Nanya and her maid were doing the usual in their hotel room, using Su Yafeng’s dao aspect and the scrying artefact to spy on people.

"Why her?" the maid asked. She referred to Xiu Jiujiu, whose form was moving to and fro on the surface of their spying device. The waitmaiden was in a flurry with Ziyou Ling, going through the bazaar while buying nicknacks. "Why not Ziyou Yung?"

Nanya scoffed at the strange question. The reply was obvious. "We have been pampered enough for one day. We wish to scout our enemies."

"Enemies?" Su Yafeng was confused. "I think, m'lady, you already have Ziyou Yung's heart in your palms."

"Men are fickle. We need more than his heart, dear maid."

"I think, m'lady, you already have Ziyou Yung's groin in your palms."

"We know!" Nanya bristled at her foolish maid. "Do you not see that thieving vixen's smug smile?" She pointed at Xiu Jiujiu's innocent face on the screen, zooming in with vehemence. "Look at her! Scheming to take what is rightfully ours." She then moved her finger to a cloth band on the girl's arm. "Look at this thief!"

"M'lady, she's ren. You are the vixen yao."

"It is a metaphor!"

Su Yafeng's eyes glazed over. There was a contempt there that Nanya did not like.

The maid sighed, saying, "And what is wrong with this cloth band?"

"It is our servant's! She stole it in the guise of doing the so-called ‘laundry’. This foul-hearted commoner." Nanya already had a jade slip full of punishments she would bestow upon this girl, but she was yet too nervous to bring the matter up with her 'boyfriend.' So the only one who could counsel her on the matter was her foolish cousin.

"How exactly does m'lady know that? The current you cannot use this artefact without my aid," Su Yafeng said.

"We had marked it," Nanya said.

"Marked what?"

"Our boyfriend's clothes with our bodily fluids. We can sniff the treachery from a million miles away!"

Su Yafeng was dumbfounded. She took a deep breath, already having sent the sound transmission to the matriarch. Then her eyes turned to the artefact, and then Nanya again.

"W-Which bodily fluid?"

Nanya paused right before replying. There was a thought suddenly flashing through her mind. "Maid... we have this strange hypothesis."

Su Yafeng gulped, saying, "By the way, I too think Xiu Jiujiu is not a good mortal—"

"It cannot possibly be that you are once more envious of our stellar success with men? Or why else would you want to know which fluid our servant had licked off our bosom?"

"I-I didn't ask for so much detail!"

Nanya knew what was going on. She stood up, walking up to the taller vixen, speaking very slow and sharp. "A change in our status comes to mind. We are no longer a spinster."

".... I think, m'lady, you are too quick to judge that. This boyfriend thing is not a husband."

"As such, you shall not have the arrows to gossip with our cousins back home, feeling superior to us in your little cabal of envious, ugly, unmarried vixens."

"M'lady said it was fine to share about her great conquests! You cannot change your mind."

Nanya slammed her fluttering scarf on the floor, pointing at Su Yafeng with a victorious grin. "Go on, be a petty little gossip-whore. But know this fact. Henceforth, we too shall be gossiping about your spinster-ness with our other cousins that have lovers! Ahaha. Pitiful maiden who has never had her neck kissed tenderly, oh you foolish girl untouched by fingers of love, you wearer of unbridal—mmpf!"

"M'lady goes too far with her bullying." Su Yafeng covered Nanya's mouth with her hands, her eyes red and her face pink. "I will tell the matriarch that you read demonic novels of men laying with men!"

"Don't you dare, you traitorous servant!"

***

Chao opened his eyes.

"Ugh..."

He was bleeding. The defensive talisman he had cast at the last second was enough to protect his body from the sharp, spear-like rocks piercing up from the plunge hole. But just before he did so, the accursed lemurs managed to hit him dead on his forehead.

The blood dripped down, but Chao did not feel the pain.

"I live."

Only anger.

