Sheng Jiao retained a thread of consciousness and upon hearing this, channeled his spiritual power to forcibly suppress the drunkenness.
His eyes cleared. He glanced at Xi Jianlan, who was humming and burrowing into Lezheng Jiu’s embrace, then grabbed Fu Man and walked outside.
Seeing this, Feng Yu quickly pushed Heng Yudu and followed.
With four people gone, Jiusi Courtyard was mostly empty.
Rang Chen looked thoughtfully at Sheng Jiao’s departing figure and suddenly beckoned to Xi Jianlan: “Jianlan, come here.”
“What?” Xi Jianlan crawled over muttering, limply sprawling on the table and mumbling: “What’s wrong?”
Rang Chen tidied his disheveled hair and said lightly: “Still drinking? All your secrets are about to be exposed.”
Xi Jianlan’s eyes were unfocused: “What secrets? Which one are you talking about?”
Rang Chen: “…”
Rang Chen couldn’t help but laugh: “Drunkard, keep drinking.”
Xi Jianlan made an “oh” sound and obediently crawled back, dragging Lezheng Jiu and Liu Changxing to drink, drink, drink.
Rang Chen leisurely stood up, slowly walking out of Jiusi Courtyard, his gaze lightly falling on the four people in the pavilion.
Fu Man had already begun breaking the techniques on Heng Yudu and Feng Yu. Sheng Jiao sat there looking down at the glass orb on the stone table, lost in thought.
Suddenly, Sheng Jiao shot up, spiritual power in his palm violently trembling as he made the water in the nearby Pan Pool explode into dozens of feet-high water columns with a thunderous crash.
Fu Man’s hand shook as he asked in confusion: “What happened?”
Sheng Jiao turned his head coldly, looking toward Rang Chen not far away.
Rang Chen slowly retracted his spiritual power. Without offering any explanation or feeling awkward about leaving, he leaned against the doorframe, smiling as he watched them.
Sheng Jiao signaled Fu Man to continue breaking the techniques and walked out of the pavilion with a dark expression: “What do you mean?”
But Rang Chen said: “Do you know why my father entered life-and-death seclusion?”
Sheng Jiao frowned.
Rang Chen loved to ramble and stray from the point when speaking, but his seemingly irrelevant tangents always ended up being related to what others wanted to know.
Sheng Jiao would rather listen to Xi Jianlan’s endless lies and work hard to pick out fragments of truth from that pile of nonsense than exhaust his mind with Rang Chen’s convoluted diversions.
Sheng Jiao said coldly: “Isn’t it because you glimpsed the heavenly secrets and knew he could break through to Great Ascension stage this time?”
Rang Chen said flatly: “I saw no opportunity for him to break through to Great Ascension stage, and I told him directly that even hundreds of years of seclusion might not lead to breakthrough.”
Sheng Jiao was stunned.
“Wuzhuo, Jianlan has always been one to seek revenge for the smallest slight.” Rang Chen said indifferently. “If Xi Minghuai’s memories were so easy to find, why would he delay six years and travel through three territories to find them?”
Sheng Jiao thought of something and his pupils contracted slightly.
“The signs of death still remain on Jianlan. If your Tianyan Pearls truly bring down Heaven’s punishment…”
Rang Chen spoke coldly and flatly, then suddenly looked up to stare straight at Sheng Jiao. His ancient-well-calm eyes flashed with an eerie golden pattern.
That was the Tianyan spiritual power of “Glimpse of Heaven’s Secrets.”
Sheng Jiao met his gaze coldly.
Suddenly, a cry of alarm came from the pavilion, followed by the glass birds’ sharp shrieks. Their piercing calls nearly stunned Fu Man, who was close by.
Heng Yudu, having just had his technique broken, had unfocused eyes and rapid breathing. His hands gripped the armrests with deadly force, knuckles turning white and blue, while glass birds flew around him frantically as if under threat.
The candlelight on the stone table flickered in the wind stirred up by the glass birds before suddenly going out.
The entire pavilion was instantly plunged into darkness.
Feng Yu’s face was deathly pale: “Xi Jue and the Director…”
Sheng Jiao quickly rushed forward: “What?”
