Chapter 94 – Of Human Relationships And Schemes

Before Nan Yuntian could calm himself down, a woman came running into his room, crying in a panic as she wailed, “Master, bad news! Xian’er was playing with General Li’s second son, and he fell into the river, and his life is in danger now!”

“What!” Nan Yuntian got up with a start and followed the woman to see how his son was doing. This was his fifth son who had a rare Seven Thunder Spiritual Root. He already doted dearly on this son, but after Nan Xingyuan died, he doted even more dearly on him. He didn’t expect an accident like this to happen.

On the way, Nan Yuntian asked angrily, “Xian’er is usually a very obedient boy. What was he doing with that awful child of General Li’s?”

“I have no idea either. Xian’er suddenly said that he wanted to go out for a walk, then he ran into Li Chouxing, and they went to the river to play. But things turned out this way..” The woman cried miserably, tears covering her pretty and delicate features, which made her look rather pitiful.

Nan Yuntian sighed heavily. He knew this was not her fault, to begin with. His heart went out to her when he saw tears streaming down her beautiful face.

He couldn’t allow anything bad to happen to his son. This son was his last hope, his only chance at getting back at Gu Suihan. In order to take revenge, he was prepared to pay any price.

Meanwhile, Gu Suihan was still in his room. After laying that curse, all his skin had dried up, and he had no more Qi left. His gaze was empty and dull.

Using such methods always came at a price. Gu Suihan didn’t just look like a corpse but had also lost 20 years of his lifespan.

He could clearly feel the loss of vitality in his body. But his remaining lifespan was enough for him to reach Origin Core, as long as that plan worked out.

“I’ve really done myself a disservice,” mused Gu Suihan quietly. It took him great effort to raise his withered arm to retrieve several bottles of pills from his storage ring and pour them all into his mouth.

The pills gave off a huge amount of Qi which swiftly nourished his Spiritual Meridians and body. Gu Suihan breathed a long sigh of relief as he felt life course through his veins again. After his Spiritual Meridians were filled with Qi, he executed his cultivation technique and brought the Qi from his Spiritual Meridians to the rest of his body.

He spent several hours just resting limply on his chair and only looked normal enough to leave the room when evening time came.

If you didn’t know him well enough, he still seemed to look about the same, except that he seemed a little more mature now. There was a faint ruggedness in his eyes, and he seemed more attractive now. Of course, that was only if you ignored the few strands of white hair in his sideburns.

“What happened to you?” Li Rong instantly froze on the spot when he saw Gu Suihan.

It was a normal skill for cultivators to be able to see even in the dark, so Li Rong could see the changes in Gu Suihan immediately. His gaze moved slightly to focus on the white hair on Gu Suihan’s sideburns, a sight that made his heart tremble in fear. What in the world was Gu Suihan doing all afternoon? How did he suffer so much damage?

“I’m fine.” Gu Suihan wasn’t going to tell Li Rong what he had done. He just shook his head slightly to show that he was perfectly fine.

Since Gu Suihan obviously didn’t want to tell him, Li Rong didn’t pursue this matter further. He moved on to the reason why he was here. “I passed you information on the best disciples of the major sects the last time. You’ve read it, right?”

Gu Suihan nodded. He remained silent for a while before saying in a curious tone of voice, “Regardless of the sect, the one similarity they have is that they all have a top senior brother. Why is the Seven Kill Sect the only one among the major sects that does not have one?”

Li Rong’s smile froze as he quietly said, “We used to have one. But after Xuran zhenren was incapacitated, our senior brother went to the Demon Abyss in Xuran zhenren’s place and we didn’t have one after that.”

“Who was he?” Gu Suihan was a little curious.

“Xu Cangyue,” said Li Rong softly with a conflicted look on his face.

“He and Xuran zhenren weren’t just master and disciple, right?” said Gu Suihan in a slightly amused voice.

“How did you know?” asked Li Rong in surprise. But when he saw how Gu Suihan smirked like he had guessed it right, he laughed and said, “No, they weren’t related by blood. Xu Cangyue was an abandoned baby picked up by Xuran zhenren when Xuran zhenren was wandering the Earth and living among ordinary folk. He brought up Xu Cangyue, and when he discovered that Xu Cangyue had an aptitude for cultivation, he took him in as his own disciple. And because Xu Cangyue was very grateful to his master for taking care of him all his life, he was willing to take on any punishment on Xuran zhenren’s behalf.”

Li Rong sighed sadly at the end. He was obviously touched by the relationship these two had despite not being related by blood. In comparison, his own biological father, Xiexin zhenren, was hoping to destroy his soul and take over his body. What a stark contrast, thought Li Rong.

