Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!-Chapter 88: Arrival

The sky over Fragrant Flower City was a stagnant tapestry of bruised purples and sickly greys, a characteristic of the Southern Region’s decaying atmosphere.

Suddenly, the clouds rippled like water as a solidified spatial platform, shimmering with a dark, crystalline luster, emerged from the void.

Shen Haoran, Qinq’er, and Ling Luochen stepped into the spatial platform.

"So this is the place," Shen Haoran murmured, his voice cutting through the thin air with the sharpness of a cold blade.

He stood at the edge of the platform, his golden-blonde hair catching what little light filtered through the haze.

His black robes, embroidered with those restless golden dragons, fluttered slightly as he stared down at the sprawling, dusty city below.

Behind him, Qing’er stood like an unmoving shadow, her red eyes devoid of emotion as she maintained the structural integrity of the spatial platform.

A step further back, Ling Luochen felt stared at the platform in fear and awe.

She wondered just how powerful someone need to be to be able to manipulate space like this.

A legendary Spirit Ascension Realm? Or maybe... someone far above it?

As someone born from the lower realm, her knowledge of Cultivation stops at Spirit Ascension realm, the pinnacle of Cultivation where one can ascend to the upper realms.

Shen Haoran rubbed his chin in thought, his golden eyes scanning the architecture and the flow of people in the streets far below.

Fragrant Flower City... small, isolated, resource-poor, and filled with people whose horizons end at the city walls.

This place certainly matches a protagonist template perfectly. It is the ideal breeding ground for someone to rise from the ashes.

"Let’s go down," Haoran commanded.

Without a word, Qing’er willed the platform to descend.

They didn’t use a slow, graceful landing, and instead, they dropped straight into the heart of the city’s central plaza like a descending star.

The impact of their arrival was instantaneous, as everyone immediately retreated and stared at them in fear.

In the Saint Burial Realm, flight was a luxury reserved for the absolute peak of experts, and even then, they required specialized spiritual tools or ancient techniques to sustain themselves in the air.

Seeing three figures descending from the heavens on a platform of solidified space caused the bustling marketplace to grind to a sudden, terrified halt.

People shrieked and scrambled backward, creating a wide, empty circle around the landing site.

As the spatial shimmer faded and the three figures stepped onto the cobblestones, the whispers began.

"Look! Isn’t that the young miss of the Ling Clan?"

"It is! Ling Luochen! The number one genius!"

"The one who was taken as a disciple by the Conferred Pagoda elders... she’s back!"

However, as Ling Luochen looked around, expecting the usual gazes of envy and worship, she found something else entirely.

The townspeople’s gazes were weird—flickering with a mixture of pity, mockery, and a deep-seated, trembling fear.

Ling Luochen’s blood-red eyes narrowed, and her brow furrowed in a deep frown as the tribal tattoo on her back seemed to pulse with her rising irritation.

She took a step forward, her aura as a Foundation Establishment cultivator flaring out, causing the nearby civilians to stumble.

She then pointed a slender finger at a middle-aged merchant who was trying to hide behind a crate of wilted spirit-grass.

"Hey, you," she barked, her voice echoing with the authority a superior. "Tell me what is happening in this city. Why are all of you looking at me like that? Where is the respect you owe your betters?"

Haoran stared at her and nodded to himself. This arrogance... this girl is surely a villain in Jiang Chen’s story.

The merchant shrieked in fear, dropping to his knees, his teeth chattered so loudly they could be heard in the silence of the plaza.

He managed to stammer out his words, his eyes darting toward the towering figure of Haoran and then back to Luochen.

"Y-Young miss! P-Please, have mercy! I-It’s because... it’s because the Jiang Clan! Ever since you left, they... they produced a far more superior pill! A miracle medicine! They have completely suppressed the Ling Clan’s market share! Right now, the Ling Clan’s shops are empty, their debts are mounting, and they are already on the verge of bankruptcy! People say the Ling Clan’s glory was just a fleeting dream!"

"What!?" Ling Luochen’s eyes widened, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks.

How is that possible? Those pill recipes were created by the best alchemists in the Conferred Pagoda! They were gifts from the Divine Continent!

Her mind began to race. She knew the quality of the Pagoda’s medicine, and not to mention the alchemists in this backwater Southern Continent, even alchemist in Divine Continent would struggle to identify the ingredients, let alone recreate or improve upon the recipes.

The idea that the Jiang Clan—a family led by a man with mediocre talent and a "trash" son—could produce anything better was an affront to logic.

Ling Luochen turned toward Shen Haoran, her face pale as the ambition that had been burning in her was suddenly tempered by a cold dread.

