Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Chapter 562: Chapter 332: The Truth

A few weeks passed, and Haoran was preparing to leave with Ye Hongyan to visit her family.

The carriage prepared for their journey was already waiting near the outer gates of the Falling Blossom Villa.

It was a fine, sturdy carriage made of polished purple sandalwood, drawn by two four-winged white pegasi whose feathers gleamed softly under the cool morning sun.

Inside, soft silk cushions and warm herbal braziers had already been arranged to ensure a quiet, unbothered journey toward the central provinces of the Tian Yuan Empire.

Ye Hongyan was inside the villa and preparing everything for their trip.

However, Haoran did not help with the preparations and simply stood by a high stone balustrade overlooking the southern valley of the Boundless Sky City, his brows furrowed.

Xu Xiansu stood half a pace behind his right elbow.

She wore a simple, elegant dark grey dress that reached down to her cloth shoes, her hair pinned up with a plain bone hairpin.

Her quiet, steady demeanor had always made her one of the most reliable minds in Haoran’s inner circle.

When others were drinking, brawling, or picking through piles of shiny loot, she was always the one quietly counting grain sacks, reading scout reports, and keeping the ledger books clean.

“The complaints started piling up five days ago,” Xu Xiansu said, her voice low, cool, and clear in the morning draft. “At first, the gamers just assumed that the new “update” was way too difficult, but it soon became clear that the pattern is far too clean, far too deliberate to be mere hardcore difficulty.”

Haoran did not turn around, his gaze fixed on the bustling streets far below. “Give me the specifics.”

“The trouble is concentrated in the hunting grounds between our outer perimeter and the Black Mist Ravine,” Xu Xiansu explained, pulling a thin wooden scroll from her wide sleeve and unfolding it across the stone rail. “Whenever the players gather in small parties of five or ten to hunt low-tier iron-hide boars or gather blood-spirit mushrooms, masked bands strike from the dense brush. These attackers do not wear the insignia of any recognized faction, and they wear rough leather coats, carry unmarked curved sabers, and use concealing talismans that mask their personal scents. I believe they are native forces in the academy dimension, mercenaries perhaps.”

She pointed a pale finger at a row of inked marks on the wood.

“They do not fight to take ground, nor do they steal the boars for meat, instead, their methods are purely meant to ruin the players’ momentum. They set concealed spike pits along the popular paths. They dump barrels of rotten snake bile into the shallow riverbeds to drive away all wild beasts within ten miles. Even worse, several merchant caravans heading toward the lower markets were intercepted. Every basic iron sword, every beginner shield, and every jar of cheap burn ointment was bought out in bulk at double the normal price, leaving the newcomers with no weapons to replace their broken gear.”

“…a sabotage,” Haoran murmured, his fingers tapping a slow, rhythmic beat against the cold stone railing.

“Precisely,” Xu Xiansu agreed, nodding slightly. “When the gamers fall in the woods, they respawn at the city altar, but their cheap equipment will be broken. And because the market stalls are empty of supplies, they end up sitting by the fountains, unable to head out again. These mercenaries also strike, scatter into the deep caves, and vanish before our city guards can ride down from the gates. We have captured three scouts, but each of them swallowed bone-melting poison before our interrogators could even strip their boots. Someone is definitely pulling the strings from the dark, but they have hidden their tracks beneath layers of cutouts and gold coins. We still don’t have any idea who.”

Haoran turned his head slightly, a cold, dangerous light flickering within his golden eyes.

“It seems some people recognized these gamers and wanted to do everything they can to prevent their growth.” Said Haoran.

Otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense to spend so much resources to prevent hundreds of people from lower realm from leveling up.

Another dog is definitely behind this.

“What would you have us do, Haoran?” Xu Xiansu asked.

“Call Shen Tao and Shen Fei before noon and make them lead the guards,” Haoran instructed, laying out the solution with steady precision. “Then, stop letting the gamers wander into the open woods in small, disorganized bands like blind chickens and have Luochen use the system to issue structured escorts. When a hundred players step out to hunt, dispatch twenty armored vanguard guards from the main barracks to march alongside them. If those rats wish to shoot arrows from the trees, let them test their iron against our city’s heavy shields.”

Xu Xiansu’s eyes cleared, her fingers noting the points on the wood. “A unified formation. That will eliminate their ambush advantage immediately.”

