Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way

“Why, you!” Wang Mingzhi’s eyes were spewing fire and he had a nasty look on his face. But when he remembered Gu Suihan’s aggressive attitude and his ability to kill the main formation eye, his lips merely trembled and he couldn’t get any other words out.

“What’s wrong? You don’t dare to?” Gu Suihan took a step forward and stood right in front of Wang Mingzhi and Zhou Xing. His eyes shone clearly with disdain when he saw how both of them were obviously angry but also obviously too afraid to say anything.

“If you don’t dare to fight me, then shut your stupid mouth. Don’t bring unnecessary disaster upon yourselves,” Gu Suihan spoke with harsh and direct words and didn’t care if it hurt their feelings.

“I think there are more formations ahead, so do we keep going?” Xi Ran had not spoken all this time. When he saw that the three others were about to break out in a fight, he quickly stepped in to change the topic and keep them at peace with one another.

“Humph! Of course, we have to keep going.” Wang Mingzhi glared hatefully at Gu Suihan, then scoffed and did not say anymore.

“Keep going? The second formation turned out to be a Heavenly Stars Sanguinary Formation, so the third one has to be an Earthly Fiends Galaxy Formation. If there’s a fourth one, then it will be the Heavenly Stars Earthly Fiends Big Dipper Formation. That’s one of the most powerful formations from ancient times, so I’m not going in. If the three of you prefer to get yourselves killed, I won’t stop you.” Gu Suihan glanced disdainfully at Wang Mingzhi, which made Wang Mingzhi feel like slapping the younger man.

“I won’t be continuing on this journey and I don’t want those 500 Spiritual Stones anymore. I still have other matters to attend to, so go ahead and continue if you like,” said Gu Suihan to Xi Ran before turning to go.

“Mr. Gu, wait up!” Xi Ran tried to hold Gu Suihan back but he was too late. Gu Suihan left so quickly, Xi Ran was only left with the dust where he once stood.

Now that Gu Suihan had disappeared, Wang Mingzhi turned to vent his anger on Zhou Xing. He sneered, “You were the one who spoke up first. Why didn’t you do anything to him? Chickened out?”

Zhou Xing was not affected by Wang Mingzhi’s sarcasm and said in a neutral voice, “I just wanted to drive him away, that’s all. He got the hint. This place definitely has no ordinary set of formations and that’s why he just took the Three Lives Spirit Recovering Flower and didn’t even want the cultivation technique.”

“You’re choosing to believe him instead of me?” Wang Mingzhi’s entire face was red from being angry. He felt so insulted.

They were referring to what Gu Suihan said earlier about the series of formations. Zhou Xing happened to have heard of these formations before, so he believed that Gu Suihan was telling the truth and figured that it was a bad idea to try and fight Gu Suihan. In his opinion, if Gu Suihan could talk about such things with great familiarity and confidence, he must be backed by an elder with a very high level of cultivation.

It was common for cultivators to fall out with one another and it was also common to even turn on one’s benefactor. The most important part of this was whether betraying or killing this other person would result in someone else avenging them. If you ended up dying just because you killed someone you shouldn’t have, then that person wasn’t worth killing.

Zhou Xing couldn’t imagine how powerful a cultivator had to be in order to train and teach a junior as formidable and outstanding as Gu Suihan was. Even if it turned out that Gu Suihan merely happened to chance upon this information, Zhou Xing wasn’t taking any chances.

“You want me to believe you?” Zhou Xing scoffed. He knew who Wang Mingzhi was. Wang Mingzhi was known as a master in formations because they were from a relatively small and backward location. In reality, Wang Mingzhi would not be considered an expert anywhere else with the little knowledge he had.

“Let’s just go over and take a look first.” After considering their options for a moment, Xi Ran decided to go ahead anyway.

There were ten pills in total, so Xi Ran took four of them while Zhou Xing and Wang Mingzhi took three each. Xi Ran took the jade slip after taking an oath to promise that he would give the other two a proper copy of the cultivation technique inscribed on it without altering or falsifying any of the information.

They had to do it this way because there were ancient cultivators who cast a spell on these jade slips to self-destruct after the technique on it had been read more than a certain number of times.

Meanwhile, Gu Suihan had already gone round a few bends without any problem and came right out of the dead tree again. He turned to look at the old tree that did not have the slightest bit of life left in it and smirked with a frosty glint in his eye. There was no way this place was merely a random bunch of things left behind by some ancient cultivator.

He scoffed, but the memory of the main formation eye inside the Heavenly Stars Sanguinary Formation suddenly popped up in his mind. That main formation eye seemed to have real emotions and a real form.

But he quickly put the thought aside and flew back the same way he came. He didn’t care about what Xi Ran and the rest were going to do. Whether they lived or died was none of his business.

The speed at which he returned was several times faster than when he came. It only took him a few hours to arrive at the mine again. Before he could enter, Sun Miaozhi hurried over to report, “Sir, there are people here to look for you. They said…they said that they’re disciples from the Seven Kill Sect’s Disciplinary Court and want to see you once you return.”

