Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way

“I’m just going to give it a shot!” Gu Suihan’s eyes flickered, and he clasped his hands into a hand seal. The little spiritual energy left in him instantly surged through his Spiritual Meridians as he hoped that the body of an asura that his Extreme Ra-Asu Breach was supposed to bring about would be able to hang in through this.

“Inches Away – Ends of the World!” he chanted from inside the alternate space.

A strong wind blew mercilessly against his already battered body, and it didn’t take long for Gu Suihan’s flesh to be blown so hard that his bones could be seen. His terrifying and strange skeleton made Li Rong gape in shock.

“That’s…that’s the body of an asura…” he uttered in shock. Gu Suihan’s thick and messily intertwined bones terrified Li Rong slightly.

“Ninth Iteration of Ra-Asu, Reversal of Destiny!”

Gu Suihan didn’t have the time or energy to pay Li Rong any attention. He had barely managed to cover 300 meters when his body could no longer take it, and he had to emerge from the alternate space. He quickly executed the Extreme Ra-Asu Breach again while trying his best to hold his body together despite being on the verge of collapse. He gritted his teeth and yelled, “Blazing Blood Escape!”

Several spurts of blood sprayed out of his body as he stumbled off unsteadily at an insanely fast pace and disappeared instantly.

“How can this be? What cultivation technique was that? How did he transform his body into an asura’s?” Li Rong went into a daze and murmured to himself as he stared blankly at the empty space in front of him instead of running after Gu Suihan.

After some time, Gu Suihan slowly regained consciousness. He opened his eyes with a start and fished a jade token out from his pocket. He was relieved to see that it was still flickering.

He didn’t have much time to waste. The exit out of the secret realm was open for about half a day, but he was now left with less than 15 minutes to get to the exit. If he couldn’t make it out by then, he would have to wait for death to befall him. Qi leaked like crazy from this secret realm, so it would collapse in less than ten years.

“It should be about three kilometers away or so,” muttered Gu Suihan. He endured the terrible pain he felt and took a few dozen Spiritual Stones with shaking hands and a leaf-shaped flying spiritual weapon. This was the best thing Gu Suihan got from killing Hang Chulong. This leaf was a proper low-grade spiritual weapon compared to Red Dust, which could barely be considered a spiritual weapon.

He surrounded the leaf with his spiritual sense and put as many Spiritual Stones into the leaves' slots before crawling onto the leaf. It was a simple move, but it was difficult for him to do now. He narrowed his eyes as he noticed that the flickering of his jade token was beginning to fade. He pulled himself together and made the leaf fly into the distance.

He only had enough energy to make the leaf fly about 15 centimeters above the ground, and the speed was only a little faster than how fast a cultivator at Qi Activation could run.

“Come on, go faster.” Gu Suihan clenched his teeth to try and stay awake even as his world began to spin. He could vaguely make out a whirlpool that was getting smaller and smaller.

Finally, when the exit out of the secret realm was smaller than two meters, Gu Suihan made it out.

Gu Suihan had used up almost all of his spiritual energy by this time, and he couldn’t hang on anymore. Once he got out of the secret realm, he fainted.

…

“What’s that smell?” Gu Suihan woke up drowsily to the faint smell of perfume in the air. He instinctively sniffed a little harder and confirmed that he was in a safe place.

He had no idea who had saved him or how much time had passed. But judging from this smell, he was in a girl’s room. The bed was covered in brocade, which meant that this person was fairly well to do. He could also hear some whispering outside, which probably belonged to the room owner’s servants.

If this room belonged to a court official or a noble who cultivated martial arts, he would be in big trouble.

He sighed inwardly and slowly opened his eyes to look at the elegantly furnished room he was lying in.

Footsteps came towards him along with a pleasantly surprised voice, “Oh! You’ve woken up!”

Gu Suihan turned to see a young lady with beautifully shaped eyes, a cute nose, and a small mouth standing next to him. Her pretty little hands were holding a fragrant bowl of chicken soup. He paused, then said, “Thank you for rescuing me. Where is this place?”

“You’re in Chongzhou, and you’ve been unconscious for more than two weeks now,” she replied in a bright and chirpy voice. She slowly put the bowl of soup down and shyly tugged at her dress as she sat down on one side of the bed. She glanced up at Gu Suihan from time to time and quickly averted her gaze when he caught her looking at him like a frightened little bunny.

Gu Suihan remained silent for a long time before he said quietly, “Who are you? How rich is your family? Do your parents hold any positions in the government?”

“Wha…?” The young lady was flustered and didn’t know how to answer. She didn’t expect him to ask her such personal questions.

