivators without caring about the collateral damage they caused in terms of human lives while slaying their targets. If mortals died, they couldn't care less.

If mortal martial arts experts of the Wulin or Jianghu were known to be walking weapons, then the Immortal cultivators were heavy artillery. If the normal loose cultivators and cultivating family lineages were grenades, then they were lasers. If the sects were lasers, then Cang Qiong stood supreme over them with the ability to cause massive area effect damage.

There were very good reasons that merchants and nobles all tried to get tied to Jianghu experts and to the cultivating lineages- it was like acquiring an armory. Thus, the stronger the cultivator, the better the investment.

Marrying the relative of a Cang Qiong inner sect disciple was like acquiring the ability to exercise a nuclear option. The common assumption was that anyone who could do it now had the qualifications to bully other people to their content, taking over smaller kingdoms would be easy.

This principle was exactly why the Emperor had decided to raise the known in-laws and kin of those sect members to ranks of the nobility. For one, it was acknowledging the fact that these people were sitting on the equivalent of enough explosives to blow a city sky high.

For another, raising one's status in society obliged them to be grateful to you. Grateful people were people who didn't revolt.

This was also why nobles of the higher ranks were once again trying to find unmarried members of the sect members' families in order to acquire them. It was like acquiring an armory-everyone wanted one in this uncertain world, full of dangers such as demons and political clusterfucks.

Each Cang Qiong inner sect member they had heard the name of could and did go out to purge demon infestations en masse. The outer sect disciples of Qing Jing had become capable of mass producing travel artifacts in the form of those ceramic cargo carrying steeds. As a result, the inner sect disciples had been considered to be equivalent to this era's massive weapon spawning armories, and the outer sect members were equivalent to small scale explosives and transportation factories.

This was also why Shang Bo and several other members of the sect had many, many suitors for themselves and their kin to now fend off.

 

RED ENVELOPES

Spoiler

ATDSVT
***
To understand Li Aoguang's situation, one has to know the facts of the social system and the paternal family he had been born into.

There were five ranks of prince in this Empire. The first two, the Qinwang and the Junwang could claim to be in the line of succession. Among the Qinwang, the son of the Emperor could be chosen to be the crown prince, and the others became imperial uncles when the crown prince ascended to become the Emperor. The Junwangs also had claims in the line of succession under all the Qinwangs. The third rank, Wang had no place in the line of succession and were considered to be somewhat similar to vassal kings who ruled over fiefs that were provinces.

There were conferred princedoms, Wang who earned their rank by serving the Empire meritoriously. There were the Wangs who were descended from the royal families of other countries who surrendered their lands and handed them over in exchange for that type of princely status. Both of these literally never had a chance at acquiring any claim to the throne of the Empire.

The Beile of the Third Rank and the Beizi of the fourth rank under them likewise had no place in the line of succession. The Emperor could and did demote Junwangs and Qinwangs to those ranks when he felt it appropriate and these ranks could be bestowed with or without fiefs.

All these could call themselves Wangye, but those without fiefs were reliant upon the Emperor for their allowances or salaries.

The eldest son of a Wang was automatically a Beile or Beizi. Each of these had their equivalents in ranks among the female offspring.

Wangs could confer ranks on their younger sons, which were all in the normal set of noble titles, based on their favor.

The shu sons were all expected to be useful to promote the heir and di sons.

Li Aoguang, being a shu son, should have by this expectation, supported his better off brothers in exchange for the bestowals from his father's family.

This support could include being married out for advantages.

Li Aoguang had violently gone against all expectations by changing his surname to Li and acknowledging only his maternal relations.

Given that the Imperial family from whose lineage he came had expected to be able to rely on him for concessions in exchange for their own political concessions to him, this 'throws all relations into the trash can' action was inexplicable to them.

