Chapter Eighty One

"Chú Róng?" Lián Cí looked up at the strikingly beautiful face of the young man overhead. This was the second time he had seen Chú Róng's true appearance — and still he couldn't help but lose himself momentarily.

Such an immortal bearing and jade-like features. Truly rare in this world.

Hè Míng's mind was also slightly dazed. Chú Róng had been right under his nose for more than three years, and he had never once noticed that beneath that ugly, hideous mask, there was a face this devastatingly beautiful.

Even a saint placed before it would be hard pressed to remain unmoved.

Péi Zhàn slowly raised his head. His gold-tinted eyes fixed intently on the young man's slender figure. Two months apart — and Chú Róng seemed, if anything, to have grown even more striking than before.

Péi Zhàn's throat shifted involuntarily. He stepped forward of his own accord, moving to reach for that figure.

Another upright silhouette swept past him first and moved ahead, a refined, elegant face lit with joy as it reached upward toward the sky: "You came to find me, didn't you?"

The things he had said to Chú Róng inside the secret realm — had Chú Róng taken them to heart? Was that why he had come to Qingyang — because he was willing to come back to his side?

He always knew it. Chú Róng liked him. How could he possibly stay by Ning Yuan's side?

Cen Yan's voice was not loud, but it was audible to everyone present.

The words Cen Yan had said before going to the ancient land's secret realm suddenly surfaced in Hè Míng's mind. Hè Míng's mind snapped sharply to attention. He turned his head and said in a low, sharp voice: "Yan'er — stop talking nonsense!"

Immortal Venerable Ning Yuan was right there — was Cen Yan out of his mind?!

Besides — there was absolutely no way he would ever allow Chú Róng to return to the sect!

"Master, Chú Róng, he is……" Cen Yan disagreed and furrowed his brow, about to argue with Hè Míng — when a mocking scoff drifted down from above.

Chú Róng's red lips curved. A sardonic smile played at his jade-white face. He stepped casually forward one step, and the powerful pressure radiating from his entire body swept through the entire front hall like sharp blades wrapped in a terrifying force: "How very skilled you are at gilding your own face. Who said I came to find you?"

Chú Róng hadn't missed the change in Hè Míng's expression. He saw at a glance what the man was thinking.

Hah.

Still the same as before. This level of self-importance.

He had looked down on Qingyang even before recovering his memories. Let alone after — he was the young master of the Chú family. A paltry Qingyang wasn't even worth his notice.

Hè Míng and the others were caught completely off guard. The pressure crushed them — their legs buckled, and they tumbled ignominiously to the ground. The weight on their shoulders and backs felt like a mountain being pressed down on them, their bodies bending against their will, inch by inch.

This— this pressure was……?

Lián Cí's group went pale-faced. A terrifying and unbelievable thought swept over their minds, leaving them unable to even breathe properly.

Péi Zhàn braced himself against the ground with both hands, barely keeping himself from lying flat. His pupils contracted uncontrollably: "You're really Nascent Soul?!"

There was no mistake. This was unquestionably the aura of Nascent Soul.

Back when the mountain-guarding array had been activated some years ago, Péi Zhàn had once passed through Dùfǎ Temple and had a brief encounter with Grand Master Kōng Wèn. He had felt the same aura emanating from the Grand Master's person.

Incomparably powerful.

A world of difference from Golden Core.

The look of joy drained completely from Cen Yan's face in an instant. It was filled entirely with disbelief. So the Hundred Immortal Sects had not been wrong after all. Ning Yuan hadn't been building up Chú Róng's reputation. Chú Róng was truly Nascent Soul!

For several hundred years, countless cultivators had dreamed of breaking through to Nascent Soul and becoming the cultivation world's third Nascent Soul great cultivator — and in the end, it had been Chú Róng who got there first.

Most staggeringly of all — from start to finish, it had taken only two months.

Two months. Lián Cí didn't even dare contemplate it — what terrifying gifts Chú Róng must possess, and what immense glory the sect Chú Róng belonged to must be basking in.

And yet none of that had anything to do with Qingyang anymore.

