TPMDWTPF CH1

Chapter 1 Fengyun Bulletin

Early March, 326th of the Tianji Era.

Hundreds of feathered folks and immortal beasts from the Baixiao Pavilion poured out in full force, scattering in all directions. The newest issue of the Fengyun Bulletin drifted down from the sky, as it regularly did, stirring up the affairs of the three realms.

Founded by the Baixiao Pavilion, the Fengyun Bulletin focused on four things: the Three Realms Rankings, the descent of secret treasures, the ascension of grandmasters from various sects, and the latest gossip and romantic scandals from every realm.

No secret treasure appeared this month, and the rankings for both the righteous and evil paths remained unchanged. The Rising Star Ranking, however, saw an abundance of rising stars, and the Villain Ranking was more spectacular than ever. Even the lowest-ranked villains on the list had each slaughtered over a thousand. Tang Huan, the lecherous demon of the Changhuan Palace finally squeezed into the top three, for reasons that made countless righteous cultivators grit their teeth in fury!

The front page of Fengyun Bulletin reported that just last evening, Yan Fei, who had held the undisputed number one spot on the Beauty Ranking since his birth, was ambushed in the Bulao Forest and abducted by the Changhuan Palace into the deep valley. His fate remained unknown.

This news shook the three realms!

In the Midie Valley, Perfected Master Huadie sighed in admiration. “Tang Huan… is truly a model for our path.”

At the Chixue Peak, the Fox Monster King held the Beauty Ranking with grief, his three-inch tongue smacking against the page. “That lecher Tang Huan acts far too swiftly! He could at least have let this King take one look before making his move. Truly unscrupulous!”

Deep beneath the Xingchen Sea, countless starlights illuminated the ocean’s surface. Heavenly Venerable Wuming gazed at the star chart, a complicated expression on his face. “With that secret technique by his side, Palace Master Tang will likely achieve another breakthrough after this round of essence absorption.”

The uproar didn’t stop at the cultivation world. Even the human realm was in mourning, cursing the Changhuan Palace to no end. Almost none of the previous top-ranked beauties had escaped the clutches of the Changhuan Palace. Each time, tales of these beauties would be cut tragically short overnight, leaving their stories only half-told.

“Tang Huan! So detestable!”

“When will this demon die? The heavens must be blind! Tang Huan deserves a lightning strike!”

“If Yan Fei dies, how will his Senior Brother Mingzhen continue to live! Another pair of Dao partners broken up! Tang Huan! Give me back the money I spent on my storybooks!!!”

While the three realms buzzed with outrage, only the Shuiyue Sect remained deathly silent.

As the number one righteous sect, the Shuiyue Sect now faced humiliation. Not only had their talented disciple been abducted as a cauldron, but the Changhuan Palace even sent three thousand Biyi Birds to flaunt their power, laughing arrogantly at the mountain gate.

“The Biyi Birds are our betrothal gifts. Our Palace Master says today is an auspicious day for marriage, so we won’t even take your sect’s dowry, hahahahahaha!”

The laughter resounded across the three realms, and the reputation of the Shuiyue Sect hit rock bottom, becoming the laughingstock of all.

In the Shuiyue Sect’s grand hall, Perfected Master Qingxu, who followed the path of boundless love for all living beings, was so enraged he vomited a mouthful of blood. With a single palm strike, he pulverized the Changhuan Palace’s envoys at the mountain gates.

That day, the oppressive aura of a Soul Splitting powerhouse shook heaven and earth as a furious roar spread through the three realms.

“Tang Huan——!!!”

In the midst of his sleep, Tang Huan vaguely heard someone calling him. He struggled to open his eyes, and the sight before him caused him to freeze for a moment.

The red silk curtains were warm, depicting a scene of playful, dreaming mandarin ducks.

He lay on the carved rosewood canopy bed, its antique drapes cascading down from above. The faint scent of flowers drifted in with each flutter of the gauzy curtains, wafting wave after wave into his nostrils. His whole body felt weightless, as though he were floating on clouds.

