He Transmigrated Into The Body Of A Demonic Sect Leader And Fell In Love With The Male Lead - Chapter 6

Dragon Chant Stronghold.

After some private discussion among the chieftains, Lu Fenghuo and his companions were ultimately allowed to stay. Not only that, but because they had single-handedly brought down the Evil Wind Stronghold, they secured prominent positions within the ranks.

From then on, Fu Yunming served as the Fourth Chieftain, while Lu Fenghuo became the Fifth Chieftain.

As for Shen Yuansi, he held the title of Junior Chieftain.

Lu Fenghuo cared little for whatever hidden agenda Fu Yunming might be harboring; his primary goal was simply to enjoy himself. Now transplanted to a new environment at the Dragon Chant Stronghold, Lu Fenghuo continued to live life to the fullest, finding amusement wherever he went.

Yet amidst his roleplaying as the Fifth Chieftain, Lu Fenghuo did not neglect more serious matters. He still had a young disciple whose family blood feud remained unavenged, while Liu Dongnian still wandered free.

Given the boy’s current lack of martial prowess, facing Liu Dongnian head-on would likely result in an unpredictable outcome regarding who ended up as whose meal.

Consequently, Lu Fenghuo decided to take charge of his disciple’s martial arts training.

Since the boy was his disciple, he certainly could not remain so feeble; if word got out, the members of the Mirror Moon Palace would likely die of laughter. With ample time on his hands, Lu Fenghuo hauled Shen Yuansi out daily to drill his martial arts.

Shen Yuansi proved entirely willing.

Lu Fenghuo recalled the specific settings established in the original text. Shen Yuansi possessed meridians fundamentally different from ordinary people; while most mortals possessed twelve meridians, Shen Yuansi inherited a thirteenth meridian from his mother.

Thus, when it came to cultivating martial arts, Shen Yuansi could progress at a significantly faster rate than anyone else. In the original storyline, after being picked up by the Jianghu toxic physician and subjected to countless poisons, Shen Yuansi had transformed into a poison-immune entity.

Though he had never received formal instruction or systematic martial arts training during that period, he had eavesdropped on the fragmented conversations of the various experts imprisoned for testing.

Even so, Shen Yuansi had successfully carved out a unique path, self-creating a school of martial arts that eventually made him a universally feared expert. The techniques he devised were bizarre and inscrutable; by the late stages of the novel, even the protagonist struggled to keep him under control.

From this perspective, Shen Yuansi’s innate talent was undoubtedly top-tier.

And reality proved this true.

Lu Fenghuo taught Shen Yuansi the fundamentals, instructing him to practice for two to three hours every single day. Through strict adherence over a span of one to two months, Shen Yuansi’s foundation grew exceptionally solid.

With that milestone reached, Lu Fenghuo decided to unleash his ultimate material.

The original owner of the body had been a true saber fanatic, leaving Lu Fenghuo’s mind brimming with countless saber techniques. These arts were unfathomably complex, and conventionally, teaching them to a disciple required starting from the most basic movements.

Lu Fenghuo chose to do the exact opposite.

He had personally engineered an entirely original saber technique. This art was immensely intricate, blending the cream of countless legendary styles while incorporating plenty of his own custom innovations, making it an utterly unique creation across the entire Jianghu.

If martial arts manuals were ever ranked, Lu Fenghuo was confident his homegrown technique would secure a spot in the top three of the entire martial arts world.

Ordinarily, such profound and convoluted saber arts would prove far too difficult for a normal Jianghu warrior to comprehend, let alone a novice youth like Shen Yuansi.

Yet Lu Fenghuo remained indifferent to whether Shen Yuansi could digest it or not; he taught five new forms every single day without fail, completing the entire manual within a single month.

Shen Yuansi questioned his entire existence.

Was this truly something meant for humans to practice?

Shen Yuansi spent his days from dawn till dusk immersed in saber drills, his mind consumed by the stances even in his sleep. Despite his relentless efforts, he found the techniques agonizingly difficult, occasionally mixing up the earlier forms.

This forced him to push himself even harder.

At times, Shen Yuansi fell into a trance, wondering what his family’s blood feud even mattered anyway, perhaps he should just let it go. But the next instant, he would be horrified by his own stray thoughts; why on earth would he harbor such an absurd idea?

Even if he had to descend straight into the deepest hells, he would make his enemies pay in blood.

