For a brief moment, the scar-faced man looked as if he were about to explode into curses, but he forced himself to swallow it down. “I won’t comment on your so-called filial piety—you can save that explanation for your father. Li Jin, I’ll only ask you this: do you know what will happen to those two children if they fall into their hands?”
Li Jin’s face turned deathly pale, yet his cheekbones flushed with a feverish red. He snarled back viciously, “Don’t stand there talking like it’s none of your business! I’ve raised them all these years—I’ve already done more than enough! They’re not even my children! Ever since the family fell into ruin, the moment I suggested sending them out as servants, my mother threatened to kill herself, saying she’d smash her head and die. They’re pitiful—so am I! What’s wrong with sending them away? At least they’ll have food to eat! Do they have to stay here and starve to death with me just to prove sibling affection?!”
“That ‘food to eat’ exists only in your fantasies,” the scar-faced man said coldly. “They’ll gouge out the children’s eyes, pierce their ears deaf, force them to drink mute poison, turn them into so-called ‘True Spirits,’ and offer them up for the sect’s followers to toy with and vent their desires. In the end, they’ll be tortured to death. Even after death, their skin will be flayed and their bones extracted to be made into ritual instruments. Didn’t your benefactor say the soul is the most precious thing? Then just wait for your siblings’ precious souls to come find you at night.”
Li Jin: “……”
“That’s nonsense… absurd! Completely alarmist!” He suddenly turned to Gu Pingchuan beside him. “He’s lying to me—he’s saying this on purpose to drive a wedge between us, isn’t he?”
Gu Pingchuan smiled and nodded. “Correct. He’s trying to sow discord. You need not take his words to heart.”
The scar-faced man scoffed. “You don’t even dare ask, ‘Can you guarantee you won’t treat them like that?’ Looks like you’ve already realized the truth. Li Jin, you’re not a fool—but when clever people deceive themselves, it’s sometimes even more terrifying.”
Gu Pingchuan calmly interrupted, “Young Master Li is offering his siblings to our sect, allowing them to transcend the mortal world and help enlighten others. By setting aside personal attachments to benefit countless people, is this not a great merit? Yet you judge him with such narrow thinking—surely that is biased.”
“Call it what it is—human trafficking,” the scar-faced man shot back. “Don’t shamelessly dress it up as saving the world. Li Jin has lost his conscience and fits right in with your kind—but what about Zhang Wan’s son from Tongshi Pharmacy? Was he also ‘willingly offered’?”
Gu Pingchuan paused, then said with sudden realization, “Ah, you mean that incident botched by Xu Shifu. In that case, the missing Venerable Qiuming must have already been killed. Just like the arson case in Xianglian City, it was also your doing from behind the scenes?”
“The Ten Aspects Sect traffics people across various states, often using businesses like pharmacies, cloth shops, and general stores as fronts. Following Song Man’s trail to his superiors wasn’t difficult. What surprised me instead was Xu Shifu.”
Gu Pingchuan asked with interest, “Oh? He’s merely a pharmacy manager—what makes him worthy of your attention?”
“Xu Shifu wanted a permanent solution—he tried to develop a drug that could directly render people blind, deaf, and mute. That way, you could target ordinary people directly instead of searching for so-called ‘innate spirits.’” The scar-faced man said with sarcasm, “Schemes that ordinary people wouldn’t think of in a lifetime—you people grasp them effortlessly. To be so vicious yet so creatively so… truly impressive.”
Though he said “impressive,” his expression clearly read disgust. Li Jin listened in mounting terror, yet Gu Pingchuan actually inclined his head slightly, accepting the praise, and replied politely, “Our sect has always excelled in medicine. After all, medicinal principles know neither good nor evil—they treat all equally. No matter how righteous or powerful you claim to be, didn’t you still fall to the effects of Mirror Platform?”
“You keep calling us vicious—why not look at the blood on your own hands? Two of our Venerables and one deacon have died by your hand, and countless of our followers have perished at the hands of Bihua over the years. Why don’t you take your own life to atone for them?”
“Spare me your sophistry!” the scar-faced man snapped. “You prey on the weak and defenseless—women and children—and commit acts devoid of all conscience. You’ve done every vile deed imaginable and still dare sit on a lotus pedestal pretending to be saints. Calling you vicious is already being generous!”
Though drugged and unable to move, his presence was undiminished—stern and imposing. Even Li Jin shrank back two steps in fright. Gu Pingchuan studied him for a moment before saying darkly, “A stray dog—this is all you have left. When your Prince Yu Gong’s head is hanging from the gates of Fengdu City, we’ll see if you can still shout so loudly.”
The scar-faced man glanced at him and sneered, “What, after all these years, you still haven’t forgotten your sect leader?”
Gu Pingchuan lashed out, kicking him hard in the chest and sending him flying. “On the brink of death, and you still dare talk big!”
Cough—cough—cough…
The scar-faced man lay sprawled on the ground, coughing violently, spitting flecks of blood. It was clear that the kick had caused internal injuries. Gu Pingchuan walked over, planted his foot on the man’s back, and ground him hard into the dirt. “You don’t look afraid at all. Waiting for your comrades to come rescue you? But you shouldn’t have many people left, should you? The rest are all with the Longsha delegation, protecting Yu Gong Zhao Ye. Do you think we can’t touch him?”