A dream?

The undeniable heat in his lower abdomen made Tang Huan, who had been single for twenty years, blush deeply. Why was it a wet dream again?

Lately, he had been so busy preparing for his graduation thesis that he hardly had a moment to himself. It was no exaggeration to say that he had been completely focused, leaving no room for idle fantasies, so it made no sense for him to be having a wet dream now. If he must dream, he’d rather dive into this headache-inducing case study at hand and analyze them from a firsthand perspective.

Tang Huan was a twenty-two-year-old senior undergraduate student majoring in Literature. His thesis was titled ‘A Study on the Development and Transformation of Contemporary Online Literature.’ For weeks he had been gathering popular web novels from recent years, but because he couldn’t make sense of a melodramatic xianxia novel titled ‘After Rebirth, I Scummed All Over the Three Realms,’ his progress had been stuck for three whole days.

In his daze, the ‘dream’ moved forward. A soft moan reached his ears.

“Mm…”

Tang Huan turned toward the voice. His pupils tightened at once, and for no clear reason, the description of a certain character from that melodramatic novel flashed into his mind.

A beauty unmatched, without equal in the world.

The person beside him lay with his robe half-open, ink-black hair lazily spread across a corner of the bed. He wore only a loose red gauze robe, with crimson cords intricately adorning his pale, elegant neck. Yet even those vivid red accents paled in comparison to the decadent beauty of his face.

Sensing Tang Huan’s gaze, those peach blossom eyes drifted toward him. With jade-like skin and vermilion lips, his beauty was beyond words.

“Is the Palace Master not going to lift the immobilization spell on me?”

Not only was his appearance breathtaking, even his voice flowed like spring water over a rocky bank. Cool and clear, yet laced with a subtle, pervasive seductiveness. Only…

Who was he calling ‘princess^[1]’???

The word felt like a bucket of cold water. As a child, Tang Huan had often been mistaken for a girl, and it had taken him years to shake that misconception. This was why he was especially sensitive about it.

He put on a stern face. Even in a dream, he patiently explained, “I’m a man.”

After speaking, something clicked in his mind. He shot upright like a leaping carp, nearly biting his tongue. “Why are you a man too?!”

This kind of wet dream was a bit too outrageous!

Although he had never seriously dated, Tang Huan had never doubted his sexual orientation. He shook his head, deciding to end this ridiculous dream. He pinched his thigh hard, but the next second, all he saw was that striking red.

Other than the sting of pain, nothing changed.

Tang Huan stared blankly for a few seconds, then pinched his arm again, even harder. The pain was sharp enough to make his eyes water.

But still, nothing happened.

The room fell into a strange silence. The man on the bed, unable to move at all, quietly observed every one of Tang Huan’s actions. When Tang Huan finally stopped, the man spoke in a steady, low voice, “Is the Palace Master perhaps practicing the secret dual cultivation technique?”

Tang Huan snapped his gaze toward him. “Dual what?”

The man replied, “Dual cultivation.”

Tang Huan: “Dual cultivation?”

“What else?” The man let out a short, derisive laugh. He hadn’t expected that even with things reaching this point, Tang Huan would still try to humiliate him with such a feigned ignorance.

“The Palace Master ordered an ambush in the Bulao Forest, gravely injuring my fellow disciples who were training with me. Then I was dragged all the way back to the depths of the Changhuan Valley. Was all of this perhaps just to share a candlelit conversation with me?”

Having said that, the long-haired man lowered his gaze, as if forcibly suppressing his humiliation and resentment, and reluctantly, and spoke with strained restraint. “The Palace Master’s intentions are known to all. There’s no need for us to waste breath. As long as the Changhuan Palace promises to never touch the disciples of Shuiyue Sect again, Yan Fei will treat tonight as if it never happened. After tonight, I hope the Palace Master and I can each go our separate ways without crossing paths.”

Changhuan Palace, Shuiyue Sect, Bulao Forest, Yan Fei…

The string of familiar names sent Tang Huan into silence once more.

