"It has to do with me."
Su Qing wanted to ask more.
But the woman looked terrified, so Su Qing didn't press the matter.
He silently returned to the residence the Wang Family had arranged for him.
'How does it have to do with me?'
Su Qing frowned.
—
「Daytime.」
When Su Qing saw Housekeeper Wang, he quietly followed him.
This was the first time he had ever skipped his training.
Before long,
Su Qing saw a voluptuous woman who bore a strong resemblance to Wang Li. She was dressed in white and accompanied by a master of the Wang Family from one of the lesser branches.
Su Qing didn't recognize him.
"Master, everything is ready."
The woman who resembled Wang Li had a face red and swollen from crying.
They were about to leave the Wang Family estate.
Su Qing followed them.
"SOB SOB SOB!!!"
"Oh, Li'Er, Mother is coming to join you."
The moment she was out of the carriage, the woman cried out. They were already in the middle of a desolate wilderness.
But Su Qing noticed that the woman hadn't stepped out—she had been violently pushed from the carriage.
"You bitch! Do you have any idea that your daughter caused the deaths of two direct heirs of our Wang Family!"
"You bitch."
The master from the lesser branch also disembarked and kicked the voluptuous woman in the stomach.
"Sob..."
The woman just kept crying.
"I deserve this... I deserve this... The Wang Family... so cold and heartless. That was our daughter, Wang Liming!"
"Bullshit! I have no such concubine or daughter."
Wang Liming spat on the ground and signaled to Housekeeper Wang.
Housekeeper Wang understood. He hauled the voluptuous woman to her feet.
He dragged her before a grave.
The grave was marked only by a single, nameless stone tablet.
The voluptuous woman seemed to realize she was about to die.
"Wang Liming! I curse your Wang Family! May you all die a horrible death! I curse you to die a horrible death!"
With a single twist, her neck was snapped.
—
Su Qing watched silently from the side.
He was silent for a long time... a very long time.
He had seen the corpse being buried after the murder.
He had seen the master from the lesser branch, his face twisted in an ugly sneer as he cursed his own concubine. He had seen the heartless look in the man's eyes after she died, and his disdain for those he considered beneath him.
'Is this what people from a great family are like?'
'They're even more cold-blooded than I am.'
The carriage left.
Su Qing, however, remained, silently staring at the nameless stone tablet.
He suddenly drew the saber from his waist.
He carved an inscription:
"The Tomb of Wang Li and Her Mother — Su Qing"
The image of the Dragon King smirking, which had once filled his mind, was now gone.
He just found it hard to believe that a young lady from a great family could die so young.
"Wang Li, Wang Li... you truly had a bitter fate," Su Qing said with a sigh, speaking to the tombstone.
"Was it because I escaped?"
"But I was just a lowly slave back then."
'Could she have been sentenced to death just for failing to prevent a single servant from escaping?' Su Qing wondered, completely baffled.
...
Back in his own residence,
Su Qing acted as if nothing had happened.
He began to practice the Cyan Snake Posture relentlessly.
'I still don't know if that Demon Fiend is really Wang Li.'
'And if she is, what can I do about it?'
'Was I the one who caused her harm?'
'If I caused her death for the sake of my freedom, then I absolutely will not feel guilty.'
But seeing the way that Wang Family master acted, and how Steward Wang had deliberately concealed the truth about Wang Li, Su Qing knew it couldn't have been just because of a lowly slave like himself.
'The question is, if the Wang Family suspected Wang Li was a Demon Fiend, why would they kill her mother at her grave and bury her there?'
'The Wang Family is brainless.'
Cultivation.
Cultivation.
All Su Qing did upon his return was Cultivation.
That evening, Su Qing refused to attend the banquet.
He just kept cultivating.
The night passed uneventfully.
After sleeping for four hours,
Su Qing took another Great Replenishing Pill and resumed his Cultivation.
He trained straight through until evening.
When the evening banquet came, Su Qing still didn't go.
However, after his training,
when Wang Bing came to pay his respects, he was terrified by what he saw.
Eighth Layer of Body Tempering.
Su Qing only realized he had broken through again when he checked the Synthesizer.