He slowly got up. A thin film covered him, the protection from the talisman ongoing. The mirror fortress needed time to charge up. Time which he did not have while falling to his death. So he was forced to cast a priceless defensive talisman he had received from the Twilight Blood Palace elder.

That was one less option of self-preservation wasted, and the fact that he had to rely on the elder's gift to save himself from some cunning monkeys stoked his raging flames further.

How long was I unconscious?

Chao had obviously washed downstream from the waterfall. He could not tell by the sky as the Warring Twilight Forest’s day and night depended on the number of fiends, voidrifts, and chaos-springs in the area. And it was more dusky than dawn, so void beings were lurking nearby.

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But if he had to hazard a guess, not more than two to three hours had passed. For the talisman was still in effect. It could even protect him from a single Unfolding Heaven 1st Order fiend strike. The impact from the plunge hole was not enough to deplete all its energy, and according to the elder, the passive effect of the talisman would remain for ten hours.

Chao could have used one of the lesser-level protective talismans he had purchased himself, but with his consciousness slipping and the spikes only half a second away from skewering him, he did not want to take any chances.

The boy walked up the shore of the river, into the forest. He needed to find a cave, make a fire, and fill his stomach. He popped some healing pills to stop the bleeding, but the body craved proper nutrients.

Greeeee!

Chao stopped, hearing the familiar lemur growl.

The bastards followed me!

His rage threatened to boil over.

Good. Good. How dare they!

Chao crouched down, keeping his eye level at the height of the surrounding bush. He took another talisman out, this one he had bought himself. A paper charm with a minor stealth effect. After popping some Spirit qi boosting pills, he channeled the alchemical qi into the talisman, and another thin film covered his form above the protective effect.

His body turned mirror-like, and his scent disappeared.

Screech! Grunt! Hoot!

Chao crouched hidden behind the bushes. He carefully removed the leaves and was greeted by a strange sight.

There was a large bonfire in the middle of a clearing. On top of it was a large bison-like fiend, skinned and gutted and wrapped in herbs. It was hung from a tree by the nose, and multiple Fiery wine lemurs rotated it vertically from afar with large sticks.

One, three, seven, ten… Chao counted more than twenty of the Chaosfiends. There were young and old, male and female. Other than the ones manning the fire, the rest danced around the flame with what looked like coconut shells in their hands. Their wrinkled lemur faces blushed red as they took large gulps of the fruity liquid from the shells. After the contents in the shell ran out, they would stagger near a large gourd-like container placed further away from the bonfire and refill their drinks.

From the scent that reeked out, it was not hard to guess what the contents were.

Fiery fruit wine, a spiritual wine these Fiery wine lemurs had a knack for making. An elixir to some, but poison to others, there was something about the particular dao aspects these breed of Chaosfiend had control over which made the wine impossible to replicate.

And here they were, the lemurs celebrating their successful hunt by getting intoxicated in the middle of a fiend-infested forest. They were probably celebrating the fact that they had successfully ‘killed the foolish ren’ too, an adage to their revenge.

How dare they mock me!

Chao waited patiently, his red eyes gleaming, taking in the position of each chaosfiend and mapping the area in his mind.

The bison was roasted, the lower parts grilled to a char but the upper part wafting out a delicious savoury aroma. The lemurs unstrung their meal; one large member, in particular, took the time to slowly carve out the meat and hand the food to the tribe members. Chao recognised it. It was the first one he met on the tree, and the one who led this group of fiends. His grip on the sword tightened, and the bloodlust overflowed.

The large Fiery wine lemur had its meal last. The youngest lemurs, intoxicated from the wine and full from the meat, ran around the clearing playing strange games of tag. The female members groomed the newly born babes, whilst the males hung from tree branches, doing a shoddy job at playing nightguard.

Chao noticed a Voidfiend scurry close to the clearing, with the lemurs none the wiser. But as it neared, the stench of the wine hit it, and the Voidfiend jumped back with a growl and ran away like it had spotted an Unfolding Heaven grade foe.

So it's the wine. Somehow it can even act as a repellent.

