Chapter 57#

Qiao Ting’s cultivation, stored in the Star Grass, was ultimately given to Zhao Duan by Qiao Gou. Zhao Duan thus reached the peak of Great Completion, a half-step into the Tribulation Transcendence stage.

Zhao Duan was inwardly triumphant—he had finally gotten his moment to shine, winning against that bastard who had usurped his place.

The name of Qiao Ting vanished from the twenty-seventh city. There was only Young Master Zhao, who, relying on his two Tribulation Transcendence elders, acted without restraint.

Qiao Gou sometimes felt that Zhao Duan’s actions were baseless and would hesitate to speak, but ultimately gave up.

Since things had come to this, Zhao Duan’s usual misdeeds were just that. What major trouble could he cause?

He had never failed the living beings of the twenty-seventh city; it was merely that his family affairs were not perfect.

So Qiao Gou said nothing.

But Zhao Duan couldn’t be triumphant for too long.

Because Qiao Ting returned—as a Tribulation Transcendence cultivator, he came back to the twenty-seventh city and opened his own cave dwelling.

Zhao Duan had gained Qiao Ting’s cultivation, yet after decades, he still couldn’t transcend the tribulation. Qiao Ting, who had fallen in cultivation and re-cultivated, actually broke through to Tribulation Transcendence faster than him, surpassing him!

The City Lord’s Mansion, as per custom, sent an invitation to the “newly arrived” Tribulation Transcendence cultivator, inviting him to the mansion for a talk.

This “invitation” was truly laughable—who didn’t know that Qiao Ting had grown up in the City Lord’s Mansion?

When Qiao Ting came to “visit,” the people around him all had strange expressions. Zhao Duan’s face was even greener as he watched Qiao Ting walk past him, looking straight ahead, as if he hadn’t seen him at all.

“You—”

Someone pulled Zhao Duan back: “Young Master Zhao, don’t spoil the peace.”

Peace?

There had never been peace between Zhao Duan and Qiao Ting.

Zhao Duan stepped forward to block him, but Qiao Gou walked out and said, “Everyone, step back, including Duan’er.”

“Father—”

“Step back.” Qiao Gou was rarely so firm with Zhao Duan.

Zhao Duan was pulled away by the others. Qiao Gou said solemnly, “Just now…”

“Just now, Zhao Duan’s words and actions were inappropriate. The City Lord was afraid he would offend me, and that I would hold a grudge and retaliate, fearing it would get out of hand, so he stopped him.” Qiao Ting directly prevented Qiao Gou from saying any whitewashing words. “City Lord, rest assured, I only consider the past as a favor and will not hold a grudge. Now that I have come, can I leave?”

Qiao Gou hesitated for a moment before saying, “You’ve been sensible since childhood, and Duan’er’s temperament is indeed arrogant. You’ve always been clever, and I just thought you could indulge him. Now that you’ve returned after re-cultivating, don’t be stubborn anymore. In the future, I will also restrain him more…”

Qiao Ting had already intended to turn and leave. Hearing this, he turned his gaze back and raised an eyebrow: “Indulge him? Does the City Lord think that because I am sensible, because I am not as willful and arrogant as him, because I endure silently and won’t cause major trouble, I should therefore tolerate him? There is no such logic in this world. What I owed him, what I owed you, I have returned to you all. My choices have never been out of stubbornness.”

“City Lord, when Mother was still alive,” he referred to his mortal mother who had passed away a hundred years ago, “you weren’t like this. In your youth, you were clearly a spirited young man, clearly able to be frank with even a white-haired mother. But after she passed away? Did you truly let go?”

Qiao Ting smiled: “You kept saying you didn’t care about Mother’s limited lifespan, but after she was gone, you sought solace in Zhao Duan for your misplaced confusion. You are no longer the young man you once were.”

“Qiao Ting!”

Qiao Ting didn’t bother to fight him and turned to leave.

After that day, Qiao Gou went into seclusion for a long time. After coming out, he often looked at Zhao Duan in a daze, wondering what he was thinking—he seemed to have begun to regret and started to restrain Zhao Duan’s misdeeds.

