Chapter Sixty-Eight

The Marquis had been in a stupor for over a decade, the mistress had borne no children, and the estate had no heir. Where would a Young Master Chú come from? And even if there were a young master, he would bear the surname Zhū.

"Could the immortal lord perhaps have come to the wrong place?" The steward's face was full of puzzlement.

The servant thought the same — but the visitor was a cultivator. Who would dare offend someone like that?

The servant looked at the steward, a thoroughly troubled expression on his face: "I told him as much, but the immortal lord insists that the person he is looking for is in this estate. Steward — perhaps you should go have a look?"

The steward hesitated, then stood and followed the servant out.

The lights of the estate cast a soft glow. From a distance, the steward could already see a refined-looking young man standing at the estate's main gate, a spiritual sword in hand. His bearing was straight and slender, his disposition otherworldly and refined. A single glance told you he was not a person of the ordinary world — though for some reason, his complexion looked somewhat pale and haggard.

The estate housed cultivators, and the steward knew well how formidable cultivators were. Killing a mortal was no different to them than crushing an ant. He didn't dare show the slightest negligence. He put on a warm, ingratiating smile and stepped respectfully forward to receive the visitor: "Immortal Lord Cen, you've come a long way — we of the estate failed to receive you properly. Our estate truly has no young master by the surname Chú. Immortal Lord might as well try looking elsewhere—"

The last three words never made it out of his mouth. Cen Yan lowered his gaze just slightly, casting a single glance at him with an air of lofty superiority that was somewhat intimidating.

The steward's words died instantly on his tongue. Cultivator affairs were not for him to comment on. Whether or not there was anyone here, he still had to go through the motions.

The steward hurriedly changed his answer: "Perhaps this servant misremembered. Please, immortal lord, come inside."

Cen Yan glanced at the steward and walked with him into the estate.

The moment he stepped into the main hall, a harsh, grating burst of laughter suddenly floated in from the inner courtyard. The steward was a mortal and heard nothing — but Cen Yan was a cultivator. His senses were keen, and he caught it clearly.

His figure paused slightly. He turned his head in the direction of the inner courtyard. The next moment, his upright silhouette disappeared from the entrance of the main hall.

By the time the steward came back to his senses, there was no trace of Cen Yan anywhere.

—

In the side courtyard of the estate, there was silence all around, still as death.

On the bed, Zhū Xuányáng stared wide-eyed with bulging eyes, his mouth hanging fully open, strange guttural sounds rising from his throat — leaving no doubt that if he could move, he would certainly strangle the person at his bedside with his bare hands.

How could Zhù Guānwēi dare — to the estate's only bloodline?!

Zhù Guānwēi saw it all, and her heart was both pained and hateful — yet she still refused to let him go. She burst out laughing, her whole chest shaking with it, her hoarse voice drawing out long and slow: "No — I should have let him live a little longer. After all, the Puppet Gu inside his body can take his life at any moment. And all of that is at my will. I say that bastard lives, he lives. I say he dies — he must die!"

The pain churned inside his abdomen. Chú Róng lay pale-faced against Ning Yuan's broad chest. Hearing this, his jade-pale fingertips curled inward.

So the one who had planted the gu was Zhù Guānwēi!

"Is that so?" An even, icy voice appeared from nowhere in the room. Its tone was profound and pressing, radiating a suffocating authority that made the scalp tighten: "I would very much like to see how you intend to take his life."

"Who?!" Zhù Guānwēi's face changed drastically. She shot to her feet. Her head beneath the veiled hat turned in frightened, frantic looking-around. Her unpleasant voice went sharp and piercing: "Come out!"

But as far as the eye could reach, apart from Zhū Xuányáng lying motionless on the bed, there was not a single visible figure to be seen.

An unnamed dread climbed up Zhù Guānwēi's spine. In a panic, she reached into her sleeve to retrieve a talisman. Before she even had time to tear it open and summon the cultivators stationed in the estate, a powerful surge of spiritual force struck squarely at the back of her chest. Her slender body instantly snapped like a broken kite, flung by an invisible force and slammed hard into the wall!

Pfft——!

Zhù Guānwēi vomited out a mouthful of blood, which sprayed across her veiled hat. Her organs were nearly displaced. The fierce pain sent her vision darkening in waves.

Before she could recover, her four limbs were suddenly seized by some invisible force, yanked open and pinned spread-eagled against the wall, unable to move even a fraction.

