Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!-Chapter 80: The Night Before

The feast had long since concluded, leaving the Palace in a state of tranquil, silver-lit grace.

However, for the younger inhabitants of the inner sanctum, the night was only beginning.

Feng Yanmei, fueled by a sugar high from celestial nectar and an obsessive curiosity, had practically dragged Ning Xueli by the arm toward the secluded testing ranges of the palace.

The little ancestor was relentless, her golden eyes wide with a manic shimmer as she begged to see the structural blueprints of the "Little Boy" or, at the very least, a live demonstration of a high-yield spiritual detonation to light up the midnight sky.

Qinq’er, ever the silent shadow, followed several paces behind them, after all her presence was a necessity, especially when Yanmei and explosives were mentioned in the same sentence, as the structural integrity of the Shen Domain was usually at stake.

Meanwhile, Feng Yuyan had vanished into her laboratory to check on her latest "stitching" projects, and Leng Shuang had retreated to the meditation spires to oversee the midnight shift of the Shadow Guard’s training.

Haoran, left to his own devices, decided to wash away the travel-worn dust of the Eastern Region.

He spent nearly an hour in the palace’s private hot springs, where the water was infused with Dragon-Blood herbs and Spirit-Gathering Incense.

The steam rose in thick, white plumes, clinging to the jade-carved walls.

And when he finally stepped out, drying himself with a flick of his Qi, a Shadow Guard materialized from the mist.

She knelt, her voice a low murmur, "You g master, the mistress has requested your presence in her private bedchambers once you are refreshed."

"I see. Very well."

With that, the Shadow Guard vanished into the shadows.

Following the summons, Haoran dressed in a simple, loose-fitting black silk robe as he navigated the silent, winding corridors of the inner palace until he reached the towering, dark-wood doors of Chu Xueyu’s chambers.

He knocked twice, the sound echoing softly in the hall.

"Come in," his mother’s voice sounded.

It was soft, melodic, and held a strange, underlying vibration that seemed to resonate directly with his bone marrow.

Haoran pushed the doors open and entered, closing them firmly behind him.

The room was illuminated by a single, floating "Moon-Pearl", a rare but otherwise useless gem that absorbs the light of the moon for hundreds of years, with its only effects being able to glow, which cast a dim, ethereal glow over the space.

The scent of sandalwood and a faint, floral musk—Xueyu’s natural scent—permeated the air.

There, on the sprawling, oversized bed draped in purple silks, was Chu Xueyu.

She wasn’t lying down; instead, she was perched in the center of the mattress, her legs tucked beneath her in an M-shape, her hands resting on the silk before her.

She was smiling, but it was a smile that held a thousand hidden meanings.

Haoran felt his heart skip a beat, an instinctive reaction that even his stoic cultivation couldn’t entirely suppress.

The sight was, frankly, jarring.

His mother was wearing a black, see-through lace nightgown—a garment so delicate and revealing that it seemed to be made of shadows and spiderwebs, allowing him to completely see everything about her, especially those two beautiful mounds of flesh and those pink, nipples.

If her hands weren’t covering her groin, he would’ve already seen everything that no one has ever had the pleasure of seein yet.

He honestly couldn’t believe that his mother was bold enough to wear a style of clothing that is completely foreign to the Prime Origin Realm, where modesty and heavy robes were the standard for nobility.

"Mother... what are you wearing?" he couldn’t help but ask, his voice slightly lower than usual.

"Hm? Does it not look good?" Xueyu asked, tilting her head and glancing down at herself with a look of feigned innocence. "I found the design from the memories of that cousin of yours, you know, the one who traveled from a minor blue planet in a lower realm whose name I already forgot. Apparently, this type of sleeping garment is rather popular among the elites there. It’s quite breathable, don’t you think?"

Haoran remained silent for a moment.

He could certainly see why it was popular.

The sheer fabric left little to the imagination, highlighting the divine curves of the woman who had forced the heavens to kneel.

She looked less like a Clan Head and more like a primordial succubus.

"...Is there something you need, Mother?" Haoran asked, reclaiming his composure.

"Lie down," Xueyu said, her finger pointing to the space on the bed directly in front of her.

Haoran followed her words without question as he moved to the bed and lay down, his black robe fanning out against the purple silk.

