Chapter 844: No More Turning Back

There was not much time. He Lingchuan looked solemnly at He Chunhua and said, “Father, this is the last time I’ll ever call you father, so please fucking listen! I’m He Lingchuan! I’m not Zhong Shengguang, and I’m not some dead spirit from Panlong City! I saved you from the ghost ape, I saved you beside Immortal Spirit Lake, and I saved you again in the raging currents of the Han River! No wandering ghost or resentful spirit would risk its life to save you except your own flesh-and-blood son!”

Every word struck straight at the heart.

He Chunhua was left speechless, but He Lingchuan gave him no chance to respond. His expression suddenly changed, and he roared, “Yet you actually used me for the rite of divine recompense?! You knew perfectly well that a human body couldn’t withstand the descent of a heavenly god, yet you didn’t even blink before offering your own son in the rite of divine recompense! Even a tiger wouldn’t devour its own cubs, but you, you’re worse than a beast! I must have accumulated eight lifetimes of bloody bad luck to end up with a black-hearted, cold-blooded, selfish, cruel, and vicious father like you!”

All the resentment buried in his heart erupted at once. He did not even have to search for words; everything he truly felt simply poured out in an unstoppable torrent.

At this moment, he handed the right to curse He Chunhua back to the original owner of this body.

Pointing at He Chunhua, He Lingchuan raged, “I only hate that I was blind and failed to see your true face sooner. This is also the last time I’ll ever help or save you. Consider the debt I owed you for giving me life and raising me repaid in full! From this day onward, all ties of gratitude and affection between us are severed. The next time we meet, don’t blame me if my blade has no eyes!”

Ahhh, that felt good!

After unleashing that tirade, his whole body felt lighter.

The original He Lingchuan had finally vented his hatred, and he himself felt wonderfully relieved. His righteous condemnation left He Chunhua shaken to the core. Blood rushed through his body, his face burned hot, yet his throat seemed blocked, and he could not force out a single word in rebuttal.

He Lingchuan was right. Other than a man’s own son, who would repeatedly risk his life to save his father?

He Chunhua also remembered the times his son had thrown himself in front of him without hesitation, shielding him with his own body. He remembered the emotion he had felt each time he survived because of him. Could this... could this really be my eldest son after all?

But...

He panted twice and was just about to speak when the ground suddenly began trembling. A rumbling sound came from across the river as the aberrant creatures near the river channel had also been alerted by the explosion Tao Ran had caused and were charging west at full speed.

The stone enclosure where they stood lay directly in their path.

“My lord, careful!” Zhao Qinghe grabbed the dazed He Chunhua and dragged him away. Only after turning through two or three bends did they finally avoid the beast herd.

Listening to the streets thunder beneath the aberrant creatures’ feet, neither man dared even breathe loudly.

If the beasts found them, they would die horribly.

Only after several groups of aberrant creatures had passed both ahead and behind did the two cross the river channel. By then, He Lingchuan and Qiu Hu were nowhere to be seen.

“My lord!” Seeing that He Chunhua still looked listless and utterly dispirited, Zhao Qinghe was beside himself with anxiety. “We’re in mortal danger. Please pull yourself together!”

Danger surrounded them on all sides. If He Chunhua could no longer concentrate, they had only one road left: death.

He Chunhua’s mind was a tangled mess, as though two voices inside his head were shouting furiously at each other.

Another icy gust swept past. He shivered, but the bitter cold finally snapped him back to himself. Suddenly, he raised a hand and slapped himself twice across the face.

Slap! Slap!

Zhao Qinghe froze, thinking his lord had finally gone mad.

He Chunhua rubbed his eyelids. “Go. Hurry east!”

Things have already come this far. Things have already come this far!

There’s no turning back!

What use is there in hesitating, wavering, or regretting anything now? I can only keep moving forward with absolute resolve.

The aberrant creatures have all been drawn away. This is the perfect opportunity to seize the Generous Pot!

Seizing the Generous Pot is my only way out. Only by obtaining the Generous Pot can I leave the secret realm and appease Naluotian’s wrath.

