Chapter Seventy-Two

The sugar cake was soft and sweet, melting the moment it touched his tongue, and in an instant drove away most of the bitter medicine taste from his mouth.

Chú Róng let out a breath of relief. The furrow in his brow smoothed open. In the bright light of the hall, his dense, long lashes cast wavering shadows, while the faint touch of crimson at the corners of his eyes was breathtaking in its beauty.

Ning Yuan's breath gave a slight hitch. The deep pools of his eyes darkened a shade. He fed the person in his arms another piece of sugar cake: "The accumulated toxins in your body are substantial. You'll need to take the antidote continuously for two months before the toxins can be fully cleared."

Two months?

Chú Róng listened with somewhat distracted attention. The corner of his gaze drifted inadvertently to the rows upon rows of garments and accessories arranged throughout the hall — a dazzling array of items that nearly blinded him.

"These are…?" Chú Róng still had a piece of sugar cake in his mouth, which made his voice come out somewhat soft and muffled.

Ning Yuan could not help but pick up another piece of sugar cake and offer it to his lips. His low voice carried a faint trace of roughness: "Your personal effects."

Only then did Chú Róng remember — several days ago, Ning Yuan had given instructions to the Inner Door Steward about this. He parted his lips and took a bite of the sugar cake. His long lashes trembled, and something stirred faintly again in his heart.

—

Qingyang Heavenly Sect.

Inside Wusong Lodge, branching shadows crisscrossed the corridor. Yunzhi's tall, broad frame stood like a mountain in silent vigil before the room's door.

On the other side of the door, Hè Míng kept watch at the bedside, gazing at the refined young man lying unconscious on the couch. His hand moved ceaselessly over his salt-and-pepper beard, and his kind, gentle features were creased with worry.

What in the world had happened to Yǎn'er?

Why did he keep bringing up Chú Róng?

Hè Míng's thoughts were a tangled knot, and before he could make any sense of them, a sound-transmission talisman drifted into Wusong Lodge. Lian Ci's weary voice came from within: "People have arrived from Qīngxū Sect. Hè Míng, come to the main hall as soon as you can."

Had there not been people left from Qīngxū Sect at the sect already — why were more arriving?

Hè Míng stroked his beard several times, turning it over in his mind, then rose and left the room. At the doorway, he pulled his expression into a severe look and warned: "Keep a close watch on Yǎn'er. If anything else happens to him, I'll hold you alone responsible!"

Yunzhi lowered his head and endured the reprimand in silence.

Once Hè Míng's figure had disappeared from Wusong Lodge, he turned back. At some point he did not know, the person on the couch had opened their eyes. Black pupils stared blankly up at the canopy of the bed, their gaze hollow and numb.

—

Hè Míng rushed to the main hall. The Qīngxū Sect delegation had already arrived. At their head was an elder — the Second Elder of Qīngxū Sect — white-haired yet with a youthful complexion, possessing an authority that needed no display of temper.

Hè Míng smiled and moved forward to greet the Second Elder, intending to bow in respect. The Second Elder raised a hand to stop him, and stepped into the hall as if entering his own sect — entirely at ease — letting his gaze travel over the assembled Hundred Immortal Sects without a trace of emotion.

Many of those present held no small amount of standing in the cultivation world, yet before Qīngxū Sect, not one of them dared to voice a single objection.

It was Lian Ci, as host, who stepped forward to open the conversation: "We were not expecting the Second Elder's arrival. Might it be that the Immortal Venerable has a directive to convey to us?"

"Indeed, I come on the Immortal Venerable's instruction — there are certain truths that need to be made known to everyone present." The Second Elder did not look at Lian Ci. He took it upon himself to sit in the seat of honor at the head of the main hall. His clear, resonant voice was entirely at odds with the full head of white hair above it.

The truth?

The assembled cultivators exchanged bewildered glances. What truth?

The Second Elder offered no further explanation. From within his sleeve he produced an object and opened it before everyone present: "Everyone — do you recognize this?"

"A recording stone?" Tiānjī Sect gathered intelligence from across the world, and Hè Tíng recognized the object in the Second Elder's hand in an instant. The smile on his face receded by a fraction.

Recording stones were rare in the cultivation world — near impossible to buy at any price — and many sect members had never seen one, though they had all heard something of its function.

The confusion on everyone's faces only deepened. What did a recording stone have to do with the truth?

The Second Elder did not waste words. He curved a finger and channeled spiritual power into the recording stone, and before the eyes of all present, released the images stored within: "Everyone open your eyes and look carefully — at what the truth truly is!"

