The lower servant districts were a stark contrast to the sterile horrors of Chixia Gong. Here, the air was thick with the scent of stale cooking oil, unwashed bodies, and the faint, cloying sweetness of rot. Narrow alleys, barely wide enough for one person, twisted between ramshackle hovels built from scavenged wood and patched cloth. The sounds were a cacophony of distant shouts, crying children, and the ever-present murmur of fear.
Xu Jianyu, now outwardly Xu Niánmei, moved through this squalor with an unsettling grace. His new body felt light, almost ethereal, a stark contrast to the heavy, masculine form he remembered. The coarse robes he wore, scavenged from the morgue, hung loosely on his delicate frame, a poor disguise for the perfection beneath. He was a phantom, observing, learning. His System hummed, a low, satisfied vibration, feeding him data: the subtle shifts in the air currents, the faint spiritual signatures of the impoverished inhabitants, the distant, more powerful qi of the Qianci Yuan sect.
He turned a corner into a particularly dim alley, where the shadows deepened like pools of ink. A sharp cry cut through the ambient noise. Two figures, burly and reeking of cheap spirit wine, had cornered a young girl against a crumbling wall. Her clothes were ragged, her face streaked with tears and dirt.
"Just a little body tax, sweetling," one of the men slurred, his hand reaching for her. "The sect needs its due, one way or another."
The girl whimpered, shrinking back. Jianyu's internal monologue, usually cold and calculating, registered a flicker of something akin to disgust. These were rogue cultivators, preying on the weak, the kind of scum he had despised even in his past life.
Without conscious thought, Niánmei moved. It wasn't a rush, but a fluid, almost dance-like motion. His hand, slender and seemingly fragile, reached out, not to strike, but to touch. His fingers brushed the wrist of the man reaching for the girl.
The System flared, a sudden, cold surge of power. Jianyu focused, not on brute force, but on anatomical precision. He felt the man's bones, his tendons, his joints. With a subtle twist of his wrist, applying pressure to a specific point, he redirected the man's own qi, forcing it to constrict his muscles, to twist his joints backwards.
A sickening snap echoed in the alley. The man's arm bent at an impossible angle, his hand contorting into a claw. A gurgling scream tore from his throat as he collapsed, his eyes wide with disbelief and agony. His partner, startled, stumbled back, drawing a rusty dagger.
"What in the—" he began, but Niánmei was already on him. This time, there was no subtlety. A blur of motion, a precise strike to the temple, and the second man dropped, unconscious.
Mei Ling'er, the servant girl, stared. Her eyes, wide and terrified, darted from the crumpled forms of the men to Niánmei's ethereal, unblemished face. Fear warred with a desperate gratitude. "You... you saved me!" she whispered, her voice trembling.
Jianyu, through Niánmei's lips, offered a small, almost imperceptible smile. "They won't bother you again." The words were soft, musical, yet carried an underlying chill.
Ling'er, still shaken, led Niánmei away, deeper into the maze of hovels, to a cramped, shared attic home. Six other girls, all young and fearful, huddled together, their eyes wide with a mixture of suspicion and awe at the newcomer. Ling'er explained their plight: they lived under the constant threat of Qianci Yuan's "recruiters," who periodically swept through the slums, taking girls for "blood awakening" rituals. Most were crippled, some died, few returned. Ling'er was next.
Jianyu listened, his mind already turning. A "blood awakening." A ritual. An opportunity. He felt the System stir, a silent invitation to explore. He saw the fear in Ling'er's eyes, the quiet desperation. He would take her place. Not out of compassion, but out of a cold, calculating intrigue. He needed to understand this world, its rituals, its power. And this was a doorway.
The chapter ended with Niánmei, a complete stranger, preparing to enter the opulent, dangerous world of Qianci Yuan's Silken Trial.