Chapter 35: The Live-in Son-in-law Huandu Qingtian (Patreon)

Although Huandu Qingtian bore the surname Huandu, he wasn't actually a member of the Huandu clan — in fact, he didn't even count as a being native to the Circle.

Though the Third Young Master of Aolai Country had drawn a circle, one or two stragglers still managed to slip through into it.

Huandu Qingtian was one of them.

Back then he had no physical form at all — just a cloud of poison mist. Lan Yan's mother, Huandu Xingzhen, found him, and using poison qi combined with a love gu, helped him take shape, giving him the name Huandu Qingtian.

Back then, Huandu Qingtian didn't look like a wizened old man — he was a tall, powerfully built man.

The two of them trained together to grow strong enough to protect Nanguo, and had a daughter — Lan Yan.

To put an end to the threat of Wuhuang Mountain once and for all, Xingzhen eventually entered it alone, using the power of the love gu to freeze the mountain's state forever at the moment the two of them had first met.

As a result, Huandu Qingtian lost every memory of his final meeting with Huandu Xingzhen.

After that, Huandu Qingtian refined the poison qi of Wuhuang Mountain and mastered the heaven-and-earth power of Nanguo, becoming the Poison Emperor, while Xingzhen left behind only a gravestone and passed into legend.

And precisely because of this, the Demon Emperor under him and the Huandu royal family refused to accept him as Nanguo's Poison Emperor.

But by then, Huandu Qingtian could already command the power of heaven and earth — he had become the world's very first Yao Sovereign.

Unable to defeat him, the Yao Kings had no choice but to submit.

[Nicole: That's insane! Just because Huandu Qingtian married into the family, his nephew wants to stage a coup?!]

[Silver Wolf: Fair point, though — by rights the throne shouldn't have passed to a son-in-law, it should've gone to a nephew. Going by feudal succession law, the rebellion actually has some logic to it.]

[Keqing: Logic?! Cultivating forbidden arts to seize power, hurling abuse at his own family — what logic is that! Succession should go to whoever's capable! If the Poison Emperor hadn't guarded Nanguo for thousands of years, outsiders from beyond the Circle would've wiped it out long ago!]

Lan Yan felt as though a bucket of ice water had been dumped over her from head to toe.

She stared wide-eyed at the cousin in front of her, both familiar and suddenly a stranger. It was still the face she'd called "Brother Qiluo" since childhood, but in those crimson eyes there was no trace left of the warmth she knew — only a madness she'd never seen before, the kind that crawled up your spine.

"Wh-what did you just say?" Lan Yan's voice trembled — not from fear, but disbelief. "My father has guarded Nanguo's throne for thousands of years, and now you're telling me he doesn't deserve it? If it weren't for my father back then—"

"Enough!" Huandu Qiluo snapped his hand out, his icy-blue hair whipping a cold gleam through the candlelight. The smile on his face finally cracked, revealing the churning malice beneath. "I've heard about everything that dead old man of yours did until my ears are calloused. Guard the throne? That was his job! But to sit on it — what right does he have?!"

He stepped forward, icy-blue gu worms crawling out of his sleeve, leaving trails of frost in the air. "This throne should have been my father's. Your mother, Huandu Xingzhen, was my father's older sister. She married some outsider poison-mist monster and handed the throne to him — tell me, what is that? What is that?!"

Lan Yan opened her mouth, but found her throat felt blocked, as if something were lodged there.

She wanted to argue back, wanted to tell him how her father had carried Nanguo through storm after storm, how not one of the Seventy-two Cave Lords had submitted to him at first, how he'd built Nanguo up inch by inch into an impregnable stronghold.

But the words died on her lips — she suddenly realized that Huandu Qiluo didn't fail to understand. He simply refused to.

Huandu Qiluo raised his hand, and a translucent icy-blue gu worm coiled around his fingertip, its bone-chilling cold surging straight at Lan Yan's face. "Cousin, I'd advise you to stay out of this. For old times' sake — you never had a mean bone in you as a kid — just stand aside like a good girl. Once I've secured the throne, you'll still be Nanguo's little princess. Otherwise…"

The gu worm's phantom form suddenly swelled, carrying a cold that could freeze yao power, and slammed straight into the poison mist Lan Yan had spread out!

[March 7th: Whoa! He just went for it! This Young Prince is actually insane!]

[Gallagher: Careful, Lan Yan! Those worms look seriously nasty!]

[Qingque: Oh no, oh no, the princess is about to get the short end of this — that gu technique looks like it completely counters poison arts!]

[Billy: No way. A power grab's one thing, but going for the kill against his own cousin too? This guy's heart is pitch black!]

Lan Yan felt her yao power freeze solid in an instant — even her Myriad Poisons Body stopped responding — and the shockwave sent her flying backward, about to slam into a cold stone pillar.

The pain she braced for never came. Instead she fell into a warm embrace, a familiar clean, crisp scent wrapping around her, and the yao poison that had just been running wild instantly settled down.

"Don't worry. I'm here." Gusttave's voice sounded above her head. He steadied Lan Yan on her feet, brushed the frost off the ends of her hair, and lifted his gaze to Huandu Qiluo across the hall.

"You owe me a favor."

Gusttave's voice rang out through the inner hall.

A moment later, Huandu Qiluo and the Withered Wood Medicine Immortal vanished without a trace.

[Silver Wolf: Insta-kill!]

[Zenless Zone Zero · Belle: One-shot kill!]

[Kiana Kaslana: Damn, that scumbag's amazing!]

[Qingque: Yes! Told you betting on the Young Prince was a sure loss! Bless Reignbow Arbiter, tonight I might win three more hands!]

[Fu Xuan: Qingque——!! Reignbow Arbiter isn't for you to gamble with! And another thing — slacking off on the clock to watch livestreams? Kiss this month's bonus goodbye!]

Lan Yan finally snapped out of her shock. Her first instinct wasn't to rush over and praise Gusttave — instead, she spun around and staggered toward the throne, catching Huandu Qingtian, whose body was still half-frozen stiff. "Father! Are you all right?! Are you hurt?!"

Huandu Qingtian coughed twice. The yao power sealed by the Heavenly Silkworm Poison-Binding Gu still churned wildly through his meridians, and half his body was too numb to move. His graying beard trembled as he looked at his daughter's eyes, red-rimmed with worry, and swallowed back the scolding that had risen to his lips. He only waved a hand. "I won't die that easily."

The words had barely left his mouth when a gentle but irresistible warmth surged in from behind him, sinking through his back and into his meridians. The icy-blue gu poison that had frozen his yao power like a disease clinging to the bone met that warmth the way snow meets blazing sun — melting away completely in an instant, without a trace left behind.

Huandu Qingtian's whole body relaxed. He exhaled the stagnant, turbid qi that had built up inside him, and his weakened breath steadied at once.

He turned sharply to look at Gusttave, who was walking toward him at an unhurried pace. His expression was complicated — gratitude, wariness, and more than a little embarrassment at having been caught in such a humiliating spot.

He'd lived for thousands of years and sat on Nanguo's throne for just as long, but this was the first time a nephew had ever cornered him this badly during a coup — and the first time an outsider had caught him at it.

Huandu Qingtian cupped his hands toward Gusttave, his posture humble. "I, Huandu Qingtian, will remember the kindness you showed me today. From now on, whatever you ask of Nanguo, high or low, shall be obeyed without question."

Gusttave waved a hand. "We're all family here — no need to thank me."

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