The dread inside Zhù Guānwēi grew thicker and thicker. Her eyes beneath the hat trembled uncontrollably. Through the translucent grey gauze of the hat, a tall and upright silhouette appeared at the room's doorway — like a spectre materialising from thin air.

The man had a high, straight nose bridge and clearly defined features. A pair of deep, fathomless, glacial eyes looked down at her from above, as though a deity were gazing at a tiny, insignificant ant in the mortal world.

By contrast, the man's solid, long arms were drawn protectively together, holding someone with great care. Zhù Guānwēi was about to look more closely at the face of that person, when the man opened his mouth: "Where is the mother gu?"

Zhù Guānwēi's breath caught. Her mind was thrown into chaos, and she no longer had any attention left to look at the person in the man's arms.

Who was this person? How could he know about the mother gu?

A power like this was on par with the cultivators housed in the estate. Could this man also be a cultivator?

If he was a cultivator, his knowing about Puppet Gu was unsurprising. But she still had use for the mother gu. She could not hand it over.

"Is the immortal lord interested in Puppet Gu? The cultivators in our estate have considerable skill in medical cultivation — perhaps they could raise a pair for the Immortal Ven—" Before Zhù Guānwēi's words were finished, her mouth snapped shut. She could make no more sound. Her body also lost all control. Her outstretched limbs came down. She left the wall, walked outside, and moved forward.

This — this — this…

Zhù Guānwēi's face was full of panic, yet she could say nothing. Unable to control her own actions in any way, she was forced to leave the side courtyard and return to her own main courtyard.

"Tiresome." Since Zhù Guānwēi would not hand over the mother gu, Ning Yuan would take it himself.

Ning Yuan carried Chú Róng and followed behind Zhù Guānwēi. He watched as she retrieved a square brocade box from a hidden compartment behind the writing desk. He set Chú Róng gently down in a chair, then raised his hand slightly. His long five fingers curved slightly into a claw, and with spiritual force he pulled the brocade box to him across the distance.

The brocade box was the size of a palm. Inside it sat a fat, slimy, leech-like gu worm of dark green, approximately one finger in length. Its back was covered in interlocking red and yellow patterns, the colouring so vivid it set one's entire body on edge with discomfort.

The inside of the brocade box was soaked in fresh blood. A thick, bloody, iron-like smell clung inside the box and would not disperse — adding yet another layer of nausea.

"Is that the mother gu?" Chú Róng took a quick glance and immediately turned his head away.

So ugly.

So disgusting.

During his school days, someone had once put an insect inside his school desk. From then on, Chú Róng had given a wide berth to every kind of insect, especially these boneless, hairless, slimy worms that caused him a physical, visceral revulsion — enough to raise goosebumps all over his skin.

"Yes." Ning Yuan's gaze deepened. He raised his wrist and tossed the brocade box into the air. He gathered spiritual force in his palm, raised his hand, and struck out at the box!

No——!!

Zhù Guānwēi stared in wide-eyed horror. Her grudge was still unresolved, her hatred still unsatisfied — she could not lose the mother gu!

Zhù Guānwēi's chest felt as though it had been violently struck. She vomited out a great mouthful of blood. She wanted to throw herself forward and stop it, but her body could not move. All she could do was watch helplessly as the brocade box burst apart with a bang — and together with the mother gu inside it, was reduced to dust in an instant!

Over ten years of her painstaking effort, all turned to nothing in a breath!

And at almost the exact same moment, the pain in Chú Róng's body vanished completely. The restless offspring gu inside him went still.

Ning Yuan didn't spare a single glance for the Zhù Guānwēi who was on the verge of collapse. His imposing frame bent, his line of sight levelling with Chú Róng's. His deep gaze swept carefully over Chú Róng's face: "How do you feel?"

"The pain is gone." Chú Róng felt carefully for a moment, then shook his head slightly. His black hair scattered around him. His slightly pallid face, in the bright candlelight all around, flickered with the luminous glow of jade, moving and beautiful.

Ning Yuan's gaze darkened faintly. Confirming that the colour was gradually returning to Chú Róng's face, he turned his eyes sideways to look at the still-immobile Zhù Guānwēi. His eyes were saturated with glacial cold.

With the mother gu destroyed, there was no longer any need to keep alive the person who had planted it and harmed Chú Róng.

