“Bah, you bastard! And you still have the nerve to call for your young master to save you!” Meng Shiyi spat.
This was the very man Cen Yuchi had sent to Zhan Xingtang to borrow the “Star-fall Stone.”
The man’s emotions seemed extremely unstable, at times he was ecstatic with joy, at times he broke down in tears yet he kept crying out piteously, “Young Master, save me! Cen Yuchi, Young Master Cen…”
Cen Yuchi stood where he was, watching coldly, saying not a word.
Seeing Cen Yuchi’s attitude, the light in the man’s eyes turned to despair. He lay prostrate on the ground, trembling, then suddenly, as if throwing caution to the winds, raised his head and shouted loudly, “Young Master, I was only doing what you ordered me to do!”
“What the hell are you spouting!” Lu Linfeng finally couldn’t hold back and cursed.
After saying this, the man tried to stand up, but a member of the Zhan Xingtang behind him kicked him, knocking him back to the ground. The fall shook loose quite a few things several treasures tumbled out from the man’s robes and scattered across the ground. From their style and markings, it was easy to tell that every one of them came from Ten-Zhang Manor.
Others might not know, but the people of Ten-Zhang Manor drew in a sharp breath the instant they saw those items.
They were unmistakably the compensation gifts Ten-Zhang Manor had sent to Zhan Xingtang.
The man seemed to treasure these valuables greatly. Like a madman, he gathered everything scattered on the ground together with his hands, then suddenly, as if remembering something, snatched up one item, held it up toward Cen Yuchi, and said in a voice full of grief, “Young Master Cen, look! This is what you gave me! You told me to finish those tasks and then take these things and go far, far away! It was all your doing! Young Master Cen, you wouldn’t refuse to save me, would you? Young Master Cen! Look at these, all of these were given to me by you!”
The item clutched in his hand was none other than the mulberry-wood hairpin that Cen Yuchi had often worn in his hair!
If the gold, silver, and jewels could still be dismissed as planted evidence, that mulberry-wood hairpin was enough to confirm that all of this had been carried out on Cen Yuchi’s orders. No one would hand over such a personal, intimate item to a subordinate for no reason unless he was about to do something unspeakable and needed a token that, when seen, was as good as seeing the man himself!
At this point, Cen Yuchi understood everything.
The whole affair was a trap, a snare baited and waiting for him to walk into it himself, so they could close the net on him all at once atop Immortal Feather Peak. And they had won a complete victory.
Cen Yuchi was not the least bit surprised. These people had wanted to deal with him for far more than a day or two. He was only curious about when this scheme had begun when he sent someone to Zhan Xingtang? Or from the archive that recorded the origins of the Star-fall Stone?
Or perhaps, even earlier.
Sure enough, someone immediately pointed at Cen Yuchi and shouted, “Cen Yuchi! So it was you who incited your subordinate to commit such a monstrous act! You’ve gone too far! We might have tolerated your arrogance and tyranny in the past, but this blood debt, how do you intend to repay it?!”
“This man is vicious and evil, slaughtering common folk, sheltering the remnants of the Withered Leaves, cultivating forbidden arts in secret. With such a litany of crimes, he has long been guilty of the ten unforgivable evils! What righteousness could he possibly claim!”
“Don’t forget the Fengcheng Massacre! The lives of thousands of innocent civilians should be repaid today as well!”
“And the slaughter of your fellow disciples on Little South Mountain since Immortal Feather Peak has let that go unpunished, I’ll settle that score for you!”…
That’s how people are: when no one speaks up, no one wants to stir up trouble, but once someone takes the lead, the voices of accusation spread like a virus, growing harder and harder to rein in.
“Cen Yuchi, do you know how his father died?” The few who had just stood up for the broken-sword cultivator were still seething with indignation. One of them rose to his feet and declared loudly to the assembly: “Twenty-eight years ago, the Withered Poison Woman Liu Ao rampaged wantonly across Shangyang, killing countless people, and in a single night slaughtered the entire Cen family. The hundred Immortal Sects therefore banded together, set a net of heaven and earth, and struck Liu Ao down in one blow and his father died in that very battle! This sword is the keepsake his father left him! Cen Yuchi, to repay kindness with enmity like this today, to abandon all honor, do you not fear retribution!”
“Repaying kindness with enmity is nothing new for him! He murdered his fellow disciples and burned Immortal Feather, yet he still has the gall to sit here!”
While everyone carried on at length, none of them noticed that Cen Yuchi’s expression was growing darker and darker, until in an instant, killing intent surfaced.
“I admit it!”
Suddenly, Cen Yuchi’s voice rang out. At his words, everyone stopped their denunciations and turned to look at him.
