Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way

“The audacity! Which rude little imp dares to do such a thing!” an ear-deafening roar that could be heard a hundred miles away resounded from within the temple. The roar was filled with tremendous rage and authoritativeness. A gold light filled the air as a sacred aura shot out. Beams of light poured out fiercely, driving away Gu Suihan’s blade of qi like prowling tigers and dragons.

Even so, Gu Suihan’s attack had come too suddenly. That vast layer of qi that was filled with grace and mercy was unable to protect all the living creatures in the area.

A lot of people were still affected by the explosion of fiendish qi in the air. Fiendish qi rushed into their bodies, causing their hun and po to shift unnaturally, so blood sprayed out from their bodies. The area surrounding the temple was filled with the sounds of tragic cries and howls.

“Rude little imp?” Gu Suihan scoffed. His expression was indifferent as he kept his saber back in its sheath and stood where he was. “You can run, but you can’t hide. Your ancestral tablet is still here. I don’t think you would bear to part with something that’s so intricately tied to your own life.”

Immediately after he said that, his large cloak flapped, and his sleeve flew as he suddenly disappeared and reappeared in the living room of the house again. But this time, he had an ancestral tablet that measured about 30 centimeters long with black runes swirling around it.

The words “Ancestor of the Wei family, Wei Lingyun” was carved into the tablet and painted gold. This was clearly the item that the spirit of the ancestor behind the problems the family was facing used as a shell for itself.

“Sir, has the problem been resolved? Is that person really the spirit of an ancestor of the Wei family? One of our ancestors?” The plump middle-aged man was supported by his wives and concubines as he rushed over to Gu Suihan and wiped the cold sweat from his brow as he asked these questions cautiously.

“It’s settled for the time being. Why you don’t want to sell the house anymore?” said Gu Suihan in a slow voice, as if he couldn’t be bothered at all.

The middle-aged man could sense the murderousness from Gu Suihan’s body, and he couldn’t help but shudder. He looked around at the faces of all his family members and felt conflicted. After hesitating and struggling inside for a few moments, he took time to select his words carefully and started, “Sir, I really hope you will forgive me, but…I have been tasked with the responsibility of taking care of the family and passing down what we have…”

In other words, he was hoping just to express his gratitude with some actions and money and chase Gu Suihan away. He wasn’t going to sell the house anymore.

“Since you’re going to be like this, then…well, at least you’ve saved me some money,” said Gu Suihan with a chuckle. Before the middle-aged man could smile gleefully, Gu Suihan flicked his fingers, and every single member of the family turned into ash, gathering to form a bloodied sphere with red splotches.

In just the blink of an eye, the entire estate had turned into a dead town. The voices of humans and the sounds of beasts could no longer be heard. As a cool breeze blew, it made the warm sunshine seem colder than before.

“Pathetic little ants. They received benefits and hoped to get away without having to pay the full price for it. How ignorant,” said Gu Suihan emotionlessly as he played with the bloodied sphere that was only the size of his palm.

He then sent a thought to a slave trader miles away, his voice resounding in an especially domineering manner in the man’s mind, “20 of your best maids. Send them to the Wei family residence in the west of the city.”

This was a world where cultivators existed, after all. Even though the great Qin empire had a law stating that one could not harm ordinary people for no reason, just like the laws in a particular region on Earth, this law only applied to the lower rungs of society. The lower rungs of cultivators were basically those below Origin Core – the Foundation Establishment cultivators that numbered as many as dogs and the Qi Activation cultivators that filled the streets.

This law didn’t apply to cultivators like Gu Suihan, never mind those Divine Soul cultivators that watched over the cities. Those at the Immortal stage were too lazy to even care about the lives of ordinary folks. Ordinary people were like mere pigs and dogs to them.

In this world, only the gods would agree to any request such ordinary people had, but only at the beginning. The other races, including human cultivators, didn’t have the slightest pity for such people.

The demonic race saw humans as food.

The creatures in the Devil Abyss saw humans as an inexhaustible resource. After all, they survived on the desires of humans.

Buddhas, ghosts, and the rest either used humans as a sharpening stone to train and quench their minds, or they used humans as a source of power fueled by their faith and fate.

If you had to stack the different races into a pyramid, then the one right at the bottom would be the living creatures that weren’t sentient. The level higher than that would be these humans who mistakenly thought that they were at the top of the food chain.

But then again, if humans were this pathetic, then how did they manage to dominate the ruling positions? It was because while humans had no real strengths, they shared a lot of similarities with other races.

If you wanted to cultivate in the Way, humans had spiritual roots.

If you wanted to cultivate the soul and abandon the physical body, humans could gather three hun and seven po to turn into a ghost cultivator.

If you want to cultivate in Buddhism, just be immersed in filthy worldly desires from a young age, then use scriptures to make a breakthrough. The level of cultivation of your mind would increase leaps and bounds in an instant.

To use gaming as an analogy, humans would be the class you started with, while the other races were hidden classes. If you got a few good opportunities and were pretty talented in the first place, you could switch to most hidden classes.

