Villain: Manipulating the Heroines into hating the Protagonist Chapter 1042: The Deep-Earth Spirit Gardens

A warm breeze carrying the scent of blooming sea-lotuses drifted through the high arched windows of the upper spire pavilion on the second outer island. Outside, the morning sun sparkled across the calm, turquoise waters of the lagoon, concealed beneath the shimmering spatial dome of the Grade-4 *Void-Shrouding Sanctuary Formation*.

Wang Jian stood beside the carved spirit-wood bed at the center of the sun-drenched chamber. He had washed away every trace of the hot mineral spring and the musky perfume of the subterranean pleasure grotto, dressing himself in clean, scholarly robes of dark azure silk fastened with a simple jade belt. With his *Stellar Demonic Nascent Infant* resting calmly inside his lower energy reservoir, he restrained his vast spiritual pressure so that he felt no more threatening than a gentle spring breeze.

With a wave of his right hand, Wang Jian deactivated the final glowing rune of the Upper Lotus Recovery Array surrounding the bed.

Beneath the soft Thousand-Year Spirit-Silk quilt, Yue Lingshan’s long eyelashes fluttered. She drew in a deep, restorative breath, her soft chest rising beneath her modest white sleeping robes before her clear, dark eyes opened.

For a moment, she stared up at the carved cedar rafters, her mind emerging from three months of deep, dreamless slumber. Then she turned her head, saw Wang Jian sitting on the edge of the mattress, and her virtuous face lit up with radiant joy.

"Husband!" Yue Lingshan sat up quickly, throwing her slender arms around Wang Jian’s neck and pressing her warm cheek against his chest. "Did the Nine-Nine Violet-Black Heavenly Thunder leave any hidden injuries in your meridians? How long was I asleep?"

Wang Jian wrapped his arm around her waist, holding her gently against his robes while stroking her long, silky black hair. Around his beloved wife, every movement he made was filled with genuine patience and protective warmth.

"Three months have passed since the storm clouds cleared," Wang Jian said, his voice warm and reassuring as he placed two fingers against her wrist to check her pulse. "Not only are my meridians unharmed, my Initial Stage Nascent Soul Realm is now completely stable. Look inside your own lower energy reservoir, Lingshan."

Yue Lingshan blinked and turned her mental awareness inward. A soft gasp parted her rosy lips.

BeforeWang Jian’s tribulation, she had been at the Early Stage of the Core Formation Realm. Yet after exhausting her spiritual sea to its absolute limit holding down the Grade-4 barrier against eighty-one bolts of celestial thunder—and then soaking for ninety days in the pure Wood-life nourishment of Wang Jian’s *Verdant Eternal Spring Essence*—her revolving Golden Core had grown nearly forty percent larger, shining with a crystalline, blue-green luster at the solid threshold of the Mid-Stage Core Formation Realm.

"My Golden Core advanced while I slept!" Yue Lingshan exclaimed, looking up at him with shining, adoring eyes. "And my mental awareness feels so much clearer... I can sense the spiritual flow of all forty-eight *Profound Iron Array Anchors* beneath the island without even holding my compass!"

"Anchoring a barrier against a Nascent Soul lightning tribulation tempered your spiritual sense better than ten years of quiet meditation," Wang Jian praised, kissing her forehead lightly. "Now that my foundation is secure, we are entering a critical four-year period of quiet accumulation. Abyssal Pearl City now possesses three Initial Stage Nascent Soul Grandmasters—myself, Senior Su Binglan, and Senior Mu Lianhua."

Yue Lingshan nodded earnestly, completely accepting his formal way of referring to the two women who had spent the last ninety days writhing naked beneath him three hundred feet below her bed.

"With three Nascent Soul experts guarding our islands, no ordinary sect can threaten us," Yue Lingshan said happily. "What is our next step, Husband?"

"Three Nascent Soul fighters are enough to deter regional fleets, but our secondary pillars are still too weak," Wang Jian explained calmly. "City Lord Lin Wanyue, Executive Shangguan Wan’er, Sect Leader Hua Yimei, Daoist Shen Mengqi, and Elder Bing Yun are all still in the Core Formation Realm. If the Myriad Ocean Palace or the Holy Nether Sea Organization discovers our hidden strength before our core retinue reaches the peak, we will be outnumbered in mid-tier combat."

Wang Jian reached into his Storage Ring and placed a small jade box containing two Rank 3 *Jade-Dew Spirit Pills* into Yue Lingshan’s hands.

