SLAP!
The sharp sound of flesh striking flesh cut through the ambient noise of the gathered crowd with startling clarity. Before Zhao Yen had even finished delivering his accusatory statement, before the final syllable of his malicious words had completely left his lips, Elaine's hand moved with shocking speed and violence. She twisted her body slightly to generate additional force, then delivered a vicious backhand slap directly across Zhao Yen's face with such tremendous power that the impact itself seemed to echo across the competition grounds.
The blow landed with devastating accuracy and force, connecting with Zhao's cheek so hard that his entire head snapped violently to one side from the momentum. His body followed the motion of his head, spinning partially around from the sheer kinetic energy transferred by the strike. As his mouth gaped open involuntarily from the pain and shock, he involuntarily spat out a spray of blood mixed with saliva, and within that crimson spray flew two white objects that clattered onto the ground—his own teeth, knocked completely loose from his jaw.
The assembled group of male disciples who had been orbiting Elaine like devoted bees around honey, each one competing for her attention and favor through various displays of sycophantic behavior, had all been preparing to burst into uproarious laughter at Zhao's cutting remarks about Lordi.
They'd expected Elaine to be pleased by his public humiliation of someone she supposedly disliked, perhaps rewarding Zhao with acknowledgment or praise.
Instead, witnessing this sudden explosion of violence directed at one of their own number, every single one of these hangers-on froze in mid-laugh, their expressions transforming from anticipatory mirth to shocked confusion in an instant.
Zhao himself stood there clutching his rapidly swelling cheek with both hands, his face a perfect portrait of absolute bewilderment and wounded incomprehension. His eyes were wide with shock, his mind clearly racing to understand what he'd possibly done wrong to warrant such punishment. He genuinely had no idea what words he'd spoken that could have triggered such a violent reaction. In his understanding of the social dynamics, this Lordi Payne had previously shown disrespect to Senior Sister Sun in public—slights that Sun Elaine had openly resented for weeks if not months, nursing her grudge with obvious bitterness.
Zhao had simply been trying to help Senior Sister Sun express that anger and punish the target of her resentment publicly, scoring points with her by attacking someone she supposedly hated. So why had his attempt to curry favor resulted in getting violently assaulted instead of earning praise? The logic of the situation completely escaped him, leaving him dazed and confused as blood continued to drip from his mouth.
Honine was similarly stunned by this unexpected turn of events, his own confusion evident across his features as he tried to process what had just occurred. However, after that initial moment of shock wore off, a different interpretation began forming in his mind—one that sent his heart racing with hopeful excitement.
Could it be...
Could Junior Sister Sun have struck Zhao Yen on my behalf? Honine wondered with growing excitement.
Perhaps she'd taken offense to someone insulting my family connection, even if that family member was the disappointing Lordi Payne?
Maybe… maybe this was a sign that she… Eliane-chan cared about me specifically, that she valued our relationship enough to defend even my worthless relatives from public mockery?
The possibility sent thrills through him, his imagination already constructing elaborate romantic scenarios that explained Sun Elaine's actions as evidence of her deep feelings for him personally.
While Honine was still lost in developing this elaborate fantasy about his crush's supposedly defend his face in public, Elaine had already undergone a dramatic transformation so complete that it would have impressed professional actors back on Earth. Her expression, which mere moments ago had been twisted with such genuine fury and violent intent as she delivered that vicious slap across Zhao Yen's face—her features contorted with rage in ways that made her look genuinely dangerous despite her carefully cultivated image of refined beauty—smoothly shifted into something completely different.
A pleasant, warm, friendly smile bloomed across her face with such natural ease and apparent sincerity that it seemed utterly impossible this could be the same person who'd just violently assaulted someone with enough force to send them staggering. The transformation was so quickly executed, that anyone who hadn't witnessed the slap just seconds earlier would never believe this charming young lady could be capable of such violence.
Her eyes, which had been blazing with genuine killing intent, now sparkled with what appeared to be delighted recognition and friendly enthusiasm. Her posture, which had been rigid with barely controlled aggression, relaxed into graceful elegance that suggested she was thoroughly enjoying herself at a pleasant social gathering.She turned away from the still-reeling Zhao Yen, who was clutching his reddened cheek and looking completely bewildered by the sudden turn of events.