The cultivators in the City Lord’s Mansion spoke more and more directly behind Zhao Duan’s back, and mortals gossiped endlessly.

As Zhao Duan gnashed his teeth, he suddenly received a sound transmission talisman wrapped in black qi.

An Wuxue and Xie Zhefeng both looked solemn at this scene.

The talisman was wrapped in turbid qi!

And judging by the time in Zhao Duan’s memory, it was several months ago, when the chaos in Beiming was foreshadowed!

Zhao Duan himself was ignorant and understood nothing, completely unaware of the seriousness of the situation. He opened the sound transmission talisman alone.

The person on the other end of the talisman asked him: “Do you want to be the most powerful cultivator in the twenty-seventh city, trample Qiao Ting underfoot, and make Qiao Gou, Qiao Yin, and Zhao Qiuran all have to obey you?”

Zhao Duan’s eyes lit up, and he naturally nodded eagerly.

An Wuxue gritted his teeth: “It’s the one who caused chaos in Beiming!”

The voice on the sound transmission talisman was clearly masked by a spell; one couldn’t even tell if it was male or female.

The person behind the scenes never showed up.

Xie Zhefeng frowned: “This person knows even City Lord Qiao’s family affairs so well. As expected, they are exceptionally clear about all matters in Beiming and the workings of the sword array.”

In Zhao Duan’s memory, after that person left the sound transmission talisman, they helped him cultivate turbid qi and enter the demonic path through the talisman, informing him of the locations of large amounts of turbid qi. Cultivating turbid qi had no bottlenecks; as long as there was enough turbid qi, one could ascend to heaven in a single step. Within a few months, Zhao Duan easily broke into the late-stage Tribulation Transcendence realm.

Not only that.

Including the book on puppet techniques and the method for stealing the sword array core, all were given by the person behind the sound transmission talisman.

For the few months before Beiming was sealed, that person and Zhao Duan communicated entirely through sound transmission talismans, even keeping it a secret from Qiao Gou and Zhao Qiuran.

Until a few days ago, Zhao Duan was finally ready to act on the sword array.

He was already at the late-stage Tribulation Transcendence, and even within the sword array, Qiao Gou didn’t notice.

Before he acted, he hesitated a bit.

Even if he was ignorant, he knew the importance of the Beiming Sword Array. He took out the sound transmission talisman and asked, “You want me to do this. What if something goes wrong and Immortal Chu Han is alerted? Wouldn’t I be dead for sure?”

“When Beiming is filled with turbid qi, Shangguan Liaoliao will have no other choice; she can only seal Beiming.”

“But that still won’t stop the Immortal!”

“There is more than one person in the world who can ascend to immortality, not just Xie Zhefeng.”

Zhao Duan stammered, “You—you mean you can ascend to immortality? No way, you’re lying to me, aren’t you? Even I know that the great demons and monsters during the Immortal Calamity were all slain by the Immortal!”

“Since I gave you the puppet technique, I naturally know the complete method of resurrection. If this method can resurrect others, why can’t it resurrect me?”

As soon as these words were spoken, Xie Zhefeng instantly looked at An Wuxue.

An Wuxue felt the gaze of the person beside him, but he had no time to think much about it.

His eyes narrowed, and he stared blankly at the talisman in the sword array floating in the memory, feeling a chill in his heart.

A cultivator who existed during the Immortal Calamity, someone who entered the demonic path a thousand years ago.

Someone who knew the ins and outs of the Four Seas Myriad Sword Array, knew that Song Wu, who had cultivated turbid qi and entered the demonic path to a half-step into immortality, was suppressed under the Zhaoshui Sword Array, and also knew the method to simultaneously activate the forty-nine sub-sword arrays of Beiming.

Someone who died during the Immortal Calamity but was resurrected by puppet techniques.

Every word, every sentence.

An Wuxue knew only one person who fit all these criteria.

This person was standing right here, beside Immortal Chu Han, who had ascended to immortality and then slain all demons in the world.