Fu Man, unnoticed by anyone, quietly relit the lamp.
Sheng Jiao hadn’t initially felt that Heng Yudu and Feng Yu being under techniques was too closely connected to the Xi family slaughter, but seeing their expressions, he had an ominous premonition.
Feng Yu’s heart pounded like a drum, his entire body trembling minutely. He looked at Sheng Jiao with unfocused eyes, opening his mouth as if to say something but immediately closing it again.
“No, nothing,” Feng Yu shook his head. “There’s nothing.”
Sheng Jiao looked at him coldly.
Feng Yu broke out in cold sweat, feeling as if he were in an absurd dream.
He couldn’t believe that the usually gentle Director would actually strike against them, while Xi Jue, who had lived with them for years, watched coldly as if observing two strangers.
“That wasn’t Xi Jue…” Feng Yu murmured. “It was the Director… Wen Gubai slaughtered the Xi family. It was Wen Gubai.”
He would rather believe it was all Wen Gubai’s doing than believe it was Xi Jue.
Sheng Jiao said coldly: “When?”
Feng Yu rubbed his temples with a headache: “Our third year at Tianyan Academy.”
Third year?
That was also the year little Xi Jue began having his soul scattered by thunder.
Sheng Jiao’s heart sank completely.
Heng Yudu, who had remained silent, finally calmed the glass birds. He wiped the sweat from his face and said coldly: “That wasn’t Xi Jue.”
Sheng Jiao looked at him.
“He was possessed.” Heng Yudu couldn’t describe what that look in “Xi Jue’s” eyes was—only that it was eerie and chilling, absolutely impossible for the pampered Xi Jue to have.
But just after Heng Yudu finished speaking, he suddenly frowned again.
But if the possessor was truly the deranged person who slaughtered the Xi family, why would he spare just the two of them?
And leave behind spiritual-grade techniques—such obvious flaws for people to discover?
When the group didn’t return for a long time, Xi Jianlan drunkenly supported himself on the doorframe as he came out, nearly falling directly to the ground as he mumbled: “What’s wrong, Sheng Jiao? Where’s Sheng Jiao?”
Rang Chen caught him.
Sheng Jiao expressionlessly withdrew his gaze, looking toward the glass orb on the table.
Fu Man had also completely broken the technique on the glass orb. The pale blue glass orb gently rippled with snow-white catkins.
Sheng Jiao flicked it with his finger.
The “Bone-Gazing Mirror” scattered again, transforming into catkins that swept wildly past. Phantom spiritual power surrounded them, gradually condensing into the illusion from Xi Minghuai’s memory.
It was still that night of fierce wind and sudden rain.
In the torrential rain curtain, lightning briefly illuminated a mountain of corpses and sea of blood in ghastly white.
In the wildly shaking vision, a slender youth in coming-of-age ceremony robes knelt on the ground, his eyes flashing with golden patterns as he murmured while grasping the hand of a blood-covered woman.
That was Lady Zong.
Lady Zong was bathed in blood, coughing up mouthfuls of fresh blood. Her beautiful pupils gradually became unfocused, but she struggled to look at the youth before her, seeming to want to say something.
“Mother.” Xi Jue called to her fondly, pressing Lady Zong’s bloody hand to his face, laughing with near-madness: “Mother, am I not good?”
The heavy rain soaked them both. Lady Zong’s face was wet with what might have been water or tears as she murmured: “I shouldn’t have…”
Xi Jue’s beautiful golden pupils flashed with a gentle expression.
But Lady Zong said: “…I shouldn’t have indulged you to become so ruthless and arrogant.”
In that instant, the gentleness in Xi Jue’s pupils seemed to vanish completely along with all humanity into his dark eyes. He laughed once, but his eyes were filled only with numb indifference and ice-cold cruelty.
“Mother.” He reached out to gently stroke Lady Zong’s face, saying softly: “Things have come to this—can’t you say something to comfort me?”
Lady Zong looked at him with resentment.
Xi Jue held her gently in his arms, softly humming a lullaby that everyone in Central State knew as he murmured: “Mother, don’t you like me anymore? I didn’t want this either. You all forced me to become a little monster, so you can’t blame me, right?”