In terms of filial piety to the paternal family, such a cutting action, giving the di wife and di son of his father no face at all and only ever showing up when his name could allow him to throw a spanner in the works, was normally unthinkable as it was considered utterly impious, and his willingness to support his much lower ranked maternal family was baffling.

As it was, he wasn't talking to his brothers or sisters and the only time he had exerted himself for a half-sibling had been in order to rescue her from a demonic cultivator.

In the Imperial family, his behavior of ignoring bribes and olive branches offered by his imperial relatives and ignoring or avoiding them the vast majority of the time was an anomaly. He was never seen considering his female cousins of various degrees of affinity on either side for possible marriage matches, neither did he bother to consider ladies or gentlemen from official noble houses or ranks. He didn't bother to attend banquets or seek to meet any of them.

The brothel visits were still understandable, as many of the royals also visited brothels in a whim, particularly the Beizi and Beili ranks that could afford to be idle rich and squander a portion of their allowances on assignations.

Spoiler

ATDSVT
***
It wasn't unusual for nobles of any rank to visit the brothels. Plenty of nobles had taken courtesans from brothels into their households as concubines.

There were princes in the past who had bought entire groups of women who were famed as singers. One of them had used his collection of female singers as hand warmers on cold days, having them block drafts for him by sitting or standing around him as living warmers, sliding his hands into their bosoms to keep them warm. Such women were provided with various amenities and luxuries but they and their offspring weren't looked well upon. As certain people could testify, the offspring of ladies from the brothels had the least amount of respect from anyone. Despite this, the ladies and male entertainers in the brothels still yearned to be bought out.

Having noted that Aoguang went to brothels, one of the things that was looked into by certain curious people who wanted leverage or who wanted to figure out what to bribe Aoguang with, was what his taste was in such encounters. It was, after all, perfectly normal for officials to bribe princes with women, men or boys.

Most officials or fellow princes did this by discreetly inviting their target for flattery and bribery over to their homes and throwing a banquet for them, then having the possible bribes, both male and female, entertain their guest, carefully questioning the target afterwards as to what he actually liked among the entertainment. If the guest liked any person from among the entertainers, then that person was gifted to them straight out.

Except Aoguang refused to accept any invites and so they had to resort to the much cruder method of going to the brothel he went to, and then bribing the brothel madames for info under the table.

The brothel owners were quite well aware of the kind of damage an angry cultivator could inflict, as such the only news that the curious could bribe for was that Aoguang enjoyed both male and female beauties and that he did occasionally have them entertain him with music and the arts as well as their bodies. He also did not visit anyone under the age of eighteen.

Aoguang had a fairly wide strike zone. Beautiful men with well built bodies, sharp, masculine features, captivating male beauties of jade who were so lovely one might as well compare them to maidens, lushly curved buxom women and lithe, slim fairies, all of this was within his interest- as long as they weren't schemers.

 

EASTER EGGS

Spoiler

ATDSVT
***
The Cang mountain range was large and full of diverse forms of life. It marked the borders of four countries, including the Empire.

Its rocky slopes were like the folds of cloth, its trees, plants and fungi like the ornate patterns of brocade. Water in the form of streams, brooks, even small rivers were like silver threads and silver trim.

Its verdant groves were full of birds and beasts, its bodies of water were full of fish. It was a truly beautiful place, with its environments varying from slope to summit. The summit's may as well have been ice hells, but its slopes were very livable .

It was, therefore a pity that these fine mountains, full of ore and resources, held so very many bandits and brigand groups.

Some of these brigands claimed to be from the Wulin or the Jianghu.

When they wanted food, they hunted beasts or fish. When they wanted cloth, fabric or other luxury items, perhaps furniture or such things, they went to harass the naive populace living close by.

A certain tall, strong and handsome bandit by the name of Liu Cang, was most certainly an orphan, having been found by an old bandit 'king' of the previous generation. From his sword brows and his finely carved features, the smoothness of his golden skin, the shape of his elegant, long fingered hands, one might guess his absent parents had been people of some consequence; his mother must have at least been beautiful. As it was, he had only that 'king' and those old bandits, the king's sworn brothers, to consider as his elders, before they too, ended up dying in this or that skirmish with their fellows or the authorities.