“Hoho,” a low and robust voice resounded from a distance. The door to the room was pushed open from the outside, and a middle-aged man dressed in a brown embroidered long robe entered the room with confident steps. He said gently, “Young man, don’t worry. The people who were after you have already left. When we saw you, everyone thought you were already dead. My daughter, however, insisted on taking a closer look at you, and it turned out that you were still alive. You are truly blessed! I’m only a rice merchant, so you don’t have to be so suspicious.”

“I’m sure you know who I am. Saving me might bring calamity to your family. Aren’t you afraid of that?” said Gu Suihan with a faint smile as he looked down at the numerous wounds all over himself.

The middle-aged man sounded a little displeased as he replied, “What are you talking about? I’ve never even seen you before. How could I possibly know who you are? I saved you purely out of goodwill.”

“We’re all intelligent people here, so stop beating around the bush.” Gu Suihan wasn’t the least convinced. He had noticed a panicked look in the young lady’s eyes earlier. She knew this middle-aged man was lying to him.

The middle-aged man looked a little awkward and felt somewhat embarrassed by how Gu Suihan stared at him with that distant look in his eyes. After hesitating for a bit, he decided to come clean. “I noticed the token on your belt, so yes, I know you’re a disciple of the Seven Kill Sect. Have you heard of an internal disciple named Hang Chulong?”

“Hang Chulong?” Gu Suihan looked at the man with a puzzled expression on his face.

“Hang Chulong’s family resides here. Because he’s an internal disciple of the Seven Kill Sect, some family members think they can do anything they want without facing any consequences.”

“Wait. Are you going to tell me that there’s a jerk in his family who’s taken a liking to your daughter and insists on marrying her? But you refused and chanced upon me, so you were hoping that I could tell Hang Chulong about this and get him to call this marriage off?” asked Gu Suihan in a mildly amused voice as he glanced at the young lady who kept stealing glances at him.

He didn’t think the situation would be as cringeworthy as what he used to see in soap operas back on Earth.

“That…is exactly what happened,” said the middle-aged man awkwardly.

Gu Suihan’s eyes started twitching. He didn’t expect his sarcastic guess to be correct.

After Gu Suihan remained silent for some time, the middle-aged man looked disappointed and sighed heavily. “I know that Hang Chulong is an internal disciple, so if it’s too difficult for you to do this, then forget it.”

He pretended to look at Gu Suihan casually to observe Gu Suihan’s reaction because he was sure that a young fellow like Gu Suihan would feel provoked by his remarks and rise to the challenge.

To his dismay, Gu Suihan continued looking at him strangely and didn’t say anything for a long time.

He was about to give up when Gu Suihan suddenly retrieved a head with a nasty-looking expression, messy hair, and an indignant look in its eyes from nowhere and threw it onto the table.

“Take a look. Is that Hang Chulong?”

The young lady screamed in fright when she saw the head and instantly leaped into the middle-aged man’s arms. She trembled violently and seemed terrified.

The middle-aged man paled in shock and gasped. He was too stunned to say anything when he saw the severed head rolling about on the table.

“What’s happened?” a loud shout came from outside, and several muscular men with anxious looks on their faces came barging into the room.

They had heard the young lady scream and thought that something terrible had happened, so they quickly ran into the room with weapons.

They didn’t expect to see a somewhat familiar-looking head on the table.

The legendary formidable Hang Chulong, who was always received by his family with great fanfare every time he visited home, was dead, and his head had even been severed. Everyone’s heart was filled with shock, and they looked at Gu Suihan with fear in their eyes now.

“Sir, my entire family is extremely grateful to you!” The middle-aged man quickly pushed his daughter aside to bow deeply to Gu Suihan as he said these words with great sincerity.

“Preserve this head properly, wrap it up nicely and send it to his family. That should do the trick. If they continue to make things difficult for you, wait till I come out of seclusion, and I’ll wipe their entire family out.” Gu Suihan motioned to them to leave the room with the wave of his hand. “From now on, I will stay here to recuperate in isolation. This will take two weeks or so. We can talk again after that.”

“Yes, sir! I will leave you to recuperate in peace.” The middle-aged man got one of his servants to pick up Hang Chulong’s head, then waved everyone out of the room while dragging his daughter out even as she kept turning back to look at Gu Suihan before shutting the door behind him.

Once outside, the middle-aged man looked at his servants and said, “From today onwards, all of you are to keep watch over this place round the clock. Do not let anybody go in and out without my permission.”

Then he turned to say to his daughter, “Xin’er, that young man is a cultivator, and he does not belong to our world. He is not a man interested in material things or romantic relationships, so stop harboring any hopes.”