Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way - Chapter 190: A Blessing? Or Misfortune?

“Who in the world was that?” The elderly monk shook as he got up and calmed his heaving emotions down as he threw You Hantian a nasty look.

“No idea, but…I’m very happy.” You Hantian dodged the long staff that had come toward him and swung his sword to unleash a blade glow measuring 300 meters before turning to grin at the monk with a look of schadenfreude. Regardless of their earlier feud, Gu Suihan had indeed reprimanded this bunch of monks, and that really made their day as cultivators. They had been bullied by these damned monks for a long time now.

And whenever they came to a point where they were ready to fight the monks, the monks would get scared and retreat. Their skin was so thick; they were perfect examples of what it meant to be shameless.

“This fellow always knows exactly what everyone’s bottom line is, which can really tire one out and make everyone hate him to the core,” thought You Hantian as he wondered if he ought to continue hiding what he knew about Gu Suihan. If he did that, it would resolve the feud between them, and Gu Suihan would even owe him one. The young man had already escaped anyway.

As for the Huangquan Evil Ghost, everyone had already agreed to put the blame on the monks. They just needed to reseal the entrance to the Devil Abyss, and they’d be able to get away with it. But it was going to be hard to convince Zhou Lingfeng…after all, his sect that had been passed down from generation to generation had been destroyed by Gu Suihan to a point where there was nothing left. It would be more surprising if he didn’t chop Gu Suihan’s soul into eight large pieces and roast them for a thousand years.

This was always the thought process of a cultivator. Nobody remained an enemy forever. The only thing they thought about all the time was how they could benefit.

As for the Seven Kill Sect? You Hantian was someone from the empire, so whether the Seven Kill Sect survived or went extinct had nothing to do with him. The only person who would be worried about the sect would be Great Elder Lu. Not him.

Things were much clearer now. You Hantian proceeded to defend himself against the devils’ attacks distractedly as he thought about whether his plan was feasible.

Thoughts ran through his head rapidly, and he finally decided that he wasn’t going to help either side. He was just going to stand aside and watch. He’d help the side that won.

After he used telepathy to communicate his plans to the other sect leaders, he received positive responses from them in no time.

And so, they suddenly put in more effort to gather all the devils together and yelled out, “Great Elder Lu, Sect Leader Zhou, Gu Suihan, and the Evil Ghost have gone towards the Seven Kill Sect. We’ll stall these fellows here, so both of you need to hurry over and capture them alive.”

Great Elder Lu couldn’t read minds and had no idea that You Hantian had already reached an agreement with the rest. So, he nodded and exchanged glances with Zhou Lingfeng before they both fought off the devils around them and flew toward the Seven Kill Sect.

“The seal over the Devil Abyss is broken, and countless devils have come pouring out from beneath. They’ll be busy fighting the devils and won’t be able to catch up so quickly. But staying alive is the most important thing no matter what, so we can only spend 7 or 8 minutes here. Any more, and we’d be in danger,” said the Evil Ghost to Gu Suihan after thinking about it for a moment, as though he were dispensing advice.

“There aren’t any characters we need to be wary of within the Seven Kill Sect right now, so we can just kill our way in. Anybody in our way shall die,” said Gu Suihan in a clear voice as he stood in front of the entrance to the sect with his saber in hand.

Immediately after he said those words, the heads of the two disciples guarding the entrance went flying. Blood spurted out and splattered all over the ground.

“I’m taking these souls!” Gu Suihan shot qi out of his finger and easily pulled the souls of the two disciples he had just killed out.

“Nothing…” Gu Suihan led the way and sprinted toward the First Peak of the Seven Kill Sect. “The First Peak must have it…”

“Who’s there?”

“A ghost?”

“AHH!”

“We’ve been invaded! Defend against the enemy!”

Howls of pain, shouts of panic, and the sound of spells being cast turned the quiet Seven Kill Sect into a cacophony of wails.

Anybody they saw was killed and died on the spot. The lifeless bodies that littered the areas they went through dried up and turned into powder in the wind. Their blood splattered all over the translucent jade walls and slabs, slowly forming a red glow in the air.

“You’ve recovered?” Gu Suihan glanced at the Evil Ghost that had become larger in size as he stood in the main hall of the First Peak and did not go further in.

“I’m doing alright!” The Evil Ghost grinned widely. The stench of blood from the pinkish-red bloodstains between its teeth suddenly filled the air, and it made one frown and feel nauseous.

“Based on the memories of those lowly fellows, the secret realm’s legacy is actually in the hands of Great Elder Lu, including the innermost storeroom of the sect. Since that’s the case…I’ll have to make other plans slowly. We’ve done all this in vain.”

Gu Suihan frowned and walked to the middle of the main hall, muttering as he went, “But I still think that there are clues inside the meditation room that the sect leader uses for seclusion.”

“This guy…really never gives up,” said the Evil Ghost as it spat out some leftover bones in its mouth. It used its three-meter odd tall body to smash right through the door frame and used its head to ram through any beams in the way.