Veins bulged on Shen Yuansi’s forehead as he clenched his teeth and resumed his saber drills. Yet there was no denying that this hellish regimen yielded extraordinary results; in a mere half year, Shen Yuansi’s strength underwent a qualitative leap.

Previously, when sparring with Lu Fenghuo, he could not even withstand a single strike before collapsing in defeat. Now, however, Shen Yuansi could hold his ground for a full three moves under Lu Fenghuo’s onslaught.

This progress filled Shen Yuansi with immense joy.

Before long, two years slipped by.

Lu Fenghuo maintained a comfortable lifestyle, splitting his time between drilling his young disciple and occasionally slipping down the mountain to roam Luoyang, eating, drinking, and soaking up the local gossip. Two years passed in this effortless fashion.

Perhaps driven by the constant physical training, the young disciple shot up in height at an astonishing pace. The boy who once barely reached Lu Fenghuo’s chest now stood level with the bridge of his master’s nose.

On this particular day, Lu Fenghuo returned from a trip to Luoyang.

As he re-entered the stronghold, he spotted a cluster of guards gathered together, chattering excitedly among themselves. Lu Fenghuo instinctively gravitated toward the crowd to watch the commotion, quickly piecing together the general story.

It turned out that two days prior, the Dragon Chant Stronghold had dispatched men to intercept passing travelers as usual. In the middle of the shakedown, however, a righteous-path cultivator had suddenly burst onto the scene brandishing a sharp sword, screaming slogans about eliminating evil and cutting them down.

The cultivator was quite young, a youth in his early twenties clad in a sapphire-blue robe with a bright and spirited appearance, though his brain appeared somewhat defective.

This was the Dragon Chant Stronghold!

For years, shaking down passing carriages along these roads had been standard practice for them. Every settlement in the vicinity knew that passing through their territory required paying a modest toll in silver; otherwise, passage was denied.

Unwilling to pay the toll?

Fine, they could simply turn back and take another route. The Dragon Chant Stronghold was hardly unreasonable, and retreating along the original path meant nobody had to resort to bloodshed.

Over the years, had anyone in the neighborhood ever protested? Everyone strictly adhered to the established rules. Even the locals around Luoyang raised no objections, yet this random youth had arrived demanding a bloody crusade.

The stronghold members had not even threatened the youth in any way.

No one knew where the kid had crawled out from, entirely ignorant of the unwritten rules of the Jianghu. Wasn’t such reckless behavior a direct slap to the face of the Dragon Chant Stronghold? As the second-largest evil cult in Luoyang, they naturally needed to maintain their prestige.

Since the youth’s martial arts were mediocre at best, the stronghold members apprehended him on the spot. Just as they prepared to execute him as a warning to others, the youth coolly announced, “I am a disciple of the Mysterious Moon Sect! If you demonic scumbags dare kill me, my senior brothers will certainly hunt you down and avenge me!”

The Mysterious Moon Sect stood as one of the two major sword sects in the Jianghu, boasting formidable influence.

The stronghold members present were mostly low-ranking foot soldiers, none possessing the authority to make major decisions. Fearing that executing him rashly might invite catastrophic retaliation, they opted to drag the youth back to the stronghold.

Once he was brought back, things immediately became complicated.

The three chieftains sat within the main hall, staring at the youth who remained tightly bound and kneeling upon the stone floor. The First Chieftain sat in stony silence, while the Third Chieftain paid no heed whatsoever, continuously stuffing pastries into his mouth off to the side.

Finally, the Second Chieftain glanced down at the youth and remarked coolly, “Xu Ziwei, the only son of the Mysterious Moon Sect leader, just turning twenty.”

The youth kneeling on the ground widened his eyes in shock.

The youth was indeed Xu Ziwei, the young master of the Mysterious Moon Sect.

Having grown up within his sect’s secluded mountain grounds, Xu Ziwei was virtually unknown throughout the Jianghu. When he ventured out into the martial world to gain experience, he had traveled under an alias. For over half a year, not a single person had seen through his true identity.

Yet upon arriving at this remote, rough-and-tumble stronghold, someone had managed to pierce his disguise with a single glance. Xu Ziwei was genuinely astounded.

The Second Chieftain chuckled softly, “Xu Ziwei. Instead of playing the dutiful young master back at the Mysterious Moon Sect, what brings you to the Dragon Chant Stronghold?”

