NOVEL NEXT Ch.217: Hiding evidence
Alright, that was done! Now the old guy wouldn’t be able to bother him!
...
Wait, he was missing something.
Xie Yi looked at the corpse and felt a subtle feeling of panic rise in his throat as the realization struck.
He, uh, had killed a Grandmaster. He was pretty sure this was on par with killing royalty. Moreover, it wasn’t like he could leave the corpse here as he had done in his last life; it had to vanish. This wasn’t just about hiding his fight. This was also about hiding the body.
“Fuck”, Xie Yi cursed directly. “I need MingMing.”
There were many ways to get rid off a corpse, but most of these were of demonic nature and he didn’t even have the materials here. One way or another, he needed help.
He ran past the corpse, stopped, walked back and awkwardly looked down at it again.
Then he dragged it into the bushes and ran forward again, hoping that no one would find the corpse before he was back.
Mingtian was like a large dog - as soon as he heard Xie Yi call for him, he did indeed come running - resulting in two people awkwardly staring down at the lifeless body.
Mingtian didn’t ask who the man was or why Xie Yi had killed him. He didn’t care; he only knew that this was a Grandmaster and hiding the corpse was a bit of a problem.
“I mean, normally I would have just eaten him”, Mingtian said slowly. “But I kinda think Xue Hua wouldn’t like that.”
“Is there any place we can hide his corpse without someone finding it?”
“How about we find another beast to eat him?”
“I think his core and flesh would kill them.”
“Who cares? As long as he’s gone.”
“Even if they dared to eat him, there’s no species who would try around. Where’s a dragon when you need one?”
As one of the few species that could easily devour a Grandmaster including their core without issues, dragons were quite fearsome for cultivators.
“I don’t think we will find a dragon so close to a sect. You don’t have any of that corpse melting stuff?”
“Does Shi Yue look like he’d appreciate me having that kinda fluid?”
“I guess I could… eat his core and leave the rest for animals? I think Xue Hua won’t mind as much if it’s just his core.”
“Are you going to risk it?”
More silence. Mingtian slowly exhaled and rubbed his neck. “Well. This is an issue.”
“Maybe I can… I can try putting his core into my storage ring? I’m not sure if it will do that, but we could try. And you could… stomp the body. At least it won’t be recognizable even if someone comes.”
“Sounds like an idea. Let me take care of it.”
Mingtian patted Xie Yi’s head before squatting down and quickly taking off anything that might hint at an identity - jewellery, clothes, shoes. Xie Yi threw all of them into his storage ring for later examination. Mingtian drew a clawed finger along the lines of the guy’s chest and without his expression changing, dug his fingers inside to tear out the core.
It made a weird noise when the core snapped out of the body. Bloody, the crystal looked quite dull.
They weren’t sure if a storage space could actually handle something like a core, but to his relief, Xie Yi found out it worked. It wasn’t the best solution considering he was carrying the core around, but it was fine for the moment.
Since there wasn’t any energy seeping out, Xie Yi nodded in satisfaction and Mingtian turned into a smaller variant of his bestial form to squash the corpse to bits.
Blood seeped through the ground, followed by the vile stench of broken organs.
“It reeks. You should wash before going back to your son.”
“Good lord, I wouldn’t appear in front of Xiao Liang all bloody like this.” Mingtian wiped his paw over the ground before turning back into his humanoid form and showing an expression of disgust. “Ew. I didn’t miss this.”
It took seconds for the first flies to appear and buzz around the ground flesh and blood in circles, then drop down dead after the first contact.
“I wonder if I’ll ever feel such a sight is unfamiliar or especially disturbing? I mean, my greatest issue is the stench and that I don’t want to touch it. Beyond that, I don’t really care. It’s just unhygienic and disgusting.”
“Just roll with it. Not like it’s affecting your daily life.” Mingtian shrugged and gave Xie Yi a small push on the back. “Kid, don’t linger around here. Find something to do where people see you. We don’t want anyone wondering where you vanished to once they realize that old guy’s dead.”
