Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way - Chapter 195: A God Appears!
“You pieces of trash!”
The voices of the muscular man and Gu Suihan resounded at the same time.
“Huh?”
“What in the…”
All the hooligans looked completely confused. It made sense that their boss was scolding them, but why was that young man from before scolding them too?
Before they could wrap their heads around the situation, the two men spoke in unison again, “You can’t even watch a woman. How the hell do you expect to commit robbery like that?”
“What the hell is going on?” This time, even the muscular man was confused.
“Are you guys professional robbers?” Gu Suihan drew back the curtains and walked out with this sarcastic remark.
“Sir, please help me! You will be handsomely rewarded!”
The woman cried miserably as she fell before Gu Suihan and kowtowed continuously, disregarding the bloodstains on her body. Her chiffony dress had been badly torn in the scuffle, revealing bright patches of fair skin. She was on the verge of being indecently exposed, and her slim figure kept enticing the robbers behind her.
“Look, Sir, our boss is the most…” One of the hooligans had just opened his mouth to speak, but before he could finish the rest of his threat, his head also exploded like a watermelon before his body limply convulsed and collapsed onto the ground.
“Tell me, what sort of reward would I get?” Gu Suihan raised an eyebrow as though he were interested.
“Sir, I will need you to rescue my Young Master first. I’m…I’m only a maid,” pleaded the woman anxiously after she realized that Gu Suihan might be willing to help.
“Your Young Master?” Gu Suihan’s lips twitched, and he looked at the robbers oddly. “You guys have very…strong tastes, I see.”
There was no need to put it plainly. The icy look in Gu Suihan’s eyes made them shudder in fear, but they quickly realized what he was driving at and became angry.
“Sir, I think you are mistaken. We…” The muscular man tried to explain himself, only to be interrupted by a different loud, mocking voice.
Several figures suddenly appeared in the air as though they were fairies descending upon the world. A woman in a green robe carrying an elegant long sword among them had an icy and fierce voice as she sneered at Gu Suihan, “What a heartless person you are! You ought to help those who are suffering in the first place, yet you demand a reward for doing so? Humph!”
Gu Suihan’s gaze paused as he scanned the small jade token on her belt. His expression slowly hardened and his completely indifferent gaze was like a bottomless whirlpool that exuded a nonchalance that could make one’s heart tremble in fear. “They’re from the Dao Origin Sect? Their sect leader is at Peak Origin Core and oversees a thousand mile area nearby.”
The young cultivators couldn’t help but feel their hearts tremble when they saw how Gu Suihan was staring at them so frighteningly. The young lady’s face was pale, but she gritted her teeth and stopped talking. Instead, she slapped a palm against her belt, and her sword rang brightly, its blade gleaming like lightning.
She quickly aimed it at a spot further back. She wasn’t stupid. Based on Gu Suihan’s reaction and tone of voice, it was clear that this young man wasn’t someone she could really afford to offend. She drew her sword because she wanted to help the woman pleading with Gu Suihan, and not because she wanted to attack Gu Suihan.
“Cul-cultivators!! From the Dao Origin Sect…” The robbers were already so terrified that they were trembling on the spot and stared in horror at the shiny blade coming their way.
“Did I say you could do that?” Gu Suihan’s voice suddenly rang out like the voice of heaven. Without any warning, the sword was like a bolt of lightning that had become drunk as it swayed nonstop in mid-air. Shortly after, the young lady let out a scream, and the sword turned into nothing but ash.
“Since you’re all here, then it’s a good time to prove your usefulness,” Gu Suihan’s calm voice resounded once more. The Dao Origin Sect disciples instantly felt the qi around them transform into an invisible cage, chaining them to where they were.
After that, the trees and plants around them turned into swords, the sound of their blades humming filling the air. The plants whooshed through the air to cut off their arms and legs, then pierced their dantian to shatter the spiritual meridians and spiritual roots inside their bodies even as they screamed and shrieked in pain. There was no way they could recover after that.
Swoosh! He flicked a finger and a grayish black qi shot out like a snake, wriggling into the head of the young lady who had shouted at Gu Suihan earlier. As she cried out miserably, a graying mist was drawn out from her head.
He proceeded to swallow all of their souls, then slowly turned and looked down at the robbers who were practically paralyzed as they lay shuddering on the ground. “Bring the young master this woman is referring to here.”