Xu Ziwei turned his head away, flatly refusing to answer.

The chieftains continued their interrogation, but Xu Ziwei remained obstinately silent. When he finally did open his mouth, it was only to spew righteous indignation: “You demonic fiends, all you ever do is bully the weak! Everyone in the martial world has a duty to eradicate you!”

“Don’t your hearts ache when you commit so many vile deeds? You all have wives and children of your own; if the roles were reversed one day and you became the ones being trampled and oppressed, would you truly find it satisfying?”

“Good and evil will always receive their due reward in the end, justice watches from above, and your retribution is only a matter of time!”

And so on and so forth.

The First Chieftain listened until his ears went numb.

The Second Chieftain maintained his composed poker face.

The Third Chieftain lacked the patience entirely; after finishing his pastries, he patted his belly and walked out of the hall, washing his hands of the entire mess.

True to tradition, the burden of handling the situation fell back onto the First Chieftain.

Yet the First Chieftain genuinely had no good solution for dealing with Xu Ziwei.

Conventionally, a captive who openly provoked the stronghold deserved immediate execution to assert dominance. However, given this captive’s sensitive background as the young master of the Mysterious Moon Sect, killing him outright would inevitably provoke a full-scale revenge campaign from the sect.

The fellow was essentially a fragile young master; not only could they not harm a hair on his head, but they had to pamper him with good food and drink. At the same time, letting him walk away unpunished was something the First Chieftain could simply not stomach.

The Second Chieftain offered a casual suggestion, “Why not keep him locked up for now and send a letter to the Mysterious Moon Sect, informing their leader of the situation and demanding a ransom in silver to buy his freedom. While the Dragon Chant Stronghold isn’t a superpower, we hold enough reputation in the Jianghu that the Mysterious Moon Sect won’t risk a reckless, all-out war.”

“Besides, the Mysterious Moon Sect is in the wrong here. Initiating a campaign to wipe us out would cost them dearly. Unless the sect leader and senior elders intervene personally, a foreign dragon cannot crush the local snake, so such a move would be entirely unprofitable. They will undoubtedly send silver to redeem him, just to give the Dragon Chant Stronghold a face-saving exit.”

Hearing this reasoning, the First Chieftain snapped out of his dilemma and immediately dispatched men to carry out the plan. Sure enough, the Mysterious Moon Sect replied with a letter confirming they would dispatch envoys bearing ransom silver shortly.

The crisis was averted, but a fresh problem quickly surfaced. Xu Ziwei possessed an overly rigid and unyielding disposition; feeling utterly humiliated by falling into the hands of an evil cult, he decided to go on a hunger strike and starve himself to death.

In his own words, “Thirty years from now, I’ll be a brave hero again.”

By now, Xu Ziwei had refused food for three whole days. If things continued this way, he would likely collapse from exhaustion and starve to death very soon. Yet he stubbornly refused to accept a single bite, and nobody else dared to force the issue. Any attempt to shove food down his throat was met with frantic threats to bite off his own tongue and commit suicide.

Consequently, not a single soul dared to provoke him further.

Lu Fenghuo was left speechless.

If someone genuinely wanted to commit suicide, why choose starvation instead of biting their tongue, or shattering their own meridians? Even if one’s meridians were sealed and impossible to rupture independently, biting one’s tongue was simple enough, a single decisive clamp, and it would all be over.

Lu Fenghuo reasonably suspected the guy was simply terrified of pain.

Before Lu Fenghuo stood the coarse-robed guard, recounting the drama with vivid, animated gestures as if the whole spectacle were unfolding right before their eyes. Having heard the full tale, Lu Fenghuo hardly knew how to respond.

“The First Chieftain ordered us to figure something out, so we all gathered here to brainstorm, never expecting to run into the Fifth Chieftain. Fifth Chieftain, how have you been enjoying your time lately? You look positively beaming.” The guard chuckled.

“Not bad.” Lu Fenghuo’s eyes and brows curved in genuine amusement. Seeing the group looking so distressed, he raised an eyebrow and suggested, “Why don’t I go pay a visit to this Xu Ziwei? Perhaps I can convince him to eat his meals like a good boy.”

The group of guards were at their wit’s end, so hearing this proposal, they agreed with eager, almost desperate enthusiasm. They quickly escorted Lu Fenghuo toward a remote woodshed at the back of the stronghold.

This was where Xu Ziwei was currently imprisoned.