The old 'king' claimed to have been an expert from the Wulin, before his 'family' drove him out. After that, he had eventually acquired sworn brothers, moved to that mountain and put his efforts into making it a home for himself and those brothers.

Having grown up on these slopes, Liu Cang had eventually put together a bandit group among whose ranks were several refugees and the dispossessed with which he subdued and assimilated the other bandit groups in the mountain.

It was a case of the dispossessed feeding on the dispossessed, dog eat dog.

Having thus proved his mettle by beating all his competitors to a messy pulp, this man laid claim to the central peak of the mountain range and made life difficult for the people who had to go to that mountain to acquire medicinal herbs, rare fungi, pan gold and smoothed gemstones from the brooks or had to cross that mountain for trade.

In short, Liu Cang had been a nuisance who could be bribed for quite some time, as his father had, before him.

That old man had never been able to have a son or daughter of his own. He had taken in a few concubines from this or that family who lived near the mountain range, but he had never had children of his own. His sworn brothers were luckier, and so his adopted son, Liu Cang, had many sworn brothers of that generation.

Sadly, none of them were too bright. Loyal, but not bright and not given to introspection or considering the ramifications of their actions.

Spoiler

ATDSVT
***
To understand a man, one must understand their circumstances.

Several years ago, three provinces of a certain country on the other side of the Cang mountain range had suffered horribly. When it wasn't drought, it was fires. When it wasn't fire, it was floods. When it wasn't floods, it was pestilence. When it was neither of those, it was plague.

The people who lived there for generations could no longer persist in living there. They had no choice but to flee.

It is a fact that people who have been driven off their land can be forced to turn to violent pursuits in order to have a living or to survive while they seek shelter in more congenial ground. When people are denied their livelihoods, anarchy follows.

The old bandit king had once legitimately been a warrior of some high rank in that country's Wulin. Alas, his province was one of the problem regions, and he had snapped in the face of the disasters, slaying an embezzling official and then taking his stash to look after their people.

These people took what they had on hand and left their land.

Among those people, were Liu Cang's family, who were once a family of good means before the disasters struck.

They were not alone. Families sold their daughters to buy their own survival, eating anything edible before they were forced to leave or die.

Now, such occurances weren't really that unusual. Short of finding a cultivator with some skill in manipulating water, such events were sadly recurring in cycles. Even the Empire had its share of natural disasters, and it couldn't even rely on cultivators to do something about those because the only thing that cultivators genuinely believed was their purview was the purging of demonic beasts and evil cultivators.

Events like these were one of the reasons that the slave trade flourished, with people selling themselves or members of their families in order to survive.

Events like this were also why some of the cultivator sects who thought of humans as livestock or ants could afford humans as cannon fodder or target practice dummies or bedwarmers. In the last case, the mortals were relatively lucky- if they didn't upset their masters they would live longer and be given land to live on sooner.

In this case, rather than sell themselves or die, these people had moved to the mountain range on that country's border. In the end, they had become bandits and brigands.

Within the old bandit king's lifetime they had begun preying on the natives of the Empire for their goods.

If one was to describe them, it would be that they were 'leeches' taking the excess resources of the populace.

When provinces fell to such straits, millions of natives became refugees. These refugees tried to enter other countries in hope of starting new lives. Some people bribed their ways in, some sacrificed their daughters or sons, some sacrificed their own bodies in order to enter a safer country.

It was a fact that the strong preyed upon the weak and many people became bandits and preyed upon those who were in similar straits.

The old bandit king had preferred to feed on the resources of foreigners rather than his own folk. Whether this was a good or bad decision remained to be seen, but his own people were fed, so it was likely he simply didn't care.

