He Mu also had no answer. He shook his head, put away the divining compass into his sleeve, and led Wenren Sheng straight to the main gate of Return to One Sword Sect.
They had just landed when a deafening roar echoed.
“Stop right there, don’t run!!!”
Wenren Sheng jumped in fright and hurriedly pushed open the Sword Sect gate, peering inside toward the source of the voice.
Ever since He Mu had dismissed the Sword Sect disciples, the place had long lost its former glory. The dilapidated gate creaked and fell forward with a light push from Wenren Sheng.
Clang!
Wenren Sheng quickly pulled back his hand and looked at the gate that had split in two on the ground. He couldn’t help but furrow his brows.
“It’s all rotten from bugs… Why did the clan leader come to such a rundown place?”
He grumbled and looked toward the training ground. Sure enough, it was lively there, with two figures chasing each other around it.
One of them seemed to be a sword cultivator dressed in a Daoist robe. He clutched a porcelain jar in his arms and ran desperately forward with all his might, while a little old man chased after him without falling behind at all. It was Wenren Jing.
At the same time, a guard dog slowly approached from the side of the fallen gate. It seemed to have anticipated Wenren Sheng and the others’ arrival and sat quietly nearby, its tail swishing back and forth behind it.
“It’s you,” Wenren Sheng bent down and stroked its head. “Why are you still here?”
The dog, however, looked toward Wenren Jing and woofed once, as if urging Wenren Sheng to hurry and stop them.
Wenren Sheng thus stood up and tugged at He Mu’s clothes. “Mountain God.”
He Mu hummed in acknowledgment. He formed a sword art with his hand, and Color Kill flew out in an instant, whipping up a gust of wind.
It flew straight to the center of the Taiji Seal on the training ground, and a barrier abruptly formed between Wenren Jing and the sword cultivator.
Wenren Jing couldn’t stop in time and crashed headfirst into the edge of the barrier. He tumbled backward a couple of rolls and fell down.
“Ouch—”
“Clan leader!” Wenren Sheng let go of He Mu and hurried forward to help him up, grumbling all the while. “You’re so old already. Why were you running so fast?”
Wenren Jing offered no explanation and just kept clutching his head, groaning “ouch” and “ouch” nonstop. His hands tightly grabbed onto Wenren Sheng.
On the other side, He Mu used the hilt of his sword to hook the sword cultivator’s collar and lifted him into the air.
“You’re from Return to One Sword Sect?” He Mu glanced at the jar in his hands. “What’s that you’re holding?”
The sword cultivator hurriedly hid the jar behind him and shouted righteously, “Chen Lian’s soul is still in here. I won’t hand it over to anyone!”
“Fool.”
He Mu sneered. He kicked the man flying dozens of li away. The porcelain jar flew out of the man’s hand as he tumbled.
Color Kill swooped down to catch it steadily on its blade and presented it before He Mu.
“You’re locking up his soul because you’re afraid his sins are too deep and he’ll be dragged to the eighteenth level of hell by the ghostly officials, right?” He Mu shrank the jar to a smaller size and toyed with it between his fingers. “Tell me, whose body were you planning to transfer Chen Lian’s soul into so he could borrow a corpse to return the soul?”
Borrow a corpse to return the soul?
Wenren Sheng helped Wenren Jing up while looking toward He Mu.
Could a dead person have a chance to come back to life?
The mere mention of Chen Lian brought back memories of having his spirit root cut out by him. The pain still lingered in his body, making Wenren Sheng clutch Wenren Jing’s clothes tightly.
“Don’t come back to life…” he murmured.
Wenren Jing, unable to hold back his impatience, cut in and spat at the sword cultivator. “Yeah, come back to life my ass! That scum should go straight to hell!”
“Clan leader, you’re so old. Don’t always shout and yell like that.” Wenren Sheng quickly held him back. “When did you come to Sword Sect? How did you run into him?”
Sure enough, after one shout, Wenren Jing had to gasp for breath three times. He braced his knees and took several deep breaths before saying, “Last time you said the guy who bullied you was dead, so I… I… cough cough!”
“I’ve been waiting here to see if he was really dead clean. Sure enough, I caught this guy sneaking out of here with something, stuffing it into that little jar!”
Wenren Sheng asked, “And then you chased him all the way until now?”
Wenren Jing snorted coldly. “That guard dog was watching the gate for me, so I could focus on catching him!”
It seemed they had arrived just in time.
Wenren Sheng couldn’t help but break out in a cold sweat. If he hadn’t run into the Mountain God on the road for a ride, the clan leader might have been done in by this sword cultivator.
Though this sword cultivator didn’t look all that powerful.
The sword cultivator who had been kicked dozens of li away had completely lost his momentum. He didn’t even have time to wipe the blood from his forehead. He crawled over on his knees to He Mu and clutched at his robes with both hands.