“Y-yes, sir…”
The muscular man was overjoyed when he could see that Gu Suihan didn’t intend to kill him. He ran with all his might into the forest as though he had just survived a great ordeal. In no time, he carried a young man tied up like a piece of ham waiting to be roasted in the oven out from the trees and put him carefully in front of Gu Suihan. Then, he suddenly fell to his knees and started crying and pleading, “Esteemed sir, please spare my life! I didn’t have a choice either! I have 80…”
“Move aside. Stand over there and wait.” Gu Suihan waved his hand impatiently, then used his qi to carry the muscular man back to where he was earlier before he could even respond.
“What…reward would I get?”
Gu Suihan bent his head once more and stared at the trembling woman with his darkened gaze that exuded nonchalance. He flicked his finger and caused a bloody wound in the unconscious young man’s body.
“Young Master! Young Master!” The woman scrambled over to the young man instantly when she heard him let out a cry of pain, as though she had been struck by lightning. She quickly untied the young man, held him in her embrace and whispered something to him.
“Thank you, esteemed sir. I, Li Yu, is forever grateful to you.”
A few moments later, the young man broke free of the woman’s embrace and forced himself to his feet. He bowed and said, “I hail from an influential scholarly family. The clan is declining by the day, but we still have some resources to survive on. If you want spiritual treasures and the like, I’m afraid that while I would love to give you these, I really don’t have any. Please deal with me in any way you wish.”
“Oh?” Gu Suihan’s gaze shifted. This young man looked rather calm on the outside, but he was about to die from nervousness inside. His calm demeanor was slowly beginning to fall apart the longer Gu Suihan remained silent, but he was holding up pretty well still.
“An influential scholarly family, huh…” Gu Suihan muttered these words to himself. After pausing to think, he waved an arm to cause the tree trunks around him to rise into the air. His internal energy was like an ax as it swiftly chopped the wood and joined them to form a large box that resembled a coffin. He used his chin to motion to the young man and the woman to get in. After they got in, he casually scanned the area behind him.
In that instant, the earth shook. The laws of nature gathered and the ground became a giant mouth that was ready to swallow anything in the way. The robbers screamed and pleaded as the ground swallowed them along with everything else, erasing any traces of what happened earlier.
Once one end of the rope used to tie the young man was tied to the back of Gu Suihan’s carriage and the other end used to hold the young man in place inside the makeshift coffin, Lihua gave the command and the carriage continued on its way.
All of this had come to him without any effort.
As Gu Suihan thought about the situation this way, he slowly withdrew the hand he used to hold up the curtain and also stopped looking so deep in thought as his lips curled into an evil smile. He had just been trying to think of a good way to understand the history and networks of the Upper World. He didn’t expect someone to come knocking on his door almost immediately after he had been thinking about it. That saved him a lot of work.
“The great Qin empire has been around 7,600 years. It’s been around for less than 10,000 years, yet it has the power to conquer other lands and could even shift the laws of nature around spacetime to forcibly merge a few large worlds together. I’m becoming more and more convinced…that legend wasn’t made up!”
He shut his eyes and leaned back in the carriage as he slowly digested the memories of the Dao Origin Sect disciples he had swallowed earlier. Without him realizing, his lips had curled into a cruel smile that could really terrify another person.
“Where…did this person appear from?”
About 15 minutes after Gu Suihan had left, a goblin-like old fellow with sweat pouring down his back shot out from behind some rocks. His face was pale as he collapsed on the ground and panted heavily. He stared at the faint traces on the ground and felt a bitterness in his mouth.
He was very certain that Gu Suihan had discovered his presence a long time ago, but did not expose him. Was it because Gu Suihan didn’t think he was worth any effort, or was it because Gu Suihan had some other concerns?
It couldn’t be either of these.
The old goblin instantly dispelled these ridiculous possibilities. After eliminating everything else, only one possibility remained.
He leaned against his walking stick with a bitter look in his eyes. “You…want me to tell the Dao Origin Sect what happened. You want to warn them…is that right?”
“This won’t do. I have to quickly report what happened to everyone else and make sure none of them ever offend this cultivator,” thought the old goblin to himself. He couldn’t help but let out a long sigh when he thought about how he was so scared just now, he didn’t even dare to move an inch.
“There’s something even more terrifying inside that carriage. If we offend that thing, this entire region could turn into a ghost town overnight. This person…his person and body…has the heart of a demon!” The old goblin stroked his white beard, a deep sadness on his wrinkly and genial face.