And it was not merely that. He was already thinking much farther ahead! As long as he recovered the Generous Pot, he could turn the entire situation around.

He Lingchuan was surely heading there as well, so they had to move faster.

* * *

Tao Ran and the others hid inside the thick hollow chambers of the southern gate wall, observing the outside world through the small openings in the wall.

That arrow had worked exceptionally well. From what they could see, at least two hundred aberrant creatures had rushed west, roaring the whole way.

One Heishui City soldier chuckled and said, “Yuezheng Qing’s really going to curse someone’s mother this time.” Half the city’s aberrant creatures had been lured over to play with him.

Tao Ran raised one finger and softly shushed him. “Don’t attract the beasts’ attention.”

Some of those aberrant creatures had exceptionally sharp hearing.

Under circumstances like these, the humans atop the southern gate had to be doubly cautious. Liren Street was not that far away, after all.

Even if they wanted to watch the excitement, they had to at least make sure that they did not get dragged into it themselves.

Just then, someone else whispered, “There are people coming out onto South Gate Square!”

Everyone almost laughed at him, thinking that he was merely seeing things.

With the aberrant creatures running everywhere, any sensible human should be hiding. What kind of group would stroll out into an empty South Gate Square to court death?

But when they looked down again, they were stunned too.

“Where the hell did these idiots come from?”

“I don’t think I’ve seen them before?”

Tao Ran sighed helplessly. “Can you all keep your voices down?”

Still, the four or five people who had suddenly appeared in South Gate Square really were unfamiliar faces.

Did they just enter the city from outside?

Everyone trapped inside Panlong City had already been depressed and frustrated by their inability to escape. Now that they saw people actually coming in of their own accord to seek death, they could not help but feel a little schadenfreude.

After appearing, the newcomers stopped and turned to examine the southern gate. They looked somewhat surprised that the gate had silently closed behind them, but nowhere near as shocked as the He father and son’s troops had been.

Everyone inside the hollow wall quickly crouched down so they would not be spotted.

From his elevated position, Tao Ran narrated what he saw. “They’re moving. Heading east.”

“East? Isn’t that suicide?” Groups of aberrant creatures were currently running west from the eastern districts, and these people were deliberately heading against the flow?

“Watch your mouth. Lord He and his son went east too!”

As an expert archer, Tao Ran’s eyesight was much sharper than the others’. After watching for a moment, he said to his companions, “I can see a faint glow moving around them. Could be lamp spirits. These people are probably from the Heavenly Palace too.”

Everyone was surprised and crowded around the openings in the wall to peer eastward. They could no longer see the newcomers themselves, but there really was an extremely faint light occasionally flickering above the alleys.

“That’s a lamp spirit too?” Someone sounded unconvinced. “It’s way too dim. Zhang Lianhai’s lamp spirit was really bright.”

The Heavenly Palace’s lamp spirits were undeniably impressive. Their only problem was that they stood out far too much in the darkness.

“Maybe the newcomers are smarter than he was and don’t want to attract unnecessary trouble. Perhaps they’re also better at controlling lamp spirits.” The Rongshan disciples exchanged glances. “No wonder the young master discovered that more than thirty Heavenly Palace people had come to Heishui City, yet Zhang Lianhai claimed he’d only brought a dozen or so subordinates. It turns out they split into two groups.”

“But there are only four or five people down there.”

“Maybe they split into several groups.”

“What good does splitting into more groups do?” a Heishui City soldier snorted. “Once they’re inside, aren’t they still here to die?”

Crude words, but sound reasoning. Even the Rongshan disciples agreed.

Someone gave a quiet grunt. “Seven or eight of those aberrant creatures are coming this way. They’re about to run straight into them!”

Another man could not help but worry, “What if they retreat back toward the wall and want to climb the gatehouse? What do we do then?”

Should they let them up or not? The He father and son were both absent. Who here had the authority to decide?

Tao Ran suddenly exclaimed softly, “Huh? They’re gone!”