"Wait." Seeing what the man intended to do, Chú Róng hurriedly extended his jade-white fingers and caught the edge of Ning Yuan's sleeve to stop him: "I have some questions I want to ask her."

About the original host.

If everything was truly as he had guessed — Chú Róng's luminous eyes gradually darkened — then for public and private reasons alike, he ought to restore justice to the original host.

Ning Yuan lowered his gaze to the hand clutching his sleeve, suppressed the killing intent in his heart, and spread his large palm open. In the most natural of gestures, he covered the back of that fair, lustrous hand, wrapping Chú Róng's slightly cool fingertips inside his palm.

"Ask." Ning Yuan flicked a finger and released the Silence Seal he had placed on Zhù Guānwēi. Before Chú Róng was done asking, he would not kill her.

The sword-calluses on the man's palm grazed the skin of his hand, producing a faint, prickling sensation. Chú Róng's body stiffened slightly. But thinking of how Ning Yuan had just helped him destroy the mother gu, freeing him from future pain and from a certain death, this was the first time he did not pull his hand away.

Chú Róng gathered his thoughts, raised his butterfly-wing lashes, and looked at the person still standing before the writing desk: "Do you still recognise me?"

Zhù Guānwēi's eyes were still fixed on the middle air. Hearing him, she rolled her eyes and looked toward Chú Róng. When she saw his face clearly, her pupils contracted violently, and she vomited out another mouthful of blood.

It was him!

That lowly maidservant's bastard child!

She would recognise this face even if it was reduced to ash!

No wonder he had immediately targeted the mother gu the moment he arrived. It was to save this bastard!

No — wait!

Zhù Guānwēi noticed something. She stared hard at that devastatingly beautiful, fair face. Her gaze was as if it would pierce right through Chú Róng: "You haven't been disfigured."

Blood slid from the corner of her mouth. She said it one word at a time, and the hatred between each word was almost dense enough to condense and flow out as liquid: "You deceived me?"

Without pain to interfere, Chú Róng's mind was very clear. He thought quickly. A thought flashed through him like lightning. His voice tightened slightly: "The fire at the farmstead — was that your doing?"

In the original text, the original host's disfigurement had been caused by a fire at the farmstead that had happened over ten years ago. When he had read it at the time, he had assumed it was an accident — but hearing the way Zhù Guānwēi was speaking now, it didn't sound as though it was.

Could it be that Zhù Guānwēi, who had appeared to simply be sending the original host away to fend for himself, had actually never intended to let the original host go?

That made sense. If Zhù Guānwēi had truly meant to spare the original host's life, why would she have planted Puppet Gu in him?

Had the original host known that Zhù Guānwēi meant to kill him?

Chú Róng lowered his long, dense lashes and thought for a brief moment. He probably had. Otherwise — why would the original host have hidden the fact that he hadn't been disfigured?

Furthermore, the original host's dogged clinging to Cen Yan, his insistence on entering the cultivation world — it was very likely also a form of self-preservation. He just hadn't known there was a gu worm inside him. And that was why things had unfolded in the series of events described in the original text.

In a sense, the original host's excuse of seeking treatment for his condition wasn't an outright lie after all.

"Yes. What a pity — even a fire that large, one that nearly burned the farmstead down to nothing, still couldn't kill you." There was nothing left to argue at this point. Zhù Guānwēi confessed without concealment. In her voice was a kind of near-obsessive regret: "But then again — your life has always been as tough as that lowly mother of yours. Even my Puppet Gu, nourished with ten years of painstaking heart's blood, couldn't fully control you."

That single statement undeniably confirmed what Chú Róng had been surmising.

His beautiful lips parted slightly. He let out a long breath: "Everything that was said about me in the cultivation world — all of that was done by you, controlling me from behind with the Puppet Gu?"

"That's right." Whether it was because losing the mother gu had shattered her too thoroughly, or for some other reason, Zhù Guānwēi had adopted a what-does-it-matter approach. Whatever Chú Róng asked, she answered.

Zhù Guānwēi's words were calm and ruthless — like a sharp blade, precisely prying open a long-sealed bloody wound, digging out the rotted truth from inside it piece by piece and laying it bare before Chú Róng: "I used the Puppet Gu to control you, pulling every string I had, throwing the Hundred Immortal Sects into chaos, raking in wealth in the mortal realm. It was only that your willpower was too strong. The first few times it was manageable, but the further it went, the harder it became to control you. Especially when I wanted you to steal spirit pills and spirit stones from the immortal sects — you simply refused to do it no matter what, and there were several incidents of exposure that left traces behind."