Instead, Elaine directed that newly manifested charming smile directly at Lordi. Her voice carried warmth and genuine-sounding enthusiasm. "Lordi-kun! It's been far too long since we last had the pleasure of speaking—I've genuinely missed our interactions and the conversations we used to share! You should know that this senior sister has tremendous confidence in your abilities and thinks very highly of your prospects in the upcoming competition!" Her tone suggested they were old friends reuniting after a pleasant but regrettable absence rather than people whose actual relationship history involved manipulation, exploitation, tension, and barely concealed mutual wariness bordering on hostility.
As Elaine delivered these friendly words, the pretty female cultivator began moving through the crowded plaza with the kind of grace that came from years of deliberately cultivating an image of elegant refinement. Her steps were measured and deliberate in that particular way that drew maximum attention to her appearance without seeming to try—each movement calculated to make her expensive gauze dress flow and shimmer in the light, to make her elaborate jewelry catch the sun and sparkle with obvious wealth, to project an image of sophisticated beauty and high status that would impress any young male watching.
The beauty glided through the assembled crowd with the casual confidence and air of natural superiority possessed by someone who expected others to instinctively make way for her passage. And indeed, remarkably, people did instinctively shift aside as she approached, creating a path through the press of bodies without her needing to ask or push.
Her destination was clearly and obviously the bookmaker's station where Kay Gool was efficiently managing the increasingly chaotic betting operation, his table now surrounded by excited disciples shouting wagers and demanding odds on various matchups. Reaching the front of this crowded area through sheer force of presence, Elaine produced a leather pouch from her sleeve with a practiced flourish that was simultaneously casual and dramatic, setting it down on the betting table with an audible metallic clink of coins that immediately drew attention from everyone in the immediate vicinity. The sound of that much money moving always commanded notice, and multiple heads turned to see who was placing such a significant wager.
"This pouch contains exactly ten thousand D-grade Spirit Stones—the full amount, properly counted and verified before I left my residence this morning. I wish to place a substantial wager on Junior Brother Lordi Payne to emerge victorious from the preliminary rounds of competition."
The beauty's voice carried clearly across the suddenly attentive crowd, projecting confidence and certainty that suggested she possessed insider knowledge about Lordi's capabilities that justified such an enormous bet on what most observers probably considered a risky proposition at best.
But internally, behind that pleasant mask of friendly support and confident betting, completely hidden from the external observers who saw only the charming smile and elegant demeanor, Elaine's thoughts churned with such intense fury and bitter resentment at the situation she'd been forced into that it took every scrap of self-control she possessed to maintain her composed exterior.
She was mentally cursing Zhao Yen with every single vile epithet her quite extensive vocabulary could produce—and she'd learned some truly creative profanity during her years navigating the demonic sect's social cesspool—damning him repeatedly for his spectacular stupidity and complete, absolute lack of basic social awareness or political sense. That imbecile had just publicly attacked someone with Inner Sect connections powerful enough to get her killed, had drawn dangerous attention to her through his thoughtless actions, had created complications that could potentially unravel everything she'd been working toward.
Last time, during that absolute fiasco with the Inner Sect conflicts between Deathveil and Wraithbone Bloodline factions, it had taken tremendous effort on Elaine's part—along with no small amount of personal risk and humiliations she'd really rather not think about too carefully—to successfully extract herself from dangerous entanglements with powerful factions whose attention she'd accidentally attracted through simple proximity to events.
She'd barely, just barely, managed to avoid being completely consumed by those forces far beyond her ability to influence or withstand, had walked a knife's edge between different Inner Sect bloodlines' competing interests while trying to maintain her independence and avoid being forcibly recruited or eliminated as a potential security risk.
The experience had been terrifying in ways that still occasionally gave her nightmares, had taught her exactly how powerless outer sect disciples truly were when Inner Sect cultivators decided to exercise their authority, and had left her desperately cautious about avoiding similar situations in the future.
But worse—so much worse than just the political danger—she'd been coerced during that mess by a Wraithbone Bloodline inner sect senior brother whose name she tried not to remember, a disgusting creature who'd leveraged her vulnerability and desperate need for protection to force her participation in something that still made her skin crawl with shame and revulsion whenever she allowed herself to think about it directly.
She'd been pressured into participating in the filming of an absolutely disgusting pornographic production about immortal cultivators and mortals engaging in various taboo activities—incest scenarios, cuckoldry fetish content, degrading situations specifically designed to appeal to the worst impulses of the rogue cultivator market that consumed such material in vast quantities.
The porn film itself, to Elaine's continued horror and complicated resentment, had been a huge commercial success among rogue cultivators in Vermithys and throughout the wider region, widely sold and distributed and apparently quite popular with exactly the kind of degenerate audience it had been crafted to exploit.
