The storm had passed, but the sky above Yun Manor still looked like it had been mugged by a painter with too much gray on his palette. Ragged purple clouds clung to the horizon, and the moon, when it peeked out, was a sliver of polished bone, casting a weak, apologetic light on the rain-slicked rooftops. Everything smelled like damp earth and half-drowned plum blossoms. It was, in short, a terrible night for an existential crisis.
Yun Yi, naturally, was having one anyway.
He'd been staring at the glowing blue system box for the better part of ten minutes, his face a mask of profound stillness. He had focused with all his might on a single word, repeating it in his head until it lost all meaning.
Minion.
Minion?
"Couldn't you just say 'followers' or 'allies'?" he finally whispered to the empty room, his voice laced with disgust. "Why go full, cackling-overlord with 'Minions'?"
The system, of course, did not reply. The glowing box remained stubbornly present.
[Main Quest Unlocked]
[A Villain Is Nothing Without Their Minions]
Yun Yi's gaze flickered over the quest details again. No time limit. No penalty, at least not yet. It was an open-ended invitation to ruin his life at his own leisure. How thoughtful.
He sighed, the sound heavy with resignation. The system wasn't going away. This was his life now. And if he wanted to survive in a world that ran on tropes, he needed a strategy. His mind began to race, flipping through a mental Rolodex of every webnovel he had ever read.
Rule #1: Avoid auction houses. They are magnets for protagonists and trouble.
Rule #2: Never mock the quiet outer disciple. He probably has a magic ring.
Rule #3: If a beautiful woman faints in your arms, check for poison needles, a tragic backstory, and a ridiculously powerful fiancé who will want you dead.
The sheer volume of contradictory rules and potential death flags was enough to give him a throbbing headache. He couldn't possibly account for everything. He needed to stop thinking about fictional scenarios and assess his actual situation.
"Alright," he muttered, pushing himself up from the couch. "Minions, retainers, followers, whatever. I'm a Young Master. I must have some, right?"
The first people who came to mind were his three personal maids. Lin Xu, the eldest and most composed. Lin Meimei, the youngest. And… wait, what was the name of the middle one? He searched his memory, then the original Yun Yi's. Nothing. The kid genuinely didn't know her name.
A dry, humorless "hehe" escaped his lips. "I guess the middle child gets ignored in the Xianxia universe, too."
His thoughts drifted from the forgotten name to the ones he knew. Lin Xu. Lin Meimei. Lin Ke. Lin Wuke. Lin Xuan... Wait. Lin? Why were they all named Lin? The answer surfaced from the dregs of his inherited memory, a grim and practical household rule. All servants, retainers, and orphans taken in by the Yun family were given the surname 'Lin' to signify their complete allegiance. And there were so many orphans because, in this world, wars between sects and the razing of great houses were like seasonal floods—a tragic but predictable part of life. The Yun clan was simply powerful enough to absorb the wreckage. The realization sent a chill down his spine that had nothing to do with the post-storm air. This wasn't just a house of servants; it was a curated collection of the dispossessed.
Focus. Focus, Yun Yi. Who else do I have?
His mind, guided by the original owner's ruthless pragmatism, immediately prioritized the "useful" ones. A face came to mind—pretty, mature, with sharp, intelligent eyes. Lin Xuan, his personal advisor and strategist; a crucial asset. Another face—delicate, sweet, always in green. Lin Yanyan, the head chef, whose cooking could directly influence his cultivation; an essential resource. Then another—a woman with a flair for the dramatic and an impeccable, if severe, sense of style. Lin Caixia, his… stylist? "Robe master?" he wondered. "Wait, that actually makes sense. The classic, ridiculously intricate sleeves of an arrogant young master aren't just going to design themselves, are they?" Even vanity had its necessary personnel.
A pattern clicked into place, cold and dreadful.
"Wait a minute," he said aloud. "Why am I surrounded by women? And why are they all damn pretty?"
The question hung in the air before a memory supplied the horrifying answer. His mother's voice, serene and scheming. "Yi, life is not all about cultivation. You have to indulge in other things, too. I am hiring a few… subject experts for you. Use them as you see fit."
"Was I a pervert?" he asked the ceiling. "Did I transmigrate into a pervert's body?" Disgust oozed from him. But another thought clarified, the original Yun Yi hadn't been particularly lecherous. He had just been… indifferent.
"Fuck," Yun Yi whispered, the puzzle pieces slamming together. "My mom is behind all this. She wants me to be a harem protagonist, doesn't she?"