No wonder so many disciples of Qingyang Heavenly Sect had accused the original host.

In his time in the modern era, Chú Róng had dealt with contracts beyond counting, and was very sensitive to numbers. When he had looked over the evidence Cen Yan had presented to incriminate him, the account books' figures had obviously not added up. Even adding in the stolen goods the original host had hidden behind the bookshelf, the total had still fallen far short.

Now, he finally understood where that money had gone.

Chú Róng's expression did not change in the slightest. His thinking was growing clearer and clearer. He pondered for a moment, then picked up where Zhù Guānwēi had left off: "So you took advantage of the current of events — intending to use the immortal sects' hands to discard me. You had me kill people, and deliberately left my signature in the account books…"

"No." Zhù Guānwēi cut Chú Róng off. The blood-stained lips beneath the veiled hat curved upward. Her smile was exceptionally chilling — like a ghost dragging itself out of hell: "The killings weren't done with me controlling you."

"What?" Chú Róng's breath stopped abruptly. The composure on his face fell away, replaced by a look of blank shock. His heart beat wildly and unbelievably in his chest.

And what Zhù Guānwēi said next confirmed his guess directly: "You wouldn't even agree to steal spirit pills — how could you be willing to kill? I used the Puppet Gu to forcibly take over your body for a brief period and killed those three people myself."

From beginning to end, Chú Róng had been entirely uninvolved. He hadn't even been an accomplice. He had been a victim, too.

And Zhù Guānwēi felt not a shred of guilt. On the contrary — every time she thought of Chú Róng waking up, looking at his hands drenched in blood, and collapsing in a desperate desire to die, she felt excited and satisfied!

How was this possible?

Hadn't she said she couldn't fully control the original host in the end?

Something came to mind. Chú Róng looked toward Zhù Guānwēi's aged hands, frozen still in midair. Something was on the tip of his tongue.

Ning Yuan spoke, cold and incisive: "You sacrificed lifespan to the mother gu."

Lifespan was the most precious thing a person possessed. Sacrificing lifespan could, to a certain extent, forcibly alter the course of fate against the natural order.

There were cultivators in the estate. For a brief period of time, using Puppet Gu to achieve the effect of soul-transference was not especially difficult. And judging by Zhù Guānwēi's appearance, the amount of lifespan she had sacrificed appeared to have been considerable.

"Yes." Zhù Guānwēi seemed very pleased with Chú Róng's expression at this moment. The curve of her lips was exceedingly faint — yet that smile was colder than a blade dipped in ice: "I sacrificed lifespan and briefly took over your body. I simply didn't expect that the people of the immortal sects would also be such useless trash. I provided so much evidence, and you still managed to walk away intact."

Hadn't the mortal world been saying all along that the immortal sects' rules were iron-clad? For all the crimes Chú Róng had committed, he ought to have been cut to pieces and left without a grave — that was what he deserved!

Zhù Guānwēi couldn't understand where things had gone wrong, or how she had ended up being the one who lost everything.

No.

If it hadn't been for him accidentally transmigrating into the story — according to the original plot, the original host's end would indeed have been exactly as Zhù Guānwēi had wished.

Even if the original host had known in his heart that he hadn't done any of it, under the relentless manipulation, sooner or later he would have begun to waver and doubt himself.

And so in the original text — under the supposed mountain of ironclad evidence — had the original host bowed his head and confessed? And then, one step at a time, walked toward death?

No — that wasn't quite right.

Thinking of the effect of the Puppet Gu — even if the original host hadn't confessed, Zhù Guānwēi could have made him take his own life on a given day. No matter how it played out, the original host couldn't have escaped death.

But why did Zhù Guānwēi hate the original host this deeply?

Deep enough that even knowing the original host was innocent and blameless, she would use every means at her disposal to destroy him?

Chú Róng pressed his lips slightly together. The light in his eyes beneath those long lashes shifted and flowed, impossible to read. He was just about to continue asking — when the sound of a sword dropping to the ground suddenly came from the doorway.

Chú Róng raised his head and looked outside. Cen Yan was standing at the doorway, his face deathly pale. His spiritual sword had fallen beside his foot.

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