Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way

“I’d rather be destroyed than let you swallow me!” yelled the city god in despair as he watched his last chance to escape vaporize after Gu Suihan had killed off those beasts. He arrived at his final decision and was about to kill himself by imploding.

“Did you think you could decide whether you lived or died?” said Gu Suihan in an indifferent voice. He thrust out the seal that he had already prepared beforehand and stopped the city god from imploding even as the city god howled indignantly. The power from countless laws of nature turned into strings of runes that weaved together and trapped the city god’s consciousness inside his own godly crystal.

“The rest of you…shall die too!”

Gu Suihan kept the city god’s godly crystal and didn’t even bother to look at the terrified and frantic deities left behind him. He pointed a finger at the sea of blood, and the sea rose immediately, its waves drowning the remaining deities in the blink of an eye. The sound of several things being swallowed followed, then the waves brought a dozen bean-sized godly crystals to Gu Suihan as though they were sentient.

“If they hadn’t lost the sacrifices and the beliefs of thousands of ordinary people, they wouldn’t have been this easy to deal with.” Gu Suihan turned to look at Tang Xiaoyun and the rest, who were staring rather warily and fearfully at him, and smiled faintly as he put his saber back in its sheath.

“Even if they’ve lost their source of power, it doesn’t mean they’d become so weak that an ordinary Origin Core cultivator would be able to deal with them by himself either…” thought the rest of them as they exchanged glances and buried their deep wariness of Gu Suihan in their hearts.

“We only need to alter the formation slightly. As long as Rou Lingyun is unable to successfully activate the formation, we’d have succeeded.”

Gu Suihan and the rest floated in the air as they looked down quietly at the formation lines below. The more they looked at the formation lines, the eerier it seemed.

He waved an arm, and the sand and stones around them started flying, quickly turning into a mighty storm and covering the corner of the formation they had uncovered in an instant.

“Shuang’er, my dearest Shuang’er…who in the world did this? Who in the world changed your memories?”

A beautiful middle-aged woman in pink royal robes and perfectly styled hair stood a short distance away from the unconscious young lady. She sighed heavily as she looked at the young lady worriedly, but a frightening murderous look also flickered deep within her eyes. The flickering continued to accumulate and spun together to become a strange and mysterious symbol.

Not long after Shuang’er was brought home by her father, traces of alterations to her memories were discovered. The way her memories had been altered was very odd, and no matter what they did, nobody could get rid of the alteration.

Su Yuqing looked pretty upset too. He had forgone his own future for the sake of rescuing Shuang’er, after all. In the future, unless he had some really amazing encounter or chanced upon something terribly rare, there would be no way he could move to a higher level. He had gone all out to rescue Shuang’er partly because he was her father and he had some fatherly love for her, but the more important reason was Shuang’er’s mother.

Reality did not work like fairytales. There were no princesses who fell in love with the short, poor, or weak. Such sweet and dumbass love stories would never happen in real life.

Back then, Su Yuqing had married into his wife’s family and didn’t actually have many feelings for Shuang’er’s mother to begin with. If not for that item, he would never have wanted to be married to this woman.

Later on, because of some issues, the family went into crisis, and Shuang’er’s mother had no choice but to pass her child to Su Yuqing, telling him to send her away and protect her well. To his dismay, a mission that should have gone perfectly well had actually gone wrong. Not only had it cost him his future, but the one thing that connected him to his wife, Shuang’er, was hurt as well.

Moreover, this was a hurt that she could not recover from. This really irritated him. Over all these years, she had been unhappy with him more than once. And worse still, after that one time, she had never slept with him ever again. She always looked at him as though he were a piece of trash, with disdain reserved for things of a lower class.

“I’ll go and get that person!” Su Yuqing couldn’t stand the hateful and icy look that Shuang’er’s mother was giving him, so he said these words with a glum face and ran out of the room.

He was going to look for You Hantian. Su Yuqing knew that this man was working for the empire and that his family lived in the countryside within the 49 domains. Apparently, it was some lousy place called Fengyang.

