The four of them delayed no longer. With Chen Dong keeping the jade pendant, they followed the path back to the Jian estate.
When they reached the Pavilion of Zen Friends where Master Jian resided, the servants saw the group stepping over the threshold with such imposing momentum that they hurried forward to ask, “Immortal masters, what is this about?”
“We need to see Master Jian,” Shen Zhuo said, his tone brooking no refusal.
“The Master just lost his temper quite badly, and the butler is away, so truly no one can calm him down,” the servant said hesitantly. “Please allow me to announce you first.”
“No need for announcements,” Xie Yuan said, waving his fan as he bypassed the servant and headed straight inside. “We will pay our respects ourselves.”
The study door was slightly ajar. Xie Yuan raised his hand to knock, but in the next instant, the harsh sound of shattering porcelain erupted from within.
“Get out! You group of useless trash! Talk to me once the butler returns; do not bother me!”
Xie Yuan pushed the door open. “If Master Jian is not welcoming, we shall take our leave immediately.”
Upon seeing the visitors, Master Jian’s face cleared slightly.
“So it is Young Hero Xie Yuan,” he said, his gaze sweeping over the four people from different sects. He froze for a moment. “And these others, the young heroes of the Yanxue and Xuanyun Sects?”
A flash of doubt crossed his face, quickly replaced by urgency. “My apologies, my apologies! I was just blinded by rage over some trivial matters. I did not realize such esteemed guests had arrived. Please, come in! Seeing you all together, does it mean there is news of the jade pendant?”
Xie Yuan did not answer. He strolled leisurely to a chair and sat down, his white jade fan swaying gently.
Shen Zhuo said, “The pendant has indeed been found, but we are not yet certain if it is the one Master Jian lost.”
Chen Dong timely pulled the jade pendant from his robe. The moment the ink-colored pendant appeared, Master Jian’s eyes lit up. He immediately rose from behind his desk and stepped forward.
However, just as he reached out to take it, Chen Dong pulled his hand back, making him grab at empty air.
Master Jian’s arm froze in mid-air. His expression darkened, but he forced a smile. “What is the meaning of this, Young Hero?”
Chen Dong did not answer but asked instead, “Is this truly Master Jian’s jade pendant?”
“How could it not be!” Master Jian replied immediately. “Look at this pure white body and moist luster. This quality is rare to find. What else could it be but mine?”
“Pure white?”
The others exchanged looks. Chen Dong asked in confusion, “This is clearly black, is it not?”
Master Jian snapped, “What nonsense are you talking about?”
Shen Zhuo understood and explained, “This jade pendant should originally be pure white. Now, it is entwined with the resentment of a blood feud and views Master Jian as the target of revenge. To keep him from becoming suspicious, the pendant has specifically blinded his perception.”
He turned to Master Jian and asked, “I ask Master Jian to tell us the truth. Where did this pendant actually come from? And what did you do to its original owner to provoke such profound hatred?”
Master Jian’s face turned deathly pale, and his eyes flickered away. “That is not for you to ask! Return the pendant to me quickly, and my Jian family will surely reward you handsomely!”
“Master Jian, do not be anxious,” Chen Qiu said in a softened tone, playing the good cop. “Once we understand the origin and context, we will naturally return it. It is just that when we found this pendant, the thief had already been backlashed by the resentment clinging to it, falling into a frenzy and harming people on the street.”
“That scoundrel must have had impure intentions! It has nothing to do with my pendant!” Master Jian denied it flatly, yet he could not help but ask, “Just who was it that stole the pendant?”
“I wonder if Master Jian recognizes him,” Chen Qiu said. “The man is named Chen Gouzi.”
“Chen Gouzi?” Master Jian’s face filled with rage. “How could it be him? Someone, go find Butler Chen and bring him back!”
Xie Yuan raised an eyebrow and asked, “The butler is not in the estate at this moment?”
Master Jian answered, “He was here earlier. Later, he heard that his younger brother had been knocked unconscious on the street.”
Master Jian paused mid-sentence.
He saw Shen Zhuo nod. “Yes, we were the ones who did that.”
Master Jian was speechless.
His mouth twitched twice before he squeezed out a dry smile. “So, so it was the young heroes who punished that thief. Truly, thank you for your trouble. Since Chen Gouzi is unconscious, can the jade pendant be returned to me now?”