Before long, several horse carriages swiftly arrived. A bright-looking young man led more than ten pretty and elegant ladies toward Gu Suihan.

The young man looked at Gu Suihan and was puzzled, so his first reaction was to look around. “Hmm? The Wei family sold their house?” said the young man with some surprise.

“That’s right. They said that this house was haunted, so they sold it for a low price. But the place is too big, since there’s nobody else besides me, so I need some servants to upkeep the house.” Gu Suihan glanced at the ash that he had combined with the garden soil and gave the young man a warm smile.

“That makes sense. Even if you hadn’t bought it, they wouldn’t have the confidence to continue staying in this place without feeling embarrassed. The land in this city is very valuable, after all. If these ordinary ants didn’t have powerful ancestors to rely on, they wouldn’t have been able to take up such a huge piece of land,” said the young man as he shook his head and smiled deferentially. At the same time, he observed Gu Suihan’s dressing secretly from the corner of his eye. He was shocked by what he saw, but his heart was filled with more joy than anything else.

This man was a wealthy fellow. A senior who was definitely above Origin Core. Not too long ago, a cultivator who was supposedly the top Origin Core cultivator in the city had visited this house too, but he ended up leaving in embarrassment.

Gu Suihan looked young, but it was hard to say if he was actually some powerful old fellow from another land. That fox hide around his shoulders definitely belonged to a mighty demon above Origin Core. A tiny fraction of his wealth would be enough to feed him for a couple of years.

But Gu Suihan had to admit that this estate was simply too large. It covered more than a dozen square miles. It was split into six courtyards and the scenery in each one was pretty in its own way, including gardens, hot springs, rivers and more. It was like heaven on earth.

Before this, there were at least a thousand servants in this house serving the Wei family. But the young man had only brought along more than ten maids. That wasn’t enough.

“Take away the seventh, ninth and 17^th girl from the left. The rest can stay.” Gu Suihan’s eyes glinted as he pointed the three girls out in a seemingly lazy way. But immediately after he did that, the three girls stumbled backward and collapsed while vomiting blood.

“The Dongfang family is very influential indeed,” said Gu Suihan with a chuckle. He looked at the three deathly pale girls in front of him and his lips curled into a smile as he spoke murderously to them, “Since you’re here, bring a message back to them for me. The effect of the finger I pointed at you cannot be erased so easily.”

“Why, you…UNGGHH!” One of the girls was horrified and scanned her internal energy frantically. But before she could curse at Gu Suihan, she turned into sand and disappeared, leaving behind nothing but her green dress that trembled slightly where she once was.

“What about the two of you?” Gu Suihan looked calmly at the other two, a smile still plastered on his face. But this smile looked as threatening and terrifying as the snarl of a wild beast.

“We will leave right now. Don’t worry, we will bring the message back to them.” One of them quickly helped the other to her feat. They stumbled a little as they did their best to bow politely, then endured the excruciating pain that felt like a thousand ghosts eating at their heart or blades slicing their bones as they sprinted away from the estate.

“Sir, I…” The young man’s face was pale and covered in large drops of sweat. He fell to his knees with a loud thud and defended himself frantically, “I didn’t know about this! Please forgive me!”

“Don’t worry, this has nothing to do with you,” Gu Suihan consoled the young man. He threw the young man a bag of spiritual stones, then told him to leave.

Several minutes later, he finally got to his feet slowly. The maids were all still feeling terribly uneasy.

He flicked his finger and internal energy shot out like water. Blue waves rippled one after another and shook the place. In the next moment, the entire estate changed completely. The grandeur and beauty it used to have turned into nothing but dust as walls collapsed. The trees and grass trembled and covered the stone pavements. The rivers shifted position but continued to flow. Several rooms that he didn’t have any use for collapsed.

Intricately carved statues rose in their place. These statues included roaring beasts, mighty demons staring at the sky, devils howling, and elegant immortals. Each one had a unique expression on their face.

The maids watched on in astonishment as the entire estate turned into one beautiful, elegantly designed building that ran along the river and seemed out of this world.

Clouds surrounded the building, so walking down the corridors felt like a tour of the sky itself. The flower patches and bamboo forests were a pretty sight to behold too. Koi fish swam in the river, and they bowed gratefully toward Gu Suihan like humans.

Gu Suihan instructed the maids, “Each person gets one room, you can decide which ones among yourself. You can do whatever you want if I didn’t give any specific instructions for the day. Do not enter the study or the bedroom.”

After he said those words, he disappeared suddenly. “This Enchanting Immortal Heavenly Divine Formation will give all of you a surprise.”

His storage ring flashed again and again as he buried spiritual weapon after spiritual weapon as though they hadn’t cost him any money. He used a furnace to refine rare material after rare material to transform them into mysterious-looking talismans that were pasted all over the place.

Once he thrust out the hand seal he had made, the entire estate shook a few times. Misty clouds hid the place and qi engulfed the estate. The place was now like in the depths of paradise, a place that was hidden from view. It could only be seen vaguely through the mist, like the heavenly palace of legends.