Aspiring to the Immortal Path
chapter-176

Liu Hongyan’s eyes crackled with electricity as she spoke. “Basking Moon students Chen Naixing and Chen Naian, you are guilty of robbing your schoolmates, killing innocents, selling out your comrades-in-arms, and framing your classmates. There is no atoning for these crimes, and the law decrees that you be executed. Law Hall outer disciple Liu Hongyan will act as executor of the law and apply the punishment. Three Treasures of the Law Hall, come forth!”

As she spoke, the Law Emblem erupted with light, and three phantoms appeared in the air: a saber, a sword, and a hook.

The Demon-Punishing Saber!

The Evil-Executing Sword!

The Soul-Slaying Hook!

“They are wicked beyond redemption, and the punishment is to have their souls slain so that they can never enter the cycle of reincarnation and cease to exist forevermore! The punishment of Soul Execution!” As Liu Hongyan loudly spoke, she pointed at the half-moon hook in the sky. The hook became solid and began to descend toward the Chen brothers.

The Soul-Slaying Hook was the most severe tool of punishment of the Law Hall’s Three Treasures.

The saber wounded, the sword killed, and the hook exterminated the soul.

Those killed by the Soul-Slaying Hook would never be able to enter the cycle of reincarnation and be reborn.

Of course, given the strength of the brothers, even if they hadn’t been killed by the Soul-Slaying Hook, they probably weren’t worthy of reincarnation. But this did not mean that the prospect wasn’t horrifying.

They had not expected that, after Ping Jingyue, another sect member would appear in that group of four.

Of course, unlike Ping Jingyue, Liu Hongyan was a true member of the Basking Moon Sect, so even if she was exposed, she could continue to walk around without fear.

At this time, the brothers realized that they had kicked a steel plate and had run out of luck.

When it came to Ping Jingyue, they could still silence witnesses, but such a thing was useless when it came to the Law Hall. Anything they did was pointless, for Liu Hongyan’s words had already been recorded in the Law Emblem and sent back to the Law Hall.

It was precisely because she had obtained the Law Hall’s permission that she could use one of the Three Treasure Phantoms.

All Three Treasures were weapons graded as divine treasures, and merely the power transmitted through their phantoms was enough to kill any Mortal Shedding Realm expert.

The two brothers cried out and began to flee into the distance.

“Where are you running!?” Liu Hongyan shouted as she pointed at the pair. The Soul-Slaying Hook’s tip let out a dazzling light that shot at the pair.

At this moment, the Chen brothers exchanged a glance, upon which Chen Naian shouted, “Big Brother, survive for me! Sun-Moon Flight!”

He thrust out his palms at the back of his older brother as he prepared to use the Sun-Moon Flight. Without Ping Jingyue’s Laughter of No Return restraining them, the pair could once more use this escape spell.

But the Sun-Moon Flight needed time to activate, and with the Soul-Slaying Hook chasing them down, they didn’t have that time. The only option was to sacrifice one of them to accelerate the process and ensure that one of them lived.

Chen Naixing was deeply grateful. “Brother, I’ll… shit, you!”

Chen Naian placed his hands on Chen Naixing’s back, and his face turned cold. “Let me live for you instead!”

His body flashed as he pushed Chen Naixing down, and then he was gone.

“Aaaah!” Chen Naixing furiously roared in unwillingness. The Soul-Slaying Hook circled around his head, after which Chen Naixing exploded. A wisp of smoke emerged from his carcass and vanished into the hook phantom.

The Soul-Slaying Hook circled around for a little longer, but when it failed to find its target, it disappeared together with the saber and sword.

Liu Hongyan slowly descended from the sky. She took out a Mustard Seed Bag and put the token in it.

Just like Ping Jingyue, she had been hiding a Mustard Seed Bag on her person.

After doing all this, she looked at Ping Jingyue.

As their gazes met, Ping Jingyue spoke, her complexion wan. “So you were already watching me.”

“Wasn’t it the same for you?” Liu Hongyan countered.

Ping Jingyue bitterly smiled. “Yes, I also noticed a few things, but I didn’t think…”

She paused, and then she loudly said, “I’m a member of the Thousand Passions Sect, but I didn’t come to spy on the Basking Moon Sect.”