Another Rongshan disciple leaned forward. “What do you mean, gone?”

“I mean all four or five of them disappeared from the spot in an instant! Hm, the aberrant creatures have reached the area too, and they haven’t noticed them.”

“An invisibility spell?”

“Looks like it.” Tao Ran pondered. “I heard invisibility spells have been lost for a long time. Didn’t expect them to be proficient in one.”

In ruins crawling with aberrant creatures, invisibility truly was the optimal solution. It allowed them to keep moving without alerting any of the beasts.

* * *

The moment Hé Jing and the others passed through the southern gate, they sensed that something was wrong.

An explosion sounded from the west, powerful enough to carry even through the howling gale.

When Hé Jing turned around, he discovered that more than half the people behind him had vanished. Only his disciple and two trusted subordinates remained at his side.

Fu Liang cried anxiously, “Lord Cloud Envoy!”

“Stay calm.” An accident occurring the instant they entered Panlong City caught even Hé Jing off guard, but he quickly waved a hand. “They’ve been transported somewhere else!”

Somewhere else?

So there really is a hidden force inside this place, deliberately dividing outsiders so they can be defeated separately.

Could the Generous Pot be behind it?

“Head east,” Hé Jing ordered decisively. “The attendants know our objective too. They’ll most likely rendezvous with us at the Red General’s cenotaph.”

At that moment, Fu Liang happened to glance back and exclaimed, “Lord Cloud Envoy, the gate has closed!”

The two heavy doors of the southern gate had shut tightly behind them, without leaving even the smallest crack.

Hé Jing was not surprised. “I already told you. This is a secret realm!”

A secret realm has its own rules. Do they really expect it to let us come and go freely?

“East. Quickly.” They had entered the Panlong Secret Realm for one purpose only: to seize the Generous Pot as quickly as possible. They could not afford to waste even a moment along the way.

The enormous shadow in the sky also caught Hé Jing and the others’ attention.

He occasionally looked up at the sky, silently pondering what it might be.

Fu Liang greatly admired his master’s knowledge and quietly asked, “Lord Cloud Envoy, what is that?”

Hé Jing said nothing.

He did not know either.

How could anyone hope to understand at a glance a secret realm that existed as an independent world within the Generous Pot? However, the oppressive presence radiating from the thing in the sky was simply too powerful.

Were there originally living creatures inside the Generous Pot?

He did not count the que beasts, as they seemed to have come from a separate small world.

The other guards exchanged looks, all thinking about the same thing. Where did the heavenly god’s avatar that entered earlier go?

For the moment, there was no answer.

Several strands of ghostly light swept past the four of them, heading east.

Hé Jing reached out and brushed at one, but the light flowed through the gaps between his fingers, impossible to stop.

He took out a small white jade bottle and aimed its mouth toward another strand of light.

The bottle could collect spiritual entities, yet the ghostly light was completely unaffected and slipped past its opening.

Fu Liang whispered, “What exactly is that?”

Hé Jing shook his head. He could not say either. If even the jade bottle could not collect it, then it truly had neither form nor substance.

The four ran several dozen meters through the alleys when a rumbling suddenly came from ahead. Something was approaching in a large group.

Aberrant creatures?

“It would be best not to fight them.” Hé Jing had witnessed Zhang Lianhai and the others’ predicament earlier. Individually, the que beasts might not pose much threat, but they were exceptionally good at calling their companions and overwhelming enemies. With the enemy so numerous and their own numbers so few, once they were discovered and entangled, shaking pursuit would be extremely difficult. “Fu Liang, the Invisibility Art.”

Fu Liang answered, “Yes,” summoned his lamp spirit, and blew gently toward it. The lamp spirit then immediately flew above the four of them and enveloped them all within its light.

Fu Liang formed a hand seal and murmured several incantations, then the four figures inside the light abruptly vanished.

Several breaths later, the lamp spirit itself also stopped shining brightly. Instead, it transformed into an ordinary ghostly glimmer like the countless others drifting through the city, floating inconspicuously in midair.