With a loud zing, the guqin string snapped, and the song came to an abrupt halt.
The Red Lady tried desperately to suppress her anxiety as she hurriedly walked to the front of Chu Kuangren and company to give an apologetic bow. “My sincere apologies for ruining the camaraderie today, my masters. Your humble servant, I, am feeling under weather today. I will ask my other sisters to take my place right away.”
The Second Prince’s expression looked awful, but he dared not fly into a fit of rage in front of Chu Kuangren, so as to not lose his demeanor. He scoffed. “Go, hurry.”
“Yes, master.”
“Hold on a second.”
Chu Kuangren suddenly called out to the Red Lady. He said calmly, “No need to find someone new. Fetch a new guqin, and continue with your song.”
“But I…”
“If he asks you to continue, you continue. It’s already a blessing of eight lifetimes for you to have caught Brother Chu’s eyes. Don’t be stupid and not know what’s good for you.”
The Second Prince jeered at her.
The Red Lady pondered for a moment. “Alright.”
She then fetched a new guqin and resumed the song.
Meanwhile, the Second Prince smiled at Chu Kuangren and said, “Brother Chu, the fact that you asked her to stay… Has she caught your eye?”
This Red Lady was indeed a paramount beauty. Although not comparable to Lan Yu, from the Second Prince’s perspective, it would not be entirely surprising for Chu Kuangren to have set his sights on her since he was at a young and spirited age.
What more for a man as outstanding as Chu Kuangren.
“Heh, Your Highness, of Azure Dragon Domain’s three great demonic orthodoxies, do you know where the Euphoria Sect’s usual hiding spots are?”
The Second Prince was quite taken aback by Chu Kuangren’s abrupt questioning.
‘Why is he bringing up the Euphoria Sect all of a sudden?’
“Excuse my ignorance, Brother Chu. Would you mind elaborating further?”
“The Euphoria Sect are most adept at lustful delights, where females are most skilled at bedroom affairs. Hence, they would normally hide in places like brothels. Firstly, it provides them a place for cultivation; secondly, these places are usually visited by people of influence, like Your Highness yourself, and this gives them easy access to any important intel.”
Chu Kuangren explained eloquently.
The Red Lady, who was playing the guqin right beside them, had completely scrambled the melody of her tune when the two words, Euphoria Sect, were mentioned.
‘He has seen through my identity!’
The Red Lady was extremely terrified. She did not hesitate any longer as she turned into a red shadow in a flash and prepared to flee through the exit door.
Before she could take her first few steps, a surge of Domain energy had trapped her in place, pressing her onto all fours on the ground. No matter how hard she tried to activate her spiritual power, she could not make even the slightest movement.
In the face of Chu Kuangren, her escape seemed insurmountable.
“Red Lady, I can’t believe you’re a demonic cultivator from the Euphoria Sect!”
The Second Prince had to have figured out what was going on by now. He stared at the Red Lady meanly and felt rather horrified at the same time because if the Red Lady had been a demonic cultivator all along, she could have easily taken him out a long time ago if she wanted.
“How did you see through my identity?”
The Red Lady said as she stared at Chu Kuangren, puzzled.
“Nobody could hide their identity from me,” Chu Kuangren replied calmly, his eyes glowing with mysterious Daoist runes.
In front of that pair of eyes, the Red Lady felt like she had been read thoroughly from inside out. It was like she was stripped clean of any secret she might have had.
“What do you want now?”
“Tell me, what are the demonic cultivators up to in the Qian Nation?”
“What can you do to me if I don’t speak?”
The Red Lady talked back stubbornly.
“Heh, since the Euphoria Sect is deft at bedding people, I wonder if you’ll enjoy it if I find a dozen or more beggars from the outside and let them take turns at using you?” Chu Kuangren grinned back at her cheekily.
An eerie chill coursed through the Second Prince’s veins.
D*mn it, how cruel!
“Chu Kuangren, I can’t believe that you, the Lead Disciple of the Black Heaven Sect, would resort to such wicked and shameless measures!” The color drained from the Red Lady’s face. When she pictured what Chu Kuangren desired to do to her, goosebumps were raised all over her body. She would much rather die than suffer like that.
