Chapter Sixty-Nine

"Cen Yan?"

Chú Róng's beautiful brow furrowed slightly. Cen Yan's cultivation had been abolished. By all rights he should have been in the cultivation world recovering from his injuries. Why had he appeared in the estate?

And where was Hè Míng?

He had let Cen Yan come to the mortal realm alone?

Cen Yan appeared not to have heard Chú Róng's words. His face was deathly white. His eyes were hollow and lost — as though what he was seeing before him was entirely beyond his imagination.

Judging by that expression, he had likely already heard everything in the room.

The light in Chú Róng's eyes flickered. He raised his eyelids and looked askance at the young man outside the door. His pale lips parted slightly, and a soft, half-laughing scoff escaped: "Cen Yan — do you still think I deserved everything I got?"

The young man's voice was soft and beguiling, yet his tone was like iced water saturated with frost — utterly devoid of warmth.

Cen Yan's lips trembled faintly. His throat was as if gripped tight by something, making even breathing difficult. The eyes that had always carried impatience were entirely bloodshot now.

So this was the truth? Chú Róng had truly been innocent from start to finish. He had never harmed a single disciple of Qingyang Heavenly Sect.

Cen Yan's complexion was ashen. He looked as though he simply could not accept it. He shook his head over and over, and stepped back one step at a time. He didn't even bend to pick up the spiritual sword that had fallen at his feet.

Chú Róng's long lashes lowered. He cast a light glance at the spiritual sword, then let his luminous gaze drift back to Cen Yan's lost, devastated face. His expression was mocking and contemptuous: "What — the truth is right in front of you, and you still don't believe it?"

Ha.

Coward.

Chú Róng had no goodwill toward Cen Yan whatsoever. Whatever fondness he had held for this protagonist before transmigrating had evaporated entirely the moment Cen Yan handed him over like a trade commodity.

Now that he had left Qingyang Heavenly Sect, if Cen Yan tried to get a grip on him again — not a chance!

Chú Róng stopped paying Cen Yan any further attention. He pressed his lips together slightly, tilted his head back to look at the tall man standing at his side, the faint red at his eye corners casting a vivid brilliance: "Could you do me a favour?"

The depths of Ning Yuan's eyes immediately darkened. His large hand tightened slightly, closing around the jade-like fingers in his palm. His voice carried a low rasp: "Of course."

He didn't even ask what the favour was before agreeing outright?

Chú Róng's jade-pale fingertips moved slightly. He let the man hold his hand. He thought for a moment, then spoke: "Do you have a Recording Stone?"

He remembered that in the original text there was a type of spiritual stone with special functions — one that could, like modern smart devices, record images from all directions in full, three-dimensional detail.

However, cultivation resources were scarce in the world of cultivation, and Recording Stones were rare beyond rare. Only a handful of the Hundred Immortal Sects possessed them — but Qīngxū Sect's resources were the greatest in the immortal sects, and they should have one.

He wanted to use the Recording Stone to capture the entirety of Zhù Guānwēi's confession, then make it public to all the Hundred Immortal Sects — to thoroughly restore the original host's innocence. He had no desire to experience being forced into a confession a third time.

Zhù Guānwēi had wanted to throw the immortal sects into chaos and have the original host destroyed without a grave — so he would repay her in kind. That painstaking malice was something Zhù Guānwēi herself should have a chance to savour.

Given how the Hundred Immortal Sects operated, Zhù Guānwēi's fate would be a hundred times, a thousand times worse than the original host's ending in the original text. She had best be prepared to endure it.

Ning Yuan saw through Chú Róng's thinking at a glance. He turned his hand and retrieved a Recording Stone from his storage artefact. He curved a finger and directed a thread of spiritual energy into it. The Recording Stone activated, emitting a luminous white glow from within.

Ning Yuan waved his hand, directing the Recording Stone toward Zhù Guānwēi: "Repeat everything you just said. Every word."

The estate might house cultivators, but Zhù Guānwēi had never seen a Recording Stone and didn't know what it did. She knew she could not resist. Without concealing a single detail, she confessed everything she had done all over again.

She knew she likely could not escape death.

Yet Zhù Guānwēi felt no fear in her heart. She didn't think of this as a confession. Every single one of her deeds was her merit, her medal of honour.

It was only a great pity that she had lost on one single move and failed to kill this bastard.

That face — every time she saw it, she wanted to destroy it.

The lowly maidservant deserved to die!

The bastard child deserved to die too!

Hearing it all again with his own ears, Cen Yan could no longer deceive himself. His face was as if struck by slap after resounding slap, each one making his past conduct look more and more like a joke.