“I admit it, burning Immortal Feather, slaughtering the people, murdering my fellow disciples, repaying kindness with enmity, abandoning honor. I admit it all.” As Cen Yuchi listened to the chorus of condemnation, he crushed the white jade cup in his hand to powder.
“But since when did exterminating the Withered Poison Woman Liu Ao become such a great kindness that it fell upon my Cen family’s head?”
Seeing that no one answered, Cen Yuchi continued through gritted teeth, his voice thick with hatred: “You killed Liu Ao did my Cen family lose even one person less because of it? I went too far? Repaid kindness with enmity? Abandoned honor? My entire family died protecting the Spirit Score. Tell me, how do you intend to repay me for that kindness! And who was it that threw the Magical Artifact engraved with my Cen family crest onto Little South Mountain, luring Liu Ao to slaughter my whole family? For that grudge, who am I supposed to seek vengeance from!”
“Cen Yuchi! What happened to your family is plain for all to see, it was all Liu Ao’s doing alone! That the artifact was accidentally lost in the chaos is only natural. Don’t twist the truth and confound right and wrong!” someone shouted.
“You can run wild out there all you like, but this is Immortal Feather Peak, and here you show not the slightest restraint, arrogant, spouting wild words. Today, we shall purge the traitor from Immortal Feather Peak!”
Cen Yuchi only found it laughable. He said, “If you spoke of settling a grudge, I’ve made too many enemies to remember them all, so I wouldn’t hold it against you. But you say you’ll purge the traitor from Immortal Feather Peak, are you even worthy?”
The crowd roared: “Cen Yuchi, you have committed countless evils anyone has the right to kill you! Today we all settle scores and repay grudges, and reckon the whole account with you!”
At this, Cen Yuchi rose to his feet and looked out at the crowd. His face was dark and gloomy, and in his eyes crouched, as if congealed, a great beast brimming with rage. Word by word, he said: “Fine. Today I will reckon it with you, account by account!”
With that, Cen Yuchi slowly raised his right hand, and a ball of flame gathered in his palm. When the flames receded, a booklet had appeared in Cen Yuchi’s hand. The booklet seemed to be half of an incomplete scroll, faint wisps of black qi gathering upon it like resentment accumulated over many years, on the verge of breaking free of its bonds, slowly fermenting, turning demonic.
“The Spirit… Spirit Score!” Someone pointed at the booklet in Cen Yuchi’s hand, voice trembling. “I… I saw this booklet twenty-eight years ago. I saw it’s the Spirit Score Liu Ao held in his hand when he slaughtered my entire sect!” As soon as the man finished speaking, all the strength seemed to drain from his body and he collapsed to the ground, his eyes filled with boundless terror, as if he had returned to that blood-soaked night twenty-eight years ago.
“This is the Spirit Score? How could the Spirit Score be in your hands!” Everyone present was utterly astonished.
This Spirit Score was originally a booklet used by the Cen family’s former head, Cen Lan, to record the Magic Treasures and Spirit Tools he had crafted. It also recorded for whom each of these Magical Artifacts had been made and what their capabilities were. Cen Lan’s skill in Artifact Refining was such that no second Artifact Refiner as outstanding as him could be found in the entire Shangyang Continent, so the Magical Artifacts that passed out of his hands were countless, spread across nearly every corner of the Shangyang Continent. And for a cultivator, apart from their own cultivation, the most important thing was the Magical Artifact they used. So whoever held this Spirit Score effectively held the lifelines of half the high-level cultivators of the Shangyang Continent.
As everyone knew, the Spirit Score had previously been seized by Liu Ao. After Liu Ao’s death, everyone had jointly agreed that the Spirit Score should be destroyed to eliminate future trouble, but only half a damaged volume was found in Liu Ao’s possession. At the time, everyone believed the other half had been accidentally destroyed in the chaos. Only now was it truly known that the missing half of the Spirit Score had been in Cen Yuchi’s hands all along.
Cen Yuchi said in a low voice, “This has always been mine.”
With that, he slowly opened the Spirit Score and read out, word by word: “Sun Guangnian, who is this person? Are they still alive? Are they here? Did they take part in the siege of Xiaonan Mountain twenty-eight years ago? Did they drop a Magical Artifact on Xiaonan Mountain?”
“Puyang Bai, who is this person? Are they still alive? Are they here? Did they take part in the siege of Xiaonan Mountain twenty-eight years ago? Did they drop a Magical Artifact on Xiaonan Mountain?”
“Bi Youzhong…” Cen Yuchi smiled. “So you’re here.”
