No Repeats

Bai Ye is tortured

"The thing I like most about Zu Bai Ye, is how obedient he is. Look, you will see that he won't utter even a word of complaint when I whip him with this," said Yue Xiulan in a mocking voice as she pulled out a deadly looking leather whip with a nine tails attachment. The nine tails are smaller leather straps with tiny and sharp hooks attached at the end.

This is the Zhua Zhu's signature weapon, passed down between generations of the sect's leaders and renowned for its lethality and cruelty. The tiny claws have been known to rip out flesh and sometimes even bone fragments, depending on the strength the yielder uses.

The people in the crowd visibly grimaced when she pulled out the whip, each feeling pity for the handsome Wulin supreme leader. With the black metal draining his cultivation and powers, the revered sect leader is nothing but a defenceless man in front of Yue Xiulan.

Zu Bai Ye and Lu Bai shook their heads and pleaded with their eyes as they knelt on the ground, sweating, shaking, and crying at the same time. This made Yue Xiulan more excited at the sight as she became amazed at the level of the cowardness that these two men are showing before her.

Stepping backwards a few steps, she raised her arm and flung the whip with all her strength at the kneeling Zu Bai Ye's back. The claws cut through the man's skin and dug right into his taut back muscles without letting go. With one swift movement she flicked the whip further, releasing the claws from his back and flinging chunks of flesh towards the crowd. Bai Ye let out a silent howl of pain to the amusement of Yue Xiulan.

The crowd roared in excitement and approval at the spectacular display of blood spraying from the man's back. She flung the whip again and again, practically mincing his back and exposing bone until he fainted from blood loss. The crowd groaned in disappointment, even though they admired Zu Bai Ye's tolerance and manliness they wanted to further humiliate the man.

"Lu Bai, now that your pillar of support has fallen and is now worthless. Why don't you serve me instead? With your beauty, I assure you, I will treat you very well," said Yue Xiulan as she stroked Lu Bai's captivating face with a twisted smile.

Lu Bai looked at her fearfully and shook her head, but unable to say a word as her mouth chatters in fear.

"No? So, instead of a life of pampering and luxury, you prefer I persuade you the hard way? As you wish then, I will give you a suitable punishment, no pain, no gain, right? However, I rest assured, I will not ruin your beauty, it would be too much of a waste," said Yue Xiulan as she took out a box from her sleeves.

When she opened it and showed to the crowd, a loud murmur escaped from their lips as they turned towards each other in shock. Isn't it the deadly night shade beetle? This beetle has long been considered extinct as it has not been seen in the wild for the last one hundred years. The previous poison sect who raised these beetles have been wiped clean by the righteous sect in the one-hundred-year battle between the two Wulin superpowers.

Most people in the crowd were not alive at the time when the poison beetle helped the poison sect's rampage to conquer Wulin. It's distinctive flat body and striped red and gold is instantly recognised by people who have grown up learning about poisonous bugs.

So, who is Yue Xiulan? Her youthful face and body made many people think that she was in her early twenties when they first meet her, but to rule the Zhua Zhu for at least twenty years, she must be no younger than forty. Even then, how can she possess such a magnificent beetle? The art of raising these beetles had died with the poison sect years ago.

With this beetle, Yue Xiulan will be able to control any person completely and flawlessly. Even more surprising is that she is willing to use the bug on someone insignificant like Lu Bai, it seems like such a waste of a treasure.

This is because that the beetle is deadly loyal. Once the beetle is ingested by a person, the beetle makes that body its home for life, eating away at the person's innards and brain slowly. Its secretions contain a poison that makes the person obey completely any orders from the person who raised the bug. When the host is effectively eaten alive, the beetle refuses to live in another host so it loses its source of energy and dies with its host.

The senior members in the crowd felt curious and questioned Yue Xiulan's sanity. Shouldn't something precious like that be used on someone more important? They would have thought that Bai Ye was a better candidate for the bug and not his beautiful friend. If it were them, they would have a million other ways to coerce this beautiful man to follow them. In their hearts they started to mock Yue Xiulan mercilessly.

As if seemingly unaware of the crowd's thoughts she held open Lu Bai's mouth and dropped in the beetle into his throat, making him choke and sputter. Then Yue Xiulan let out her domineering laugh again and flew to her throne leisurely.

"Take him away and prepare his body to serve me tonight," said Yue Xiulan carelessly.

"Zhua Zhu leader, what is the meaning of all of this? How have you captured the supreme Wulin leader so easily? Does this mean that we can return back to our sects victorious?" asked Jin Delan calmly.

Jin Delan is now over one hundred and fifty years old but having reached a certain level of cultivation she has been able to slow down the aging process. However, she is not as ruthless and cruel as Yue Xiulan who is also her peer and did not use people's blood as her aging elixir. Because of this, she was not able to maintain her youthful looks as well and looked like a woman in her sixties. Despite this, she gives of a domineering yet charming aura in her flamboyant male dress.

"Jin Delan, this is only the beginning. We are being surrounded by the Zuyi sect who are preparing to breach our defences as we speak. Even though we have their leader held captive, we need to put up a good fight to decimate the sect, once and for all. We have a mole in the sect who have tricked and delivered those two to us, giving us a big advantage, but the true success is if we can destroy them all today. Then we will march on and destroy their alliance sects without notice. The key is that we need to hit them hard and fast! Therefore, I have gathered everyone here today, together we are a mighty and deadly force that they cannot compare!" shouted Yue Xiulan with much vigour.

Once she said those words the crowd went silent as each person thought about how bold her plan is, but if it was successfully, they will be able to do whatever they wanted without restraint. Yue Xiulan looked around and smiled confidently, her trusty attendant Xan Teo is impressive and delivered her both the scheme and the men.

She felt regretful that she had sucked his lifeforce too excessively over the last ten years since he started serving her. Now, his old body which belies his true age would not be able to sustain her loving too much longer, but at least she would make sure that he will die a happy man.

"Such a big talker," said a cold voice. The speaker spoke normally but the sound came out magnified a hundredfold, erupting some lower level cultivators' eardrums and knocking them out instantly. The higher-level cultivators felt a deep head pain from the volume alone. The impact of just four simple words is an effective demonstration of the speaker's power, making the remaining people in the crowd especially wary.

Yue Xiulan looked around frantically and spotted two figures in white fly up down from the top of the ancestral hall's roof and landed in front of her. Before she got a chance to react, the person sent a flying palm of force straight into her chest. She felt like she was hit by an arrow the size of her own body which sent her flying into her throne and spewed a mouthful of blood.

She looked at the intruder and tried to recognise their unmemorable face whose features are weirdly blurred and indistinguishable.

"Who are you?" she asked in rage as she flung her nine-tailed whip at the intruder's neck.