The Reincarnated Villain Can Break the Fourth Wall!

He didn't say anything.

But the tired look he gave her said, 'You still think breathing is a privilege? Cute.'

____

Lesson No #101!

— Corrupt Qi

No one knew where it came from.

Not even the scholars who wore ten jade hairpins and called themselves "Dao of Decay experts."

All they did know:

It was born from the unholy clashing of Light Qi and Dark Qi, producing a third element:

Corruption.

It devours life force.

Rots meridians.

Drinks spirit like soup.

Only creatures that feast on death or corruption can survive long exposure.

Ku Rong?

Totally fine.

The man was practically a walking corpse furnace. His Qi aligned with death so naturally that even cursed spirits gave him side-eye.

Su Xiaobai?

Not immune, but… resistant.

He'd cultivated pure yin Qi, bathed in ghost springs, and once spent three weeks stuck inside a haunted cave that orgasmed every time you stepped on a rune.

He didn't like Corrupt Qi.

But he wasn't scared of it.

He just treated it like unfiltered water—don't drink it unless you absolutely have to, and for god's sake, don't brag about surviving it.

In terms of corruption resistance, the group stacked like this:

1. Ku Rong – death Qi junkie. Could probably snort miasma.

2. Su Xiaobai – ghost-fondlerwith body-refining habits.

3. Lan Tian & Yu Feng – shadowblood emo prince. Half-corrupted lady + daddy issues.

4. Shi Yan – light defense, but allergic to anything morally gray.

5. Dong Lei – muscular but not bright. Immune to thought, not to rot.

6. Nalan Yufei – elven, delicate, and probably one exposure away from coughing blood in high-definition.

____

Once inside Yi Town, the squad split up, each drawn to their respective shops, stalls, or suspicious back alleys.

The streets were loud, chaotic. Market vendors shouted about poison-resistant robes, demon repellents, corruption-grade food pills, and even one-use "sex-freezing talismans" (whatever the hell those were for).

Even Su Xiaobai paused for a moment and thought:

"Damn. This place has better economy than half the Yunnan city I destroyed."

But the air was choaking—not just with incense, but with tension.

Everyone here?

Veterans, killers, or worse—cultivators with nothing left to lose. As they walked past the main square, Dong Lei, surprisingly lucid for once, turned and muttered:

"No one's watching out here. If someone dies, they just get thrown in the bone pit."

He gestured to a trench down the road.

They looked.

And yeah.

There was an actual fucking bone pit.

Bleached skulls, severed limbs, and few swords still stabbed into ribs.

No guards. No mourning.

— Yi Town was a neutral zone only because it was too cursed for empires to care. There were no elders, no city guards, no sect rules.

If someone pissed you off, you could rip their spine out and sell it for pills.

This wasn't a place for honor.

This was the waiting room of death, and everyone was checking in.

Even Su Xiaobai—the man who once insulted a sect elder mid-lecture and lived—felt his senses go sharp.

Too many strong auras.

Too many hidden blades.

Too many people who smiled like they already picked your burial plot.

The clouds above darkened.

A low rumble echoed through the sky.

Even nature seemed to understand:

Shit was about to go sideways.

And somewhere out there, in the deeper zones of Hanmeng, something waited.

___

Just as they were about to find an inn—

BOOM.

A massive spiritual fluctuation erupted, tearing through the city like a divine slap to the face. Rooftops shook, stall umbrellas flew and someone's donkey burst into tears.

"We should avoid this. Definitely don't intervene," Dong Lei said grimly.

Translation: "Let's not die for someone else's plotline."

Shi Yan, the Light Church golden retriever, opened his mouth to argue.

And fate said: "Shut the fuck up."

BANG!

A half-body slammed into the dirt near Shi Yan's boots, intestines dragging behind it like unwilling worms.

The man's expression froze, paled and recoiled.

Even Su Xiaobai raised a brow.

Not from horror, but interest.

The corpse wore a blue robe inscribed with alchemy runes and a turtle-shell crest.

Dong Lei gasped. "Alchemy King's disciple Mu Long… of the Black Tortoise Empire?!"

'Oh? Empire guy,' Su Xiaobai thought. 'Looks like someone important got turned into pudding.'

Alchemy Kings weren't nobodies. They were pill-crafting demigods, usually guarded by half a dozen old monsters and a secret formation that explodes on contact.

So to see one's only disicple halved?

Delicious.

Up above, the sky raged.

Obsidian-level cultivators clashed.