“Cen Yuchi, are you trying to imitate Liu Ao!” someone demanded.
Perhaps it was the memory of the terror Liu Ao had once brought to the Shangyang Continent, or perhaps it was fear of the information recorded in this half of the Spirit Score, but everyone present panicked and fled in all directions.
Cen Yuchi looked at the chaos before him and burst out laughing. “Imitate? When it comes to dealing with you, this is simply the only way.”
“Yuchi!”
Cen Yuchi froze at the shout, and the next second, someone seized the hand holding the Spirit Score in a tight grip.
“Yuchi! Wake up! Do you know what you’re doing!”
He turned his head stiffly toward the speaker. Before him was Mu Linchuan’s face, full of anxiety and worry.
“Admit your fault, and come with me.”
The crimson in Cen Yuchi’s eyes faded, revealing a fragile expression, and tears seemed to be welling in them. For a moment, just that one moment or rather, if he had been given just one more second, he suspected he would have followed Mu Linchuan and left this place. Let others twist right and wrong and confound black and white, he had never cared about that anyway.
But no one gave him time. No one ever had.
“Fire! Cen Yuchi has set the mountain ablaze!”
Mu Linchuan turned to look, only to see raging flames engulfing the entire Heavenly Crane Terrace, cutting off the people’s escape route. The fire spread across the whole side peak; some people screamed as they beat at the flames on their bodies, while others, choked by the smoke, collapsed to the ground coughing violently.
And this time, Cen Yuchi could no longer use the excuse of a youth’s careless mistake to stop the billowing smoke, to escape this unquenchable fire.
“Senior Brother, I’m too late.”
Mu Linchuan’s hand was shaken free. He turned his head and saw Cen Yuchi standing before him, eyes bloodshot.
“You can’t take me away.”
“I can.”
Cen Yuchi shook his head.
It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Mu Linchuan, it was that his sins were beyond forgiveness, that he already owed Mu Linchuan far too much.
“It’s me. It’s me who can never go back.”
His life would have to be returned to Immortal Feather Peak one day, sooner or later.
“Cen Yuchi! After all this, what do you have to say for yourself!”
“Fifteen years ago you set fire to Immortal Feather Peak, leaving Shouyang Peak barren to this day. Immortal Feather Peak, out of old affection, forgave your past and this is how you repay us!”
“Cen Yuchi! Will you burn down this peak as well?”
“A life for a life! Blood debts paid in blood!”
“A life for a life! Blood debts paid in blood!”
The crowd surrounded Cen Yuchi, countless blades pointed at the figure within.
Mu Linchuan stood in front of Cen Yuchi and said, “Everyone, this is a matter of Immortal Feather Peak’s own household. Please allow Immortal Feather Peak to handle it.”
“A traitorous disciple raised by your Immortal Feather Peak, and all of us must suffer for it!”
Mu Linchuan was about to say more when he heard laughter behind him. He turned and saw Cen Yuchi laughing softly.
“Senior Brother, look you can’t take me away.”
With that, Cen Yuchi slowly pulled the blood-jade hairpin from his hair. The hairpin transformed into a Jade Chariot, and Cen Yuchi stood upon it, rising slowly into the air, his whole body wreathed in a layer of flame. He looked down at the crowd, and in his bloodshot eyes there seemed to be ice congealing.
“You say I imitate Liu Ao, but there is one difference between us, she only reads.”
The Spirit Score trembled violently, as if it had come to life. Cen Yuchi released his hand, and the Spirit Score floated before him, its pages flipping rapidly.
“But I know how to use it.”
At the same time, every Spirit Tool on the field began to vibrate as well. The Spirit Tools of cultivators with meager Dharma power broke free of their restraints as if beyond control, rushing toward the Spirit Score!
Sacrifice of All Spirits.
Mu Linchuan flew forward, rushing to Cen Yuchi’s side, but was blocked by an enormous force and could not approach.
He shouted, “Yuchi, you’re mad! Do you want to kill everyone!”
Only sorrow remained in Cen Yuchi’s eyes. “They deserve to die.”
Mu Linchuan lowered his eyes and, in anguish, drew his sword.
It was the only Spirit Tool among the countless Magic Treasures on the field that had not been controlled forged by Cen Yuchi’s own hands. Its name: Bumu.
The instant the blade pierced his chest, driving through his heart, a boundless sea of fire surged up from beneath Cen Yuchi’s feet, rolling and sweeping across heaven and earth. When the flames had burned out, Cen Yuchi had vanished without a trace, as if he had never existed yet Immortal Feather Peak was reborn from the fire, all things growing anew, the mountains bright and the waters fair.