Li Lingrui finished arranging his cave abode, then sat down and studied the manual in his hands for what felt like the hundredth time.

  The Yang-Rising Scripture.

  In this world, cultivation was built on a simple principle. Draw in the qi of heaven and earth, cycle it through the body, refine it, claim it.

  Every path followed that rule.

  Demonic arts, sword qi, ghost qi, devil qi, even the lust doctrines that obsessed over yang qi, yin qi, and kidney qi. Different names, different flavors, same root. They were all transformations of spiritual qi.

  Entering the path was not the hard part.

  The hard part was refinement.

  How much power could you truly make your own? How much could you temper into something unique? A talent. A divine ability. A signature edge that let you survive long enough to become terrifying.

  Li Lingrui exhaled slowly, a mouthful of stale air and old frustration.

  “If I cultivate the normal way, step by step, I’ll bury myself in bitter training for ten years and still amount to nothing.”

  He knew the truth too well.

  In this world, cultivation was never just “work hard and win.” It was fate, talent, resources, connections, timing. Miss one and you limped. Miss two and you died. Miss all of them and you became background scenery.

  And in this life, he had already started behind.

  A little smile tugged at his lips.

  Good thing I have a system.

  This time, he swore, he would not live like his last life. Not drifting, not settling, not wasting away. If heaven had given him another run, he was taking the throne.

  He lowered his eyes to the manual again, reading line by line.

  Red Dust Yin-Yang Rising Sutra.

  The more he read, the brighter his eyes became.

  “Cultivate properly? Slowly replenish qi?” he muttered, then chuckled under his breath. “As if. I’m in the demonic path now. If I’m not walking a knife-edge, what’s the point?”

  A month passed in the blink of an eye.

  During that time, Li Lingrui roamed the outer layers of the Demonic Sect and got a rough grasp of how this place really worked.

  The Demonic Sect sat in the far north, the strongest force in the northern reaches of the Fangze Realm. On paper, anyway.

  In reality, it had been in decline for years, beaten down by the orthodox alliance led by the Three Sects and Five Clans. It could only squat in the frozen north and pretend that was a strategic choice.

  And inside the Demonic Sect, people liked to talk about the law of the jungle.

  That was a lie.

  This place did not worship strength above all.

  It worshipped transactions.

  If anything, it felt less like “the strong devour the weak” and more like a brutal, bloodstained version of capitalism with better robes and worse morals.

  In the Demonic Sect, spirit stones were worth more than fists.

  Because here, spirit stones were strength.

  Have spirit stones, and you could swagger through the sect like a prince. Magical artifacts, pills, formation charts, talismans, techniques, even companions. There was always someone willing to sell, and always a price.

  Have none, and whether you were a man or a woman, odds were you’d die alone.

  “What, can’t two poor cultivators get together and build a life from scratch?”

  Sure. In theory.

  In practice, if you were already starving, dragging another starving person into your cave abode just meant two people staring at each other in the dark while neither could afford enough spirit stones to maintain cultivation.

  Romantic.

  The Demonic Sect was not like the orthodox mountains drenched in abundant spiritual qi. Here, ambient qi was so thin it was nearly useless. Most demonic cultivation depended on looted or purchased spirit stones.

  An Initiate cultivator needed hundreds of spirit stones a year just to maintain their realm.

  Sea of Qi and Foundation Establishment?

  The numbers became obscene.

  That was why Li Lingrui kept hearing the same sect-side jingle repeated with grinning fatalism:

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  Don’t bow to heaven, don’t bow to ancestors, bow to two or three liang of spirit stones.

  As for the divine art in his hand, the Red Dust Yin-Yang Rising Sutra? Its basic method had him absorb spiritual qi from spirit stones, refine it into kidney qi, and use that to nourish his cultivation.

  That was just the foundation.

  The real secret was dual cultivation.

  You needed suitable partners.

  The more, the better.

  Truth is tested in practice. Skill grows in practice.

  Unfortunately, in the Demonic Sect, “practice” also required a bride price.

  Li Lingrui asked around. Even for an Initiate female cultivator, the minimum betrothal gift started at a hundred spirit stones.

  He squeezed the pocket at his waist. It was so empty it could not even rattle.

  He sighed from somewhere deep in his bones.

  Poverty kills ambition. Then it mocks the corpse.

  So for the past month, the technique he thought about day and night, the Red Dust Yin-Yang Rising Sutra, had made exactly zero progress.

  He looked at himself in a bronze mirror. Unshaven. Hollow-eyed. Worry written all over his face.

  “So this is where we are,” he muttered. “Sell myself? Or marry into someone else’s household? Probably cheaper.”

  A beat later, he rejected the idea and shook his head violently.

  “With this face? No one’s paying premium. Maybe I should take a usury loan, get some cosmetic work done, gamble once, and try to hook a rich cultivator woman. Hit the jackpot and coast for life.”

  A perfectly rational plan. By demonic standards, anyway.

  He was just about to commit to this deeply questionable future when a familiar voice interrupted him.

  “Li-brother,” Guo Yuan said as he stepped into the cave with a smile that always looked half-sincere and half-profitable. “Remember the opportunity I mentioned two days ago? It’s here.”

  Li Lingrui turned at once. “Go on.”

  Guo Yuan came closer and lowered his voice.

  “You’ve felt it too. In the Demonic Sect, no spirit stones means no road forward. Senior Brother Wang from Myriad-Beast Abyss is recruiting a squad tonight. Going down the abyss to mine a spirit vein. Twenty spirit stones for one night.”