"Over the next six months, I am going into the deep-earth botanical caverns with Senior Mu Lianhua and Sister Liu Ruyan," Wang Jian continued smoothly. "Now that my *Verdant Eternal Spring Essence* is backed by a Nascent Soul energy reservoir, I can rapidly mature the ancient herb seedlings we recovered from the Dragon-Spine Trench and refine Peak-Grade Rank 3 and Rank 4 elixirs for everyone. However, drawing that much earth-qi into the herb terraces will cause constant fluctuations along the municipal ley lines."

"Leave the surface arrays and the municipal grid to me!" Yue Lingshan said at once, clutching the jade box to her chest with fierce determination. "With my mental awareness at the Mid-Stage Core Formation level, I can personally station myself at the central harbor array tower in Abyssal Pearl City and balance the pressure valves across all four outer islands. You and Senior Mu can focus on maturing the Spirit Herbs and refining the elixirs without any distractions!"

"Do not overwork yourself at the harbor tower," Wang Jian said softly, tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear. "I will come to the city manor every two weeks to check on your progress and bring you fresh elixirs."

Yue Lingshan beamed, kissing his cheek tenderly before rising from the bed to dress in her formal white Thousand-Year Spirit-Silk robes. Within the hour, accompanied by four female formation disciples, she boarded a swift covered cutter and sailed across the lagoon toward Abyssal Pearl City’s main harbor, eager to guard the outer perimeter for her hardworking husband.

---

Two hours after Yue Lingshan’s cutter docked at the main city harbor twelve miles away, Wang Jian descended through the warded basalt gates into the vast, cavernous Spirit-Herb Terraces carved deep inside the hollow belly of the second outer island.

The cavern stretched over two leagues in width, its arched stone ceiling embedded with three hundred glowing *Sun-Moon Essence Pearls* that simulated the warm, gentle light of day and the cool dew of night. Across the cavern floor, twelve stepped terraces of rich, black *Ten-Thousand-Year Spirit-Bog Soil* rose like a grand amphitheater.

Flowing through stone aqueducts along each terrace was the diluted, milky-white liquid essence piped directly from the dual Fourth-Grade Spiritual Veins—seventy percent siphoned from the distant Dragon-Spine Trench and forty percent drawn from Abyssal Pearl City’s main earth vein. The air inside the cavern was so thick with pure Spiritual Energy and herbal fragrance that a mortal inhaling a single breath would have their illnesses cured and ten years added to their life.

Waiting for Wang Jian along the central stone walkway were four women who had shed every trace of the polite, reserved demeanor they wore whenever Yue Lingshan was on the island.

Liu Ruyan, the voluptuous alchemist who managed the herb gardens, stood beside a jade workbench holding golden pruning shears and cold-jade spades. Beside her stood Sect Leader Hua Yimei and her daughter Hua Ling’er—Wang Jian’s official concubine—along with the quiet, curvaceous shadow-assassin Chen Ying, who guarded the cavern entrance.

Because Wang Jian had ordered them to dress comfortably for the warm, humid microclimate of the deep-earth gardens, all four women wore scandalous, sheer attire tailored from light spirit-gauze.

Liu Ruyan wore an emerald-green silk halter wrap that left her broad, creamy shoulders, her round midriff, and her entire back exposed, while the two front bands of green silk struggled to contain the massive, heavy globes of her breasts. Her lower body was draped in a slit gauze skirt with no undergarments beneath, offering glimpses of her thick, pale thighs and neatly trimmed mound whenever she stepped between the herb beds.

Hua Yimei and Hua Ling’er wore matching two-piece outfits of sheer peach-blossom pink silk. The tops were tied only by a thin ribbon between their breasts, leaving the inner curves of their massive chests and their gold-pierced nipples straining visibly against the wet, humid fabric, while their low-waisted silk bloomers hugged their wide, juicy hips and left the lower halves of their plump buttocks peeking out in the warm light.

Even Chen Ying, usually clad in dark leather, wore a sleeveless, form-fitting black mesh bodysuit cut high at the hips, showing off her long, toned legs, her narrow waist, and the firm, round swell of her full breasts.

"Master," Liu Ruyan greeted him with a deep, graceful bow that caused her massive breasts to sway heavily inside her green halter wrap, nearly spilling out of the top. "All twelve terraces have been tilled and watered with spiritual spring water. The ancient seedlings from the Silver Gale Sect treasury, the Profound Iron True Monarch’s garden, and the Primal Dragon Grotto are planted in the upper three tiers."

Wang Jian walked up the stone steps to the tenth terrace, his dark eyes sweeping over the neatly arranged plots of spirit-soil.

Planted in the dark earth were thirty-six stalks of *Purple-Gold Marrow Ginseng*, twenty-four *Nine-Leaf Frost Lotuses* resting in chilled jade basins, fifty clusters of crimson *Blood-Dragon Grass*, eighteen *Frost-Bite Lilies*, and at the very center of the twelfth terrace, a single, priceless *Spirit-Condensing Lotus* that currently stood at three thousand years of maturity.