“The Disciplinary Court? Who could it be? Xiexin? Li Rong?” Those were the first two names that surfaced in Gu Suihan’s mind. He narrowed his eyes to hide the frosty glint in his eyes and put on an even friendlier smile than usual.

Sun Miaozhi stole a glance at Gu Suihan and broke into a cold sweat when he saw the smile on Gu Suihan’s face as his heart pounded wildly in fear. He remembered that smile very well. Gu Suihan had had the same smile when he first arrived and killed the supervisors. He had such a friendly smile on his face, but dead bodies were strewn everywhere just seconds later.

“You’re Gu Suihan?” an unfriendly voice resounded from inside before Gu Suihan could even walk in.

“Who are you and why are you looking for me?” Gu Suihan did not even look up at the people in the room and walked toward his chair very slowly, poured himself a nice cup of tea, and gently skimmed the bubbles off the surface.

His three visitors exchanged glances when they saw how calm and unaffected Gu Suihan was. This boy was going to be difficult to deal with.

Wu Hao was instantly annoyed by Gu Suihan’s behavior and yelled, “Gu Suihan, do you know what you’re guilty of?”

“I have no idea. Which sect rule have I broken? Senior Brother, please enlighten me.” Gu Suihan put his cup of tea down and looked a little curiously at Wu Hao.

Wu Hao furrowed his brows so hard that his veins were popping out. “You’ve ignored the sect rules and gone out on a private little trip instead of guarding the mine. Are you going to be responsible if anything terrible happens here?”

Not only did Gu Suihan stare at Wu Hao like he was an idiot, but even Wu Hao’s senior and Zhu Lingjian stared at their junior with disbelief.

“You think the same way?” Gu Suihan ignored Wu Hao and turned to look at the older man who was the leader of the three.

The older man rolled his eyes at Wu Hao and said to Gu Suihan, “We’ve come here on the instruction of the higher-ups. They would like you to return to the sect. We have also found out the deeds you have committed over the past few years and we are very concerned. You have been too lax and you have not been able to really attend to this mission properly. We haven’t even talked about how that little town not far from here has been completely destroyed. The reason behind its destruction has a lot to do with you.”

His first words pointed out all of Gu Suihan’s supposed wrongdoing. He had decided that given Gu Suihan’s attitude toward them, it would be good enough if the three of them could complete their mission successfully. There was no point in trying to scare Gu Suihan into giving them any additional benefits.

“You should know that if you’re representing the Seven Kill Sect outside the sect, then the sect’s reputation and benefit should be your utmost priority. Instead, you’ve caused the death of so many people from around Qingguo. The sect ended up having to bear most of the repercussions of your actions. Junior Brother, that’s where you’ve gone wrong,” said Zhu Lingjian more gently after thinking about how to phrase things.

“You want me to return to the sect?” Gu Suihan fell into deep thought. He didn’t mind going back now, since he had left back then just to escape the impending disaster. But he didn’t know what the world of cultivation was like now. He had no idea if they were done with their disagreements and if they still needed cannon fodder like himself.

“How is the world of cultivation right now?” Gu Suihan asked the older man.

“What?” The three men exchanged glances and couldn’t quite understand what Gu Suihan was asking. Not even the older man knew why the Peak Leaders wanted Gu Suihan back at the sect. After all, to him, Gu Suihan was just an external disciple. No matter how outstanding he was, it was impossible to hide the fact that an external disciple would lose to them in cultivation level and in experience.

Zhu Lingjian pondered this question for a moment and said very simply, “The world of cultivation has been peaceful for the past few years. Besides the passing of the oldest elder of Wonderful Sect three years ago, a few sects formed an alliance with the Ethereal Court. That’s about it. Nothing else major happened.”

“What about the supposed inter-sect competition that was supposed to happen around the time I left the sect for this place? Did it happen?” Gu Suihan had a bad feeling about this.

“No, it didn’t.” The older man shook his head and looked curiously at Gu Suihan, unsure of why the young man was concerned with this at all.

“It didn’t?” Gu Suihan frowned which caused a deep crease in his skin. A storm of thoughts and emotions filled his heart. No wonder the Seven Kill Sect didn’t try to look for me earlier or do anything to me, he thought. He thought that he had survived the worst of it, only to realize now that actually, nothing happened at all.

Wu Hao had a sullen face and was very irritated that Gu Suihan seemed to have ignored him and only spoke to his two companions. He slammed the table hard and yelled, “Gu Suihan, if you don’t have a good explanation for your actions, you’re going to suffer once you return to the sect! The Peak Leaders do not need any reason to punish you if they want to!”

“And who are you? The illegitimate son of one of the Peak Leaders?” Gu Suihan sneered at Wu Hao.

“You…”

“You what?” Gu Suihan splashed his cup of tea in Wu Hao’s face and said with a disdainful stare, “Who the hell do you even think you are? You’re only at Foundation Establishment. How dare you even speak to me?”

“I’m going to kill you!” Wu Hao’s eyes were bulging as a pair of matching dragon-phoenix rings appeared in his hand. The rings glowed with a green light and gave off the sound of a dragon roaring and a phoenix screeching.