His words had scarcely fallen before a long, clear sequence of projected images appeared before them.

The assembled cultivators held their breath, watching the scenes unfold frame by frame, eyes widening little by little in disbelief.

A deathly silence spread through the main hall. The people inside seemed to have been placed under an immobilization spell. Even after the recording stone's images came to an end, not a single person spoke for a long while.

Lian Ci gripped the armrests of the seat of honor, his expression awash with shock. How was it possible? Chú Róng had been a victim from beginning to end — the sect disciples had not been killed by him at all!

Then did that not mean they had… been wrongly blaming Chú Róng all along?

Hè Míng's eyes went as wide as brass bells. His hands shook. He rubbed his palms together and tugged out several hairs from his own beard without even noticing. All the evidence Yǎn'er had uncovered — it had all been deliberately planted by someone with intent, to use Yǎn'er's hand to kill Chú Róng?

Péi Zhàn's gilded eyes opened wide. His neatly trimmed nails dug deep into his palms. So — this was the whole truth?

Chú Róng had truly been innocent all along!

Nán Xíngyě pressed his thin lips together. Shadows gathered across his matchlessly handsome face. That woman surnamed Zhù had planted Puppet Gu in Chú Róng — she deserved to die!

Nán Xíngyě possessed extraordinary talent and an equally lofty spirit. He had never deigned to trouble himself over mortals. This was the first time he had ever felt such intense killing intent toward one — so fierce that he wanted to drag the woman from the images out before him and cut her to pieces ten thousand times over, until the hatred in his chest was spent.

As a medical cultivator, Jīng Héng understood better than anyone just how insidious the Puppet Gu was. His face — ambiguous as to its gender even at the best of times — had gone utterly cold in both complexion and expression, sending a chill through all who looked at him.

Yún Tán's five fingers clenched tight around the sandalwood prayer beads in his hand, each knuckle draining white. Within his eyes — deep and still as a well, devoid of sorrow or joy — a violent tide surged up.

The warm, handsome lines of Hè Tíng's face froze one by one as his smile turned rigid. His slender fingers tightened, crushing the teacup in his hand.

Crack—

The teacup shattered. Hè Tíng's palm closed around the broken porcelain shards. Tea mixed with blood soaked through his sleeve — and the sound jolted everyone back to their senses.

Towering fury erupted from every chest in the hall, so fierce it might have ignited into raging flame.

"So all along it was that Zhù bitch pulling the strings behind the scenes." Duàn Lěng clenched both fists, the veins on the backs of his hands standing sharply out. The killing intent churning in his eyes was enough to make one's heart seize.

No wonder Chánghé Sect had searched the entire cultivation world without finding a single lead. The culprit had been in the mortal realm all along — hidden in the prestigious estate of a marquis, with a handful of cultivators as her accomplices!

Líng Quán ground his teeth together. The expression on his face was dark and fearsome: "A woman's heart is the most venomous of all. Not only did she sow discord until our sects were killing each other, she nearly caused us to compound the wrong — nearly caused us to murder Young Master Chú!"

The faces of all the assembled cultivators could not help but conjure the image of a countenance as beautiful as an immortal's. The very thought that they had nearly driven a person of such radiant, ethereal grace to their death made the fury in their hearts climb several degrees higher.

From within the crowd, someone — no one could tell who — snarled: "I want to kill this vile woman!"

"Agreed!" The cultivators responded as one. Voices of condemnation rang out through the hall: "Let's go — to the mortal realm! We will cut through the entire estate and win justice for our fallen disciples, and justice for Young Master Chú!"

"There is no need to make that trip." Just as the Hundred Immortal Sects were about to rise and depart, the Second Elder spoke with perfect timing: "The accomplices within the estate have already been dealt with by the Immortal Venerable. As for the mastermind—"

The Second Elder drew out the words with a meaningful pause. He raised a hand toward the attending disciples waiting outside the hall. In the next moment, two disciples entered, one on either side escorting a figure in a veiled hat.

The figure was dressed in rich, elegant clothing, with a delicate, slender build, the distinctive powdery fragrance of a woman about her person — clearly a woman at a single glance.

The two disciples showed no consideration whatsoever, and threw the woman roughly down into the center of the hall. They clasped their hands in a bow toward the Second Elder: "Elder, the person has been brought."

The Second Elder waved them off, letting the two disciples step back. He pointed at the motionless figure on the floor and unhurriedly continued his earlier words: "On the Immortal Venerable's order, the mastermind Zhù Guānwēi is hereby delivered to you all for judgment."