“Answer my question or be prepared for more wicked, shameless acts. Don’t even once think that taking your own life is the solution because if you were to die, I’d strip you naked and hang your dead body at the city walls to let everyone admire you like an exhibition.” Chu Kuangren said in a stone-cold voice.
D*mn!
‘Am I the demonic cultivator or are you one?’
The Red Lady was driven to the edges of her sanity.
She looked back at Chu Kuangren’s angelic face, and drew a conclusion that this man was none other than a monster — the evilest type of those!
Beside them, the Second Prince took a gulp of his own saliva too. Deep inside, he swore to himself that no matter what happened, he would never ever make an enemy of Chu Kuangren.
“Demonic cultivators came to the Qian Nation for the demonic heart in the Demonic Vanquishment Lake!”
The Red Lady gritted her teeth hard, finally obliging, and informed him of the demonic cultivators’ true intentions.
She began to feel scared as she had just betrayed her own sect.
Demonic cultivators mostly live for their own benefit, so what the Red Lady had done did not come as a surprise for Chu Kuangren. In fact, it was just what he had expected.
“Please be more specific.”
“The Demonic Vanquishment Lake is a secret realm that’s recorded in the Ancient Demonic Archives. It was where the Demonic Sage King, the Eternal Elder, had resided tens of thousands of years ago.”
“After that, the Eternal Elder perished in a great battle, but there are records saying that he had cultivated a mystifying technique, which enables the separation of a person’s heart from the body. It’s said that his heart is right inside the Demonic Vanquishment Lake!”
“In the legends, as long as the demonic heart exists, the Eternal Elder lives, but tales of the dead coming back to life are way too ridiculous. Nevertheless, that demonic heart is a good luck charm, so it attracted many demonic cultivators. And the opening of Demonic Vanquishment Lake is all but three days away.”
“Its location being… the Capital City!”
The latter part of that sentence shocked the Second Prince. “That whatever secret realm is right here in the Capital City? So you mean to say that, in three days’ time, all the demonic cultivators would swarm into the Capital City to take hold of that so-called demonic heart?”
“That’s right.” The Red Lady nodded.
“To be more precise, where exactly in the Capital City is this secret realm located?”
“Within a forest at the southeast part of the Capital City. However, that place has already been cordoned off by us demonic cultivators, so no other people could go in there. This is everything that I know.” The Red Lady confessed.
“So that’s why.” Chu Kuangren nodded knowingly.
“I suppose you can let me go now?”
“We’ll come to that when all the demonic cultivators are captured.”
“You went back on your promise!” The Red Lady protested angrily.
“Oh? Did I promise to let you go once you’ve told me what’s going on? That’s wishful thinking,” Chu Kuangren replied coldly.
“Then what else do you want from me now?”
“Stay put at the Heavenly Fragrance Inn and continue being your prima donna. Don’t do anything else. Your Highness, there should be some retraining tools in the Royal Palace, right?”
Chu Kuangren turned around and asked the Second Prince.
“Yes, there is. There is a secret pill in the Royal Palace. Once consumed, the person would surely die within seven days if the antidote is not given.”
“Make her take one of those.”
“Alright.” The Second Prince obeyed what Chu Kuangren said as if it was an order.
It might look like Chu Kuangren had gone soft on her, but that was not the case at all.
He knew that the Red Lady would definitely continue to contact the people of Euphoria Sect, so killing her off now would surely alarm their enemies.
Thus, he could only put a restraint on her for now and deal with her only after all the demonic cultivators had been dealt with.
“Good thing your eyes are sharp, Brother Chu. If you didn’t reveal the Red Lady’s true demonic cultivator identity, I don’t know I’d be fooled for how long more.”
The Second Prince sighed emotionally.
“Credit goes to you for bringing me here today. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had such discoveries. I think we should get back now and notify King Qian what preparation needs to be done.”
“You’re right. We have three more days which should be enough.”
When they arrived back at the Royal Palace, they retold the whole story to King Qian who immediately sent people to the forest described by the Red Lady. Over there, they discovered that there were indeed numerous demonic cultivators, so King Qian quickly placed some troops on garrison duty there.
Now, the only thing left to do was to wait for the demonic cultivators to come, so as to catch them all in one draft!