Shen Zhuo did not bite but brought the topic back to the main point: “The matter of Chen Gouzi aside, Master Jian should answer my previous question first.”
Master Jian looked at the composed Shen Zhuo, then at Xie Yuan, who was swaying his fan with an expression that said “I did it, what are you going to do about it,” and finally at the silent brothers from the Yanxue Sect.
He sneered. “It seems the young heroes do not wish to return it.”
Before anyone could respond to his implication, Chen Dong suddenly spoke up, “I feel like something is not right.”
As soon as he finished, the resentment within the jade pendant in his hand suddenly erupted. It did not harm Chen Dong but instead lunged directly toward Master Jian.
The resentment surged into his body, instantly enveloping him.
Master Jian’s eyes turned a terrifying crimson. He reached out into the air, and the pendant in Chen Dong’s hand began to vibrate violently.
Chen Dong gritted his teeth and held on tight, but the power was beyond imagination. His entire arm shook uncontrollably.
Finally, with one slip, the jade pendant flew out of his hand and landed beside Master Jian, hovering in mid-air.
In the next moment, the pendant exploded with a black light several times denser than before. Strands of solid resentment shrieked as they shot toward the four of them!
“Watch out!”
Chen Qiu shouted, violently pushing Chen Dong behind him. He had no time to dodge himself. The deadly aura of malice reflected in his pupils as it lunged toward his face.
Knowing he could not escape, Chen Qiu closed his eyes.
The expected impact did not come.
He opened his eyes to see the white jade fan in Xie Yuan’s hand radiating a magnificent light. The warm white glow poured out like moonlight, freezing the resentment in mid-air.
With a light wave of the fan, the white light pushed forward, dissolving all the resentment in its path.
The white light did not stop, heading straight for Master Jian, who was shrouded in black mist.
The black mist formed by the resentment roared and surged, trying to break free from the restraint of the white light, but the more it struggled, the thinner it became.
In that moment of stalemate between black and white, Shen Zhuo moved.
He bit his fingertip, and a bead of red blood emerged. Spiritual light ignited from his finger.
Using blood as ink and his finger as a brush, he drew a complete blood circle counter-clockwise on Master Jian’s forehead.
“Retrograde.”
The dense black mist enveloping Master Jian was forcibly pulled away, surging back into the jade pendant.
The crimson in his eyes vanished instantly. His body convulsed violently.
The jade pendant hovering in the air lost its support and suddenly plummeted.
Just before it hit the ground, a clear glow from the white jade fan wrapped around it in time. The white light supported the pendant and flew it back into Xie Yuan’s palm.
Shen Zhuo had been worried that Xie Yuan would be eroded by the resentment, but seeing him isolate the pendant with spiritual light, he felt relieved.
He looked back at Master Jian, who sat slumped on the ground, the blood-red color gone from his eyes.
Shen Zhuo stepped closer, drawing his long sword and holding it loosely at his side. He looked down at the despondent Master Jian. “Now, can you speak?”
Master Jian looked up with difficulty.
“I will speak, I will tell you everything,” he looked at Shen Zhuo tremblingly, then cast a terrified glance at the white light in Xie Yuan’s hand. His lips quivered for a long time. “That jade pendant was obtained from the Song family.”
“It really is the Song family’s pendant?” Chen Qiu blurted out.
Master Jian lowered his head and began to recall in fragments: “Master Song and I were best friends. About five years ago, the Song family became famous because of the power of the jade pendant, which led to many coveting it. When the Feng family announced they were coming out of seclusion, he felt a great disaster was approaching. He sent me a secret letter, entrusting me to take the jade pendant and his daughter out of the Song estate.”
“Who knew that on that very night, everyone in the Song family, not a single soul was left alive. All died by the sword.”
“The sword?” Chen Qiu keenly noticed something was wrong. “But the rumors say the Song estate was burned to the ground by a fire from Fengyan Mountain.”
Master Jian seemed to see that terrifying scene again, his body shaking like chaff. “It is true, they were all sword wounds. I had just taken the Song family’s young daughter and returned to my estate when news came the next day that the Song family had been exterminated by Fengyan Mountain and burned to ashes.”
“So,” Xie Yuan interjected in a gentle tone, a trace of a smile even lingering at the corners of his mouth, “you kept the jade pendant for yourself?”
These words caused Master Jian to break out in a cold sweat.