Zhù Guānwēi had been listening to the exchange, and it finally dawned on her that something had gone very wrong. Beneath the veiled hat, her face turned deathly white in an instant. Endless panic and fear surged up inside her, destroying every last vestige of composure she had maintained as a noble lady of the capital.

"No! You can't do this to me!" This was supposed to have been the fate she had arranged for Chú Róng. How had it ended up falling on her own head?

There were cultivators at the estate. Zhù Guānwēi knew all too well how ruthless the methods of the immortal sects could be. She had prepared herself — she had known she would likely die. But she had not imagined it would be like this.

With so many sects here at once, she did not even dare think about what kind of torment she was about to endure.

"Do you people know who I am? My husband is the Marquis — if you dare lay a hand on me, you make enemies of the Marquis's estate, enemies of the court, enemies of the entire mortal world!" Zhù Guānwēi shrieked, her voice cracking and shrill, and dreadful to hear.

The Second Elder's brow creased in displeasure, and he added one more sentence: "The Immortal Venerable's instruction is that you must not show mercy."

Jīng Héng lowered his frostily half-lidded eyes and contributed a sentence of his own: "Rest assured, everyone — with this one present, I will not allow her to die easily."

The two sentences, one after the other, were like oil poured onto a fire. The fury of the assembled cultivators blazed in an instant to its peak.

It was impossible to tell who struck first. A sword gleaming with cold light, moving as if peeling a turnip, sliced off all five of Zhù Guānwēi's fingers.

Pffft— blood spurted out. Five bloody fingers rolled across the floor. Zhù Guānwēi's mouth opened wide, and she let out a wail of agony.

To every ear in the hall, it was nothing but deeply satisfying.

Then came the second person, slicing off the remaining five fingers on Zhù Guānwēi's other hand.

The third removed half of one of her feet.

The fourth severed the tendons in her hands.

The fifth severed the tendons in her feet.

The sixth lifted the veiled hat, revealing Zhù Guānwēi's aged, wrinkled face with its sagging skin — the result of the lifespan she had sacrificed. They drew two daggers and drove them into her eyes.

The sharp points of the daggers churned around inside her eye sockets, stirring her eyeballs into two bloody masses of pulp that spilled from the empty sockets like two streams of bloody tears.

The seventh drove two long needles clean through both of Zhù Guānwēi's ears.

The eighth raised a sword and cut out her tongue, taking half her jaw with it.

……

In the hall, screams of agony rang out one after another, yet not one person stopped.

Yún Tán pressed his five fingers together, held them upright before himself, closed his eyes, and softly intoned: "Amitābha."

He gazed past the brutality unfolding in the hall as though it were not there, with no intention of intervening whatsoever.

By the time everyone had vented enough of the hatred in their hearts, Zhù Guānwēi at the center of the hall — her internal organs ruptured, the meridians throughout her body shattered inch by inch — had been reduced to a mass of mangled flesh with no breath left in it, lying in a pool of blood, no longer resembling anything human.

Hè Tíng still did not feel it was enough. He curved his lips in a languid smile, not a trace of warmth in his eyes: "Sect Master Lian, if I remember correctly — four months ago, Qingyang Heavenly Sect had a problem with demon beasts?"

Tiānjī Sect was renowned for gathering intelligence from across the world, and Lian Ci was not surprised that Hè Tíng had heard of the demon beast attack. He glanced at the mass of flesh on the floor and asked impassively: "What does Sect Master Hè wish to say? Speak freely."

Hè Tíng did not mince words: "Are there any demon beasts still in the vicinity?"

"No demon beasts." All the demon beasts had been slaughtered in the previous incident. But Lian Ci's tone shifted: "There are wild animals, however — no small number of them."

Hè Tíng gave a nod of approval, as though the answer satisfied him entirely. He turned to the assembled sects and said: "Leaving the corpse lying here is an eyesore. Why not throw it into the mountain behind the sect — it would make a fine meal for the wild animals."

The assembled sects could not have asked for more. One life was nowhere near enough to repay all the disciples their sects had lost.

Líng Quán volunteered at once, seized a tatter of bloodied clothing from the floor, and began dragging Zhù Guānwēi's remains toward the door.

"Hold on." Jīng Héng suddenly called out to stop him. From within his sleeve, he produced a porcelain vial, pulled out the stopper, and poured every bit of the powder inside over the remains: "This substance has a powerful attractive effect on wild animals."

He intended to leave Zhù Guānwēi without even bones to bury.

—

And thus, Zhù Guānwēi finally came to know, in full, the fate that had been written in the original novel for Chú Róng.

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Sorry for the long wait~