Liu Hongyan nodded. “I know. You came for Tang Jiye. The Xu Muyang incident alarmed all six major sects, and too many people wanted to know what happened with Godhead Palace. The Thousand Passions Sect also wanted to know, but the matter had nothing to do with you, and as the Basking Moon Sect was allied with the Thousand Passions Sect, you couldn’t resort to tough measures, so you had to investigate secretly. I was on orders from my master, True Person Yuliu, to enter the academy to observe you.”

“So you were True Person Yuliu’s disciple?” Cai Junyang blurted out.

True Person Yuliu was Deputy Hall Master of the Law Hall, her status on par with Xie Fengtang’s. Though she was a woman, she was known for being impartial and incorruptible.

Liu Hongyan replied, “Yes. When I walked the Fiend Demon Path, Master True Person Yuliu took a liking to me and directly took me as a disciple. But according to the rules, I still had to go through the motions and enter the academy, so my master decided to give me this mission as well.”

There were many cultivators with children, but the vast majority of cultivators would still send their children to the sect academies to temper them rather than keeping their children at their side for the rest of their lives simply because they already possessed Immortal arts.

One reason was that they didn’t have the energy to teach them, and another was that they needed to build relationships with other students.

Unless one had a heaven-reaching cultivation that could allow one to gaze proudly upon the world, defeat all enemies, and ignore all laws, one had to pay attention somewhat to human relations and learn how to conduct oneself in society. Even Immortals were no exception.

Thus, even the children of True Lords would be sent to school to study, like with Xu Miaoran.

Although Liu Hongyan had had her value recognized and been accepted as a disciple, she was only an outer disciple and not an official one, so it was very normal for her to enter the academy.

True Person Yuliu had personally promised her that if she could find Tang Jiye in her school term, she would be made a True Inheritor.

Alas, she had failed to accomplish this mission, and in the meantime, Xie Fengtang had relayed to her another mission: watch Ping Jingyue. And this, she had done very well.

In truth, even before Ping Jingyue had been exposed, Liu Hongyan had already guessed at her identity.

This was also why she had exposed her own identity. This was the only way of ensuring that Ping Jingyue didn’t go crazy.

Ping Jingyue finally sighed in relief, and with a flick of her wrist, the Seven Emotions Absolution Sword split back into the Yearning Willow Leaf Sword and the Seven Emotion Soul Chain, which she placed in her bag. “So in other words, this little business won’t cause too much of a stir?”

Liu Hongyan smiled. “Master once said that playing dumb is a trait that everyone of some stature should possess.”

The Basking Moon Sect and the Thousand Passions Sect had been friends for many years, and no one wanted this relationship to be ruined over a small matter like this. So long as it wasn’t too big of an incident, everyone was quite happy to pretend it had never happened.

Of course, this was only if it didn’t cause too much of a stir. Otherwise, there would always be those people who lacked understanding of the overall situation and became indignant with rage, raising so much of a fuss that it became difficult to clean up.

As the two of them looked at each other, they felt like a great burden had been lifted off their shoulders, and they started to laugh. Everything that had happened in the past had become unimportant and ephemeral.

But deep down, whether it was Ping Jingyue, Cai Junyang, or Liu Hongyan, all of them still had a problem gnawing at their mind.

Some things were like window paper, bound to be punctured at some point.

Once it was punctured, there would be embarrassment, grudges, and even suspicion.

For Ping Jingyue, having been exposed by today’s incident was very difficult to accept.

As for Cai Junyang, the fact that his good friends were all shrewd schemers made him feel the humiliation of being hoodwinked.

As for Liu Hongyan, there was something she had lied about.

At the beginning, she had not been so certain that Ping Jingyue belonged to the Thousand Passions Sect.

She thought that Ping Jingyue was more likely to be part of Godhead Palace.

But reality proved that she was wrong.

Then did that mean that Godhead Palace didn’t have any other spies? Or was there no spy among them? Or… though she was unwilling to believe, could it be one of the other two? Or perhaps they were spies belonging to some other sect.