  Li Lingrui’s eyes snapped wide.

  “Twenty?”

  Guo Yuan grinned. “Do it for five nights and you’ve got a wife fund.”

  “Done.”

  Li Lingrui stood up so fast he nearly kicked over the stool.

  At this point, if it made spirit stones, he would have agreed to almost anything.

  Guo Yuan slapped his shoulder and laughed. “Knew you were a man with ambition. I already greased the way. Told Senior Brother Wang you’re my nephew. When you get there, use my name. You’re on the mining crew tonight.”

  Li Lingrui clasped his hands. “I won’t forget this. If I make money, I’ll share some with you.”

  “Easy, easy,” Guo Yuan said, still smiling.

  The night was black. The moon was pale and sharp.

  At the edge of Myriad-Beast Abyss, dozens of Demonic Sect disciples gathered in loose clusters, each trying to look calm and failing in a different way.

  At the front stood a disciple of Myriad-Beast Abyss in the mid Initiate stage.

  Senior Brother Wang.

  Wang Zuoqi laughed loudly, broad-shouldered and confident in the way of men who had either survived danger or learned how to sell danger to others.

  “Brothers and sisters, you’re all here for spirit stones. I, Wang, have gone down this abyss three times and returned safely each time. Know why?”

  “Because of your cultivation?” someone called out.

  Wang Zuoqi shook his head and raised a finger.

  “No. Because of discipline.”

  His tone hardened.

  “When we mine in the abyss, everyone follows my orders without question. Anyone who breaks formation, acts on greed, or disobeys... if the beasts don’t eat you first, I’ll refine you into a demon puppet myself.”

  The threat settled over the group like frost.

  Then a soft, syrup-sweet voice drifted in.

  “Senior Brother Wang is the sect’s authority when it comes to abyss mining,” said Fairy Chenyin, smiling as she stepped forward. “If we work together, not only will everyone receive the promised spirit stones, but if there’s extra harvest, Senior Brother Wang surely won’t let anyone leave empty-handed.”

  Li Lingrui narrowed his eyes.

  Second life, second chance, same old tricks.

  He took one look and knew the two of them were acquainted. Maybe partners. Maybe worse. But he said nothing. Between Wang’s intimidation and Chenyin’s coaxing, the rules had already been set before anyone realized they were agreeing to them.

  Wang Zuoqi swept his arm.

  “Move.”

  Escape lights flared one after another as the group dropped into Myriad-Beast Abyss.

  Li Lingrui sent out his divine sense, cautious and thin as a thread, and deliberately stayed at the back. Something felt off.

  Too smooth.

  Too convenient.

  Too much money for too little risk.

  On the side wall of the abyss, inside a pitch-black cave hollowed into the stone, Wang Zuoqi landed first.

  “This,” he announced, “is the spirit vein I found. Low-grade Yellow-rank, poor yield, not worth much to the big players. But meat is meat. More than enough for all of us, and too much for me to swallow alone.”

  He pointed deeper inside.

  “In a moment, everyone attacks together. Break the rock, harvest the stones. Don’t hold back.”

  “Understood!”

  Excitement lit the faces around him. Dozens of eyes shone greedily as they stared at the yellow-veined stone embedded in the wall. It looked ugly, dull, almost sickly.

  To them, it was treasure.

  “Attack!”

  Demonic arts of every stripe slammed into the spirit vein. Sword light, beast shadows, blood qi, ghostly wisps, palm strikes, black fire. The cave thundered under the barrage.

  Li Lingrui naturally intended to sandbag.

  He had been good at that in his last life.

  Why risk your life when you could contribute just enough to not get noticed?

  Unfortunately, before he could lean into the strategy, Fairy Chenyin drifted behind him without a sound and blocked the exit path, smiling at him with an expression that said I see everything.

  Supervising labor now, are we.

  Li Lingrui sighed and released his Initiate-stage spiritual qi into the assault, blending it with the others’ attacks.

  Still, he kept three-tenths of his strength in reserve.

  The unease in his chest refused to fade.

  The bombardment continued without pause. Rock split. Dust rained down. The cave trembled again and again.

  After the time it took to burn three incense sticks, the yellow spirit vein finally cracked.

  With a grinding snap, the ore face split apart.

  Hundreds of spirit stones spilled out and rolled down the slope, clattering across the cave floor in bright, irresistible flashes.

  Every gaze followed them.

  Greed thickened the air.

  And then the broken vein behind them bulged.

  Something moved in the darkness beyond the rock.

  A black tide exploded from the breach.

  Bats.

  No, not bats.

  A swarm of slick black things with enormous wings and writhing bodies, each one carrying the face of an old woman embedded in its flesh. The faces were shriveled, human-like, and horribly alive, mouths stretched in silent screams, eyes cloudy and wet.

  The stench hit half a breath later.

  Rot. Blood. Old graves.

  “Ye Po! Night Crones!”

  Someone screamed the name first, and panic spread faster than the creatures themselves.

  “How are there Night Crones here?!”

  The swarm moved with terrifying speed.

  The disciples at the front barely had time to turn before the first wave hit. Claws latched on. Needle teeth punched into necks and wrists. Black wings beat wildly in the cramped cave.

  The victims convulsed.

  Their blood and essence poured out in visible streams, sucked dry in moments.

  Screams became gurgles.

  Gurgles became silence.

  In the span of a few breaths, living cultivators collapsed into white bone.

  The cave filled with chaos.

  And Li Lingrui, still holding back that last sliver of strength, finally understood why everything had gone so smoothly.

  It had never been a mining job.

  It was bait.