Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Shen Haoran and Shen Xinye opened their eyes and found themselves in a city made of sandstone.

The ambient spatial distortion from the hidden entrance faded, leaving them standing on an elevated sandstone balcony that overlooked the subterranean labyrinth.

The eerie, artificial twilight cast long, violet shadows across the ancient rooftops.

In the distance, the muffled roars of spirit beasts echoed through the winding avenues, but around them, the air was still and thick with ancient dust.

"Young master, should we hurry up?" asked Shen Xinye, her voice sharp with readiness. "That Lin Che probably haven’t gone that far ahead."

She immediately adjusted her posture, scanning the streets below to plot a path toward the central district.

She assumed they would charge straight through the city, clear a path through the roaming beasts, and hunt down the wounded Lin Che before he could reach the core treasures.

Haoran turned towards her, his golden eyes looking at her with a gentle, yet resolute gaze. "Xinye, take this trial."

Shen Xinye blinked, her large eyes wide with sudden confusion. "Young master? But I..."

"If you go with me and take the shortcut, your qualifications for the inheritance will be revoked," Haoran explained calmly, interrupting her doubts. "The trial formations of this city strictly monitor spatial leaps. So take these trials properly and take the inheritance for yourself. However..."

Shen Haoran’s expression became weird, as if he had just found out a piece of information that was so ridiculous, it should have been impossible, but it wasn’t.

His eyebrow twitched slightly, and a faint, uncharacteristic look of sheer disbelief flickered across his face.

"The Emperor that this inheritance belongs to is rather... unique," said Haoran, his cheek twitching as he struggled to maintain his usual composed dignity.

When Ye Hongyan had told him about the classified background information of this Supreme figure and the nature of his legacy back in the academy, he had genuinely thought she was messing with him, making up a ridiculous story to tease him, and he had punished her accordingly during their private time.

It was only when Ye Hongyan provided indisputable historical proofs, ancient scroll records, and sealed imperial decree copies from the academy’s deepest vaults that Haoran was forced to believe it.

Shen Xinye looked thoroughly confused, her head tilting slightly. "Unique? How?"

Haoran sighed softly and reached into the air.

His hand reached into the spatial pocket stored inside his soul—the boundless world known as the Genesis Protocol.

With a faint ripple of golden light, he withdrew a piece of ancient, weathered parchment that looked like it had been preserved through supreme spatial magic.

That’s right. He just realized that he can just used his world to store his things without needing for a storage ring.

And since the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was inside his world, it is possible for him to access its armory, then, he can shoot those weapons out by sending them oustide like firing a rain of bullet.

He named it...Gate of Babylon.

But that’s beside the point.

He handed the piece of parchment to her.

Shen Xinye took the paper with both hands, looked up at him with a bewildered expression, then stared back at the paper and began reading the dark red ink etched upon its surface.

[The Shameless Binding Emperor, the Great Menace of the Cultivation World]

She blinked. "This... What is this?"

"Read further," said Haoran, rubbing his temples.

And she did.

And the more she read, the more she felt like none of this was real, as if someone had written a absurd, depraved satirical novel and handed it to her as a historical document.

This ancient emperor, known throughout history as the great, inescapable menace of the cultivation world, was a supreme powerhouse whose Natal Artifact was not a sword, a spear, or a heavenly cauldron, but an unyielding, divine rope.

He had mastered the supreme art of spatial constriction and used this artifact to tie up all his opponents—regardless of their status, power, or background—in a very detailed, highly complex, and sensually intricate way, leaving them suspended naked from high mountain peaks or palace gates for the entire world to see.

In that distant era, celestial maidens and revered holy women from top-tier sects didn’t even dare go out of their ancestral domains, refusing to leave their protective mountain arrays out of sheer terror of encountering him on the road.

The document detailed several of his most famous, absurd crimes:

He had once infiltrated the grand assembly of the Nine Heavens Ice Palace, bound the Holy Matriarch and her twelve supreme elders together in a massive, floating spiderweb of glowing red ropes, and left them hanging above the main city square for three days while he drank their legendary, thousand-year-old spirit wine.

On another occasion, when a proud, arrogance-filled Young Master of an Immortal Clan challenged him to a duel for the honor of the high realms, the Binding Emperor didn’t even draw a blade.

He simply flicked his wrist, stripped the young master of his divine armor, bound his limbs behind his back in a humiliating ’turtle-bind’ formation, and hung him from the highest spire of his own family’s ancestral castle, complete with a glowing sign that read "Defeated by the Art of Restraint."

He had even ambushed a grand parade of thirty-two dragon-drawn imperial carriages, tying up the entire royal guard force in a synchronized, interwoven web of ropes that made it look like a floating piece of obscene street art, leaving the entire court completely helpless and deeply traumatized.

Even the ruthless, bloodthirsty demonic cultivators of the Nether World officially denied any affiliation with this emperor, releasing a joint public declaration stating that even they had Standards, and that his methods were far too depraved, shameful, and chaotic even for the forces of darkness.

"This... this ... This cannot be real!"

Shen Xinye’s hands began to tremble violently, her face flushing a deep, burning crimson that reached all the way to the tips of her ears.