That person was himself.

An Wuxue’s mind was greatly shaken.

Ever since he woke up a thousand years later, he had been unable to deeply ponder the source of his awakening.

Because he truly knew nothing.

He gave a silent, bitter smile, then suddenly remembered that Xie Zhefeng was still looking at him.

He shouldn’t reveal any clues at this moment, so he quickly composed his expression.

Xie Zhefeng finally shifted his gaze.

What was this person thinking when he looked at his face just now?

He must have been thinking of his Senior Brother.

Even though he had seen his junior brother searching for his remnant soul in Thistle Stream, treading on thorns and in ragged clothes, he still couldn’t be sure—if his identity were truly exposed and he were once again condemned by thousands, would the Chu Han Sword light fall upon him again?

Before his demise in his previous life, the images of those people surrounding him and listing his crimes were both blurry and clear.

He seemed to have forgotten, yet he remembered what he had forgotten.

Zhao Duan’s memory was pieced together from countless resentments. Except for what was directly in front of them, everything else was blurred and chaotic.

He looked at everything before him, and for a moment, he wondered if he was dreaming or hallucinating.

He knew very well that the person behind the sound transmission talisman was not him.

But if he were someone else who knew he had been resurrected and saw this scene, he would probably think—the former head of Luoyue Peak, who had committed grave sins and gone astray, had returned.

Aside from being resurrected, was there anyone else who could have met these conditions back then?

An Wuxue wanted to recall his enemies and old acquaintances from his previous life, but Zhao Duan’s memory, formed by condensed resentment, wouldn’t wait for him and continued to play.

Although Zhao Duan was a bit clever before acting because he was afraid of death, he wasn’t very smart.

After hearing what the person on the other end of the sound transmission talisman said, and thinking of the future misery of the Qiao family and the immortal cultivators of the twenty-seventh city, he eagerly followed the instructions of the person behind the scenes and used spiritual energy to alter the array patterns.

The sword array showed no reaction.

The forty-nine sword arrays of Beiming were interconnected. If something went wrong with a sub-sword array, the main sword array of the first city would surely detect it and activate sword qi to eliminate demons. But Zhao Duan had transferred one of the array cores to a stone given to him by the person behind the scenes, and the sword array still showed no movement.

Zhao Duan was delighted: “They really didn’t lie to me!”

An Wuxue narrowed his eyes.

That stone could bear the array core; it was most likely some kind of spiritual item of heaven and earth connected to the yin and yang of the universe.

“Do you recognize this item?”

Xie Zhefeng’s voice suddenly entered his ears.

His expression paused slightly.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Zhao Duan probably didn’t look closely at this stone; it’s too blurry in his memory.”

Although he felt it looked familiar, he couldn’t clearly see the exact appearance of the stone.

Xie Zhefeng said, “I can’t see it clearly either.”

“Oh…”

The other party’s gaze was finally not on him, so he dared to turn his head slightly and glance at Xie Zhefeng.

The man’s face was still very pale, his sleeves hung down, and the hand faintly visible within his long robe trembled slightly.

The pain of splitting the soul was bone-deep and heart-piercing; it couldn’t be alleviated in a short time. Xie Zhefeng was still in pain at this moment.

He collected himself, his eyes calm.

In the memory, Zhao Duan stole the array core and went to find Zhao Qiuran.

This memory was of events that happened a few days ago. Crude puppet techniques had already spread throughout Beiming, and many abandoned puppets could be seen in the streets and alleys of the twenty-seventh city.

These puppets lacked spiritual energy supply, their vitality was dim, and they would rush at any living being they sensed, like wild beasts—just like the puppets An Wuxue and his companions encountered when they first entered Beiming.

Cultivators were few in number and simply couldn’t manage all the puppets in the entire twenty-seventh city. Mortals could only take refuge in their homes with talismans given by immortal masters.

When Zhao Duan went to find Zhao Qiuran, she was overwhelmed by this matter.