"These herbs are currently between five hundred and eight hundred years old," Liu Ruyan explained, stepping close to Wang Jian’s side so her soft, heavy left breast brushed warmly against his elbow. "To refine Peak-Grade Rank 3 *Core-Perfection Elixirs* and Rank 4 *Yin-Marrow Tempering Pills* without medicinal toxins, Sister Lianhua says every stalk must reach at least five thousand years of age—and the central *Spirit-Condensing Lotus* needs to reach nine thousand years."

"When I was at the Core Formation Realm, maturing a single stalk past three thousand years took weeks of draining effort," Wang Jian said, stepping before the first bed of *Purple-Gold Marrow Ginseng*. "Now, watch carefully."

Wang Jian raised both hands, palms facing the thirty-six ginseng plants.

Inside his lower energy reservoir, his three-inch black-gold *Stellar Demonic Nascent Infant* opened its eyes and breathed upon the emerald seed of his innate power.

*HUMMMMM.*

A rich, glowing stream of liquid emerald light—the Nascent-Soul-empowered **Verdant Eternal Spring Essence**—poured from Wang Jian’s ten fingertips like ten ribbons of warm spring rain.

The moment the emerald ribbons sank into the black *Ten-Thousand-Year Spirit-Bog Soil* around the *Purple-Gold Marrow Ginseng*, a miraculous transformation occurred before the women’s eyes. Unlike ordinary wood-attribute spells that merely forced plants to grow hollow stems at the cost of their medicinal potency, the *Verdant Eternal Spring Essence* infused pure, condensed time and primordial vitality directly into the spiritual roots of the herbs.

Beneath the soil, the pale roots of the *Purple-Gold Marrow Ginseng* swelled and twisted like miniature sleeping dragons. Their outer skins turned from pale yellow to a deep, metallic purple-gold, while on the surface, five new serrated leaves sprouted from each stem, unfurling with a soft *rustle* and releasing a thick cloud of golden medicinal mist!

"Five hundred years... one thousand... two thousand years in a single quarter-hour!" Liu Ruyan gasped, her eyes wide with awe as she knelt beside the terrace bed, using a pair of cold-jade calipers to measure the dense spiritual pulsations radiating from the ginseng crowns. "Master, your *Verdant Eternal Spring Essence* is ten times thicker than before! The medicinal veins inside the roots aren’t fracturing at all—Wait! The soil is drying out too fast from the rapid absorption!"

"Ling’er, Yimei—open the upper aqueduct sluice gates and pour three ladles of dilutedFourth-Grade vein essence around the outer root rings," Wang Jian instructed, keeping his hands steady as sweat beaded lightly across his forehead from the continuous spiritual output. "Ruyan, take the cold-jade pruning knife and trim away the lower yellow leaves the instant they wither so they don’t draw vitality away from the taproots."

"Yes, Master!"

For the next two full months inside the humid, fragrant deep-earth cavern, Wang Jian and the four women worked in a seamless, disciplined rhythm of high-tier spirit farming.

Every morning, Wang Jian spent four hours channeling concentrated streams of *Verdant Eternal Spring Essence* across the upper terraces, while Liu Ruyan, Hua Yimei, Hua Ling’er, and Chen Ying loosened the soil with jade spades, pruned dead side-shoots with cold-jade knives, and regulated the temperature of the frost-basins holding the *Nine-Leaf Frost Lotuses*.

By the end of the eighth week, all thirty-six stalks of *Purple-Gold Marrow Ginseng*, the twenty-four *Nine-Leaf Frost Lotuses*, and the fifty clusters of *Blood-Dragon Grass* had successfully matured into radiant, **five-thousand-year top-tier Spirit Herbs**, their leaves glowing with five-colored halos of condensed spiritual mist. And in the central basin of the twelfth terrace, the nine petals of the **Nine-Thousand-Year Spirit-Condensing Lotus** bloomed wide, releasing a chime like ringing jade that echoed across the cavern.

As Wang Jian lowered his hands after completing the final infusion on the twelfth terrace, his breathing was deep and hot. Channeling the life-giving *Verdant Eternal Spring Essence* for two months straight had stirred the aggressive Yang fire of his *Heavenly Yang Divine Physique* into a raging inferno—and worse still, the lingering emerald mist hovering around his skin carried a potent, aphrodisiacal life-force that had soaked the thin silk wraps of the four women working beside him.

