Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way - Chapter 192: A Change In Attitude (1)

“Hand it over.” Great Elder Lu pointed at the Huangquan Evil Ghost in Gu Suihan’s hand. It looked defeated as Gu Suihan held his saber against its forehead. Great Elder Lu had no idea that Gu Suihan didn’t actually have the ability to kill the Evil Ghost and thought that Gu Suihan was keeping it alive just to threaten the rest of them.

“Relax. There are others who are on their way.” Gu Suihan waved his arm in a leisurely fashion and got rid of the rubble around them to reveal a green jade floor. A small table appeared from nowhere along with a few little hay stools.

Gu Suihan sat down on one of them, took out a teapot, put in some tea leaves, then injected some of his internal energy into it. The water in the teapot instantly warmed up and he poured the tea out into cups. The lovely fragrance of tea filled the air as the wind blew past. It was faint and carried the smell of the osmanthus flower. There was no qi in the fragrance at all. This was ordinary tea that any normal person on the street drank.

“What do you want?” Great Elder Lu was a little puzzled by Gu Suihan’s actions, but since he was at Nascent Change, he didn’t need to fear Gu Suihan. So, after a moment of hesitation, he sat down on one of the stools first. He took a cup of tea and narrowed his eyes as he observed Gu Suihan through the steam rising from the cup, hoping to find more clues from Gu Suihan’s expression.

“Once the rest of them arrive, everything will be revealed.” Gu Suihan raised his cup and drank the hot tea down in one gulp with a smile. “Tea is something that’s best drunk freshly brewed. Once it turns cold, it won’t be nice to drink anymore.”

“The Youthful Clarity Sect had no feud with you, so why did you scheme against us like that?” asked Zhou Lingfeng as he tried to hold his temper back. He still had a nasty look on his face.

“Sect Leader Zhou, actually, part of this matter is pure coincidence. Besides, now that the sect has completely gone under, aren’t all the hidden backup resources of the sect yours and yours alone?” said Gu Suihan very deliberately as he raised his cup.

“You…even if that’s not the case, I’m the sect leader of the Youthful Clarity Sect, after all.”

Zhou Lingfeng had already thought of how everything was now his alone, but the fact that the enemy who destroyed the sect which had raised him was right in front of him, yet he couldn’t kill him, made Zhou Lingfeng rather annoyed and frustrated. He gripped his cup tightly and stared straight at Gu Suihan.

“Being the sect leader is one thing, while the sect…is another thing. Sect Leader Zhou, you’re a clever man, so I wouldn’t think you’d be so hung up on this, right? Besides, it’s hard to say if this is a blessing or a curse.” Gu Suihan looked into the distance, chuckled, then refilled his cup with tea.

Zhou Lingfeng’s heart tensed up when he listened to Gu Suihan’s slow and steady words and felt a little unsure about his understanding of them. So, he tried to ask more, “What do you mean by that?”

“They’re here!” Gu Suihan didn’t answer him. Instead, he looked up and spotted a black shadow that was getting bigger and bigger as it came closer.

“You little asshole! How dare you scheme against me! I’m going to kill you!”

Before the black shadow could even come close enough to be recognized, his voice could be heard first. Marahu’s furious roar was enough to shake the clouds away, his thunderous anger audible even a hundred miles off.

“Just a moment – don’t you want to conquer this world anymore?” said Gu Suihan as he ignored the green spear coming toward him and casually glanced at the table in front of him.

“Hmm?” The demonic qi in the air suddenly stopped moving, creating a chilling wind that blew so hard that Gu Suihan’s messy black hair looked like crazy snakes. The spear stopped just three inches away from Gu Suihan’s face. Then, as Marahu grunted suspiciously, he made the spear fly toward him, and it crashed violently into the ground, piercing a deep hole into the soil.

“Everyone, please take a seat!” Gu Suihan looked at everyone with a faint smile, stretched his arm out at the hay stools around the table to motion them to sit, then sat back down on his own stool.

“Are you thinking of using that thing as a bargaining chip?” asked You Hantian testily. His gaze flickered as he glanced at the unconscious Evil Ghost on the ground before plonking himself down and getting himself some tea.

“No. I discovered that this matter is a little messy, so I wanted to help everyone settle everything properly.” Gu Suihan uttered these seemingly random words as he served everyone tea and tapped the rim of his own cup with a bent finger.

Before they could figure out what in the world he was trying to say, Gu Suihan pointed at You Hantian and said, “You’re from the empire. I don’t know exactly which part you’re from, but…I’m very certain you’re not doing particularly well there. Otherwise, why would you be sent to this lousy place to guard the Devil Abyss and watch over these sects? You want to capture the Huangquan Evil Ghost because you’re hoping that these could help to improve your standing. Or perhaps…I have to add on credit for the death of Qingming.”