“I will”, Xie Yi agreed. “But what about the area? It’s looking like this…”
The beast laughed a bit and raised his height. Wherever he walked, the area got even more destroyed. It covered things well enough for the moment.
Mingtian hurried away to get to one of the lakes, leaving Xie Yi behind. After the youth had hunted some beasts in a hurry and gathered materials, he returned back to the sect as if nothing happened. The blood of the beasts covered the human blood on his clothes, acting as a good cover. Essentially, a Grandmaster's blood was no different from an ordinary human's.
“Master”, he called out to Shi Yue, who was conversing with some cultivators of the Honourable Sect in a corner. The Grandmaster perked up and smiled at his lovely (blood-smeared) disciple.
“You went hunting?”
“Un.” Xie Yi nodded obediently, his blank face in stark contrast to the blood on his clothes. The other cultivators gave him askew glances. “Master, can you check whether the materials I have are suitable for the array? I’m not sure if I collected the correct things…”
The sentence was so out of place in Shi Yue’s ears only that he almost flinched. “I will take a look.”
Shi Yue gave the other cultivators a calm smile.
“Lessons. Finding alternate materials for an array when you don’t have access to the ones that are most suitable.”
“Oh, I remember that. I hated it”, one of the men laughed good-naturedly. “I was terrible at finding alternate materials. I doubt my teacher liked me.”
“It was one of the classes I enjoyed the most”, another commented. “Testing out different combinations was interesting. Don’t let us keep you away from teaching your disciple, Grandmaster Li. It’s good to see he’s motivated to learn even when at another sect.”
“He is always willing to learn”, Shi Yue truthfully replied and chuckled. “Then, we will continue our conversation later.”
The friendly group gave small bows before conversing on their own, leaving Shi Yue to half jog towards his own room, closely followed by Xie Yi.
“What’s wrong?”, he asked nervously, trying to figure out whether Xie Yi was hurt in any way and failing due to the amount of blood on his clothes.
Xie Yi pursed his lips and tugged on Shi Yue’s sleeve like a little child. “Shi Yue… Don’t be mad, okay?”
The Grandmaster froze before exhaling in relief. So, he wasn’t injured, he had simply caused a mess somewhere. “As long as you’re safe. What’s the matter?”
“I kinda killed the Grandmaster of the Zhu family.”
The deadpan expression and relaxed voice did not help Shi Yue with understanding what had been said. Dumbfounded, he repeated the information he had gotten. “The Zhu family’s Grandmaster?”
“Yes.”
“Killed?”
“Yes.”
“By you?”
“Yes.”
“...Just now?”
“Yes.”
“...” Shi Yue ordered his priorities. “Where’s the corpse?”
“I’ve got the core and clothes in my storage ring and MingMing stomped the body to paste. I didn’t even know a common storage ring can hold cores, I thought only the ones from the Demonic Sect could.”
Well, the storage ring Xie Yi held had long been exchanged by Shi Yue for an item of much higher quality, so it wasn’t that surprising it could hold unconventional… materials.
“Did anyone see you?”
“Shouldn’t. I didn’t notice anyone around and considering he came to kill me, he should have made sure we were alone, too.”
“Say, did you slaughter the Zhu family while you were the sect leader? Because under normal circumstances, I’d question if your bad relationship comes from your past life.” Shi Yue gaped. Exactly how terrible must their natural relationship be that the Zhu family was so interested in killing his disciple?!
“Uhm, you’ve said before that Grandmasters fighting each other could be an issue due to the Judges. The old man doesn’t have that problem anymore considering he’s dead, but do I count as a Grandmaster? Am I gonna get in trouble?” Xie Yi awkwardly pointed at himself.
“They probably wouldn’t kill you, I believe? After all they did to return you back to life… And it was self-defense. Let’s hope that they accept that.”
“Shi Yue, are you angry that I killed him?”
Memories went through Shi Yue’s head. Honestly, he didn’t like the old patriarch. They didn’t see eye to eye and to this day, he was slightly worried about the other turning to the Demonic Sect. “It’s not ideal, but no. I’m not mad. Your safety is more important.”