“No! How can you call it keeping it for myself!” he argued urgently. “I, I was raising his daughter for him! Yes, Song Yan is in my estate! All these years, I have provided her with good food and drink, treating her like my own daughter! How can you call that greed? At most, at most, it was just taking a small fee for looking after her.”
His voice grew lower and lower until it was almost inaudible.
“Song Yan?” Chen Qiu repeated the name. “The Song family did indeed have an orphaned daughter whose whereabouts were unknown. However, Song Yan has suffered from an eye ailment since childhood. The world thought a blind girl could not survive on her own and had long since passed away. I did not expect she was kept in your estate.”
Master Jian nodded quickly. “Earlier, Fellow Daoist Shen asked me why there was a three-story building in the west of the estate. That was rebuilt exactly like her courtyard back in the Song estate when I brought her in. She naturally prefers quiet, so it was built in the most secluded corner as she wished.”
“In that case, you have treated her quite well,” Shen Zhuo sneered.
Master Jian quickly agreed, “Yes, yes! That is the only bloodline of my best friend; of course I must take good care of her!”
“Is that so?” Xie Yuan swayed his fan. “Then why is she imprisoned on the third floor with two copper locks, and why did you deliberately spread rumors that the building is haunted?”
Master Jian swallowed. “You, you have already been inside?”
Xie Yuan was noncommittal, saying only, “The doors are locked with copper. How do you think we should have gotten in?”
The little confidence Master Jian had managed to scrape together collapsed completely. He slumped down, forced to admit: “The jade pendant was indeed obtained from Song Yan’s hand.”
Shen Zhuo pressed again: “Since you got the pendant, why do you still keep Song Yan imprisoned?”
Master Jian was drenched in cold sweat and dared not hide anything further. “At first, at first, I only occasionally borrowed the pendant from the Song girl. Who knew that after getting used to using it, she refused to lend it anymore, saying it was a life-saving item left by her father and she would rather die than give it up. I originally just wanted to lock her up for a few days to wear down her stubbornness.”
The implication of what he left unsaid was clear to everyone present.
At first, it was borrowing; then, once used to it, he was unwilling to return it, feeling the pendant should belong to him. Song Yan’s refusal became his excuse for imprisonment and robbery.
The so-called “wearing down her stubbornness” was merely a cover for his self-deception. His act of forcibly performing a blood-binding ritual had completely triggered the blood-aura within the pendant, identifying Master Jian as the target for revenge.
And the source of that blood-aura was already self-evident: it was the lives of the dozens of people in the Song family who were wiped out overnight.
Shen Zhuo sighed softly and said, “It seems to completely resolve the resentment on this jade pendant, we must make another trip to that building.”
“This matter will be left to you two,” Chen Qiu said, looking at the pendant in Xie Yuan’s hand with a solemn expression. “Earlier, Fellow Daoist Shen mentioned that resentment is a precursor to demonic energy. This is a grave matter. Xiao Dong and I must return to our sect immediately to report to the elders.”
It was only logical to return to the sect to report the reappearance of demonic energy.
Shen Zhuo nodded in understanding. “Very well. If the Demon Venerable truly reappears in the world, your master should indeed be informed to make plans early.”
Chen Qiu cupped his hands. “Thank you for your understanding, Fellow Daoist Shen. This matter is urgent; we brothers will take our leave now.”
He pulled the still-dazed Chen Dong, who then snapped out of it and hurried to bow in farewell.
Once the two had left, Xie Yuan rose from his chair and slowly paced over to the deathly pale Master Jian.
“Since Master Jian has been so honest, we should not have to climb through windows on our visit to the building this time, should we?”
“I would also like to ask for one thing: where is the key to that building now?”
“It is, it is in Butler Chen’s hands,” Master Jian answered tremblingly.
Xie Yuan looked up at Shen Zhuo, who was standing nearby. “Should we go find this Butler Chen?”
“I suspect he cannot be found,” Shen Zhuo said. “Since the pendant was in Chen Gouzi’s hands, Butler Chen must have been involved in the plan. I suspect that since Master Jian has been eroded by resentment and became tyrannical over the last two years, Butler Chen had already harbored resentment, leading him to conspire with his brother to steal the pendant.”
“I suspect so as well. Now that he realizes the matter has been exposed, why would he walk into a trap?” The fan in Xie Yuan’s hand was still swaying cheerfully. “In that case, it seems the two of us will have to climb through that window once more.”