The scar-faced man forced out, “His Highness is heavily guarded—you’ll never succeed. And if anything happens to him, Xiling will investigate to the end—”
Gu Pingchuan let out a faint laugh from above. “Who told you we planned to do it ourselves?”
“What do you mean?”
“Bihua is a demonic blade that should not exist in this world. If that blade appears in Fengdu, kills someone it shouldn’t, and shows the world that Longsha’s submission is nothing more than a staged farce—tell me, will the Emperor of Xiling still tolerate it?”
Gu Pingchuan leaned close to his ear, enunciating each word slowly and clearly. “The head of a vassal state’s envoy must be severed by the suzerain state itself—that’s what makes it truly exquisite.”
“What exactly are you trying to do?!”
The scar-faced man struggled desperately to see him, eyes bloodshot, breath coming like a bellows. “Bihua would rather die than be manipulated by you!”
“Such integrity, such noble resolve—that’s exactly the spirit we need. I’ll make sure you get what you wish for.” Gu Pingchuan withdrew his foot and gestured for his men to bind them. “You don’t need to do anything. Just die under the name of Bihua—that’s enough.”
Several gray-robed followers dragged the drugged men in black into the room and tied them together. Li Jin asked in confusion, “Wasn’t it agreed that I would only lure them in and you would take them away? Why are they being kept in my house?”
“Young Master Li, the matter isn’t finished yet. We’ll borrow your residence for now,” Gu Pingchuan said. “If they have reinforcements, they’ll come here to look for them. It will be convenient to capture them all in one sweep. Don’t worry—I promised you that once this is over, I will fulfill your wish.”
Li Jin looked at him uncertainly and hesitated. “Then… they absolutely cannot die in my house. It would affect my future…”
The scar-faced man suddenly let out a cold laugh. “Stop dreaming. You should prepare to die with us. Can’t you see? He never intended to let you walk out of here alive.”
Li Jin snapped his head around. “What?”
“He plans to impersonate us, commit crimes, then lure the pursuers here, kill us, and frame everything on Longsha before escaping,” the scar-faced man said, staring at him. “As the only witness who knows everything, if you reveal that this was done by the Ten Aspects Sect, his entire plan falls apart. So of course he’ll silence you.”
“But he… he promised me…”
Li Jin looked at Gu Pingchuan in terror, his limbs icy cold, legs trembling. He muttered, “I won’t say anything… If this gets out, my reputation will be ruined—I’ll never pass the provincial exam in my life!”
Gu Pingchuan regarded him calmly. At last, he gave a faint, troubled smile, reproaching the scar-faced man, “I originally wanted him to leave happily, but you insisted on exposing it. That’s rather inconsiderate.”
“Why?” Li Jin’s lips trembled. “Why… didn’t we agree on this?”
Gu Pingchuan said apologetically, “The situation has changed, Young Master Li. My apologies.”
His tone was gentle, but his hand was merciless—a sharp chop to the neck knocked Li Jin unconscious.
The scar-faced man asked, “At first, you truly intended to recruit Li Jin into the Ten Aspects Sect, otherwise you wouldn’t have spared him. Later, when the assassination of the Xiling envoys failed and he was watched by our people, you used him as bait to lure us in—I understand that. But you didn’t have to kill him. You could have taken us to another location and removed him from this entirely. Why did you change your mind?”
“Just as you said—because he heard too much today.”
Gu Pingchuan signaled his men to bind Li Jin and personally dragged him beside the scar-faced man. “If I let him go, your people from Bihua would find him, and so would Xiling’s people. If he could be persuaded by the Ten Aspects Sect, he could be persuaded by others as well. After thinking it through, the mouth of the dead is the most reliable. So… this is the best way.”
It was a pity Li Jin had already fainted—otherwise, the scar-faced man would have liked to see his expression upon hearing those words.
But if Gu Pingchuan had already decided to kill him, why had he given him the antidote earlier? He could have left him paralyzed—why go through the extra trouble?
Thinking back to Li Jin’s earlier words, they revealed nothing useful beyond his cruelty and foolishness. A family battered by misfortune, suffering endlessly, no one spared…
Wait.
A faint, almost imperceptible sense of wrongness flickered through his mind—so fast it felt like an illusion.
The scar-faced man narrowed his eyes and rapidly replayed every word exchanged since entering the room.
“My mother is bedridden… I have two underage siblings… I copy books to earn money for my supplies… my younger brother is eight, my sister is five…”
“And another younger brother—he wasn’t good at studying, so he was sent to Wan Hong Tower as an apprentice.”
Dusk was approaching. Only a faint light filtered through the broken window, now completely blocked by the figure standing before him.
The silver mask carved with beast patterns drew closer, the voice soft but edged with undeniable interrogation. “What are you thinking?”
At the instant their eyes met, the scar-faced man suddenly struck—grabbing his wrist, twisting it sharply, using the force to leap up. His right palm chopped down on the shoulder, his left foot kicked twice behind the knee. A series of dull cracks sounded—
Gu Pingchuan’s limbs were shattered. Like a sack with one corner lifted, his body went limp and collapsed.
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