“Second, the market issue is trivial,” Haoran continued smoothly. “Open the private warehouses in the lower district. We brought three thousand crates of spare iron weapons and low-grade spirit pills back from the Rising Dragon Sect. Dump them directly into the system shop. If the hidden buyer wishes to buy out our inventory, let him empty his family vaults trying to purchase an entire mountain’s worth of scrap metal. We will bleed his pockets dry while keeping our people armed to the teeth. If it’s still not enough, tell Huo Yue, Shen Ying, and Shen Cai to mass-produce low quality pulls and artifacts.”

“Understand. What about those mercenaries?” she inquired.

“Turn the gamers themselves into the hunters,” Haoran replied with a faint, chilling smirk. “Use the system’s board to post a persistent tracking task. For every masked scout they corner, for every hidden poison trap they uncover, award them fifty contribution points and a voucher for high-grade steel. Those fools love nothing more than chasing red marks on a map. When hundreds of unkillable locusts start scouring every hollow tree and muddy ditch looking for a payout, the enemy will have nowhere left to breathe.”

“Understood,” Xu Xiansu said, rolling up the wooden scroll with a clean snap. “I will have Shen Xinye oversee the outer perimeter patrols personally. By the time you return from the Ye Clan, the woods will be clear.”

“Good.”

The matter of the city was settled, and a brief silence settled over the high terrace.

The morning wind rustled the leaves of the peach trees in the nearby garden, blowing a few stray pink petals across the flagstones between their boots.

After a while, Haoran turned fully toward Xu Xiansu.

His golden eyes fixed directly upon her face.

He had known her for many years, through quiet days in the clan libraries and through bloody campaigns across foreign soil.

She was always composed, always calm, yet today, beneath her steady voice, there was a strange stiffness in her posture, a shadow of lingering hesitation in the way she kept her fingers pressed against her sleeves.

“You seem to have a lot on your mind,” Haoran said softly, his tone surprisingly gentle compared to the cold commands he had issued moments ago. “Do you have something you wish to say to me, Xiansu?”

Xu Xiansu froze.

Her fingers tightened around the wooden scroll until her knuckles turned slightly pale.

She lowered her gaze to the floor, her teeth biting softly against her lower lip.

For years since the trial, she had carried a suffocating weight deep inside her soul, a terrifying secret she had kept locked away behind a calm smile because she feared that speaking it aloud might shatter the very ground they walked on.

The morning breeze blew a stray strand of dark hair across her cheek.

But then, She looked up, meeting Haoran’s steady, unblinking gaze, and saw the calm in his golden pupils.

He was not an ordinary young master who would crumble under bad omens, nor was he a fool who panicked at the sound of thunder.

If anyone in this vast universe had the strength to bear what she knew, it was the man standing before her.

She took a slow, deep breath, and decided to reveal the truth.

“Haoran… what I am about to tell you will sound like the wild ravings of a madwoman,” Xu Xiansu began, her voice dropping into a fragile, trembling whisper that barely carried over the rustling leaves. “During our time in the lower realm… I happen to encounter this man who can use the same techniques that I created.”

Haoran did not interrupt, his posture still and attentive.

“So I decided to chase after him to ask him about it,” she continued, her hands trembling slightly despite her best efforts to keep them steady. “…yet, it turns out she learned those things from his master. And that master was me.”

Haoran blinked, completely caught off guard.

Xu Xiansu saw this and smiled wryly, “Yeah, that’s my reaction too. Apparently, she’s me from an alternate future.”

Xu Xiansu looked directly into Haoran’s eyes, her voice growing heavy with the weight of ancient, cosmic tragedy.

“In that timeline, your rise was unstoppable. You swept across the upper realm like an untamed storm. You broke through the highest shackles of mortal flesh, reached the legendary Immortal realm, and stood before the heavens with your blade drawn. With a single strike of your ancient sword, you tore open the ancient gates of Immortality that had been sealed since the dawn of creation, showering the mortal lands below with golden celestial rain, blessing every living thing with boundless lifespan and spiritual light.”

Her breath hitched in her throat, a cold shiver running down her spine as she remembered the feeling when she first heard this.

“You conquered the nine heavens, walked into the most dangerous forbidden zones, and collected all Nine Dragon God Physiques, fusing them into a singular, primordial vessel that no mortal or god had ever achieved. Your foundation was so vast that the very stars bowed their heads whenever you took a step. You stood at the absolute threshold of existence, preparing to shatter the final boundary and break through to a higher realm that lay beyond the comprehension of any immortals or gods.”

Her voice cracked, turning into a low, bitter rasp.

“And that was when… The tragedy happened.”