He had wrongly accused the person who had saved his life.

He had returned grace with enmity.

He…was nothing but an ungrateful wretch.

The wall of Cen Yan's psychological defences was like a dam eaten through by ant-holes — a great flood of regret and self-recrimination poured through all at once, rushing straight to his throat. A thick, metallic taste filled his lips and teeth very quickly.

He stumbled and collapsed to the ground. His mouth felt as though he had swallowed countless burning coals, scorching him so that he could only gasp with his mouth open, a hoarse rattling in his throat: "I'm sorry…I truly…I'm sorry."

Chú Róng paid no attention, as though the youth breaking down before him was no different from the weeds growing at his feet.

If it hadn't been for his accidental transmigration into the story, the original host's only path would have been death. A single apology, as light as a feather — how could it possibly pay for the original host's life? There was no such easy bargain in this world.

The recording ended. The Recording Stone dimmed its light and drifted back to Ning Yuan's hand.

Ning Yuan held the Recording Stone out before Chú Róng and lowered his eyes to look at the devastatingly beautiful face close before him: "Whatever you want to do, go ahead and do it."

Whatever Chú Róng chose to do, he was there behind him.

Chú Róng had navigated the professional world in the modern era. Reading the room and catching undertones came naturally to him. How could he fail to hear the man's unspoken meaning? The deepest part of his heart gave an almost imperceptible stir. He raised his hand and took the Recording Stone. His crystalline fingertips against the translucent spiritual stone were particularly striking.

Ning Yuan's deep, shadowed gaze darkened again. He raised his eyes outward. The mastermind behind the Puppet Gu was now dealt with. Next was the matter of handling the accomplices.

"Wait here for a moment — I'll be right back." Ning Yuan released the slender fingers in his palm. The cultivators inside the estate — he was not going to spare a single one.

Guessing what Ning Yuan was going to do, Chú Róng gave a slight nod. His scattered black hair swayed like water ripples, and he watched Ning Yuan walk out.

The next moment, centred on the inner courtyard, powerful spiritual energy undulations spread through the estate. The cultivators stationed within sensed it. Their expressions darkened abruptly. What kind of audacious wretch had the nerve to cause trouble in the estate?

The several cultivators followed the sound to the inner courtyard. What met their eyes was a tall, upright silhouette — an overwhelming aura of do-not-approach radiating from his entire person.

When they made out who it was, the faces of the several cultivators who had been drawing their artefacts went instantly deathly pale: "N — Ning Yuan, Immortal Venerable?"

The Immortal Venerable wasn't in seclusion — how could he be in the estate?

The man didn't spare them so much as a glance. He clasped his hands behind his back. His face, beautiful as a deity's, wore an expression as cold as snow-melt from a high mountain. His voice was not loud, yet each word carried the weight of a thousand mountains: "Die where you stand — or I won't mind doing it myself."

Cold sweat broke out on the foreheads of the several cultivators in an instant. Had they offended the Immortal Venerable somehow? Why was the Immortal Venerable asking for their lives the moment he opened his mouth?

The several people trembled uncontrollably. Before Ning Yuan's seclusion he had been in the God Transformation stage, and his cultivation would only have grown higher since his emergence. At their Golden Core level, they stood no chance against him. That left only one option: run!

The several men exchanged a glance across the distance, and bolted.

But Ning Yuan had set his mind on killing them — how would he let them escape? He flicked one wide sleeve. Several surges of spiritual energy packed with tremendous crushing force moved at extreme speed and, as cleanly as one slices clay figures, severed the heads from all of them.

"Ahhhh——!!"

"Ahhhh——!!"

Screams rang out. The next moment — thud, thud, thud—— several heads went rolling across the ground, their wide-open eyes still staring, as if unable to believe what had just happened.

The steward and several servants came running at the sound. When they saw the headless corpses all across the ground and the brilliant red blood splattered everywhere, their four limbs immediately went limp with terror and they crumpled to the ground.

What — what — what…was going on?

And who was this person? How had he come to be in the estate?

Ning Yuan didn't spare a glance at the steward whose face had gone bloodless. He turned back to the room.

Chú Róng didn't ask any questions. He glanced sideways at Ning Yuan, then turned his gaze back to the Recording Stone. Suddenly, in his abdomen, a familiar and violent pain erupted — like a surging, crashing tide sweeping through his entire body, not giving him a single moment to react.