“Perhaps that’s not actually what happened.” Gu Suihan’s eyes glowed like flames in the night as he chuckled at Li Rong.

“Oh?” Li Rong looked like he was all ears. He was quite wary of Gu Suihan, but he also admired Gu Suihan for the way he did things and how he seemed able to sense everything with such accuracy.

Gu Suihan smiled quietly and set up a soundproofing formation. They sat down at the table, and warm food and fragrant wine instantly appeared on it. After downing a cup of wine, he said, “What if it’s the same case as yours?”

“Same case as mine?” Li Rong couldn’t understand at first until he noticed the look in Gu Suihan’s eye. He sat up with a start and exclaimed, “You mean, Xuran zhenren took over Xu Cangyue’s body?”

“Perhaps,” said Gu Suihan calmly. “Perhaps this is just history repeating itself. In other words, the Ethereal Court and the rest had already started planning decades or even a century ago.”

“In other words, out of the disciples that the Seven Kill Sect is sending, some might actually belong to the other side?” Li Rong suddenly realized what Gu Suihan was driving at.

“If that’s the case, then your plan..” Li Rong looked uncertain now.

“My plan will go even more smoothly.” Gu Suihan grinned widely.

After a pause, he looked out of the window and said quietly, “Soul splitting isn’t as scary as what people make it out to be. It hurts both the one splitting their soul and the one having to host it. But if the former is at a higher level of cultivation, they can slowly heal over time.”

“The three Peak Leaders want to get into the secret realm by implanting their souls into your bodies, then wipe out the best disciples from the other sects. If they want to do that, they’ll have to gather all the disciples from the Seven Kill, War Demon and Yin Principle sects, then attack together. Just the three of them will not be able to wipe out the opponent’s disciples. That’s only wishful thinking.”

Gu Suihan looked extremely confident. He knew how soul splitting worked. Even if Li Rong did allow his father to take over his body, Gu Suihan still knew how to take control of that split soul and consume it for his own benefit.

“So..when the Peak Leaders reveal themselves, the disciples that the Ethereal Court’s side has planted among our fellow disciples will spread the word and fall for the plan?” Li Rong suddenly felt like he was too stupid to keep up with what Gu Suihan was saying. Gu Suihan’s thought process was way beyond him.

“Either way, all of them are going to get hurt very badly. And if the best among them are severely injured, then people like us are going to go from being mere cannon fodder to becoming their central core of strength. Besides, people like you and I aren’t just their central core of strength,” said Gu Suihan with a twinkle in his eye as he drank another cup of wine.

Li Rong went into a daze. He simply couldn’t understand how Gu Suihan managed to piece together so many random bits of information and analyze it so well. Or rather, he couldn’t understand how Gu Suihan could have possibly guessed the details of this huge conspiracy. On top of that, he seemed to know exactly what each party was going to do.

His conclusion was that it was impossible to use his finite mind to understand this ancient fellow who had taken over a younger body and restarted his cultivation journey.

A moment later, Li Rong could only silently grumble about how unfair life was while becoming even more wary and afraid of Gu Suihan.

“Earlier on, you said that Xiexin zhenren would give me something that has a portion of his soul in it. But he didn’t give me anything up until the time we left the sect grounds. Did you guess his intentions wrongly?” Li Rong drank some wine to hide the fear in his eyes as he forced himself to calm down.

Gu Suihan frowned upon hearing these words and scanned Li Rong with his spiritual sense in an instant. His creased brows smoothened again, and his eyes were bright. “He’s given it to you already. But not recently. He gave it to you a few years ago.”

It suddenly dawned on Li Rong, and his first instinct was to get up from his seat frantically, but Gu Suihan held him down. “Relax. It hasn’t done anything yet, and it’s not too late to deal with it after we enter the secret realm. If you do anything now, you’d only raise the alarm.”

This time, Li Rong couldn’t sit still anymore. The moment he thought about how that thing was just inside his jiangshi storage bag, he became so terrified that all his hair stood on end.

That’s right; Gu Suihan was referring to the Demon Lord Bronze Corpse that had chased him down so hard in that secret realm a few years ago. That corpse had such a tough and strong body that ordinary spiritual weapons couldn’t even cut through its skin.

The spiritual sense that Gu Suihan used to scan Li Rong earlier carried a tiny bit of Suihan’s divine sense. This low-level jiangshi storage bag couldn’t keep his divine sense out at all. Besides, the fact that he could detect vitality in a bag filled with very dead bodies was unusual to begin with.

“When the time comes, just stuff the item I gave you into the bronze corpse’s mouth, and Xiexin zhenren won’t be able to come out of it for some time.” Gu Suihan burst out laughing merrily as he watched how frantic Li Rong had become. He wasn’t the slightest bit worried.