A passing remark turned out to be an ominous prophecy. It seemed that he had really dove into the case study in his dream, and his current identity was none other than that lecherous and utterly wicked Changhuan Palace Master, a short-lived villain who shared his exact name but didn’t survive past ten chapters in the novel.

In the plot, ‘Tang Huan’ and Yan Fei would indeed go their separate ways, but that’s because, according to the plot, his host was scheduled to die violently on this bed tonight, his body exploding into a puddle of blood, thus making him unable to cross paths with anyone at all.

Looking again at that breathtakingly stunning face, Tang Huan felt his throat go dry, not from desire, but from genuine fear.

Because his host died at Yan Fei’s hand.

Clinging to a shred of hope, Tang Huan asked, “You… are you truly Yan Fei of the Shuiyue Sect?”

Being asked the obvious for the second time, Yan Fei’s gaze shot out with ferocity. Yet, he saw Tang Huan nervously pursing his lips, and his dark, clear eyes were surprisingly moist, as if the tears were about to spill out the moment he nodded his head.

Yan Fei frowned without meaning to and almost wanted to question back: Are you truly Tang Huan, the infamous leader of the evil path who treads on countless bones and openly indulges in debauchery?

This was Yan Fei’s first time seeing Tang Huan in person.

There were countless rumors about this archdemon in the three realms, but those who had genuinely seen the Changhuan Palace Master could be counted on one hand. Most of those were the ‘cauldrons’ who vanished without a trace after being captured by the Changhuan Palace.

The rumors claimed that Tang Huan was cold, cruel, and twisted from childhood. With extraordinary talent and countless corpses, he had forged a set of forbidden evil arts. Once he achieved mastery, all cultivators became potential cauldrons. Anyone captured by the Changhuan Palace ended up drained into a dried husk, their soul shattered, erased from the three realms.

Yan Fei had never met Tang Huan before, but Tang Huan’s obsession with him was known across the realms. The Changhuan Palace disciples had lingered around the Shuiyue Sect for ten whole years, waiting for a chance to capture him alive.

A flicker of doubt passed through Yan Fei’s eyes. He sneered, “Does the Palace Master think I don’t look like myself?”

It wasn’t that he didn’t look like himself, but he looked exactly like the novel described!

Tang Huan felt like weeping but he had no tears left. He could no longer fool himself. What was the use of dreaming about transmigrating at such a critical moment when he would die the very day he entered the dream?

“If you’re Yan Fei, then I’m afraid they kidnapped the wrong person…”

Tang Huan forced a dry smile. With his life on the line, who cared about plot anymore? “I… th-this Venerable originally wanted your senior brother. It’s all the fault of those blind fools who captured the wrong person! Don’t worry! I will send you out of the valley tomorrow!”

This answer was so unexpected that Yan Fei froze for a moment, unable to process it.

“Does the Palace Master mean that I wasn’t the one who should’ve been kidnapped?”

Tang Huan nodded without changing his expression. “Exactly, not you, so just rest well tonight.”

He finished and hurried to climb out of bed. Yan Fei finally snapped back to himself, his eyes narrowing slightly as he gave a soft laugh. “Is the Palace Master suffering from some hidden ailment, fabricating such a clumsy excuse in an attempt to run away at the last moment?”

Tang Huan: “……”

Was that even human speech?

He was letting the captive go, and the captive was repaying him with sarcasm?

Tang Huan, who was familiar with the plot, saw through everything. This was a provocation tactic, intended to bait him into falling for it.

As he spoke, Yan Fei shifted slightly, and the red robe slipped just enough to reveal a small section of smooth, jade-white collarbone. The faint fragrance in the room suddenly grew heavier.

Tang Huan remained calm as still water. How terrifying. A grown man, resorting to beauty trap.

They stared at each other in silence. Seeing Tang Huan so clear-eyed, Yan Fei’s brows tightened for an instant before a thin, misty haze slowly settled over his gaze.