Chú Róng's vision blackened. He grabbed the Recording Stone tight. Every knuckle on his fingers went white. He vomited out a mouthful of blood from his mouth, and his jade-white face — which had barely recovered any colour — went blanched again instantly. His supple, flexible body seemed to have all its energy drained, and collapsed limply forward.

Ning Yuan's imposing frame stopped short. In his usually fathomless eyes, a tidal wave of shock rose. He stretched out his solid, long arms and caught the person cleanly: "Róng?"

"Chú Róng!" The iron smell of blood spread through the air. Cen Yan came back to himself. His expression changed drastically. He scrambled up on hands and feet, moved into the room in several quick steps, and rushed toward the person whose face was twisted with agony.

However, before he could get close to Chú Róng, a beam of luminous light shot out from Chú Róng's waist.

Cen Yan was caught off guard. He was struck square in the chest and sent flying backward. He crashed heavily to the ground and vomited out a mouthful of blood. His lapels soaked through with spots of red.

And yet Cen Yan seemed not to notice. His reddened eyes stared fixedly at the person in Ning Yuan's arms. Chú Róng's raven-wing lashes lay lowered. His brows were creased with pain. Cold sweat beaded on his pale forehead and slid along his hairline. The vivid red blood trailing from the corner of his lips looked like red plum blossoms scattered in the snow — desolate and beautiful at once.

"What happened to him?" Cen Yan coughed out the blood in his mouth, his heart burning with anxiety. Something came to him, and his voice suddenly shot up: "Is he having an episode?"

No — more accurately, the offspring gu was acting up.

Otherwise, why would Chú Róng be vomiting blood for no reason?

Chú Róng was indeed in an offspring-gu episode. Yet Ning Yuan had witnessed his episodes many times, but this was the first time he had ever seen him vomit blood.

A mortal's body was too fragile. The unexpected development caused even Ning Yuan — who never changed expression even if a mountain collapsed before him — to feel a sliver of panic inside.

He had to get Chú Róng back to Qīngxū Sect as fast as possible and have Yún Sōng remove the offspring gu.

Ning Yuan didn't dare delay even for a moment. He bent down and lifted Chú Róng to carry him back to the Spirit Canal. Just as he stepped out through the doorway, his peripheral vision swept back to the still-unmoving Zhù Guānwēi.

The Zhù Guānwēi who had been unable to move a moment before — her body began to move again, beyond her control. With the stiff, rigid steps of a puppet, she followed behind Ning Yuan.

"Do you have a way to save him?" Cen Yan clutched his chest, staggering to his feet. He hadn't been cultivating for very long and had only heard of Puppet Gu — he didn't know how to remove it.

But Ning Yuan was different. Qīngxū Sect was full of talent, with several medical cultivators alone.

Ning Yuan looked down at him with disdain from above. His gaze was as cold as thousand-year ice: "Cen Yan — I abolished your cultivation once. I can do it a second time."

Cen Yan knew. The feeling of having one's cultivation abolished was something he would never forget for the rest of his life.

But Cen Yan stared at the barely-conscious Chú Róng. This was the first time he had ever watched Chú Róng have an episode with his own eyes.

His entire person was curled up weakly in Ning Yuan's arms. It looked as though every bone in his body had been removed. He didn't have the strength to lift even a finger. In his fragility, he looked like a glass lamp — one wrong move and he would shatter to pieces.

Cen Yan's heart gave a fierce, agonising wrench. Chú Róng had never deceived him — not once. And yet he had never believed him.

Cen Yan clenched both fists tight. His fingernails dug deep into his palms. Blood seeped from between his fingers. And yet he couldn't feel any pain.

His throat felt as though a blunt knife was grinding inside it. After swallowing with great difficulty, he forced out a cracked, hoarse sound: "Leave Zhù Guānwēi to me. The Hundred Immortal Sects are still at Qingyang Heavenly Sect — I'll take her back. I'll have her confess in front of everyone, and restore Chú Róng's innocence. Consider it… paying back a little of what I owe him."

But Cen Yan had stabbed Chú Róng in the back more than once. Ning Yuan didn't trust him.

"The best way to repay him is to never go near him again." Ning Yuan held Chú Róng and left. In the four months past, he had seen it very clearly — every piece of trouble Chú Róng had faced, which one of them hadn't had something to do with Cen Yan?

Cen Yan's idea of repayment was a joke.

Cen Yan's heart felt like it had been struck by a heavy hammer. His gaze went flat and dark.

He grabbed the lapels of his robe at the chest, vomited out another great mouthful of blood, could no longer stand, stumbled, and collapsed back to the ground. His face was entirely hollow.

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