If only — by way of the marriage contract — they had kept Chú Róng at Qingyang and made him a part of the sect, Qingyang would have become the third sect among the Hundred Immortal Sects to possess a Nascent Soul great cultivator. What would they have had to fear about the sect's standing?

But all those possibilities had been destroyed, little by little, over the past three-plus years.

Thinking of all the things that had been done to Chú Róng in the past, a tide of belated regret and remorse crashed over Lián Cí and submerged him, leaving him deeply uncomfortable.

"What of it." The scorn on Chú Róng's face only deepened. The pressure radiating from his person grew more intense still.

In the next instant, several loud thuds of knees hitting the ground rang out. Under the crushing force of the pressure, Lián Cí's group collapsed to the ground as one, the pain twisting their faces and draining them even paler.

But Cen Yan seemed utterly oblivious. He kept his neck held high and looked stubbornly at Chú Róng, as though he absolutely had to get an answer: "When did you……?"

He hadn't known anything at all.

Chú Róng did not respond to Cen Yan. His gaze swept over each of the people below, one by one. He spread his slender, pale palms and traced several restriction seals in the air, then gathered several streams of spiritual energy in his palms, sending the restriction seals and the spiritual energy together to strike each of them in turn.

"Ahh——!!"

Howls of agony rang out before the hall.

Hè Míng and Lián Cí curled on the ground, coughing up blood. Their cultivation was forcibly knocked down by two full stages — from mid Golden Core to Great Completion of Foundation Establishment.

Péi Zhàn's cultivation was knocked back to what it had been before he had entered the secret realm, and his palm was pierced through by the spiritual energy, blood streaming freely — the very hand he had used to choke Chú Róng by the throat.

Cen Yan's cultivation also fell back to early Golden Core. A long gash was opened across his arm, the tendons of his hand cleanly and neatly severed. Blood soaked through his clothing. There was not a trace of color left on his face.

"You held a sword to kill me. I destroyed one of your arms. That's fair." Chú Róng said coldly.

Previously, Ning Yuan had sought justice on his behalf — that had been Ning Yuan's affair. What Qingyang's people owed him, he would collect himself. The spiritual energy he had driven into Cen Yan and the others contained restriction seals. Within a hundred years, their injuries would not heal, nor would they be able to continue cultivating. Their cultivation stages would be frozen in place without advancement.

—— Having recovered his memories, Chú Róng had remembered all the spells and techniques he had learned in the Chú family three hundred years ago. A few restriction seals were nothing at all to him — trivially easy.

Cold sweat beaded on Cen Yan's forehead. Enduring the pain, he said: "I'm sorry. I was the one who failed you — whether you want to kill me or cut me apart, I have not a single word of complaint."

Chú Róng did not respond. Instead, he narrowed his eyes and looked around at the assembled people, his tone cooling by several degrees: "Where is Xú Zǐyáng?"

The scores with Cen Yan and the others were settled. Now it was time to settle accounts with the real ringleader.

What Xú Zǐyáng had done to him — Chú Róng had not forgotten. The side effects of the Entanglement of Spring Desire had tormented him for an entire day and night, nearly driving him to death through sheer agony.

He could spare Cen Yan and the rest. But Xú Zǐyáng — he would absolutely kill.

The words fell, and Cen Yan and the others all paused blankly, strange expressions crossing their faces.

Chú Róng furrowed his brow slightly. He thought Cen Yan's group might be trying to shield Xú Zǐyáng, and was just about to force them to call the man out — when a cool, flat voice came from his side: "He's dead."

Dead?

Chú Róng turned his head quickly and looked at the man who had spoken: "When did this happen?"

Ning Yuan lowered his gaze. His eyes settled on Chú Róng's beauty-illuminated face. His tone was completely without inflection, as though discussing something trivial and inconsequential: "I struck him with severe injuries — every bone and meridian in his body shattered. Then I placed a restriction seal so the injuries could not be treated. The day I took you away, he died from the pain."

Xú Zǐyáng had already been dead that long?

No wonder — the past few times he had encountered the people from Qingyang, he had not seen Xú Zǐyáng. And even for such an important event as the Dragon Vein Ancient Land, Xú Zǐyáng had not gone.

