The Villain is Soft and Clingy [Transmigration] - Chapter 7
*Did I hear that right? Zhang Kuang? All that incessant babbling was about Zhang Kuang?*
Xia Zhitiao choked on her tea, coughing violently as she clutched her chest.
No wonder she couldn’t recall such a depraved villain in the novel. She’d been curious, but it turned out the storyteller had been blabbering about Zhang Kuang the whole time.
It was all fabricated nonsense, twisting facts and slandering blatantly. Were the onlookers deaf?
The most crucial thing was—
Zhang Kuang was a woman! And not just any woman, but a beauty with a flawless face, certified by the author “Banana Peel King” as someone who captivated everyone, regardless of age or gender!
Why would a beautiful, arrogant Demon Sect Leader capture elderly men to warm her bed and octogenarian women for s3x? Was this a moral decline or human corruption?
*Just thinking about it makes it sound impossible, okay!*
Xia Zhitiao sighed, thinking, *I didn’t know it until I heard it, and now I’m shocked.* She truly “admired” the rich imagination of the common people.
It took her a good half-minute to recover from her coughing. Xia Zhitiao rubbed her forehead, listening to the men surrounding the storyteller exclaim, “Truly depraved, utterly cruel!”
One young man even slammed the table and roared, “If I can enter the immortal path, I will kill this demon and uphold justice!”
The surrounding crowd applauded and cheered, praising the young man’s ambition, believing he would surely achieve great things.
A burly man nearby, unwilling to be outdone, declared, “If that female demon ever meets me, it’ll be her death day! I’ll make sure she tastes the power of my Hengshui great axe!”
The crowd cheered again, all mutually egging each other on.
With each word, Zhang Kuang, the person herself, hadn’t even appeared, yet she had already been sliced, hacked, strangled, and chopped, dying countless times.
Xia Zhitiao had only intended to listen to a story, but seeing the crowd’s mutual praise and the story’s fabrication, she felt disgusted and stood up to leave.
Unexpectedly, a burly man sitting near the door noticed her and called out, “Little girl, come, come! If you meet that demon, how would you kill her?”
Xia Zhitiao was annoyed and didn’t want to bother with him. She calmly said, “I have no relation to her, nor any deep-seated grudge. Why would I kill her? If I were to truly encounter her, I would simply pass by.”
At her words, everyone gasped.
The young man from earlier was already indignantly pounding the table, saying, “That Zhang Kuang burns, kills, and loots, committing countless evils. You want to let her go? That’s utterly unreasonable! Utterly unreasonable!”
Xia Zhitiao sneered inwardly and retorted, “What if that Zhang Kuang isn’t what everyone says she is?”
“Zhang Kuang slaughtered the entire Shura Sect; she must have some real skill. Leaving aside whether everyone present could truly defeat her, to comment on others’ affairs, and even maliciously slander them, is inherently disgraceful behavior. Spreading hearsay, without distinguishing truth from falsehood, without understanding right from wrong, randomly slandering a woman—who exactly is the evildoer?”
Her words were utterly calm, yet every sentence was logical, leaving the crowd speechless, exchanging bewildered glances, unsure how to respond.
Xia Zhitiao glanced around and suddenly smiled.
That smile was extremely light and shallow, falling like a feather. In the silent room, it sounded particularly sharp.
She slowly sat down, as if she hadn’t said enough, and added more fuel to the fire: “Furthermore, it was the Shura Sect that indiscriminately slaughtered innocents and committed heinous crimes. Zhang Kuang killing them can be considered eliminating harm for the people and acting on behalf of heaven. May I ask what crime there is in that?”
The axe-wielding strongman was already furious. He suddenly swung his great axe, splitting the wooden table with a resounding “boom.”
He stood with the great axe on his shoulder, his foot on the wreckage of the wooden table, roaring, “You little hussy are truly unreasonable! How dare you speak for that demon? Tell me your name! Today, as you said—I will act on behalf of heaven!!”
The others half-heartedly tried to stop him, saying “Why bother with a beautiful young lady?” “Long hair, short on sense, just ignore her.” Seeing they couldn’t stop him, they stopped trying, moving aside to watch the show.
On the second-floor private room, the black curtain stirred, lifted slightly by a fingertip, revealing a sharply defined profile.
The atmosphere in the inn instantly became tense. The waiter, seeing the situation was amiss, had long since cowered under the tables and chairs, praying for someone to compensate for the smashed items.
Xia Zhitiao, however, remained calm. She slowly put down her teacup, raised her eyes to glance at the indignant strongman, and let out a long sigh.
She calmly said, “Yashan.”
The noisy room suddenly quieted down a few notches. The strongman and the others looked at her, their expressions slightly puzzled.
“You just asked for my name; this is my answer.”
Xia Zhitiao’s expression was calm. She placed her pass token on the table and gently pushed it forward: “Yashan, Shuijing Peak.”
The strongman’s face instantly turned ashen.
“Inner disciple.”
The crowd fell silent.
For a moment, the inn was eerily quiet. Only the distant street noise filtered through the walls, faintly, like an old man grinning, mockingly laughing at everyone with his gapped teeth.
Yashan, the foremost immortal sect in the world. Even an inconspicuous outer sect errand boy could arrogantly disdain everyone present, let alone a rarely seen inner disciple.