Her face—her body—was now immortalized in thousands of jade slips being passed around cultivation markets and private collections, viewed by strangers who had no idea she was a real female cultivator rather than just a character performing for their entertainment.
The knowledge haunted her, made every interaction with male sect comrades carry an additional layer of paranoid worry about whether they'd seen her in those recordings, whether they were imagining her in those degrading scenarios while pretending to conduct normal conversation. She'd managed to negotiate a profit share from the production as compensation for her participation—had insisted on it with whatever leverage she could muster since if she was being forced to sacrifice her dignity and long-term reputation then she at least deserved to be compensated for the damage—and that profit share had indeed proven substantial given the film's commercial success. But no amount of spirit stones could truly compensate for what that experience had cost her psychologically, for the way it had fundamentally altered how she viewed herself and her place in this sect's hierarchy.
Now, finally, after months of careful maneuvering and strategic positioning, with the Grand Outer Sect Tournament providing fresh opportunities and her careful avoidance of factional entanglements seeming to have paid off, with the surprisingly substantial profits from that cursed porn film giving her financial resources she'd never possessed before, she'd arrived back at Ghost Shade Peak with specific strategic intentions. She'd been hoping to scout the Grand Tournament for promising new male disciples who might serve as useful tools in her long-term plans—potential simps she could carefully cultivate as sources of benefits, protection, and advancement opportunities, replacements for previous connections and sponsors who'd either become too complicated, too dangerous, or whose usefulness had been exhausted. She was specifically looking for someone who could serve as her ticket out of the increasingly uncomfortable situation she'd found herself trapped in with the Wraithbone Bloodline, who still considered her one of their assets to be deployed however they saw fit. Maybe, if she was incredibly fortunate and played her cards perfectly, she could find a prince among the Outer Sect disciples—someone rich enough to shower her with resources, powerful enough that even Inner Sect factions would hesitate to offend them, and high status enough through family connections or personal backing that associating with him could free her completely from Wraithbone Bloodline's evil grip that still held her through a combination of blackmail material and ongoing financial leverage.
However—and this was what made Elaine want to scream with frustrated rage despite maintaining her pleasant exterior—the competition hadn't even officially started yet, the first preliminary matches hadn't been called or announced, registration was still technically ongoing, and already that absolute imbecile Zhao Yen had thoughtlessly, recklessly attracted extremely dangerous attention directly to her through his idiotic public attack on someone who was clearly, obviously connected to Inner Sect interests that should never be casually provoked!
She knew Lordi Payne's background far too well by this point—most ppl in the Inner Sect with functioning intelligence networks knew that he operated under Sect Successor Lith's personal patronage, that Her Highness herself had taken a direct interest in his development for reasons no one fully understood but which made him effectively untouchable by normal standards. Attacking him publicly the way Zhao had just done, drawing his ire and potentially making him remember Elaine as someone associated with his enemies, could result in complications that neither she nor even the Wraithbone Bloodline could afford to deal with right now when they were trying to maintain low profiles and avoid antagonizing the Sect Successor's faction.
To preemptively avoid potential trouble before it could develop into something catastrophic, to demonstrate publicly and unambiguously that she personally bore absolutely no hostility toward someone with such powerful backing regardless of whatever history might exist between them, she'd been forced to make this enormous gesture that was currently making her feel physically ill to contemplate.
She'd thrown away—literally just thrown away like burning money for warmth—ten thousand precious D-grade Spirit Stones on what was almost certainly a completely losing bet that would never pay out. Ten thousand stones! The waste of such an enormous amount of wealth made her want to vomit when she really thought about it, made her hands tremble slightly with suppressed rage at the necessity of the gesture. That sum represented an absolute fortune by any Outer Sect standards, more money than most disciples would see in years of normal sect work and mission completion. And she knew exactly, precisely, sickeningly how much effort and degradation that money represented in her personal experience, because she'd earned a significant portion of those stones through work she desperately wished she could forget but which was now permanently seared into her memory.
Those $tones had been earned through being fucked—there was no polite way to frame it, no euphemism that made the reality less brutal—numerous times by dirty stinky mortal men she found utterly repulsive, by the ugly filthy mortal dicks who'd been cast in those pornographic productions because rogue cultivators apparently had specific fetishes about watching beautiful female immortal fairy being degraded by common ugly men.
Hours and hours of performing sex she'd never wanted to do, with partners she found physically revolting, while recorder formations captured every moment from different angles for mass distribution and commercial sale.