So Xú Zǐyáng had already been dead all this time.

A blank look passed over Chú Róng's face. He asked, puzzled: "Why did you never tell me?"

They had been together day and night for all this time, and Ning Yuan had not mentioned it with a single word.

Daring to drug Chú Róng — Ning Yuan could not possibly have let Xú Zǐyáng live. It was just that at the time, Chú Róng was still a mortal. He had feared that the ruthlessness of his methods would frighten Chú Róng and drive him away — and so he had never brought it up.

Ning Yuan bent a finger and let it brush lightly across the corners of the person's rosy lips. His throat gave a small roll: "A lowly and contemptible wretch — not worth dirtying your ears with."

Chú Róng didn't flinch away. Judging by the reactions of Cen Yan and the others, what Ning Yuan said was true.

Though it was a pity he couldn't take revenge with his own hands, the end result was the same. The obstruction that had been lodged in his chest all this time dissipated, little by little. He turned back and looked down at Cen Yan, and asked a question no one expected: "Do they know you've fallen into demonic possession?"

Fallen into…… what?

Lián Cí and Hè Míng forgot their pain for a moment. They turned sharply to look at Cen Yan, eyes wide with shock.

The righteous sects and the demonic path were sworn enemies. If someone within the righteous sects was found to have fallen into demonic possession, the sect had to purge them internally — otherwise, the entire sect would face annihilation.

Cen Yan clutched his injured arm, entirely at a loss, not understanding what Chú Róng could possibly mean.

Him?

Demonic possession?

"It seems Qingyang still hasn't noticed." Chú Róng said meaningfully — but said nothing more. After all, the real reason he had come to Qingyang wasn't to catch up on old times.

Whether Cen Yan fell into demonic possession or not was nothing to do with Chú Róng. A demonic beast's spiritual awareness had a profound effect on one's nature. And Cen Yan had no dragon breath — which meant his fate was destined to be nothing like how it had ended in the original novel.

Chú Róng's mood eased a little more. He settled his thoughts, closed his eyes slightly, his long lashes sweeping down and casting a shadow below them, and released his spiritual consciousness to trace the location of the evil energy.

As that powerful spiritual consciousness swept over everyone present, their scalps prickled and their hearts lurched — feeling as though they were being seen through from the inside out. But not one of them dared move.

Having locked onto the evil energy's location, Chú Róng tilted his head and glanced at Ning Yuan.

Ning Yuan understood without a word being spoken. He steered the Spirit Canal toward the outer gate's back mountain. Two months had passed and the evil energy had eroded a black, pitch-dark gap in the barrier sealing it. Around the edges of the gap, something like a living thing writhed without rest, gnawing outward without pause.

Overall, however, it would still be a long time before the evil energy broke into a full rampage.

Chú Róng's mind eased. He looked up and gazed toward the direction of Wùsōng Residence in the distance. His luminous eyes flickered. He leaped down from the Spirit Canal.

Ning Yuan followed close behind him. The two of them landed one after the other in the inner courtyard of Wùsōng Residence.

The courtyard was completely still. Below the winding corridor, rose-tinted light lay spread across the ground, drawing out the crisscrossing shadows of the branches on either side of the walkway.

Contrary to Chú Róng's expectations, Wùsōng Residence looked exactly as it had when he had left — with no apparent change.

Chú Róng surveyed the courtyard and walked over to the room he had previously lived in. He raised his hand gently and pushed the door open. Inside was equally spotless — not the faintest sign of change. Even the pot of orchids sitting on the windowsill was in exactly the same spot as before, as though he were still living here.

Without needing to guess, he already knew whose doing this was.

He was still thinking it when footsteps sounded outside the door. A sturdy figure came striding toward the room. Seeing the door standing wide open, his expression changed drastically: "This is the Young Master's room — who gave permission to just walk in——Young— Young Master?!"

Yunzhi froze in the doorway, eyes fixed unblinking on the young man standing by the windowsill. The expression on his dark, tanned face went utterly blank. His large hand went slack without thinking, and the broom he was holding fell to the ground with a clatter.