He had no idea where Gu Suihan was, so he could only try to get in contact with You Hantian, the last person he was in touch with. He just hoped that…You Hantian was still alive.

Otherwise…the 49 domains…were going to become chaotic.

“Who is this?” a middle-aged man turned to ask Rou Lingyun after frowning and scanning one very nervous Li Yu emotionlessly.

Rou Lingyun’s heart pounded fearfully, and she hesitated for a moment before finally stammering, “He…he saved my life!”

“Is that so?” The middle-aged man frowned deeply. This was going to be tricky. To put it very honestly, if Rou Lingyun hadn’t told him that she had a way to get all of them out of this present crisis, he would never have bothered to come back and save her. If he lost a daughter, he could always father a new one. But if he ended up dead, then there was no future to speak of.

“Just do what you can,” said Rou Lingyun to her father via telepathy. She could see how much of a dilemma he was in.

The middle-aged man nodded. “We just have to go with it then. I hope your information is really useful. I’ve already contacted those monsters, and because nobody wants to die, they’ll do their best to cooperate with you. But…”

Rou Lingyun cut her father off and said in a determined voice, “There are no buts. I must succeed, and I must not fail. Otherwise, we will all end up dead!”

“I’m glad you understand.” The middle-aged man sighed heavily, then waved an arm to pick both of them up and flew rapidly into the sky.

“It has begun!” Gu Suihan smiled as he slowly picked up the teapot and poured tea out for the whole group.

“The second step…” The scholar fanned himself with his folding fan. There was a slightly grim look on his face.

Tang Xiaoyun laughed merrily and drank his tea down in one gulp. He wiped his mouth and said, “The cleansing is about to begin. A million souls! Ha!”

“The rest will depend on your own capabilities,” said Gu Suihan in a cryptic manner.

His voice was still echoing around the group when he disappeared completely.

“What a mysterious character!” Xia Yun’s eyes clouded over as she stared thoughtfully at the empty space where Gu Suihan once was and uttered these words.

“Hoho…farewell, everyone!” The scholar rested a palm over his other fist. A wind began to blow and carried him away like he was merely a feather. He, too, flew away and disappeared.

It didn’t take long for the room to be left with a hot teapot and the smell of tea. The humans who were enjoying the tea earlier…had all disappeared.

“Someone is using a secret technique to find out where I am!” said You Hantian as he sensed something. He subconsciously thrust a hand seal out to trace the origins of this sensing.

But the other party had no intention of concealing themselves. After making a clear connection with You Hantian’s hand seal, they left again quietly.

“Interesting,” said You Hantian with a chuckle as he raised an eyebrow.

“What do you mean?” asked Zhou Lingfeng as he sat next to You Hantian.

After gaining enlightenment from Gu Suihan about their cultivation techniques, all these sect leaders who had access to the resources of their entire sect had now reached the Nascent Change stage. The presence of the laws of nature was flowing all over their bodies since they did not retract it.

“Nothing. It’ll take him some time to get here. We can attend to our own business first.” You Hantian didn’t explain and turned to look at the incredibly developed city outside with a faint smile.

Thanks to the Huangquan Evil Ghost, You Hantian had been promoted gloriously. He had jumped ranks and reached a much higher position than before. Zhou Lingfeng, Zhan Wuchang and the other sect leaders who had helped him were also rewarded and became You Hantian’s subordinates as planned. They had become a group that worked hard for the empire.

“Five Elements Sumeru – Into Heaven and Earth.” Gu Suihan’s expression was solemn as he thrust magic seal after magic seals out from his hands to form an extremely complex diagram. He bit the tip of his tongue and sprayed a mouthful of his blood into the diagram. He took a deep breath, stepped into the diagram, spread his arms out, and slowly allowed himself to be absorbed into the diagram. He concealed his presence, and soon, he disappeared completely.

This was yet another god-level technique. After Gu Suihan had restored his core, he stopped using ordinary spells and techniques. Either he made use of the laws of nature, or he used these strange and mysterious god-level techniques.

Spells, sabers, and sword techniques were too limiting for him. They were completely useless to him!