Like a basin of cold water splashed over their heads, the teahouse suddenly fell silent. The arrogant crowd all deflated, retreating sheepishly to their seats.
As soon as Xia Zhitiao finished speaking, the atmosphere could no longer be lively. The storyteller, seeing the crowd dispirited, simply stopped narrating and began to drink tea by himself. The waiter, moved, crawled out from under the table and resumed his normal duties of serving tea and water.
Although the Demon Sect of Qiling Mountain, especially its leader Zhang Kuang, was considered Yashan’s mortal enemy, Xia Zhitiao didn’t feel any regret.
It was just being factual. Fabricating rumors, in modern times, would be considered malicious prosecution.
Anyway, she wasn’t on Yashan. Even if her Grand-master found out that she spoke a few words in Zhang Kuang’s favor, he wouldn’t hold it against her.
Xia Zhitiao finished her pot of clear tea, calmly paid the bill, and gracefully walked away, leaving behind a profound and mysterious silhouette for everyone.
—
Unbeknownst to her, shortly after she left the teahouse, the black curtain of the private room on the second floor suddenly stirred, then rustled back into place.
The private rooms were special accommodations in the teahouse, reserved for honored guests and wealthy merchants. They were separate from the tables on the first floor, allowing those above to see the crowd below, but those below could not discern what was happening on the second floor.
A faint incense burned in the room, its flickering light casting shadows, drawing wisps of white smoke that filled the room with a cool, woody fragrance.
Two people sat facing each other. A white-robed woman smiled sweetly, her fingertips caressing the rim of her teacup. Her complexion was exceptionally pale, without a trace of color on her cheeks, as if she were a dying person.
“How rare. Someone actually spoke up for you.”
She rested her chin in her hand, remarking with interest, “And it was a bright-eyed, white-toothed young girl… I thought everyone in Yashan despised you to the bone, wishing to grind your bones to dust and scatter them into the sea for fish.”
Before she could finish, a sudden weight pressed on her shoulder, and overwhelming pressure descended like a boulder, clamping her neck, forcing the words back down her throat.
The person opposite her wore a dark black robe, tightly bound at the neck and wrists. The tips of her black boots curled upwards, glinting with silver.
She glanced up at the white-robed woman, her expression cold, her voice showing little fluctuation:
“—Shut up.”
Spiritual power surged, and the oppressive sensation spread in layers. Even the softly rising white smoke seemed startled, compressed into a thin, twisted string in mid-air.
The difference in their power was immense. The white-robed woman was utterly powerless, completely suppressed. She couldn’t utter a single word, sullenly closing her mouth and shrugging.
The black-robed woman crossed her arms. A finely linked silver chain hung from her neck, bearing a pallid beast’s tooth. It was covered in a thin mist, its curved tip stained with specks of bl00d, as if mocking something with a grin.
She released the pressure, leaned back, and tapped the table with a bent finger: “Where are the goods?”
The white-robed woman straightened up, her voice quite helpless: “Leader, do you still not trust my work?”
The one called the Leader didn’t even raise an eye, coolly saying, “You talk too much.”
The white-robed woman didn’t get angry. She made a grabbing motion in the air, and a dark black box appeared in her fingers.
“Exactly ten, no more, no less,” she carefully opened the box and presented it to the other person, saying softly, “Take a look.”
Inside the black box, ten perfectly round pills lay quietly, their color pure, clearly indicating their superior quality.
The black-robed woman casually glanced at them, gave a perfunctory “Mm,” and the black box instantly vanished, absorbed into a storage ring.
She snapped her fingers, and a golden stone, transparent like amber, dropped onto the table with a crisp “clink.”
She stated concisely, “Payment.”
The white-robed woman’s breathing quickened uncontrollably. She stared unblinkingly at the glistening golden stone, trying hard to suppress the urge to reach out and touch it, and praised softly, “…As expected of you.”
The black-robed woman said nothing. She slowly stood up, casually draped her dark black robe over her shoulder, and walked out of the room.
The various waiters moving about immediately bowed and bent their knees upon seeing her, heads respectfully lowered, trembling and not daring to move.
The black-robed woman walked down the long corridor. The moment her figure appeared at the top of the stairs, the entire hall suddenly fell into a deathly silence.
—*The legendary Demon Sect Leader, notorious for her widespread killings, how could she be here?!*
Although the person said nothing, no one in the entire hall dared to move or speak, their breathing suppressed to the bare minimum.
The black-robed woman’s expression was blank. The tips of her boots tapped on the wooden steps as she slowly descended. Her black robe swayed slightly with her body, tracing a silver arc.
Everyone held their breath, watching with wide eyes as the black-robed woman walked directly through the hall to the brightly lit main entrance.
Just as everyone breathed a sigh of relief, thinking she was finally leaving, she suddenly turned her head.
Zhang Kuang slightly raised her eyebrows and eyes, looking at the few people in the hall, and smiled inscrutably.
Her voice was light and soft: “Just now, who wanted to take her life and act on behalf of heaven?”
“…Come out and let me see?”
Author’s Note:
Small Theater:
Zhang Kuang: Didn’t expect that, did you? I have two accounts.