“You’re the Mountain God, right? I-I know…” He swallowed and continued, “I said the wrong thing earlier. Please, please give Chen Lian’s soul back to me. I really can’t let his soul leave. I still have a mission, and there are people who…”
He Mu didn’t like anyone other than Wenren Sheng tugging at his pants like that. He stepped back two paces and said coldly, “You were there that day, so you know what this scum did, right?”
The Three Pure Ones Bell in Wenren Sheng’s bundle trembled slightly and began to emit muffled ringing sounds.
“If you plead for him again, you’ll die together with him.”
The sword cultivator’s eyes dimmed at those words. He covered his face and muttered something frantic under his breath. Then he suddenly lifted his head and looked at Wenren Sheng.
“You… you’re the one Junior Brother captured… that little…”
His throat bobbed as he stood up and staggered over to Wenren Sheng, grabbing his hand haphazardly.
“The Mountain God likes you a lot. Brother, please talk to him for me, okay?”
Wenren Sheng was startled by his sudden intense gaze. He quickly pulled back his hand and retreated half a step behind Wenren Jing.
“I won’t forgive him,” Wenren Sheng looked at him and said softly. “I’ve already forgiven him once.”
When he first met He Mu, he had asked if he wanted to let Chen Lian go. At that time, Wenren Sheng had already been magnanimous once.
It was Chen Lian who wouldn’t let him go. That man would rather devour his own father’s flesh raw than let him live.
The sword cultivator shook his head and forced out an ugly smile.
“That’s not right. Think about it—Chen Lian is only fifteen. What does he understand? If he really goes to hell, he… he’ll never reincarnate! That’s just too cruel!”
After saying that, he looked at Wenren Sheng’s eyes expectantly and said tremulously, “You’re… you’re still a kid. You wouldn’t be that cruel, right?”
Wenren Sheng: “…”
Even He Mu on the side was too lazy to listen to his nonsense. He raised his hand to grip Color Kill’s hilt and said coldly, “Don’t listen to him, Wenren Sheng. Take the Three Pure Ones Bell. I’ll take his life.”
As soon as the bell rang, He Mu could make his head roll in the blink of an eye.
But Wenren Sheng stood still. He slowly released his grip on Wenren Jing’s clothes and fell into a long silence.
Cruel.
He didn’t know how to answer the sword cultivator’s questions.
If it was cruel, sending a fifteen-year-old soul to the eighteenth level of hell, never to reincarnate, did sound like no kind act.
But when his spirit root was cut out, he had been not even ten years old.
Wasn’t that cruel from Chen Lian, Wu Di, and all those informed senior brothers and elders?
Why did these Sword Sect people always think he should be kinder, easily forgiving all their faults?
In their eyes, was he just a “heavenly spiritual root” and not a demon, a human… or any living being?
“That’s too much.”
Wenren Sheng said lowly.
For the first time, he truly felt “anger” surging from deep within his body. A scorching fire burned in his chest, uncontainable, threatening to devour all his emotions.
This was completely different from sulking. He felt furious, irritated, even pained. His teeth itched with the primal urge to tear something to shreds.
He should have gotten angry long ago.
It was just that he had always thought he was still too young, with more important things to do than waste time on such emotions.
But today, after hearing those words, his chest filled only with rage. He wanted to curse this sword cultivator with the ugliest words in the world.
Wenren Sheng took several deep breaths and said nothing. He directly summoned Color Kill from He Mu’s hand and brought the porcelain jar containing Chen Lian’s soul to his own palm.
“You selfish person,” Wenren Sheng gripped the porcelain jar tightly and glared angrily at the sword cultivator. “I don’t want to forgive you or your family!”
With that, he smashed the porcelain jar viciously onto the ground!
Bang!
A wisp of soul immediately flew out from the jar.
The soul was as thin as a layer of white gauze. Upon touching the sunlight, it sizzled from the scorching. It writhed like an earthworm, struggling to crawl back into the jar.
Soon, the ground where the shattered jar lay twisted into a fist-sized vortex, as if with suction, tightly pulling at the soul and refusing to let go!
The sword cultivator was completely stunned. He watched wide-eyed as Chen Lian’s remnant soul was dragged into the Underworld, leaving not even a trace behind.
He opened his mouth, but only vague syllables squeezed from his throat.
“Junior…”
Before he could finish, a blow landed on the back of his neck. He Mu knocked him out cold, and he thudded to the ground.
“…”
Wenren Sheng felt all his anger dissipate completely with that smash.
He let out a long breath and looked blankly at the shattered porcelain jar on the ground.
Gone.
Now, the person who had hurt him, whom he hated and detested, would never appear again in this lifetime.
For some reason, Chen Lian’s words from before his death suddenly surfaced in his mind.
He had said he wanted to be cared about—love or hate, anyone’s would do, as long as it was caring.
Wenren Sheng suddenly thought that perhaps when Chen Lian devoured the heavenly spiritual root to seek death, it was also to disgust him, hoping to make him remember him forever that way.
