NOVEL NEXT Ch. 5
Chapter 5: The Nether Curse
“Nine years old, she built her martial foundation. At eleven, she became a scholar and entered the White Deer Academy, where many Confucian teachers favored her, believing she had the talent to become the top scholar. Unexpectedly, her parents did not allow her to continue on the Confucian path. Later, she turned fully to martial arts, apprenticed under the First Peak of Mount Wudang. At seventeen, she descended the mountain and became first place in the Wuzhou martial exam, participated in the great contests of various states, entered the Imperial Capital, and became the martial champion of that year. Afterwards, she entered the Sacred Martial Institute for years of cultivation, went to the southern frontier for training, and under the Demon Suppression King, resisted the demon race.”
“Proud and arrogant, hating evil like a sworn enemy, yet happened to have a useless younger brother.”
“And this younger brother was her weakness, her fatal flaw.”
Shen Yanzhou clicked his tongue lightly in his heart and casually put down the fishing bait.
He could fully imagine Wu Ruyue’s emotions at this moment.
Negative emotions from Wu Ruyue +3, +3, +4, +5…
In his past life as a fishing enthusiast, the one thing he had never lacked was patience.
Since he had already cast out the bait, he only needed to wait for the fish to bite.
The Demon Suppression King intended to match Shen Tian with Wu Ruyue, and Shen Tian indeed harbored goodwill toward her.
Shen Yanzhou had no interest in playing the jealous rival, but in order to sabotage the Demon Suppression King’s schemes, he had no choice but to interfere.
“Almost up to over 100 points of negative emotions, that’s enough to exchange for 1 basic point…”
Shen Yanzhou’s smile faded, his thoughts churning.
“However, I must first resolve the Nether Curse on my body. Only then will those basic points become useful.”
“This so-called father who appeared to dote on the original body endlessly, able to smooth over any trouble, was in fact ruthless and merciless.”
“The original unlucky fool served as a scapegoat in place of the true heir, shielding him from storms, blocking countless assassinations and suspicions over these past twenty years. Now, the true heir was about to step into the light, and this stand-in, naturally, was meant to quietly bow out.”
Shen Yanzhou rolled up his sleeve, revealing his arm.
On the inside of his forearm lay a faint dark purple mark, shaped like a spreading spiderweb, about the size of a thumb, not very conspicuous.
The original body had always thought this was a birthmark from childhood.
But Shen Yanzhou, well-acquainted with the plot, knew clearly that this was the Nether Curse from the ancestral spirit of Beiyu’s Path of Heaven.
And this Nether Curse was precisely the means by which the Demon Suppression King controlled the life of this false heir.
As a child, the original had been assassinated by villains.
Though his life was barely saved, his martial foundation had been destroyed.
His spiritual root, which could have followed the cultivation path, was also tainted and abolished, leaving only the Nether Curse to erode his vitality.
Without a solution, he would only live into his twenties.
【The spirit sparrow caged by fate, bound by the Nether Curse, never free】.
This was the judgment written for the false heir in the original plot.
The Great Qian Dynasty had lasted for thirteen hundred years.
Emperor Mingde indulged in cultivation, obsessed with the pursuit of immortality.
The Crown Prince oversaw the state, the Chancellor assisted, sects and noble families thrived, factions on the court tangled, while regional princes divided power.
The Demon Suppression King, as the most powerful prince of Great Qian, commanded three hundred thousand Demon Suppression troops, guarded the southern frontier and the Demon-Defying Pass, where countless demon beasts dared not cross.
He was revered as the greatest guardian war god of Great Qian.
Would such a figure of overwhelming power and ambition allow his true son to remain in the capital as a useless wastrel?
Thus, he allowed the false heir to act recklessly in the Imperial Capital, bullying others under his name.
No matter how much trouble he stirred, it could all be smoothed over.
Naturally, this was also to reassure the one in the Hall of Virtuous Enlightenment.
“The day the true heir acknowledges the Demon Suppression King as his father, all traces and arrangements of the past will be burned away, and I, this stain, will be erased as well.”
“The best method is to strike first and eliminate the true heir.”
“However, judging from the current timeline, the few trusted elders left in the Demon Suppression Prince’s Mansion must have already received secret letters. They will secretly protect Shen Tian.”
“Today I was able to publicly humiliate him only because of the information gap. Soon, those elders will begin approaching Shen Tian in the shadows.”
Shen Yanzhou rubbed his forehead.
“The original was not truly stupid. He had already begun to suspect some truths. In the memories of the past twenty years, though his father seemed to dote on him endlessly, there was nearly no warmth in his eyes. He almost never taught him any martial techniques, instead indulging his wickedness, letting him revel in lust, arrogance, and extravagance.”
“As for the seemingly gentle and virtuous Demon Suppression Princess, she was in fact the greatest hidden mastermind of the mid-stage plot. Compared to her, the Demon Suppression King’s schemes were child’s play.”
Shen Yanzhou’s brows furrowed tightly.
Unfortunately, he had only skimmed the later parts of the story, never analyzing them in depth.
For now, he only understood the rough outline.
The Demon Suppression King and his princess seemed harmonious on the surface, but they were not loving at all.
The King rarely returned to the capital.
Meanwhile, the Princess prayed to Buddha, often bathed and burned incense, observed fasts and chanted scriptures, played the zither and painted, living in seclusion.
Even Shen Yanzhou, her nominal son, rarely saw her.
“The Nether Curse on my body is not without a solution. In this dragon’s-den that is the Imperial Capital, there are several Beiyu agents who practice the shamanic path.”
“Besides that, there are other methods to resolve it.”
“However, if the Nether Curse within me is dispelled, then even from afar in the southern frontier, the Demon Suppression King will immediately sense it.”
“Though the Demon Suppression King, Shen Jingxiao, cultivated the martial path and was not proficient in shamanic arts, in the original plot he relied on a Nether Cicada to control the curse’s outbreaks. So in truth, if I use another powerful gu insect to suppress the Nether Cicada, the King will no longer be able to control me.”
As Shen Yanzhou pondered, he quickly devised a countermeasure.
“Elder Mo, go to the Yuxian Pavilion and find Madam Liu Qian. Tell her to have Qiutang and Ruanyu take the stage tonight.”
“Yes, young master.”
Standing outside the water pavilion, Elder Mo scratched his head.
He did not know if it was just his imagination, but he felt that in recent days, Shen Yanzhou had changed in ways he could not describe.
Moreover, some of his orders were abrupt and puzzling, with no clear purpose.
Still, his habit of visiting courtesans at night had not changed.
After giving his instructions, Shen Yanzhou gazed toward the depths of the mansion.
Despite having transmigrated for days, he had not yet truly met his nominal mother face-to-face.
Compared to the many worshippers in the mansion, he remained deeply wary of the Demon Suppression Princess.
After all, he was no longer the original false heir Shen Yanzhou.
Though he had been imitating the habits and temperament of the original these past days, there would inevitably be differences.
In the original plot, he had thought that after the false heir’s death, the true heir Shen Tian would make his grand entrance, reshaping the political order.
The Demon Suppression King would then march north, point his sword at Yujing, and seize the throne.
But at the critical moment, the Demon Suppression Princess checkmated him, leading to his utter downfall and death.
On the surface, the Princess was the daughter of the City Lord of Tianshui’s Qilin City, gentle and elegant.
In reality, she was the greatest Beiyu agent planted in Great Qian by the ancestral spirit of the Path of Darkness, with a cultivation realm unfathomable.
In truth, within the vast Demon Suppression Prince’s Mansion, the only one who had ever shown genuine kindness to the false heir was the Demon Suppression Princess.