Regardless, he had left his son with the position and Liu Cang was many things, but wise and introspective wasn't one of them. His father was not a leader of men by inclination, and acclaimed king only by his fellow wolves because he had put their people first.

In short, Liu Cang wasn't prepared to train his people to enjoy peaceful days. In the Jianghu, one took what one needed. in the Wulin, like the cultivation world, it was normal to kill to silence people, kill to steal treasures. In short, the bandit leaders weren't equipped with the knowledge that would allow them to be a self sufficient settlement, much less a nation.

In truth, he and his people had been preying on natives on both the Empire's side of the mountain range as well as the country on the opposite side of the mountain range.

It was only a matter of time before people dealt with them. The only question was who would get there first?

 

Thank you, Shizun~

 

EASTER EGG

Spoiler

ATDSVT
***
It was normal for the parents in this world to be the ones deciding upon the engagements of their children.

Some people engaged their children to others' sons and daughters for power, for alliances between families. Others engaged their children to the children of their friends to continue their parents' friendships or to pay their debts, whether it was money or honor.

In the case of Gao Jinghe and Wang Zhengchen, the engagement was decided on in order to perpetuate their friendship. These two had gone on battlefields together, and despite the fact that Wang Zhengchen was older than his friend by ten years, the friendship was still going strong. They had dragged each other out of deathtraps, patched each others' scrapes, supported each other on their ways back to the camps on many battlefields.

As a direct result, when Wang Zhengchen found out his son was stupid enough to want to dump his best friend's daughter, in front of her family members, no less... He filed Siye under 'never going to get a good rank' and set the matter aside, looking for a viable engagement among his other sons. He ordered Siye to give her presents to make her life easier because he intended to spoil the girl. Because he felt it was what she deserved.

Wang Zhengchen understood the power plays between clan members. After all, he had dealt with such things when he was younger, having to fight for his birthright. While he couldn't just demand that the clan members treat his friend well in the absence of their strongest elder, taking his friend's daughter under his protection could give him leverage and a place of sanctuary to offer his friend.

Alas, Siye was a disappointment. That meant he needed better options.

The son who was closest in age to Siye, Fuyi, was thus the best candidate to take up the position. He was also his father's current favorite. Knowing how heavily his father placed importance on this engagement, Fuyi had no intention of going against his father's will, even though Miss Mei Lin's appearance set him ill at ease. She was a nice girl, despite her appearance and anyway, lust was what concubines were for.

To his very well hidden relief, by the time he got to the estate in order to convey their father's words to Siye, he had arrived to find that a very masculine cultivator with a surprisingly feminine voice was consoling Miss Mei Lin, murmuring gently to her, rubbing her back and gently wiping her face clean of the copious tears she was shedding. The other cultivator there, the one who was like a fairy but had a definitely male voice, had simply stated that if Miss Mei Lin's fiance didn't want her, they would take her.

As in, Cang Qiong's Qing Jing disciple, Guo Minghua and his lady, Miss Changying, had clearly agreed that they would both marry her. Which had made the elders turn purple.

While Siye hadn't bothered to research these things, Fuyi was much more careful about researching people he might come across in fortuitous or unfortunate encounters in order to be ready to avoid inconvenient arguments or any escalation.

For far too long a time, in order to protect his family's face, he had to clean up after his foolish older brother, this was just another incident in a long line of...dubious decisions he had to deal with.

As such, he quickly acted to smooth things over further, stating that Siye's words weren't according to their mutual father's wishes, that the presents had been intended to facilitate Miss Mei Lin's happiness and comfort, to allow her to have support and comfort throughout life even if she didn't marry Siye... And that even if Siye broke the engagement and married someone else, their mutual father would still consider Miss Mei Lin to be his daughter-in-law and treat her accordingly.

Siye and Miss Nihuang's faces turned unsightly. Didn't that just mean that Wang Zhengchen would never consider Nihuang as his daughter-in-law even if Siye did try to marry her in?!