Lightning cracked. Blade-light burned. Spirit beasts roared... And at the center?

A man with four arms and a spirit tattoo of a skeletal dragon wrapping around his bald head.

Master Leng, mercenary king of the mainland branch.

Ranked Obsidian Martial Emperor, former disciple of the Six-Handed Slaughter Sect (before it exploded). Famous for being banned in three empires due to one incident involving a brothel, a beastkin princess from Baihua plains, and something called a "soul-melting position."

Apparently, Mu Long mistook Master Leng's personal concubine for a working girl.

He tried to hand her a spirit coin.

And in return?

Got bisected like a failed alchemy pill.

"What a waste," Ku Rong muttered, disgusted.

Shi Yan looked horrified. "He was a national treasure!"

Su Xiaobai just tilted his head, watching the fight above like it was a traveling performance.

Obsidian Emperor-class infighting. Multiple empires. A dead pill master. Public setting...

Yup... This is a diplomatic incident wrapped in murder foreplay.

He smiled faintly.

"Say... what if we stole his storage ring?"

Everyone froze.

Even Lan Tian blinked.

Dong Lei's jaw dropped. "Are you mad?! He's half a corpse, but he still has an auto-defense talisman inscribed by a Forgemaster!"

"Yeah," Su Xiaobai said casually. "But that's only a problem if you touch it. Not if you trick someone else into touching it."

The others blinked.

Confused and wary.

And then—

SLASH!

In a single, lazy flick of his sword, a ripple of cold sword Qi sliced through the air.

Chhk!

A severed finger—cleanly cut, still twitching, its blood glowing faintly with residual pill-nourished Qi—spun into the air like a tossed spirit bean.

It belonged to one of the Alchemy King's disciple—his body barely cold, his hand still twitching in death.

Before anyone could gasp—

Su Xiaobai reached out casually, caught the finger mid-air, and tossed it into his spatial ring like he was feeding a beast pup a treat.

Plop.

No formation triggered.

No explosion.

No divine curse erupting from the void.

Nothing.

Just silence.

The others just stared.

Even Lan Tian, face usually locked in permanent gloom, looked mildly shocked.

Deng Lei looked like he wanted to say something righteous but couldn't find the right moral vocabulary.

Shi Yan's mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again.

"…You just… took his finger," he finally muttered.

"Correction," Su Xiaobai said, not even glancing back. "I took a key. The corpse was just holding it."

Only one person nodded.

Ku Rong.

The crimson-skinned demon warhound grinned, sharp teeth glinting. His heavy jaw flexed, like a wolf watching another predator do something delightfully awful.

"This new master… very good." he rumbled.

"Knows how to hunt without barking."

___

Meanwhile, more people began showing up in the sky:

A woman riding a phoenix chariot: Lady Yansha, Flame Crown Princess of the Thousand Ashes Sect, here to "observe the Weeping Moon Festival," but actually looking for a husband to rob and poison.

A pale cultivator with hollow eyes and a flute: Ancestor Gu Ye, loose affiliate of the Nightshade Bone-Picking Pavilion, an assassin clan that charges by the organ.

And worst of all, a Dao Cultivator of the Fifth Crown Path, glowing with holy scripture and floating on a cloud shaped like a middle finger—Sect-Envoy Lin Mu, peacekeeper of the light, here to "watch" but more likely to "report nothing and eat dumplings."

___

Nalan Yufei frowned. "If they keep fighting like this, the barrier will shatter."

"It won't," Deng Lei said. "They'll take it outside. Nobody wants to be responsible for corrupting the whole place."

As if on cue, the fighters above shifted, shooting toward the wastelands in streaks of fire and death.

But not before someone threw a body at a vendor stall and stole a gourd of immortal wine.

The vendor didn't even complain. He just wept softly.

Su Xiaobai folded his hands behind his back.

"...So nobody's going to notice that half the people flying out just now are from opposing nations who shouldn't even be here together?"

Lan Tian snorted.

Nalan Yufei opened her mouth. "… Do we aid our guild's side or something? Aren't we supposed to help if it becomes guild of one empire vs another? It was in the rulebook."

Everyone froze.

Even Dong Lei turned to him with the face of a man forced to babysit a tribulation cow.

"…Would you die if you didn't talk?" Dong Lei muttered. "Do you not see we're pretending this has nothing to do with us?"

He sighed. "We're from a provincial nation. Nobody pays us enough importance to care about empire's affair."