There were too many answers!

Too many possibilities!

She swept her gaze over Cai and Shu. Cai Junyang was still baffled and was seemingly trying to work through everything that had just happened. As for Shu Mingyang, he was emotionless. Book in his hand, he looked up at the heavens in thought as if he had nothing to do with all that had taken place around him.

Liu Hongyan couldn’t find the answer, and she momentarily hesitated.

After a while, Cai Junyang suddenly shouted, “Shit!”

“What?” Everyone looked at him.

“Tang Jie! With this delay, those guys have definitely run off by now,” Cai Junyang sternly said.

With Yang Zhiyuan’s group of three dead and the identities of Ping Jingyue and Liu Hongyan exposed—their identities ruling out the possibility of their receiving the True Inheritor position—Cai Junyang stood a much better chance, so he was the first one to bring up the head again.

“What does it matter if we find them? We’ve already searched all three of them. None of them had the head,” Liu Hongyan replied. Although she had no interest in the True Inheritor position, Yang Zhiyuan and the others had been right. Trading the head to someone else was very valuable.

“It’s weird. Where did they hide the head?” Ping Jingyue wondered. “When I was chasing Wei Tianchong, he was running away so frantically that it seemed like he had no intention of turning back. If they had hid it somewhere in the area, then how can they get it if they don’t come back? But their group doesn’t have any other people, so who could have taken the head?”

“Who said that they didn’t have any other people…? It’s just that we never paid attention to them,” Shu Mingyang suddenly commented.

All three were taken aback, and then they shouted in unison, “The Xu Estate!”

In a flash, Chen Naian appeared on a wide avenue.

Looking back, he saw that the site of the battle was several hundred meters behind him.

As he was escaping alone, the effects of the Sun-Moon Flight had been greatly cut down, and it had only been able to carry him a few hundred meters.

But this was already enough. So long as he could keep running, he would soon throw off his pursuers.

He didn’t know that Liu Hongyan and the others weren’t giving chase. At this moment, all he could think about was getting away from those terrifying students as quickly as possible.

Just when he was about to keep running, Chen Naian saw someone sitting on a nearby tree.

This person wore a veiled bamboo hat and was seated atop a branch as they looked into the distance. They appeared to be observing the battlefield he had just left.

Someone who was drawn by the light of the Seven Emotions Absolution Sword and came to see what was going on? Chen Naian wondered.

He originally planned to ignore this person, but when he looked again, he saw that this person had a horse tied to the base of the tree.

He immediately got greedy, thinking to himself that if he had a horse, he would be able to get away even faster. Thus, he ran over to the tree.

That person saw that someone was coming over, so they hugged the tree and slid down, landing right next to the horse.

“Out of my way!” Chen Naian violently waved his hand, trying to slap to death that person who barred his path to the horse.

And then he inexplicably felt an immense pain.

He stopped.

He looked down and saw a saber with a barb thrust into his belly.

The man in the veiled hat whispered, “Your older brother is dead, so as his little brother, how can you live alone in good conscience?”

Through the veil, Chen Naian saw a clean and handsome face.

“Tang… Tang Jie…” he groaned. “Don’t kill me. I can tell you a secret… Ping… Ping Jingyue’s and Liu Hongyan’s secrets…”

“I already knew,” Tang Jie indifferently replied.

He drew back the Heartbreak Saber, taking out Chen Naian’s organs with it.

This lethal blow had Chen Naian weakly grasping at air a few times before finally collapsing.

Sheathing his saber, Tang Jie turned around and saw Mo Xiang standing behind him.

“Is it done?” he asked, no surprise in his voice.

“Everything is as Young Master ordered.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s in return for saving my little master and letting the Xu Clan go,” Mo Xiang replied before leaving.

Tang Jie couldn’t help but smile as he watched her leave.

If he had not elected to let the Xu Clan go, the Xu Estate’s people would have never been willing to do this for him.

What could feel better than being a good person and being rewarded in kind?

The thought made Tang Jie feel pleasant and warm.

He took one last glance at the distant battlefield before adjusting his hat, jumping onto his horse, and riding away.