Before he could ask for clarification, Xueyu moved with the fluid, noble grace of a feline and climbed over him, her weight light yet authoritative, and sat directly on his waist.

Her slender, cool hands reached out, caressing his abdominal muscles through the thin fabric of his robe.

"Hmm... fifth stage Golden Core realm," Xueyu murmured, her golden eyes narrowing as she peered through his flesh to inspect his dantian. "You seem to be slacking off with your cultivation, Haoran. Two years in the Eastern Region, and you’ve only advanced this much?"

Haoran let out a short, tired sigh. "I guess... if you look at it strictly through ranks."

In truth, his original plan in the Bright Silver Emperor’s Inheritance was to use the gravity of the staircase to force a breakthrough to the very peak of the Golden Core realm.

But during that process, his dormant physique had begun to stir, so he had made a split-second tactical decision to abandon the easy path of Rank-advancement and instead, he had channeled every ounce of that external pressure into his marrow, using it to fully awaken his physique.

After the awakening, the pressure from the staircase had become as useless to him as a summer breeze.

Advancing to the fifth stage while simultaneously rebuilding his entire physical foundation was a testament to his talent that would have made the branch family "geniuses" weep in despair.

"...You will leave tomorrow," Xueyu said, her voice suddenly lost its playful edge, sounding uncharacteristically reluctant, almost heavy. "Your Aunt Shuang has already prepared the coordinates and the gateway for your departure."

"Is... that so?" Haoran sighed, looking up at her. "Very well. Though I am curious, into which realm am I going to descend? It isn’t another desolate wasteland, I hope."

"The Saint Burial Realm," Xueyu replied, her hands moved from his chest to his hair, her fingers tracing the golden blonde strands. "If you are lucky, you might find something truly useful there. Or at least, something entertaining."

Saint Burial Realm... Haoran’s brow furrowed.

If he remembered correctly, that realm was a shattered fragment of a primordial realm, an ancient battlefield where Saints and even early Supreme Emperors had fought to the death during the Great Calamity.

It was a graveyard of civilizations.

Because of that war, countless saints and supreme legacies were lost to the sands of time.

And due to the loss of those complete legacies, the cultivators of the modern era were, in many ways, so inferior to the Cultivators from the ancient era.

A peak Nirvana Rebirth expert from that ancient era would have likely been able to slaughter a modern Profound Saint with a flick of their sleeve.

Of course, this gap in quality doesn’t exist for those from an ancient hegemon powers like the Shen Clan, who kept complete legacies of their predecessors.

And in fact, because of the culmination of legacies from ancient era to now, modern Cultivators from ancient hegemon powers are far more superior to the ones in ancient past.

"The Supreme Seer of our clan has been burning his lifespan to trace the threads of fate," Xueyu continued, her voice dropping to a whisper. "He has deduced that your ’father’ has reincarnated there."

Haoran couldn’t help but let out a dry, mocking chuckle. "Heh, reincarnated in a world literally filled with the buried legacies and forgotten treasures of ancient saints... that father of mine is truly a ’Protagonist’ of the highest order, isn’t he? Let me take a wild guess—I bet he took over the body of a ’useless’ young master in a falling clan, someone who possessed a rare, unawakened divine physique that everyone mistook for a crippled meridian."

Xueyu chuckled, the sound vibrating through Haoran’s chest. "Most likely. They are always so predictable, aren’t they? They suffer for twenty years, get a lucky break, and then spend the next fifty years shouting about ’defying the heavens’ while they slaughter anyone who looks at them sideways."

She leaned down then, her long golden hair falling like a curtain around them, shielding them from the rest of the world as she lay her head on his chest, listening to the steady, powerful thrum of his heart.

"...Sleep here tonight," she murmured, her voice losing its empress-like authority and becoming something much more vulnerable. "Tomorrow, you will be a world away. Tonight, you are just my Haoran."

Haoran stayed silent for a moment, then his hands moved, wrapping firmly around her waist and pulling her closer.

He closed his eyes, the scent of the Moon-Pearl and his mother’s presence grounding him.

"....Alright," he replied softly.

Outside, the moon hung high over the Shen Domain, silent and indifferent, as the gears of fate began to grind toward the Saint Burial Realm, where a father and son were destined to meet in a clash that would determine the future of the heavens.