Voidfiends were usually mindless killing machines. Which meant they were equally easy to trick. Chao looked at the large gourd with greed.

And he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And his Unfolding Heaven grade defensive talisman finally ran out of qi.

An hour later, the last Fiery wine lemur fell into slumber. Chao had needed to recast the stealth talisman three more times during his wait, and then cast the final talisman now. He had no wish to risk a head-on battle against these cunning creatures. He still had a spare Unfolding Heaven grade defensive talisman, but he chose to use a normal Imperfect Heaven grade one this time.

He stood up, careful not to step on twigs or dried leaves, and slowly rounded the clearing until he was behind the area where the mother lemurs slept with the babes. The males were all asleep, hanging from the trees with their tails. He took a deep breath, and unsheathed his rusty sword. He took out a vial with purple liquid oozing inside and carefully applied a few drops on the blade’s edge. He then popped eight Spirit qi boosting pills, and as the qi surged through his veins, he readied his stance.

Stealth is for cowards… but then again, Brother Yung can use this one trick to best cultivators who have trained for decades. So I guess, it’s not for cowards, but for the intelligent. Thank you, Brother Yung; you have opened my mind once more!

One jab, one life. The poison coloured the female lemur's fur. It would numb the creature to its demise, and not a groan was uttered. Chao moved from one sleeping lemur to the next, striking each one with a swift, deadly blow. His movements were smooth and calculated. He killed from big to small, and his sword did not tremble as it impaled the babes and the children.

These are fiends, Chao said to himself.

Crazed creatures that had stalked him for who knows how long, they had struck him at precisely that moment in which he was the most vulnerable, with the intent to kill. Chao would return the favour, the humiliation, a hundred times over. For these were weeds, and weeds had to be pulled from the root.

In less than five minutes, he had killed all the sleeping females and younglings, bar one old member, cradling an infant in its bone-lined arms. Chao neared them, quietly. The two were leaning on the giant wine gourd with loud snores. He raised his sword up, and with resolute eyes, brought it down.

The old Fiery wine lemur's eyes snapped open. It saw the sword, and Chao could see the million emotions going through its drunk fiend brain. Just as his sword plunged into the creature, it threw the babe in its arm to the side.

The old fiend was poisoned and could not even twitch. Its eyes lost their glimmer, the small fiery wine lemur crashed against the soft grass, and let out an ear-piercing cry of pain.

"GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

Seven thuds sounded from behind him. Chao sighed, turning around as he deflected the thrown rocks.

Six male adults, perhaps in the median or late stages of the Imperfect Heaven 1st order. They looked at him with fear and despair, their eyes so ren-like. Chao's heart sank.

These are fiends!

The lemurs slowly neared him, their blood-red claws ready to rend and their violent qi rising up with the crackle of the bonfire, mixing with the sweet scent of the wine and the stench of the dead.

The baby Fiery wine lemur kept crying, its voice hoarse and pained.

Chao noticed something. There had been seven thuds, and the leader was missing.

The six male lemurs chose that moment to throw their artillery. The stones flew far faster than arrows and with enough force to dent steel.

The crying suddenly stopped just as Chao batted two of the stones away with his sword, jumping back to offset the weight. The four other stones flew two each to his left and right, zoning him from dodging. As he was midair, his feet about to touch the ground, he saw a fiery light flying at him from behind.

Chao twisted his upper body, facing the light, the mirror fortress readying its shield behind him to deflect the second volley of the artillery.

He saw the leader of the lemurs, standing far away with eyes crying blood. In its arms was the lemur babe, seemingly deep asleep.

The fiery light was a torch, spinning in the air like a wheel, and before Chao realised what had happened, it dropped into the giant wine gourd with a plop.

"Shit!"

The ground cracked, the flame roared. The blaze was mired with the stench of wine, and the heat broke through the Imperfect Heaven grade defensive talisman in less than a blink.

BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!

The explosion deafened away Chao's cry of pain, and the smoke spread with the dust, covering the clearing in a bloody red mist.