Lady Zong opened her lips as if wanting to say something.
A golden pattern shot out from Xi Jue’s body, violently circling around Lady Zong.
Lady Zong’s Tianyan xiangwen was instantly shattered, her meridians severed. Her pupils gradually became unfocused as she lost her breath in that cold embrace.
She died with her eyes wide open.
Xi Jue seemed possessed, holding her and murmuring crazily.
“Mother, they’re all bullying me. Why won’t you come save me? You abandoned me first, so no matter what I do, you can understand, right?
“You’ll still pamper me, love me, and forgive me like when I was little, won’t you?”
“I’m so cold, Mother.”
Xi Jue murmured for a long time but received no response. When he looked down, he suddenly realized Lady Zong was already dead.
The youth who hadn’t yet reached his coming-of-age ceremony was stunned for a long while, then suddenly began wailing like a child in the rainy night.
Thunder rumbled, ghastly white as if frost had fallen.
He cried until his whole body trembled. Even with rainwater covering his face, you could clearly see large tears streaming from his eyes. Bone-deep pain swept through his entire being, making it suffocating just to watch.
But after an unknown amount of time, the pain on Xi Jue’s face suddenly disappeared.
He disdainfully set Lady Zong down, humming a tune as he stood up. His bare feet stepped on the ground mixed with blood and water like an innocent youth, his tall figure seeming to dance gracefully in the storm.
After a while, the youth turned his head like a ghost, wet hair clinging to his snow-white cheeks, golden patterns in his pupils glowing brilliantly as he stared straight at some unknown void.
Through the “Bone-Gazing Mirror’s” illusion, those eerie eyes met Sheng Jiao’s directly.
“Oh my.” Xi Jue smiled. “Gege, you saw?”
The next instant, Xi Minghuai’s memory abruptly ended.
The “Bone-Gazing Mirror’s” catkins slowly dispersed, and the area outside Jiusi Courtyard fell into deathly silence.
Sheng Jiao gripped the Tianyan Pearls tightly, his gaze still fixed on where the vanished figure had been, that evil and mad expression still lingering in his mind.
Heng Yudu had thought the Xi Jue in his memory was horrifying enough, but Xi Jue from the night of the Xi family slaughter in Xi Minghuai’s memory was truly like a crazed demon.
From the beginning, perhaps the Tianyan Pearls had been right.
But the “Bone-Gazing Mirror” and the Xi Jue in that night’s memory were clearly not the real Xi Jue.
Xi Jue’s birth chart was weak—even a single thunderclap could scatter his soul, making him most suitable for possession.
Feng Yu was completely dazed.
Xi Jianlan, being supported by Rang Chen, still didn’t know what had happened and called out drowsily: “Gege?”
Rang Chen had been watching coldly from the side, steadying Xi Jianlan as if not wanting him to see.
The moment the “Bone-Gazing Mirror” ended, the Tianyan Pearls began rotating uncontrollably, and Sheng Jiao had no way to stop them.
Everyone present—except for the dizzy Xi Jianlan who was still calling out to some unknown “gege”—involuntarily held their breath. Rang Chen even silently generated a strand of Tianyan spiritual power at his fingertips, coldly watching the Tianyan Pearls.
Finally, under several pairs of watching eyes, the Tianyan Pearls stopped.
But when they saw those 107 pearls clearly, everyone was stunned.
The sixty pearls that had originally determined Xi Jianlan guilty had silently changed to just one.
—Still that first stubborn, dull gray pearl.
Sheng Jiao was also stunned.
Before he could react, the pearls began spinning wildly again as if they’d gone mad.
This time, all 107 pearls showed “Execute.”
Everyone looked completely bewildered.
The Tianyan Pearls paused for several moments, then seemed to go insane as they swayed and spun between one pearl and 107 pearls, spinning so fast they were about to spark.
Everyone’s vigilance and fear were completely scattered by these antics as they looked at each other.
Feng Yu said hesitantly: “Didn’t they say the Tianyan Pearls never make wrong judgments?”
These pearls…
Seemed to have some serious problems.
**
wannaberecluse On SRTT Chapter 50.1