If her clan fell, her standing would be affected, and more importantly, she would look incompetent in front of the Young Master. "Young master... is it... is it possible for me to see my clan first? I need to understand what has happened."

Haoran, who had been listening to the merchant with a faint, amused smirk, nodded gracefully.

He adjusted his sleeves, his interest in this "Jiang Chen" growing by the second. "The fall of a local power is always an entertaining prologue. We’ll follow you."

With that, the three of them walked hurriedly through the streets.

The crowd parted before them like the Red Sea, though the whispers followed them like a trail of smoke.

*

*

*

At this very moment, within the walls of the Ling Clan manor, the atmosphere was anything but celebratory.

Ling Hongchen, the Patriarch of the Ling Clan and father of Luochen, roared in fury as he slammed his fist down on his heavy mahogany desk, which disintegrated into a cloud of splinters and fine powder under the force of his Qi.

He stood there, chest heaving, staring at the three alchemists who stood before him, their heads hung low in shame.

"You can’t make it!? You can’t make it!?" Ling Hongchen screamed, his face turning a dangerous shade of purple. "I gave you the examples! The recipes are all there! All you need to do is throw the ingredients in a cauldron and follow the instructions! A trained monkey could do it!"

One of the alchemists, an elderly man with a scorched beard, fearfully shook his head. "Sir, we tried! We have spent forty-eight hours straight at the furnaces! But it’s impossible! The materials Jiang Chen is using... they are common weeds! They have little to no spirit Qi! The laws of alchemy dictate that such things cannot be refined into high-grade pills! They simply burn the instant they touch the heat of the cauldron! There is no essence to extract!"

"And yet, Jiang Chen, that trash, was able to make it!" Ling Hongchen bellowed, grabbing the alchemist by his collar and lifting him off the ground. "His Dragon-Tiger Blood Nourishing Pill is being sold for ten spirit stones and has the purity of a Heaven-grade medicine! He is making them by the hundreds! Why can’t you!?"

The alchemist’s voice trembled. "Sorry sir... but we’re... we’re not Jiang Chen. There is something... something fundamentally wrong with how he manipulates the fire. What he is doing is alchemically impossible!"

"So you are saying you are worse than trash!?" Ling Hongchen roared, flinging the man across the room.

The alchemist hit the wall with a dull thud and slumped to the floor.

The other two alchemists remained silent, staring at their boots.

They were the best the Ling Clan could hire, but in the face of the miracles coming out of the Jiang manor, they felt like children playing with mud.

"You bunch of useless trash! What am I paying you for!? The Jiangs have already seized our three largest medicine halls! Do you have any idea how much losses we have incurred today alone? If this continues for another week, we won’t even be able to pay the servants!" Ling Hongchen exclaimed, his hands trembling with a mix of rage and impotence.

He rubbed his temple, before sitting back on his seat.

Just then, the heavy doors to the study burst open and a young servant rushed in, panting heavily, his face flushed with exertion.

Ling Hongchen spun around, his eyes blazing with murderous intent. "You! How dare you come in without permission!? Don’t the senior servants teach you manners and etiquette anymore? I should have your head for this!"

"Apologies, Patriarch! Please, forgive me!" The servant exclaimed, dropping to his knees and gasping for air. "But... but the Young Miss! The Young Miss is back! She was seen landing in the plaza with two strangers! She is at the gates right now!"

The rage evaporated from Ling Hongchen’s face, replaced by a surge of pure, ecstatic joy.

He stood up so quickly his chair tumbled backward. "Really!? Luochen is back? Ha! Heaven has not abandoned the Ling Clan!"

He turned glared at the servant, "What are you waiting for!? Go and prepare a welcoming ceremony! Call the elders! Open the main gates! My daughter has returned from the Pagoda!"

"Yes, Patriarch!" The servant bowed frantically before scurrying out to spread the word.

Ling Hongchen stared at the alchemists one last time, a cruel glint returning to his eyes. "You got lucky. Luochen is here, and she surely has the backing of the Elders. You better pray that Luochen has a solution to this Jiang Chen problem, otherwise..."

He didn’t finish his threat as he swept out of the room, his long robes snapping behind him as he hurried toward the front courtyard.

The alchemist with the scorched beard waited until the Patriarch’s footsteps had completely faded into the distance.

He let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his brow.

"The Young Miss is back," one of the younger alchemists whispered. "But can even she stop someone who can turn grass into gold?"

The old alchemist looked at the charred remains of the cauldron in the corner. "I don’t know. But if Jiang Chen has truly changed as the rumors say... then Fragrant Flower City is about to become a very dangerous place for the Lings."