“The Heavenly Dao itself… the great, unfeeling mind that governs the universe… could not permit an existence greater than itself to stand above its laws. As you began your final breakthrough, at the precise moment when your soul was bare and your power was transitioning between planes, the Heavenly Dao struck from behind. A sneak attack born of pure, desperate fear.”

She gripped her sleeves tightly, tears of vicarious terror stinging the corners of her eyes.

“The Shen Clan erupted in anger and united all forces to attack the heavens. The war tore the fabric of reality apart. Mountains of stars collapsed, nebulae burned into empty voids, and the laws of cause and effect shattered like cheap porcelain. And then, realizing that even with a surprise strike it could not win, the Heavenly Dao went mad with desperation.”

Xu Xiansu swallowed hard, her voice barely louder than the wind.

“The Heavenly Dao, in its desperation, destroyed all infinite universes across all infinite timelines. Millions of realities, countless billions of worlds, eras of history and civilizations—all of them were detonated into primordial void just to kill you. The future me watched our entire universe dissolve into gray nothingness, and it was only because of you that she survived and drifted to emptiness to search for a surviving timeline.”

“This timeline,” Haoran murmured softly, his face an unmoving mask of stone.

“Yes,” Xu Xiansu whispered, nodding with a pale face. “Because of that cataclysmic purge, the Heavenly Dao was severely weakened, its vast cosmic body fractured into dying embers. This single timeline is the last surviving branch of reality in the endless void. And now, like a starving, dying beast cornered in a cave, the remnants of that foreign Heavenly Dao are trying to devour this timeline’s Heavenly Dao to heal its wounds and reclaim its lost authority. It cannot descend with its true form, so it has cast fragmented souls, alien wills, and anomalous tools into this world, hiding them inside mortal bodies, hoping to harvest this realm’s luck from within before you can grow strong enough to swing your blade a second time.”

She finished speaking.

The place fell into a profound, suffocating silence.

The weight of her words hung between them like a mountain suspended by a thread.

The destruction of infinite cosmos, the will of heaven, the desperate struggle of a future self who had wandered in emptiness for a chance—it was a truth so monstrous, so astronomical in scale, that any ordinary cultivator who heard it would have had their Dao heart shattered into dust on the spot.

Haoran stood by the stone balustrade, perfectly motionless.

The morning sun cast his long shadow across the white flagstones, unmoving, steady as an ancient mountain that had watched continents rise and sink beneath the waves.

He listened to it all.

He did not scoff. He did not question her sanity, he did not show fear, nor did his breath quicken by even half a beat.

In the end, he closed his eyes, and took a slow, deep breath of the cool mountain air, letting the fresh scent of pine and morning dew fill his lungs, holding it in his chest for several quiet seconds before exhaling softly into the breeze.

A few moments later, he opened his eyes.

The coldness that usually froze his gaze had melted away, replaced by a warm, calm clarity as his lips parted, and a genuine, gentle smile curved across his face.

He looked at Xu Xiansu, his eyes soft with quiet appreciation, and spoke in a clear, sincere voice.

“Thank you for telling me, Xiansu.”

Xu Xiansu was momentarily stunned.

Her mouth opened slightly, her eyes widening in sheer disbelief as she stared at the smiling youth before her.

She had spent weeks terrified of this moment, imagining that he might grow paranoid, that he might look upon her with suspicion, or that the crushing burden of fighting the will of heaven across timelines would cast a dark, bitter shadow over him.

She had expected anger, cold calculations, or grim commands for war.

She had never expected this warm, gentle smile.

Her face flushed a deep, sudden crimson that spread from her cheeks all the way to the tips of her delicate ears.

Her heart gave an erratic, flustered thump against her ribs, completely unaccustomed to seeing the aloof, terrifying man look at her with such open, unguarded warmth.

She quickly recovered, her jaw tightening as she caught herself staring.

“Hmph!”

Xu Xiansu snorted softly, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.

She turned her head away, looking stubbornly out toward the far mountains so he wouldn’t see the bright red color burning on her cheeks, though the corners of her lips twitched upward despite her efforts to look stern.

“Who was doing it for you anyway?” she grumbled under her breath, her voice carrying a rare, flustered pout. “I merely didn’t want my future hard work to turn into ashes again. Anyways, you had better be ready to leave. Teacher Ye has already finished packing her things, and she will not be pleased if you keep her horses waiting at the gate.”

Haoran chuckled softly, the light sound carrying easily on the morning breeze as he turned away from the railing and began walking toward the waiting carriage.