"Master..." Hua Ling’er whimpered, dropping her jade watering ladle onto the soft grass beside the twelfth terrace. Her pretty face was flushed bright red, her chest heaving as she pressed her thighs together. "Breathing in your *Verdant Eternal Spring Essence* all morning has made my meridians so hot... Look at Mother and Sister Ruyan—their silk tops are completely transparent from sweat!"

Wang Jian turned around on the soft, warm moss carpet bordering the twelfth terrace.

Standing three paces away, Hua Yimei, Hua Ling’er, Liu Ruyan, and Chen Ying were all glistening with fragrant perspiration. The humid herbal mist had turned their sheer silk wraps into second skins, outlining every dip of their navels, the wide, fertile flare of their curvy hips, and the stiff, swollen peaks of their nipples.

"Since the herbs have drunk their fill of spring essence," Wang Jian said, his dark eyes gleaming with predatory heat as he unfastened his azure silk robe and let it drop onto the warm moss, "it is time to water my personal flowers."

"Thank you, Master!" Hua Yimei and Hua Ling’er cried out together, their eyes shining with shameless, competitive lust.

Before Liu Ruyan could even step forward, the mother-and-daughter duo dropped to their knees on the warm, fragrant moss in front of Wang Jian. Hua Yimei reached up with both hands and untied the thin ribbon holding her peach-pink silk top together, letting her massive, heavy breasts—adorned with glinting gold nipple rings—spill out into the glowing light of the five-thousand-year herbs. Not to be outdone, her daughter Hua Ling’er yanked her own pink silk bloomers straight down her curvy legs and kicked them aside, crawling between Wang Jian’s feet to press her soft, wet lips directly against the head of his thick, rising shaft.

"Look at this greedy girl trying to steal the first taste from her own mother," Hua Yimei laughed huskily, leaning forward to press her huge, bare breasts against the other side of Wang Jian’s pulsing length while her tongue darted out to lick his shaft right alongside her daughter’s mouth. "Master, Ling’er and I have been working in the dirt for two months watching your muscular back every day. Please take both of us right here beside the *Spirit-Condensing Lotus*!"

Wang Jian tangled his left hand in Hua Yimei’s hair and his right hand in Hua Ling’er’s hair, guiding both mother and daughter to service his rock-hard manhood together while he looked over their bobbing heads at Liu Ruyan and Chen Ying.

"Ruyan, Chen Ying—strip off those wraps and get on the moss behind them," Wang Jian commanded roughly. "The residual *Verdant Eternal Spring Essence* in my seed right now is thick enough to wash away ten years of meridian impurities. Whoever works hardest today gets the deepest share."

Liu Ruyan shivered with excitement, hastily untying her emerald halter wrap so her colossal, milky-white breasts bounced free, while Chen Ying peeled off her black mesh bodysuit in one fluid motion, revealing her taut, curvy, snow-white figure.

Without a trace of hesitation or gentleness, Wang Jian pulled Hua Yimei up by her wide, juicy hips and bent the mature Sect Leader over the carved jade rim of the lotus basin. Gripping her fleshy buttocks with both hands, he drove his thick, scorching manhood straight to the hilt inside her soaking core!

"AAAAAH! MASTER!" Hua Yimei’s cry echoed across the twelve terraced gardens, stirring the glowing mist above the five-thousand-year herbs as Wang Jian hammered his hips forward with brutal, earth-shaking momentum.

"Ling’er, get on your hands and knees right beside your mother! Ruyan, get underneath Yimei’s chest and let her breasts rub against your face!" Wang Jian barked, slapping Hua Yimei’s round backside hard before pulling out of the mother’s spasming passage to plunge straight into her daughter Hua Ling’er’s tight, dripping core right beside her!

For an entire week following the completion of the botanical harvest, the twelfth terrace of the deep-earth gardens became an open-air bed of relentless carnal pleasure. Surrounded by the glowing halos of five-thousand-year Spirit Herbs, Wang Jian ruthlessly rotated between the mother-and-daughter pair Hua Yimei and Hua Ling’er, the voluptuous alchemist Liu Ruyan, and the fiercely devoted assassin Chen Ying—pounding his Nascent-Soul-infused Yang essence and lingering *Verdant Eternal Spring Essence* deep into their wombs until their Core Formation meridians were widened, purified, and humming with vibrant spiritual vitality.

---

At the beginning of the third month, the harvested five-thousand-year Spirit Herbs were sealed in frost-jade boxes and carried down the central stone corridor into the subterranean Alchemical Hall.

The circular pill chamber sat directly over a secondary branch of the volcanic magma vent, though its temperature was precisely regulated by sixty-four heat-dispersing array tiles. At the center of the room stood Mu Lianhua’s life-bound treasure, the *Myriad Beast Fire Cauldron*, e