And now, because Zhao Yen couldn't control his temper or think three seconds ahead about consequences, she had to sacrifice that hardly-earned fortune as tribute to someone she didn't even like, purely to avoid potentially catastrophic political complications that could destroy whatever fragile position she'd managed to build for herself.
The sheer waste of it, the absolute pointless waste of resources she'd paid for with pieces of her dignity and self-respect, made her want to murder Zhao with her bare hands, so instead she just smiled her charming smile and pretended this was all perfectly fine and she was happy to support Junior Brother Payne's tournament prospects.
Ten thousand damn D-grade Spirit $tones!
She kept coming back to that number in her thoughts, unable to fully process the magnitude of what she was throwing away. Honine Payne—who was actually quite skilled at his specialized craft of creating Dao Fulus and could command decent prices for quality work—would need to labor for one full year continuously, creating Fulus absolutely nonstop without eating or sleeping or taking any breaks whatsoever, just to accumulate that much wealth assuming he found buyers for everything he produced.
A full year of continuous high-level work!
And Elaine was just... giving this sum away, essentially, placing it on a bet she had no confidence would actually pay out, purely as a political gesture to avoid worse problems.
She'd been mentally earmarking those $tones for so many things—personal luxuries she'd been denying herself, cultivation resources that could accelerate her advancement, specific plans she'd been carefully developing. She'd wanted to purchase an entire new wardrobe of fashionable gauze dresses and expensive accessories that would help her attract attention from whichever promising wealthy disciple she eventually identified as her next target for cultivation and exploitation, clothes that would make her stand out even more dramatically and signal her status and desirability to potential sponsors.
Now all those plans were ruined, completely ruined, the money wasted on damage control necessitated entirely by Zhao Yen's spectacular incompetence and lack of basic social intelligence. She was going to make that pig brain pay for this somehow, eventually, when circumstances permitted revenge without creating additional complications. But for now, she just smiled and acted like this was all perfectly normal and she was delighted to be supporting Lordi's tournament success.
Just thinking about the financial loss again made Elaine's full breast ache with genuine physical pain, the kind of visceral distress that came from watching resources burn for no benefit. And the person responsible for this disaster was standing right there, still looking confused about why he'd been punished! Her eyes swiveled back to Zhao Yen, and she glared at him with such concentrated hatred and disgust that he actually flinched backward from the intensity. Right then and there, Elaine made a firm decision: from this moment forward, she would absolutely refuse to bring this brain-dead moron with her to any social events or public gatherings. His presence was literally unlucky, a curse that attracted disaster and complications.
Regardless of whether one judged Elaine's reputation as positive or negative, regardless of the various scandalous rumors and stories that circulated about this beauty's behavior and methods, one fact remained indisputable: her name carried significant recognition and weight throughout Ghost Shade Peak.
She was a known quantity, someone whose actions and words commanded attention simply because of how long she'd been operating in this social sphere and how many connections she'd cultivated. Her profile within the Outer Sect was orders of magnitude higher than Lordi Payne's virtually nonexistent reputation—most disciples had never even heard his name before today, while everyone knew who Sun Elaine was and followed her activities with varying degrees of interest.
Kay Gool, the bookmaker who'd been in the middle of questioning Lordi about this new player Lordi Payne's background and capabilities just moments earlier, immediately shifted his attention when Sun Elaine made her dramatic entrance and public declaration.
Without the slightest hesitation or need for additional verification, Kay accepted her pouch of Spirit $tones and smoothly recorded her wager in his ledger.
His demeanor became distinctly more deferential and accommodating as he dealt with this socially prominent client, and he even took a moment to offer flattering commentary alongside his professional service. "Senior Sister Sun has always demonstrated exceptional judgment and an uncanny eye for identifying hidden talent that others overlook. With your endorsement and financial backing, I'm now quite confident that this Sect brother Lordi Payne will indeed emerge victorious from the preliminary rounds!"
Kay's smile broadened, clearly pleased to have such a high-profile bettor participating in his operation regardless of what the actual odds might be.
Lordi watched this entire bizarre performance with an expression of profound confusion, unable to make any sense of Sun Elaine's motivations or sudden apparent support. He hadn't seen her in quite some time—not since before he'd relocated to Alchemy Peak—and during their previous interactions she'd been consistently hostile and scheming. This dramatic personality reversal, this friendly warmth where previously there had been only calculation and resentment, seemed completely inexplicable.
Man… What the…?
Had something fundamental changed about her circumstances or priorities?
Or was this just another layer of manipulation he couldn't quite decipher?