He immediately abandoned all other thoughts for a far more urgent task: drafting the 'Anti-Harem Contingency Protocol.' Rule one: All blushes are to be treated as tactical maneuvers. Rule two: Never catch a fainting beauty; sidestep and assess from a safe distance. Rule three: If a woman offers you a 'once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,' assume it's a multi-level marketing scheme for a death cult. After several minutes of frantic mental legislation, he forced himself back to the present. "Seems like not all of them are women, that's a relief," he sighed.
"Hmm, I have a battalion?" The thought brought with it the sound of shouting. "Oh, it's a 'beat you up' battalion." Thugs who liked to beat people up and yell "You dare?!" at random passersby. How very Xianxia-like. Their captain was Lin Wuke. Yun Yi opened a memory of him and instantly regretted it. Loud. So loud. A simple-minded devotee of violence who called him "Little Boss" and whose first question was always, "Who are we teaching a lesson to today?"
And finally, another face. A very familiar one. Lin Ke. Uncle Ke. He looked to be in his forties but was probably much older. He'd been part of his father's personal advisory circle. Oh. He was Father's man. Normal.
Suspiciously normal.
Yun Yi scrubbed a hand over his face. A spy, a chef, a stylist, three maids, a brawling idiot, and a political veteran. This was his "disaster lineup." He couldn't solve this just by thinking.
"Guess I'll see them all together." He considered meeting them one-on-one, but then remembered the sheer scale of the manor. The "beat you up battalion" alone probably had two hundred members. Meeting them all personally wasn't going to work.
He stood tall, took a deep breath, and let his expression harden into a mask of cold arrogance.
"Xu!" he called out, his voice sharp.
The door slid open almost instantly. All three maids came running in, their faces pale with worry. Yun Yi took in the sight, and his carefully constructed composure wavered. He noted their subtle panic and wondered, What is this about? but quickly pushed the thought aside. He simply ignored it.
He opened his mouth to speak, but his brain, ever helpful, decided to supply a critical update: Objective analysis confirms all three subjects meet the 'Jade Beauty' trope classification. Probability of romantic subplot entanglement: dangerously high. He stared, his focus lost to an internal crisis of risk assessment. Under his breath, he began to mutter, 'This isn't a manor, it's a minefield... what kind of pre-scripted disaster is this...'
The youngest maid, Meimei, almost gasped at the strange, intense look on his face. She immediately lowered her gaze, a deep blush coloring her cheeks.
Yun Yi's mind went on high alert. Again? What is this, is she trying to seduce me? Is she on a payroll from my mother? He reasoned with himself, a frantic internal monologue. Okay, listen up, brain. We are ignoring that. That blush means nothing. It's a physiological reaction to extreme workplace stress. All potential romantic subplots are to be flagged as death traps and avoided on sight. Understood? Good.
He cleared his throat, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet room. "Tell all the staff to gather in the Western Pavilion. We are having a meeting."
The three maids bowed stiffly, a shared look of profound dread passing between them. After collecting themselves with practiced professionalism, they turned and vanished with the silence of trained ghosts.
The effect of their message was immediate.
Panic erupted across the manor like a plague, but it was a quiet, focused panic, laced with years of experience dealing with their Young Master's whims.
In the west courtyard, a gardener trimming a spirit-peach tree saw the maids hurrying past. His shears fell from his trembling hands. "He saw the one branch I cut too short," he whispered to the tree. "I'm going to be fertilizer."
In the kitchens, Lin Yanyan's hands flew to her mouth, her sweet face pale. She began mentally inventorying her pantry, her mind racing. "A full meeting? Does he expect a banquet for three hundred people? On an hour's notice? Does he think spirit-ducks grow on trees?"
In the servant barracks, the news was met not with a roar, but with a low, hungry murmur. The air grew thick with anticipation. Fists clenched. Sharp, predatory grins were exchanged. Lin Wuke slammed a gauntlet on the table, a booming laugh echoing in the tense quiet. "About time!" he bellowed to his lieutenant. "My fists were getting bored!"
And in the laundry quarters, where gossip was traded like currency, the theories were born.
"This has the Jadewood Sect written all over it," one maid whispered, folding a robe with frantic precision. "I bet their heiress slighted him in town yesterday, and now he wants to declare war over it."
"Don't be a fool," another countered. "This is about 2 Sword Peak. He's never been satisfied with leaving just one crater."
A third, older servant shivered, placing a perfectly folded robe onto a stack. "You're both wrong. It's about the manor's Feng Shui. I heard him muttering to Advisor Xuan last week that the flow of Qi from the southern wall is 'suboptimal.' He's going to make us tear the entire thing down and rebuild it three feet to the left."
A wave of horrified silence fell over the room, the new rumor far more terrifying than any other. War, kidnapping, curses the wild theories flowed like wine through the veins of Yun Manor as everyone scrambled to prepare for the summons of their unpredictable, and possibly insane, Young Master.