Pu Yehai patiently brushed the thick dust from the wooden table and placed a memorial tablet in its center.
"Master, forgive your useless disciple. Your great vengeance… this lifetime, I will never be able to avenge it for you…"
His hand was as cold as ice as it gently caressed the carved words on the tablet. On it, the name clearly stood out—Hao Yinqin, who had just fallen.
When Hao Yinqin set out for Dongman City, Pu Yehai had once tried to dissuade him.
But his words had no effect. For this day, his master had prepared for countless years. He knew his persuasion was pointless, yet Hao Yinqin had raised him and his brother, and he could not betray his conscience.
Even if his master was but a demon cultivator…
The icy hand fell limply, Pu Yehai's eyes dimming.
"Master, you deceived me.
Perhaps you never thought I would really climb to the top floor of the Scripture Pavilion. That volume you locked away under countless seals, the one on special constitutions—I read it…"
Pu Yehai stared blankly at the tablet, his voice low. "The Diseased Body is not fated to survive only by cultivating demonic arts. You knew there was another path, one far less painful, yet you forced me into servitude, a dog by your side, running and bleeding for you day after day…
The debt of raising you gave us, my brother and I have repaid in full."
He slit his wrist, releasing streams of ashen-white qi that coiled around the tablet and drew out the final wisp of lingering soul.
Hao Yinqin's eyes bulged in fury. "You cannot do this to me! The top floor of the Scripture Pavilion is forbidden ground. Without my order, how could you dare enter? You cannot kill me! I always planned to hand the You Yan Gate to you!"
Pu Yehai's black-and-white eyes fixed upon him, his pale face void of warmth.
"Master, You Yan Gate is about to become another's possession. What you meant to leave me is nothing but your refuse. I have no need of it."
His voice was flat. The ashen qi twisted into invisible cords that bound Hao Yinqin's last wisp of divine sense.
Hao Yinqin's expression turned ghastly. Panic filled his eyes. "Disciple, everything I did was for your sake! Even on Gu Ling Mountain, I saved you! You cannot commit the crime of killing your master!"
Pu Yehai did not waver. "Following at your side all these years, I understood your intent. Once you unified the Eastern Wilderness, you could not risk having no one trustworthy by your side. I just happened to be your best choice."
Hao Yinqin's face darkened in rage. "No matter my true motives, both you and your brother owe your lives to me! This is how you repay your benefactor? Not even leaving me a chance at reincarnation?"
Pu Yehai's gaze was steady. As Hao Yinqin's divine sense dissolved into nothingness, he finally spoke.
"Master, your sins are countless. You slaughtered mortals and cultivators from over a dozen cities. Even if you were to reincarnate, you would return only as a blight upon the world. Forgive this disciple for not giving you the chance."
Hao Yinqin screamed bitterly. "I never taught you this! A demon cultivator who does not kill, who does not harm, is no demon cultivator at all!"
Pu Yehai's eyes shifted toward the small side door of the hall.
Before Hao Yinqin faded completely, he heard Pu Yehai's trembling reply.
"You truly never taught me…" Pu Yehai's voice quavered. "But when that lotus bloomed before me, when the dust-laden memories in my heart surged back, I saw clearly the faces of my parents. Before they died, their only wish was that my brother and I could live as simple, ordinary people…"
Hao Yinqin perished, unwilling, his last trace erased.
Bang, bang, bang!
Outside, the clash of battle raged. Pu Yehai sat quietly before the tablet, chanting the lullaby his mother once sang to him.
Hao Yinqin had plotted countless schemes, yet never foresaw that after saving Pu Yehai with great effort, that very soul would slip into the sealed Scripture Pavilion, uncovering secrets hidden for years.
After suffering betrayal from one he had trusted as kin, Pu Yehai's hatred suddenly shattered. If he truly must hate, the first person he should kill was his master. It was Hao Yinqin who time and again lured and indulged Pu Dingping, making him bloodthirsty and reckless.
The second person deserving death… was himself.
The Diseased Body had destroyed his parents, and altered his younger brother's fate forever.
Bang, bang, bang—bang, bang, bang!
Without their sect master and elders, You Yan Gate was nothing but scattered sand. Their resistance was futile. One by one, they fell under the blades of demon soldiers.
Several corpses slammed against the side hall's door, blood seeping across the threshold.
Pu Yehai's eyelids twitched.
"What's this? Killing each other already? So bloody."
When Yao Ranran entered You Yan Gate, she was met with nothing but gore, dismembered limbs littering the ground. Her voice snapped out, harsh and commanding.
The chaos of demons and demon cultivators froze. Confusion filled their eyes as they turned toward her.
Lu Ziqian frowned deeply. "When did I order you to slaughter wantonly? Stop at once!"
His aura spread in all directions, suppressing them with sheer pressure.
Yao Ranran stepped lightly across the corpses. The air reeked of blood. She scattered a storm of lotus petals, and instantly flowers bloomed across You Yan Gate, drinking the blood.
In moments, the sect looked renewed. The cold demonic miasma and stench vanished. The demon soldiers and demon cultivators gradually calmed, while Lu Ziqian subdued the surviving disciples, sealing them away.
Yao Ranran strode down the corridor, intent on the treasure vault. Yet she suddenly paused before a side hall.
Her brows furrowed. A strangely familiar aura seeped from within.
Creak.
Before she touched it, the door swung open.
A wave of deathly cold poured out. Pale and frail, Pu Yehai stood within—so weak he could be killed with a flick of her hand.
No, even if he were at full strength, Yao Ranran could still slay him just as easily.
"You still live? Hiding here, waiting for revenge?"
Pu Yehai showed no surprise at her calm tone. With her abilities, of course she would know he had not truly perished.
"No. I do not wish for revenge. Ding Ping… he deserved his end."
Yao Ranran's eyes widened slightly.
If he were not a wandering soul before her, she might have believed he had been possessed by another.
"What trick is this? Trying to lull me into carelessness before striking?"
Given his past, she could not trust his words.
Pu Yehai turned his gaze back to Hao Yinqin's memorial tablet. "Some things are hard to explain. But when you killed me, I thought… I saw my mother."
Yao Ranran stiffened. "You mean… I look like your mother?"
Really? In these times, when one could not win a fight, they simply started calling people 'mother'?