She looked at Haoran with tear-filled, horrified eyes, clutching the parchment against her chest as if it were a poisonous viper.

"Y-Young master, you... you want me to inherit this pervert’s legacy?! Young master, if you think I’m inadequate... if you think I’m useless and a burden to you, just say so directly! Why humiliate me like this?!"

Just imagining the horrific, nightmare-inducing day where she would be known across the entire Tian Yuan Empire as the *Great Menace of the Cultivation World* because of her unmatched, divine rope skills made her entire body shudder in pure, unadulterated disgust.

Shen Haoran let out a long, heavy sigh, waving his hand defensively. "I don’t mean anything bad by it, Xinye. I am not trying to humiliate you. Just read further down to the final section."

Shen Xinye felt tears of absolute humiliation threatening to fall from her eyes, her lower lip trembling, but out of her absolute obedience to him, she forced her gaze back down to the parchment.

She read the final paragraph, and as the words registered in her mind, her jaw dropped so wide she almost passed out in sheer shock.

"Impossible!" She shook her head in complete, frantic denial, her voice cracking. "How could this pervert have successfully shouldered the Heaven’s Will and ascended to Immortality?! I don’t accept this! I don’t!"

The final historical record confirmed it: despite his utterly absurd, shameless, and perverted methods, the Binding Emperor had possessed an absolute, unrivaled combat strength.

He had defeated every single genius of his era, crushed all opposition, successfully bore the Heaven’s Will, and shattered the void to ascend to the Immortal Realm, leaving behind an invincible, unshakeable legacy.

Shen Haoran also didn’t want to accept this reality.

He could understand and accept those dual cultivators or emotion-severing ascetics ascending to immortality; after all, no matter how depraved or strange, those were still established, legitimate cultivation paths recognized by the ancient scriptures.

But this Binding Emperor had cultivated the absolute Dao of Invincibility, not the Dao of Binding or the Dao of Restraints.

In other words, he wasn’t tying people up in intricate, humiliating bondage to prove his dao or break a mental bottleneck; he was doing it purely for the love of the game!

He genuinely enjoyed the art of it!

"Alright, it’s decided. You go," Haoran said firmly, refusing to debate the matter any longer.

Before she could protest or cry, he stepped forward and lightly pushed Shen Xinye forward into the center of the balcony.

The moment her feet touched the specific rune stone on the floor, the ancient trial mechanism activated.

The ground directly beneath Haoran’s feet suddenly opened up into a dark, swirling spatial void, and he instantly fell down, vanishing from sight.

"Young master!?" Shen Xinye screamed, her hand reaching out frantically toward the closing floor, her fingers brushing against empty air.

*Click.*

The stone tiles sealed shut with a loud, absolute thud, leaving her completely alone on the silent, sandstone balcony overlooking the vast, treacherous city.

"...hic...hic..." Shen Xinye collapsed on her knees, crying.

How could she, a prim and proper noble girl, be recognized as the great menace in the future?

How could she allow that?

Would history books record her as someone who enjoyed stripping people naked and tying them up?

Even if she did not do it herself, once she inhert his legacy, she will definitely be associated with him, and her reputation will be ruined!

She can’t accept that!

She stood up, wiped her tears, and stared at the city with eyes brimming with determination.

If she is going to inherit his legacy, then she will make sure that she erase every traces of his deeds in history, so that her name won’t be lump together with him!

Right now, this will be her goal!

*

*

*

Down below, far beneath the sandstone city’s foundations, Haoran landed effortlessly on his feet inside a long, dark hallway, lit only by scattered, flickering wall torches that cast eerie shadows along the ancient stone walls.

He adjusted his robes, brushing off a non-existent speck of dust, and looked up at the ceiling.

This time, his face was completely serious, the lingering amusement and weirded-out expression entirely gone from his features.

Although this ancient Emperor looked thoroughly improper and his historical reputation was a complete disaster, Haoran knew the deeper truth behind the trial.

The core of this inheritance wasn’t actually about learning shameless rope techniques....okay, maybe there’s some...no, there are a lot of that, but the core of this trial is to learn to "break free from your bindings".

Everyone is bound by something; fear, regret, pride, etc. This trial will make those who undergo it break free from those restraints.

Shen Xinye had always suffered from a deep-seated, quiet insecurity.

Despite her immense talent, her lineage, and her beauty, she constantly viewed herself as inadequate when standing beside him.

She was overly cautious, afraid of making mistakes, and constantly held back her true potential out of fear of being a burden.

To overcome this bottleneck in her heart, she needed a trial that forced her to step completely out of her comfort zone—a trial that demanded absolute control over her environment, her opponents, and her own mind, forcing her to assert her authority without hesitation or fear of judgment.

This absurd, invincible inheritance was, in reality, the most perfectly suited crucible for her to shatter her internal chains, regain her absolute self-confidence, and realize her true worth as an elite of the Shen Clan.

Haoran turned his back on the sealed ceiling, his boots clicking softly against the cold stone floor as he began walking down the dark corridor.

"Don’t let me down, Xinye," he whispered quietly into the dark, his voice carrying an unshakeable faith in her potential as he moved deeper into the hidden shortcuts of the ancient ruins.

For now, he had a rather slippery protagonist to deal with.

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