The Evil Ghost had just made it to the center when it noticed that Gu Suihan was standing outside a door made from rock. It looked over and instantly felt an extremely sinister aura. “There’s something…dangerous here.”

Gu Suihan raised an eyebrow at these words and said, “This is a Dark Ghosts and Fiends formation. It can block off one’s spiritual sense, impede one’s spiritual vision and make one lose all five senses once inside. Vengeful spirits and malicious ghosts will harass you nonstop, so if you’re not careful enough, you could die inside there very easily.”

“Ghosts and fiends?” The Evil Ghost grinned and waved its claws about as it dashed in excitedly.

“That makes it a lot simpler.” Gu Suihan smiled as he saw the Evil Ghost suddenly disappear within the formation.

He could break this formation, but it would take him some time to do so. However, the one thing he didn’t have was time, so trying to break the formation on his own might cost him his life instead. Thankfully, the Huangquan Evil Ghost was around. Ghosts and fiends were like supplements to this creature.

Pop! The sound of a bubble bursting rang out, and the Evil Ghost slowly appeared in front of the door. It looked relaxed as it sat on the floor and glanced up at Gu Suihan with a gleeful expression on its face.

Bam! Gu Suihan shot a beam of qi from his finger and blasted the door open. He ignored the Evil Ghost and walked around it to get into the meditation room.

“What’s…this?” the Evil Ghost’s voice rang out from behind Gu Suihan. It was asking about the three strange formation diagrams inside the completely empty meditation room.

They were mysterious and incomprehensible but carried a tinge of the presence of spacetime. They took up almost the entire meditation room, which wasn’t very large in the first place.

“These are formations. Teleportation formations. Three diagrams means that they lead to three different places.”

Gu Suihan’s expression instantly fell. There were no labels to indicate the destinations of these three diagrams, so he had to pick one of the three randomly. He was certain that one of them went directly to the headquarters of the empire. You Hantian worked for them, so he definitely needed a way to travel there and back.

As for the other two…nobody knew where the hell these two led to.

“We have to choose one out of three?!” The Evil Ghost looked equally dismayed.

Even an idiot knew the consequences of picking the wrong one. If they were unlucky, they might find themselves smack in the middle of the empire’s headquarters. Not only would the Evil Ghost be captured, but Gu Suihan would too. He would end up just waiting for You Hantian to return and torture him.

“I used some deductions to find the place with the most concentrated levels of qi. Who knew this would lead to both a blessing and misfortune at the same time.” Gu Suihan swallowed a few more pills with a wry smile on his face.

He hadn’t found this place purely by luck. He had used a sort of divination spell to do so. It wasn’t some rare, god level technique either. Some cultivators who loved raiding tombs liked using this technique too: it was the Meridian Tap Dragon Searching Qi Finding spell.

Among all the places in the First Peak, this place had the most concentrated levels of qi as well as other leading signs, which was why Gu Suihan had gone toward this place.

The good part was, they had to use this teleportation formation to escape this place sooner or later. Discovering it this early had saved them a lot of effort.

The bad part was, there were three formations that led to three different places and they had no idea which was which. If they chose the wrong one, they wouldn’t be able to escape.

“Senior sister…”

Meanwhile, nobody had the time or the energy to care about Shuang’er and Jingjing since they were protected by the flying ship in the sky. Shuang’er had a powerful father, after all. Nobody knew how Gu Suihan made Su Yuqing and Marahu disappear suddenly, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that neither had died. Why else would Gu Suihan have run like some crazy person?

Shuang’er was young, but she wasn’t stupid. After being among cultivators for so long, she could understand such obvious things, so she wasn’t too worried about her father. She was much more worried about the barely breathing Jingjing who looked like she was about to die.

As the vehicle of a cultivator all the way at Divine Soul, this flying ship wasn’t just a run of the mill ship. This deck alone was made from an evergreen narra wood that had been nurtured for 10,000 years. It was based on the element of wood and was good for recuperation.

So, while Jingjing was still lying weakly on it and barely breathing, her superficial wounds had all healed up and her life wasn’t in danger.

“Don’t worry, junior sister. Try and think if you have any item that can help to bring Senior Su back here, or anything that can tell him where you are,” said Jingjing weakly as her pale lips trembled.

“An item? Hmm…” Shuang’er paused to think for a while, then suddenly reached for the pendant on her belt. She remembered what Su Yuqing had told her about this pendant. He said that a wisp of his aura was imprinted on it, so when necessary, she could crush it and he would know where she was and he would come and rescue her.

With that in mind, Shuang’er’s youthful face broke into a smile. She removed the pendant from her belt and waved it in Jingjing’s face as though she were boasting, then blew out internal energy to shatter the pendant.

“So…it’s true after all. You could be incredibly talented and come across the most amazing opportunities in life, but…nothing beats having a powerful mom and dad…”