The room had been burning with Changhuan Incense, an aphrodisiac, all along. It seemed the effects were finally taking hold. Those peach blossom eyes grew unfocused, a sheen of sweat appeared at his brow, and his finely shaped brows knit together. After several attempts to stifle his breathing, he finally let out a low moan from his nose.

Yan Fei: “Palace Master… I feel like…”

Tang Huan: “……”

You really have no shame.

Even knowing he was acting, this was Tang Huan’s first time seeing such an alluring display. His face flushed, ears burning, and he sharply turned away, the corner of his mouth twitching uncontrollably.

The most skilled hunters always enter the stage disguised as prey.

At that moment, Tang Huan felt that this saying was absolute truth.

If his host was a cannon fodder villain doomed to die early, then the man lying before him was the novel’s major villain from start to finish. Rather than saying his host meticulously plotted to kidnap Yan Fei to be his male concubine, it was more accurate to say that Yan Fei used himself as the bait and simply went along with the current.

In the novel, Yan Fei was the taboo child born of a human and a demon, his body a chaotic mix of energies. At his birth, several bolts of dark purple lightning split the sky, heralding an apocalyptic omen across the three realms. Endless crimson phantoms shrouded the heavens, lasting for a full three hours before finally dispersing.

His fate-defying birth chart brought him constant misfortune from a young age. After surviving countless assassination attempts and years on the run, his parents could no longer protect him. They sealed the demonic qi in his body at the cost of their lives and sent him to a peaceful human village, hoping he could live out an ordinary life.

But this hope was destined to be unrealistic.

It wasn’t because Yan Fei’s talent was particularly exceptional, but simply because he possessed a peerless beauty that mortals could not rival.

When Yan Fei turned thirteen, a disciple of the Shuiyue Sect Master descended to the human realm to temper his cultivation, only to unexpectedly become entangled in a love tribulation because of him. Yan Fei was then taken into Shuiyue Sect, where it was discovered that he possessed a single fire spiritual root. Naturally, he was accepted under the sect master’s tutelage and became one of the sect’s key disciples.

At this current point in time, Yan Fei had just stepped into the Golden Core Realm. The seal in his body had been breached by the surge of spiritual qi, forcing him to seek methods to conceal his demonic qi. Rumor in the three realms claimed that Tang Huan had developed a dual cultivation technique capable of draining a cauldron’s vitality and essence. Naturally, his host became the target of Yan Fei, who needed needed someone to purge his demonic qi.

Although his host was an evil cultivator, his bloodline was purely human. Under normal circumstances, a cultivator at the Nascent Soul Realm was a full cultivation level higher than Yan Fei. Diverting a bit of demonic qi shouldn’t have been a big problem, but for some unknown reason, his host simply died in bed.

The reason was never written in the novel. His host died without clarity, almost haphazardly, serving as nothing more than a stepping stone for the major villain.

Tang Huan didn’t want to die, nor did he want to be anyone’s stepping stone. He flipped over and rolled off the bed, wanting only to get far away from this calamity star who would one day slaughter his way through the three realms.

At that very moment, as if in response to his silent plea, a faint, almost imperceptible knock sounded at the door, and the silhouette of a hunched figure was cast sharply onto the paper of the window.

“R-Reporting to the Palace Master, Perfected Master Jiang from Taohua Cave claims to be ill, loudly demanding to see the Palace Master. O-otherwise he says he’ll sever his meridians and die right there. Most of the attendants in Taohua Cave have already been injured or killed. This subordinate truly couldn’t hold him back…”

A spring night was short, especially when the Palace Master was spending it with the world’s greatest beauty he had long yearned for. Before the attendant even finished speaking, his legs were already shaking, cold sweat soaking through his clothes. But that person in Taohua Cave had only been captured recently and was extremely favored by the Palace Master, so they absolutely dared not allow any mishap.

Tang Huan was known for his cruel and ruthless temper. The attendant believed he wouldn’t survive this night, so he braced himself for immediate death. He had just started to squeeze his eyes shut when a voice inside the room answered, sounding almost relieved.

“This Venerable will go see him right away!”