“That’s right. You’re a great senior who’s had to restart his cultivation journey, alright.” You Hantian raised an eyebrow and downed his cup of tea before confirming Gu Suihan’s words calmly.

Gu Suihan smiled faintly at this response and moved his arm to point at Great Elder Lu very nonchalantly. “You’re the most senior of the Seven Kill Sect. Even though You Hantian forced you to give up the position of Sect Leader, the legacies and secret realm of the sect are still in your hands. Therefore, you’re not actually worried or bothered by whether this world will eventually be conquered by the devils or not. You helped the rest earlier on with the attitude of just trying your best, but the result didn’t really matter. Your main goal was to make sure that You Hantian left as soon as possible so that you could regain control of the Seven Kill Sect. Am I right?”

Great Elder Lu looked gravely at Gu Suihan for a few moments, then slowly looked down and stroked his gray beard and said in a low voice, “You’re right.”

Gu Suihan had succinctly pointed out the real situation behind these two men, which made Zhou Lingfeng and the rest feel rather interested to hear more.

The next person Gu Suihan looked at was Zhou Lingfeng. “Sect Leader Zhou. Even though it looks like your sect has been completely annihilated and you’ve suffered a terrible loss, but it’s turned out for the better. Now, everything that the Youthful Clarity Sect has is yours and yours alone. And if you want to move to the Upper World, you just need to make use of your connections to Shuang’er to get close enough to Su Yuqing. It wouldn’t be too difficult for you to fit in there. Besides…the Upper World is a lot better than this awful place, isn’t it?”

Zhou Lingfeng’s eyes instantly lit up at these words, but he quickly retorted, “And how am I supposed to get close to Su Yuqing?”

“Hoho…” Gu Suihan chuckled and waved his hand about carelessly. “You should know how better than I would. If you hadn’t alerted him, would Su Yuqing suddenly come all the way from the Upper World in such a great hurry? And he even happened to arrive exactly when everyone was in trouble. If my guess is correct, you did this in order to prevent You Hantian from killing you off after making use of you. And because you contacted Su Yuqing in time, he was able to rescue his own legitimate daughter. This favor is waaaaay bigger than you imagine.”

“Why?” Zhou Lingfeng was clearly bent on asking everything he could without holding back. He knew that Su Yuqing would repay him for doing him this favor, but he didn’t understand Gu Suihan’s last sentence.

Gu Suihan thought about what happened back then and had a faint smile of admiration on his face. “Did you know? For that little girl’s sake, he gave up the sword fiendish qi he had accumulated for a thousand years and the sword will that was about to make a breakthrough just so that he could create a sword domain. That’s as good as cutting off his future. Unless something drastic happens later on such that he can somehow reach the next stage, he’ll spend the rest of his life stuck at Beginner Divine Soul.”

After he said that, he turned to look at the other sect leaders and said with a smile, “Sect Leader Zhou has Su Yuqing to fall back on, so he’s got a backup plan ready. The rest of you…actually have one too!” He looked knowingly toward You Hantian.

“HAHAHA!” You Hantian laughed loudly. “What a good strategy, plan, and scheme.” He now looked more gravely at Gu Suihan and was now more determined to be on good terms with this young man.

When it came to these very senior cultivators whom nobody knew who they really were or what their true abilities were, most cultivators would either choose to be on good terms if possible, or if this wasn’t possible, they would hide as faraway as possible and just respect these seniors from afar.

As for some dumbasses in those novels which attempt to kill such senior cultivators just because they weren’t as powerful as before without any good reason…in reality, such idiots would have died before getting through Foundation Establishment. It wasn’t so bad to be the type who didn’t know how to scheme against or manipulate others, but one was doomed if one didn’t have brains.

The fact that this senior cultivator had been able to restart his cultivation journey meant that he had countless trump cards that nobody knew about. The road of cultivation was filled with countless mysterious spells and techniques. God-level methods and treasures were as many as the stars in the universe. Nobody knew if this senior cultivator might suddenly pull out his trump cards and whip out a weapon that could kill you instantly.

“Actually, all of you have been stuck at Origin Core for many years, right? I might be able to help you get to Nascent Change.”

Gu Suihan calmly put his teacup down and looked at the sect leaders, who were barely containing their excitement as they stared at him with burning gazes. “You’ve been hiding in this world, which is really nothing more than a waste of time. There are few resources here and very little qi. And the biggest problem is that none of you discovered the most important thing.”

“What’s the most important thing?” asked Zhan Wuchang anxiously as the rest also looked like they were dying to hear the answer.

“You’ve gotten the order of things wrong,” said Gu Suihan nonchalantly. “ You have too many bondages, you obsess over things that don’t come to any conclusion, so you aren’t able to focus on cultivation. On top of that, all of you are the only ones who know the most in this world, and you’re the top cultivators around here. You have no interaction with others and no new experiences. Even if I gave you another 10,000 years, you wouldn’t reach the next level.“