Reborn As A Villainous Cannon Fodder

"How is this possible..."

"Wasn’t he supposed to be a talentless waste with no aptitude for the sword?"

When the buzz-cut youth’s fist shattered his opponent’s barrier, Lin Yuchen felt his mind tremble. That pure yang energy surging skyward was like a true dragon descending upon the world, shaking the very floor beneath everyone’s feet.

At the same time, the woman in the black dress who’d been sitting beside Yino the entire time couldn’t help but widen her eyes.

But...

Unlike Lin Yuchen’s focus, three distinct details surfaced in Pei Zhihan’s mind, one after another.

First, Yino had secretly bet on Lin Che to win.

Second, before Lin Che stepped onto the stage, Yino had pulled him aside for a brief hushed conversation.

Third, when Lin Che’s cultivation erupted on the Dao Testing Pavilion just now, Pei Zhihan noticed a fresh set of golden spirit-patterned bandage wraps wound around his fists.

Before all this, Pei Zhihan had been sitting inside the room. She didn’t know what Yino had said to Lin Che out in the corridor. But she did know that after Yino patted Lin Che on the shoulder and sent him off, he’d lifted the curtain without a moment’s hesitation and walked in with the obvious intent of striking up conversation with her.

At first, Pei Zhihan had suspected Yino’s motives.

But now, with Lin Yuchen’s uninvited arrival and Yino stepping forward to fire back at him on her behalf... if she connected all these details together, Yino’s true reason for seeking her out became perfectly clear.

He’d first pulled Lin Che aside in the corridor and told him something in private, seemingly even giving him a pair of golden-patterned fist wraps with extraordinary properties...

Then, having already anticipated that Lin Yuchen would come today to threaten her, he’d walked into the room and sat right beside her, deliberately acting as though they were close. In reality, it was all to help her deal with Lin Yuchen.

So that was his real intention all along...

Zhihan couldn’t help feeling a measure of gratitude. Yino had genuinely defended her dignity, and that was real. Without him here today, Lin Yuchen wouldn’t have actually dared to do anything to her, true. But on the flip side, she also wouldn’t have dared to openly antagonize this noble family’s young master. In that scenario, Lin Yuchen simply sitting in the room spewing verbal threats would’ve been nauseating enough.

Gratitude aside, though, Zhihan still couldn’t figure out what Yino actually stood to gain from all this.

If he was also after her body or the Primordial Sword Art, then doing what Lin Yuchen did, seizing leverage and threatening her for a cut, would’ve made far more sense.

Yet Yino had secretly helped Lin Che today, and no matter how she looked at it, the only person who stood to benefit was Zhihan herself.

If Lin Che really managed to place in the top three, then the noble family could no longer impeach her. She’d keep her honored master’s Primordial Sacred Land. Without that weakness hanging over her, neither her body nor her sword dao would ever give Yino an opening to exploit.

Could it be that he was helping her for free simply because he admired her?

Searching her heart honestly, Zhihan found that idea absurd.

After all, Yino was already Yuyan’s spouse. Yuyan was the fated one of the new generation. Not only was she stunningly beautiful, but her sword talent and Innate Holy Body were hardly inferior to Zhihan, a senior of the previous era. Zhihan was just a washed-up cultivator stuck at the Tribulation Crossing stage for nearly a century. Where would she get the confidence to think someone like Yino, a prodigy from a noble family, would pursue her?

She hadn’t even known Yino before this!

Everything people do, they do for profit.

How could there possibly be enough cases of pure, sincere love at first sight for one to conveniently land on Pei Zhihan?

"Sorry about that, Brother Yuchen. Seems your plans fell through. Little brother Lin Che appears to have won his bout."

Yino sat with his legs crossed, grinning with undisguised schadenfreude.

Lin Yuchen’s face darkened. His eyes were locked on the Divine Abyss Gate disciple who’d been beaten flat against the floor of the arena.

Inside the room, silence lingered for a long while.

Then, at some point, Lin Yuchen suddenly curled the corner of his lips.

"I don’t know what you gain from Lin Che winning. But the tournament’s only half over. Aren’t you popping the champagne a little early?"

He sneered, eyes brightening as he finally found his turning point in Lin Yu.

That Divine Abyss Gate disciple hailed from the Lin mansion’s branch family, representing both the Lin mansion and Divine Abyss Gate at once.

Before this, Wen Ruxiu, heir of Divine Abyss Gate, had personally guaranteed Lin Yu’s strength to Lin Yuchen.

Now...

Even if Lin Che had pulled off a stunning upset to win one round, Wen Ruxiu, as Divine Abyss Gate’s heir, couldn’t possibly sit back and watch Lin Yu lose.

And based on Lin Yuchen’s past experience, a cult-like sect such as Divine Abyss Gate was certain to have plenty of forbidden arts tucked away as trump cards.

"There’s a forbidden art buried inside his body..."

"How can Divine Abyss Gate be so shameless as to cheat this blatantly!"

Zhihan’s eyes were sharp. At a single glance, she could tell the abyssal evil qi swirling around Lin Yu was unnatural.

Yino turned at her words and looked toward the live projection of the Dao Testing Pavilion. There, in full view of the crowd, the black-robed youth who’d been knocked unconscious by Lin Che’s punch had somehow risen from the ground.

Not only that, but the Divine Abyss Gate disciple’s eyes were savage, his skin deathly pale, his body wreathed in dark baleful energy. He looked nothing like a living person. And yet his cultivation was genuinely climbing, pushing close to the oppressive force of late Nascent Soul stage.

"This isn’t fair! I’m reporting Divine Abyss Gate to the Immortal Alliance!"

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