The Path Toward Heaven

“It would be a difficult thing for anybody to kill their own Master,” Tong Yan said without turning his head around. “He would be embarrassed and restless, but these are good emotions. It would make Jian Xilai believe that he is a pitiful person who has come back to his Master after experiencing too much hardship in the world and finally having given up the delusions. He has a similar temperament to Liu Shisui’s, genuine and naïve, but this sort of personality is on the other hand the most suitable for the role of a mole; otherwise, your auntie would not have brought him to us.”

He Zhan wondered, “What if…Tong Lu rescinds; then what should we do?”

Tong Yan put down the chess piece in his hand, and said after a moment of silence, “The people like us would usually regret it only after they had already done it.”

Rescinding and regretting were two different concepts.

“That’s right. It was like what Luo Huainan had done.”

Having said that wryly, Su Ziye’s face suddenly turned pale.

He hastily took out an object from a case and held it in his hand, after which his body started trembling uncontrollably. And soon he trembled even more, his face twitching, as if he had experienced a great deal of pain; but his eyes somehow displayed a hint of delight, and the deep end of his eyes showed a high degree of indifference.

The case was given by Guo Dong to Su Ziye, and He Zhan thought it was the antidote. He Zhan had witnessed this sight a few times before, but he didn’t pay attention to it. It wasn’t until this day that he suddenly found something was wrong. So he walked over and wanted to see what was inside the case.

“Don’t touch it.”

Tong Yan warned him, “It has Dan Poison in it.”

He Zhan’s expression suddenly changed, and he pulled his hand back as quickly as possible.

A sort of devil crane lived on the islands in the south and had a red crown on top of its head. The crown had powerful poison in it. If one wasn’t killed by its poison, their spiritual soul invaded by the poison would become extremely steady and could resist even the worst pain; but if the Dan Poison spread, the resisting force inside the body would experience tremendous pain.

For the orthodox Cultivation practitioners, the Dan Poison was not beneficial for cultivation, so nobody would even try it. However, for the deviant Cultivation practitioners, the shortage of spiritual sources caused them to seek out other ways to compensate, like blood worshiping and planting a demon embryo. These Cultivation methods were problematic and easy to lead to mishaps, which would bring a great deal of pain to the Cultivation practitioners and drive them insane. Killing innocents indiscriminately and many other evil doings were the results of this. If they wanted to keep a sane mind, the Dan Poison became their only–and painful–option.

Though the deviant Cultivation practitioners had unimaginably powerful will power, they still couldn’t resist the allure of the Dan Poison and the subsequent pain. Once they were addicted to it, they would have a hard time getting rid of the habit, and they needed to take increasingly more of the Dan Poison over time, and more poisonous elements would accumulate in their body. Their body would become increasingly weaker until they died painfully in the end. Some people estimated that the deviant Cultivation practitioners had died taking the Dan Poison hundreds years ago much more than those died by the swords of the orthodox sects.

In hundreds of years, the deviant sects had been weakened, and few of them were willing to pay such a heavy price to remain sane and improve their Cultivation states; as such, fewer deviant practitioners took the Dan Poison now, and the news about taking the Dan Poison in the last one hundred years were barely heard of. As a result, He Zhan had never seen the Dan Poison with his own eyes until this day.

As Su Ziye had gradually recovered, He Zhan yelled at him angrily, “Are you mad?! This thing could kill you!”

Su Ziye looked at him calmly and asked, “I’m a deviant practitioner, but why did I become your friend?”

He Zhan was speechless. The reason why he and Su Ziye could become friends was that Su Ziye had some merits, and…he hadn’t stained his hands with too much blood.

As the young master of the deviant sect, Su Ziye could restrain himself from killing innocents indiscriminately and from blood worshiping, this because he could keep himself sane and calm.

Born from the demon embryo, he had to withstand the endless pain every day and remained sane and calm at the same time, which was obviously achieved by the aid of the Dan Poison.

“Being sane is very important for me, because I don’t want to live the life of my father.”

Su Ziye continued calmly, “Yet, the most important thing is to make oneself stronger. And one has to aim for something once they come to this world.”

“It will be very painful for you, and you will die early,” said He Zhan sadly while looking at him.

Su Ziye asked him with a little smile, “Then, do you have any better way to fix my problem?”

He of course couldn’t solve this problem; otherwise, there wouldn’t be any distinction between the orthodox and deviant camps in the Cultivation world.

The spiritual sources were limited in Chaotian, and most of them were owned by the major orthodox Cultivation sects…or were forcefully occupied.

Tong Yan suddenly said, “You should consider the suggestion I gave you last time.”

Su Ziye let loose a wicked smile, thinking that even if Tong Yan was willing to share the spiritual sources of the orthodox sects, such as the spiritual source of the Kunlun Sect, he had no chance of succeeding on his own.

…

…

The stone beam connecting Shiyue Peak and Xilai Peak was still enshrouded in the eerie fog.

Fang Jingtian drifted down on the stone beam, his silvery brows ruffling like that of a fairy immortal.

The fog stirred a bit, and the dark shadow in the deep end became more discernible. It was the Principal Guard of Green Mountain, Dark Phoenix.

Fang Jingtian said, “My two Big Brothers can’t pass the test of life and death themselves, so they should be able to understand the intention of our Master back then. I don’t believe that they don’t have any regret.”

“It’s meaningless to say all this, unless you could bring Yuan Qijing to the shrines of the former masters and ask him to pledge it while kneeling down,” said Dark Phoenix.

Fang Jingtian said, “This is not important. I think you should believe by now that he is not Jing Yang.”

“I don’t know what you meant by ‘should’,” Dark Phoenix said.

Fang Jingtian said, “He had lived on Shangde Peak for so many years back then. Even if he is still in a low Cultivation state, he would certainly be able to enter the Sword Jail.”

Dark Phoenix sneered, “Those two children were just a decoy. You have been fooled by him.”

Fang Jingtian’s expression became icy as he said, “To rescue Liu Shisui, he takes the risk of his identity being discovered; this isn’t something Jing Yang would do.”

Dark Phoenix sneered again, “From the first day he came to Green Mountain, has he even once tried to conceal his identity?”

“Don’t you think this is actually suspicious?” Fang Jingtian pressed.

From the South-Pine Pavilion to the Sword-Washing Stream, or from the Sword Peak to Shenmo Peak, or from Liu Shisui to Zhao Layue, or from the Inherited Sword to the Sword Trial…Jing Jiu had always been the most attractive person, even though he was very lazy and not good at socializing with others. He seemed like the sun in the sky, which was so bright and obvious that nobody would fail to notice it.

If he was really that person who returned to Green Mountain with secrets, why would he act like this?

…

…

Lying on the bamboo chair, Jing Jiu was looking at the ocean of clouds outside the peak, and his gaze fixed on the same spot for a long time.

The ceramic plate was underneath his hand, and a grain of sand was between his fingers. It was evident that he wasn’t in the mood to play the game.

He was deep in thought right now, and it was the sort of noticeable and serious thinking, which was rare for him.

“You are not going to do anything about it, right?”

Zhao Layue said this while walking toward Jing Jiu.

She had prepared for Cultivation since her infancy, so she didn’t have much chance of socializing with others; and it was the same situation for her after she came to Green Mountain. She merely went out twice with Jing Jiu.

She was still a young girl, even though she was not a young girl anymore by the normal standard.

Actually, the situation was common in the Cultivation world, like those girls on Qingrong Peak or the young disciples of other sects.

The Cultivation practitioners had a long life, so those who were not over fifty years old could be called “young disciples”.

The young girls couldn’t help but have a bit of a temper, even if she was an important figure now.

…