That night, Su Qing was still training with the help of Great Replenishing Pills.
In the past two days, he had received another twenty taels of silver. 'Getting paid for nothing feels great,' he thought. 'Work?'
'I'll worry about that when there's actually work to do.'
—
Host: Su Qing.
Realm: Eighth Layer of Body Tempering [Second Layer Cyan Snake Posture (Evolution): Mastery (733/1000)]
—
—
The night was deep and still, but the lights in Su Qing's quarters were still burning bright.
He was in the middle of practicing the Cyan Snake Posture.
"Demon Fiend."
Suddenly, someone shouted again.
Su Qing immediately broke his stance, grabbed his saber, and ran toward the sound.
'I'm getting paid for this, after all, right?'
More importantly, Su Qing wanted to confirm whether the Demon Fiend was Wang Li.
By the time Su Qing arrived, Wang Zhongping was already there.
He was fighting the Demon Fiend.
Unfortunately, this Demon Fiend seemed to possess a powerful Yin Qi.
Wang Zhongping was completely outmatched.
Despite his large frame, Wang Zhongping was ineffective; the Demon Fiend was like a cloud of black mist.
It was difficult to land a solid blow.
Wang Zhongping's armor was already riddled with holes.
"Stand back! I'll deal with it!"
Su Qing rushed over.
He slashed with his saber.
It was as if he hadn't struck anything solid at all.
"Su Qiren, I'm counting on you."
Wang Zhongping had already taken a palm strike from Su Qing before; it was a wonder he could even stand.
The Demon Fiend had appeared the day before yesterday, too.
'This Wang Zhongping seems to have decent Recovery Power,' Su Qing thought.
But this was no time for him to be thinking about that.
'This Demon Fiend is almost completely incorporeal.'
Su Qing swung his saber several more times.
At first, he thought his own strength was so immense that it just felt like he was cutting through air.
But after several slashes, the Demon Fiend's assault on him didn't falter in the slightest.
Every one of its attacks seethed with sinister Yin Qi.
It seemed to completely ignore the saber in his hands.
Fortunately, its attacks didn't seem to hurt him. The crucial part was that when its sinister, Yin Qi-laden moves landed on him,
the Yin Qi would instantly evaporate as if it had touched molten lava.
"Damn it!"
Su Qing tossed his saber aside.
He charged forward, ready for a fistfight.
Su Qing rushed forward and threw a punch, striking the Demon Fiend in the face.
As the black mist composing the Demon Fiend's face neared Su Qing's fist,
it instantly scattered.
It revealed the face of a woman—expressionless, with pitch-black eyes.
BAM!
A single punch sent the Demon Fiend flying, smashing it into a wall.
Dust and debris flew into the air.
Su Qing froze.
'It's really... her?'
Amidst the dust, Su Qing saw a shadow flit away.
He let it escape.
A long moment passed with no further movement.
Wang Zhongping returned to check on the situation.
"Su Qiren, where is the Demon Fiend?"
"I drove the Demon Fiend off."
"As you know, blades are almost useless against it. It's hard for me to kill it."
Su Qing added this to make his story more believable.
"Thank you for your help, Su Qiren," Wang Zhongping said with a sigh.
"Otherwise, the Wang Family wouldn't have just lost one direct heir tonight; all the nearby heirs would have been in danger."
Wang Zhongping was covered in bandages, all of them stained with blood.
The fact that Wang Zhongping could still stand there and talk showed he had an incredible tolerance for pain.
"I'm leaving now. The Demon Fiend probably won't be back tonight. If it does, just yell."
As Su Qing turned to leave, he saw Housekeeper Wang smiling at him with what looked like genuine sincerity, along with many other Wang Family disciples who looked at him with awe.
But Su Qing's spirits were low, because the Demon Fiend's face was, indeed, Wang Li's.
Wang Li was dead.
And had become a Demon Fiend to take revenge on the Wang Family.
And Su Qing had intervened.
This somehow... made him feel even more guilty.
Because, in the end, he was the reason Wang Li had died.
'Wang Li clearly saw me, so why doesn't the Demon Fiend's lingering obsession hold any particular hatred for me...?'