Seeing that it was Zhao Duan, she put down what she was doing and asked with concern, “The city hasn’t been peaceful these past few days. Why are you wandering around? Have you run out of spiritual stones again?”

Zhao Duan asked her, “If I run out, Mother will give me more, right?”

Zhao Qiuran couldn’t do anything about him. She took out her spiritual pouch, intending to take out some spiritual stones, and told him, “No one dares to come out in the city these days. Even if you take them, there’s nowhere to spend them—”

Her words suddenly stopped, and she looked down.

Zhao Duan held the spirit sword she had painstakingly refined in his hand, and the blade fiercely pierced her Dantian.

Turbid qi emerged from Zhao Duan’s palm, wrapped around the hilt, and flowed up the blade.

Zhao Duan said with an indifferent smile, “Mother is so good to me. She’d surely be willing to help me and give me something to rely on to survive, wouldn’t she?”

The spiritual pouch fell to the ground.

Zhao Qiuran’s eyes widened, filled with disbelief.

She knew Zhao Duan’s character wasn’t good, but she only thought it was because she indulged him, and his minor mischief was harmless.

She hadn’t expected that the result of her turning a blind eye to Zhao Duan’s past dirty deeds would be his sword piercing her Dantian.

She tried to force the sword out but found that her Tribulation Transcendence cultivation was completely powerless to resist.

Zhao Duan had cultivated turbid qi to the late-stage Tribulation Transcendence realm, and she was utterly helpless.

She opened her mouth, wanting to say something.

But Zhao Duan picked at his ear, too lazy to listen to her nonsense, and twisted the hand holding the sword.

The spirit sword shredded Zhao Qiuran’s Dantian!

Zhao Duan withdrew his sword. Blood splattered all over him, and Zhao Qiuran slowly fell.

He only looked down at the blood on his body and said displeased, “So dirty.”

Zhao Qiuran died.

The twenty-seventh city originally had four Tribulation Transcendence cultivators, including Qiao Ting and Qiao Yin, who had just broken through to Tribulation Transcendence. It should have been impossible to reach such a desperate situation, but because Zhao Duan’s actions were so unexpected, Zhao Qiuran died so inexplicably.

In Zhao Duan’s memory, An Wuxue and Xie Zhefeng couldn’t read what Zhao Qiuran was thinking.

But she didn’t close her eyes until her death.

Zhao Duan was about to move her body. Seeing her staring, he cursed, “Why are you staring at me? Anyway, I’m not your real son.”

He used the method taught to him by the person behind the sound transmission talisman to lock Zhao Qiuran’s remnant soul in her body, directly making her corpse into a puppet.

An Wuxue was quite surprised to see this.

He had thought Zhao Qiuran’s puppet was made from some kind of spiritual item of heaven and earth, but he hadn’t expected that the puppet technique could also be directly applied to a corpse.

But upon closer thought, a Tribulation Transcendence cultivator’s corpse, having borne the spiritual energy of the Tribulation Transcendence stage, was itself a rare “spiritual item of heaven and earth.”

This method would be useless on other people’s corpses. To directly turn a deceased person into a puppet, the deceased would at least need to be at the Tribulation Transcendence stage, like Zhao Qiuran.

So Zhao Duan could only kill Zhao Qiuran or Qiao Gou. And Zhao Qiuran’s cultivation was slightly lower than Qiao Gou’s, making her the natural first choice.

As he thought this, Zhao Duan had already quietly taken away the finished puppet and began to transfer the array core, which he had stolen and placed on a stone, to Zhao Qiuran.

This was done by Zhao Duan himself, and the sequence of the runes and puppet marks was very clear.

An Wuxue knew Xie Zhefeng would remember it, but out of habit, he also watched very carefully.

Zhao Duan simultaneously placed the puppet mark and transferred the array core to this puppet, which had a trace of vitality. The puppet mark connected to the sword array, effectively turning the puppet into the sword array’s “cauldron,” just like the Zhao Qiuran they had just fought.

This method was exquisite, and the person behind it should also be exceptionally skilled in array paths…

It truly was…

The more he looked, the more it resembled himself.